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Latest blog post: Redraw of chapter 1 is happening (2024-05-11)

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New

Oh, brother! You're something!

You put me in a spin!

You aren't comprehending

The position, that you're in.

Mr. President seemed to have forgotten that the peace being kept is tenuous, and it's his country's fault. That this conversation is happening ENTIRELY at Zane's pleasure.

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Senior

Uh... Zane is coiming across as a bit of a prick in that second panel. Given the whole of the 'transpired events' is the responsability of his decisions, and his hand picked underlings, he's not being at all magnanamous to say he's not holding someone else responsible.

I can understand why he's doing it, and it's a sensible bluff to make in his position. But I really hope someone calls his bluff at some point.

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Visitor

Plenty of leaders are perfectly happy to take the death of any of their citizens in an incident involving another nation's military as a causus belli, no matter how much culpability they had for the incident. It was perfectly plausible, a priori, that Zane might take a stance of "your missile, your fault," and it's not like there'd be much anyone on Earth could do about it if he decided to demand outlandish reparations (outside of deciding to take their chances against the military technology of an interstellar-capable civilization).

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Senior

True, but that doesn't stop Zane from being a prick.

Leaders like you describe also don't care about concepts like causus belli. They just do what they want without care for the opinions of others. Such behaviour is also not consistant with everything they have been able to get out of Nea, Ghar, or the three stooges. Or the whole shuttle incident at all.

Beyond a certain point, you need to go with the evidence.

[edit:] Also, Zane is about to meet a bunch of people who are pretty arrogent themselves, are used to being powerful, are probably grumpy about a number of things, and absolutely will gang up on the new guy. If this is an example of Zane's dipolomatic approach to idiots, we may get some more fireworks in the upcoming pages. ^.^

(Edited)
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Senior

The President could counter with "Your shuttle shouldn't have been there to begin with. We were only protecting ourselves from an unknown threat." But he might be thinking he could still get better status if he doesn't try to make Zane angry?

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Senior

Love how panel 2 just put Zane's face in some dark light as he tells the President the meeting wasn't to give grant them favor but to raise them up from disfavor.

Not sure if this conference will be in person or video.

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Senior

You don't win "most favored nation" status by making first contact with a SAM strike. If the President had been in the room when Nea crumpled that table, he might not have been so brazen. He's got no cards, and tried to bluff a guy who already knows where all the cards are. Zane is being really magnanimous by minimizing the insult he's taking here.

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Senior

"Sorry if you thought I might reward you. I'm only talking to you at all to let you know I won't punish you. And now I've done that, so get outta my face."

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Senior

Well mr. President. War has been avoided. Do not look so glum...

This is a good thing, right?....Right??...........Right???

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Senior

... that was a quick change of venue (assuming that there is an Alliance delegation in those vans). I was worried that they might try flying their shuttle straight into post-9/11 NYC ...

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Senior

The aliens seem to be the only ones who are NOT trigger-happy.

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Senior

"A while later" would probably be a day or two later if there is an Alliance delegation in the van. If it's just hours later, we're probably just seeing humans in that van, because everybody would understand that human civilization doesn't exactly respond well to UFOs headed towards even sparsely populated areas.

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Senior

I think he's made a good impression. This next part will be good, speaking to the UN (and World Cameras?) I would want that T-shirt!






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