#498 – #NotAllPuritans
Deleted scenes: Cut for space. Shame to lose C-Team banter, but we need to move the plot along.
Wildfire: What’s Exterminatus anyway, Nadia? I’ve heard you mention it before.
Nadia: An orbital strike of incredible power, for dealing with the most dangerous of situations.
Wildfire: Really? That must be some strike. How big a bang are we talking about?
Seb: You remember what you and Leyana did to the Oil Refinery last month? A bit like that.
Leyana & Wildfire: THAT WASN’T OUR FAULT!
Rogue: Oh hell, there are two of them. It’s only a matter of time before this place gets totalled too.
Vi: You mean that wasn’t a one-off thing before, with the facility in Ossiningo?
Rogue: Why do you think she was given the alias “Wildfire”?
Lothar: Because she’s hot and quick to spread?
East: Hey-oh. [high five]
In unrelated news, Ghostbusters: The Board Game Kickstarter has 48 hours til it wraps. A combination of the awesome Ghostbusters IDW comics and recently binging Wil Wheaton’s Tabletop put me in a susceptible enough place to where it just became my first backed project. Pricey, but… Dem minis, yo.
if Nadia keeps making faces like these (haven’t seen her relax these muscles since she saw Harry) her face will freeze in that mode :D
Maybe it already did long ago. She is a puritan after all.
She looks like she’s about to exterminatus him now.
(High Fives) nice.
One wonders why budget would be a concern when two teams say that it is an Enterminatus situation? So what are they going to do now call in that army they called in for the Morth arc?
BUDGET?!
Why do they have a BUDGET?!
This isn’t a weapons requisition, this is a giant space laser that needs to be fired at massive concentrations of bad things. It takes over an hour to fire that thing through proper channels, why would a specific team of Inquisitors have a budget?!
Bloody red tape ruins everything.
… I mean, okay, I get why Team A has a budget, they’re idiots, but I don’t see why that’d be standard practice.
It’s standard practice to keep Puritans in check. Also, rules specific to Team A tend to mysteriously vanish, with the only sign of their ever having been being the faint echoes of a hen’s lustful clucking.
Has to be equal to everyone, otherwise Team A would be able to sue for discrimination
because what type of people willingly go for the job of inquisitor? oh right the kind you dont trust with a giant space laser :P
also, welcome to comedy.
Comedy does not have to abandon logic.
I thought the lack of trust was why it took over an hour to get it done through proper channels.
Budget? Just do like the last time, tell them the team is stuck inside and calling ‘fire for effect, my position’.
Command would be tripping over themselves to see who can push the button first!
The challenge: Our protagonists have access to an “I Win” button capable of neutralising any threat. How do we avoid writing stories that inevitably go “and then a giant space laser, the end”?
So we have to come up with reasons why they can’t use it. Sometimes they’re logical. Sometimes they’re funny. Sometimes they’re a device to explore something about a character we’ve just met.
-Previously established that running Exterminatus through the proper channels takes over an hour and requires a council vote that may very well end up being ‘no’. Then requires an additional 20 minutes to get the gun into position
-This site apparently is the seal for a void rift, which we’ve established can destroy the world if they fire Exterminatus at it.
-The Patternari demon creates an illusion/warps reality in some way that makes the Inquisitor’s report/request come through wrong.
-Exterminatus’ range is massive, maybe there’s a nearby city?
-The bell is a holy artifact that must not be lost for some reason?
-Team A isn’t considered reliable enough for Exterminatus to be sanctioned on their word, and Team C is too eager to ask for it for their word to be worth the space laser.
There’s lots of ways around things like this =/
1 – Been done
2 – Been done
3 – I guess we could have made a joke out of that, sure
4 – Not funny/been done
5 – Not funny
6 – If you want, you can consider that the unspoken truth. Makes sense. East and Virus seemed surprised to learn of these “budget reasons” after all.
Sometimes a story beat serves multiple purposes. As well as addressing the Exterminatus problem, this way allowed us to compare and contrast Eastwood’s and Deket’s teams’ attitudes and methods. It reminded of Command’s disdain for Team A, and hinted at the excesses of Team C.
Damien probably gets as many Exterminatus firings as he wants. He probably walks away from them in slow motion.
1+2 – yeah, that’s kind of the point of previously established continuity :P But alright, question’s been answered, thanks for that.
It could be explained that they only have one budgeted non-command verified act of Exterminatus, so basically one ‘Ok, we’ll take your word on it’ Exterminatus.
Otherwise the location has to be verified by satellite/ground forces by high command before any firing may commence.
At least that’s my idea on the matter.
*sigh* Budget… right. Secure a quarantine zone around the monastery, set up a front of a chemical or otherwise problematic accident requiring extensive cleanup, find and deal with all related loose ends regarding tourists and members and possible suppliers of the monastery. Establish a minimum of two emergency fallback zones for each essential personnel.
Vigilance shall be exercised at all times until either holy exterminatus can be enacted again or an additional team is required to be involved and the threat grows enough to warrant an uninhibited exterminatus.
Could we per-chance see that bet? I’d love it if they were accidentally right about something but get court-marshaled anyway cause nobody knows.
A little sad that Wildfire quip had to be cut, but I am still very glad that it exists in some form still ^.^ Then again, Rogue reusing the line about the Wildfire alias might have been jarring to see.
Man, I loved the comment as much as the actual comic :)
Make another one with those lines in it!
Okay so exterminatus is right out.
How about bombing the place to the point were the Somme looks like a spot of light rain?
Pretty sure that’s what exterminatus is, so no.
Yes but giant space gun is a no no.
No one said anything about thousands of artillery shells and Inquisition Blackguard bombers levelling the mountain.
I think their only economically available option right now is a more hands-on approach, at least until Wildfire opens another dimensional rift.
too many office parties I bet
Is it just me, or does the artstyle look a bit different? Are you trying different techniques or some other artist babble, Virus?
You talkin’ about Lothar? He definitely went through a bit of a design shift fairly recently.
Not just Lothar. If you take samples from the beginning to now you will notice a very definite shift in the style esp in facial expressions, The art has smoothed out and become much crisper in the last year.5 or so especially. Though I’m still not sure if I like Lothars new look… Virus and East have grown the most and the most gradually. Lothar’s new look basically was almost from one panel to the next (I think is was from one arc to the next) But if you look at say this http://exterminatusnow.co.uk/2003-10-24/comic/meet-the-crew/betrayed-by-the-software/ to just above you will notice a very definate change. But I bet part of that is if I remember correctly there was new art software/hardware(?) sometime in the last year or two being talked about. Better software or hardware would be an improvement. I remember going from my Mac at home to the schools Macs it was like night and day.
I sure HOPE the art’s changed in twelve years.
I don’t think there was anything different in particular that happened with this strip, art wise. Maybe just coming off the different style of the Guardians print?
Oh god this is hilarious
Am I the only one who’s gonna mention the little robot hovering above Deket?
Probably there to observe and record Deket’s mission progress and flag her in case she lets her puritanical beliefs compromise Inquisition interests beyond acceptable parameters.
Harry and his team we understand, Nadia on the other hand… we also understand. Remind me to buy Sebastian a drink. I am sure with just his team he’ll need it.
I vote that we simply ignore it and hope it goes away. Thats how I deal with all my problems.
Ok team lazy and team crazy cant get the job done. I’m betting that the day is saved by team Damien while the other 2 argue.
Please no. The whole mystique of Team B revolves around them NOT interacting with Team A AT ALL. Having the two meet in person will just kill said mystique, either by having Team A’s incompetance be infectious and/or devolve into comedy revolving around Team A’s inepitude compared with Team B.
They have had drinks together at a bar, but that’s different than working a mission together.
Soooo, does that mean they contact the quartermaster now to requisition an Orgazmo ray or something?
Surely they have a bevy of Stark’s technological failures they can request at the drop of a hat. Maybe even prototype weapons that need testing. We all know that would be fun.
I thought that team C was the exterminatus.
All right, Plan B. Get me six bulldozers and the jack from our plane.
Rogues expression is priceless, just sums up “why the hell am I still working with these guys?”
Of course Virus would carry a copy of the blackmail materials with him at all times.
You never know…
xp busted girly
Is it just me or is Wildfire being unusually quiet? I don’t think she’s said a single word since getting on the ship. She does look genuinely confused in panel five though.
see the comments for this page – and her cut dialogue XD
We now have eight protagonists and a third act to get to; space for chit chat is at a premium. Honestly I only shoved her and Sebastian in this strip at all so people wouldn’t think I forgot about them. You may notice I rarely draw non-speakers in a panel. I’m slow enough as it is without them Quiety McNotalks sucking up extra lineart.
I see no reason the dialog can’t be on the next page. I know you could just make one image and cut and paste it 3-9 times while changing out the dialog and make a passible comic if you were really pressed for time… I think that’s how Doonesbury has done it for years, and I’m pretty sure thats how the really dirty smut comics are made. For all the effort people care goes into fetishistic comics someone could make a mint selling 300 pages consisting of the same 20 images over and over again. You’d only have to change the facial expressions for one or two female characters and maneuver chowder boy’s helmet. The dialog would consist of playful protest, begging, harassment, and occasional moans accompanied by hearts and musical notes. heck, you probably wouldn’t have to show anything below the neck for it to be dirty.
Thank you for clearing things up Virus. :)
No more firin’ your lazars!
That folder is mostly disks and flash drives, isn’t it?
I sort of know how Nadia feels. I resent the stereotype that men think about sex all the time, despite the fact that I am a very good representation of it. I don’t get fussy when people accuse me personally of it though.
Virus keeps blackmail material on his person? I can’t tell if that’s a stupid idea or an ingenious one. Either way it’s hilarious.
I like how Nadia doesn’t so much as comment on that little bit about team A fabricating false evidence on an Inquisitor hosting the biggest soulthirster cult in the sovereigns to justify an exterminatus, ostensibly, ‘for teh lulz’.
Probably because she either does not care, didn’t like that Inquisitor, is guilty of doing something similar or worst of all, had placed an outside bet herself. Probably a bunch of other inquisitors did.
And these are the world’s last, best defence against an incursion of the forces of the dark gods.
Mobius is fucked.
Than again, the typical cultist is pretty pathetic too.
The thing about the balance between the forces of good and evil is that both sides are packed to the brim with flightless idiotas with a few scarce competent yet still snarky and lazy or otherwise ineffective key members scattered among the reserves.
Why do you think the gods all treat it as games instead of serious cosmopolitical intrigue and war?
…Is it wrong to note that Nadia’s rather attractive when she’s angry? ;)
Someone should tell Nadia that it’s rude to point.
Ah, a volunteer, excellent! You go do that, I shall have somebody fetch a mop. And the bleach.
I can get you Vanish or Cillit Bang, either way it’s gonna be prophetic