Chapter 7: Page 14 - Closing Arguments -

Jul 2015

Chapter 7: Page 14 - Closing Arguments

Posted by Daniel Sharp / in Comic / 99 comments

Happy Monday all! I give you, a new page! Seba was awesome and worked hard on it over this weekend :)

BTW, APER in my mind was standing for Anti-Personnel Evasion Robot. But I might actually like Anti-PErsonnel Robot better, not sure.

Also, I’ll be editing this later with a link to my first PAID blog post. I totally got paid to write about someone’s stuff, a la sponsored post! Well, I haven’t gotten paid YET, which is part of why it isn’t POSTED yet either ;)

Delta-v

So the Ivory Tower scientist and the Snake-in-the-Grass politician outvoted the Grumpy Warrior. This bodes ill.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  It can get SCARY up in that Ivory Tower, man!
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    May Deathbot come calling for the fainting lillies in the tower, “Rapunzel, Rapunzel, let down your head…err…hair!”
  - Kaiden
    
    The Ivory Tower is where scary is made. That said, in the hands of Grumpy Warrior, scary can be really really useful.
Hornet

Hmm. wonder what form of defensive net Aegis has spread over the Minerva territories. If there are self-sustaining bunkers, depots and what not. I’d probably move most of my forces out into these and let whats going to happen to Minerva Central happen. If not then pull back all of my forces to Central for the last stand. Because we all know the fall of Central is now guaranteed.
- NickDA
  
  Hmm… hmmmm I say… can’t say more or Dan smacks me.
  - Daniel Sharp
    
    *readies smacking hand*
    - Hornet
      
      Haha. okay thanks Nick
      - NickDA
        
        You see what I have to deal with… ;(
      - DrCrazy102
        
        It’s okay Nick, we’ll protect you *hides hand before crossing fingers ;)*
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    Artillery preregistered on the pinch points, minefields, tanglefoot, false trenchlines with remote guns to keep the enemy guessing, collapsing bridges, pits, anti-vehicle ditches and traps.
    - Delta-v
      
      I’m guessing that some of your buddies were engineers? :)
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Flame fuel explosives for the win!
        A few.
        We got to hang out with the combat engineers when they dug us a firebase at Drum.
        One spot in particular is rough for them, rock was only three to four inches down, took out two of their bulldozers that day.
    - DrCrazy102
      
      Ah, sweet strategic defences! I hate that the things game devs focus on is the shooting, and “placement of shooter” strategy, instead of going into fortification strategy.
      - Hornet
        
        That because in 99% of the defensive wars fought the defender lost.
      - DrCrazy102
        
        True, but I’m also thinking of medieval era as well when you kind of needed about 10:1 to invade a castle using infantry and sappers, less with more artillery.
      - Dusty Coyote
        
        Maginot Line anyone?
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        The Maginot Line..ahh.. Only the last few forts on it fell to enemy action, and they weren’t built to the same standards as the larger better designed ones.
        And the line only went to a certain point.
        The German army simply walked around it at that point.
        *snort*
        The rest of the line held out for awhile before being surrendered.
        The German army “accepted the keys”, walked inside, looked around, then closed it up and locked the doors.
        They then, not even three years or so later, made the same mistake with the Siegfried Line themselves.
    - Honza Prchal
      
      Sounds like Matt is thinking of the Golan … or the first Soviet victories on the Eastern Front (especially Kursk, but Leningrad and Stalingrad too) or Chinese ones fighting the Soviets … or perhaps pre-tercio Renaissance warfare. The defense was queen in all those.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Pretty much!
        Make the enemy pay exceedingly dearly for every scrap of ground they advance, try to mitigate paying similar costs in return.
      - Honza Prchal
        
        In the Golan, the Israelis took that strategy one step further and channeled the Syrians into killing cul de sacs from which the invaders couldn ot mutually support their comrades by confining resistance to areas Israel actually needed to hold.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Wonder if Sifo had that in mind?
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        If only, if only.
        
        You can be sure that Sifo’s plans would have been excellent, but that what will actually happen (and what has been happening) is not as excellent ;)
        
        Otherwise there probably wouldn’t even still BE an invasion force anymore :D
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Hmm.. true.
        I say we arm Smith and send him out to.. er.. personally review the situation at the front.
      - Delta-v
        
        ARM him? He wants to talk, let him try that. :)
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        …don’t give him ammo…
      - Delta-v
        
        Have i told you lately how much I like the way you think? ^^
Citrus Reaper

Dammit. This is why I don’t Politics.
- NickDA
  
  Glaucus lady seems more keen on her lab results… like she’s living in a fantasy world where either Oculus or Aegis will fix this with no risk to Central.
  - Hornet
    
    Maybe but her decision has some thought behind it in that Aegis hasn’t been able to stop the APERs, Not that giving gifts to the wastelanders now is going to save her butt. Actually thinking about the APERs Glaucus needs to be working on a high-powered EMP grenade for Aegis.
    - Citrus Reaper
      
      I’m not sure about the EMP idea. It’s a somewhat obvious countermeasure, so if I were the one designing the APERs, I would attempt to build some defenses against that initially. Using that as a distraction, though, and then backing it up with hard-hitting high-caliber weapons, then you have several dead robits. At least in theory.
      - DrCrazy102
        
        It may be harder to create in this universe than in ours, which may possibly account for some leeway, plus it’s dealing with electrical components which are going to be left exposed on such a flexible and mobile machine. While it may not be all of the APER that receives damage from the EMP, enough damage will be caused to create some detriment for the APER and give Aegis troops an edge.
    - DrCrazy102
      
      Politically Glaucus is a tiebreaker of “reason” and logic, though our Madam Dean seems to be lacking in the “BS”-senses needed to accurately use Logic and Reason in Politics
      Strategically, Glaucus plays a technical and R&D role by the sounds of things.
      Overall, Glaucus needs to pull their heads out of a dark hole and design weapons or armour that can provide an edge for Aegis to use the Intel from Oculus, while they try to dissuade or outright convert the barbarian “tribes”
    - Honza Prchal
      
      Hardening against EMPs isn’t as hard as it sounds, it is just expensive, and with a high value asset like the koschei/smrtbot, well …
      This isn’t industrial age mass warfare where one throws waves at the enemy (or isn’t until contact is made with the invaders) but high value assets like commando warfare or … shudder … nuclear war. Hardening makes sense and is fairly easy to pull off considering the potential in the weapon.
  - Citrus Reaper
    
    Yeah, Glaucus lady has her head in the clouds. The solution to this situation will not be found with her. What needs to happen is Oculus guy needs to parlay for time, and Aegis needs to work with a few dedicated, skilled individuals (imminent death is a good way to get a lot of work done very quickly) and work on some anti-APER weapon. Something high-velocity, but computer controlled. So far, Jane is the only one who has actually killed one of these things, after all. She told Tenzin where to shoot, and that’s what really counts. Give her something that can punch holes in stuff very fast, and then get Tenzin a team of badasses to back her up, and Bob is your uncle.
    - Rawles Roberts III
      
      It IS entirely possible that her lab results were something along the lines of an anti-APERs weapon, or at least an exploitable weakness gleaned from Jane/Tenzin’s (and possibly other “failed” attempts) to dispatch said ‘bot. Many, many people died trying to stop these things, it would be foolish to waste those lives without trying to put that information to use. Assuming the ‘failed’ attempts made it out. Which could also be what she’s working on. Who knows?
      - Citrus Reaper
        
        True. We don’t really know what she’s working on, but since she was so quick to dismiss Aegis’s military solution, I would bet it’s nothing that would help them fight.
- Delta-v
  
  Unfortunately, if you don’t, those who do will rule your life. Wherever groups of people get together they usually start jockeying for position. There are very few such groups who avoid this.
- DeNitro
  
  History has proven it repeatedly, once the fighting has started, let the military fight the war they trained for. Once politicians start controlling warfare, their legacy is a date infamous as April 30th 1975.
Xylas Incarnum

*looks around the room with agitation then picks up a iron sand filled aluminum bat and smacks Smith’s head out of the park*
“You FOOL! You’ve doomed us all!”
- Hornet
  
  I’m pretty sure he has, as I think he was on the other end of that phone call the APER designer received.
melaredblu

So let me get this straight.

Out of all the people who dealt with the Death Bots, Tenzin, our poster child for everlasting failure, was the one who came out best? I’d say I wouldn’t want to see what happened to the others, but considering Tenzin ended up sans two limbs and slightly less sanity than before, I’m pretty sure there’s nothing left to see of them. At all. So much for my theory that the awesome lady at the beginning of the chapter survived the attack somehow.

As for Mr. Too Diplomatic To Show Common Courtesy, I like the idea of peaceful solutions as much as the next person, but he’s probably just about the worst person to make a deal with anybody. May I suggest they send a slightly surly fish fillet instead? I think that might go over better than deal with this smug SOB.

Then again, I’m pretty sure diplomacy isn’t gonna save the day when the writing MO for this comic seems to be “when in doubt, kill somebody”. Are you guys in three-way contest with Joss Whedon and George R.R. Martin to see how many likable and interesting characters you can massacre in one go?
- Delta-v
  
  Madame, you wound us! Conflating us with those two poseurs! Pah! we hold their poor attempts in bloodshed to be the timid fumblings of rank amateurs! (Oh, man, that was my best spoof yet-I’m so proud of me. ^^)
  
  Actually, TDA is trying for realism, and where the only law comes from the barrel of a gun, things tend to get …… bloody.
  
  Oh, and never forget the watchwords “Fog of War”.
- Sebastián Piriz
  
  Well, Tenzin had Jane..
  - DrCrazy102
    
    and Jacqueline had … Something resembling A”I”
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Alert the pun patrol! ;P
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Joss Whedon has me on likable, and GRRM on numbers, but I think I may have killed more than Whedon and more likeable characters than GRMM ;)
  - Dusty Coyote
    
    Hey, you forgot to introduce a character and kill them this strip. Are you feeling ok? I’d hate for you to be happy and ruin the vibe we have going here ;)
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Don’t worry a couple people died off panel during this time. We’re good.
      - NickDA
        
        We need a “pages since a named character died” counter… like the days since accident.
    - DeNitro
      
      Come on now, why disappoint with off panel deaths. Always those random acts of carnage flying about amidst any war. There is two brown suits in this room, might lighten the mood if one was an abject lesson in the futility of a non defensive strategy. ;-p
  - melaredblu
    
    Don’t sell yourself short. He may be dead, but Viktor is one of my favorite characters, to the point that I was secretly hoping we’d find out he somehow survived after all the backstory we got on him and Tenzin.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      *evil laughter*
      - NickDA
        
        *preps the smacking hand*
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Pff, your smacking hand prep probably gives more away than my evil laughter. I could be laughing about a variety of things.
      - NickDA
        
        maybe I just want to smack things… :D
      - melaredblu
        
        I’m watching you two. Evil SOBs.
- Honza Prchal
  
  One negotiates from strength, or apparent strength, not weakness. The latter brings more war, not peace. Si vi pacis, para bellum.
  Oculus is maneuvering to rule at home first, using neighboring invaders as foils, and then to take over those seriatem. So much for the decent society on display - let’s call it the Sharp dressed land. It has a reassuringly Heartland ring to it.
  - elebenty
    
    Yep, everybody’s crazy ’bout a Sharp dressed land.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      IS this Sharp dressed land a reference to me and Nick? Or to a historical named thing?
      - Delta-v
        
        ZZ Top song. “Sharp Dressed Man”.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Shark Dressed Man is how my sis messed it up.
        Mental image was….hilarious.
      - Honza Prchal
        
        OK - that … was …epic! Legen-dary. That’s even better than the classic “The girl with colitis goes by …”
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        It is generally accepted that my sister is evil.
        She does that sort of thing to songs often.
      - elebenty
        
        I’m not certain it is what @honzaprchal:disqus was intending, but @disqus_YXP2bgiR4G:disqus nailed where my mind went.
Mistwraith

I dont trust anyone who holds their finger tips together while they are talking !
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Mistwraith? Do I detect a fellow Sanderson reader? :D
  - Mistwraith
    
    Well i do yes, but my nick is older, its from the Janny Wurtz series :)
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      I haven’t read that. Would you recommend it?
      - Delta-v
        
        I would. It’s an interesting take on Good and Evil, and what consititutes each.
      - Mistwraith
        
        If you dont mind 80’s pulp fantasty writing ( it was a child of its time and so am i, some people get a little snobby about it ) then do try the 1st book, you should be able to find a cheap used copy on amazon, its the the laws of light and shadow series.
        As a woman in a gaming community back in the late 80’s i needed a nickname that was female but not overtly feminine, acceptance was not automatic, it had to be won on merit and i realised that a more covert nickname would smooth that path a bit easier as it would not bring automatic fear and prejudice,( we trod a very long route of characters who wanted us out of their domain and in the kitchen or knitting something and this *character* suited perfectly ).
        And i loved the premise of the series, the Mistwraith was a pivotal but small character early in the 1st book.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Sounds like at least worth reading the first book :D
  - Honza Prchal
    
    Good taste. His independent work is better than his WOT work, which isn’t all that bad.
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Indeed. I’m quite hooked on his works. just re-read Mistborn last week :D
      - Kaiden
        
        I too am a Sanderson fan. I just finished re-reading Words of Radiance, and the waiting between books is so very painful. Thankfully Shadows of Self is coming out soon.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        *tempted to start re-reading them AGAIN.* I love that he got stuck of shadows of self for a bit so he went and wrote the next book, and then came back to finish it :D So we get BOTH in the next 6 months or so, I think.
      - Kaiden
        
        Just read the teaser for Bands of Mourning OMG OMG *squee*
        
        But we could have an entire conversation on those books. Shame there’s not, y’know, a forum around here or anything.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        *points to the big button that says “FORUM” on the top site menu*
DeNitro

View from the story: Vote is cast, the military branch that needed support to defend and rebuild its strength was instead hobbled. Now forced to stand down and allow the invasion to advance unhindered. Is there enough military force to intimate a truce? If politics fail can a weak military fight back or did one vote doom them all? Those are the questions that keep me reading. ;-)
DrCrazy102

Wait a second, Mr @Daniel Sharp, how many “teams” are there under Aegis and what was the ‘quality’ of those that encountered the D-Bots? If 5 teams went up and only Captain Tenzin Dorje survived due to highly advanced AI, that helps explain the feelings/reasoning behind the Dean’s wavering support and why she eventually cast her vote for Oculus and Mr Smith and it also explains the loss of faith in Aegis that they have lost this many to seemingly one D-Bot.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  The teams that met Deathbots were all Keleres’ level Tactical Field Teams. The other captains had AIs similar to Jane. They were the epitome of Glaucus/Aegis teamwork.
  
  So, yeah, good thoughts ;)
Daniel Sharp

Hmmm, which and how much to answer. Well, what do you think based on what you’ve read so far?
- DrCrazy102
  
  Well, considering that I remember reading that Jane was “experimental AI” and that Jacqueline’s Alice was really slow and unwieldy for an A”I”, I feel like the AIs may tend to be slower at processing multiple inputs of data to analyse but may be as good as Jane when faced with only bulk data of one type (not gonna happen on a battlefield I think), and I don’t think the other AIs can adapt as easily as Jane due to their coding featuring less humanistic features, personality would be little or none considering Alice and Jacqueline.
  So, Jane is still the best and everyone else is dead since they didn’t have Jane (true fact, right?) so the other AIs are inferior on-site for battlefields.
  More questions! (Sorry)
  Would Glaucus/Aegis be able to replicate Jane? And would the Council allow for AIs to fight the APER using the Keleres suits as an acceptable strategy instead of exceptionally extenuating circumstances?
Adriano

*shouts to Minerva* “FALL ! FALL !”
TheRealRazgriz

Ok so he’s talking condescendingly while his fingertips are pressed together. Confirmed evil, no one but evil people press their fingers together when they talk. Also how in the HELL didn’t the people who secured Tenzin see Robo-RektFest and not think to capture and study it.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  If you review the end of Chapter 3, you’ll note that where Tenzin was when he got picked up was not the same locale as where he was when he took out the deathbot. ;)
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    The D-Bot towing company carried him and Lilly to the pickup point.
    “Get Outta here! *punt*!”
Honza Prchal

Oculus - the all seeing internal security aparaat or just a Sauron/Horus reference? The Bolsheviks took power as the more than usually blood soaked “peace party” (see also Hungary’s Communists and Germany’s, the latter of whom joined in an electoral alliance with the National Socialists before being outmaneuvered too) after all.

Is the lab-coated woman playing both sides so she can eliminate the Oculus threat, or does she only think she is?
I just want to know where Oculus took its smrtbot/koschei?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Oculus does a little of this, a little of that. If it involves the outside and isn’t about shooting them, it’s probably part of what Oculus does ;)
  - Honza Prchal
    
    Diplomatic/Trade/intelligence ministry, then, not domestic security?
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      They do some of that too. Aegis got tired of having to do internal domestic police work, so Oculus stepped up.
      - Honza Prchal
        
        That’s a REALLY bad idea. Who will watch the watchmen? At least the ChiComs have a terifying party police aparaat to counter similar state organs (no that they should be a positive model, but they were clear eyed about the risks of such entities).
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        An excellent question ;)
      - SebasP
        
        Overconfidence is the main sin in this story. Tenzin’s overconfidence, Aegis’ Overconfidence. ( smith’s overconfidence? )
        
        And I think that they aren’t just stupid, they live in a world where they are in the 21st century and everyone around is, as much, in the middle of the 20th (and most of them are in the middle ages) These people grew in this world, they aren’t the survivors of the apocaypsis, they are the children living safe in a bubble and they believe no one can pierce it
      - Honza Prchal
        
        That statement by SebasP is quite wise. Reading it was a good way to start the morning.
Jens Richard

Bla bla bla.
Dont get me wrong. Its Good writing stuff. Good dialog. But its all bla bla bla and then all guns gets up.
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Hehe, don’t worry, we’ll get back to guns and action soon enough ;)
theRoUS

Original _Andromeda Strain_: ‘They should have left the decision to the scientists!’ _versus_ the suspicious Yankee senator..
- theRoUS
  
  Ghu, I’m old.