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Post by csj on Dec 3, 2019 12:05:31 GMT
It's been strongly implied that the elves, like the other folk in the forest, descend from people that chose to remain there. What is also suggested however, is that Coyote & Ys didn't quite have full agency over them, instead relying on awe... and fear. It's likely they chose to live in the Forest for reasons that don't quite fit with Loup's interests. Incidentally, refugees have a history of being used as a war tactic, to overwhelm the resources of their hosts which obviously breeds resentment and distrust even when it's not their fault. Something a General would do indeed. But it's not like they can go anywhere else but the Court. Could you imagine if trees started sprouting all over the *insert nearest A-road*? Their monopoly over human interactions with the Ethereal has been rather total thus far. I'm not particularly interested in people's discourse on shipping so much but in terms of this;You don't have to go far to make this unlikely but explaining means discussing historical politics. Which you don't want. For now, I just hope that 'standard decontamination procedures' are less extreme than they were in the past. |
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Post by csj on Dec 3, 2019 12:09:07 GMT
what will the Court do with all these Elves? If its actions in the past are any indication, nothing. I'm expecting a confinement to the 'Red' and 'Yellow' zones which may or may not be feasible. We shall see, indeed. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 3, 2019 17:18:10 GMT
One other minor thing: The forest folk being descended from people stuck on the far side of the Annan doesn't necessarily mean that they were Court people transformed into green elves; it may just mean that those who were trapped there interbred with and were eventually absorbed by the forest dudes.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2019 18:37:06 GMT
Unless the Court is going to put them all in an internment camp or a particular urban district (aka "ghetto") they're going to naturally wind up in different places. Not necessarily. In particular, they could all wind up in the same urban districts precisely without direct government intervention due to markedly cheaper, more comfortable or more plentiful housing (by Idra's example, living isolated in the Court is probably not the most sustainable life-plan, unless you're good at wisp-hunting -- how did she learn that, anyway -- and there appears to be just one established urban district, and unlike in real life, no lack of empty districts that could, each by itself, house the whole of the migrants if they choose so). Or because a close-knit community has reasons and means (be that sympathy, social needs, self-suggested moral duty or the influence of some authority widely accepted by them) to keep itself together as much as possible; these people had their own town before their sudden arbitrarily-wrought homelessness. It stands to reason many would want to keep living like before; it's not as though the Forest didn't offer alternatives for mystics. While not applicable here, this holds especially when the migrants arrive in multiple "waves" such that those who arrive first have the opportunity to establish cultural institutions of their own, however formal and visible to "officials" they may be. This includes e.g. state-approved "minority" schools just as well as young students who give French and boxing lessons to those who speak their native language four days a week and write crosswords for the local exiles' gazette later at night. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 3, 2019 19:54:56 GMT
Unless the Court is going to put them all in an internment camp or a particular urban district (aka "ghetto") they're going to naturally wind up in different places. Not necessarily. In particular, they could all wind up in the same urban districts precisely without direct government intervention due to markedly cheaper, more comfortable or more plentiful housing (by Idra's example, living isolated in the Court is probably not the most sustainable life-plan, unless you're good at wisp-hunting -- how did she learn that, anyway -- and there appears to be just one established urban district, and unlike in real life, no lack of empty districts that could, each by itself, house the whole of the migrants if they choose so). Or because a close-knit community has reasons and means (be that sympathy, social needs, self-suggested moral duty or the influence of some authority widely accepted by them) to keep itself together as much as possible; these people had their own town before their sudden arbitrarily-wrought homelessness. It stands to reason many would want to keep living like before; it's not as though the Forest didn't offer alternatives for mystics. While not applicable here, this holds especially when the migrants arrive in multiple "waves" such that those who arrive first have the opportunity to establish cultural institutions of their own, however formal and visible to "officials" they may be. This includes e.g. state-approved "minority" schools just as well as young students who give French and boxing lessons to those who speak their native language four days a week and write crosswords for the local exiles' gazette later at night. She's good at wisp hunting because back in the Wood humans were part of the food chain and therefore subject to predation. Blurring the line between predator and prey is a good survival strategy (in other words, predators may look elsewhere if they think there's a question of who will eat who). I think that the wood dude authority figures are already in shaky positions since the general order of things has been so upset, and it will get worse when they go to the Court where there's another authority structure entirely. "Loup" was/is a crisis that frustrated all of their wise folk, magicians, warriors, and probably also the hunters and gatherers. They're going to be looking for different answers even if they're not ready to admit it yet. With regard to jobs, the forest dudes do seem to have at least a little specialization and division of labor and I think we can agree that in general family groups will want to stay together. There's lower opportunity cost for a child to follow in a parent's footsteps so even if jobs and skill sets aren't directly passed down within families there will be family-groups that are more useful and less useful to the Court based on these skills. The Court does have reason to create incentives for those forest dudes who have newly-useful skills (shaping wood and fighting creatures) to live near where they'd be needed and therefore an indirect reason to also do so for the rest to the extent that they are useful to those doing the fighting and wood-moving, but not everyone will be useful. There's going to be children and the elderly at the very least, and some others who may have skills more useful elsewhere. The wood folk may not trust the Court enough to have their dependents elsewhere, even though they'd be safer farther away from the front lines, but the Court isn't the only alternative. They may know of other forest elf enclaves or may just want to take their chances on their own in the more remote forests. The Court does have practice accommodating people who have skills they want so they're not likely to be put in places where there's a lot of discrimination. They also have practice dealing with problem people and while they're a little shaken up themselves they're still firmly ensconced where they were before the crisis and they're not in immediate danger. I don't think the forest dudes are likely to feel disliked or threatened enough to cling to each other as a community after they settle in at the Court and learn how to commute on the maglev so unless there's very few of them left I can't see a scenario where they all wind up in the same place... unless there's something we don't know about that causes the Court to make them. |
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Post by Gemini Jim on Dec 3, 2019 22:44:46 GMT
"Forget it Jake, this is Elftown."
Where I live, there are districts de facto dedicated to Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Ethiopians, etc. - not by law, but by choice.
Some of these were historically the result of racism, but some emerged because people like having a community.
Many of these have become middle-class or even upper-middle-class and wouldn't fit into the traditional ghetto slum stereotype.
=
Note: I hope Tom doesn't just skip over the arrival of all of these elves. I can imagine somebody asking, "So, Annie, did Loup let you borrow a few elves?" and the answer would be "um, you could say that..."
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 4, 2019 1:16:18 GMT
I really hope we can avoid getting real world politics into the comic. If it's allegorical or alluding, it's kinda unavoidable, though only to what's relevant. As for age, refugees are an ancient issue, older than recorded history. It isn't really capable of aging. The problem of how to allow the elves to live their lives inside the Court is monumental and Kat is probably gonna try and solve it to hilarious (and hopefully not disastrous) results. Given her earlier responses to Annie being influenced by their habits, I think the cultural clash will be maddening. Do not forget the last panel of this page.  The Court does have reason to create incentives for those forest dudes who have newly-useful skills (shaping wood and fighting creatures) to live near where they'd be needed and therefore an indirect reason to also do so for the rest to the extent that they are useful to those doing the fighting and wood-moving, but not everyone will be useful. There's going to be children and the elderly at the very least, and some others who may have skills more useful elsewhere. The wood folk may not trust the Court enough to have their dependents elsewhere, even though they'd be safer farther away from the front lines, but the Court isn't the only alternative. They may know of other forest elf enclaves or may just want to take their chances on their own in the more remote forests. You are speaking of the place where you have to take a train, ride a bike and take a horse carriage just to get a damn haircut. Where I live, there are districts de facto dedicated to Japanese, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Ethiopians, etc. - not by law, but by choice. Some of these were historically the result of racism, but some emerged because people like having a community. Many of these have become middle-class or even upper-middle-class and wouldn't fit into the traditional ghetto slum stereotype. = Note: I hope Tom doesn't just skip over the arrival of all of these elves. I can imagine somebody asking, "So, Annie, did Loup let you borrow a few elves?" and the answer would be "um, you could say that..." And I live in a region where there are whole cities that were founded by refugees from a neighboring country some centuries ago. They arrived and the local duke granted them land to build a new settlement on (and some support as well, IIRC). So, this is another version: Staying together by choice, and totally endorsed by the local authority who soon could reap the fruits of his generosity when he had a dozen new cities paying taxes. By the way, even tough those cities have become "regular" local cities today there are lots of people living there who still speak the original founder's language in addition to that of our country. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 4, 2019 3:01:36 GMT
You are speaking of the place where you have to take a train, ride a bike and take a horse carriage just to get a damn haircut. As opposed to the forest where one needs to flake a new edge on their flint knife to shave every morning and the food processor is a rock inside another rock?  I'm sure there are many things in the Court that the tree elves will find less convenient and other things that will be incomprehensible at first. Overall, though, urban living is where it's at (provided you've got a job or some other source of income). I hope Tom doesn't just skip over the arrival of all of these elves. It's interesting but sorta tangential to the main story so I think maybe it'll be alluded to and later exposited about... Perhaps there'll be an extra comic about them exploring the Court at some point. |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 4, 2019 9:04:11 GMT
You are speaking of the place where you have to take a train, ride a bike and take a horse carriage just to get a damn haircut. As opposed to the forest where one needs to flake a new edge on their flint knife to shave every morning and the food processor is a rock inside another rock? I'm sure there are many things in the Court that the tree elves will find less convenient and other things that will be incomprehensible at first. Overall, though, urban living is where it's at (provided you've got a job or some other source of income). Actually, I was referring to your assumption that the Court would want to spread the new arrivals and have them live near their possible workplaces. Because things like this haircut chapter show that the Court does not care about placing things where they make sense (I find it unlikely that barber bot would be opposed to relocating its shop to where someone actually lives). |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 4, 2019 15:50:58 GMT
As opposed to the forest where one needs to flake a new edge on their flint knife to shave every morning and the food processor is a rock inside another rock? I'm sure there are many things in the Court that the tree elves will find less convenient and other things that will be incomprehensible at first. Overall, though, urban living is where it's at (provided you've got a job or some other source of income). Actually, I was referring to your assumption that the Court would want to spread the new arrivals and have them live near their possible workplaces. Because things like this haircut chapter show that the Court does not care about placing things where they make sense (I find it unlikely that barber bot would be opposed to relocating its shop to where someone actually lives). Apologies for misunderstanding but I do not think those two things are separate. The Court may not care where the old robot barber has a shop for whatever reason (maybe most people prefer to go to a human-staffed salon, or possibly his location is convenient for some other purpose, like near the training facilities or barracks for the MIB who get uniform haircuts) but that does not mean they don't care about things that are more important. Even if they don't care at all where the elves wind up, the elves will care and they will probably have some sway since some of them have skills that are useful to the Court. Actually if the Court truly doesn't care then they will probably let the elves live wherever they wish. Either way I don't think it is possible that the elves are all going to wind up in one place in the long run. Also there is math that can be used to maximize utility for locating things. I learned a bit in college but later forgot it.  |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 5, 2019 13:49:25 GMT
Actually, I was referring to your assumption that the Court would want to spread the new arrivals and have them live near their possible workplaces. Because things like this haircut chapter show that the Court does not care about placing things where they make sense (I find it unlikely that barber bot would be opposed to relocating its shop to where someone actually lives). Apologies for misunderstanding but I do not think those two things are separate. The Court may not care where the old robot barber has a shop for whatever reason (maybe most people prefer to go to a human-staffed salon, or possibly his location is convenient for some other purpose, like near the training facilities or barracks for the MIB who get uniform haircuts) but that does not mean they don't care about things that are more important. Even if they don't care at all where the elves wind up, the elves will care and they will probably have some sway since some of them have skills that are useful to the Court. Actually if the Court truly doesn't care then they will probably let the elves live wherever they wish. Either way I don't think it is possible that the elves are all going to wind up in one place in the long run. Also there is math that can be used to maximize utility for locating things. I learned a bit in college but later forgot it. Maybe my opinion of whoever is the Court's city planner is generally not very high.  Not only spreading things out over a ridiculously large area, also stuff like putting signs up that say "Secret train to large animal holding cells (very hush hush)". Collecting cursed instruments in a storage room. Cracks and crumbling concrete in every building with no maintenance to be seen, but hightech tracking nanites in the food. And of course their questionable decision on who to employ to look after a cruise ship full of children. In my opinion, the Court leadership might be able scientists, but crap at administrating a human settlement.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 5, 2019 18:46:22 GMT
Apologies for misunderstanding but I do not think those two things are separate. The Court may not care where the old robot barber has a shop for whatever reason (maybe most people prefer to go to a human-staffed salon, or possibly his location is convenient for some other purpose, like near the training facilities or barracks for the MIB who get uniform haircuts) but that does not mean they don't care about things that are more important. Even if they don't care at all where the elves wind up, the elves will care and they will probably have some sway since some of them have skills that are useful to the Court. Actually if the Court truly doesn't care then they will probably let the elves live wherever they wish. Either way I don't think it is possible that the elves are all going to wind up in one place in the long run. Also there is math that can be used to maximize utility for locating things. I learned a bit in college but later forgot it. Maybe my opinion of whoever is the Court's city planner is generally not very high. Not only spreading things out over a ridiculously large area, also stuff like putting signs up that say "Secret train to large animal holding cells (very hush hush)". Collecting cursed instruments in a storage room. Cracks and crumbling concrete in every building with no maintenance to be seen, but hightech tracking nanites in the food. And of course their questionable decision on who to employ to look after a cruise ship full of children. In my opinion, the Court leadership might be able scientists, but crap at administrating a human settlement.
There's a number of weird things going on with the Court's administration. Probably the weirdist is the Court's relationship with the rest of the world and particularly the UK government; they're a breakaway organization that now overshadows (and can in some ways threaten with impunity) the UK in many ways but they're few in number and while they've continued many legal and social traditions they've abandoned others completely. Trade and magical assistance is dictated one-sidely by the Court because of their unique position and that plus free robot labor and the immense surplus of living and workspace upends normal economic predictions. Decision-making in the Court seems to be distributed which, added to the above, likely leads to odd compromises that would be unthinkable anywhere else. The robots were until recently relied on without much thought so that's probably why Lin and Ship were the adults present on the cruise(s) possibly with some encouragement by Ship so that he and Lin would be alone. The awkward sign language is probably exclusively the robots' fault, though. |
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Post by todd on Dec 6, 2019 0:46:47 GMT
I wonder if the Court's allowing some of this slipshodness in the hopes of steering the next generation of students into developing the mind-set needed to keep the Court heading in the direction they want it to go in - delving into the ether and trying to figure it out. A few potentially endangered students, in their eyes, would seem a small price to pay for the Grand March of Science and Knowledge.
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Post by TBeholder on Dec 6, 2019 3:32:41 GMT
Maybe my opinion of whoever is the Court's city planner is generally not very high. Not only spreading things out over a ridiculously large area, We don't know. Maybe the Court grew on its own. Maybe it was built by robots doing "more of the same". Maybe it's in decline, and there were more people. That's likely to be the work of robots. They are bad liars. Why not. |
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Post by warrl on Dec 6, 2019 4:25:45 GMT
I don't have a problem with the notion of collecting cursed instruments in one place (after examining them for potential interactions of their curses).
But that one place should not be an unlocked storage room in an ordinary, unsecured hallway.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 6, 2019 6:13:33 GMT
Collecting cursed instruments in a storage room. Why not. It would be much more interesting if the cursed instruments weren't collected... ...though arguably less responsible. |
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Post by todd on Dec 6, 2019 12:42:10 GMT
There was the hint in "Crash Course" that the Court's great size came from their being unable to control the growth of the buildings, so that they spread too quickly and too far.
It does seem as if the Court fall more into the category of mad scientists who bring about disaster through carelessness and mistakes than through deliberate malevolence.
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Post by Runningflame on Dec 7, 2019 0:27:53 GMT
The awkward sign language is probably exclusively the robots' fault, though. I reckon the robots would be pretty awkward at sign language, especially since most of them don't have fingers. (Even stranger: it would be the one thing that Boxbot does better than Robox!) |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 7, 2019 6:20:35 GMT
The awkward sign language is probably exclusively the robots' fault, though. I reckon the robots would be pretty awkward at sign language, especially since most of them don't have fingers. (Even stranger: it would be the one thing that Boxbot does better than Robox!) ...but no one would care what Boxbot signed. |
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Post by mturtle7 on Dec 9, 2019 20:46:08 GMT
I reckon the robots would be pretty awkward at sign language, especially since most of them don't have fingers. (Even stranger: it would be the one thing that Boxbot does better than Robox!) ...but no one would care what Boxbot signed. Boxbot would be that one guy who goes up to a deaf person after 2 weeks of sign lessons and starts earnestly attempting (and failing) to converse. Clearly trying, but painful and embarrassing to watch. |
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Not only spreading things out over a ridiculously large area, also stuff like putting signs up that say "Secret train to large animal holding cells (very hush hush)". Collecting cursed instruments in a storage room. Cracks and crumbling concrete in every building with no maintenance to be seen, but hightech tracking nanites in the food. And of course their questionable decision on who to employ to look after a cruise ship full of children.
