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Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip

There is no higher power... Only greater force.

Ask An Adventurer – For Cog’s Sake

on October 25, 2014
Chapter: Ask An Adventurer
└ Tags: Bandit
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Discussion (42) ¬

  1. Bo Lindbergh
    Bo Lindbergh
    October 25, 2014, 12:11 am | # | Reply

    It’s better to be a cog than a clog.

  2. Gram91
    Gram91
    October 25, 2014, 12:13 am | # | Reply

    That planetary gear system makes no sense. The teeth of the planet gears aren’t even connected to their respective annular gears.

    An interesting ideology that I kinda favor more towards.

    • LockeZ
      LockeZ
      October 25, 2014, 12:25 am | # | Reply

      [artist’s rendition]

      • Gram91
        Gram91
        October 25, 2014, 12:31 am | # | Reply

        Fair enough

    • MidnightDStroyer
      MidnightDStroyer
      October 25, 2014, 7:42 pm | # | Reply

      Sure they are…Think of gravity interacting with the inertia of matter in motion as being the teeth of the gears. After all, it IS the force of gravity that gives the universe is shape & form & motion is what keeps the gears turning. The teeth of the gears are *there* but are invisible because our eyes weren’t made to be capable of seeing *everything*

      BTW, all that I said up above IS a matter of proven science, even in our “real world.”

      • nemui
        nemui
        October 26, 2014, 5:41 am | # | Reply

        Yea, we shall have faith in the invisible teeth of the gears, for surely they are indeed there, no matter what our eyes tell us. Because gravity. And inertia. And stuff.

        Ignore the fact that they’re totally visible on the outer surface, ye faithful children of the cog, for that way heresy lies!

        • MidnightDStroyer
          MidnightDStroyer
          October 29, 2014, 1:18 am | # | Reply

          I hope you’re being sarcastic. If not, then tell me if you can see the air. Truth is, you can’t see air but you know it’s there because when air moves it rustles tree branches & blows dust up into clouds.

          How do you think scientists discovered the Higgs Particle recently? They could never see it & still can’t actually see it…But they DO see the effects that it has in the surrounding environment as it moves through.

          That picture above only shows a graphic using gears & cogs as allegorical to the way the solar system & universe works. The picture is an allegory, not a literal.

          • nemui
            nemui
            October 29, 2014, 12:31 pm | # | Reply

            Of course I’m being sarcastic, but still – what the OP and myself are saying is that it’s a piss-poor graphical representation. No self-respecting gnomechanic would ever use that image to illustrate the point that “at the center of it all is the cog that turns all others”. He’d be laughed out of the workshop!

            • Neferius
              Neferius
              September 6, 2015, 7:54 am | # | Reply

              You’re probably just pissed the Earth isn’t being represented as flat and at the center of everything :I

            • Speedy
              Speedy
              January 2, 2019, 3:25 pm | # | Reply

              Well, Jason Waltrip was the illustrator, and I think he did a pretty good job of reproducing an image that he just got a glimpse of. I mean, if he were a gnome or even a human mechanical engineer, that would be a different matter. But a human webcomic illustrator, with a very limited amount of time… I think we can let it slide.

  3. Kennerly
    Kennerly
    October 25, 2014, 12:19 am | # | Reply

    I guess the order of the triangle in circle in a square is another offshoot of the order of the bloodshot eye?

    Official Phil Kahn Gold Star

    • Tsapki
      Tsapki
      October 25, 2014, 1:05 am | # | Reply

      Shapists?

    • Charlie Spencer
      Charlie Spencer
      October 25, 2014, 8:37 am | # | Reply

      It’s inspired by the old Mazda rotary engine. Orthodox gnomes are called ‘Rotarians’.

    • Phil
      Flo
      October 26, 2014, 10:06 am | # | Reply

      There’s nothing funnier to me right now than a cloister of nuns actually called “The Order of the Triangle In Circle In A Square.”

      • SotiCoto
        SotiCoto
        April 6, 2016, 8:11 am | # | Reply

        Now I’m imagining you all rolling around giggling like the Pilsbury Dough Boy over this “Triangle in Circle in a Square” business.

    • The Indomitable Eric
      The Indomitable Eric
      October 26, 2014, 12:58 pm | # | Reply

      “We shall now read from Geonometricians, chapter 2, verse 3:14.”

  4. The Indomitable Eric
    The Indomitable Eric
    October 25, 2014, 12:39 am | # | Reply

    Oh my Glob, you guys.

  5. Jack Vermicelli
    Jack Vermicelli
    October 25, 2014, 1:14 am | # | Reply

    Typo- “captial”

  6. Ganurath
    Ganurath
    October 25, 2014, 2:05 am | # | Reply

    With that in mind, it’s surprising you don’t see more gnomes geared up in the Gastonian military.

  7. Jones
    Jones
    October 25, 2014, 3:24 am | # | Reply

    The smaller the cog, the higher the gear…

  8. Thomas
    Thomas
    October 25, 2014, 3:49 am | # | Reply

    Oh my cog, I can’t gear this any longer. I was riveted to my seat while she spoke. Why do people alloy this?

    • That one guy
      That one guy
      October 25, 2014, 11:43 am | # | Reply

      I’d give you a B- for trying. But don’t think I’m screwing you over, it was good that you had the nuts to try and make some puns of your own.

      • Random_idiot
        Random_idiot
        October 25, 2014, 12:25 pm | # | Reply

        I hope he doesn’t bolt off after he sees the grade you gave him – you might make him feel he’s all torque.

        • MidnightDStroyer
          MidnightDStroyer
          October 25, 2014, 7:48 pm | # | Reply

          I say we should cut the guy some slack…We all need to resort to Dues ex Machina to pull some puns out occasionally.

          • MidnightDStroyer
            MidnightDStroyer
            October 25, 2014, 7:49 pm | # | Reply

            Ooops…A typo on Deus ex Machina up above. Apparently even the best gears can slip once in a while.

            • Speedy
              Speedy
              January 2, 2019, 3:45 pm | # | Reply

              I was wondering what automated teller machines had to do with puns.

              Oh, wait… Are they responsible for the same dull puns being spit out, every time an axe is shown or mentioned on a page? ;)

  9. Thomas
    Thomas
    October 25, 2014, 4:02 am | # | Reply

    A propos of nothing, I had a Corruptor Beast-inspired nightmare, properly mixed with some LoEG-themed stuff & eldritch abominations. I should try to write it down somewhere, it had some really fun elements, like Queen Victoria trying to escape the unraveling of reality by TARDISS, commandeered by an incarnation of the Doctor with a close visual resemblance to LoEG’s Captain Nemo.

  10. TBeckett
    TBeckett
    October 25, 2014, 11:04 am | # | Reply

    Woohoo! Glad to hear a little bit about gnome culture and ideology. I really enjoyed this one!

    • ceejaysquared
      ceejaysquared
      October 27, 2014, 12:23 am | # | Reply

      Tyler, your name is familiar. Did you go to Maury in the 80s? Or do I have the wrong guy?

      Cool question, btw.

  11. Bewbs
    Bewbs
    October 25, 2014, 4:05 pm | # | Reply

    It’s sort of, but not really, pantheism. Really more like the belief that there’s some kind of Prime Mover, but it’s not really personal. Gnomes just sort of go along with that being their “god” so people will stop bothering them.

    Pretty interesting.

  12. Random Whatever
    Random Whatever
    October 25, 2014, 6:37 pm | # | Reply

    Phil Khan is great. Thank you! I have been having difficulty posting so I e mailed him and he fixed it right up so I can post again. Any way this is my response to Cassandra/Loki’s question. It has been posted in the proper order in the original thread of many days ago, http://guildedage.net/comic/chapter-35-page-4/

  13. PoJoeRic
    PoJoeRic
    October 25, 2014, 6:43 pm | # | Reply

    “There is no higher power, only mechanical advantage”

    • TXGator
      TXGator
      October 27, 2014, 8:59 am | # | Reply

      Wow. Nice one. I may have to remember this one next time anyone asks me about my religous beliefs.

  14. CapnRis
    CapnRis
    October 25, 2014, 11:13 pm | # | Reply

    IN COG WE TRUST

  15. Tyrrune
    Tyrrune
    October 26, 2014, 12:05 pm | # | Reply

    That last panel…
    Do all gnomes consider themselves gods, then?

    • Loki Duck
      Loki Duck
      November 1, 2014, 6:00 pm | # | Reply

      No I don’t think so. Their belief seems to just be that since everything is run cogs, every living thing is just another cog in that huge network. They aren’t Gods at all (as they don’t believe in Gods), just cogs in the machine as everyone else is.

    • Loki Duck
      Loki Duck
      November 1, 2014, 6:02 pm | # | Reply

      It’s actually like some religions that don’t have Deities (Such as some branches of Buddhism), they have an understanding of how the world works but not some higher power running or involved in it.

  16. Thor
    Thor
    October 27, 2014, 12:09 am | # | Reply

    So giving a nickname to the driving forces of the universe? I guess this is an example of . . . cog-gnomen?

    • MidnightDStroyer
      MidnightDStroyer
      October 29, 2014, 1:20 am | # | Reply

      I hope Bandit doesn’t read from the book titled: Necro-cog-nicon…

  17. Loki Duck
    Loki Duck
    November 1, 2014, 5:57 pm | # | Reply

    That’s actually a really cool idea for how the universe runs. c:

  18. Trigonometry
    Trigonometry
    November 2, 2014, 3:06 pm | # | Reply

    Interesting. I came up with the same exact thing for my gnomes in Trigonometry and Gnomeregan Forever. Nature is a great machine, a collection of cogs, wheels and gears. I have them utter “curses” like “gear stripper” and “Oh my cogs.” Just goes to show, creative minds think alike. :)

    -Trig

  19. Observer
    Observer
    March 16, 2015, 11:21 pm | # | Reply

    When The Five and buddies discover their world is possibly a part of a huge machine all being controlled by a central clock that determines when each world will do what etc… the Gnomes would be the first and possibly last group I would tell as a race. Their beliefs seem to make that idea less shocking.

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Guilded Age is co-written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn, and illustrated by John Waltrip. Site design by Samantha Kyle. Fonts by Blambot.com.
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