PaRARGdox 119
“You want to do what?”: You can tell Rochelle has been thinking about this issue regarding Ambrosia for a little while now!
We have seen this trench before, right near the start of this chapter – see page 7.08. I had wondered if we needed a page earlier showing Rochelle & Company ducking into the trench just as the jet crashed… would have been dramatic, but I decided it wouldn’t add much to the story.
Patrons: Over on Patreon page 123 is now up – page 124 in about two days.
Next update: Sunday August 29, 2021: Rochelle doubles down on why she thinks Ambrosia must die…!
Well, let’s face it; it’s a plan of absolute last resort anyway. If it fails to work the attackers will kill her anyway…
Ah Rochelle. Unflappable as always. Pure “get the job done no matter the means” type.
Don’t they have ethical training at all?
Also, remember how in Bad Karma some of the council were worried about Jones’s “vigilante tendencies”? From all we’ve seen the only time Maverick lost it was when that psycho actually went and finished her family off but at all other times she was still a model norm-hero.
In the end: if this works Rochelle deserves a gold star like the one Kaycee got in Bad Karma… oh and Ambrosia too.
Amusingly, third year cadets were introduced in this chapter taking an ethics class… http://magellanverse.com/comic/parargdox-19/ 🙂
Looping it back in to the general theme of the story, who gets the “honours” of doing a terrible thing to try and save the world? Kaycee and Charisma don’t seem physically fit enough right now, but Rochelle hasn’t really seemed like the one to be suffering in such a moral/ethical struggle.
Additionally, we don’t even see Rochelle in http://magellanverse.com/comic/parargdox09/ and it’s Kaycee, Charisma, and Olga who are closest to Paz.
Then again, a blackhole may very well do the eviscerating for them, so long as Paz falls in feet first.
Oof page 20 is even more close.
She is a bit of an Ozymandias who arguably averted World War III by killing a few million people.
Maybe this isn’t such a terrible idea. If it succeeds she’ll go back hours before this all started and if she’s able to avert this catastrophe then she won’t be eviscerated.
The big problem is it that it is a last resort idea, it is drastic and it might not work, but it still takes some planning and preparation. Dire plans, that might amount to nothing. How far back will she go? How much will the info she brings back actually help? And maybe the worst thought of them all: can it be done more than once?
It’s definitely work it to give her all info she may need just in case.
I’m wondering if Olga is already aware of Rochelle idea as she can hear thoughts
Good question.
Sadly, Olga’s powers are gone… 🙁
Plus – Olga is an ethical telepath who just happens to be having a little trouble blocking out leaked thoughts from her classmate’s minds. We can infer, from the dialogue in p41, that cadets have training to prevent their thoughts from being easily read *possibly this might be what Vostok is up to?* and that it typically takes a couple of years before most of them start to ‘get it’. Rochelle would have a leg up in that regard, as her mind is naturally ordered and her intelligence should allow her to pick up training quickly. The bottom line is that Olga probably wouldn’t read anything off Rochelle without a specific effort.
https://magellanverse.com/comic/parargdox-41/
The last moments before the Rarg device activates show the Magellanites coming out of what’s almost certainly this trench. Paz is visible there, Rochelle isn’t. In the last pannel with people, Paz is probably one of the silloutes behind Kaycee, so it’s hard to tell if Rochelle snuck up and gutted her at the last moment. Still, that would be a logical moment to do it, since if it fails it only shortens her life by a few seconds.
Good observation! On p9, panel 4 is the last one where we see distinct color images of the Magellan forces rushing the generator. In the back of that panel are Olga, Ambrosia, Kaycee and Charisma in a row. In panel 5 the view is pulled back and everyone appears colorless and flat, but we can still make out Kaycee and Charisma *identifiable by their torn uniforms*. So Olga and Ambrosia should be the two silhouettes immediately behind Kaycee and to her right.
I suppose Rochelle could be dead at that point. But Kaycee is aware of the plan, and Ambrosia is conveniently standing right behind her. Will Kay er have to be the one to enact the last resort plan?
Which would make things awkward in the new time line. Ambrosia would remember Kaycee suddenly murdering her, while the Kaycee from a few hours ago wouldn’t even know why she would ever do such a thing since it was Rochelle’s theory.
Also, does this mean Ambrosia is effectively immortal, since her death always gets a generous rewind? Or does Rochelle specifying “eviscerate” mean she has to be killed in.a certain way?
From panel 2, Rochelle’s theory does hinge specifically on a violent disembowelling. Which, conveniently, can be a slow way to die. Maybe the requirement is that death is certain before it happens, if you kill Ambrosia suddenly I think you’ll kill her irreversibly.