Chapter 12: Page 12 - Not the Meatling -

Feb 2017

Chapter 12: Page 12 - Not the Meatling

Posted by Daniel Sharp / in Comic / 78 comments

EDIT 3-2-17: Updated the colors today, and that will be today’s update. Seba has had a crazy week and needs a bit to recover :)

Hey all! Today was busy for Seba, so I’m posting the original sketch, along with the tease of the title. What could it mean?!? XD (Sketch included below for posterity and so comments about it make sense)

Comic Cap 12_011

Also, for your viewing and reading pleasure, a new fanart of Tenzin, and a new review of an excellent urban fantasy comic.

I’ll update with inks and colors as I get them from Seba :)

DeNitro

Ahh,, No,, Umm, nope, Humm, Gravestones and a visitor?!?!

Obviously, you send more than just a sketch to him or,,
OMG,, Seba,, you know what I’m thinking about right now,,,, 😨
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Heh, Seba makes the sketches :P
  - DeNitro
    
    Nice,, ouch,,
    Yet head ringing, still not silent “Pictionary” communication,,,
    Unless,, let’s see what you drew to him….
    
    You do know I am teasing the both of you ;-)
Matt [in Middletown]

Meatling?
Oh no..No no no.
Yet another meatbag has arrived!
Quick, someone distract it with fire! -Eddi
- KBoysx1
  
  “Let’s maul these meatbags!” -other sci-fi story (Hk-47 Star Wars
T.R.

Does someone else have the keys to SOPKA and is talking behind Konstantin’s back? Or maybe those transponders from the deathbots are being put to use?
KBoysx1

Does anyone realize in some Eastern languages; I think Czech is one, that Sopka means volcano?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  I’m having difficulty finding the original translation I used right now, but as well as an adjective, in Russian it meant “hill”, and apparently also “nipple” *shrugs*
  - Van Tuz
    
    Not “biological” nipple but “mountain” nipple.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Ah! Excellent, thank you for sharing, I didn’t know :)
      
      Google Translate didn’t give the context XD
- DeNitro
  
  Years back, in a forgotten multiplayer forum with members speaking nearly a dozen native languages and dialects it was very easy for minor mis-translations and interpretations to spark flame wars. To enlighten and remind members, every month there was a game of running choosen messages or texts through all the commercial translators. A small set of basic words always work, but anything beyond a simple sentence can be pure comic gold…
  
  literally, to some underpaid scribe translating 1,000,000 words in a dictionary of langage equivalents, one persons mountain is anothers molehill,,
- Honza Prchal
  
  Ano. Ja jsem si toho vsimnul.
Delta-v

I agree with SOPKA. Nightshade is relentless and dangerous, but Jane is several orders of magnitude more so. O.o
- Honza Prchal
  
  Jane never sleeps. And, given her ability to tap into the wired world, one might say she’s an all-seeing eye - lidless, burning …
  Wait. Jane’s a cutie pie. Heh-heh. “Meatling.” She’s adorable. Instead of a Dark Lord, we shall have a queen, more beautiful and terrible as the sea …” Wait. This just ain’t ending well. OK, a super-powerful teenaged girl … nope, ain’t ending well at all. Good thing the world’s already smashed harder than your average British town after 10:00 PM.
T.R.

Well, another confirmation that the Conspiracy has thoroughly penetrated Minerva. In that last panel, all the images of Jane are all scenes from the courtroom. I’m guessing this scene happens after the first day of the trial recesses, so the info got to Konstantin *fast*.

Interestingly, the Conspiracy expects Tenzin to go up against Deathbots again. Otherwise, why upload his (and Jane’s?) personality details to SOPKA? This could explain why the Goon Squad was rummaging in Angeline’s office and downloading the Oracle Project files. Though that doesn’t quite square with Angeline’s statement that most of the downloaded data was publicly available - unless there were some important details not in the public data… (like Tenzin’s personality details?)
- Chris
  
  Public? Public to who? The desert wasteland ISP’s? Public may be to those with Minerva access, or just low level clearance to the labs.
  
  I’m thinking that SOPKA is somewhere inside Minerva propper, subterranean storage warehouse or something. It’s not like there is a world wide web still active with fiber lines still connecting everyone together. If they were anywhere distant they would require broadcasting radio which would eventually be detected. So my bets are they are somewhere in Minerva.
  - Daniel Sharp
    
    In the first scene where we meet Konstantin and SOPKA there are some pretty solid clues about their location. I think some people in the comment section even guess it accurately.
    - T.R.
      
      I recall seeing that discussion. I wonder when that info will become relevant to the story…
    - KBoysx1
      
      Doesn’t it give their location on the characters menu?
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Does it? Oh hey look, it does! XD
T.R.

New month, new voting totals at TWC. Vote! Vote!

Yes, that’s 2 votes. Looks like they now have a 10-hour cool down timer between votes, so you can vote twice a day!
- NickDA
  
  Lets say there was an opt in/out style of “yeah I want to vote daily/regularly please help/automate my vote whenever I visit your page… in a sweet ass non obtrusive fashion that I wouldn’t even have to notice… let alone install anything for”… theoretically that is… any takers?
  - T.R.
    
    I’d be interested in that. How does it work?
    - NickDA
      
      Secretsish details to follow… I have a fun prototype that I’m testing.
Daniel Sharp

Me, laugh at your theories? I would never! ;P
- KBoysx1
  
  That’s what they all think! *trys to laugh, breaks into fit of coughing caused by ever present Flu virus*
T.R.

Seba, in the past, the Konstantin/SOPKA dialog was enclosed in “” - probably to indicate they were speaking another language. (Russian, I expect) But I don’t see that here. Oversight?

Not a big deal to me, but something to add to the “ought to fix before we get this chapter printed” list. :)
- NickDA
  
  I said the same thing in our internal tool… Dan mentioned the magics magics that those get added during the colors phase.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Yeah he adds it when he does the colors, as it’s not part of the font package we use apparently.
- SebasP
  
  I did a font years ago that I use in my works and it lacks more then a few signs. For some reason that I didn’t investigate deeply, the soft I used corrupts the file when I try to edit it and save again.
  - KBoysx1
    
    Ugh! Corrupted files. My worst enemy for my writing! Always loses connection and corrupts, making me restart
KBoysx1

Much better with inks!
Hornet

Haha! Jane has scared the big scary Combat AI…
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Scared, yes…
  - KBoysx1
    
    That is nnnnooooOtt at all ominous. *Shiftily looks away from tablet*
  - KBoysx1
    
    Does Sopka have a form he takes on screens? Like how Jane forms a human girl? Does Sopka do that?
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Not that we have seen ;)
      - KBoysx1
        
        Yet
      - KBoysx1
        
        I’m imagining something/someone like Megatron standing high above Konstantin, a shadow falling over his face as he looks into the beady, red eyes of Sopka; jaw agape with terror and awe at the behemoth. :-)
    - Matt [in Middletown]
      
      Since SOPKA likes reds, oranges and yellows in his color scheme, I imagine a Del Monte pineapple for some reason.
      Which would be hysterically creepy.
      - KBoysx1
        
        A robot pineapple!
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        A killer but jovial robot pineapple.
      - KBoysx1
        
        Still hilarious! 😃
      - NickDA
        
        Oh no… KByosx1 found Matt… or vice versa… worrisome times to come :D
      - KBoysx1
        
        Hey Nick, you misspelled my name. And worrisome times happened a while ago, back when I began commenting on The End, and saw Matt online
      - NickDA
        
        Damn on the misspelling. As Matt would say… curse your smert-fon
      - KBoysx1
        
        “I shall rule” -Sopka. Konstantin- “Sopka, you’re a frickin’ pineapple. Choose something more ruler-of-the-world-like. For instance, Megatron
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        I can honestly see this happening.
        A giant SMILING pineapple avatar.
        Dan is SO going to send APERS after me.. ;-)
      - KBoysx1
        
        Me too! *Leaps out window, starts running*
      - Hornet
        
        Rodimus Prime wore those colors.
      - KBoysx1
        
        Did he? *Googles* He did!
J.S. Conner

Hey everybody, I just spent way too long writing commentary for every chapter of Essence of Nightshade, so if you’re the kind of person that likes to watch movies with the director’s commentary on, please validate the last hour and a half of my life by giving it a look. The commentary starts at the introduction, and there’s something for every chapter. The fact that Konstantin knows her name is bad news, so let’s all enjoy the life and times of Agent Nightshade while she’s still, uh…alive.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Love them!
  
  And me killing off a character before she’s properly introduced in comic seems unusually cruel, even for me XD
  - J.S. Conner
    
    I’m just afraid that proper introduction is right around the corner ;)
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      TOTALLY not a page I’m writing right now. Nope nope nope.
      - T.R.
        
        So you already wrote it? :) You claim: “…killing off a character before she’s (they’ve) been property introduced in comic seems unusually cruel,” You’ve done that…(https://demonarchives.com/chapter-7-page-1-the-valkyries/)
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Shhh ;P
      - KBoysx1
        
        Why does out say Error Close 404 when I access that link you made T.R.? Dan, do you have something to do with this? ;P
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        I fixed it.
        
        For some reason with Disqus, if the url ends with a /), it freaks out and includes the ), so you have to put a space in / )
      - KBoysx1
        
        Still not working.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Weird, its working for me.
      - T.R.
        
        It’s working for me too, so I’m not sure what the issue is. Just go to chapter 7, page 1 in the archives. I think what happens on page 2 won’t be a surprise…
        
        Dan: I’ll try to catch those copy/paste issues with the links. Thanks for the detail on what doesn’t work.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        And the Ravers raiding gang.
      - KBoysx1
        
        Roger, right? We never really learn about him
  - KBoysx1
    
    Honestly I plan on killing a few characters off in the first couple chapters of my novel. I’m thinking they’ll be seen mostly in flashbacks.
KBoysx1

Couldn’t Konstantin rebel and activate the APERs to kill the conspiracy, or hold them hostage for supplies?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Maybe, maybe not ;)
  - KBoysx1
    
    So vague, so vague indeed
- T.R.
  
  I think Konstantin would have to know where to send the Deathbots. Also, they are a fairly blunt tool - I think they’d have a hard time doing a targeted killing like a Terminator - they’d just wreak havoc wherever they were sent. And I’m not sure Konstantin is (yet) the kind of person who would make that decision.
  - KBoysx1
    
    On the topic of other survivors, when, if we do, are we gonna see the other nations’ soldiers? What type of weapons and vehicles do they have? Do they use airships instead of ground vehicles?
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      We saw a little bit in the invasion sequence, but this story arc is focused mostly on Minerva. Not ruling it out for this one, but future story arcs will probably be on the other main nations.
KBoysx1

That actually looks like that scene from Transformers with Unicron
- DeNitro
  
  What that gif? Idk, but there are rumors the BBC “Enhanced” that particular volcano video the gif is from with extra lighting, or could just be it just looks like something shaky, loud, and full of lens flares that would be in a Michael Bay movie,,,
  There is better static examples of terrifying volcanoes with lighting, I was cheezy and wanted animated,, LoL
  - KBoysx1
    
    No the comics/animated series. Transformers Prime I think
melaredblu

I definitely want to trust the AI that calls humans “meatlings.”
Also, the colors on this page are freaking fantastic!
- Matt [in Middletown]
  
  Meatbag is a truly superior and apt label -Eddi
Xylas Incarnum

Well, there’s another flag that your AI probably isn’t all that sane…. and is leaning towards killing all humans save, perhaps, a select few.
- KBoysx1
  
  The robot pineapple shall rule all! :)