Kill6BillionDemons II: The Successor's coming will be followed by 108 burning threads

[wingnutx]

What level spell is "Juggy's Crushing Hand"?

[Wizard_Lizard]

What level spell is "Juggy's Crushing Hand"?

Honestly I feel at this point of k6bd, we're well past 12th level spells...

[halfeye]

Who were these two? the big one looks like David, no clue about the other one.

[Lurkmoar]

Who were these two? the big one looks like David, no clue about the other one.

Are you talking about the most recent update, as of 9/25?

[Marcelinari]

Who were these two? the big one looks like David, no clue about the other one.

Perhaps he's hard to recognize with only two arms, but the big man on campus is (and always has been) Jagganoth. The lady is Mottom, in her 'Mother' aspect. We've usually seen her as Crone. All these people were on-panel for almost all of the current chapter.

[wingnutx]

That's not David, this is David...

[Thales]

Update. Good alt text "Solomon's No Good Very Bad Absolutely Awful Day". That said, the comic does highlight something that sort of bugs me about the setting.

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Courage and overconfidence and to some extent narrative are material forces in this universe that can bestow real power on someone. This lady, meeting Solomon — whom she has been raised to consider a god — and openly challenging his moral authority is probably doing the bravest thing we've seen anyone in the comic do. So why isn't she manifesting one hell of an Atum ring? I feel like some people in this are sort of doomed to be extras, regardless of how well they embody the setting's virtues.

[Gez]

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Courage and overconfidence and to some extent narrative are material forces in this universe that can bestow real power on someone. This lady, meeting Solomon — whom she has been raised to consider a god — and openly challenging his moral authority is probably doing the bravest thing we've seen anyone in the comic do. So why isn't she manifesting one hell of an Atum ring? I feel like some people in this are sort of doomed to be extras, regardless of how well they embody the setting's virtues.

Because her position is basically a rejection of all that stuff. She's standing as a normal person, not proclaiming some grand status just by virtue of her unbending will. She's precisely attacking the very idea of this self-claimed godhood, pointing out that it's complete bunk.

[Rydiro]

Update. Good alt text "Solomon's No Good Very Bad Absolutely Awful Day". That said, the comic does highlight something that sort of bugs me about the setting.

Spoiler

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Courage and overconfidence and to some extent narrative are material forces in this universe that can bestow real power on someone. This lady, meeting Solomon — whom she has been raised to consider a god — and openly challenging his moral authority is probably doing the bravest thing we've seen anyone in the comic do. So why isn't she manifesting one hell of an Atum ring? I feel like some people in this are sort of doomed to be extras, regardless of how well they embody the setting's virtues.

She has no key and hasn't trained her inner energies.
And I doubt courage exactly is a force in this universe.
There are the seven syllables of royalty, and it doesn't map to any of the existing imo.

[Thales]

So what's going on with Nyave back in King of Swords, then? She doesn't have a key, she hasn't trained her energies, she's just an ordinary person (well, there's the theory that she got Gogged, but we haven't gotten further evidence of that). Nyave is making a fairly similar argument to the woman in this latest update, also standing as a normal person, and starts to manifest an atum ring.

And in the case of Allison (who granted does have a key), one of the things that does cause her ring to flare up is doing something inadvisable and brave, or deciding to act on her convictions. That seems to match pretty well with what this person is doing.

[Eldan]

I mean, judging by Aesma, it's not just confidence and bravery, it's also violence and self-delusion.

I don't believe she thinks she's actually going to do anything with this. She sees it as a possibly useless gesture herself.

Edit: the comment section also invented the word "peritheosis" and I'm loving it.

[Gez]

And in the case of Allison (who granted does have a key), one of the things that does cause her ring to flare up is doing something inadvisable and brave, or deciding to act on her convictions. That seems to match pretty well with what this person is doing.

Allison is a Hero who confronts a Villain about his Wickedness.

That old woman is a person who confronts a human about his bullcrap.

Basically if she started to flare an atum ring, it would undercut her. She wouldn't anymore be just a person confronting another just a person, she'd start taking on a mythical nature and therefore give back to Solomon Dave his own mythical aura.

It's true that Nyave did start to flare some sparks of Atum when she discovered that the gods were actually just people. But she wasn't confronting anyone there, it was a personal epiphany. And one that went the other way around: if the gods are just people, then I, as a person, can be their equal. Because let's face it, Nyave is on her own Hero's Journey here, what with tagging along Allison and the rest of her merry band. Whereas this woman says that if gods are just people, then they are her equal. She's not rising to be a hero, she's just casting down one who claimed that role. Being an anonymous lowly commoner is what gives her the strength to do this.

Because, as we've already seen, Solomon's one true weakness is his own people. Being their wise philosopher-king is what he's all about. He's incredibly vain. Heroes, people who manifest Atum rings? They play on his level, where he is virtually unbeatable, only fearing Jagganoth. They're all slaughtered without effort. But the people? The lowly people who should worship him? Against them he's powerless. Sure, he could kill her, but it'd be a betraying of what he claims to stand for. The Rayubans have just known a cataclysmic disaster, he has failed to protect them. There's a few survivors there, maybe the last of them. There's no way for him to gain their respect back, not through violence against them anyway. When White Chain managed to punch him, his first impulse was to kill her, but the reaction of the crowd caused him to grant her victory -- he had to stick to the character he wants to be seen as. Same deal here.

By the way, it's probably significant that the only way for White Chain to beat Solomon was... to become an ordinary human woman.

[BRC]

So this is the first real evidence we've had that Solomon's Empire was anything but the utopia it appeared to be.

We had the idea that public drunkenness' was a serious offense, but we didn't get a firm context for what that means.

We had some signs that the public's relationship with their Paternum was perhaps not entirely healthy (The Soldiers building the Arena), and we had indication that Solomon's philosophy was maybe not the healthiest (Choosing a successor by "Can you draw blood"), but it seemed as though the society ITSELF was generally happy and well-run, and that the worst thing we could see was the soldiers being over-enthusiastic in their construction efforts.


Now we know, in the Celestial Empire, Drunkenness gets you 25 years of your life taken away. Presumably, there are similarly harsh punishments for other minor infractions. It was a better place to live than the hellscapes that made up the other 6/7ths of the universe, but it wasn't perfect.

[Rydiro]

So this is the first real evidence we've had that Solomon's Empire was anything but the utopia it appeared to be.
[...]
Now we know, in the Celestial Empire, Drunkenness gets you 25 years of your life taken away. Presumably, there are similarly harsh punishments for other minor infractions. It was a better place to live than the hellscapes that made up the other 6/7ths of the universe, but it wasn't perfect.

Well sure, his empire isn't perfect. In part, because Solomon is a flawed and traumatized person.
It sure is better than universal war or the other realms. He did keep his Empire safe for a thousand years, so that worked. The critique from the commoners and from Allison is somewhat hollow, because they don't actually know the challenges of ruling alongside 6 other mad demiurges.
Hell, Allison can't even keep her 5 personal relations abuse-free. Imagine her ruling millions.

[Gez]

Solomon holds himself to an impossible standard (we know he's not who he pretends to be, and I'm not talking just about the living god-king part, but more his general persona of the just and wise ruler) and, crucially, he holds his entire realm to an impossible standard as well. Leading to an extremely harsh and extremely bureaucratic empire.

Sure, you can live a prosperous life in that empire, but you have to always watch yourself.

[Rydiro]

Somehow, in the K6BD-verse, true royalty does not actually rule anything. From what we know, they are more likely to be drunk than ruling anything.

[Gez]

Somehow, in the K6BD-verse, true royalty does not actually rule anything. From what we know, they are more likely to be drunk than ruling anything.

I get the feeling that in K6BD, the mystical notion of Royalty is not about ruling others, but more about not letting anyone (or anything) else rule over you.

[Eldan]

Or ruling yourself. (And the Universe is I, anyway.)

[Yla]

So this is the first real evidence we've had that Solomon's Empire was anything but the utopia it appeared to be.

We had the idea that public drunkenness' was a serious offense, but we didn't get a firm context for what that means.

We had some signs that the public's relationship with their Paternum was perhaps not entirely healthy (The Soldiers building the Arena), and we had indication that Solomon's philosophy was maybe not the healthiest (Choosing a successor by "Can you draw blood"), but it seemed as though the society ITSELF was generally happy and well-run, and that the worst thing we could see was the soldiers being over-enthusiastic in their construction efforts.


Now we know, in the Celestial Empire, Drunkenness gets you 25 years of your life taken away. Presumably, there are similarly harsh punishments for other minor infractions. It was a better place to live than the hellscapes that made up the other 6/7ths of the universe, but it wasn't perfect.

There's a old snippet (I can't find it anymore, I think it was on tumblr or Twitter) on how the biblical story of Solomon, the two mothers, and the babe Actually Happened. It was published sometime around book 1 or 2 at the latest.

The super-surveillance police tracked down the father of the babe, an officer in the army, on the same day, and had him confirm which woman he had fathered the baby on.
The false mother was executed for lying to the court.
The father lost his career and was expelled from the army for fornication, turning into a drunkard and quickly dying of alcoholism.
The babe was taken into a state-run orphanage and raised there, into a healthy young man with a good career.
The real mother was condemned to six months of hard labor for seducing a soldier, turned her life around and became a administrative worker and productive member of society. And she never saw her child again (the snippet ended on that sentence).

This woman's story matches.

[Thales]

"Foribbden temple art". Well, the typo will probably be fixed soon, but it does add a bit of accidental levity to the scene.

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So what's happening here at the end? Looks like Solomon David is punching Jagganoth into another world? What other world? Or could it be another time?

[tyckspoon]

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So what's happening here at the end? Looks like Solomon David is punching Jagganoth into another world? What other world? Or could it be another time?

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So either Jagganoth created some sort of dome/field/aura, and that red overcast is actually his Atum influencing everything instead of 'everything's on fire yo', which Solomon just shattered.. or Solomon is using his key to warp them off Rayuba (or possibly just to a less-populated part of Rayuba) so they don't keep breaking stuff he cares about. I think we just wait for the next comic to know for sure, although since the background behind the broken area looks pretty much the same as the area behind the orange/red tint I'm leaning towards Jagganoth created some kind of field or barrier and Solomon just busted it.

[Gildedragon]

This has got to be the end for both Jag and SD i suppose

or close enough Inc can CDG one or both of them?
or give gog a chance to nab 1+ of the keys?
they'll have to respect her if she wielded 3 or more of the words!

[InvisibleBison]

This has got to be the end for both Jag and SD i suppose

Solomon David is almost certainly about to die, but I fully expect Jagganoth to survive. Assuming his story about how Zoss is resetting the timeline is accurate (and I see no reason to doubt it), Jagganoth has slaughtered the mightiest fighters in the universe billions of times before. I highly doubt he's never fought anyone as strong as Solomon David in all that time. And from a more meta perspective, the story has for a long time been signalling that Jagganoth is the ultimate threat, and that Allison's victory will come not through being the biggest badass but through her relationships with her friends and their ability to fight together. Having Solomon David kill Jagganoth seems completely incompatible with the themes of the story (at least, as I understand them).

Also, don't put too much stock into the description of Solomon David's attack - Jagganoth's ultimate attack had a similar grandiose description which it completely failed to live up to.

[tyckspoon]

Solomon David is almost certainly about to die, but I fully expect Jagganoth to survive. Assuming his story about how Zoss is resetting the timeline is accurate (and I see no reason to doubt it), Jagganoth has slaughtered the mightiest fighters in the universe billions of times before. I highly doubt he's never fought anyone as strong as Solomon David in all that time. And from a more meta perspective, the story has for a long time been signalling that Jagganoth is the ultimate threat, and that Allison's victory will come not through being the biggest badass but through her relationships with her friends and their ability to fight together. Having Solomon David kill Jagganoth seems completely incompatible with the themes of the story (at least, as I understand them).

Also, don't put too much stock into the description of Solomon David's attack - Jagganoth's ultimate attack had a similar grandiose description which it completely failed to live up to.

David is certainly going to die. He's going for a literal Blaze of Glory in a move that will complete both his 'I'm the only one of you lunatics who is taking Jagganoth's threat seriously' thread and the 'I am the protector of my people, if I do not have their faith and trust I am nothing' thread. And since the overall story isn't about SD -- and for the other Demiurges in particular, it's about how they are in fact incredibly powerful but also incredibly broken people and the ways this causes them to fail - then he's going to fail. The question is what does he achieve while fails? I'm thinking he takes Jagganoth to another world or at least a remote part of Rayuba and keeps him busy there long enough for Allison & Co to abscond to another location, so they have time to lick their wounds and plan their next act.

[Anarchic Fox]

David is certainly going to die. He's going for a literal Blaze of Glory in a move that will complete both his 'I'm the only one of you lunatics who is taking Jagganoth's threat seriously' thread and the 'I am the protector of my people, if I do not have their faith and trust I am nothing' thread. And since the overall story isn't about SD -- and for the other Demiurges in particular, it's about how they are in fact incredibly powerful but also incredibly broken people and the ways this causes them to fail - then he's going to fail. The question is what does he achieve while fails? I'm thinking he takes Jagganoth to another world or at least a remote part of Rayuba and keeps him busy there long enough for Allison & Co to abscond to another location, so they have time to lick their wounds and plan their next act.

I agree. I think Solomon will die without seriously harming Jagganoth, but will still achieve some kind of respite for the others.

[Avaris]

Yeah, this definitely feels like a story moment of enabling the protagonists and remaining demiurges to escape. If Solomon dies here, but the others all survive, that will mean that the three demiurges killed in this battle will be the three that have had most focus time so far, leaving this book to explore the others a little more.

[Rydiro]

"Foribbden temple art". Well, the typo will probably be fixed soon, but it does add a bit of accidental levity to the scene.

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So what's happening here at the end? Looks like Solomon David is punching Jagganoth into another world? What other world? Or could it be another time?

Looks like they take the fight to the outskirts of Throne.

Edit/Addendum: No demiurge mantled their soul against Jaggy, except maybe Mottom. I thought they would use their keys more. Jaggy even explicitly challenged them to do so.

[wingnutx]

At least Incubus has kept his sense of humor.

[Thales]

Update! Another long yet dialog-light one.

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Okay, another world, it seems to be. And then another, and then another, and then, unambiguously, Throne. Wonder what happens now? 10 point strike, which destroys Throne and destabilizes the Wheel?

[Thales]

Further explosions!

By the way, the technique Solomon David is using is described as "opening all energy channels of the body". Now, this setting has magic, so I'm not expecting conservation of energy, but if it were observed, hypothetically this ultimate attack would convert all of Solomon's mass to energy. How big of an explosion would that make? Well, 1 kilogram of matter is equivalent to 10^16 Joules of energy. Solomon is probably on the order of 100 kg, so that's 10^18 J.

Looking it up, that's about 240 megatons of TNT. By way of comparison, this is about five times the yield of the Tsar Bomba, the most powerful nuclear weapon ever detonated, and a bit higher than the energy released by the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa. This nearly destroyed the (fairly small) island Krakatoa was on. That said, it's still orders of magnitude lower than the energy of the Mount Tambora eruption or the hourly influx of solar energy across Earth, and vastly lower than the energy of the impact that wiped out the dinosaurs. Throne is in trouble, but if Solomon is limited by conservation of energy, it should at least still exist after this.