Erfworld Thread XI: Finally, it's HAMMER-TIME!

[Magikeeper]

My reading of why they were able to do it:

Ditto'ing a signature still implies any dittomancer can pull off the same cheat (intentionally, unlike HueHue), but is weird enough that maybe no one would have ever thought of it. True. That's an interpretation that isn't too hard on the setting. Still should have been mentioned earlier.

Anyway, that removes the ditto-ruler benefits, though, meaning that HueHue just promoted someone on his own and had to have done so BEFORE Ceasar offed himself so this all went down in an instant. Which is likely exactly what happened. :/

They could have still avoided needing to have the tower resolve everything by itself in an instant by having Jack succeed in delaying Ceasar just a few more moments, the tower having an ephinany, steal the juice, pass the power to Benjamin to turn it into money, and.. tower would still need to promote on it's own but maybe it would re-use the ditto-like effect, only this time copying Ceasar's will to defy Charlscom. Setting up an heir to continue the side would likely fit with payment schedule as it's rather necessary.

Then Wanda could croak and that would be still be the last page of the book.

[Anteros]

Like Ansom said, you should prepare contigencies for your plans and then contigencies for your contigencies, and Charlie didn't plan for rapid-fire rule retcons.

Which you're right it's pretty crappy storytlelling, what exactly was Rob thinking when designing Charlie "I'M SUPER SMART AND HAVE MY OWN ARKENTOOL WITH MORE ABILITIES THAN EVERY OTHER ARKENTOOL COMBINED INCLUDING AN ARMY OF FANATICALLY LOYAL ANGELS WITH SO MUCH SPECIAL ABILITIES I DO NOT EVEN NEED ANY OTHER TYPE OF UNIT TO HAVE THE MOST VERSATILE ARMY IN THE WORLD AND THEN I'M GIVING THEM MODERN GUNS AND EXPLOSIVES DESPITE THE MEDIEVAL SETTING AND I'M A CARNYMANCER ON TOP WWWEEEE!!!!

(totally worth taking those chair-bound cripple, druggie and ugly flaws)."

I mean, it's perfectly fine to have a hyper competent antagonist if you're going to have your protagonists actually be clever and outmaneuver them. It's less fine if you're just going to constantly change the rules of your setting on the fly every time you write yourself into a corner.

[-D-]

I mean, it's perfectly fine to have a hyper competent antagonist if you're going to have your protagonists actually be clever and outmaneuver them. It's less fine if you're just going to constantly change the rules of your setting on the fly every time you write yourself into a corner.

As much as I agree with sentiment. I am not sure why we are even in this corner?

Bunny/Don didn't need to be foraged by bats. Pretty sure Ben and others could disband bats, or order them out of capitol. So I assume that's because Sky is supposed to be Queen... I guess.

[Jasdoif]

Bunny/Don didn't need to be foraged by bats.

Per the agreement between Shirley and Huehue, their bodies needed to be disposed of (or given to Charlescomm); at least until it was done.

Whether "it" refers to the disposal, the agreement, or the book; is an exercise left to the reader.

[Whispri]

Oh, ok. It seems they got foraged off screen. Great. I like that we wasted so much time developing those characters, for literally nothing.

Also Wanda is coming back, but probably not as a leader of Decrypted. Her body wasn't destroyed.

Not on screen. But she wasn't killed on screen either. Her death wish is an even more serious problem, as are the dirtamancers, she just lost that battle after all(and that was with a chief warlord bonus, barbarians don't have those). The pliers might spring an upgrade of course (angelhood?) if she is raised.

[deuterio12]

I mean, it's perfectly fine to have a hyper competent antagonist if you're going to have your protagonists actually be clever and outmaneuver them. It's less fine if you're just going to constantly change the rules of your setting on the fly every time you write yourself into a corner.

Rule consistency was not an option as soon as Charlie got upgraded to be a carnymancer on top of everything else.

This is, a whole magic school all about breaking the rules, how exactly do you keep consistency with that on the table?

Maybe if every side had a carnymancer, but then we would be going into Hamster's Bizzarre Adventure where everybody is trying to to be more outrageous than the other.

[smuchmuch]

Maybe if every side had a carnymancer, but then we would be going into Hamster's Bizzarre Adventure where everybody is trying to to be more outrageous than the other.

And that's different of what's happenign with every tower constantly cheating the rules how ?

[deuterio12]

And that's different of what's happenign with every tower constantly cheating the rules how ?

Only two towers cheating so far as far as I remember, Jed (very reluctantly) and whatever's the name of the Tee Vee one. Jillian's only done some talking and Charlie 's actually stopping him from cheating. Did Jetstone get an awakened tower? Does the author even remembers Jetstone ?

Meanwhile the whole of the Mee Kay by definition can't get an awakened tower and they shun their own carnymancers.

Basically if you're gonna do a story about rampart cheating, at least go all the way.

[Anteros]

Rule consistency was not an option as soon as Charlie got upgraded to be a carnymancer on top of everything else.

This is, a whole magic school all about breaking the rules, how exactly do you keep consistency with that on the table?

Maybe if every side had a carnymancer, but then we would be going into Hamster's Bizzarre Adventure where everybody is trying to to be more outrageous than the other.

You use foreshadowing and have an established set of ways that rules can be broken and ways that they can't. You don't just randomly pull rule changes out of thin air over and over and over and over and over until every single detail of the setting has lost all meaning because the reader knows you'll just change it again the next time it's convenient. Rulebreaking characters aren't exactly rare in media, yet they're almost universally done in more satisfying and consistent ways than this.

Per the agreement between Shirley and Huehue, their bodies needed to be disposed of (or given to Charlescomm); at least until it was done.

Whether "it" refers to the disposal, the agreement, or the book; is an exercise left to the reader.

There's no good reason they couldn't have just given the bodies to GK in their agreement with them since that took place prior to the agreement with Charlie. They certainly weren't above getting around other parts of the agreement in this way.

[Jasdoif]

There's no good reason they couldn't have just given the bodies to GK in their agreement with them since that took place prior to the agreement with Charlie.

The portal to the Magic Kingdom being in the same room as Shirley-by-proxy seems like it'd pose a problem.

[Anteros]

The portal to the Magic Kingdom being in the same room as Shirley-by-proxy seems like it'd pose a problem.

Just give possession of them to one of the many units set to turn to GK in the agreement? They don't have to actually physically transport the bodies across the MK.

[Jasdoif]

Just give possession of them to one of the many units set to turn to GK in the agreement?

And be obligated to destroy them anyway. Or, I suppose, come up with some way for all of Transylvito's units/tower to be utterly unable to destroy corpses that are within Transylvito, without Huehue knowing that it would be impossible to meet that term of the contract; because Huehue can't make an agreement he doesn't intend to follow through with, which is the whole reason they put Huehue in timeout to arrange the side deal with Gobwin Knob to keep the smuckers away from Charlie.

Which worked because the smuckers were no longer in Transylvito's possession after they were automagically sent to Gobwin Knob instead; something that won't hold true for bodies.

[Anteros]

I doubt very much that they would be obligated to destroy things in the possession of their allies unless the contract specifically states so. Either way, they could just word it as "these corpses will be delivered to GK immediately before any other actions are taken towards them" and it would be fine since the GK contract would go into effect first. That's literally what they did with the other terms.

[Aquillion]

Ditto'ing a signature still implies any dittomancer can pull off the same cheat (intentionally, unlike HueHue), but is weird enough that maybe no one would have ever thought of it. True. That's an interpretation that isn't too hard on the setting. Still should have been mentioned earlier.

I suspect that if you're not a tower, you would need a Dittomancer - Signamancer link. But I wouldn't be surprised if "forged contracts" are a possibility with a link like that. It might have additional requirements, too. A tower has direct access and threads to all sorts of stuff, whereas the link might need to eg. have some connection to the person they want to fake a signature from - probably by being right in front of them, which limits the practicality of this slightly. Or maybe needing access to another existing contract which you can essentially lift the signature from - again, a requirement their tower, with access to all their records, would easily satisfy, but which would pose more of a problem for a hostile attacker.

Also, such a forged contract would of course only last one turn at most.

They could have still avoided needing to have the tower resolve everything by itself in an instant by having Jack succeed in delaying Ceasar just a few more moments, the tower having an ephinany, steal the juice, pass the power to Benjamin to turn it into money, and.. tower would still need to promote on it's own but maybe it would re-use the ditto-like effect, only this time copying Ceasar's will to defy Charlscom. Setting up an heir to continue the side would likely fit with payment schedule as it's rather necessary.

An even better solution, if we want to improve things, would be to have it be something Parson set up somehow - eg. including a clause in the contract that GK will pay for TV's emergency appointment of a new heir, in an emergency, just in case something happens to Caesar.

Also, establish earlier that HueHue is using dittomancy to fake a signature on the contract on account of Caesar being out of commission, something he can do because he knows the contract reflects Caesar's will.

[guttering flame]

Sure, making the Towers too powerful and changing the rules is bad but what about disposing of Bunny's body so offscreen it's a surprise even after Ceasar kills himself over it? It's bizarre and not in a good way. The comic spends most of its times on trivial plot points rules minutia that's broken anyway the next page and side-side-characters nobody should care about but this central turning point for the entire book gets glossed over. Eaten by bats, or so we assume. Who knows. Maybe she was eaten by the Dolls. Maybe they exposed her to sunlight and she evaporated. Everything is possible. Was this part of the story censored so we wouldn't hate Benjamin? Ceasar's death was also on the blah side. Going for smokes and that's about it. Why not giving his last thoughts as he goes into the light? This was such a waste.

The new ruler is also bad writing. She was a no name nobody a short while ago. Suddenly she's this awesome warlady who's the only logical choice for the job. What? Benjamin was the de facto leader and policy maker after Ceasar fell and Vinny was the original face of this side. Skyy is just the random person with a gun. Her travelogue with Cheri was an education in stupidity.

[DataNinja]

Suddenly she's this awesome warlady who's the only logical choice for the job. What? Benjamin was the de facto leader and policy maker after Ceasar fell and Vinny was the original face of this side. Skyy is just the random person with a gun. Her travelogue with Cheri was an education in stupidity.

To be fair on this point, Warlords tend to lead. Casters... there are definitely much fewer Caster Rulers (I forget if we've heard of any other than Charlie... Olive was... oh, I guess Ruler for a short time, and then Wanda was Barbarian "Ruler" by virtue of being the only Commander Left). So, it definitely doesn't surprise me that the immediate dynamic is "Warlord to heir, Caster to advise".

[Jasdoif]

I doubt very much that they would be obligated to destroy things in the possession of their allies unless the contract specifically states so.

"Relinquish to Charlescomm (or affirm destruction of) bodies of:" doesn't appear to specifically state that Transylvito is off the hook if someone else has possession of the bodies. (Does ownership even apply to bodies the same way it does to units and cities? o_O )

Either way, they could just word it as "these corpses will be delivered to GK immediately before any other actions are taken towards them" and it would be fine since the GK contract would go into effect first. That's literally what they did with the other terms.

Assuming the same sort of automagical-possession-bypass applies to bodies....The difference is that the bodies wouldn't have been relinquished to Charlescomm and would still be in Transylvito. And between Huehue being able to drop structure on top of people and his intention to agree to everything Shirley wanted the way she wanted it, I seriously can't see the scenario supporting Huehue being able to fulfill the term himself and not actually doing it.

[-D-]

"Relinquish to Charlescomm (or affirm destruction of) bodies of:" doesn't appear to specifically state that Transylvito is off the hook if someone else has possession of the bodies. (Does ownership even apply to bodies the same way it does to units and cities? o_O )

Assuming the same sort of automagical-possession-bypass applies to bodies....The difference is that the bodies wouldn't have been relinquished to Charlescomm and would still be in Transylvito. And between Huehue being able to drop structure on top of people and his intention to agree to everything Shirley wanted the way she wanted it, I seriously can't see the scenario supporting Huehue being able to fulfill the term himself and not actually doing it.

They were already going to cheat Charlie off guns, by having the units with guns turn to GK once Ceasar is freed. I guess, no one was there to hold Bunny's corpse I guess? I mean, they had to know that Ceasar will be pissed off if Bunny dies...

So the deal goes as before, have Sky or Cherry pick up the corpses. The moment, CC deal passes, all units except Ceasar turn to GK, and ask Ceasar to surrender. He surrenders. A new side called Hotel Transylvito is started. The side claims the Aztec-tower as capital. Sure there will be few rogue elements that might need to be addressed like Vinny (and Tower), but that's easy.

Look, there are ways to salvage Bunny and even Don, but narratively, once the Thinkamancers are dead, there is not much reason for Bunny to live. And as much as I kinda hate them, they could have been used as a decent antagonists (former allies)...

I also am not a great fan of Sky becoming super important out of nowhere. Reminds me how Lilith went from no one to super important...

[Calemyr]

Skyy is currently a reasonably high level warlord who has distinguished herself as being the only TV unit to stand up and mount a meaningful resistance. If Caesar were to pick a successor, she'd probably be it. At least in HueHue's estimation, and despite his recent misinterpretations I believe this is correct. Skyy is a bat in every way that Caesar considered important beyond age - she's a new generation of the Old School.

Up until her ascension, at least. As queen, she's got an distinctly Aztec signamancy matching HueHue rather than TV's traditional Romanian Greaser aesthetic. And it's interesting to note that HueHue labels her Queen rather than Regent like Caesar. Caesar was expecting to serve under the new Royal that was still slated to pop. Will Skyy be willing to step down once a "proper" ruler pops? Has all the chaos* disrupted the Heir's production (i.e. removed it from the queue)? Where in this disarray will Vanna find herself? Stay tuned next time to Shirley the Temple's favorite TV Soap Opera: Bats of Purgatory.

For all his wisdom and savvy, Ben isn't a good leader. He's far better as an adviser, even if you ignore the unwritten law that casters can't be kings (the only exceptions have been Carnies and usurpers thus far, with Olive getting around this by keeping her Overlord alive but contained and then acting as a "proxy", remember). Ben hasn't shown the aggressive charisma and self-definition of an effective ruler. As an adviser, however, he is a powerful asset for maintaining the treasury and providing guidance for his ruler.

* Don's death and Caesar's ascension was a formal and straight forward affair, even if Don was a second away from disbanding his chief warlord and heir when he was killed. Skyy's ascension isn't so clear cut, because there was at least a point of time between Caesar's suicide and Skyy being marked heir, a fraction of a second in which the city was dead. The trick seems to have worked well enough to maintain succession, but that little hiccup could have reset the production queue.

[-D-]

Sky's also a bit character, whose biggest contributions are: wielding guns, using the crown and shooting some dolls. So far, she been as vicious as a wiener dog.

[deuterio12]

Skyy is currently a reasonably high level warlord who has distinguished herself as being the only TV unit to stand up and mount a meaningful resistance. If Caesar were to pick a successor, she'd probably be it. At least in HueHue's estimation, and despite his recent misinterpretations I believe this is correct. Skyy is a bat in every way that Caesar considered important beyond age - she's a new generation of the Old School.

And Vinnie's what, chopped liver?

Skyy looked like quite a promising warlady, but by her own words she was still a newbie. She has potential, but lacks experience, in particular when it comes to ordering others around.

Meanwhile Vinne is a trusted veteran that's proven himself countless times in all sorts of situations and was a pretty close friend to Caesar.

But the fans liked gun lady and Rob seems to have forgotten Vinnie even exists so meh,

In the other hand the position of ruler of Tee Vee seems kinda cursed so who knows, the new Queen may just be the next sacrifice in line, aztec looks aren't very good for longevity, so Vinnie may be safer remaining a warlord.

[Zalabim]

Vinnie was out of town, and Skyy may not last long herself. Huehue did call himself a temple of human sacrifice, which is quite dreadful for anyone's life expectancy around there.

[Calemyr]

Vinnie was out of town, and Skyy may not last long herself. Huehue did call himself a temple of human sacrifice, which is quite dreadful for anyone's life expectancy around there.

Yep. Vinnie is not in a location where he's a viable candidate. Besides which, Vinnie hasn't interacted much (if at all) with HueHue and relevant detail is what HueHue thinks Caesar thinks rather that what Caesar actually would have thought. Vinnie is just a name on the roster to the Tower while Skyy is on scene and stood up to make an excellent accounting of herself in the current crisis.

Also, Vinnie doesn't seem to be in nearly as much danger, from HueHue's perspective. He's in a recently conquered city with bats for support and a max level warlord who is possibly his best friend beside him. Of course, that is ignoring the fact that Ansom is probably catatonic like Jack now that Wanda's dead, but the cause and effect is more clearly defined for us than it would be for HueHue. Gotta admit I'm curious how Marie is doing - is it only decrypted loyal to Wanda that're crashing or is it all decrypted?

[Jasdoif]

Look, there are ways to salvage Bunny and even Don, but narratively, once the Thinkamancers are dead, there is not much reason for Bunny to live.

Kinda thought the narrative intent was Bunny being permanently lost to Caesar, as impetus for Caesar's suicide. And much more conjectural on my part...when "her string was destroyed; you can decrypt her body but Bunny is gone" went off the table with the Arkenpliers, having her body devoured by bats started looking like a "good" alternative.

Reminds me how Lilith went from no one to super important...

Lilith being the centerpiece of the best stretch of comics in the past two books is probably a factor.

[keybounce]

I would say it's the other way around.

Charlie ran out of plans. All he could do was keep sending even more archons with rifles to die then his side was taken over by a talking tower moving them backwards. Even their favored minion FAQ lost their capital and treasury.

Hamster meanwhile managed to negotiate his own release, making a new ally along the way that started by capturing FAQ's capital and their treasury.

The only awakened tower in book 3 is Jed.

Book 3 ends with the Hamster Dance. Parson had a plan, we saw strategy, but his plan failed.

Charlie had a plan, a stray bullet caused it to backfire and double down on failure, and his plan failed.

The Thinkamancers presented themselves as a third side out of nowhere, and no one had planned for them.

As Charlie ended turn, he said he had a plan for the future, and presented a bright "we can recover" to his archons.

The rest of the mess is book 4.

[Aquillion]

Gotta admit I'm curious how Marie is doing - is it only decrypted loyal to Wanda that're crashing or is it all decrypted?

Marie has a reason to crash particularly hard, because this implies that things have gone very wrong fatewise.

[Aquillion]

For all his wisdom and savvy, Ben isn't a good leader. He's far better as an adviser, even if you ignore the unwritten law that casters can't be kings (the only exceptions have been Carnies and usurpers thus far, with Olive getting around this by keeping her Overlord alive but contained and then acting as a "proxy", remember).

We haven't seen her yet, but I seem to recall that there's a side lead by a hippiemancer as a last-ditch escape option for MK hippiemancers and their allies.

(It's a bit interesting that the hippiemancers, the casters most devote to peace, would have the most detailed escape plans in the case of an MK disaster. Maybe it's because their knowledge of peace tells them exactly how fragile it can be.)

[Calemyr]

Marie has a reason to crash particularly hard, because this implies that things have gone very wrong fatewise.

Mmm... maybe. Or she could just smirk and wonder how Fate plans to get Wanda back in the game. (Wandah, you fool girl, you. D'you think e'en death ken stop Fate when it's made up its mind?") Either way, though, she has chosen a rival side to Wanda's - so she's not directly tied duty-wise to the croakamancer. Everyone we've seen have been GK decrypted.

We haven't seen her yet, but I seem to recall that there's a side lead by a hippiemancer as a last-ditch escape option for MK hippiemancers and their allies.

(It's a bit interesting that the hippiemancers, the casters most devote to peace, would have the most detailed escape plans in the case of an MK disaster. Maybe it's because their knowledge of peace tells them exactly how fragile it can be.)

I don't recall that. I can only think of two hippimancers: Olive Branch is Flower Power and Janis is Date-o-mancy. Olive was pretty brutal in her application of non-violence - killing en masse without dealing a point of damage. Janis wants to break the world in order to heal it. Using those two examples, I would not be surprised if "those who wish for peace must first prepare for war" is a hippimancer motto.

[Anteros]

But the fans liked gun lady and Rob seems to have forgotten Vinnie even exists so meh,

I liked her original style. Especially the tattoos. The new style is more distinctive, but it's also tacky and awful, so that's not exactly better. Her character itself is forgettable.

It's fine though. I'm sure her character will be established in some overly long nonsense plot that ultimately goes nowhere and has nothing to do with the overall story.

[Aquillion]

I don't recall that. I can only think of two hippimancers: Olive Branch is Flower Power and Janis is Date-o-mancy. Olive was pretty brutal in her application of non-violence - killing en masse without dealing a point of damage. Janis wants to break the world in order to heal it. Using those two examples, I would not be surprised if "those who wish for peace must first prepare for war" is a hippimancer motto.

It's mentioned on this page:

"As the only barbarian Grand Abbies not currently out in the world (three others were known, five more were suspected, and up to six others had likely croaked) or running their own sides (two of these were known, of whom one was an emergency sanctuary if things went truly wrong), it was up to them to decide if this was worth risking."