Page 217: Where is Cloud?

[Cthulhu]

Oh, no, poor Cloud, we hardly knew ye.

Some Umiak client races have a lot of autonomy and retain it so long they meet their tribute (resource extraction) quotas.

The word you're probably looking for is "slavery".

[avatar576]

Well....damn.
I had hoped it wouldn't come to this, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized this was the only possible outcome. As Beryl said, it would have seemed highly suspicious to the Umiak (or anyone) to find an unmanned shuttle. An unmanned shuttle laden with 50-odd alien Loroi-ish corpses in boxes. An unmanned shuttle that was executing high-speed maneuvers to dodge a missile barrage only a few hours earlier.
Let's remember also that the Umiak are highly detail-oriented. If they knew about the shuttle as they were savaging the outpost, they would not have forgotten about it so soon after the outpost was destroyed. So, it was inevitable that the shuttle would be found.

And now we know why Cloud gave Alex her comb. Seemed like an odd thing to do at the time. I had assumed she was either just too shy, not fluent enough in Trade to speak, or just not wanting to make skin-to-skin contact with the alien. But now we know: "Remember me."

On a rather morbid note, I'm certain the other Loroi must have known the instant Cloud pulled the trigger. Would the Loroi feel/sense anything telepathically, other than one of their number ceasing to exist? Would Cloud have sent a "farewell" message just before? Would the others be sending her comfort or telling her to hurry up and get on with it? Or would they give her some kind of telepathic "space" because "privacy, please, this is a personal moment?"

RIP, Cloud. Gone but not forgotten.

[avatar576]

If cloud refused, not only would it make the other Loroi view her as selfish and cowardly, but the stern look Fireblade gave her seemed to imply that Fireblade would not accept noncompliance.

Looking back, I think Beryl was the one who was to enforce compliance if necessary. Clues:
P.200 -- Beryl appears preoccupied while helping Alex into his pressure suit. Meanwhile, Tempo and Fireblade appear to be casting furtive glances in Alex's direction. They may be discussing what to do with him should the worst happen, as Alex thinks. Or they may be looking at Beryl instead: "Can we count on her to do the job if Cloud loses her nerve?"
P.202 -- They haven't been boarded yet, but Beryl is readying her pistol, and appears to watching Cloud carefully. If Cloud got cold feet, hesitated too long, or freaked out, Beryl was Cloud's kaishakunin.

To use Fireblade would have been...cruel. And unconvincing to the Umiak. Fireblade doesn't use weapons. To kill Cloud, Fireblade would use a psi attack. That would leave poor Cloud as a pulpy blue smear against the bulkhead. It wouldn't have looked like a suicide.

[Bamax]

I never thought she would use a telekinetic attack to kill Cloud directly... but she would use it to restrain her or even force her to pull the trigger with her own hands via telekinesis.

[avatar576]

I never thought she would use a telekinetic attack to kill Cloud directly... but she would use it to restrain her or even force her to pull the trigger with her own hands via telekinesis.

Fireblade lacks that kind of control over her powers. As I understand it, she can either shove things really hard (as she demonstrated with Alex and the Umiak hardtroop), or shove things really, really, really hard (which we haven't seen...yet). I suppose she could do a "sustained shove" for at least a few seconds to keep her pinned while someone else shot her. Tempo, on the other hand, could probably manipulate the trigger, if the weapon were already aimed. But I don't think either of them could force Cloud's hand to aim the pistol at her head and pull the trigger, especially if she were resisting. All of which seems a bit excessive anyways. Easier to just keep a second weapon at the ready, and I think that's what Beryl was doing there on p. 202.

[Bamax]

I never thought she would use a telekinetic attack to kill Cloud directly... but she would use it to restrain her or even force her to pull the trigger with her own hands via telekinesis.

Fireblade lacks that kind of control over her powers. As I understand it, she can either shove things really hard (as she demonstrated with Alex and the Umiak hardtroop), or shove things really, really, really hard (which we haven't seen...yet). I suppose she could do a "sustained shove" for at least a few seconds to keep her pinned while someone else shot her. Tempo, on the other hand, could probably manipulate the trigger, if the weapon were already aimed. But I don't think either of them could force Cloud's hand to aim the pistol at her head and pull the trigger, especially if she were resisting. All of which seems a bit excessive anyways. Easier to just keep a second weapon at the ready, and I think that's what Beryl was doing there on p. 202.

Do not underestimate what a skilled Mizol and a powerful Teidar can do.

Umiak fear them so much they rather blow up their own ship to kill them than dare fight them off person to person.

To a Umiak.... every Loroi is a potential superhero in disguise so I think they truly fear them.

What is going down in the comic is literally the nightmare of every Umiak in the Umiak Star Navy.

The Umiak commander could chat confidently with Stillstorm because he is far enough away that he did not view her as an immediate threat.

Otherwise he would have done more fleeing for his life than chatting with the one responsible for killing so many in the Umiak Star Navy.

[bunnyboy]

Jardin is having a culture shock.
Being killed in accident or enemy is one thing, to being killed to sell their disquise was just not comprehensible.

Now I also understand the page 206: "There is only dead bodies here. Just like at previous room."
Though I knew it, I did not comprehend it before.

Which leads to next level on Umiak horror at next pages when they have "zombieloroi" attack on their ship.

[Overkill Engine]

In context this should also highlight how dire things are for the Loroi crew - no hesitation to sacrifice one of their own when the cost of not doing so is that they all die.

War is a very ugly thing whose face people forget as soon as they are able.

[Krulle]

In clouds case, i could see her last orders being "shoot them as they breach and fight till the last round. Then make your choice, by there hand or yours, Die with honor in battle."

And if it goes wrong, she's captured alive...
With all the experimentation the Umiak did on Seren's population, I wonder how good their mind trawls or medical resurrection technologies are, especially if the subject is not dead for more than 20 minutes....

Direct suicide tho would play the bit they are selling somewhat. To me it would look suspect in my eyes as a leader. She has air, food, water and power (tho limited). There is hope of rescue for her still, so why suicide? even more so in a warrior race, she would rather die fighting than turn over the ship to the enemy.

It might become masked as a civilian doing the piloting, and why would a civilian fight?
And the Umiak pretty surely know what the others think about how they treat their prisoners.
And that most subjects would not want to be caught.

And the suicide only happened shortly before the shuttle got boarded anyway.
Correct timing in my opinion.

If she fought to the last round tho, it would show a. she is the only one onboard since no one helped and b. something worth fighting for is onboard, as in cargo. Since she just didn't wait for them to dock and then self destruct.

Because there was no self-destruct, there's nothing worth to prevent from falling into the enemy's hands (or claws).
And if there's nothing of value to prevent from falling in the Umiak's claws, the chance is, that they might become slightly less careful, as there's nothing to fight for.

It was also re-enforced by them going right to the cargo hold (in mass) after taking the ship, and from what i saw, only doing a basic check for the rest of the ship. Yah one came back to check for them, but only one.

The cargo-hold is where anything valuable for any war effort might be stored.
And we did not see how many went for the passenger compartment or the "bridge".

And "only one" might be the result of Tempo projecting into the single Umiak's mind an image of an empty cupboard, so the rest got the information that the cupboard contains no supplies and is empty. Why check it again?

We don't know, we are not privy to the Sanzai magicks happening there.



But the value of life is for a species that has such a steep exponential population growth curve simply less than for us Humans.
Look at rabbits. The value of a single one is negligible, since they can repopulate the lost one very fast. Now the fox, who slay the rabbit, thinks differently and will to a much larger degree defend its offspring.

[Snoofman]

Do not underestimate what a skilled Mizol and a powerful Teidar can do.

Umiak fear them so much they rather blow up their own ship to kill them than dare fight them off person to person.

To a Umiak.... every Loroi is a potential superhero in disguise so I think they truly fear them.

What is going down in the comic is literally the nightmare of every Umiak in the Umiak Star Navy.

The Umiak commander could chat confidently with Stillstorm because he is far enough away that he did not view her as an immediate threat.

Otherwise he would have done more fleeing for his life than chatting with the one responsible for killing so many in the Umiak Star Navy.

It’s no wonder the Shells have a concept of Witches and address the loroi as such.

[Cthulhu]

Umiak fear them so much they rather blow up their own ship to kill them than dare fight them off person to person.

It’s no wonder the Shells have a concept of Witches and address the loroi as such.

Have you ever entertained the idea that both statements could be nothing but propaganda?

The Umiak might disseminate a monstrous image of the Loroi, all in order to scare their subordinate species into toiling even harder. Also, this could be an attempt at explaining their xenocide on Seren.

The Loroi, in this case, Beryl, might embellish their racial abilities as to impress Alex, or just to ensure his compliance. The plan to hijack the ship is a highly dangerous mission with low chances of success, and the alien could attempt some sort of double-crossing, or just surrender. It is merely a male, after all.

[Zorg56]

They dont need to go far if even to show loroi as something scary.
Telepathic creature that can read your thoughts, hack electronics, kill and destroy with only their will or even enslave someones mind.
Sounds about thousand times scarier to me then however giant bug horde Umiak hierarchy is.

[Voitan]

RIP cloud. Looks like a rainy day.

[Keklas Rekobah]

#217 reveals why we probably should not think of the Loroi as just a species of happy, fun, space elf hotties. They have a warrior mentality on par with that of General George S. Patton.

[Bamax]

They dont need to go far if even to show loroi as something scary.
Telepathic creature that can read your thoughts, hack electronics, kill and destroy with only their will or even enslave someones mind.
Sounds about thousand times scarier to me then however giant bug horde Umiak hierarchy is.

Especially to alien-looking aliens.

Loroi may look sexy to us but not to Umiak and several others that look scary to us.

[avatar576]

I never thought she would use a telekinetic attack to kill Cloud directly... but she would use it to restrain her or even force her to pull the trigger with her own hands via telekinesis.

Fireblade lacks that kind of control over her powers. As I understand it, she can either shove things really hard (as she demonstrated with Alex and the Umiak hardtroop), or shove things really, really, really hard (which we haven't seen...yet). I suppose she could do a "sustained shove" for at least a few seconds to keep her pinned while someone else shot her. Tempo, on the other hand, could probably manipulate the trigger, if the weapon were already aimed. But I don't think either of them could force Cloud's hand to aim the pistol at her head and pull the trigger, especially if she were resisting. All of which seems a bit excessive anyways. Easier to just keep a second weapon at the ready, and I think that's what Beryl was doing there on p. 202.

Do not underestimate what a skilled Mizol and a powerful Teidar can do.

Umiak fear them so much they rather blow up their own ship to kill them than dare fight them off person to person.

To a Umiak.... every Loroi is a potential superhero in disguise so I think they truly fear them.

What is going down in the comic is literally the nightmare of every Umiak in the Umiak Star Navy.

The Umiak commander could chat confidently with Stillstorm because he is far enough away that he did not view her as an immediate threat.

Otherwise he would have done more fleeing for his life than chatting with the one responsible for killing so many in the Umiak Star Navy.

No doubt the Teidar and Mizol are powerful, but no two Teidar or Mizol have the same level of ability. Fireblade is one of the most powerful living Loroi in terms of raw strength, but her limitation is that she doesn't have fine control over it. She could try to move Cloud's arm, but might end up breaking her arm instead. Tempo may have many other powers we haven't seen yet in addition to the ones we have seen, but they will most likely be mind-control and/or illusory techniques. Her ability to move objects is quite limited.
But my main point was only that Beryl seemed to be the one who was appointed to kill Cloud in the event she couldn't or wouldn't do it herself. That's why we saw Beryl with weapon at the ready before they had even been towed into the Umiak's hangar. I didn't think much about it at first. I thought she was just fidgeting. But now it makes sense.

[avatar576]

#217 reveals why we probably should not think of the Loroi as just a species of happy, fun, space elf hotties. They have a warrior mentality on par with that of General George S. Patton.

I think we got that impression from Stillstorm and Fireblade from the start. But actually it was Beryl who really drove it home for me on p. 211. Her eyes in the 2nd panel. That is the look of someone who is 100% capable of killing you without a second thought if told to do it. Whatever feelings she may have about Alex would be shelved in an instant if killing him served a purpose. She's your cuddle buddy one minute, your ice-cold killer the next. And if Beryl is capable of that, you have to think anyone else on that shuttle is as well. Even Cloud. I'm starting to think the Pocket Historian isn't merely trying to sow discord and distrust.

[QuakeIV]

I had kindof gotten the impression that the suicide was mainly considered preferable/more humane for the pilot. Its not like she would have actually seriously harmed even one giant super power armored bug dude.

[gaerzi]

Seemed obvious she was sent on a suicide mission here, and the single blaster shot here just before boarding checks out.

[Cthulhu]

Seemed obvious she was sent on a suicide mission here, and the single blaster shot here just before boarding checks out.

We all knew that she was dead, the point is, most of us didn't want to acknowledge this.