Yeah, not to question Rikk’s decision, but Jesse doesn’t seem rehabilitated to me. Marc’s quip made wonder: Was Jesse indoctrinated into blindly worshiping Maximillianna or did he chose to follow her by his own volition? (fanatical devotion like Jesse’s is hard to come by, but Tim the fanboy showed us that it’s not impossible to find willing lackeys).
PS Am I the only one who thinks that Jesse resembles Curious George?
Yeah, this does not really seem like the best place for Jesse.
And I don’t think you need to much indoctrination to admire Maximillianna. She really was just strait better than other people, and really was a perfect leader. Its not like one of those cults were the leader is pretending to be what they are not. Maximillianna ended all war; what more could you want?
Sure, she went a little crazy, but that does not mean she was not someone truly worthy of admiration.
If Mark’s the betrayer, this is the first time that I would have guessed it. And yet, it makes sense in a lot of ways… Marcland probably had more of a lasting effect on his self-esteem and self-confidence than any of us would have thought. Particularly with Bax and Di sort of pairing off. Not only that, Hilda’s attraction to Marc could result in overlooking him, and this whole thing with Rumy and Will being suspected traitors could result in him getting even less attention, and feeling even more out of the loop and unimportant. Future Shanna’s involvement with him could cause her to keep the details hidden, and if he’s the betrayer then that would explain his despondent attitude… All that’s left is Di’s favorite movie. Anyone have any ideas there?
Do remeber that Jesse has both Jayspin and Jesse fighting for control behind the sinces no one knows just how much of Jayspin is still around or vice versa.
For all we know this might be Jesse trying to worn Marc about his own problems… In a way… At lest that’s what I’m hoping for that be going on here.
In the future, Marc “lost something on the bad day” and was the only surviving member of AEGIS who refused to continue to fight.
That struck me as odd since he doesn’t seem to value anything material, nor any other individual people; he values heroism, enjoying life, and himself. He is unbelievably resilient and can even thrive in Marcland. What does he have to lose?
Either he was brain damaged in the future, or he was the traitor and he felt so horrible about it that he gave up on everything he believed in.
On the other hand, I actually have no problem putting Jesse to work doing what he believes in. His motivations are clear, and thus his actions will be predicatable. What is he going to do, sabotage the effort to clone the general? Hell no. Especially not after Will “accidentally” allowed him to learn that the cloning project will be successful and will result in creating someone who will lead the human resistance.
You know, if he clones the general who then grows into a tyrant who then goes to the past to get killed, to leave a bit of DNA behind to be used for cloning, which becomes the new general who grows into a tyrant…
… eventually in one of those worlds (since every time this loop happens, it creates a new reality), the DNA will be so degraded that the general will be, medically speaking, retarded.
Wouldn’t it be awkward to discover that the current plot line is where this DNA sample is not so fresh?
I’m thinking that if he were the traitor, then he’d be all gung-ho about redeeming himself later.
Yet at the same time, having the fight taken out of him in the end is a big clue as to what happened. That means that the traitor did something to him, perhaps.
Hilda’s plan from previous strip is going to get blindsided by an overlooked variable.
I’m not clear what is up with Marc’s current mood swings, though. Is his crush on Shanna the problem?
Just thought of something. If Marc ends up in a position where his inaction might drop Will into an alternate dimension of certain death, it might be bad…
Well, one possible explanation for latter Marc’s depression would be that he tried to do something heroic and it backfired, causing people to die.
That’s bound to eat away at you. And it’s a fairly typical trope as well.
– Failure to Save Murder
– It’s All My Fault
– Blood on These Hands.
Are three of them that deal with this topic.
I don’t think letting Rikk/Will/Rumi die would traumatize Marc enough to put him out of commission for years. I don’t think he’d imagine it was all his fault if there were a real honest-to-god traitor whose fault it *actually was*, nor if the Hand of Justice were still out there ready to be made to pay. I mean, it’s possible, but he strikes me as a lot more resilient than that. I think he would want to kick someone’s ass.
But I don’t actually think the traitor is Marc either. I actually think he was brain damaged in the future, or else something else happened that I haven’t thought of.
The fact is that unless I’m seriously misreading something earlier in the story, I know exactly who the traitor is, with enough confidence that I would feel bad saying it out loud to people who are still trying to guess. Sorry.
Hmm, one other thing I just noticed. Clones is plural in this comic. I intitially brushed it off as just redundancy for the sake of failsafing – producing a litter of generals and hoping one survives – but maybe they are cloning multiple different people?
The General he is cloning is the one who has come back now but isn’t the one who provided the sample. The first General lived many thousands of years in the future, the clone is seperate from the time sequence that involves getting her DNA.
He is really creating a MkII version of her so that Aegis can cheat and get the benefit of humanity’s ‘greatest’ warrior early, just like they cheat by importing future tech and research into the present.
Yeah, not to question Rikk’s decision, but Jesse doesn’t seem rehabilitated to me. Marc’s quip made wonder: Was Jesse indoctrinated into blindly worshiping Maximillianna or did he chose to follow her by his own volition? (fanatical devotion like Jesse’s is hard to come by, but Tim the fanboy showed us that it’s not impossible to find willing lackeys).
PS Am I the only one who thinks that Jesse resembles Curious George?
Yeah, this does not really seem like the best place for Jesse.
And I don’t think you need to much indoctrination to admire Maximillianna. She really was just strait better than other people, and really was a perfect leader. Its not like one of those cults were the leader is pretending to be what they are not. Maximillianna ended all war; what more could you want?
Sure, she went a little crazy, but that does not mean she was not someone truly worthy of admiration.
…Well, you aren’t ANYMORE.
Could Marc be the traitor?
If Mark’s the betrayer, this is the first time that I would have guessed it. And yet, it makes sense in a lot of ways… Marcland probably had more of a lasting effect on his self-esteem and self-confidence than any of us would have thought. Particularly with Bax and Di sort of pairing off. Not only that, Hilda’s attraction to Marc could result in overlooking him, and this whole thing with Rumy and Will being suspected traitors could result in him getting even less attention, and feeling even more out of the loop and unimportant. Future Shanna’s involvement with him could cause her to keep the details hidden, and if he’s the betrayer then that would explain his despondent attitude… All that’s left is Di’s favorite movie. Anyone have any ideas there?
Do remeber that Jesse has both Jayspin and Jesse fighting for control behind the sinces no one knows just how much of Jayspin is still around or vice versa.
For all we know this might be Jesse trying to worn Marc about his own problems… In a way… At lest that’s what I’m hoping for that be going on here.
I don’t really understand Jesse’s act here. Maybe when there is a little more information to work off of.
Wonder if the break in Jesse’s self-brainwashing, which he used to bypass AEGIS’s psychic screenings, means that he’s not good at disguises anymore.
Yeah, don’t be a dick, Marc. Jesse can’t help that he’s been brainwashed. At least he has a split-personality that has some common-sense.
Marc was pretty inactive and depressed in the future, wasn’t he? Like someone still beating himself up inside over something he did, perhaps?
In the future, Marc “lost something on the bad day” and was the only surviving member of AEGIS who refused to continue to fight.
That struck me as odd since he doesn’t seem to value anything material, nor any other individual people; he values heroism, enjoying life, and himself. He is unbelievably resilient and can even thrive in Marcland. What does he have to lose?
Either he was brain damaged in the future, or he was the traitor and he felt so horrible about it that he gave up on everything he believed in.
On the other hand, I actually have no problem putting Jesse to work doing what he believes in. His motivations are clear, and thus his actions will be predicatable. What is he going to do, sabotage the effort to clone the general? Hell no. Especially not after Will “accidentally” allowed him to learn that the cloning project will be successful and will result in creating someone who will lead the human resistance.
You know, if he clones the general who then grows into a tyrant who then goes to the past to get killed, to leave a bit of DNA behind to be used for cloning, which becomes the new general who grows into a tyrant…
… eventually in one of those worlds (since every time this loop happens, it creates a new reality), the DNA will be so degraded that the general will be, medically speaking, retarded.
Wouldn’t it be awkward to discover that the current plot line is where this DNA sample is not so fresh?
LockeZ: He was probably castrated. I know that’d take the fight out of me.
So far that girl has not proven to be as competent or as tactically minded as her genetic donor, but at the very least she isn’t a mere copy.
I can’t say why but I think Marc’s a red herring.
I’m thinking that if he were the traitor, then he’d be all gung-ho about redeeming himself later.
Yet at the same time, having the fight taken out of him in the end is a big clue as to what happened. That means that the traitor did something to him, perhaps.
@ Commie, which is why I think it’s going to be something between him, Bax, and Hilda.
Hilda’s plan from previous strip is going to get blindsided by an overlooked variable.
I’m not clear what is up with Marc’s current mood swings, though. Is his crush on Shanna the problem?
Just thought of something. If Marc ends up in a position where his inaction might drop Will into an alternate dimension of certain death, it might be bad…
@LockeZ
Well, one possible explanation for latter Marc’s depression would be that he tried to do something heroic and it backfired, causing people to die.
That’s bound to eat away at you. And it’s a fairly typical trope as well.
– Failure to Save Murder
– It’s All My Fault
– Blood on These Hands.
Are three of them that deal with this topic.
No matter what Marc’s going to play a major part in this upcoming Betrayal. I’ll be shocked if he doesn’t…
I don’t think letting Rikk/Will/Rumi die would traumatize Marc enough to put him out of commission for years. I don’t think he’d imagine it was all his fault if there were a real honest-to-god traitor whose fault it *actually was*, nor if the Hand of Justice were still out there ready to be made to pay. I mean, it’s possible, but he strikes me as a lot more resilient than that. I think he would want to kick someone’s ass.
But I don’t actually think the traitor is Marc either. I actually think he was brain damaged in the future, or else something else happened that I haven’t thought of.
The fact is that unless I’m seriously misreading something earlier in the story, I know exactly who the traitor is, with enough confidence that I would feel bad saying it out loud to people who are still trying to guess. Sorry.
Hmm, one other thing I just noticed. Clones is plural in this comic. I intitially brushed it off as just redundancy for the sake of failsafing – producing a litter of generals and hoping one survives – but maybe they are cloning multiple different people?
@Commiekeebler
The General he is cloning is the one who has come back now but isn’t the one who provided the sample. The first General lived many thousands of years in the future, the clone is seperate from the time sequence that involves getting her DNA.
He is really creating a MkII version of her so that Aegis can cheat and get the benefit of humanity’s ‘greatest’ warrior early, just like they cheat by importing future tech and research into the present.