Book 2 – Page 90

[Shai_hulud]

OMG!! Logic! This forum hardly recognizes you.

PS: It's anal probing, not dental probing. And it's aliens, not the gov'ment. The gov'ment is responsible for fluoride in water, polio monkey vaccines, and mental health.

Would probably be easier to recognize if it were actually such.

[Lamech]

We have firmly established that all non casters cannot enter the magic kingdom. We know that parson is a warlord. We do know that other units can tell that he is a warlord just by looking at him but not what his stats are outside of level. The question is, what type of caster could he be? Does he have juice? We know that he is a caster of some sort or he would have died when entering the magic kingdom.

Basically the only thing we know from what you asked is that only casters can enter the MK. Everything else we can only speculate about. Essentially, Parson could be some kind of caster (a hippiemancer as Janice claimed on his first visit), or because he is not an erfworlder, he breaks the "detection" mechanic that would normally prevent him from entering.

Yup, I would also add that Parson might not be disbandable. So we have three ways it could go down.
1) Portal scans Parson. Gets back "caster" and lets him pass.
2) Portal scans Parson, gets back nothing of value and lets him pass.
3) Portal scans Parson, it either gets back "not a caster" or gets back nothing, and tries to disband him. Nothing happens.

[bladestorm]

We have firmly established that all non casters cannot enter the magic kingdom. We know that parson is a warlord. We do know that other units can tell that he is a warlord just by looking at him but not what his stats are outside of level. The question is, what type of caster could he be? Does he have juice? We know that he is a caster of some sort or he would have died when entering the magic kingdom.

Basically the only thing we know from what you asked is that only casters can enter the MK. Everything else we can only speculate about. Essentially, Parson could be some kind of caster (a hippiemancer as Janice claimed on his first visit), or because he is not an erfworlder, he breaks the "detection" mechanic that would normally prevent him from entering.

Yup, I would also add that Parson might not be disbandable. So we have three ways it could go down.
1) Portal scans Parson. Gets back "caster" and lets him pass.
2) Portal scans Parson, gets back nothing of value and lets him pass.
3) Portal scans Parson, it either gets back "not a caster" or gets back nothing, and tries to disband him. Nothing happens.

Option 2 sounds good. Parson could just be a Null value that breaks the detection method. It could be set to scan for unit-type. For all values of "caster", regardless of type, allow through. For values that are not a caster, disband. That value was not detected on Parson, which means he didn't trigger as a non-caster unit type. He may not have triggered as a caster either, but by him having no detectable attributes (other than "Warlord" and "field unit", which were applied to him after he arrived in Erfworld), he avoided setting off the detectors.

[hajo]

As to the portals, I always assumed they were created by the same trimancer configuration that created the magic kingdom.

The MK is essential to some of the 'rules' of Erfworld, i.e. so all sides can hire casters, and buy scrolls.
As such, it is a part of the design of Erf, and created by the titans.

Also, all the sides we have seen were short on money, and struggling to survive.
So, there are not much resources left for big projects that don't help the side in the short term...

[Koliup]

Wasn't it thought up a while back that the portals themselves, like goggles, do nothing?
Commanders can see the stats of a unit; if it is a stabber, warlord, etc.
And Casters are commanders(sans leadership, duh). However, we do know casters can create blasts of energy using juice. And there are a lot of casters in the MK at a time.
So, stepping into the MK, as a non-caster, will get you identified and 'shot', right?
The portals don't have to do anything. The MK is a pretty solid defensive position.

[No one in particular]

Wasn't it thought up a while back that the portals themselves, like goggles, do nothing?
Commanders can see the stats of a unit; if it is a stabber, warlord, etc.
And Casters are commanders(sans leadership, duh). However, we do know casters can create blasts of energy using juice. And there are a lot of casters in the MK at a time.
So, stepping into the MK, as a non-caster, will get you identified and 'shot', right?
The portals don't have to do anything. The MK is a pretty solid defensive position.

I think that was me, back at page 57. I've had the theory for a while.

Then again, I've been gone for a while, so I don't know if anyone also had the idea.

[Housellama]

RE: The portals etc. The MK and the portals and the mechanics that run all of the things associated with the MK work way too smoothly for me to believe that Erfworlders created it. I believe that the MK and all of the assorted stuff that goes with it (including the portals) are intrinsic to the design of Erfworld. The portals reek of Natural Magic. The whole place screams to me that this was the Titan's work. The neutrality of the MK might be an erfworlder convention, but the MK itself runs way too well to be anything but part of the world.

RE: Wanda's behavior. I think that people are forgetting to take into account that her world-view just got rocked hard. Until a scant few minutes of Erftime ago, she believed that the Arkenpliers had full and absolute control over the Decrypted. That belief was just shattered hard, and in one of the worst possible ways. She's also still dealing with her latest encounter with Jillian. Not to mention Marie's presence. If Wanda seems quiet, it's probably because she's got a lot on her mind and frankly I don't blame her.

RE: Carneymancers. These are people who are steeped in trickery and cunning. The essence of their magic is getting away with things while Erf's back is turned. They are born con men and women. They don't need magic to exploit a situation like this. Plain old fashioned social engineering will work just fine. Everyone here is a Commander, and thus has a wider degree of free will than most in Erfworld. If the Carneymancers' can't game this situation as is without magic, they need to go back to school.

RE: Parson the Caster. I honestly believe that Janis was right. I think Parson's some kind of Hippymancer that is also a Warlord. Parson's a smart guy. He knows that if war continues eternally, eventually he's going to die unless he finds a way out. Looking for a way out and looking for a way to game Erfworld so that a Kingdom produces more money than it spends aren't mutually exclusive. If I was him, I'd be focused on the long term goal of ending the fighting. Sounds like Hippymancy to me.

[Delbert]

Hi All,

First time, etc. (following since the start at GitP, posted once, and had been having issues registering off and on the current forum since the move).

One piece of food for thought, in case it hasn't been mentioned, is part of Jojo's greeting to Parson in the tunnel http://www.erfworld.com/book-2-archive/?px=%2F2011-05-25.jpg, Book 2, Page 52, 9th panel, where Jojo tells Parson that ",,,he's a Joker, a wild card. Better than an Ace, folks. He can beat everything! He can be anything"!

What if he's telling the truth (classic method of misdirection), and Parson's Special is that he's whatever special he needs to be?

The relevance is that given the speculation above he could be whatever type of caster he needs to be (or if he needs to be a caster, he defaults to a specific type, e.g. a signamancer).

Given the further speculation that there is preferred attunement to Arkentools for casters of appropriate disciplines, that would mean that he could potentially attune to any Arkentool, which would be one more angle of threat for Charlie.

Oh, and cue the very sincere fanboy gushing about how wonderful the writing and art are. This is bar none my favorite webcomic for the intelligence and creativity of the writing, and the very high grade of art needed to support the writing's multi-layred subtlety. Thank you Rob and Xin, and thanks to the forum members who have helped me wade through the many pop culture references that I was completely clueless about.

Cheers

[Chit Rule Railroad]

When Unaroyal destroyed itself, the Queen, instead of giving all her treasury to Slately and disbanding her garrison, paid instead to promote them all to field units so that they would disband when she croaked. I understand that it might not be simple to transfer all your funds that way, but such things are possible, as Transylvito was attempting with Jetstone.

My hypothesis is that disbanding is an order that must be communicated to the unit being disbanded, and that if Queen Bea walked around disbanding each unit one-by-one, or gave her warlords an order like "Tell each other to disband in downward hierarchical order, then be disbanded yourselves", the morale hit would have caused units to turn to GK. I also presume that her thinkamancer wouldn't have enough juice to communicate the disband order to every unit, not to mention that units might still turn in response to seeing each of their fellows vanish one-by-one mysteriously.

[Oberon]

OMG!! Logic! This forum hardly recognizes you.

PS: It's anal probing, not dental probing. And it's aliens, not the gov'ment. The gov'ment is responsible for fluoride in water, polio monkey vaccines, and mental health.

Would probably be easier to recognize if it were actually such.

But it is!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Unholy_three.png

Yup, I would also add that Parson might not be disbandable. So we have three ways it could go down.
1) Portal scans Parson. Gets back "caster" and lets him pass.
2) Portal scans Parson, gets back nothing of value and lets him pass.
3) Portal scans Parson, it either gets back "not a caster" or gets back nothing, and tries to disband him. Nothing happens.

This is reasonable. I first took the failure for Parson disband when he failed to obey Stanley's orders to walk his rounds to decrease GK's upkeep as a matter of intent. Parson didn't know, and therefore didn't willfully disobey. But your theory that he simply isn't able to be disbanded is in line with everything we've seen. He didn't disband when he disobeyed Stanley, and he didn't disband when he entered the MK as a non-caster. Perhaps the SPWS also could not disband him, despite Wanda's assertions that it would.

I kinda tend towards Parson being ignorant of what he needed to do to satisfy Stanley's order as being why this didn't disband him, because it fits the facts and to my mind is a better story line than "Haha! I cannot be disbanded, foolish Overlord!" But I'd also prefer that Parson not be a hippymancer. He is too good at war, is in fact a specialist at war, and his character development has led him to a greater understanding of exactly what he might have to sacrifice in the way of living, feeling beings in order to obtain his goals. It just doesn't feel very hippymancerish, to me.

So, stepping into the MK, as a non-caster, will get you identified and 'shot', right?
The portals don't have to do anything. The MK is a pretty solid defensive position.

I don't buy it. Sure, the MK is full of conspiracies, most of them (that we are aware of) revolving around our protagonist or his primary foil Charlie. But I don't think that a strategy of "Well, we'll just blast the fuck out of any non-caster who dares enter the MK" would remain secret. Might be, sure. Just doesn't read right to me.

[drachefly]

A)

My hypothesis is that disbanding is an order that must be communicated to the unit being disbanded, and that if Queen Bea walked around disbanding each unit one-by-one, or gave her warlords an order like "Tell each other to disband in downward hierarchical order, then be disbanded yourselves", the morale hit would have caused units to turn to GK. I also presume that her thinkamancer wouldn't have enough juice to communicate the disband order to every unit, not to mention that units might still turn in response to seeing each of their fellows vanish one-by-one mysteriously.

That... works. Not crazy at all.

B) I just noticed certain glaring details of your avatar. That's kind of weird.

[Shai_hulud]

OMG!! Logic! This forum hardly recognizes you.

PS: It's anal probing, not dental probing. And it's aliens, not the gov'ment. The gov'ment is responsible for fluoride in water, polio monkey vaccines, and mental health.

Would probably be easier to recognize if it were actually such.

But it is!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Unholy_three.png

*facepalm*
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/M ... ongReasons

[drachefly]

I strongly suspect Poe's Law is in effect.

[Shai_hulud]

I strongly suspect Poe's Law is in effect.

If you mean me, then no. I'm pretty sure they're being sarcastic. That's why I linked to the tvtropes page. Just because they have come to a conclusion that is technically correct doesn't mean they came to their conclusion in a way that would be considered sound. In the homeless man case, I'm assuming neither of them believes in jaw radio implants (a 40 y/o tech at the least) and therefore conclude the homeless man is crazy. He probably is, but the way they got their answer is no less insane (i.e. they probably don't believe in mainstream science)