Chapter 38 – Page 21
Some MGS V hype to go with your illuminati confessions for the day.
Annotations Every Day - Written by T Campbell & Flo Kahn - Illustrated by John & Jason Waltrip
Guilded Age
The Saga of the Working Class Adventurer – New comics every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday!
How do you try someone for murdering a guy who’s already dead? He was literally an animated suit of armor at that point.
You don’t actually need justice to have a trial.
It helps for when you want a fair trial, but who said anything about being fair?
I suppose the follow-up question then becomes, “Why would they WANT to try the adventurers in the first place?”
Even ignoring the conspiratorial, all-according-to-plan angle, the adventurers did nothing wrong once you look at the facts. They put to rest what can only be described as a desecration of a dead man’s memory, they put an end to a plot that involved impersonating a head of state, and they put a stop to what amounted to a band of brigands randomly assaulting Gastonian citizenry.
Even without the Heads of Houses secretly backing them, their battle against Scarlett would’ve made them heroes to Gastonia by any merit worth mentioning unless the Houses had it out for them to begin with for whatever reason.
I don’t know, why would you want to prosecute disruptive troublemakers and dispose of them where they can’t cause more trouble after you trick them into solving one of your problems? If anything, I’d expect the standard method of disposal for a used political assassin is death, and if the way the local justice works is conducive a good prosecution might be a serviceable cleanup that’s easier than arranging secondary assassins. Maybe they’d also want to if The Sisterhood of the Perpetual Bloodshot Eyeball still had enough power to be disruptive even after their counterfeit Gigundus was broken, and the heads of houses needed to make a conciliatory gesture. I’m sure we could come up with other expedient or pragmatic reasons, and maybe even some legalistic/moral ones.
It’s the Scoobie-Doo conundrum. Meddling kids are best left to meddle or else fear bringing their meddling down on yourself.
Because not only is “disruptive troublemaker” an actual job in Gastonia, but these particular troublemakers had previously proven their value in the Sky Pirate affair. If the Heads of Houses were on the level they’d have no reason to try and hurt Syr’nj and co, or do anything beyond a cursory inspection long enough to realize that Lord Gigundus… wasn’t. You don’t take a case to trial with no evidence. Unless you’re putting on a show trial, which implies a hostile conspiracy to start with.
And that’s the issue. “Did you ever wonder why we never tried you,” only makes sense if you assume the Heads of Houses were a conspiracy and/or out to get you in the first place, which then found a reason to back off. Because the natural inclination of an honest Hall of Houses is to conduct a brief investigation and then summarily drop the case.
Or, tl:dr, Syr would’ve had no reason to suspect the Houses were colluding, because this benevolent conspiracy is doing exactly the same things that an honest ruling body would’ve done, and have been doing, up until the recent power plays.
It’d surprise exactly nobody if said “honest” government decided to prosecute a vagrant band of miscreants for having offed a useful member of their government. The only reason they didn’t is because said member was no longer useful. This is Gastonia after all.
I mean, your assumption only really works if you assume that this is a beneficent democratic republic ruled by the will of the people. Which this isn’t. Everybody knows it’s an autocratic government run by a privileged nobility.
I have no issue with Gastonia being honest, corrupt, free, self-serving, or anywhere in between. I have every issue with Jarvis acting as though the Five’s continued freedom is merely some product of the Houses’ machinations or generosity, instead of common bloody sense. “Honest” in this case is referring to a Hall of Houses that isn’t colluding, and instead acting as you would expect of a ruling body consisting of numerous, self-interested individuals with potentially conflicting views on how the country should be run.
From the perspective of an Honest Gastonia, the Five rescued a comrade who’d been kidnapped by a militant religious body that had been assaulting random citizenry. In the process, they uncovered and then dismantled a plot that involved impersonating a long-deceased head of state. After some mourning and a cursory investigation, the Houses lack any particular reason to antagonize the Five; they are selfish, not petty. Therefore, the Houses laud the Five as heroes for their work. Recognizing their usefulness from this and their prior work, the five are organized into The Peacemakers, and the story continues as we know it.
From the perspective of a Gastonian Conspiracy, the Five are manipulated into destroying a entity no longer useful to the conspiracy. Recognizing the Five as a useful asset, the Conspiracy organizes them into the Peacemakers to continue serving Gastonian interests, and the story continues as we know it.
Regardless of the state of Gastonian politics, or WHY the Gigundus affair happened as it did, the outcome remains the same. Therefore, it makes no sense for Syr’nj to have had any suspicions about the Houses prior to now. THEREFORE, Jarvis’s question in the final panel makes no sense.
Gonna go ahead and chime in here. Love this conversation, but I’ll shed a little light.
The implication that I thought was clear was: “We would have tried you under normal circumstances, but you did exactly what we wanted and wanted to keep you around and we didn’t want to expose ourselves, soooooooo we didn’t.”
The fact also remains that nobody particularly liked Gigundus, and the entire order was dissolved because of the Peacemakers, so… the only people left to press charges would’ve been the Houses and they were obviously uninterested in doing so.
His domain, in the houses, was Religion. If he was around still, he would likely have been outed like the others after being deemed no longer useful.
The history of the relationship between Gigundus and the houses outside of that is not particularly important to the main story, so we’re trying not to bog things down with it.
Any chance that you’ll shed more light on said relationship outside of the comic/main story? I really like such historic/political details in fantasy.
Yeah, I got that, this conversation kind of perplexed me. Basically he’s saying “You killed a head of house. Normally you would have been tried for murder. Did you ever wonder why you weren’t?”
You guys make the mistake of thinking its common knowledge that the Gigundus that the 5 killed was an imposter. The Hall of Houses could have argued that they killed the real Gigundus and they disposed of his body and made up a story to cover up an act of murder. The only ones who could claim otherwise were Scarlett (who is dead) and the 5, and it would just be their word against their accusers.
Yeah, see, the “Honest” Gastonia part is kind of what I’m objecting to. At the face of it, the Hall of Houses looks vaguely democratic, but it’s really just a collection of the most powerful nobles and officers of the empire deciding what the law is going to be. That’s pretty much a conspiracy by definition.
When you really think about it, it’s patently absurd to expect them to actually serve justice or the will of the people. Syr’nj is hopelessly idealistic. A fact that Canegham has abrasively grouched about before. Her expectations are the exception, not the rule.
“The adventurers did nothing wrong once you look at the facts.” Yeah, that’s what the trial is supposed to be for. Looking at all the facts, and deciding afterwards that they did nothing wrong.
However, instead of being decided by a court, it was kept secret. The outcome for the adventurers was the same, but the outcome for the council was that they were able to continue uninterrupted without other secrets being brought to light.
^This. The reason for the lack of trial wasn’t to protect the adventurers, it ws to protect the *council* by avoiding light being shone upon the actions of the Sisterhood, and questions being asked about how much the council knew about the fact that the remains of one of their own was being used as a puppet.
Why is the idea of a show trial so strange?
The point is that if they thought the fake Priestlord were useful to the conspiracy or thought Syr’nj’s band were harmful to their goals, they wouldn’t have to play fair. That’s sort of what they do.
Basically, if they needed the fake Priestlord they just patch him up and charge the band for attempted murder. If they wanted both the Priestlord *and* the adventurers out of the way they can kill two birds with one stone by fabricating false evidence and putting on a show trial.
This much, at least, is flatly untrue. There is exactly, and explicitly, only one reason why the Five fought Gigundus, and that reason is because the Houses found him no longer useful. They wouldn’t have met if the Houses, through Ardaic, hadn’t sent Scarlett after Frigg to provoke the Five into going after her.
You’re now assuming Phil and T knew what they were doing all along. Just thought I’d point that out.
Nah, I kid, I kid.
But let’s face it, Frigg being a piece of work, the 5 would have had to confront her demons sooner or later. Like, you know, they’ve confronted all the other demons, except perhaps for those of Best.
Gigundus was going to go down no matter what.
(and yes, I know, this is too meta to even …
As Jarvis said, they were maintaining appearances, going along with Scarlett’s ruse that Gigundus was alive. So if they sought to continue that ruse, they would have had to punish those who had “murdered” him. A lie to cover the lie.
This.
Except they could have very easily at that point claimed that they, like the rest of the nation, had been the victims of a dastardly plot by Mother Scarlett, and thank you brave heroes for uncovering and dispatching the conspiracy all in one blow, etc.
I doubt they could’ve gotten away with claiming they didn’t know Gigundus was dead considering he was one of the heads. “The Priestlord hasn’t shown up at work for several years, we just didn’t notice”. They took up the ruse and would’ve had to maintain it, exposing Scarlet exposes the heads as well.
The man behind the curtain does not wish to alert the people’s attention to the fact that there are curtains, and that behind them, there can be bipeds.
As they said, they themselves had maintained the facade that Auto-Gigundus was the real deal. Trialling someone over its “death” would have been par for the course even if the perpetrators knew the truth.
erm … because they only killed a puppet and not the actual head?
Also: Ardaic sold out Frigg?! And the Peacekeepers have been “played” to accomplish the House’s goals?
Time for the guild to break free! Black ops only from here on!
“And the Peacekeepers have been “played” to accomplish the House’s goals?”
Didn’t we already know this? I could have sworn we already knew this.
Yeah, we did … I’m just more and more amazed as to the extent of it.
“Sold out” is the wrong phrase. Frigg wasn’t working with Gastonia yet, at the time. In fact, they had offered to work with her, and she turned them down (and probably told them to suck her donkey cock).
I would say they they used her as bait, but that’s not really correct either. That’s like using a live shark as bait to catch a school of tuna.
Mirror, mirror on the wall, tell me who’s the biggest asskicker of them all?
Kirk.
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻
Pike!
Janeway.
Captain Sulu.
Sisko
I had assumed it was early in the campaign and the GM hadn’t finished the backstory of his city yet, and by the time it became apparent we should have been tried it would’ve required too much of a retcon!
Frigg is going to be pissed.
Really you think she will find out? Because this seems like one of those “we would only tell you this if you weren’t going to live long enough to do anything about it” sort of things.
My my my.
Let’s see.
He’s unlaced his trousers.
He’s laid it on the chopping block.
And now he’s telling Syr’nj that she needs the dull axe – you know, the RUSTY one.
“Before I continue, could you take two paces to your left? Yes, stand right there on the big scorch mark. No, no reason.”
In which chapter did all this happen?
6 or somewhere about there for the fight with Gigundus.
Man, I really do not remember that. I need to go back and re-read this stuff.
Chapter 6
Those first few chapters were kinda weird, chronologically it jumped back and forth. The previous chapter they had found a town that had been wiped out and the perpetrators had attempted to frame the wood elves (did we ever find out who did that? I assume it was the cultists), then our heroes witness Trolls enslave a clan of orcs, and suddenly without warning Frigg has been kidnapped and Bandit is part of the team because apparently she saw who took her?
Generally, the classic chapters are actually pretty much chronological. The only things out of order are the preambles to each chapter. Those preambles we can timestamp via certain things: they all include Bandit but not Best, Byron has his shoulder-axe armor from the death of Gigundus…
The preamble of Chapter 7 puts events in chronological order for us via Gravedust’s journal: Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 -> Preamble 1 at the volcano -> Preamble 2 with the Cultists -> (preamble 3?? its referenced at the start of 7) -> Preamble 4 and 5 appear to happen simultaneously, based on… -> Preamble 6 bringing them together and referencing Frigg’s threats in Pr5. The final journal entry in Pre7 refers to the events of Pre6… so at that point I think the ‘timelines’ synchronize since Pre7 leads directly into Chapter 7 proper.
We know from Preamble 4 that the spirits of Leafport said ‘harkiiii’ which confused Byron, and that in Chapter 8 when the diplomat introduced them to “Big Boss Harky” Byron again went “Harki?” So it stands to reason that Leafport was slaughtered by the world’s rebellion.
At the end of Chapter 5 we see the Heads of House discussing the peacekeepers and opportunities and then Gigundus has a hissy fit about air pirates and so on. That night (still the end of Chapter 5) we see Frigg get kidnapped. So, Frigg’s kidnapping is a direct result of the team forming, fucking up some pirates, and the Heads figuring the party were useful as tools.
I don’t think the problem is that any of this is complicated — its that this is a FIVE YEAR OLD PLOT POINT. Its like… 5 years ago this was a completely different comic. This was all before the Real World Reveal came along.
Gravedust had some problems getting through to the Leafport spirits too, though. The language he used to describe it sounds a lot like how he described Byron’s aura and some other cultist related stuff, so it seems like the cultists must have been involved in covering up the actions of the World’s Rebellion. Why they’d help so directly I’ve never figured out, though. There’s been no further evidence of cooperation that I know of.
And now I have to wonder… how many of the Councillors aren’t just NPCs? What about Ardaic? Or are only Adventurers player-controlled?
And how much of what they’re about to say is just a bluff, to make themselves feel big and powerful? I bet they just got lucky with the Frigg thing.
Given that they gave these adventurers jobs . . . yeah pretty powerful.
It’s not really unreasonable to think that people who behave heroically and violently would go around fixing the public order with brute force. The heads can’t do this themselves so it’s convenient when somebody else does. All they have to do is make disappointed *tsk* *tsk* noises if the Peacemakers don’t follow proper protocol and slap them on the wrists a little.
People assumed that the Peacemakers were glorified government thugs. As it turns out, that’s actually half true.
Heck, if the Frigg thing didn’t work they probably could find some later pretense to take down the Priestlord.
“Hey, we have suspicions of awful corruption over at the Bloodshot Eye convent. We want you to go investigate their activities please and report back to us. Quietly please.”
“Oh you couldn’t contain your righteous fury at their persecution of the local populace. How disappointing. But you did discover the Priestlord was a fake. So we’ll overlook your rather clumsy handling of the situation.”
“Well, no, not really. It happened so early in the story, we hadn’t even tried to wrap our heads around the politics. It was more like ‘Oh, here are some rich guys who want to pay us to be the heroes, and here’s the evil guy that we have to stab to get the monies’. And then you guys were out of the story while we were off getting a makeover and getting killed and getting character development, so forgive us if we didn’t pay much attention to the intricacies of the legal system at the time.”