Chapter 11: Page 5 - Unwanted Monologue -

Sep 2016

Chapter 11: Page 5 - Unwanted Monologue

Posted by Daniel Sharp / in Comic / 35 comments

If you’ve read the canonical short story Essence of Nightshade, it might shed a little bit more insight onto this particular conversation. Optimal Breeding Pact and all that.

Suffice it to say Angeline has heard similar conversations MANY times in the past.

A new month is shortly starting, if you’d be so kind as to keep voting for us on TWC. And consider pledging a dollar or two (or whatever you’re willing to do) a month via Patreon to allow me to pay for more short stories, art commissions, etc.

Adriano

As much as Minerva is technologically advanced, its mentality seems to be even worse than today’s mentality…

Anyway.
Looking at how lily is dressed….
WHAT IS THIS WITCHCRAFT??
Could it be that Angie is *really* taking this mother job seriously?
Still can’t believe Jane is for nothing in it.
- Amberlight
  
  Well, I can imagine Minerva having significant demographical issue and needing to incentivise people to procreate. Otherwise in a few decades they will end up with more elderly people than work-able ones.
  - Daniel Sharp
    
    Massive depopulation and the fact that even Minerva hasn’t been able to recreate the human womb means that yeah, there is defenitely a need for all women to participate in procreation.
    - T.R.
      
      If they don’t have the bodies, they can’t expand and claim the resources.
      
      And based on some of the background lore, looks like Minerva wasn’t adverse to using force at times to take what it wanted.
    - Amberlight
      
      I wonder if they have a full-time job of being a mother for those who are into it. Have a kid every couple of years, get huge aid for raising them.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        There are definitely both social and institutional pressure/rewards in place.
VeeZeek

Civic duty of women?! I’m surprised Angeline refrained from performing several acts of violence.

In the 3rd panel down 4 convo bubbles from the left did you mean “most” not “must”?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Doh. Good eye, I’ll as seba to fix my error.
  
  Or maybe it’s his fault and not mine! Yeah, yeah, that’s the ticket ;)
  
  <..>
  *it was totally my mistake*
T.R.

“The basic civic duty of women”
“Suffice it to say Angeline has heard similar conversations MANY times in the past.”

And I expect she’s used that exact face in the 2nd panel every time. :)

Though Lilly seems happy with the arrangement, and I suspect Angeline is finding it a net positive experience.
melaredblu

Not a fan of her snotty attitude toward men, but if she’s been getting guff like that on a regular basis, I can see where the attitude comes from. I’m guessing Minerva is big on gender roles.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  She’s especially snotty ;)
  
  Minerva has a weird mix of egalitarian views along with traditional biological roles.
  - Kaiden
    
    I’m guessing that women are encouraged to pursue other careers -after- they have children. Can’t spare the fresh wombs, can’t waste the talent.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      A advanced creche and child-care system means that post delivery you only have to be as involved as you want to be. So -after- isn’t really too much an issue.
      - Kaiden
        
        Even today, parents almost don’t have to actually parent their children if they don’t want to. I’m assuming that Minerva heavily encourages its citizens to all but forget their children and get back to work.
      - Honza Prchal
        
        You say that, but you never saw what the kibbutzes did to kids either, did you? Or Soviet orphanages (I mean other than create dictators for the ‘stans)?
  - Honza Prchal
    
    Biology is a harsh mistress … as are gravity (The Tick!) and the Moon (Heinlein).
- Deoxy
  
  Unless and until the artificial womb is created, when you need more people, there is exactly ONE way to get them. Rail against “the evil patriarchy” if you like, but they have nothing to do with setting that up.
  
  And in fact, on the flip side, men are inherently quite a bit more expendable, which is why they are the soldiers… because they ARE expendable, and women (and their wombs) aren’t.
  
  In almost any sort of apocalypse or other “end of the world” scenario, people will be forced to remember that “gender roles” (actually SEX roles) weren’t about any sort of patriarchy, oppression, or other PC BS (enabled by our current luxurious wealth, historically speaking), they were quite simply about survival of the species.
  
  Don’t like it? Take it up with Mother Nature/the universe/God.
  - Daniel Sharp
    
    Yeah, I was thinking (and thus had Minerva thinking) along similar lines, although with less railing against those who rail against the patriarchy ;P
  - melaredblu
    
    Eh, you might be taking my comment a little too seriously here. It was just an observation stating that I can see where her resentful attitude comes from. I never said it was justified, just that I can understand why she would act this way. And the gender roles comment was only half-serious, much like my comments accusing Dan of being a heartless SOB (which he totally is).
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      XD Just wait until tomorrow. I fully expect more comments about my heartless nature.
    - Deoxy
      
      Well, nice to see someone making such a comment who DOESN’T actually believe that stuff (and they’re usually the ones insulting religious people about believe silly stuff, too… it’s kinda funny, actually). Sadly, you’re the exception, these days.
      - melaredblu
        
        Sure, I get what you mean. But maybe chill on the conclusion-jumping. This ain’t Tumblr, it’s just an awesome sci-fi comic created by a team of glorious madmen and all the commenters here are super cool. Nobody’s insulting anyone here. Take a load off and enjoy the story.
      - NickDA
        
        As one of aforementioned madmen… I’d like to reserve my rights for insulting… just in case… there’s this one brick throwing crazy person running around loose in here…
Matt [in Middletown]

Eddi3 here.. okay crew, we have a priority mission here.
We absolutely must remap the matron’s email functions because she once again sleighted mom.
Glados, you remap delete to forward, group forward if possible.
I’ll make reply be reply all.
Any other suggestions?

And thus it was that the Machine Song came to the Minervan nursery program..

Edit: seriously phone? You don’t know “Glados”?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Never change, Matt ;)
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    Could you imagine the collection of AI discussing the defense of their “mom” like that?
    It would be hilarious to watch as they struggled to comprehend human rationale.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      This is why Angeline generally keeps them locked in their rooms until they’ve matured to at least Jane’s level or so ;P
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        “Foiled!” -Eddi3
      - Adriano
        
        >mature
        >Jane level
        
        Pick one
NickDA

Creepy teacher lady is creepy…
Delta-v

Okay, gang, time for another sermonette, since I’m seeing some new names in the comments.

*Ahem* Allow me to beg shamelessly for votes on Top Web Comics’ Top 100. For anyone who has never seen the value of voting, let me explain: Basically, the more votes we get per day, the better our ranking on the Top 100 chart.

The better the ranking, the more people will see the comic, and hopefully become readers-and commenters, so if you help us with your votes, there is an excellent chance that you will have a continuous supply of new people to play with. If that doesn’t move you, just think of how happy Dan, Nick, and Seba will be that you like the comic enough to vote for it. It will mean a lot to me, too, but they are the most important ones. :)

The Demon Archives has been in the Top 100, and we want to go back. We have seen the glorious flood of thousands upon thousands of curiosity-seekers checking us out, and seen the new readership it has brought. That alone is enough to encourage me in begging for your votes. If you want to help, you can click on the blue banner above, or just click on THIS LINK and get started. Oh, and please vote every day, since our competitors are doing so, and we need to do better than they are doing. :)
- T.R.
  
  Thanks for the refresher. So far this month, we’ve climbed from ~220 to the 170’s in the last 2 week. We’re at 471 votes now. If we had double that amount, we’d just crack the top 100! So let’s keep it up and hit October strong.
Steven Bouchard

The important thing is that Lily had a good day.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Isn’t she the cutest?
- D. Schwartz
  
  Because if she didn’t, like my daughter, the evening will go less than smoothly.