Unsounded

It's pretty nice that we've seen the Mogul number in effect before in the story, back when the gossamer trap went kablooie way back when. Its just that now we are actually getting some more clarification on in-world terminology and effects for the phenomena.

The use of artillery to destabilize the very medium that other artillery uses to fire through is a nice balancing mechanic. Prevents the entire war from being fought from beyond line-of-sight by hoards of plat cannons just nuking each other and any advancing forces. Subtle junk spells are a pretty clever way to go about it too.

I also appreciate the subtle nod to the fact that Will is khert sensitive. Its the small little details that don't mean much now, but will be nice to notice on a reread if it ever does become more important.

So would this tactic by an enemy troop suggest that they're betting the other side's wrights are better or more numerous than their own?

I'd think so, and I'd also guess that their non-wright forces are equal to or superior to Duane's troop. Why take wrights out of it if all it does is change a 99% loss to an 80% loss when you aren't forced into the fight? I'd bet that removing the wrights turns it from a fight they would lose to a fight they have a good chance of winning.

I know Duane is supposed to be shown as reckless with his boys like with the minefield, but he seems more to be someone who makes the hard decisions that need to be made. If they don't stop the enemy casters, they and the entire squad will be at a huge disadvantage.
If the boys are to survive this battle and future battles, they have to go out of their comfort zone and rise to new challenges

Other situations needed to really make it seem like he’s pushing too hard just to impress crotchety old jets

They NEED to prevent the Khert from going apeshit, or else their non-wright battle brothers are going to be at a serious disadvantage and lose many more lives in the eventual attack. Duane is totally right to go for this

I wouldn't say he's reckless with his boys, in fact I believe he currently has a reputation as being too coddling of them. Right now though he's trying to impress the soldiers of what he and the Plats can do so he's deliberately tamping that down.

Also a great tactic if the opposing force has a significant advantage in Plat teams, or even Silvers. If your opponent demonstrates a competent and reliable ability to hammer you with relative impunity from the other end of a valley, shut down all the khert hacks and maneuver during the reprieve.

please don't hurt the lads

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Maybe one of the Plats will die horribly and they'll find out that it was actually a girl. Still counts as "never lost a LAD"

Why do you think Cope would ever go for pedantic technicalities like that?

duane's going to kill the enemy plats painfully and i bet they'll turn out to be kids just like his and that'll fuck him up

I just wanna say that I absolutely love everything about pymary and the khert. Ashley's made a magic system that has that hard-to-reach balance of logical and mysterious.

>i bet they'll turn out to be kids
They're plats. Of course they're going to be kids.

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My God, of course that's what's going to happen. And his plats are going to see their fried, twisted corpses and realize they were responsible for it too.

Remember, the rebels also lost their supply of aspects while Duane's company just got a resupply of theirs.

>i bet they'll turn out to be kids just like his and that'll fuck him up
...Isn't that the basic assumption? This is a civil war right? That'd they'd have the same kind of units is a given

I don't think Duane has really thought all the way through the implications here. He has a tendency to ignore unfortunate truths until they slap him in the face.

Yeah, I doubt he'd be speaking so blithely about frying them if he thought they were a bunch of snot-nosed kiddies.

They're the enemy. The man is a bullheaded patriot and he'll shit on infants if he thought they were traitors or crescians

Duane is nice to Jivi though. Duane's nationalist hateboner doesn't kick in until they're adults.

Only because they haven't gotten to political shitflinging yet

I know we're supposed to think it's a character flaw because 2019 or whatever, but current zombie-Duane's hatred of Cresce seems quite rational from his POV. And we've also seen that it's basically a hatred of the country and the leaders, not the actual people. It's not just the Crescian kids that Duane has been nice to, he's also been nice enough to the adult Crescians he's met in Ethermilk.

It's something that I don't think has come through in the writing properly. God has said that she expected the reader to dislike this "side" of Duane's character, the same as she thought readers would immediately loathe the King of the Shartes and feel sympathy for the Queen of Cresce. But honestly, I didn't feel any of these things. Based on what we've seen I want to drink and play board games with King Sharte, the Queen seems like either an actual villain or a dangerous idiot, and Duane is my boy.

I liked Rilursa so I’d say Ashley’s problem isn’t bad at making characters that are easy to hate but rather too good at making characters that are easy to like

Even Starfish is highly entertaining in how loathsome he is

This. It's too easy to like her character's. I absolutely loathe the Randian Individualist bullshit (which is what sharteshane runs on) but even I'm having a hard time hating Nary'.

>I'm having a hard time hating Nary
I dunno. I haven't read much of the "side" story stuff outside the actual comic, and to me I haven't seen enough of Nary to know yet. He's still pretty much a mystery.

These plat kids are so badass and accomplished, Matty pales in comparison

but Ashley promised no babies will die. Not the plat kids, anyway.

Well that's not fair, Quigley has steadfastly refused to even consider teaching Matty. Besides, kid got his eyes burned out and after all of the other shit he's gone through his resilience is still a pride to Ssael

Better not be the smug one.

>He's still pretty much a mystery
Everything we've seen suggests he's the Shartiest Sharte from Sharteshane who's ever Sharted.

What I have a habit of doing is looking at the characters from the... woke 2019 perspective of a standard freshman college student. It's these guys I'm speaking to when I make statements like that because these young readers are the ones who are the most easily shook and who probably need the warning. And this is not to disparage younger readers, it's just a trend I see. And it bore out afterwards when they indeed loathed the King, love the Queen, and are uncomfortable when Duane gets really Duaney.

I'm not addressing these warnings to people like you.

There's a wiiiiide array of people who read Unsounded, it's crazy. I had to assure a 70 year old lady on Facebook today that I was doing my best to finish the story before she dies.

>I had to assure a 70 year old lady on Facebook today that I was doing my best to finish the story before she dies
How do you handle such power over the minds and hearts of mortals?

Your actual commitment to seeing the story through is so refreshing among webcomic and even bigshot media creators. thanks for being aces

Ashley has been very clear that she finds every character she writes about interesting and that she encourages readers to like or dislike characters as they see fit.
And if she has said that she expected readers to dislike Duane's nationalistic side, keep in mind that she has a decent following on non-Yea Forums sites, and that making your hero a sexist, nationalist, religious zealot is a bit of a dicey move when you've got a Discord and Tumblr audience. I wouldn't be surprised if more than a few readers did react exactly that way to King Sharte and Sonorie, too.

It's just my job, mate. I'm sure you try to do a good job every day wherever you work, too :)

>I had to assure a 70 year old lady on Facebook today that I was doing my best to finish the story before she dies.
That's fucking adorable, did she say how she got into? It'd blow my mind if some 70 year old relative of mine read Unsounded.

tfw you take too long to type and get ninja'd by the author.

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Duane's nationalism has both a positive and negative side. I don't particularly like how Cresce works, so whenever Duane shits on them i'm happy about it. But Alderode ranges from just as bad to even worse, so Duane being willing to sometimes turn a blind eye to the evil parts of his own country is something I consider a character flaw (but one I find narratively interesting).

Though Duane's extreme patriotism can be sort of odd sometimes, since he clearly disagrees with alot of things like Alderode's treatment of women's rights for instance.

Matty isn't a Ssaelit.

COPE

Of course he is
He just doesn't know it yet

I'm pretty sure that's the actual doctrinal stance of the religion. Anyone who isn't a Ssaelit just needs to live a few more lives until they're ready to accept His grorious truth

I want Duane to convert Matty to Ssaelism just to see Quigley's reaction.

She's not alone, I have a few older readers, male and female. And I dunno, I don't wanna creep on these people and ask 'em where they came from. Must be hard enough having online interests shared mostly by a bunch of kids.

Duane's flip-flops are fairly realistic from what I've seen of people though. Many people hold extreme views until they need to subvert them for personal reasons. All abortions are bad except MY abortion. Smoking weed is bad except when -I- do it. Women must adhere to their roles except for MY little girl because she is exceptional.

People are hypocrites, man.

Quigley's got nothing to offer Matty but half-baked nihilism. The wonder in the boy's eyes when Duane speaks of Ssael's truths makes his allegiance clear.
The real question is whether Matty will bother waiting until his dad is in the ground, or if he'll abandon his selfish depressed ass.

>All abortions are bad except MY abortion
Not to turn this thread into a pol shit show but there is a fantastic article from anonymous doctors that recount their experiences with people of that mindset where even after the chick gets the abortion she is back in the picket line a month later
I find the way you show hypocrisy in your story to be refreshing it gives these characters life and makes them feel real

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There have been a couple of political javelins thrown, but Duane has basically been dismissive of Jivi rather than acrimonious.

yes
yes that's her name

The Queen's sister threatening Shartshane with a religious pogrom made the King seem better in comparison. He's just a fat useless perv, rather than an imperialist slag demanding bootlicking from a sovereign state.

When he finds out it was Quigley who tipped off the Council he'll disown him. Of course Quigley didn't intend to get his wife killed, he just expected an Aseptik to confiscate Uaid and end Vienne's nonsense talks about the March, set Seferpine back to normal. But all the same, snitches get fathercucked

I always assumed that Duane's experience with Jessamin had shaped his viewpoint on female wrights to some extent.

Actually speaking of which, would Mikaila have had to eventually become a Third Option? I wasn't ever sure if Duane was going to be okay with that.

Quigley seems areligious, I think he'd be more upset that Duane is closer to Matty than him.

But Ssaelism isn't an proselytizing religion since due to reincarnation they just say wait for them to die and be born to the right church

You do see this phenomenon with some stereotypically "young" media these days. There's an elderly woman who does a Let's Play of Skyrim on youtube, for example.

Ashley said Mickie would never go with it because she's too stubborn and proud to submit to the rules like that

I think she also said Duane wouldn't have it, that or it was an ask about her getting involved with a non-soud

Ssael won't return until the entire world is Ssaelit though. So don't they have to proselytize? Unless they're expecting all the Gefendur to just die out.

I guess Duane didn't have a long-term plan for how Mikaila was gonna be a wright then.

Accurate. Mikaila would rather change the stupid rules than submit to them. Also, yeah, her parents would neeeeever go for that shit. They want grandbabies.
Currently that's the plan, as a matter of fact. It's also a driving motivation later in the story for the Ssaelit to go all out on killing Gefendur. But that's for later~~~

That's pretty much exactly it. They assume that finding Ssael is the inevitable outcome so eventually everyone will grow spiritually through the reincarnation cycle until they see the truth

The fact that Gefendur DO convert by the sword is probably another sign to the Ssaelit that they're right; if the gods aren't dead, why would you have to force people to worship them

Probably at the time, in the alley, he was hoping he could keep the training a secret and that she'd grow out of it. Or he just didn't get that far ahead mentally. The man does make pretty rash decisions sometimes.

I don't fault Rilursa for that. The modern equivalent would be something like
>Hey, someone in your country sold nuclear material to some terrorists in our country. They set off a dirty bomb and destroyed our city.
>Hmm yup seems that way
>You should keep a tighter lid on dangerous materials like that
>No way fag
It would be absurd to NOT expect repercussions from Cresce.

Probably part of the keikaku
Having Rilursa engage in a frustrating pointless conversation with the king before meeting Jab might have been hoped to make Beadman's proposals more acceptable

Not really, since fissile materials have a preexisting value as 'might be used to make a nasty weapon.' This is more like a country selling someone titanium and them building a living buzzsaw that tracks people's brain waves and kills them. The Shartes have plausible deniability as a state as far as silver pain godzillas go, if you ask me.

Cresce has been pissed about Sharte neutrality for a while anyway. They don't want Sharteshane to trade with Alderode AT ALL. In fact, they want them to be a good little protectorate and do as they're told.

Never mind Cresce commissioned the black tounges to create said nuclear weapon. Sharteshane at least is honest about being scumbags

She thought she was in Ulestry, I suppose, and that they'd just piddle themselves. When you pull a knife in Sharteshane, you better use it.

>It's also a driving motivation later in the story for the Ssaelit to go all out on killing Gefendur

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BELL did and he's deep state as fuck. Queen Maha denounced it
On the other hand she's in league with the rape snake and is engaging in some soul fuckery that's probably equal in hereticality to the silver

It wasn't "you should keep a tighter lid on dangerous materials", it was "stop doing any business with Alderode, because we said so". She was very explicitly trying to strongarm them.

It didn't help how she looks to us that we omniscient readers know the ridiculousness of the situation. She's asking for Sharteshanian concessions because a group of Crescian soldiers razed a Crescian town.

>It's also a driving motivation later in the story for the Ssaelit to go all out on killing Gefendur.
I don't even begin to believe you but I'll be sure to laugh if the genocide starts in-comic and this archive gets linked seven years later.

>Cresce
The Crescian state explicitly refused to commission it. A rogue Crescian general did that, but it was without the crown's knowledge. Moreover, the queen is opposing said general in a number of ways, and only the threat of a coup keeps her from just having him dismissed. Or ganched, more likely.

T. Unabashed Cresce apologist

>seven years
forget that ol facebook dame, *I* might die in that time frame

>BELL did and he's deep state as fuck
>Queen Maha denounced it
The queen is using Ruck to control Bell, thus she got her superweapon AND plausible deniability. Bell is the Queen's tool and the pain silver is 100% her kiekkaku.

>The Crescian state explicitly refused to commission it

Only after already soliciting interest to begin with. Queenie's dealing with the Black Tongues is well-established at this point.

An interesting theory. My counterargument is that, if Sonorie was willing to use the Silver, why would she not simply do so? Why all this runaround with rapesnakes and mind-controlling a general and layers of subterfuge? She is willing to openly work with the Black Tongues, and the Silver Weapon seemed to have at least moderate popular support. She could have just publicly accepted and used the weapon.

That would be a twist I'd quite appreciate
>Toma and Elka finally reach the queen to warn her
>both their smiles and optimism: irrevocably GONE

Maybe it's got something to do with whoever Bell's contact is in the Aldish hierarchy, denouncing and losing track of the silver weapon to appear more off-foot than she really is to keep the soul project more under wraps

You have a point and I'd doubt she's got that many levels of fuckery running at once

The pain silver is going to create destruction on a massive scale, large enough to pull down or tear the dahmakerht, and it's going to coincide with a failed coup attempt by Bell. This will allow the Queen to wipe out all her enemies (who've flocked to Bell's banner without knowing he's a honey trap) while taking advantage of the chaos in Alderode to end the war once and for all (by directly attacking the mechanism which makes the caste system possible.) It positions the Queen in an advantageous position while destroying the jingoistic elements in her own court that would oppose a long-term peace agreement.

Ah, but one must consider the Tittybird and Prakhuta's stake in this. The lizard doesn't plan on limiting the slaughter to Alderode, and while Ilganyag's total aims are obscure, she's pushing for him to succeed

Even if she has the foresight and moves to wrangle Ruck and Bell, everyone always forgets the fucking lizards

Tried to find this page and ended up re-reading 1/3 of the story.... but the wrong part of the story.
Link?

This actually makes a fair bit of sense. It would also fit well with Sonorie's comments when first introduced
>What monstrous things we do for love
>Let them judge me. Cresce will bite when the time is right
This action would, obviously, kill thousands. Perhaps tens of thousands. But at the end of it all, Alderode as we know it would be destroyed, leaving Cresce unopposed to bring relative peace to the whole continent.

what part specifically are you looking for?
>going back to check a single page or panel and re-reading several hundred pages
every fucking time, it's so fucking good

Where Mogul's number was mentioned when khert went khablooie.
I've probably re read this thing 3 times now...

casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch10/ch10_17.html

>The lizard doesn't plan on limiting the slaughter to Alderode and while Ilganyag's total aims are obscure she's pushing for him to succeed
Titty-birds ultimate goal is still hidden but in the short term she's trying to tear a hole between the khert and the real world. Assuming Sette is one in a line of human-khert construct hybrids then her ability to breach the divide between is a specific design and points to Titty-birds alliance with Ssael being about allowing humanity to freely walk the khert the way He did. That fits with Duane being a part of her plans, she would need a prototype to work out the kinks but also a warrior prophet capable of moving back and forth in order to take her orders, lead her children (the new race capable of a peaceful eternal life in the khert/world amalgam) and rally support on the other side.
As far as the lizard goes his talk with bastion might be honest, he's just too far gone to give a shit beyond fucking up the spider-paws by any means possible. Whether he still wants to bring pymary to his people I don't know.

Maybe Cutter will be able to complete the lizards’ souls and elevate them to the humans’ status?

I think he hates the other lizards as much as humans at this point
Ana is pretty clearly in the >fuck everything camp though

Why is Unsounded not more popular? I genuinely can't think of another webcomic that has it matched in art quality, narrative depth, and update consistency.

>art quality, narrative depth, and update consistency
that'll answer ya right there

it's hard to get into if you're lazy and can't be bothered to look into all the worldbuilding
it's also surprisingly hard to tell people what it's about without spoiling anything because if you just say it's about a zombie and a girl travelling it'll sound boring as shit

It's pretty dense and incredibly long running. It's been going on for how many years now and it's not even 1/3 of the way done. There's a lot in the world and story to get through and I imagine that puts some people off. This will only get to be a bigger problem as the story gets even longer. So the people who are into it are the type of people who like very long running, complicated stories and there just isn't a huge amount of those people.

Really just the second one.

same trouble with SSSS
that shit moves like molasses going uphill

I feel Unsounded moves at a pretty good clip, especially if we're just talking about the update schedule, but it's a very long running story so it takes time to get through everything. The update schedule is one of the big things that makes it flow a lot better than some other webcomics. Like just in the last few weeks we've gotten a bunch of extra pages that help with the pacing.

Minna's pace is a bit more drawn out but both comics are hefty and still trucking on, that's the point I was getting at

That's certainly true. I like that about long running stories though, it gives me form of guaranteed entertainment into the future. I'll be reading Unsounded for probably the next decade and that's pretty neat.

I want Ruck to have every foreign memory and experience dug out of his filthy senet brain. Seeing the horror and agony as the thoughts he treated as snacks are replaced with dull, empty, nothingness. Just the eternal tedium of his own monotonous existence piled high and inescapable without the intoxication of stolen souls to palliate it

Ruck's never done anything but what stupid spiderpaws have asked him to do. They should not be pitied. They are animals.

I think Ruckmearkja would be overjoyed by this sensation. And from there on the ability to attain new ones.

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I was thinking back with Boo. They didn't mention it by name, but the actual effect seemed to be in place. With a hole blown through the khert and any spellery being major risk.
casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch04/ch04_66.html
Where she lays the trap,
casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch04/ch04_69.html
Saying don't use pyramy,
casualvillain.com/Unsounded/comic/ch04/ch04_72.html
Duane wanting to go fix.

>>tfw the comic creator indulges your laziness and spoon feeds you the answer you're looking for
Based Cope. Thanks!

Don't worry guys! The Plats are all fine.
Instead, they'll be part of a kill squad sent to hunt down Duane.

By the present they'll all be old and gone back to their ghers to make new plat babbies or dead already like Jon

Correct. The trick with the silver is that with first material all around, the Khert can't get in to correct any fuckery so the meat inside can do/become basically ANYTHING

Now you have me wondering what happens if an epheby vomits.

Actually, since the thread is still up, and Ashley seems to have been in the thread a little bit, I had a quick question about official spells.

Does anyone know to what extent Gruffgramy is capable of?
We've had it mentioned, once, about how Quigs is able to cast spells he's made on his own without the official recognition of a spell composer. But how often have we actually seen it in use? As far as I can tell, most all the spells Quigs has cast have been general 'move aspect from one material to another' or the occasional core leech, which most good wrights seem capable of.
Is there underlying mechanics he's taking advantage of here to move aspects from one object to another? Or is the gruffgramery more related to his and his wife's work on Uaid and programed spells, instead of off the cuff casting?

Does Daune make his own spells? We know he won't in a proper duel, since he's an honorable bloke, but what about outside of an official match? He was canidate for spell composition, and now that he's dead, does he take advantage of his knowledge and skills to make his own spells to suit his needs?

Ashley doesn't post on Yea Forums, people just larp as her.

If they're like ten in the flashback, they're probably around Quigley's age now right? They should all be in their prime, with a year or two left before they start dying.

Prime probably isn't the right word, since like Silvers they hit a wall where their quick ass death spiral begins and for them I believe it starts at 25. Prime for a plat is probably late teens. 30 is the absolute limit

I don't think they start getting unhealthy in their early 20s though. So 20-25 is probably the peak of their physical and mental strength and experience.

Sounds like the perfect time for best brother Lemon to urge for the crusades from the councils. Though I imagine that won't happen until we get first-hand experience of the Weeping plague.
You've been building that up a lot Cope, I want to see the horrors of a magical plague in your world. Especially after how creative you were with those landmines.

I didn't really like Rilursa at all. Mainly because she was so abrasive. I'll admit, I did like the king a ton from that interaction, but it also endeared me to the Queen a lot too; though me appreciating the queen was more a result of the Queen-Copper interaction while he was completely losing it.

Your comparison does give me a bit more respect for Rilursa, at least she sounds a little more reasonable. Though I also agree with it was probably more of a carrot-stick situation to give Beadman more favor after her interaction with the king.

>Sounds like the perfect time for best brother Lemon to urge for the crusades from the councils
Problem is, the rebalancing apparently already happened so now it's a 3 on 1 gangbang in VITS and Alderode has apparently been getting hella shitty ever since

So a "crusade" would have to be a purely grassroots/revolt by the temples uprising like what happened when the monarchy was overthrown and the Ssaelit were being picked on back then as well

Honestly the Ssaelit seem fucked due to the Weeping Plague. I can't see any timeline here where the Ssaelit come out of this well.

>It's also a driving motivation later in the story for the Ssaelit to go all out on killing Gefendur. But that's for later~~~
I'm guessing the reason this is only happening now/hasn't been the plan the whole time has something to do with that two-faiths peace, and recent boat-rocking has stirred everything up?

I'm gonna have to wait a decade to know, aren't I? Well, it's good to have something to look forward to...

This is pretty much how I've understood the entire situation.

Queeny is a rock solid political unit.
She OFFICIALLY denounced the idea of silver super weapon to the general public, the world, and her own inner(crecian) circles. But unofficially she's in dealings with Delicious Lizard to get the project underway, she gets in contact with the rest of the black tongues, and shows them rapesnek. Then strikes a bargain and promises official backing for them, presumably after the silverweapon is successfully deployed. Meanwhile, Ruck and Blacktongues benefit from each other, and she uses both of them to take control of Bell and use him as both a political distraction to keep real dissenters distracted, and as an effective tool for manipulating and protecting the silver. And to uncover the damakhert from the Copper.

By doing this, she is able to both play the moderate and 'passive' ruler card, while also fielding a hyper aggressive front that seems from the outside and in as an entirely separate entity that is outside of her control. If Bell does try to stage a "Coup", or at least takes full control of the military, it enables Sonorie to use the entire army to a far more aggressive stance than she'd be able to justify if she was the one declaring the war.
That's my argument for the first question. As an added point, I'm pretty sure she is not openly working with the black tongues yet. She's put down the groundwork, and with Ruck's help, she's got most all the black tongues on board. But they are still using patrons and backers, and black tongues are still officially outlawed by most every nation. Its probably after the effectiveness of the silver weapon, the soul mapping, and discovering of the damakhert that she'll be able to leverage their usefulness to the people and get them officially recognized.

The only major way I can see this all going askew is either if Ruck is mind-raping Bell of his own accord, or if Ruck's planning to back stab her.

>I'd doubt she's got that many levels of fuckery running at once
You underestimate how many layers of subterfuge, guile, and general depict all the major powers must be operating under in the Unsounded world.

>Ruck's planning to back stab her
There's not a chance he isn't. The real question is whether Maha is prepared for it

Roger did outright warn her to murder Ruck as soon as she's through with him.

That's... an entirely unrelated property of the Khert and first materials. Though it is also one I asked about a while ago on these threads.

What we've been talking about with the Mogul number is the idea that the khert can only handle so much spellery and fuckery before it becomes disstablized enough to explode/kill any more casters/completely break. We've seen the Mogul Number effect: back with a poorly layed gossamer trap going off (though not explicitly mentioned), mentioned in the Uaid/millstone flashback (though not seen), as a plot point in the war right now.
And, by word of god, that big crater on the Ald-Cresian boarder is what happens when the Mogul Number is passed so hard that the entire region is FUBAR in every metaphysical sense of the word.

What you are describing is more a case of a Khert-Faraday cage. Which is what Juste is, so the black tongues can muck about with spellery without as much oversight by the Khert trying to reign them in. And as you point out, its what's going on inside the silver right now.

Should've said when, not if. But yeah, it really comes down to who can backstab who first. The best part is they are both fully aware of this fact. Should make for some interesting intrigue regardless.

Cope has said that Duane will be held powerless in front of Queenie, though. My big question is if Ruck will be around when that happens.

>A rogue Crescian general

He's not "a general" he's "The general"

>If duane ever met a bigger rapscallion than his daughter he'll kiss a crescian
>he'll be powerless
Duane is gonna see what the Bitch-Queen can really do OwO

Just focus on finishing the story before YOU die, screw the old lady

I'd be lying if I said I had a source, but I think I remember Ashley saying either in a comment or on Tumblr that Quigs mostly used gruftgramery to put in some shortcuts for use in combat. Nothing experimental or groundbreaking.
I could, of course, be completely wrong.

Your theory is, overall, not unreasonable. I am not convinced, but that's mostly because of differing character interpretations. I will not attempt to contest the major substance of it. However, just for clarity
>As an added point, I'm pretty sure she is not openly working with the black tongues yet.
Sonorie announced during the council meeting that she was employing the Black Tongues to discover the secret transportation methods Alderode is using for their Vliegeng food. Given the shock this announcement was met with from Bell, it's reasonable to assume that before that things were as you say.

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Ahh, fair point. Forgot about that scene.
I guess she's on the way to showing off the black tongues. She just now revealed it to the higher levels of the cresian government (granted, she's obfuscating their true purpose), but I'd assume they are still a long ways away to revealing it to the greater public. Which is what I think most of the black tongues are ultimately hoping for; freedom to operate fully in the open.

If I may ask, what are your interpretations of the Queen's character? I'd be interested to see what others think of her.

>interpretations
Explain

If you mean what we FEEL about her, she's not at the top of any of my lists but at least since Rilursa died/she talked with Roger and had that trippy sequence, she's grown on me. I recognize that she's got a big role to play (for the moment, coups are a hell of a drug) and the more we get, the more my opinion will probably rise. Basic familiarity really

I love how /fa/ Cresce can be.

I love how the Chancellor there is a flaming homo and it doesn't even matter to his character. Best inclusion.

>Roger is so gay even Ufal is disgusted to be near him

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>Explain
Well, I was more wondering about the
>I am not convinced, but that's mostly because of differing character interpretations.
What parts of her characterization has made it seem like she isn't as in control as she appears to be (to me). Or if you think she's planning entirely different stuff, or something. I am just wondering what other people see in her that I might've missed or brushed off with my own reasoning.

Otherwise, with the feel, I agree. The more familiar I get with her the more I enjoy her. Especially after the trippy sequence with Roger.

My character interpretation of Sonorie is that she is too much of an idealist to engage in a plan that would result in a rampaging Silver monster killing thousands, with thousands more dying in the resulting conflict.
There's the cutoff from this page
>But maybe...
That hints at her wanting a solution that doesn't involve sending people to their deaths. Whether this is just part of a dream or a memory of a conversation she had with Rilursa, I think that she still holds that hope that she can resolve the conflict without a massacre. This is backed up by her statements later in the council meeting about how concession can sometimes be more effective than force at bringing peace.
If she had real control of Ruck, who is in turn controlled Bell on her behalf, that would make her indirectly responsible for the destruction of Ethelmik. On a more personal note, it would mean she is responsible for her own sister's death. Neither of those things seem in-character for her, which leads me to believe that Ruck is acting on his own initiative where Bell is concerned.

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it feels more in line with the feels of the story for Ruck to be playing two sides without the others knowing

Of course, none of this is conclusive evidence. Maybe I've misjudged things, and her character arc will culminate in the reveal that she has reconciled herself to the fact that peace sometimes demands great sacrifice. And we'll get a nice confrontation between her and Duane.
>You'd destroy the Dammakhert - destabilize Alderode - kill thousands! I won't let you do it!
>Do it? Duane, I'm not an Aldish Opera villain. Do you seriously think I'd explain my master-stroke if there remained the slightest chance of you affecting its outcome?
>I did it thirty-five minutes ago.

I think it's a little of all of this. I think Sonorie is knowingly using Ruck to steer Bell a certain way - maybe push him towards extremes he would not normally have had the balls for - but Ruck has grown infatuated with Bell's ambition and now is merrily playing his meals off each other. Who cares if Sonorie or Bell comes out ahead? Not Ruck. He's just here to fuck and eat.

I think Bell is a very useful tool for Sonorie and not much more than that. He simply hasn't been given the character development to be much more to this story than a means to an end. It's right there in his name - Bell = bellicose. I don't know if Sonorie had Ruck bite Bell before or after Bell began the Silver maneuver, but she's figured out a way to use his reckless aggression for her own ends. It may be as simple as giving herself a public enemy to fight in order to win back her people's trust and forgiveness for marrying the Copper. If Bell's Silver attacks her in the port city and a lot of damage is done or lives are lost and she can prove he did this and then take him out, this is a major political victory for her, and she can use that to do all kinds of shit the country might not necessarily go for.

It's "monstrous" as she complained earlier, but she seems really tired of all the attrition between Cresce and Alderode. If she's going to end the fighting, she has to be ugly.

Actually if her plan against Alderode relies on destroying the Dammakhert via Roger's soul, that's potentially not violent at all. That could be why she needs political points at home since it could make for a hard sell.

Of course there's something else no one's even bothered accounting for and that's whatever construct fuckery is going on at Litriya Shrine. Is Sonorie building secret constructs?

If she is, there is no doubt in my mind they're copies of Uaid. The fact that Quigley sought sanctuary in Cresce and the Queen's scientists were able to study Uaid has been brought up too many times to be irrelevant.

Perhaps. I interpreted her conversation with Rilursa as a khert dream-walking sequence. More of a very vivid flashback from Rilursa memories recently getting dumped into the khert. So I feel her idealism was stronger at the beginning of her reign. On the other hand, that final picture does lend itself towards your idea, since she is still trying to read those books to find a solution that might've been overlooked for 400 years. Plus "marrying" Roger, and more importantly becoming an honest friend, does lend to that idea as well.

Ultimately though I think has it in that she is really more tired than anything else. Perhaps she is still idealistic, but that'll definitely be a much more somber tone of idealism than normal. The Roger brain-drain sequence probably highlights that the best. She doesn't want her sister's legacy to be one of racial genocide on the two-toes. She feels honest pity for her country's ancient enemy. But she is also very dead set on feeding Roger to Ruck in a most horrific manner, all in order to fulfill her own goals.

I'll have to wait till we see more of her to judge if she is truly idealistic or not, but I don't doubt she has steeled her resolve to do the ugly things necessary to make peace a reality. It would be interesting though to find out she is truly one of the most idealistic of the leaders. Perhaps that's something Duane can bond over with her.

He forgot most of that already. He'll forget most of this too if he lives long enough.

This... makes perfect sense. Cheers for the explanation.