Orchard Valley

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Re: Orchard Valley

#31 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:34 pm Albion Alabaster being Trace's "inside man" would resolve one of the comic's strange curiosities. So Keith was exiled -- something Alabaster was very much involved in -- and the condition of his return was to bring back the Grand Templar. This would have been pretty concurrent with Trace's actual coup, so the Grand Templar at the time was Mary Silverlock, but everyone seemed to act like they'd meant Trace Legacy all along. If Alabaster was Trace's man on the island, then Alabaster may have already been aware of the plans for the coup and expected Trace to be the Grand Templar by the time Keith could possibly return (as much as Alabaster personally hoped Keith would die horribly out there among the "barbarians").
Thinking about it a bit more, I'm afraid that dog won't hunt; when Keith was exiled, Trace was either still happily married or relatively early in his insane seclusion. And narratively there would probably also be something more in the body of the comic with Albion... though admittedly, what there is could be made to do some work if someone was of a mind :P

Technic[Bot] wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:39 am Did not all towers were supposed to, one way or another, revert Keidran/basitin to a primitive state. Making them perfect slaves incapable of defending? Or isthat simply my impression.
It's a read built on this. It's still about as much as we know about the plan, which isn't much.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#32 Post by avwolf »

amenon wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 4:29 pm
avwolf wrote: Fri Feb 02, 2018 7:34 pm Albion Alabaster being Trace's "inside man" would resolve one of the comic's strange curiosities. So Keith was exiled -- something Alabaster was very much involved in -- and the condition of his return was to bring back the Grand Templar. This would have been pretty concurrent with Trace's actual coup, so the Grand Templar at the time was Mary Silverlock, but everyone seemed to act like they'd meant Trace Legacy all along. If Alabaster was Trace's man on the island, then Alabaster may have already been aware of the plans for the coup and expected Trace to be the Grand Templar by the time Keith could possibly return (as much as Alabaster personally hoped Keith would die horribly out there among the "barbarians").
Thinking about it a bit more, I'm afraid that dog won't hunt; when Keith was exiled, Trace was either still happily married or relatively early in his insane seclusion. And narratively there would probably also be something more in the body of the comic with Albion... though admittedly, what there is could be made to do some work if someone was of a mind :P
Ah, yes, I'd misremembered timings. Keith was banished six years ago, compared to just four that Trace was truly in power. Well, it was a nice little hypothesis. I guess there's still no reasonable explanation for why the Basitins would want the Grand Templar, unless the goal was just to make the conditions of Keith's exile impossible to complete.

Presumably, as Intelligence General, Alabaster would be familiar with Trace (through whatever spy network the Basitins have), and since he'd be in close contact with Randall, he'd likely be aware of the Templars' current situation, and therefore would be in a reasonable position to know, at least in broad terms, what was going on with Trace. While I agree a person could read into Alabaster's comments, I don't think there's much there to be read in the end. He's just a belligerent, condescending old man. :P
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:39 amDid not all towers were supposed to, one way or another, revert Keidran/basitin to a primitive state. Making them perfect slaves incapable of defending? Or isthat simply my impression. So yeah war is easier. Also yes it is pretty clear old trace was some genious psycho hell bent on total anihilation...
That makes him sound like a final fantasy villain... curious.
We actually don't know what the Towers are supposed to do. Euchre has stated that they're based around the idea of "using [the Keidran's] own instincts against [them]", but exactly what that means is unknown (as amenon comments above). My operating supposition is that the reference to abusing instincts is to draw the Keidran into a trap, where they get close enough to the Towers for the Tower Network to execute its purpose and drain the life energy from as many Keidran as possible (perhaps using metaphysical linkages like "love" or "family" to also get the ones that are out of immediate range, not unlike Order of the Stick's Familicide spell). This life energy would have been intended then to facilitate Saria's resurrection, as that would allow Trace to store and wield more Black Mana than a person normally could. I like that idea because it transforms the Towers' tendency to pull Black Mana from the environment from a bug into a feature. I don't know if that's all true, but it's the Tower explanation I am currently most enamored by. (I wrote about it in long form and a fair amount of detail about three years ago, if you're curious about my complete reasoning.)
Technic[Bot] wrote: Sat Feb 03, 2018 2:39 am
Hulk10 wrote:True it is clever. However I doubt that Trace was alone in wanting the genocide. The new Templar leader seemed to want it too.
As far as we know. The templar order are a bunch of racist whose main work is killing Keidran. They sometimes do police work and some political intrigue to spice their resumés. And Trace was the Grand wizard Templar orquestating everything.

Also Traces hate seem to be contained to only wolf Keidran. He spared Keith fiancee once, before becoming good-guy Trace, just after routing a wolf camp. (Can't remember the exact page thougth) So maybe his plans are not ensuring complete global Kidran extintion.
But who knows?
The Templar have a just purpose: they exist to protect Humanity from the Keidran threat (among others). They are border guards and soldiers, sentinels, diplomats, and guardians. That's how they ended up in the position of power they are now in. There might be a slightly higher than average number of racists among them (and almost certainly that is so now, since Trace was Grand Templar), but the whole organization shouldn't necessarily be categorized as such. Trace has long (well before he became Grand Templar) sought the glory of conflict with the Keidran. He was young, and youth often dreams of battle's glory and the honor earned in blood; not realizing its consequence or that it is ultimately ash and horror. Since a man driven mad by grief and foul magics took over, he appointed (mostly) those who saw things his way into positions of power around him, and now they drive the war machine. Then again, so much of it was already in motion by the time Ephemural acted, it's questionable how much even a peace-loving Grand Templar could do now.

Trace's actions regarding Laura seemed to be because of something specific about Laura -- that she reminded him of Saria in some fashion -- rather than any actual kind feelings about Foxes. He certainly bears a particular grudge toward the Wolves, but I don't think any Keidran are spared in his wrath, except on a case-by-case basis. And possibly as mind-dominated slaves.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#33 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pm I guess there's still no reasonable explanation for why the Basitins would want the Grand Templar, unless the goal was just to make the conditions of Keith's exile impossible to complete.
And it's borderline inexplicable that Albion didn't try any rules-lawyering, since not only was Trace not the Grand Templar when the order was issued, he also wasn't anymore by the time Keith brought him back :P (Of course, perhaps he would have gotten into that at the trial.)

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pm While I agree a person could read into Alabaster's comments, I don't think there's much there to be read in the end. He's just a belligerent, condescending old man. :P
Just noting down tidbits that could conceivably be of interest to someone hypothetically writing a story in that time period :P

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pmThe Templar have a just purpose: they exist to protect Humanity from the Keidran threat (among others). They are border guards and soldiers, sentinels, diplomats, and guardians.
On a personal and practical level, sure. But since we're talking on a very high level here, there isn't anything just about defending your encroachment of other people's lands.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#34 Post by avwolf »

amenon wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:52 pm
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pmI guess there's still no reasonable explanation for why the Basitins would want the Grand Templar, unless the goal was just to make the conditions of Keith's exile impossible to complete.
And it's borderline inexplicable that Albion didn't try any rules-lawyering, since not only was Trace not the Grand Templar when the order was issued, he also wasn't anymore by the time Keith brought him back :P (Of course, perhaps he would have gotten into that at the trial.)
Right. That's the other side of the coin. It really doesn't make any sense for Keith to have brought Trace Legacy back unless he was ordered to bring back Trace Legacy specifically. (I mean, Basitins being Basitins and Alabaster being Alabaster, can you imagine Alabaster agreeing to conditions of return for Keith that were anything but completely explicit and impossible to misinterpret?) And what would the Basitins do with an ambitious Templar battlemage of no particular importance? Had he recently done something that earned him that Dukedom and thus drew the Basitins' attention? We don't know how the son of a farmer became Duke of Edinmire, after all -- perhaps he performed some martial service to the King that made the Basitins think of him as someone it might be useful to speak to.

...Or maybe it wasn't a martial service? What if their King had just fallen ill? (We don't know when King Adelaide's illness began.) What if Trace had cured the Human King of some ailment -- which caused the King to grant him noble title -- and the Basitins saw Trace as a healer (wouldn't that be ironic?) who might be able to help their own King? So then eventually Trace reached out to the Basitins and found them willing, hence his opening for getting his own man on the island to begin to "rot the Basitins from the inside out," but Keith's orders, of course, could not be changed. They didn't need Trace anymore when Keith returned, so they were happy to hand him back off to the Templar, in exchange for everything Trace had already done for them (because, after all, they didn't know about his duplicity), but Trace was the man Keith was sent to get, so there's no rules-lawyering out of Keith returning with Trace.

If you have time to review what we know of Keith's conditions for return, that might shed light on at least that hypothesis (I unfortunately, lack the time for research at the moment). Randall seems loyal to Trace, so he might plausibly have continued to refer to Trace as the Grand Templar, even after Trace lost his memory and threw the Templar hierarchy into upheaval. In that case, the Basitins might keep referring to Trace simply by title, as "Grand Templar," even though they meant "the person Trace Legacy." Rank and title are critically important to them and used explicitly in their society as preference for given names, after all. Only Keith would have the familiarity to call Trace "Trace," in any kind of a public or official setting; he should be accorded rank and title based on what we know of Basitin mores.
amenon wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:52 pm
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pmWhile I agree a person could read into Alabaster's comments, I don't think there's much there to be read in the end. He's just a belligerent, condescending old man. :P
Just noting down tidbits that could conceivably be of interest to someone hypothetically writing a story in that time period :P
I'm sure such a hypothetical person would appreciate the highlight of the passage, being as such a hypothetical story could play off of the exact language in all kinds of directions. I mean, what if "The Templar should have put you down when they had the chance" alludes to a much earlier event than anything so far depicted in the comic... (Our hypothetical person could go all boring and make it when Trace initially went crazy, but that'd require Alabaster to accept and admit that magic can make you crazy, and I don't know that he's willing to go that far. :P)
amenon wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:52 pm
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pmThe Templar have a just purpose: they exist to protect Humanity from the Keidran threat (among others). They are border guards and soldiers, sentinels, diplomats, and guardians.
On a personal and practical level, sure. But since we're talking on a very high level here, there isn't anything just about defending your encroachment of other people's lands.
We don't know the details, so I'm not sure I'm prepared to take a strong stand on "encroachment." Given the known history of Humans and Keidran, my guess would be that the Keidran viewed some small encroachment with hostility (i.e. something like the small colonization/trade outposts the Humans were establishing) and declared war. Which they then embarrassingly lost, and as a result, lost territory, as territorial exchanges would have been both common and reasonable as spoils of war. Edinmire may well have once been Keidran territory, but it may also have been traded away or lost in war, without necessarily been something which was "encroached upon." We simply don't know the details there. I doubt that it's a simple case of right or wrong though -- one thing I love about Twokinds is that there aren't any outright good guys and bad guys (with the possible exception of Keith, really, though he's now getting into breaking the law and abusing his power since he's now under the law and has power). Everything's been pretty much in grey areas where both sides claim the moral high horse and neither side is entitled to it. I would guess this is much the same.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#35 Post by Technic[Bot] »

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pm We actually don't know what the Towers are supposed to do. Euchre has stated that they're based around the idea of "using [the Keidran's] own instincts against [them]", but exactly what that means is unknown (as amenon comments above). My operating supposition is that the reference to abusing instincts is to draw the Keidran into a trap, where they get close enough to the Towers for the Tower Network to execute its purpose and drain the life energy from as many Keidran as possible (perhaps using metaphysical linkages like "love" or "family" to also get the ones that are out of immediate range, not unlike Order of the Stick's Familicide spell). This life energy would have been intended then to facilitate Saria's resurrection, as that would allow Trace to store and wield more Black Mana than a person normally could. I like that idea because it transforms the Towers' tendency to pull Black Mana from the environment from a bug into a feature. I don't know if that's all true, but it's the Tower explanation I am currently most enamored by. (I wrote about it in long form and a fair amount of detail about three years ago, if you're curious about my complete reasoning.)
Quite an interesting read to be honest.
However as far as i remember the Towers sinking black mana was a one time thing. Only possible since Trace was plugged into the Tower and went haywire when Flora was attacked. Since he probably designed the things himseld I simply assumed her reversed the Tower to get the power he neede at the moment. Yet i tend to read too fast so I sometimes omit the details...
On the other hand I just went Occam Razor about the towers. If the Basitian Tower was meant to lobotomize the basitian, why would the design for the rest of the Towers be any different? For all we know Crazy Trace might have given up enterily on resurrection and is only focused on revenge.
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pm The Templar have a just purpose: they exist to protect Humanity from the Keidran threat (among others). They are border guards and soldiers, sentinels, diplomats, and guardians. That's how they ended up in the position of power they are now in. There might be a slightly higher than average number of racists among them (and almost certainly that is so now, since Trace was Grand Templar), but the whole organization shouldn't necessarily be categorized as such. Trace has long (well before he became Grand Templar) sought the glory of conflict with the Keidran. He was young, and youth often dreams of battle's glory and the honor earned in blood; not realizing its consequence or that it is ultimately ash and horror. Since a man driven mad by grief and foul magics took over, he appointed (mostly) those who saw things his way into positions of power around him, and now they drive the war machine. Then again, so much of it was already in motion by the time Ephemural acted, it's questionable how much even a peace-loving Grand Templar could do now.

Trace's actions regarding Laura seemed to be because of something specific about Laura -- that she reminded him of Saria in some fashion -- rather than any actual kind feelings about Foxes. He certainly bears a particular grudge toward the Wolves, but I don't think any Keidran are spared in his wrath, except on a case-by-case basis. And possibly as mind-dominated slaves.
I always assumed humans on Mekkan to be mostly racist. Sure there are some good guys. Saria seemed to be opposed to slavery and treated Rose well. But the average layman seems to have a pretty bad opinion on Keidran. By extension an armed magical militia such as the templars meant to "protect" the humans stuck me as more racist for some reason. But that is open to interpretation.

I've been thinking about the Laura and came to the conclusion that she had plot armor at the moment. She needed to live to save the day 6 years later.
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pm
amenon wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:52 pm
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 5:18 pmThe Templar have a just purpose: they exist to protect Humanity from the Keidran threat (among others). They are border guards and soldiers, sentinels, diplomats, and guardians.
On a personal and practical level, sure. But since we're talking on a very high level here, there isn't anything just about defending your encroachment of other people's lands.
We don't know the details, so I'm not sure I'm prepared to take a strong stand on "encroachment." Given the known history of Humans and Keidran, my guess would be that the Keidran viewed some small encroachment with hostility (i.e. something like the small colonization/trade outposts the Humans were establishing) and declared war. Which they then embarrassingly lost, and as a result, lost territory, as territorial exchanges would have been both common and reasonable as spoils of war. Edinmire may well have once been Keidran territory, but it may also have been traded away or lost in war, without necessarily been something which was "encroached upon." We simply don't know the details there. I doubt that it's a simple case of right or wrong though -- one thing I love about Twokinds is that there aren't any outright good guys and bad guys (with the possible exception of Keith, really, though he's now getting into breaking the law and abusing his power since he's now under the law and has power). Everything's been pretty much in grey areas where both sides claim the moral high horse and neither side is entitled to it. I would guess this is much the same.
Considering Tom has made information about Mekkan, history ,politics, organization etc, incredibly scarce. even after 14 years. I doubt we will ever know how Edinmire was annexed into the human empire. So alll we have is supositions. But I personall ythink the humans did not get Edinmire by asking nicely.
Whatever the case i agree with you second point. Unlike most media where there is a good guy who needs to beat bad guy to save the day. TwoKinds prefers to give you food for thought and play on the much more interesting gray areas.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#36 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pm ...Or maybe it wasn't a martial service? What if their King had just fallen ill? (We don't know when King Adelaide's illness began.) What if Trace had cured the Human King of some ailment -- which caused the King to grant him noble title -- and the Basitins saw Trace as a healer (wouldn't that be ironic?) who might be able to help their own King?
Ah, but if they actually wanted Trace they wouldn't have sent Keith :P

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pmIf you have time to review what we know of Keith's conditions for return, that might shed light on at least that hypothesis (I unfortunately, lack the time for research at the moment).
I absolutely half-assed this, but here's what I know: References are explicitly to Trace. (1, 2) Indeed, as far as I can tell nobody refers to Trace as the Grand Templar during the entire arc, which betrayed my memory and expectations. (To the degree where it makes me a bit suspicious of my corpus.)

The character page does say he was ordered to bring back the Grand Templar, but I'm not inclined to give that any weight without supporting evidence. It does serve to muddy the waters, though.

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pmI'm sure such a hypothetical person would appreciate the highlight of the passage, being as such a hypothetical story could play off of the exact language in all kinds of directions. I mean, what if "The Templar should have put you down when they had the chance" alludes to a much earlier event than anything so far depicted in the comic... (Our hypothetical person could go all boring and make it when Trace initially went crazy, but that'd require Alabaster to accept and admit that magic can make you crazy, and I don't know that he's willing to go that far. :P)
Some other hypothetical person might now be inclined to cast this as a story of illicit love, lost and lorn, turned to resentment :P

avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pmWe don't know the details, so I'm not sure I'm prepared to take a strong stand on "encroachment."
The humans are now where humans once were not, with a slave economy of the indigenous peoples. (Or at least an economy of such slaves; but a slave economy seems expected, since I don't quite see slaves being a luxury good market.) It is not necessary to know what the steps along that road were to know it was not lined with virtue, and 'encroachment' was if anything too polite and euphemistic a term :P

Of course, the wolves are no better. They're made worse by their society being particularly odious in a way the human one isn't, and leavened only by their relative historical inability to execute their agenda compared to the humans. Certainly they would like to destroy the humans, but nobody with access to the narrative facts takes that as a serious threat.

So I would say that there certainly are bad guys in this story; it's the existence of the good guys that's in question :P Still, as far as I can remember, we don't know anything untoward about the tigers, the foxes, or the snow wolves. And the basitins are, well, basitins, but I would personally be pretty prepared to count them as good. Or possibly somewhat orthogonal to conventional morality.

And of course, there are plenty of characters that are good or good-ish people. Keith, Flora, Mike, Raine, Kat, Laura... there are more, but these are the ones that quickly came to mind as pretty clear-cut cases.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#37 Post by avwolf »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:18 amHowever as far as i remember the Towers sinking black mana was a one time thing. Only possible since Trace was plugged into the Tower and went haywire when Flora was attacked. Since he probably designed the things himseld I simply assumed her reversed the Tower to get the power he neede at the moment. Yet i tend to read too fast so I sometimes omit the details...
So a lot of that is drawn from Tom's DA, when he did a cutout of the Tower design. Specifically he notes that the design of the towers seem to have a side effect -- that they draw life energy from their surroundings once they exhaust the local mana flow.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:18 amOn the other hand I just went Occam Razor about the towers. If the Basitian Tower was meant to lobotomize the basitian, why would the design for the rest of the Towers be any different? For all we know Crazy Trace might have given up enterily on resurrection and is only focused on revenge.
Which is, of course, a fair perspective to argue. We can safely assume that the mechanisms must be different though, because Keidran can use magic safely. Basitins cannot. It was not so much the Tower in and of itself which was lobotomizing the Basitin leadership as it was the Tower making mana available to them and them putting it to use. Clearly from Alabaster's array of mana stones when he tried to stop the party from destroying the Tower, once they are properly trained, a Basitin can also use mana stones. In either event, they destroy their minds, as we know from what happened to Vehra. But, as I said, there's plenty of room to argue that the Towers have a more...corrupting design for use against Keidran than what I have suggested.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:18 amI always assumed humans on Mekkan to be mostly racist. Sure there are some good guys. Saria seemed to be opposed to slavery and treated Rose well. But the average layman seems to have a pretty bad opinion on Keidran. By extension an armed magical militia such as the templars meant to "protect" the humans stuck me as more racist for some reason. But that is open to interpretation.
Really no more racist than the Keidran or Basitins, and not for wholly undeserved reasons. The Keidran have shown themselves to be as ignorant and racist regarding Humans as the Humans are to them (given their shared history of conflict, that's not entirely surprising), and they're also pretty racist between the various sub-species of Keidran. The Basitins respect Humans only because the Humans were the ones who beat them in the original invasion. Basitins see Keidran as weak, promiscuous, and disorderly, and therefore look down on them.

The argument isn't so much that "humans on Mekkan [are] mostly racist," as it is "everybody on Mekkan is mostly racist." :P

To a large degree, the judgement of racism on the societies of Mekkan is as much a product of our cultural assumptions as it is their (fictional) cultures. How you define "racism" affects how racist you think the situation is. I tend to feel that the Basitins are pretty racist, with their harrumphing about all these promiscuous Keidran, going around and touching each other every day, outside of the privacy of the marriage home during their scheduled two week period for reproduction (they'd probably say the same about Humans, but they respect Human magic and therefore hold their tongues). But that's definitely my culture talking. I don't tend to personally see the institution of the Templar as racist (although the implementation of that institution often leaves something to be desired) because I see them more as border guards against a frequently hostile neighboring nation than an organization designed from the ground up to "keep the Keidran in their place." Our own opinions color our perspectives. Again, I really like this about Tom's work. It's intricate and very rarely based on obvious strawman or black-and-white moral contrivances. Instead, all of these very flawed and realistic individuals are forced to confront their own feelings and perspectives and learn about each other.

Of course, we should see a lot of flavors of racism in the comic, since that's the meta plot. The whole goal of the comic, to drag this back around to the thread topic (more or less) is to get these characters past their own racism and try to move them to the one place in Mekkan that is an idyllic village without racism clouding every individual's thoughts.
Technic[Bot] wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 2:18 amI've been thinking about the Laura and came to the conclusion that she had plot armor at the moment. She needed to live to save the day 6 years later.
And here I thought she needed to live to complicate Keith and Natani's budding romance some years later. :P

I am going to push you to look past mere plot armor and see what it does to the characters. Because, quite frankly, if all Tom needed was "Laura regrets her decision to send Keith away but turns back from following him though eventually goes to look for him on the Basidian Isle so that she'll be there to save the day and die, redeeming her character," then he really didn't need to have her captured by slavers at all. She could have just stumbled on the carnage of Trace's revenge without being captured; maybe even without actually seeing Trace. That alone would have gotten her to turn back -- her great failing, or what she took as her great failing, was something like cowardice. She didn't need to be captured to make her afraid. So the contrivance of Trace and Laura meeting and Trace sparing Laura's life must have a purpose beyond simply Laura living to save the day at the Basidian Tower.
amenon wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:00 pm
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pm...Or maybe it wasn't a martial service? What if their King had just fallen ill? (We don't know when King Adelaide's illness began.) What if Trace had cured the Human King of some ailment -- which caused the King to grant him noble title -- and the Basitins saw Trace as a healer (wouldn't that be ironic?) who might be able to help their own King?
Ah, but if they actually wanted Trace they wouldn't have sent Keith :P
:P One does what one can with the tools one has. Two birds and all. If Keith succeeds, great. If he doesn't, well, that's what the delegation Vehra was in is all about anyway.

I just hope there's some kind of reasonable explanation. I'm trying, darn it! :P
amenon wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:00 pm
avwolf wrote: Mon Feb 05, 2018 6:26 pmI'm sure such a hypothetical person would appreciate the highlight of the passage, being as such a hypothetical story could play off of the exact language in all kinds of directions. I mean, what if "The Templar should have put you down when they had the chance" alludes to a much earlier event than anything so far depicted in the comic... (Our hypothetical person could go all boring and make it when Trace initially went crazy, but that'd require Alabaster to accept and admit that magic can make you crazy, and I don't know that he's willing to go that far. :P)
Some other hypothetical person might now be inclined to cast this as a story of illicit love, lost and lorn, turned to resentment :P
That will be an interesting hypothetical story to result in that line spoken to Trace. ;) I mean, the whole "Alaric and Keith mirror Alabaster and Cornelius" (to stick with last name of the other and first name of the Keiser) is pretty obvious, but that shouldn't result in a comment about the Templar to Trace.

amenon wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:00 pmSo I would say that there certainly are bad guys in this story; it's the existence of the good guys that's in question :P Still, as far as I can remember, we don't know anything untoward about the tigers, the foxes, or the snow wolves. And the basitins are, well, basitins, but I would personally be pretty prepared to count them as good. Or possibly somewhat orthogonal to conventional morality.

And of course, there are plenty of characters that are good or good-ish people. Keith, Flora, Mike, Raine, Kat, Laura... there are more, but these are the ones that quickly came to mind as pretty clear-cut cases.
Like you say, there are definitely a fair number of good-ish people around, but this is not a very cheerful story of lightness and jest. Not nearly so much as it oft pretends to be. :P
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Re: Orchard Valley

#38 Post by amenon »

avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm I tend to feel that the Basitins are pretty racist, with their harrumphing about all these promiscuous Keidran, going around and touching each other every day, outside of the privacy of the marriage home during their scheduled two week period for reproduction (they'd probably say the same about Humans, but they respect Human magic and therefore hold their tongues).
Verily. And yet, they respect (to put it mildly) the rule of law, and in a personal-liberties sense actually treat outsiders better (that is to say, more laxly) than their own people. They were kind to Laura. As far as we know, they don't have slavery. And they haven't made trouble for anyone except themselves in a long time.

avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pmBut that's definitely my culture talking. I don't tend to personally see the institution of the Templar as racist (although the implementation of that institution often leaves something to be desired) because I see them more as border guards against a frequently hostile neighboring nation than an organization designed from the ground up to "keep the Keidran in their place."
And I see them more as the murderers of innocents and children. And that was under the previous, more benevolent leadership! (Yes, I know the WoG relating to that, and I'll even grant it for the purposes of the discussion. There is no justice in killing children. Not likely to be a whole lot of justice in killing women, either, given wolf society.)

Another thing I keep thinking of is the the case of Flora, who was captured by slavers who attacked her home and killed her parents. Not always a particularly noble border to defend, I'd imagine :|

Edit: To be clear, I'm not exactly arguing that the Templar are a racist organization, but rather that it's a bit of a moot point because they're worse than racist :P

avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pmOf course, we should see a lot of flavors of racism in the comic, since that's the meta plot. The whole goal of the comic, to drag this back around to the thread topic (more or less) is to get these characters past their own racism and try to move them to the one place in Mekkan that is an idyllic village without racism clouding every individual's thoughts.
You don't really think that's the goal, do you? :P

avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm I just hope there's some kind of reasonable explanation. I'm trying, darn it! :P
Alas, there is much mystery around Keith, and that isn't even the biggest one. I'd like to know what he did for about five or so years before the comic started! :P

avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm Like you say, there are definitely a fair number of good-ish people around, but this is not a very cheerful story of lightness and jest. Not nearly so much as it oft pretends to be. :P
The contrast between content and tone is very real sometimes.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#39 Post by Technic[Bot] »

[/quote] <- yeah i left this on porpouse
avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm
So a lot of that is drawn from Tom's DA, when he did a cutout of the Tower design. Specifically he notes that the design of the towers seem to have a side effect -- that they draw life energy from their surroundings once they exhaust the local mana flow.
Very interesitng. I am honestly surprised that Tom puts som much nuance into his story. Seems uncommon to find someone so passionate. In any case I see it like a simple design flaw. That Trace abused when he needed to
avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm
Which is, of course, a fair perspective to argue. We can safely assume that the mechanisms must be different though, because Keidran can use magic safely. Basitins cannot. It was not so much the Tower in and of itself which was lobotomizing the Basitin leadership as it was the Tower making mana available to them and them putting it to use. Clearly from Alabaster's array of mana stones when he tried to stop the party from destroying the Tower, once they are properly trained, a Basitin can also use mana stones. In either event, they destroy their minds, as we know from what happened to Vehra. But, as I said, there's plenty of room to argue that the Towers have a more...corrupting design for use against Keidran than what I have suggested.
Fair enough different biology. Different lobotomizer. Also, in my defense, i have only known the comic for less than a month, i am unfamilair with most of the little details Tom seems to love adding.
avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm Really no more racist than the Keidran or Basitins, and not for wholly undeserved reasons. The Keidran have shown themselves to be as ignorant and racist regarding Humans as the Humans are to them (given their shared history of conflict, that's not entirely surprising), and they're also pretty racist between the various sub-species of Keidran. The Basitins respect Humans only because the Humans were the ones who beat them in the original invasion. Basitins see Keidran as weak, promiscuous, and disorderly, and therefore look down on them.

The argument isn't so much that "humans on Mekkan [are] mostly racist," as it is "everybody on Mekkan is mostly racist." :P

To a large degree, the judgement of racism on the societies of Mekkan is as much a product of our cultural assumptions as it is their (fictional) cultures. How you define "racism" affects how racist you think the situation is. I tend to feel that the Basitins are pretty racist, with their harrumphing about all these promiscuous Keidran, going around and touching each other every day, outside of the privacy of the marriage home during their scheduled two week period for reproduction (they'd probably say the same about Humans, but they respect Human magic and therefore hold their tongues). But that's definitely my culture talking. I don't tend to personally see the institution of the Templar as racist (although the implementation of that institution often leaves something to be desired) because I see them more as border guards against a frequently hostile neighboring nation than an organization designed from the ground up to "keep the Keidran in their place." Our own opinions color our perspectives. Again, I really like this about Tom's work. It's intricate and very rarely based on obvious strawman or black-and-white moral contrivances. Instead, all of these very flawed and realistic individuals are forced to confront their own feelings and perspectives and learn about each other.

Of course, we should see a lot of flavors of racism in the comic, since that's the meta plot. The whole goal of the comic, to drag this back around to the thread topic (more or less) is to get these characters past their own racism and try to move them to the one place in Mekkan that is an idyllic village without racism clouding every individual's thoughts.
Human- Keidran realations were cordial when they first meet sharing food and whatnot. This, of course, went down the toilet pretty fast and the human presence in the area quickly took colonnialist overtones, thougth as you point out that could be my culture talking. Personally i find the whole idea of the Templars as being simply guardsmen formed to "just defend" their new colonies lands as a bit farfetched.
Alas never said anyone was better. Keidran rutinely sell their own kind for fun and profit. Basitin are incredibly condescend at best and even Flora was discriminated by her peers because she did not sounded "keidran enough". So yeah everybody is a racist and that includes the crazy battlemages.

On a different note i always percieved the "meta" being that all this racism and discrimination was not really natural for anyone, that is is based on prejudices and biases and that if we could somehow get rid of that 'mental/emotional' baggage we could stop being so damn racist. The valley, as i see it, is a concrete goal that embodies such "meta". But i doubt will be the end.
avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm I am going to push you to look past mere plot armor and see what it does to the characters. Because, quite frankly, if all Tom needed was "Laura regrets her decision to send Keith away but turns back from following him though eventually goes to look for him on the Basidian Isle so that she'll be there to save the day and die, redeeming her character," then he really didn't need to have her captured by slavers at all. She could have just stumbled on the carnage of Trace's revenge without being captured; maybe even without actually seeing Trace. That alone would have gotten her to turn back -- her great failing, or what she took as her great failing, was something like cowardice. She didn't need to be captured to make her afraid. So the contrivance of Trace and Laura meeting and Trace sparing Laura's life must have a purpose beyond simply Laura living to save the day at the Basidian Tower.
And this comic gets deeper and more nuanced the more i look at it. It Just blows my mind.
avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm Like you say, there are definitely a fair number of good-ish people around, but this is not a very cheerful story of lightness and jest. Not nearly so much as it oft pretends to be. :P
When i first found the comic i expected to be a cheerful, family friendly furry romatic-comedy . I have never been so wrong before...
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Re: Orchard Valley

#40 Post by Hulk10 »

It will be interesting to see Orchard Valley. I do hope its the paradise its hyped to be but I have my doubts.
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Re: Orchard Valley

#41 Post by Cpt.Obvious »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:37 am
avwolf wrote: Tue Feb 06, 2018 7:47 pm Which is, of course, a fair perspective to argue. We can safely assume that the mechanisms must be different though, because Keidran can use magic safely. Basitins cannot. It was not so much the Tower in and of itself which was lobotomizing the Basitin leadership as it was the Tower making mana available to them and them putting it to use. Clearly from Alabaster's array of mana stones when he tried to stop the party from destroying the Tower, once they are properly trained, a Basitin can also use mana stones. In either event, they destroy their minds, as we know from what happened to Vehra. But, as I said, there's plenty of room to argue that the Towers have a more...corrupting design for use against Keidran than what I have suggested.
Fair enough different biology. Different lobotomizer. Also, in my defense, i have only known the comic for less than a month, i am unfamilair with most of the little details Tom seems to love adding.
Regarding the towers I don't think they have to be any more "corrupting" to the Keidran than they are. First of all they are to be power reservoirs available to the Templar for powering spells they couldn't otherwise use, and I can see these being used in combat with the Keidran. Having a lot of their troops being able to use magic and having these siphoning power from the towers enabling both more powerful spells and casting them repeatedly without feeling the drain would be a huge advantage for the humans.

The fact that the towers supposedly drains the area of mana is also interesting. Depending on how large this area is it's possible that this is another indirect attack at the Keidran. If the towers can drain the mana from whatever quarries the mana crystals used by the Keidran come from, then they may severely cripple the magic available to them. This is however just a speculation.

Another possibility is that the towers and the power stored in them are intended to be used for some kind of ritual magic, and if that's the case then things could get really ugly.

All of these theories and many more are possible without the towers having to differ from the one they tried to build on the island of Basitin.

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Re: Orchard Valley

#42 Post by Warrl »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:37 amOn a different note i always percieved the "meta" being that all this racism and discrimination was not really natural for anyone, that is is based on prejudices and biases and that if we could somehow get rid of that 'mental/emotional' baggage we could stop being so damn racist. The valley, as i see it, is a concrete goal that embodies such "meta". But i doubt will be the end.
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Image
Hulk10 wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 7:43 am It will be interesting to see Orchard Valley. I do hope its the paradise its hyped to be but I have my doubts.
Either:
1) they don't get there
2) they get there and it is, or soon becomes, rather less idyllic than expected
3) they get there and "live happily ever after", i.e. that's the end of the story

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Re: Orchard Valley

#43 Post by Schrodinger »

Warrl wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:50 pm
Technic[Bot] wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 5:37 amOn a different note i always percieved the "meta" being that all this racism and discrimination was not really natural for anyone, that is is based on prejudices and biases and that if we could somehow get rid of that 'mental/emotional' baggage we could stop being so damn racist. The valley, as i see it, is a concrete goal that embodies such "meta". But i doubt will be the end.
Image
Image
Hulk10 wrote: Wed Feb 07, 2018 7:43 am It will be interesting to see Orchard Valley. I do hope its the paradise its hyped to be but I have my doubts.
Either:
1) they don't get there
2) they get there and it is, or soon becomes, rather less idyllic than expected
3) they get there and "live happily ever after", i.e. that's the end of the story
One thing I'd like to see is, if they get there and it's less than perfect, Trace getting the last line of the comic to the effect of, "It's not perfect. But it's a start."
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Re: Orchard Valley

#44 Post by Technic[Bot] »

Schrodinger wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:46 pm
Warrl wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:50 pm Either:
1) they don't get there
2) they get there and it is, or soon becomes, rather less idyllic than expected
3) they get there and "live happily ever after", i.e. that's the end of the story
One thing I'd like to see is, if they get there and it's less than perfect, Trace getting the last line of the comic to the effect of, "It's not perfect. But it's a start."
Well maybe they wont let Trace into the town. After all he was the crazy genocidal leader of the Templars. Sure he is amnesiac now but still.
Imagine if you were the town guard, or anything to that effect, and you see the Templar former leader, the same Templar order who posted a bounty to find the town. And then he tries to sell you this story that he somehow lost his memories and only want to live in peace with his wife. The tiger girl who also hapens to be carrying their unborn child, even thouth you know that is not possible.
Would you let that guy in?
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Re: Orchard Valley

#45 Post by Hulk10 »

Technic[Bot] wrote: Sat Feb 17, 2018 3:29 am
Schrodinger wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:46 pm
Warrl wrote: Fri Feb 16, 2018 4:50 pm Either:
1) they don't get there
2) they get there and it is, or soon becomes, rather less idyllic than expected
3) they get there and "live happily ever after", i.e. that's the end of the story
One thing I'd like to see is, if they get there and it's less than perfect, Trace getting the last line of the comic to the effect of, "It's not perfect. But it's a start."
Well maybe they wont let Trace into the town. After all he was the crazy genocidal leader of the Templars. Sure he is amnesiac now but still.
Imagine if you were the town guard, or anything to that effect, and you see the Templar former leader, the same Templar order who posted a bounty to find the town. And then he tries to sell you this story that he somehow lost his memories and only want to live in peace with his wife. The tiger girl who also hapens to be carrying their unborn child, even thouth you know that is not possible.
Would you let that guy in?
Probably not unless he could prove his story was true.
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