It only seems like a fine arrangement because we are seeing this war from the protagonist’s point of view. Selkie may be exposed, but it’s better than having an extradition request to hand her over to the Sar’Teri for a “fair trial”.
For the new exiles, though, it’s a very bad deal – and the government will no longer be able to smooth this forced immigration now that everyone knows about the Sarnothi.
yep tell em to leave and make it hard for them to do so. THEN exterminate them because they didn’t leave. Seen that movie. know a few people who lived it.
yea Ask jews about how this story ends. Seriously ask em.. if you can find any that remember. (Pardon while I’m off going to go take a leak on FDRs grave )
Oh. Other than Logistics of managing a bunch of bitter refugees and Sarnothi existence being revealed before they were ready, that doesn’t actually sound anywhere near as bad as it could have been.
And I was *this* close to declaring my desire to brutally murder and then devour and defecate out this man’s soul.
I still think sushi should be on the table Rater, Seal teams 1-6 and what ever SOG teams qualified doing a snatch and grab on this arsehole and whomever else is with him is a SOLID plan.
Considering the heated discussions we have due to our (real world) refugees crisis, this does indeed sound like a big deal to me. Imagine the unrest when suddenly being confronted with thousands of refugees from another *species* you didn’t even know *existed*…
I’ll bet that NONE of the new refugees are anywhere near an Echoe’s level of power when it comes to the use of The Force (i forget what it’s called) and i’m also gonna lay out some Moxana Points and say that those that ARE near that level will either be showing up as corpses, kept as POW’s (read that as Slaves), or if they are allowed to leave, while still technically “alive”, they’ll be fitted with a more… permanent… version of Selkie’s hair-bow to prevent them being used against the Sar’teri later on, so they may as well be dead to the rest of their society.
I don’t like him as a person no, he is obviously a tyrant. But I like him as a character in the way that he is very well written. And I have always liked intelligent villains.
I don’t mind villains that are not dumbed down, but I don’t like villains that are smarter than me, … Like that thing living under my bed? Yeah, don’t like him either. But I like him better than that invisible guy who bugs agent Brown. He’s just bad news.
Because if the Sar’Teri decide to kill off the refugees, there’s no real way to stop them. Is there??
Turn invisible, go into the city, assassinate some poor Jin’Sorai, and mosey-on back to the lake and have a swim, visit with Pants, … and when the morning light comes streamin’ in, get up and do it again. And again.
Caught between the lusting for power,
And trying to rebuild the City,
Where the work’s never through for the remaining few,
And the fishes going by look so pretty.
And the survivors dream of the fight, In the Lake’s endless twilight,
And the fearless Leader takes off for a Week-end Bender.
Into the cool Superior waters, swims the Defender,
Who was promised eel skin armor, but still wonders about her Mommie.
Blah, blah, blah, all I’m saying is who would have thought that such a sweet little Selkie could destroy his monomaniacal wickedness.
Yeah, that’s sorta what I meant. He seems like a dictator and seems to think that only his clan are true Sarnothi and that just sounds… VERY dictatory.
As a villain I’m glad he’s not just evil for evil’s sake, but as a leader? Me no likey. There’s probably a lot to his backstory that we don’t know yet that would make us see WHY he thinks only the Sar’Teri are true Sarnothis, but it would probably still seem wrong to most readers.
So yeah, he’s a good villain in the sense that he’s not just a jerk kicking out the clans he doesn’t like because they were his enemies… but SHEESH, is he a jerk. ?
Vive la Révolution! Exile is better than the guillotine. This lot is in Lake Superior? Does their territory extend to Lake Michigan? If not I’m sure the lake condtions are similar enough to allow resettlement there.
cant be to much deeper than 200 feet. superior is almost 1500 feet deep they couldn’t have scuba dove at that depth even saturation diving at that depth is problematic. even a JIM suit or a NEWT suit is tricky at that depth.
I don’t think they’re going to be very expansionist for the time being. They’ve gotten ride of 3/4 of their population (one way or another) and have a very large city to try to maintain. I don’t expect that Sarnothi are particularly prolific at reproduction, so it would take some time for them to even occupy the entirety of their current claimed land, much less look to further territory.
Two thing have been rattling around my brain,
Does Clan Sar’teri have enough numbers to maintain not only the city, but also their population without the othe clans? If not will we be looking at North Korea style kidnappings to replenish certain roles that Sarnoth is desperately short on, like those that can access the energy field?
Also why use the word empire and not kingdom? Historically empires (especially new ones) tend to be expansionist by nature; does this provide a clue to Cern’s future intentions?
So does that mean that those smaller clans have been absorbed into the Sar’Teri? After all Cern does say Sarnoth is only for the Sar’teri. Also I don’t remember there being smaller clans being mentioned, only the four. Do you know whereabouts they were mentioned?
There’s also the option that he changed the government system from oligarchical to imperial. There’s two types of empire: the political and the territorial. Since the latter is more common, people heavily associate that with the word “empire.” However, there’s also a governmental type of empire. A modern example of an imperial government is North Korea, and the archetypal example is the Roman Imperial government, which was started well after Rome was an empire by territorial measures.
True. I still wouldnt put it past Cern to posture for increased claim on the connecting lakes, and even shoreline though – with the explanation of needing a bufferzone.
Yeah, it would be really easy to just depth charge the remaining evildoers to death once the exiles (3/4 of their society) are gone. It’s not even genocide at that point. It’s just cleaning out extremists.
And more difficult than you might expect. We have no idea as to the limits of their tech and they are built for being underwater and won’t be as clumsy as we.
He may not be threatening the exiles directly, but he’s made their lives a living hell from this point forward. Any chance at a gradual acceptance by the public with another species living among them is destroyed. Kay said it best in Men in Black: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” I hope Avery and his folks have a contingency plan.
She was in the background of a strip a few in-comic months ago. So at least at that point, she had escaped. I’m sure we’ll find out about her current state soon.
It is, of course, stolen: it’s a paraphrase of what the Ottoman Sultan Beyezid II said of Ferdinand and Isabella when the latter expelled the Jews from Spain. Admittedly, the various Ottoman dynasties were often quite awful, but the Cold War kept proving Beyezid’s point, again and again and again.
Okay…so what does that mean for the Sar’Teri that were living in the refugee colony? And for Carrie and Benny – aren’t they Clan Sar’Teri? Are they going to be “reclaimed?”
My heart has been in my throat since the television broadcast got interrupted.
given that he spoke of LOYAL children, i´d say all those who ran – and refused to fight their brothers – are exiled permanent as well….though i remember pohl saying something along the lines of never being able to return, its got to be hard to know its a fact now.
I’m gonna be honest this is getting a little bit hard to swallow from a reader point of view, I’m all for suspension of disbelief but this feels a bit forced to create a situation where what the US government was dreading IS happening right now
that being said… the next few pages are gonna be very interesting to see how you handle it… I don’t know why but I’m starting to feel that you wrote yourself in a corner…
opinion of course, all that I just said is an opinion
oh and Mugabe did this and What ever the new guy down in South Africa is doing this. They did this kind of shit to the Rawandans an 2 or 3 times in The Congo Basin.
I get that, but we’re talking about a civilization living in a lake inside the territory of the United States of America
I seriously doubt they would allow something like this to get to this extremes right in their doorstep
they have toppled governments on the name of “we can’t allow that” for ages and ages when things like this happen in the American continent, just a few ones have actually being resilient enough to not being toppled (but they are “de fanged” so to speak, no real treat to them)
I suppose it was more of a message to the other clans than anything… “We don’t want you here. We are exposing you. See how loyal the humans are to you once they know what you are.” I mean… crappy thing to do, but no violence or bloodshed on their part… what an odd and unique way to handle numerous situations in one fell swoop. I didn’t think he was an evil mastermind declaring war and demanding the refugees be given back for execution in the first place. Guess I was right. He’s just cold and indifferent.
I’m of a mindset that you shouldn’t hate characters simply because they aren’t the main character. Main characters often tend to have very little flaws and the flaws they do have are either explained away or turn into strong points. I find most main characters quite boring unless they’re written to actually be relatable. More often than not the ‘bad guys’ tend to be way more interesting.
You know those manga where the protagonist is on a mission for revenge? Said revenge is usually spun to be called justice. The protagonist will do some seriously screwed up and inhuman things in the name of ‘justice’ and is often excused for immoral acts because they’re the tragic hero of the story. We are conditioned to love and sympathize with the hero regardless of what they do. Well, I’m the opposite. I find protagonists often have a victim complex or a hero complex and are usually quite selfish and self centered. Or they’re just good for the sake of being good and are self sacrificing for no good reason.
I don’t like protagonists who have plot armor and get away with awful crap, but it’s excused because they’re the ‘good guy’ of the story. Likewise I don’t like 1 dimensional characters written as a flawless and self sacrificing character simply because they’re the hero. Villains tend to be more relatable because they act how you would expect someone to act. They can have questionable morals and motivation because their backstory typically gives them a greater cause behind it. Doesn’t make them right, but it gives them far more depth than a hero who’s good for the sake of being good.
Say you’re in a zombie situation. You see someone about to be devoured and know that it might be too late to help, but it certainly is a huge risk to you and your current group. The leader says they’re going to save this unknown survivor. Another member says it’s a huge risk for their group for someone they don’t know and is most likely going to die. My logic is I have a group, I’ve established bonds with this group. Why would I risk their lives for someone who could be a thief or murderer? They could easily be someone helpful, like a doctor, but am I willing to risk our lives for a possibility like that? No. I have nothing currently visible to gain from this move. All it is, is an unessecary risk to my friends and loved ones all for the sake of it being ‘the right thing to do’ because the hero says so.
I certainly don’t take pleasure in that person dying and I feel remorseful and possibly even guilty that I chose not to help. Say that we do jump in and the husband of another member of our group gets killed in the skirmish. How do we explain that to her, that we felt some random unknown stranger was worth sacrificing her husband for? How do we tell his children that their father was killed for someone we didn’t know? How do we explain that risk to them to make them not resent our choice? I’m not saying that survivor’s life was worth any more than our friend, but to his family? He was and I can’t blame them for that. To them, we’ve betrayed them for someone we didn’t even know, simply because we wanted to be good for the sake of being good.
Wow, sorry for that huge rant. I just felt like I should explain why I’m always inclined to hear a ‘bad guy’ out before I pass judgement on them.
People risk their lives to help strangers for no reason all the time. Look up on youtube “restore my faith” videos. Someone gets buried in an avalanche, is it really only the person’s family and friends who go to help the authorities? Usually it’s the entire town close to the incident. Such rescues can result in injuries to the rescuers. Occasionally, the rescue triggers another avalanche which can cause more deaths. Lots of people wouldn’t lift a finger to help anybody else. Lots of people would risk their lives to help anybody in trouble. So the hero doing good things just because it needs to be done is totally realistic.
I’m also of the opinion that most people aren’t pure evil, so villians that are written as doing bad things just to do bad things strike me as very… one-dimensional. In this day and age, we get a lot of stories where they actually explore the villian’s reasons, and I love that change from some older stories where the villians didn’t have a reason.
And heroes getting away with bad things just because they’re the hero doesn’t sit well with me either. Sure, I want them to come out all right at the end, but I also want them to have some sort of consequence for the bad things they did.
One reason I like reading this comic is because of how well the characters are written. When you’re reading it week-by-week, it can look like a character is one-dimensional, but any character that lasts more than four appearances/references is revealed to be just as complicated as real people tend to be.
Not saying it’s unrealistic, I’m saying it’s kind of stupid. When one person runs off, everyone else is expected to follow suit or be labeled as someone bad. It’s not bad to want to protect yourself and the ones you love from something that may or may not benefit you in a situation that you have a lot to lose in for a maybe. I don’t find it relatable or even smart.
In the start, I found Todd to be a very boring character and Selkie to be a selfish brat. Todd is becoming more likeable the more mistakes he makes and Selkie has gotten to be less of a sarcastic brat since she’s actually been told off (on one occasion) although I think she needs to be punished a bit more for her snappy remarks, just like Amanda.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Then again I doubt he’s ever been exposed to human history… He’s about to get a crash course: 3/4’s of his people are now his sworn enemies, and refugee camps are breeding ground for terrorists.
Point taken.
.
.
.
As an aside, it got me to thinking: Is there a way to *definitively* separate the two? I put it to you that a terrorist targets the civilian population while a freedom fighter targets the rulers, military, etc. Would you go along with that?
In other words, the very same actions are viewed as execrable or heroic, depending on what side of a conflict you’re on.
I used to be stymied by that. How can you judge fairly? In my old age, though, I’ve decided to cut through that nonsense. I’m going to call anyone who engages in what’s now called ‘asymmetrical warfare’ a terrorist. It just makes things simpler. The French Resistance fighters were terrorists. The Baader-Meinhof gang were terrorists. Al Qaeda were terrorists when they fought the Russians in Afghanistan, and they remained terrorists when they brought down the two towers. If a group uses terrorist tactics, it’s a terrorist group, whether you agree with its aims or not.
And I don’t think it matters all that much whether civilian casualties are created intentionally to demoralize the opposing forces, or brushed away as unimportant ‘collateral damage’. No matter what the killers say to claim they are the good guys, innocent non-combatants are just as dead.
With no time to prepare, this influx of an entire culture, who is suddenly throw out of their environment, it is going to a very tough road.
Does anyone remember the movie and tv series Alien Nation? About the ship that crashed on earth with a slave race of aliens and showed how they were integrated? I imagine this is going to be similar.
Welp, I take back what I said before – he’s not smart, just a tyrant. Though I don’t know if the internal troubles will be noticeable while he’s still alive.
Whoof. Well, it’s better than forcing the States to return their refugees, but at the same time, he just opened up one hell of a can o’ worms for them to deal with.
…that could have gone worse. I mean…. It’s not GOOD, especially not for any potential refugees, but… Could they not be relocated to one or all of the other four great lakes?
Honestly, with the way this comic introduces and abandons storylines and characters it’ll probably be another eight years before this is followed up on.
There’s immediate impact to multiple characters. I suspect we’re about to get a bunch of exploration into those character’s reactions to this announcement.
I think I’m most interested in seeing what happens when Selkie goes back to school.
This has all the signs of going incredibly poorly. All but one clan’s viewpoint has been removed from an empire of apparently Clarke’s law-level tech, and they don’t like humans. Humans now know about an entire new species, much less race group, to be bigoted against, and all the tribes have to officially leave their former nation for other lands. The gun has been cocked…
The only good part I can see is how he’s stressed that all they want is to be left alone. If they’re sincere about that, and ignore the rest of the world, then maybe total war can be avoided. Assuming the humans cooperate and actually leave them alone.
Hopefully the rest of the clans are refugees and not dead. Hopefully the refugees can find new homes.
One of two things will happen here. If the Sarnothi clan names are just old history, and there are Artisans and Builders and Stuff elsewhere, then this will go fine for the society (except that it seems this guy is a despot, but the society will survive). If he just evicted most of the available workers of his society, though, leaving only one small category of jobs, he’s dooming everyone to societal extinction. The only remaining Sarnothi will be scraping by or living with humans, because you can’t have a technological civilization with only a few types of jobs.
Imma gunna invest in cottage lake property right now – gunna try to buy several quite deep lakes in the quiet north. Just sayin’. S’okay if it’s off the grid and not connected by roads, in fact all the better. I’d just love to be the one getting paid on a 100 year lease by the inhabitants of New Jin’Sorai. They can have a 500 year lease if they prefer. There’s a LOT of lakes on Crown Land up here in Canada. A lot of possible villages and farms… May have to do a heck of a bunch of dredging, of course…
and it’s not like some of those lakes are significantly colder than the Great Lakes, honestly. On top of that, Canada has generally been more welcoming of immigrants and refugees than the u.s. has, and a lot of that Crown Land is far from developed urban centres. Heading north sounds like the best bet for the majority of Sarnothi.
And frankly, the Canadian government would be derpy as herp if it didn’t want to immediately make-nice with a civilization with advanced technologies.
The biggest issue, though, is the Resonance. How much of that originates specifically in Lake Superior? How well can the Sarnothi people survive without it, if necessary?
And from a political standpoint, how angry would be u.s. be if Canada was given any kind of preferential treatment by the Sarnothi? And then what about all the other nations of the world? Will any of them attempt to harbour Sarnothi refugees overseas?
Of course, the main focus of this fiction is Selkie herself, so I understand if all of this theory-crafting is frivolous. But that’s not gonna stop me from pondering about it until there’s some kind of canonical statement one way or another.
Seriously, Dave . . . you may have bit off a HUGE something-or-other in throwing an advanced civilization between Canada and the u.s.
Like . . . huge-huge. There’s a LOT of pent-up resentment, especially these days with a certain orange fellow in a seat of considerable power.
Approximately 60% of the world’s lakes are found in Canada. According to Wikipedia, the Government of Canada has reported that there are 31,752 major lakes in the country. These lakes each cover an area of over 3 km squared (1.8 miles squared). The number of lakes that cover an area of over 100km squared (62 miles squared) is 561. It is also estimated that the number of small lakes is close to two million. About 9% of Canada is covered by freshwater. The largest lake that is entirely in Canada’s territory is the Great Bear Lake which covers an area of approximately 31,328 km squared (19,466 miles squared).
Hard to get a reading on this guy’s personality; As we know very little about him, what has happened leading up to this (minus vague general information).
Still feeling the time-line is vague. I wonder if rude sarnoth-boy from s few pages ago will run back home as a loyal child. He clearly as issues at home or his new surrounding. And the upcoming wave from the human populace may push this.
that went a lot better than I thought it would.
I was almost sure he was going to demand the exiles be returned and threaten war if they weren’t returned soon. but deciding to exile all the other clans, and leave the refugees to be someone else’s problem is a much better solution.
Though now it brings up the question of what happened to the other three clans that tried to remain in sarnoth ? and how many have survived the end of the war ?
if Sarnoth is in the middle or eastern half of Lake Superior this does leave the western half of Lake Superior and a number of other nearby large lakes to build new cities in.
Lake ontario
Lake Erie
Lake Huron
Georgian Bay
Lake Michigan
Green Bay
Lake Nipigon
Lake Winnipeg though it might be too far north
and there is always the options of flooding an open pit mine, or them assimilating into cities on land.
or given that, the pool they did scuba training at was salt water, the oceans could also be possible to rebuilt in. there are lots of continental shelves and ocean side bays they could settle in.
Hudson Bay, though it might be too far north
Cape Cod Bay
Bay of Fundy
Long Island sound
New York Bight
Delaware bay
Chesapeake Bay
San Francisco Bay
Strait of Juan de Fuca, near Vancouver and Seattle
Might have to change a few shipping lanes in the future, but it would be possible for the 3 other clans of Sarnoth to resettle and rebuild.
1) In an earlier comic it is mentioned that each clan had its own province; this coupled with seen eel ranching indicates that most of not all of Lake Superior is under their domain. 2) The pool was filtered/no chemicals fresh water. Dave confirmed Sarnoths are fresh water only. 3) I would rule out the other Great Lakes as they are for the most part all connected naturally, and with Cern’s Declaration why give him an excuse to wipe them out. 4) As mentioned above, Canada makes the most sense for possible relocation of exiles/refugees due to the sheer number of freshwater lakes; however it should be noted that Sarnoths do not do well in the extreme cold as demonstrated by Selkie.
I could have sworn i remembered the pool being salt water for some reason.
Maybe i was thinking of the salt water pool in my city.
It would be really hard to keep a filtered water pool clean, and the chemical free pools dave mentioned are kept clean by plants and specially selected animals, so they aren’t actually “clean” in a way that could pass a health code inspection for a public pool. It’s more clean like a well maintained aquarium, as it’s literally an artificial pond.
As for freshwater, yes most aquatic life is divided into two groups, fresh or salt water, but some can live in both, such as salmon. As well all lakes and rivers have salt in them, just a lot less than the ocean.
Yep I got it but it it’s not letting me reply again. The cups look fantastic! As for the colors I would go with what’s on the banners in the previous comic. If you need a Hi-Rez reference let me know and I will try to work something out.
I wonder: Does this edict apply just to the city-state of Sarnoth itself, or extend out further into the Lakes? Will all the refugees in the village Selkie visited, for example, have to be relocated?
Oh. Oh that’s so much worse. If this is the same sort of American political landscape that the real world resides in, the sudden influx of people will put a supposed draw on resources and the new, strange, and easily targeted Sarnothi will scapegoated as the cause. Hopefully most of them will flee to Canada who – though has it’s own issues with immigration – at least has more room, a slightly better economy, and possibly more lakes. Which brings me to my next question:
Can Sarnothi live in any sort of fresh water lake so long as it was big enough/has enough food? If so, hopefully they can at least have their own spaces rather than being forcibly integrated?
I think that they would be able to live in most lakes. When they were in Jin’Suir it was mentioned that their ‘street lamps’ doubled as heaters, which was the reason the entire village wasn’t hibernating at that time. So a colder lake would not preclude Sarnothi settlement. I do wonder how tolerant they would be to different PH levels, though.
They aren’t just exiling their enemies, they’re exiling all the groups that had any enemies in them. There’s gonna be a huge influx of exiles now and there will be pressure to not let them in.
That… took a weird turn. Like, alright? This actually seems like a fine arrangement unless I’m missing something.
I’m guessing that there will be an influx of new refugees / exiles coming because of that statement.
It only seems like a fine arrangement because we are seeing this war from the protagonist’s point of view. Selkie may be exposed, but it’s better than having an extradition request to hand her over to the Sar’Teri for a “fair trial”.
For the new exiles, though, it’s a very bad deal – and the government will no longer be able to smooth this forced immigration now that everyone knows about the Sarnothi.
First point, yea. Though on the second, I think doing this in secret was wrong to begin with so it being finally out there is better in the long term.
Who says anything about new exiles? I interpreted that as a thinly-veiled genocide admission.
yep tell em to leave and make it hard for them to do so. THEN exterminate them because they didn’t leave. Seen that movie. know a few people who lived it.
yea Ask jews about how this story ends. Seriously ask em.. if you can find any that remember. (Pardon while I’m off going to go take a leak on FDRs grave )
“Better than expected, worse than you’d hoped” sums it up pretty well, I’d say.
Oh. Other than Logistics of managing a bunch of bitter refugees and Sarnothi existence being revealed before they were ready, that doesn’t actually sound anywhere near as bad as it could have been.
And I was *this* close to declaring my desire to brutally murder and then devour and defecate out this man’s soul.
I still think sushi should be on the table Rater, Seal teams 1-6 and what ever SOG teams qualified doing a snatch and grab on this arsehole and whomever else is with him is a SOLID plan.
I’m sitting here crying. Dave, I’m so proud of you, but this storyline is heartbreaking.
Considering the heated discussions we have due to our (real world) refugees crisis, this does indeed sound like a big deal to me. Imagine the unrest when suddenly being confronted with thousands of refugees from another *species* you didn’t even know *existed*…
Though in this case they have a very valuable bargaining chip in their technology.
I’ll bet that NONE of the new refugees are anywhere near an Echoe’s level of power when it comes to the use of The Force (i forget what it’s called) and i’m also gonna lay out some Moxana Points and say that those that ARE near that level will either be showing up as corpses, kept as POW’s (read that as Slaves), or if they are allowed to leave, while still technically “alive”, they’ll be fitted with a more… permanent… version of Selkie’s hair-bow to prevent them being used against the Sar’teri later on, so they may as well be dead to the rest of their society.
I don’t like Cern. :/
I don’t like him as a person no, he is obviously a tyrant. But I like him as a character in the way that he is very well written. And I have always liked intelligent villains.
I don’t mind villains that are not dumbed down, but I don’t like villains that are smarter than me, … Like that thing living under my bed? Yeah, don’t like him either. But I like him better than that invisible guy who bugs agent Brown. He’s just bad news.
Because if the Sar’Teri decide to kill off the refugees, there’s no real way to stop them. Is there??
Turn invisible, go into the city, assassinate some poor Jin’Sorai, and mosey-on back to the lake and have a swim, visit with Pants, … and when the morning light comes streamin’ in, get up and do it again. And again.
Caught between the lusting for power,
And trying to rebuild the City,
Where the work’s never through for the remaining few,
And the fishes going by look so pretty.
And the survivors dream of the fight, In the Lake’s endless twilight,
And the fearless Leader takes off for a Week-end Bender.
Into the cool Superior waters, swims the Defender,
Who was promised eel skin armor, but still wonders about her Mommie.
Blah, blah, blah, all I’m saying is who would have thought that such a sweet little Selkie could destroy his monomaniacal wickedness.
The Invisible Guy that messes with Agent Brown is Then.
He works for the CIA liaising for the refugees.
Yeah, that’s sorta what I meant. He seems like a dictator and seems to think that only his clan are true Sarnothi and that just sounds… VERY dictatory.
As a villain I’m glad he’s not just evil for evil’s sake, but as a leader? Me no likey. There’s probably a lot to his backstory that we don’t know yet that would make us see WHY he thinks only the Sar’Teri are true Sarnothis, but it would probably still seem wrong to most readers.
So yeah, he’s a good villain in the sense that he’s not just a jerk kicking out the clans he doesn’t like because they were his enemies… but SHEESH, is he a jerk. ?
… Did I misspell my email or something cuz I don’t see my icon on this. ?
That went the opposite way to what I was expecting at the end. It’s rather a relief actually. 🙂
. . . Until you realize that that probably means that the current exiles are the only surviving members of those clans.
Vive la Révolution! Exile is better than the guillotine. This lot is in Lake Superior? Does their territory extend to Lake Michigan? If not I’m sure the lake condtions are similar enough to allow resettlement there.
Eh….. I wouldn’t risk it. Most of the Great Lakes are connected, and historically empires (especially new ones) are expansionist by nature.
What about Lake of the Woods?
Is 210ft deep enough for the rebuilding of an aquatic society? Remember they had to use a submersible just to reach the current refugee village.
cant be to much deeper than 200 feet. superior is almost 1500 feet deep they couldn’t have scuba dove at that depth even saturation diving at that depth is problematic. even a JIM suit or a NEWT suit is tricky at that depth.
I don’t think they’re going to be very expansionist for the time being. They’ve gotten ride of 3/4 of their population (one way or another) and have a very large city to try to maintain. I don’t expect that Sarnothi are particularly prolific at reproduction, so it would take some time for them to even occupy the entirety of their current claimed land, much less look to further territory.
Jin´Sorai was already more or less destroyed – and now the other two clans, other than Sar´Teri, are exiled as well?
Two thing have been rattling around my brain,
Does Clan Sar’teri have enough numbers to maintain not only the city, but also their population without the othe clans? If not will we be looking at North Korea style kidnappings to replenish certain roles that Sarnoth is desperately short on, like those that can access the energy field?
Also why use the word empire and not kingdom? Historically empires (especially new ones) tend to be expansionist by nature; does this provide a clue to Cern’s future intentions?
These four were just the major clans with political power, numerous other small clans also exist.
So does that mean that those smaller clans have been absorbed into the Sar’Teri? After all Cern does say Sarnoth is only for the Sar’teri. Also I don’t remember there being smaller clans being mentioned, only the four. Do you know whereabouts they were mentioned?
Author’s comments on this strip: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie401/
Since those comments refer to sub-clans within the major clans, I would bet their sub-clans get exiled too.
Or they could be given the choice of swearing allegiance to the sar’teri. Otherwise why name the three exiled clans specifically?
Not enough time in a broadcast to list them all off individually.
Looking back, I’m so glad the “representing Fire element” folks aren’t evil. (ugh Avatar fire is my favorite element dammit)
Let alone enough to follow through on any threats against the US or Canada over exiles.
There’s also the option that he changed the government system from oligarchical to imperial. There’s two types of empire: the political and the territorial. Since the latter is more common, people heavily associate that with the word “empire.” However, there’s also a governmental type of empire. A modern example of an imperial government is North Korea, and the archetypal example is the Roman Imperial government, which was started well after Rome was an empire by territorial measures.
True. I still wouldnt put it past Cern to posture for increased claim on the connecting lakes, and even shoreline though – with the explanation of needing a bufferzone.
So he exposed them, threw doubt as to their peacefulness, and then said “you’re on your own.” Good lord, that’s vicious.
h o l y s m o k e s
Well that makes it easier to conduct strike operations since all the “bad guys” are all in one place.
Yeah, it would be really easy to just depth charge the remaining evildoers to death once the exiles (3/4 of their society) are gone. It’s not even genocide at that point. It’s just cleaning out extremists.
No, it’s… it’s still genocide.
And more difficult than you might expect. We have no idea as to the limits of their tech and they are built for being underwater and won’t be as clumsy as we.
He may not be threatening the exiles directly, but he’s made their lives a living hell from this point forward. Any chance at a gradual acceptance by the public with another species living among them is destroyed. Kay said it best in Men in Black: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it.” I hope Avery and his folks have a contingency plan.
I wonder what’s happened to Selkie’s mom? Killed? Escaped? Captured and awaiting execution?
She was in the background of a strip a few in-comic months ago. So at least at that point, she had escaped. I’m sure we’ll find out about her current state soon.
Not the first time a dictator has enriched my country while impoverishing his own.
now thats an awesome statement!
It is, of course, stolen: it’s a paraphrase of what the Ottoman Sultan Beyezid II said of Ferdinand and Isabella when the latter expelled the Jews from Spain. Admittedly, the various Ottoman dynasties were often quite awful, but the Cold War kept proving Beyezid’s point, again and again and again.
A fine quote, Moe Lane.
The Great lakes are huge, and there are other fresh water lakes around the world, such as Lake Baikal, where the refugees may find an aquatic home.
Okay…so what does that mean for the Sar’Teri that were living in the refugee colony? And for Carrie and Benny – aren’t they Clan Sar’Teri? Are they going to be “reclaimed?”
My heart has been in my throat since the television broadcast got interrupted.
given that he spoke of LOYAL children, i´d say all those who ran – and refused to fight their brothers – are exiled permanent as well….though i remember pohl saying something along the lines of never being able to return, its got to be hard to know its a fact now.
And then the next standard thing is for the Sar’Teri refugees to be no longer welcome in the refugee village either.
Sounds like an ethnic cleansing is about to begin.
yep. Good news there is no 4437 on a harpoon gun.
good thing theres no 4437 on harpoon guns. Automatic or otherwise.
I’m gonna be honest this is getting a little bit hard to swallow from a reader point of view, I’m all for suspension of disbelief but this feels a bit forced to create a situation where what the US government was dreading IS happening right now
that being said… the next few pages are gonna be very interesting to see how you handle it… I don’t know why but I’m starting to feel that you wrote yourself in a corner…
opinion of course, all that I just said is an opinion
the chineese and South Koreans are scared SPITLESS that Kimmy will try something like this. An Su Chi is doing this right now with the Rhohinga.
oh and Mugabe did this and What ever the new guy down in South Africa is doing this. They did this kind of shit to the Rawandans an 2 or 3 times in The Congo Basin.
This is a very VERY old game he is playing
I get that, but we’re talking about a civilization living in a lake inside the territory of the United States of America
I seriously doubt they would allow something like this to get to this extremes right in their doorstep
they have toppled governments on the name of “we can’t allow that” for ages and ages when things like this happen in the American continent, just a few ones have actually being resilient enough to not being toppled (but they are “de fanged” so to speak, no real treat to them)
.. Yeah, called it. The original incident was the excuse they’ve been looking for for a *long* time, and now they have what they were after all along.
I suppose it was more of a message to the other clans than anything… “We don’t want you here. We are exposing you. See how loyal the humans are to you once they know what you are.” I mean… crappy thing to do, but no violence or bloodshed on their part… what an odd and unique way to handle numerous situations in one fell swoop. I didn’t think he was an evil mastermind declaring war and demanding the refugees be given back for execution in the first place. Guess I was right. He’s just cold and indifferent.
Unique hell. This idiot read Mien Kampf and didn’t learnt he lessons after the fact.
I’m of a mindset that you shouldn’t hate characters simply because they aren’t the main character. Main characters often tend to have very little flaws and the flaws they do have are either explained away or turn into strong points. I find most main characters quite boring unless they’re written to actually be relatable. More often than not the ‘bad guys’ tend to be way more interesting.
You know those manga where the protagonist is on a mission for revenge? Said revenge is usually spun to be called justice. The protagonist will do some seriously screwed up and inhuman things in the name of ‘justice’ and is often excused for immoral acts because they’re the tragic hero of the story. We are conditioned to love and sympathize with the hero regardless of what they do. Well, I’m the opposite. I find protagonists often have a victim complex or a hero complex and are usually quite selfish and self centered. Or they’re just good for the sake of being good and are self sacrificing for no good reason.
I don’t like protagonists who have plot armor and get away with awful crap, but it’s excused because they’re the ‘good guy’ of the story. Likewise I don’t like 1 dimensional characters written as a flawless and self sacrificing character simply because they’re the hero. Villains tend to be more relatable because they act how you would expect someone to act. They can have questionable morals and motivation because their backstory typically gives them a greater cause behind it. Doesn’t make them right, but it gives them far more depth than a hero who’s good for the sake of being good.
Say you’re in a zombie situation. You see someone about to be devoured and know that it might be too late to help, but it certainly is a huge risk to you and your current group. The leader says they’re going to save this unknown survivor. Another member says it’s a huge risk for their group for someone they don’t know and is most likely going to die. My logic is I have a group, I’ve established bonds with this group. Why would I risk their lives for someone who could be a thief or murderer? They could easily be someone helpful, like a doctor, but am I willing to risk our lives for a possibility like that? No. I have nothing currently visible to gain from this move. All it is, is an unessecary risk to my friends and loved ones all for the sake of it being ‘the right thing to do’ because the hero says so.
I certainly don’t take pleasure in that person dying and I feel remorseful and possibly even guilty that I chose not to help. Say that we do jump in and the husband of another member of our group gets killed in the skirmish. How do we explain that to her, that we felt some random unknown stranger was worth sacrificing her husband for? How do we tell his children that their father was killed for someone we didn’t know? How do we explain that risk to them to make them not resent our choice? I’m not saying that survivor’s life was worth any more than our friend, but to his family? He was and I can’t blame them for that. To them, we’ve betrayed them for someone we didn’t even know, simply because we wanted to be good for the sake of being good.
Wow, sorry for that huge rant. I just felt like I should explain why I’m always inclined to hear a ‘bad guy’ out before I pass judgement on them.
People risk their lives to help strangers for no reason all the time. Look up on youtube “restore my faith” videos. Someone gets buried in an avalanche, is it really only the person’s family and friends who go to help the authorities? Usually it’s the entire town close to the incident. Such rescues can result in injuries to the rescuers. Occasionally, the rescue triggers another avalanche which can cause more deaths. Lots of people wouldn’t lift a finger to help anybody else. Lots of people would risk their lives to help anybody in trouble. So the hero doing good things just because it needs to be done is totally realistic.
I’m also of the opinion that most people aren’t pure evil, so villians that are written as doing bad things just to do bad things strike me as very… one-dimensional. In this day and age, we get a lot of stories where they actually explore the villian’s reasons, and I love that change from some older stories where the villians didn’t have a reason.
And heroes getting away with bad things just because they’re the hero doesn’t sit well with me either. Sure, I want them to come out all right at the end, but I also want them to have some sort of consequence for the bad things they did.
One reason I like reading this comic is because of how well the characters are written. When you’re reading it week-by-week, it can look like a character is one-dimensional, but any character that lasts more than four appearances/references is revealed to be just as complicated as real people tend to be.
Not saying it’s unrealistic, I’m saying it’s kind of stupid. When one person runs off, everyone else is expected to follow suit or be labeled as someone bad. It’s not bad to want to protect yourself and the ones you love from something that may or may not benefit you in a situation that you have a lot to lose in for a maybe. I don’t find it relatable or even smart.
In the start, I found Todd to be a very boring character and Selkie to be a selfish brat. Todd is becoming more likeable the more mistakes he makes and Selkie has gotten to be less of a sarcastic brat since she’s actually been told off (on one occasion) although I think she needs to be punished a bit more for her snappy remarks, just like Amanda.
Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Then again I doubt he’s ever been exposed to human history… He’s about to get a crash course: 3/4’s of his people are now his sworn enemies, and refugee camps are breeding ground for terrorists.
One person’s terrorist is another person’s freedom fighter. We’d ALL do well to remember that.
Point taken.
.
.
.
As an aside, it got me to thinking: Is there a way to *definitively* separate the two? I put it to you that a terrorist targets the civilian population while a freedom fighter targets the rulers, military, etc. Would you go along with that?
In other words, the very same actions are viewed as execrable or heroic, depending on what side of a conflict you’re on.
I used to be stymied by that. How can you judge fairly? In my old age, though, I’ve decided to cut through that nonsense. I’m going to call anyone who engages in what’s now called ‘asymmetrical warfare’ a terrorist. It just makes things simpler. The French Resistance fighters were terrorists. The Baader-Meinhof gang were terrorists. Al Qaeda were terrorists when they fought the Russians in Afghanistan, and they remained terrorists when they brought down the two towers. If a group uses terrorist tactics, it’s a terrorist group, whether you agree with its aims or not.
And I don’t think it matters all that much whether civilian casualties are created intentionally to demoralize the opposing forces, or brushed away as unimportant ‘collateral damage’. No matter what the killers say to claim they are the good guys, innocent non-combatants are just as dead.
So many troubles are coming….
With no time to prepare, this influx of an entire culture, who is suddenly throw out of their environment, it is going to a very tough road.
Does anyone remember the movie and tv series Alien Nation? About the ship that crashed on earth with a slave race of aliens and showed how they were integrated? I imagine this is going to be similar.
I’m reminded of District 9. Never got to see Alien Nation.
yes I remember it rather well.
Watched most as a kid. Enjoyed it at the time. Dunno if it’s aged well.
yep, good show and movie, but it’s a little bit early for that level of societal integration yet…
Welp, I take back what I said before – he’s not smart, just a tyrant. Though I don’t know if the internal troubles will be noticeable while he’s still alive.
Well, that’s better than I was afraid that it might be. Still, though.
Whoof. Well, it’s better than forcing the States to return their refugees, but at the same time, he just opened up one hell of a can o’ worms for them to deal with.
…that could have gone worse. I mean…. It’s not GOOD, especially not for any potential refugees, but… Could they not be relocated to one or all of the other four great lakes?
Honestly, with the way this comic introduces and abandons storylines and characters it’ll probably be another eight years before this is followed up on.
Eight years? You think I can pick a storyline back up within eight years? Oh my sweet summer child…
There’s immediate impact to multiple characters. I suspect we’re about to get a bunch of exploration into those character’s reactions to this announcement.
I think I’m most interested in seeing what happens when Selkie goes back to school.
grammar typo: those characters’ reactions
This has all the signs of going incredibly poorly. All but one clan’s viewpoint has been removed from an empire of apparently Clarke’s law-level tech, and they don’t like humans. Humans now know about an entire new species, much less race group, to be bigoted against, and all the tribes have to officially leave their former nation for other lands. The gun has been cocked…
I mean … this is sad and all but I feel like it’s a win-win.
The only good part I can see is how he’s stressed that all they want is to be left alone. If they’re sincere about that, and ignore the rest of the world, then maybe total war can be avoided. Assuming the humans cooperate and actually leave them alone.
Hopefully the rest of the clans are refugees and not dead. Hopefully the refugees can find new homes.
One of two things will happen here. If the Sarnothi clan names are just old history, and there are Artisans and Builders and Stuff elsewhere, then this will go fine for the society (except that it seems this guy is a despot, but the society will survive). If he just evicted most of the available workers of his society, though, leaving only one small category of jobs, he’s dooming everyone to societal extinction. The only remaining Sarnothi will be scraping by or living with humans, because you can’t have a technological civilization with only a few types of jobs.
Imma gunna invest in cottage lake property right now – gunna try to buy several quite deep lakes in the quiet north. Just sayin’. S’okay if it’s off the grid and not connected by roads, in fact all the better. I’d just love to be the one getting paid on a 100 year lease by the inhabitants of New Jin’Sorai. They can have a 500 year lease if they prefer. There’s a LOT of lakes on Crown Land up here in Canada. A lot of possible villages and farms… May have to do a heck of a bunch of dredging, of course…
and it’s not like some of those lakes are significantly colder than the Great Lakes, honestly. On top of that, Canada has generally been more welcoming of immigrants and refugees than the u.s. has, and a lot of that Crown Land is far from developed urban centres. Heading north sounds like the best bet for the majority of Sarnothi.
And frankly, the Canadian government would be derpy as herp if it didn’t want to immediately make-nice with a civilization with advanced technologies.
The biggest issue, though, is the Resonance. How much of that originates specifically in Lake Superior? How well can the Sarnothi people survive without it, if necessary?
And from a political standpoint, how angry would be u.s. be if Canada was given any kind of preferential treatment by the Sarnothi? And then what about all the other nations of the world? Will any of them attempt to harbour Sarnothi refugees overseas?
Of course, the main focus of this fiction is Selkie herself, so I understand if all of this theory-crafting is frivolous. But that’s not gonna stop me from pondering about it until there’s some kind of canonical statement one way or another.
Seriously, Dave . . . you may have bit off a HUGE something-or-other in throwing an advanced civilization between Canada and the u.s.
Like . . . huge-huge. There’s a LOT of pent-up resentment, especially these days with a certain orange fellow in a seat of considerable power.
Approximately 60% of the world’s lakes are found in Canada. According to Wikipedia, the Government of Canada has reported that there are 31,752 major lakes in the country. These lakes each cover an area of over 3 km squared (1.8 miles squared). The number of lakes that cover an area of over 100km squared (62 miles squared) is 561. It is also estimated that the number of small lakes is close to two million. About 9% of Canada is covered by freshwater. The largest lake that is entirely in Canada’s territory is the Great Bear Lake which covers an area of approximately 31,328 km squared (19,466 miles squared).
*jawdrop*
Hard to get a reading on this guy’s personality; As we know very little about him, what has happened leading up to this (minus vague general information).
Still feeling the time-line is vague. I wonder if rude sarnoth-boy from s few pages ago will run back home as a loyal child. He clearly as issues at home or his new surrounding. And the upcoming wave from the human populace may push this.
that went a lot better than I thought it would.
I was almost sure he was going to demand the exiles be returned and threaten war if they weren’t returned soon. but deciding to exile all the other clans, and leave the refugees to be someone else’s problem is a much better solution.
Though now it brings up the question of what happened to the other three clans that tried to remain in sarnoth ? and how many have survived the end of the war ?
if Sarnoth is in the middle or eastern half of Lake Superior this does leave the western half of Lake Superior and a number of other nearby large lakes to build new cities in.
Lake ontario
Lake Erie
Lake Huron
Georgian Bay
Lake Michigan
Green Bay
Lake Nipigon
Lake Winnipeg though it might be too far north
and there is always the options of flooding an open pit mine, or them assimilating into cities on land.
or given that, the pool they did scuba training at was salt water, the oceans could also be possible to rebuilt in. there are lots of continental shelves and ocean side bays they could settle in.
Hudson Bay, though it might be too far north
Cape Cod Bay
Bay of Fundy
Long Island sound
New York Bight
Delaware bay
Chesapeake Bay
San Francisco Bay
Strait of Juan de Fuca, near Vancouver and Seattle
Might have to change a few shipping lanes in the future, but it would be possible for the 3 other clans of Sarnoth to resettle and rebuild.
Just some things to think about
1) In an earlier comic it is mentioned that each clan had its own province; this coupled with seen eel ranching indicates that most of not all of Lake Superior is under their domain. 2) The pool was filtered/no chemicals fresh water. Dave confirmed Sarnoths are fresh water only. 3) I would rule out the other Great Lakes as they are for the most part all connected naturally, and with Cern’s Declaration why give him an excuse to wipe them out. 4) As mentioned above, Canada makes the most sense for possible relocation of exiles/refugees due to the sheer number of freshwater lakes; however it should be noted that Sarnoths do not do well in the extreme cold as demonstrated by Selkie.
I could have sworn i remembered the pool being salt water for some reason.
Maybe i was thinking of the salt water pool in my city.
It would be really hard to keep a filtered water pool clean, and the chemical free pools dave mentioned are kept clean by plants and specially selected animals, so they aren’t actually “clean” in a way that could pass a health code inspection for a public pool. It’s more clean like a well maintained aquarium, as it’s literally an artificial pond.
As for freshwater, yes most aquatic life is divided into two groups, fresh or salt water, but some can live in both, such as salmon. As well all lakes and rivers have salt in them, just a lot less than the ocean.
Hey Dave did you get the email I sent to you?
Yep I got it but it it’s not letting me reply again. The cups look fantastic! As for the colors I would go with what’s on the banners in the previous comic. If you need a Hi-Rez reference let me know and I will try to work something out.
I may just to be safe on my mark.
I wonder: Does this edict apply just to the city-state of Sarnoth itself, or extend out further into the Lakes? Will all the refugees in the village Selkie visited, for example, have to be relocated?
That village was not in the Great Lakes. Dave mentioned it was located further into the US
Oh. Oh that’s so much worse. If this is the same sort of American political landscape that the real world resides in, the sudden influx of people will put a supposed draw on resources and the new, strange, and easily targeted Sarnothi will scapegoated as the cause. Hopefully most of them will flee to Canada who – though has it’s own issues with immigration – at least has more room, a slightly better economy, and possibly more lakes. Which brings me to my next question:
Can Sarnothi live in any sort of fresh water lake so long as it was big enough/has enough food? If so, hopefully they can at least have their own spaces rather than being forcibly integrated?
I think that they would be able to live in most lakes. When they were in Jin’Suir it was mentioned that their ‘street lamps’ doubled as heaters, which was the reason the entire village wasn’t hibernating at that time. So a colder lake would not preclude Sarnothi settlement. I do wonder how tolerant they would be to different PH levels, though.
well, fuck
They aren’t just exiling their enemies, they’re exiling all the groups that had any enemies in them. There’s gonna be a huge influx of exiles now and there will be pressure to not let them in.
We’ve got ourselves a lose-lose situation. Either there’s a huge influx of new refugees, or a terrifyingly small number of refugees.