Recent Comics (>=31)

[Lopez]

Hm...we haven't been talking much about the comics recently. So...a couple things I thought that I'd bring up.

Firstly, I noticed Both Julian and Edmond have red markings. I could be completely off on this, but this seems to imply to me a cross-race. If so, Edmond has aquired his position through race, and Julian achieved his position through illicit means. However, Lucian lacks these markings. Therefore, this could just be a standard variation. Which brings up a more important point; can the colors cross-breed? The comic might have a great deal of racial interplay, which could be very interesting; or I could be reading too much into it. Thoughts?

Secondly, I noticed that Julian represents his domain as "my forest." This is interesting because this means that the Grays define their territory based on its specific type. Therefore, anywhere OUTSIDE the forest boundary would not be a part of their territory. This might be the reason why the Grays have been less successful than the Reds, (in general only, as Julian seems to be faring quite well.) In comic 11, http://crimsonflagcomic.com/comic.php?comicID=11, the view of the city shows that the city is not surrounded by forest, but grassland. Then, the reason for the Red's success is because they have been able to break out of the territory dynamic that traps the Grays. Maybe? What are your thoughts on this?

Lastly, I love the ambiguity set up for Edmond's character, and it could say a lot about the Gray social structure. In addition to being trapped in their territory, the Grays could also have a problem with communication. The word "Lacking" means two things in Julian's last sentence. It implies both that Edmond's reports have been both few in number and poor in quality. The few-in-number reports show that Edmond might just be lazy. The fact that Julian has not replaced him shows that communication like this is standard among the Grays, and one of their numerous problems in their societal structure. In addition to this, the poor-in-quality reports show that Edmond has not received enough formal education to write a good, quality report. This indicates that the Grays lack an effective schooling system in place to train themselves in the critical skill of writing. Therefore, poor little Edmond is the best diplomat they could come up with, since their schools (if they have any at all) are particularly lacking. The Grays might not even have proper schools, and instead this position is a posh position from the second son of a noble. But I doubt the Grays have effective estates anyway, since they only live in the forest. Hm......all this from the word "lacking".

[KaiAdin]

Hmm, some good Points there Lopez (haha, the Shoutbox is more of a Chatbox thesedays which has killed the forums basically)

On the first point, if you Google Grey fox (or Island fox) they naturally have red markings on them, wither thats the case in this Universe I'm not quite sure, but if it is true, than the red markings are quite mundane. Also in the strip where Lord Urocyon enters the Hall, a few Red reyn with grey markings are seen in the crowd, so once again, having grey spots is probably normal for reds.  (comic 28)

My theory is with Edmond is that he's quite a competent diplomat... and he knows that staring a war with the Red Reyn would be crazy. (Lucian would agree with Edmund from what I've seen). His few and sparse reports are not the product of a bad education or an ineffective social structure, just that he doesn't want to let his Lord know of what little he is doing to further Lord Urocyons agenda (which is to some how regain Auberwood's independence).

I somehow doubt that referring to Auberwood as 'my forest' means that his territory is ONLY forest, its just symbolism/metaphor/whatever... Auberwood is probably completely forested, but just because the forest ends it doesn't mean there's a boarder there. It would be easy to conquer the greys then... burn down the forest and its not theirs anymore, which obviously wouldn't work.

Back to the eduction thing, I doubt they have an ineffective education system... from comic 15, even though their Airships are antiquated, they are apparently still bigger than what the reds have. Not to mention a war, to have been able to build such capable war machine, would imply an educated artisan class. (oh another thing comic 15 says there is Another place where an airship attach would be unsuccessful... the capital of Auberwood perhaps???)

Living in the forest doesn't mean there's a lack of sophistication (refer back to previous points about airships)... Like was was said in the beginning, the reds were the first to conquer and all that, but the greys have probably caught up too.

um... thats all I could think of at the moment It's nice to have a good comic discussion once in a while.

[Virmir]

I'll comment on the markings, to save people from speculating on a dead end.

Yes, gray foxes naturally have red markings.  Originally I intended to color them all gray, but this was only because during early design phases I tried coloring a few of my own drawings with red highlights and was less than pleased with the results.  Lucian was the first character designed, so his style went this way.

This bothered me though, so after a few more attempts I managed to get them to look okay with red markings.  So basically when it comes down to it, Grays' natural markings vary from no red at all, to a moderate amount like Edmund has.  Actually if Lucian ever gets his shirt ripped off in battle or something, I will probably give him a bit of red on his chest or sides to avoid confusion.

(DISCLAIMER: Virmir reserves the right to totally revoke all this if something contradictory comes up in the comic X years from now. )

[KaiAdin]

Haha, Love the Disclaimer... (you sly foxes XD )

EDIT: Aww, your killing opportunities for discussion here, as an author you should be sowing seeds of deceit, throwing coals upon the fires of speculation . Making the readers write ever longer essays on the irrelevant minutiae, details leading to nowhere.  To make the forum burn with righteous anger.

It'll be warm... quite warm...

[Virmir]

Ha ha... hey, I left all the other stuff for you to mill over.

[KaiAdin]

Bah, Milling over is too calm....

Seriously though, I like small calm forums, where you ideas aren't shot down with yells of 'n00b' or the like, but with lengthy and verbose (and redundant) writing.

Anyway going a bit OT here but yea; Edmund is a smart foxy, the Queen is suspicious of Julian, and Voltar is they type of person that's annoyingly happy. 

[Lopez]

All reasonable points, KaiAdin, but then what is Lord Julian's reasoning behind the desire to start a war in the first place? In fact, there is no evidence that Julian wants to start a war at all. All that he has revealed so far is that he wants to address the council and then they will grant them independence. Perhaps he doesn't want a war at all, but has some other trump card that he can play on them.

I disagree on the stance you take for

even though their Airships are antiquated, they are apparently still bigger than what the reds have.

Just because North Korea has Nuclear missiles, it doesn't make them a legitimate country either; same for the Grays. Don't forget that a city of 700 is "unimaginable"(Comic 11, again) by Gray standards. I seriously doubt the Grays even have a standing army. And don't forget "what power the Grays still had..."(Comic 15), showing that they are still minimally powerful.

This furthers my opinion that Julian is not about to declare a war with the Reds here and now. In addition, "he left his entourage at home"(comic 15), which shows that he is in no position to issue such a statement here and now. Instead, he is about to make them an offer they can't refuse. What that offer could be has yet to be revealed, but it most likely is NOT having to do with economics, as refuted by.....waiiiiiiiiiiiit...got it.

Emiline. Yeah sub-characters. Nice try about hiding that Virmir. 

He mentioned to Lucian to get out while he still could. And don't forget "Don't touch her,"(comic 17). She most likely has some hidden power to turn all the Reds into frogs or something. But it has a tendency to backfire, or something like that. Hm.....what can she do that can send the Reds running with their tails between their legs?

Therefore, Emiline is his nuke. He just can't quite control her yet. But he is definitely not starting a WAR with the Reds, since I have argued that he lacks the capability to do so, but that doesn't rule out absolute annihilation by nuking. Yeah nukes.

[KaiAdin]

Well you got me on the potentially low population thing, but If greys have a low population and the Reds Biggest (only?) city has 700 reyn in it.... then the Reds military cannot be that big either....

One might be able to theorize that Greys and Reds have an equal amount of Foxes, just that the Red concentrated them into cities, while Greys still live relatively dispersed within their forest. Since we haven't seen much of Auberwood itself, we can't be that certain.

Haha, once again we misunderstand each other... when I meant by war, I meant, any sort of conflict between the two, it doesn't have to be the all out total war, It could be a diplomatic war, economic sanctions, trade, the closing of boarders, but then again from the look of it, The arctics and Aloplexia, have the edge on new tech. Yes... there still is the issue of Little Emiline.

Also Just because North Korea has Nuclear Missiles, doesn't mean they can't use them even if the US has 1000x the manpower and tech... They still have them, and they do use it as a bargaining chip. (eeee, I hate to compare the Greys and North Korea, sorry Vir) Like NK, Julian is showing off his forces, showing that even they may be a sub-ordinate land, they were better once and are willing to get there again.

Anyway back to Lord Urocyon (Julian seems to personal *bows to his lordship*)... from the About page, and Lucians opinion of him, I don't think Lord Urocyon is inclined to think with a Level head. If my knowledge of medieval politics work, Urocyon probably was his 'King' of his own lands before they were conquered by the reds.... and well when your conquered, you tend not to be terribly happy about it. *Shifts eyes at the allusion to RL politics.... eeeek*

Hmm... (going all over the place here, but) you mean Standing army as in a full time professional army right? Well even if it's not as big as the Reds (they might not permit it) it would be prudent for any Lord to have an army of somesort, even if its a few knights and such.

And yes leaving the entourage at home thing is interesting, and so is Emiline, Well at least we'll find out soon! <- The one who keeps changing which emoticon set he uses

[Lopez]

Emiline is DEFINITELY the real ace in the hole for Julian. However, I think there might be an alternate way of looking at Julian's character.

We keep seeming to base our assumptions off the fact that Julian is evil. However, what if he's not? Bear in mind, he wanted Lucian to get out while he still could. However, if Emiline is the real trump card that he holds, he has no need for a moralistic son to hamper his way. But, he still asks him to return. Why? He still loves his son, as weird as that may seem, and not just as an asset. Perhaps he's not quite as controlling as we think he is.........But, you could take the other point of view, and say that Julian sees Lucian as an asset in his new empire. Therefore, he also mistakenly assumes that Lucian is cooperating with the Reds not for personal gain( His reason for joining the Reds? Fill me in here, I'm drawing a blank,) but as subterfuge to investigate their activities. I always like to look at characters from the good perspective, so I think that Julian feels that the current rule is unjust. His character remains very undeveloped, so it's far easier to just say, "Oh, he does it because he's evil" than to make any in-depth analysis of his reasoning. Meh. Maybe Virmir will discuss him in more depth later, because now I don't really know what his character is like.

HOOOOOOOOOLD on here.

Urocyon probably was his 'King' of his own lands before they were conquered by the reds

I full-heartedly disagree. This is a bit of the transitive property reasoning here, so try to follow me.

The airship is an "antique."
The airship was produced just after the war ended.
The war ended a while ago. Most likely before Julian was ever even born.

Therefore, Julian is probably not fighting for revenge to reclaim what is his, and more likely fighting to escape from the Red's reign. But because we have received no information on the Red governance system, we don't really know what could cause his chagrin.

In addition, one of the things that we have to be very careful about((more just I need to be very careful about)) is that industrialization capabilities do NOT make effective armies at this point in time. Like you said, the population is relatively small. That means that not very big armies can be made anyways. However, the real trick here we keep seem to be forgetting is MAGIC.

Combat is primarily determined by magic at this point. Therefore, the quantity of swords that you can make is much less important than the inherent magical capabilities of your population. That means that even a small village with great magical ability can rise to rule the nation at this point. Currently, the Reds hold the monopoly on magic, as evidenced by Lucian going to them to train. Magic is much more important than industrial capabilities, and I'll have to keep this especially in mind when I make my arguments.

So how does the Gray's decentralization effect their ineptness to rebel? Well, since they are more spread out than the Reds, they lack any sort of an effective "capital" such as the Reds have. They cannot pull together their resources as quickly as the Reds can. Don't forget, the Grays were defeated by the Reds a looooooooong time ago. That means that all top-shape talent has been absorbed into the Red governmental system(Lucian, etc.) Other than Emiline, Julian's got nothing to work with. I doubt his personality makes him seem a likely ally for the other Gray states under control.((Bear in mind, Julian does not rule the Grays, he rules a state of Grays that was assimilated into the Red system. There are 24 tables in the Council, and his forest makes up one of them. Therefore, he controls about 04% of the population in the empire. Not a very big force to rise up and rule everyone. This means that he must reeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeally trust in Emiline if he thinks that he can gain independence.

We haven't really talked much about the Snows yet. I doubt they have any agriculture, but they are instead a VERY industrial society, if they think that can crank out 12 ships in 3 months. I find this number to be a bit unrealistic. With this kind of manufacturing capability, they should be ruling.((However, they might be particularly inept at magic, and this could cause them to have zero troop combat effectiveness, no matter what kind of tech they can amass.)) Thoughts?

[KaiAdin]

The war ended a while ago.

Sorry, about to go to lunch... so I'm just scanning.

It doesn't actually say (anywhere?, I shall check later) the war ended quite some time ago, so that step in your reasoning might not support your subsequent statement.

But anyway I'll read it while eating and hopefully have a good reply in a few hours.

[Lopez]

......wait, LUNCH? Where do you live???(Time zone)

Hm....antique is kind of up to whatever definition you like. For the Snows, antique could mean 10 year by their technological standards, so the ship could actually not be that old. I still hold to my belief that the war was long before Julian's time, though; just on my own hunch.

[KaiAdin]

Yay 10pm and I'm writing instead of sleeping

We keep seeming to base our assumptions off the fact that Julian is evil. However, what if he's not?

Well, it's been established that he's not the nicest person to be around (the whole flashback sequence ) and that anger seems to be his driving force (comic 25, 26....)

While he may wish for Julian to return home, he dosen't seem to be begging or forcing him to return with any conviction. I mean if he is such a nice person, and Lord Urocyon was planning to 'nuke the place' (or some other means of mass mayhem) he would'nt leave his son there to get hurt or worse... It's either that hes that evil, or his trump card does not involve mass mayhem.

On a side note, how is Emiline related to Lucian? Little sis, Cousin, daughter of a family friend??

His reason for joining the Reds?

Simply he wants to get away from his dad... and bring a mage of his power (Level 3 is pretty high) joining the reds military was an obvious choice, good pay and position. From the end of the flashback, it appears Lucian is teaching others, not being taught, And that his father taught him the magic arts, not the reds.

I full-heartedly disagree.

Well weither Lord urocyon was a 'King' or not, or even if he was alive at the end of the war or not does not really matter. I wasn't saying hes looking for revenge, just that having your sovereignty taken from you is a good reason to want it back.

is that industrialization capabilities do NOT make effective armies at this point in time. Like you said, the population is relatively small. That means that not very big armies can be made anyways. However, the real trick here we keep seem to be forgetting is MAGIC.

Not necessarily, their FLYING SHIPS!!!, I'm sure just like the tanks in RL they revolutionized warfare, you needed to have tanks so that you wouldn't be beaten, same thing for the airships. Tech and Magic go hand in hand (*glee*). Industrialization and Magical ability have an equal footing on the battle field, whoever has the biggest baddest and bestest air ships probably controls the sky, and that of course is important for battle.

However, they might be particularly inept at magic, and this could cause them to have zero troop combat effectiveness

Ah the Snows ..... Tech is based on magic (from Virmir's words in a prior thread) (haha, no disclaimer on that! though its probably retroactive the disclaimer he put on this thread ) So I think they must be pretty good at both.... I suppose they focus more on trade and diplomacy, rather than Sovereignty and politics. Though they look like their a separate Nation, rather than a part of the Reds nation as Auberwood is.

P.S: Virmir, your Arctic foxes are happy. Their happy cause they come from a cold place and cold makes people happy! you should like the cold more!

Yay took 30mins to compose this + 10mins for the first draft on paper... If only I put this much effort into Uni

[Virmir]

They're happy because they're vacationing in a warm climate.

On a side note, how is Emiline related to Lucian? Little sis, Cousin, daughter of a family friend??

She's his half-sister.

[KaiAdin]

She's his half-sister.

Oh yea... Missed that!

[Pontos]

Yay took 30mins to compose this + 10mins for the first draft on paper... If only I put this much effort into Uni

Oh boy... personal-experience-based recommendation: Close CFC tab while on class... this kind of distraction can really screw up you studies