PaRARGdox 12
Meet the bots…: I figure that – considering the damage inflicted on bots in the robomat, along with the various sizes and shapes required – special ones are mostly printed on site to specs. Also, even though there are powered superbots they are not accessible to junior cadets without supervision. So Olga, Jasmeen, Sun, Brelvis and Ornuk need to make do with an A.I. scenario rather than the real deal.
Given they are up against some formidable class mates, even the A.I. sim will be enough to test them! The classmates in this instance are Olaf who we were familiarised with in The Olaf Mystery. The others – Momo, J.J., Kyunda and Dylan were really only spotted on the last page of Olga & Brelvis… although J.J. was seen using his null powers on page 6.203. As for the others…
- Kyunda can divide into multiples of himself, but the multiples always have the same sum total weight as his full self.
- Dylan is a Wyld, and has a savage wylding form in addition to her human form.
- Momo is an extraterrestrial, with six optic lasers (take that Cyclops!).
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Next update: Sunday, March 8, 2020: It seemed like a good idea…
Aaand… I’m already seeing a problem. Olga’s strategy is fine but I think she’s forgetting that she’s dealing with inexperienced cadets here: it’s probably the strategy with the minimum amount of teamwork involved, with everyone basically just doing their own thing. The only coordination is ahead of time, with everyone knowing their target so that they – presumably – don’t get in each other’s way.
If there’s a duel resolved early then the winner of the duel will be free to help out in the other duels. If it’s someone on Olga’s team it’s fine, but if it’s someone from team green… They’ll lose hard.
And that’s assuming that Team Green even goes for a “four duels” strategy too. I’m going to guess they won’t, and that even the robots will realize this so Olga’s team will get their asses handed to them. Either that or the “it seemed like a good idea…” indicates that someone doesn’t follow the plan.
I would say it’s the other way around: Olga KNOWS she’s dealing with inexperienced cadets here so she’s coming with plan simple enough for them to follow. It’s quite possible that more teamwork would REDUCE their effectiveness.
Teamwork isn’t that complicated. I think she’s too used to having partners who can get the job done without assistance.
I think Olga’s own “inexperience” is showing. She should know that’s it’s never smart to assume your opponent will politely follow along with your plans. They might have a matchup plan as well, or even decide to swap dance partners mid-battle. There’s a reason that’s a Trope, after all.
Ornuk comes off as more voluble here than I had previously pictured him, which is cool. Unfortunately, he might be ‘poisoning the well’ with his negativity.
I think Ornuk is just getting in to character.
I think Michael means what Ornuk is saying in the first panel, where he isn’t shapeshifted. It’s pretty pessimistic.
Brelvis is Shaggy and Scooby in one!
Oooh, good one!
Given he still has the potential to become Mongrel, or even more capable, I’m finding it interesting how quickly his classmates are mostly dismissing him. Then again, that one seems to like dismissing most people.
Who’s dismissing him? Olga’s saying that his unique traits make him a good counter to a particular opponent, something she’s suggesting he use even though she doesn’t understand it.
And Jasmeen would rather fight Olaf herself because she hates him and wants to catch him in his evil plot that she’s sure he has.
Yeah, with Magellan training under his belt, Brelvis could be a very effective force for good. All the hybrids appear to be pretty strong (Bunyip exceedingly so), so it’s reasonable to assume that Brelvis is stronger than you’d guess from his size and build, plus he’s got a strong bite and those claws in place of toe- and finger- nails. He should be a much faster runner than a norm, and if course he’s got the heightened sense of smell (and hearing?), and probably superior low-light vision. Not somebody that you should casually dismiss.
There’s still several second years that we don’t know the abilities of: Verne, Woz, Yoko, Leigh, Simon, Buddy, Kevin, and George -plus, we don’t know much about the abilities of some of the others. I’m wondering who is on the hyped Red team? Ravi, maybe? Figuring that an actual goddess has to be pretty potent. I thought that the class was going to neatly divide into five teams of five, but counting through the Olga and Brelvis pages, I see 26? What happens to the odd extra cadet?
I’m totally for Ravi/Shakti viewing & soap opera & all manner of comics maundering. The problem is that a black hole is about to eat the whole dream! Damn it!
It’s the journey… 🤷♂️😉
Hey, at least the singularity saves the bad visual/screaming horror of another large-scale Q’Arth incursion.
Occasionally, for “reasons” they will have sit-outs or cadets from the year above needing to make up extra credits, like we saw with the second year flag exercise near the start of Lock(e)down where third year cadet Hamish was part of it.
I just realized that Charisma and Lyta may need to retake this exercise because of how soundly Rochelle’s tactics beat them last year. Are they part of Red Team this year?
They probably would have had to retake the second year flag exercise – but then earned enough credits from the Locke Island fiasco to scrape them over.