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

War Math: If we have 501 dudes, and you have 500 dudes, and we blow up 500 of your dudes along with 500 of our dudes, then we technically win.

Chapter 30 – Page 3

on March 27, 2014
Chapter: Chapter 30
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Discussion (82) ¬

  1. Jean-Luc
    Jean-Luc
    March 27, 2014, 12:25 am | # | Reply

    Fire support.

    • biggmac
      biggmac
      March 27, 2014, 2:03 am | # | Reply

      Nondiscriminatory Utilities Targeting Sharks = NUTS

    • mrknifey
      mrknifey
      March 27, 2014, 11:25 am | # | Reply

      Big Ass Bombs Everywhere…yknow, BABEs;D

      • mrknifey
        mrknifey
        March 27, 2014, 11:26 am | # | Reply

        I love my new Gravatar…Scip just looks so BadAss:D

        • SotiCoto
          SotiCoto
          April 1, 2016, 10:30 am | # | Reply

          Whereas I see your words coming from what looks like some random gnome…

          A Gnome-Player Character.

  2. Snowblind
    Snowblind
    March 27, 2014, 12:26 am | # | Reply

    Mutually Assured Destruction

    There is a reason they call it MAD.

    • SteelRaven
      SteelRaven
      March 27, 2014, 2:08 am | # | Reply

      More like FUBAR

      • Andreas
        Andreas
        March 27, 2014, 5:51 am | # | Reply

        More like PERFECTION! (sorry, my face made me do it).

        • BIGg
          BIGg
          March 27, 2014, 3:57 pm | # | Reply

          i like the way you think

  3. Whelps
    Whelps
    March 27, 2014, 12:30 am | # | Reply

    Not sure if artillery or airdropped bomb.

    • Snowblind
      Snowblind
      March 27, 2014, 12:37 am | # | Reply

      I think a wounded soldier pulled the pin/detonated a satchel charge, selling themselves dearly.

      • Justanothersomethingorother
        Justanothersomethingorother
        March 27, 2014, 12:44 am | # | Reply

        Ominous shadow in panel three seems to tell another story

        • Thomas
          Thomas
          March 27, 2014, 3:44 am | # | Reply

          Yes, and both a medic and a wounded soldier are staring skywards.

    • Tachyon
      Tachyon
      March 27, 2014, 12:53 am | # | Reply

      Air-dropped artillery bomb…?

    • Andreas
      Andreas
      March 27, 2014, 5:46 am | # | Reply

      It seems the airships found their purpose.

  4. Nathan Tuggy
    Nathan Tuggy
    March 27, 2014, 12:45 am | # | Reply

    “Maxim 5: Close air support and friendly fire should be easier to tell apart.”
    Also, ouch.

    • Yash
      Yash
      March 27, 2014, 3:57 am | # | Reply

      ^ This! I was about to say inb4 Schlock Mercenary air support maxims but I was beaten to it, it would seem

    • Obakeinu
      Obakeinu
      March 27, 2014, 7:12 am | # | Reply

      Two of these seem appropriate…”Murphy’s Laws of Combat”:
      #19 — Incoming fire has the right-of-way.
      #22 — Friendly fire — isn’t.

  5. FoolishOwl
    FoolishOwl
    March 27, 2014, 12:46 am | # | Reply

    So, now we’re introducing Malthus as a character?

    • Guesticus
      Guesticus
      March 28, 2014, 9:19 am | # | Reply

      Who?

      • Dr Pepper
        Dr Pepper
        March 31, 2014, 6:52 am | # | Reply

        18th century naturalist. Formulated the rule that populations tend to outgrow their food supplies and then collapse. In nature, that’s a cycle because there are always survivors to start again, but it has long been suspected that sapience changes that. On the one hand, we are so good at developing new resources that our populations grow way beyond what others can do, making collapse catastrophic when it comes. On the other hand the fact that we are good gives possible hope, also, our more developed, better off communities, tend to slower birth rates.

        A world with multiple sapient species multiplies the complexity of the issue.

  6. Messenger
    Messenger
    March 27, 2014, 12:46 am | # | Reply

    I was wondering who the narrator was; probably Goblaurence.

    Landsharks are scary but landsharks wearing armor is scarier.

    War is hell, but if that was a Gastonian bomb drop then I’m going to be sick.

    • Devlerbat
      Devlerbat
      March 27, 2014, 2:29 am | # | Reply

      The alt text and the fact that the Savage Races probably wouldn’t sacrifice a bunch of landsharks to bomb a few medics and injured Gastonians that the landsharks were likely to kill anyways suggest that it was indeed a Gastonian bomb.

      (Plus I am not even sure if the goblins brought that kind of firepower with them.)

    • Karishi
      Karishi
      March 27, 2014, 3:22 am | # | Reply

      It’s worse than that: The Gastonians have fake wounded-guys that explode, which would have been brilliant but nobody told the medics.
      It’s like that movie Screamers, or that other movie Impostor!

      • SteelRaven
        SteelRaven
        March 27, 2014, 4:48 am | # | Reply

        That medic looking up hints at the airships dropping bombs.

    • LockeZ
      LockeZ
      March 27, 2014, 4:27 pm | # | Reply

      Those humans were like three seconds from being eaten. At least the bomb made it painless. It would have been tactically better for the Gastonian airship to wait until the land sharks got to the medics before dropping the bomb, to make sure more sharks got caught in the blast, but it was more merciful to their own soldiers this way.

      • SteelRaven
        SteelRaven
        March 27, 2014, 6:10 pm | # | Reply

        I doubt the guy dropping the bombs was think of this.

  7. Messenger
    Messenger
    March 27, 2014, 12:51 am | # | Reply

    Speaking of landsharks (I should have posted this back when Hammerhead was introduced), I wonder how it’s possible for a landshark to become sentient. I mean, what conditions when met produce a thinking, understanding, independent, sentient, not-ruled-by-hive-mind-and-voracious-instinct landshark? To be more specific, how do you get a Player Character landshark?

    • Jean-Luc
      Jean-Luc
      March 27, 2014, 1:08 am | # | Reply

      Law school?

      • MidnightDStroyer
        MidnightDStroyer
        March 27, 2014, 2:46 am | # | Reply

        …Or Political Science studies…

      • Carl-E
        Carl-E
        March 27, 2014, 3:23 am | # | Reply

        I believe the phrase was, “thinking, understanding, independent, sentient, not-ruled-by-hive-mind-and-voracious-instinct”.

        That lets out law school.

        And Political Science.

        What we have here is a student of philosophy… whether formal or not.

    • Andreas
      Andreas
      March 27, 2014, 5:49 am | # | Reply

      Evolution.
      Oh, except, unlike the real world, Arkerra actually does have a creator.
      Or was H.R. merely a discoverer?

      • Loyal
        Loyal
        March 27, 2014, 9:26 am | # | Reply

        It certainly has the provable influence of gods who continue to actively meddle in the world’s affairs, if nothing else.

        • Andreas
          Andreas
          March 27, 2014, 9:57 am | # | Reply

          As an Ignostic, I withhold judgment until “god” can be more closely defined.

          • Seggs
            Seggs
            March 27, 2014, 11:07 am | # | Reply

            so wait. the suffix “-gnostic” means “in a state of knowing”
            did you mean “agnostic” to suggest that you dont know if a/some god/s exist?

            or did you mean “iggnostic” to suggest you worship Tectonicus because you hold knowledge of fire?

            • Omega
              Omega
              March 27, 2014, 12:29 pm | # | Reply

              Rather than playing with semantics it’s easier just to do a quick Google search and check the wiki page.

              TL:DR version, as an extremely basic description, Ignosticism revolves around asking “What is meant by ‘God’?” before asking “Does God exist?”

    • LockeZ
      LockeZ
      March 27, 2014, 4:33 pm | # | Reply

      It was very explicitly stated by HR at one point that the NPCs who spend time around the Five start to become sentient individuals in their own right. They begin deviating from their programming and following their own free will.

      Now, as far as we know, CHAINSAWCALYPSE or whatever his name is had never met the Peacemakers before now. But that might not actually be the case. Maybe they fought each-other off-camera. Or maybe he simply met someone who met the Peacemakers.

  8. Messenger
    Messenger
    March 27, 2014, 1:02 am | # | Reply

    Wait a minute… After reading the alt text, I got this thought: What if the medics were bait to lure in a large number of savage troops for a bomb drop?

    Oh man, that’s awful.

    • CorrTerek
      CorrTerek
      March 27, 2014, 1:08 am | # | Reply

      It’s certainly in keeping with what we’ve seen from Gastonia, though.

      • biggmac
        biggmac
        March 27, 2014, 2:00 am | # | Reply

        On the other hand, those wounded and medics were essentially dead anyway, by shark attack. If there was enough time, one of the wounded may have pled “don’t let them eat me. Please kill me. Don’t let me die that way.”
        At least, that logic helps numb the conscience that you just BLEW APART YOUR OWN CORPSMEN.

        • SteelRaven
          SteelRaven
          March 27, 2014, 2:12 am | # | Reply

          Disposable heroes, you served us well.

          • MidnightDStroyer
            MidnightDStroyer
            March 29, 2014, 9:10 pm | # | Reply

            Heh! You’re avatar drinks to that. :D

        • Stephen
          Stephen
          March 27, 2014, 6:47 am | # | Reply

          Corpsemen

        • Reiiama
          Reiiama
          March 27, 2014, 6:38 pm | # | Reply

          It’s even more sorrowful when you consider that the Gastonian military hired many of those medics and healers into the army, away from adventurers who needed the healing… only to kill them.

          • Sestror
            Sestror
            June 15, 2014, 6:36 am | # | Reply

            I don’t think that that was their intent while recruiting them. Instead, it was a oppurtunity to kill more than double of the opposite numbers than of their own, who are, regardless of what they would have done, moments away of being killed.

  9. CorrTerek
    CorrTerek
    March 27, 2014, 1:09 am | # | Reply

    I don’t want Goblaurence to be right, but in this particular case I’m finding it hard to argue with him.

  10. JSStryker
    JSStryker
    March 27, 2014, 1:16 am | # | Reply

    Calling an airstrike in on yourself when you are being overrun is the height of courage and can win you the MOH

    • SteelRaven
      SteelRaven
      March 27, 2014, 2:14 am | # | Reply

      Friendly fire ordered by you superiors on the other hand…

      • Messenger
        Messenger
        March 27, 2014, 2:24 am | # | Reply

        Your gravatar matches your words perfectly. :-)

        • LockeZ
          LockeZ
          March 27, 2014, 4:35 pm | # | Reply

          ….chugging ale is a perfect match for murdering your underlings?

          • SteelRaven
            SteelRaven
            March 27, 2014, 6:13 pm | # | Reply

            Realizing your cannon fodder may induce alcoholism

      • MidnightDStroyer
        MidnightDStroyer
        March 27, 2014, 2:49 am | # | Reply

        Well, even if YOU’RE the one to call in “friendly fire” upon yourself, it still isn’t “friendly,” is it? But then again, it’s been said that one’s worst enemy is invariably oneself.

        • Andreas
          Andreas
          March 27, 2014, 5:51 am | # | Reply

          This is Sparta Gastonia. No way did they call it themselves :D :D :D

  11. Nonsensicles
    Nonsensicles
    March 27, 2014, 4:51 am | # | Reply

    Or you could use all the resources you’re throwing into this war to actually make things better. If you weren’t stupid.

    • Devlerbat
      Devlerbat
      March 27, 2014, 1:28 pm | # | Reply

      Ah but that would only work if the other side is doing the same. If you aren’t using the resources to come up with ways to kill them but they are then they will just kill you and take your resources and inventions.

  12. sucroseSaboteur
    sucroseSaboteur
    March 27, 2014, 6:19 am | # | Reply

    Honestly I’d rather get blown up instantly than torn apart and eaten by landsharks.

  13. █████
    █████
    March 27, 2014, 6:28 am | # | Reply

    Friendly fire from the Friendly Skies.

  14. Guesticus
    Guesticus
    March 27, 2014, 6:50 am | # | Reply

    The repeated use of ‘shite’ removes any and all remaining doubts on the current narrator

    And the sharks have just proven they are nothing but the lowest of the bottom-feeding scum (except maybe for HAMMERPANTS, but jury is still deliberating on his verdict), may they all be expunged with extreme indifference!!

    • Rafinius
      Rafinius
      March 27, 2014, 7:08 am | # | Reply

      Going after the healers is an old tradition in RPGs. It’s also good strategy.

    • Devlerbat
      Devlerbat
      March 27, 2014, 1:34 pm | # | Reply

      You assume some form of morality, viciousness, or anything resembling actually decision making went into the landsharks attacking the medics and wounded? The landsharks (with the exception of Hammerhead and those, if any, that are similar to him) seem to basically be animals to me. They see food lying there they are going to eat it. Heck, I am not even sure if they realize they are on a battlefield rather than a buffet line.

      • Aslandus
        Aslandus
        March 27, 2014, 3:19 pm | # | Reply

        According to Penk, they can distinguish, they just don’t bother to identify anyone past “Kill” (enemy troops) “Don’t kill” (allied troops) and “Need an excuse to kill” (other landsharks)

      • LockeZ
        LockeZ
        March 27, 2014, 4:36 pm | # | Reply

        They were drawn by the scent of blood from the wounded, probably.

        Because sharks.

  15. Dan Irving
    Dan Irving
    March 27, 2014, 7:07 am | # | Reply

    And this is why bombers don’t get the ‘Danger Close’ tastings. Of course I doubt Gastonia has developed AC130 Spectre Gunships so …

  16. Gillsing
    Gillsing
    March 27, 2014, 7:42 am | # | Reply

    Re: War math
    Technical win? According to one theory it would be an actual win. ;-)

    • Chris
      Chris
      March 27, 2014, 10:32 am | # | Reply

      The only good thing about winning, is that you won, so then you can write it however you want.
      Other than that, winning sucks.

      The best kind of wars are the ones that never end. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

    • Aslandus
      Aslandus
      March 27, 2014, 3:20 pm | # | Reply

      It’s not the side that wins that matters, it’s the side that can afford to survive after the war…

  17. Torint
    Torint
    March 27, 2014, 9:47 am | # | Reply

    Landsharks are always good if you want to show a lot of guilt-free carnage.

  18. Alex
    Alex
    March 27, 2014, 11:28 am | # | Reply

    Get this guy in the group and make him philosophize some more and shit. Maybe he and Gravedust will be buddies!

  19. CalDayton
    CalDayton
    March 27, 2014, 11:34 am | # | Reply

    anyone feeling a bit Pyrrhic?

    • Mike
      Mike
      May 9, 2014, 4:04 pm | # | Reply

      I was just going to say that the war math is what’s called a Pyrrhic victory.

  20. Shapeshifter
    Shapeshifter
    March 27, 2014, 12:25 pm | # | Reply

    Oye, this definitely reminded me a lot of a certain book with a very similar happening, medics have a tough break. I wont mention it for fear of spoiling it for current/future readers. It was really hard to read then and I find myself feeling the same way for this. The intentional sacrifice of troops for furthering war agendas in this type of manner has always struck me as profoundly wicked. Though war in general really makes me sad, men and women with lives, hopes and dreams go off to die.

    • Aslandus
      Aslandus
      March 27, 2014, 3:14 pm | # | Reply

      I think I know the book you’re talking about, it did come a bit out of the blue as well… Just like the bombs…

  21. Aleister Crow
    Aleister Crow
    March 27, 2014, 12:30 pm | # | Reply

    Si vis pacem, para bellum!

  22. Zblackgoat
    Zblackgoat
    March 27, 2014, 1:43 pm | # | Reply

    that gives a whole new meaning to shark chum

    • MidnightDStroyer
      MidnightDStroyer
      March 27, 2014, 8:12 pm | # | Reply

      …I’ve yet to meet the landshark that I’d like to be chums with…Just from what is shown of them in this comic gives good reasons to avoid them altogether.

  23. Zippideedoodah
    Zippideedoodah
    March 27, 2014, 2:30 pm | # | Reply

    The reference to clothes : this is DEFINITELY Goblaurence speaking !

  24. Runic
    Runic
    March 27, 2014, 4:35 pm | # | Reply

    You have to imagine Goblaurence has been working the whole time he has been speaking, so I wonder what he has been making so far?

    • LockeZ
      LockeZ
      March 27, 2014, 4:39 pm | # | Reply

      A jetpack with no off switch, if my experiences in WoW have taught me anything about goblin engineering.

      (If an invention was made by gnomes, it explodes by accident. If an invention was made by goblins, it explodes on purpose.)

      • Electricdawn
        Electricdawn
        March 27, 2014, 4:50 pm | # | Reply

        But it WILL definitely explode, no matter what. ;)

  25. Electricdawn
    Electricdawn
    March 27, 2014, 4:51 pm | # | Reply

    PS: Sorry for the duplicate post.

    “Goblin products are built to blast!”

  26. Snowblind
    Snowblind
    March 27, 2014, 5:18 pm | # | Reply

    How much machine-oil can be extracted?
    Depends on spawn rate and number of bots.

  27. d
    d
    March 28, 2014, 5:01 am | # | Reply

    well at least they didnt get eaten alive by sharks while too wounded to fight back. yay for bombs?

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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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