Book 2 – Page 85

[Lamech]

The dish doesn't let Charlie fight the whole world...

I mostly agree with your assessment in that Charlescomm becomes unsustainable as soon as people stop doing business with it.

However, I've played a couple games that resemble Erfworld, and they usually have a "global economic buyout" endgame scenario. While nobody has mentioned this existing in comic, we do know that schmuckers equate to actual power in Erfworld (consider that rebuilding GK just took schmuckers). It would be interesting to see what could be done with the accumulated wealth of eons of Erfworld time. Charlescomm might not NEED to fight the whole world to beat it.

Unfortunately, Erfworld seems designed to make victory impossible. Even 50 cities is too many, and even in just this one pack of sides (FAQ, GK, Unaroyal, Haggar, Jitterai, Carpuddle, TV, Jetstone) I would be surprised if there weren't that many cities. (In fact, I suspect they probably comprise Haffaton's old haunts.) And then their are even more packs of sides in places like across the wastes (Jillians first contract was their).

Erfworld is simply meant to be unwinnable. I doubt their is a magic "I win" button. Also stereotypical winning ENDS THE GAME. I.E. Rocks fall everyone dies.

[zilfallon]

I wonder when Parson's "allies" will stop hiding info from him...Seriously, they should stop thinking "oh, i don't want to reveal that, he wouldn't need it now anyway" Let the damn warlord decide whether the info is worthy or not.

[Swodaems]

I think the most important thing we learned on this page is that if Parson goes thru the portal, the response from the Magic Kingdom will be the creation of what Issac referred to as an enforcement council.

I think the creation of this enforcement council is a goal of the predictamancers.

I suspect the Magic Kingdom thusfar hasn't needed a rigid formally defined government. The community there seems small enough that they don't need a strict system to settle the small number of problems that pop up. Instead they rely on reason, compromise, and punching each other in the face until someone breaks up the fight. (That is pretty much every small town Stephen King ever written about.) Creating a formal government would be a lot of trouble and these people know it.

Thing is, the Magic Kingdom may not be static in size. The more casters living there, the more problems occuring. The Magic Kingdom may not be able to rely on Janis being able to personally come out and settle disputes anymore. They could really need a formal government, despite the short term problems it will cause. The long term problems caused by a lack of organization could be devastating.

This is where Parson comes in. He is not only breaking a rule of the MK, he is doing it in very grandiose fashion. He doing something that requires the creation of a government entity.

The predictamancers may never have had a plan for Parson's skills at command. They could have just needed an idiot capable of walking thru the Magic Kingdom and causing a major incident. He's been kept in the dark about the plan because he is just meant to be an ignorant patsy and possibly a disposable one. Created this way, the enforcement council is highly unlikely to do something like let Parson start hitting them over the head with the values of the American founding fathers. (I hate this troupe every time I see it.) They're far more likely to do things like issue shoot on sight orders.

[Nnelg]

The dish doesn't let Charlie fight the whole world...

I mostly agree with your assessment in that Charlescomm becomes unsustainable as soon as people stop doing business with it.

However, I've played a couple games that resemble Erfworld, and they usually have a "global economic buyout" endgame scenario. While nobody has mentioned this existing in comic, we do know that schmuckers equate to actual power in Erfworld (consider that rebuilding GK just took schmuckers). It would be interesting to see what could be done with the accumulated wealth of eons of Erfworld time. Charlescomm might not NEED to fight the whole world to beat it.

Unfortunately, Erfworld seems designed to make victory impossible. Even 50 cities is too many, and even in just this one pack of sides (FAQ, GK, Unaroyal, Haggar, Jitterai, Carpuddle, TV, Jetstone) I would be surprised if there weren't that many cities. (In fact, I suspect they probably comprise Haffaton's old haunts.) And then their are even more packs of sides in places like across the wastes (Jillians first contract was their).

Erfworld is simply meant to be unwinnable. I doubt their is a magic "I win" button. Also stereotypical winning ENDS THE GAME. I.E. Rocks fall everyone dies.

Well, actually several older games of the TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) genre let you keep going in a sort of sandbox mode after you win. So I guess Erfworlders hope there's a "Continue Playing" option on the Victory/Apocalypse screen.

On another note, who's to say Charlie hasn't invested in "farming" (raiding weak sides continually) elsewhere on Erf, far from where the comic takes place? He'll keep that income even if people stop doing business with him.

[bladestorm]

I think the most important thing we learned on this page is that if Parson goes thru the portal, the response from the Magic Kingdom will be the creation of what Issac referred to as an enforcement council.

Have we been given any reason to believe that anyone other than casters *cannot* use the portals? It may just be complete hype that non-caster units disband if they enter the portal, and the powers that reside over MK have spread plenty of lies to reinforce the notion. Parson may be on the brink of proving to the rest of Erf that units don't disband when they enter a portal, and that would e very bad for MK. Maybe Janis outright lied about Parson being a Hippimancer so as not to panic the other casters who have bought into the lie.

The Magic Kingdom may not be able to rely on Janis being able to personally come out and settle disputes anymore.

Or if Janis were hired by a side (like maybe GK or FAQ when Parson defects to that side) and was not on hand to settle the dispute until given leave by her Ruler.

Well, actually several older games of the TBS (Turn-Based Strategy) genre let you keep going in a sort of sandbox mode after you win. So I guess Erfworlders hope there's a "Continue Playing" option on the Victory/Apocalypse screen.

On another note, who's to say Charlie hasn't invested in "farming" (raiding weak sides continually) elsewhere on Erf, far from where the comic takes place? He'll keep that income even if people stop doing business with him.

What if Charlie has already pushed this into sandbox/freeplay mode? I've played a few games where one player could conquer all of the cities and essentially have no competition at all, until you 'accidentally' have a city revert to computer control by raising the taxes to insane levels until the puppet you have running the place gets overthrown (like Saline being ousted and Stanley stepping in). Then you can start stacking all of your puppet rulers into one huge army and go demolish the upstart. Alternatively, you can find a server no one else is on, like if you were the only stupidworlder on Erf and no one else could manipulate game stats the way you could..

[WarFAN]

Just a random thought...

...Maybe Charle does know about the different Magic Kingdom conspiracies. We know two things for sure:

a) Charlie does not have Warlords in his side.
b) He was willing to capture Parson or accepting him in Charlescomm.

Hummm...

We only know the first thing for sure. .

We do know both things:
1) http://www.erfworld.com/2009/10/summer-updates-–-046/
2) http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F105.jpg

[MarbitChow]

Have we been given any reason to believe that anyone other than casters *cannot* use the portals?

Queen Bea committed suicide-by-portal. It's certainly possible that the casters in the Park simply killed her on site; I think I may have even made that argument in the distant past. But yes, we do have reason to believe others can't use it.

[Zeku]

I think the most important thing we learned on this page is that if Parson goes thru the portal, the response from the Magic Kingdom will be the creation of what Issac referred to as an enforcement council.

I think the creation of this enforcement council is a goal of the predictamancers.

I like this a great deal. Mostly because it's clever, and it mirrors the actions of governments in the real world.

Banks want to cripple Europe and create new country for themselves? Create death camps and blow up American harbor.
Israel needs to fight a war against Persian countries? Blow up American landmark.
Government needs excuse to disarm public and increase surveillance? Train "white supremacists" to attack dark people at random.

It lends a little credence to the idea that there's a power struggle between Thinkamancers and Predictamancers. And, it's yet another detail that calls Maggie's exact affiliation into question.

[cheeseaholic]

Just a random thought...

...Maybe Charle does know about the different Magic Kingdom conspiracies. We know two things for sure:

a) Charlie does not have Warlords in his side.
b) He was willing to capture Parson or accepting him in Charlescomm.

Hummm...

We only know the first thing for sure. .

We do know both things:
1) http://www.erfworld.com/2009/10/summer-updates-–-046/
2) http://www.erfworld.com/book-1-archive/?px=%2F105.jpg

Wrong. We know that Charlie told Parson he wants Parson. We do not know if Charlie wants Parson. Frankly I think he was planning on croaking him, as it appears that Charlie has no warlords.

As for having no warlords, the archons have never even seen Charlie, so there may be some in there somewhere. I'd consider that unlikely, but it is possible that Charlie's offer was genuine and he likes to keep good warlords or other units around as advisers or to handle less extreme situations so that Charlie can deal with the more important things.

[kefkakrazy]

I was really fond of this one... the multitude of social-network gags were pretty clever, though the Twitter one was the best.

[Oberon]

I like this a great deal. Mostly because it's clever, and it mirrors the actions of governments in the real world.

Banks want to cripple Europe and create new country for themselves? Create death camps and blow up American harbor.
Israel needs to fight a war against Persian countries? Blow up American landmark.
Government needs excuse to disarm public and increase surveillance? Train "white supremacists" to attack dark people at random.

How exactly do your fantastic conspiracy theories "mirror the actions of governments in the real world"?

[teratorn]

How exactly do your fantastic conspiracy theories "mirror the actions of governments in the real world"?

Oberon, Zeku is obviously a troll, better not feed him. He didn't make any sense in his erf-posts, makes even less sense in his earth-posts.

[Zeku]

Sorry guys, sometimes I forget when I wander onto the sheep farm. It wasn't an appropriate post for this particular forum.

Please don't write dismiss anyone as a troll, it lowers your intelligence. A casual glance a person's post history will reveal the truth.

[peteratjet]

Clearly, Maggie had a good reason for keeping Parson in the dark about the Great Minds' secret agenda, and not just "because it's secret, doh!"

The implication of her rebuke "you expressly told him" was that it was a policy of the whole group to keep Parson ignorant, not just Maggie. It looks like Isaac has just crossed a line.

So, why was it so important?

For one thing, we saw in an earlier text update that Charlie has "admin access", as Parson put it, to Thinkomancy-based communication. Hacking the eye-books is the least of it. They may have to assume that anything they tell Parson will get back to Charlie. The Great Minds must be playing some sort of does-he-know-we-know-he-knows strategy. If they can subtly manipulate Parson into defeating Charlies without revealing themselves, they don't risk whatever countermeasures Charlie can utilise against them. Only that plan just went out of the window.

Whoops.

[Beeskee]

I'm a little concerned about Maggie's safety. Re-reading some of the recent comics, I see a lot of hints getting dropped about her getting disbanded.

[drachefly]

Sorry guys, sometimes I forget when I wander onto the sheep farm. It wasn't an appropriate post for this particular forum.

Please don't write dismiss anyone as a troll, it lowers your intelligence. A casual glance a person's post history will reveal the truth.

Okay, so let's suppose you're not a troll.

Saying that governments (and other political entities) manufacture enemies in order to expand their power isn't a conspiracy theory - it's nearly standard practice. If not foreign enemies, then domestic ones. Moral panic (e.g. hysteria over child sex slave trafficking) is a popular tool.

As far as that goes, you're perfectly correct. BUT your examples are lousy.

Saying that the Nazis bombed Pearl Harbor? The Nazis were pissed as hell when the Japanese did that, because they did NOT want to fight America. A government must make enemies if it wants to get the people let it get away with the intolerable, but a government does not want enemies that will come and destroy it.

The other two examples are way sillier. Being able to seize the opportunity and use what's in the environment for their own ends does not mean they caused everything in the environment.

What story makes more sense for a cadre of evil people in the government to do:
taking advantage of people who want to do bad things (and such people necessarily exist in a conspiracy worldview) and making them enemies, opportunistically, when something happens that can be blamed on them, with some degree of stretching by exaggeration and outright lies?
-- or --
searching and searching and finding NO ONE who's bad enough to make an enemy, so they have to invent them whole cloth, and searching and finding NOTHING bad happening that can be blamed on them, so the cadre is forced to go do it themselves?

[effataigus]

Okay, so let's suppose you're not a troll.

Either he's trolling or he's a conspiracy theorist. If the former, responding is encouraging him. If the latter, the only arguments that can work are those that begin with the assumption that is his conclusion. I'm guessing I'm the same way but with a different conclusion, so I don't mean to insult his intelligence... just point towards the futility of trying to change his mind.

What would be really interesting is if Erfworld actually straddled several realities... and in Zeku's reality all of that stuff really was self evident. The military puts out regular press releases on all of their attempts to subvert the will of the populace with mind-control Wheaties. The axis of evil has online meeting notes that indicate when our current and past presidents "Skyped in." Under duress, white supremacists admit that some guy in dark sunglasses and a formless suit paid them 500 bucks each to hate on people that they didn't have any beef with.

... man that would make for some really frustrating forum conversations with people in my reality.

P.S. yes, I do realize that you can tweak a couple of words in the military bit to get essentially a true story

[0beron]

Coming to something that was mentioned a while ago (the fact that Maggie is running in heels)....why did she change her Raiment back anyway? We've been commenting that her Signamancy has been changing as she has become more refreshed and engaged, and she did say the Raiment she bought after TBfGK was because she "wanted a change". So why has she reverted to her old outfit?

[Nnelg]

...So why has she reverted to her old outfit?

Probably just decided she liked her old look better, after all.

[0beron]

Possibly....I just look for the details and read into things a lot haha. I'm wondering if deciding that "she liked her old look better after all" is actually symbolic of her slightly reverting to her old ways. For a little while she was more carefree and I feel she trusted Parson better. Now we're seeing that she (perhaps with good reason, this remains to be seen) has been keeping things from Parson.