Book 2 – Page 87

[balder]

New One is up.

[ShieldOfAthena]

Haha. Oh Maggie.

[Nnelg]

Ah, the comic's early! That's always welcome.


So, all the reasons that Parson was summoned...

1. To win the Battle for Gobwin Knob
2. To stop the endless cycle of war on Erfworld
3. To defeat Charlie
4. ???

Cue the speculation.

[MarbitChow]

Ok - Maggie aged again as soon as Parson ripped into her. That's excellent attention to detail.

[TheMutant]

Bunny actually gets spelled-out dialogue for the first time! With a strange text bubble effect! And a cutaway shot of Charlescomm!

Let the speculation commence. o_o *drums fingers*

(Also, I'd bet good Shmuckers that that's a portrait of Queen Bea in the second panel there.)

[donm61873]

No one else surprised by the non-booping door description by Parson in the last panel?

[Whispri]

Yup, Sylvia would have been the better choice, she and Wanda would have lovingly carried out any plan he gave them. If they'd made it Ossomer he might not have turned.

So four predictions, that's one each for the Hippiemancers, the Predictamancers, the Thinkamancers and Wanda, right?

[TheMutant]

No one else surprised by the non-booping door description by Parson in the last panel?

Not by this point. Parson's shown no booping since the start of Book 2, to my knowledge- certainly he's sworn several times. It's a generally accepted fact that he 'broke' his personal censor at the end of Book 1.

[donm61873]

No one else surprised by the non-booping door description by Parson in the last panel?

Not by this point. Parson's shown no booping since the start of Book 2, to my knowledge- certainly he's sworn several times. It's a generally accepted fact that he 'broke' his personal censor at the end of Book 1.

Great... we're this far into Book 2 and I'm only noticing the lack of boops. Sigh...

Failing my awareness check this year...

[Beeskee]

Is it still 'holding the idiot ball' if Parson KNOWS he's holding the idiot ball, and this whole thing was a bad move?

Not that he had a lot of time to think about it anyway. It's been months for us, but he's only been in the magic kingdom for what, 10, 15 minutes tops? All while the situation changed?


I guess Rob was tired of the complaining about Parson, too. Or he planned this all along.


And Parson has to remind others yet again that "Perfect Warlord" does not mean he will always win, or that he will never face opposition he cannot overcome.

[Lamech]

Is it still 'holding the idiot ball' if Parson KNOWS he's holding the idiot ball, and this whole thing was a bad move?

Not that he had a lot of time to think about it anyway. It's been months for us, but he's only been in the magic kingdom for what, 10, 15 minutes tops? All while the situation changed?


I guess Rob was tired of the complaining about Parson, too. Or he planned this all along.

Its only holding the idiot ball if its out of character. This isn't out of character for Parson, its part of his character development. He needs to have a plan that revolves around him being in battle important. There is no good plan that does that. Hence he can't find a good one.

Bunny actually gets spelled-out dialogue for the first time! With a strange text bubble effect! And a cutaway shot of Charlescomm!

Let the speculation commence. o_o *drums fingers*

She thinkagramming. Hence the cutaway to charlie. He can hear her.

[Beeskee]

Its only holding the idiot ball if its out of character. This isn't out of character for Parson, its part of his character development. He needs to have a plan that revolves around him being in battle important. There is no good plan that does that. Hence he can't find a good one.

I think it is a good idea in the sense that Parson will be able to actually know what is going on, rather than second hand reports, where important details such as "we decided to try to knock the tower down" will be more readily available to him. Once he's there, I get the feeling that he's going to come up with an incredibly clever plan. Or get captured. Either way. But right now, he can't form a plan because he has no idea what is going on.

She thinkagramming. Hence the cutaway to charlie. He can hear her.

Or, more likely in my mind, Charlie was monitoring the connection between Don/Bunny and the bat.

[bladestorm]

1.) Hippiemancers and predictamancers-- to end war on Erfworld
2.) Thinkamancers -- to bring down Charlie
3.) Collect the Arkentools together
4.) A new mandate of a balance between Arkentools and Royalty, rather than one assuming they have mandate to rule over the other.
or 5.) Maggie for some hot Hamster-style loving.

Also, since Bunny only communicates via thinkagram, she's an open conduit for Charlescomm. Anything she knows, does, or witnesses is pretty much Charlie's. That may mean he can set up a way for Ceasar to establish his own side before the TV heir pops, giving him a new customer in the long run.

We also get a good view of Maggie's necklace, so that may have some significance in the future.

An oddity, though, was that we were outright told that it was the original Slately that croaked. That seems too rushed and too cut and dried for the story so far, which means there will be something juicy that comes of that later. Just how long can Lloyd maintain the duplicate? If there is no time limit, LLoyd may be setting up a puppet king. And if LLoyd is maintaining the duplicate, can he cast any further spells without risking interrupting the duplicate king spell? And does Jetstone still have their leadership bonus? The troops may not have noticed the king's bonus drop if they thought that drop was from Ossamer croaking.

As for onsite CWL, Wanda would have been an excellent choice at the time he made that option available. That would have been CWL bonus plus artifact bonus plus whatever other bonus they get for the crokamancer/decrypted status. Even light infantry would be monstrous with her there. Doombats acted like Heavy Infantry in Ceasar's stack, and he didn't have the artifact multiplier, uncroaked/decrypted/croakamcer bonus, and doombats can't dancefight that I know of. That may put a light infantry or scout on comparable terms as a siege engine. She may as well just make her own side at that point and form an Alliance with GK.

Also at the time, Ossomer would have been a prime candidate. That would have sucked though if he turned as CWL. First Ansom, then Ossomer.

But, now that Wanda is in the MK and Ossomer is croaked (again), Sylvia is an obvious options. She would most vigourously carry out Parson's commands. But that brings up questions about how well a decrypted could serve as CWL, or if there is some mechanic preventing that (such as Loyalty to Wanda clashing with Duty towards Side). Archer is another option, being that ranged combatant leaders tend to be more tactically driven and lead from the back, where their range can be used more effectively and they can call shot. Hand-to-hand leaders tend to lead from the front, and lead by example.

Or promote the last Archon, just to muck with how they do not know how to handle a CWL. Plus it would chafe Charlie really hard.

Or have Isaac go through the portal, hire him on the spot, promote him to CWL and have him mindlink to Parson to provide constant strategic updates, and would bind him to Parson/GK's side so that they could discuss the Charlie situation off turn.

Or to get really out there, send Jojo through the portal, hire and promote him, let Sylvia pick up the pieces of the battle with a rigged CWL bonus. Then Jojo is bound to GK for the duration of his contract and can be ordered to disclose the nature of that scroll. Too bad about that promise to not serve a non-royal side.

[MonteCristo]

Yup, Sylvia would have been the better choice, she and Wanda would have lovingly carried out any plan he gave them. If they'd made it Ossomer he might not have turned.

But, now that Wanda is in the MK and Ossomer is croaked (again), Sylvia is an obvious options. She would most vigourously carry out Parson's commands. But that brings up questions about how well a decrypted could serve as CWL, or if there is some mechanic preventing that (such as Loyalty to Wanda clashing with Duty towards Side). Archer is another option, being that ranged combatant leaders tend to be more tactically driven and lead from the back, where their range can be used more effectively and they can call shot. Hand-to-hand leaders tend to lead from the front, and lead by example.

Considering Sylvia's "burn it all" plan, I would say she would probably be a bad choice. Even if she follows wanda who in turn follows Parson there is always a chance (like right NOW) where she might have to make a call on her own; Hell wanda herself is not always the best choice to make calls on her own without parson as we saw with the knock down the tower plan (a plan that sylvia supported btw). Ossomer could not be trusted and Sylvia is too chaotic... This is why Ansom was such a good choice because he COULD be trusted to make his own calls... All that said, I would say that Parson's best option was probably K.C. the former unaroyal chief warlord(which people seem to forget was one of parson's options), but only because we don't know enough about him to know his pros and cons

Its only holding the idiot ball if its out of character. This isn't out of character for Parson, its part of his character development. He needs to have a plan that revolves around him being in battle important. There is no good plan that does that. Hence he can't find a good one.

I think it is a good idea in the sense that Parson will be able to actually know what is going on, rather than second hand reports, where important details such as "we decided to try to knock the tower down" will be more readily available to him. Once he's there, I get the feeling that he's going to come up with an incredibly clever plan. Or get captured. Either way. But right now, he can't form a plan because he has no idea what is going on.

Well you always have to weigh in "does parson NEED to be there"; after all his most brilliant contribution to this battle was the dwagon harvest and he didn't need to leave GK to direct them to do that... i mean before Parson got delayed going through the portal which led to Wanda effectively leaving the battlefield thus lowering the bonus on her troops, the battle was going fairly well for them. Really if they had promoted someone in the field wanda would have never left and the bonus to the archons might have been enough for them to repel an attack; hell its even possible that ossomer might not have been able to turn if Wanda was in hex (we don't know the rules on how he did that yet). Even though second hand reports, Parson could have still advised them on how to proceed via thinkagram. NOW the battle is going badly enough that he might need first hand reporting, but before he might have been able to handle direction just fine from where he was.

[Salem]

It's quite possible that most of the mistakes wanda makes are all bringing her to her fate. If Trem is needed alive, had wanda never gone through the portal that would probably not come to pass.

[Zeku]

This is a critical comic.

The questions, Why is Parson going through the portal? and Is Slately dead? These are things the forum got quickly, but a casual reader may not understand, or tie it together mentally.

Jetstone is still quite dead. The only option they have is retreat at this point, unless I'm misreading it entirely. Nothing can wipe out the dwagons, and GK's turn is coming up.

Maggie still wants Parson to go through the portal. Charlie would also want Parson to lose his neutral status with the MK. Now that she's discovered he's just floundering about, she no longer has a justification for pushing him in that direction, and has become silent and contrite. This could mean a lot, or nothing. The smart move for Parson right now, is to march right back to GK and ask Stanley to promote a new CW, within Spacerock.

[Arky]

Yes, Maggie. You summoned the perfect warlord then DELIBERATELY ACTED AGAINST HIS INSTRUCTIONS because you thought you knew better than him. Whoops.

Maybe, finally, the concept of "TELL PARSON EVERYTHING AND THEN FOLLOW ORDERS" will start to take root with some of Parson's inner circle.


CharlieWatch: We now know that whatever Charlie is, he's not tall enough or wide enough to stick out past the chair back. Progress!

[Arky]

1.) Hippiemancers and predictamancers-- to end war on Erfworld
2.) Thinkamancers -- to bring down Charlie
3.) Collect the Arkentools together
4.) A new mandate of a balance between Arkentools and Royalty, rather than one assuming they have mandate to rule over the other.
or 5.) Maggie for some hot Hamster-style loving.

Number 1 is hippiemancers, because we can probably take Janis at her word that Peace On Erf is her goal. Nothing says that's actually the endgame of the predictamancers, just that the predictamancers are going along with the hippiemancers. Marie in particular always seems to me to have a major hidden agenda.

[gameboy1234]

or 5.) Maggie for some hot Hamster-style loving.

Too. Much. Information.

[ShieldOfAthena]

Bonus or not, Parson being CW strikes me as a good idea. Sylvia being CW just for the bonus.... she might listen now, sure, but not always.

As for going to the battle... well, he has to level. He is only 2, last time we had it confirmed for sure. Though you'd think the victory in book 1 and the "training" since would have helped a little.