NEW OUTSIDER PAGE

Can you imagine?
>Makes creating comics his full-time job.
>Drops down a page a year because now he wants perfect pages.
>Has to find back another job.

I think I read somewhere that the author is going to have Jardin play 4d space chess against one of the tacticians of the elves to prove to them he knows his shit. I don't see how they'd let him as a male and a whole separate species do much besides consulting.

Sign of the end times brothers.

Pshaw, Blue cutebold. Somewhere out there is the true cutebold homeworld.

I'd mock, but the "brilliant young staff officer" has been an IRL thing, and it isn't as if that isn't nearly the *only* kind of officer the Loroi have.

Jardin isn't even a noob, technically. He shares career experience with a lot of Loroi (commissioned, on a ship that got blown the hell up in its first engagement).

Hey I can believe Arioch can pull it off, but it's going to be a lot like expecting a Siberian with broken English to explain to a bunch of WW2 British officers how to fight off the Blitz and expecting them to go along with what the Siberian says. Even if he is a really good bridge player.

Just gonna be a tough sell. Kinda wanna see it happen. In 10 years

They aren't cutebolds. They are just Yet Another Space Elf Race that happens to send only females into space so the lone human male they meet can inspire reader harem fantasies.

It's because patreon.

There have been a lot of these recently.

You're telling me this AFTER i have fapped?

You're probably right.
I'd be dissapointed if you weren't.

Those orgasm faces.

He means the blue Asura from GW2 that you see in one frame.

I may eat my hat if this doesn't happen.

I thought it was because he's finally finished the majority of his part in that space game he did the art for

NO it's impossible!

I don't know. I just get this odd surprised feeling. Its like going outside and seeing people rowing a boat down the road. "What? What."

They have only just begun.

But the "brilliant young officer" effect in real life is related to adaptation to changes in military technology. The young officers do better because they aren't seeped in now outdated thinking and are able to more effectively use the new tech. I don't know that that will apply in this instance.

He isn't seeped in Loroi tactics relying on far seeing or other psychic shenanigans

I don't know how in the fuck any of you can find that blue floppy eared monstrosity cute.

Fair point, and that's honestly what it's going to be, just saying it's not a direct parallel. More like an officer from a different military tradition that happens to be young than the classic brilliant young officer of history.

I Emailed this son of a bitch like a year ago telling him our fans were joking that we'd never release before his next page. He's a nice guy, but I was sure we were safe. Now he's cranking out pages like the fist of the north star and we've just barely hit our deadlines.

FUCK. At least we get space elves.

>But the "brilliant young officer" effect in real life is related to adaptation to changes in military technology.

Not really.
I know a real life Ender and he was Kobayashi Maruing right up until he retired.
Even today he still makes new technology adoptees eat crow when he gets roped into consulting

Is Tempo supposed to remind me of a succubus? What I wouldn't do to hold hips like those from behind.

Ah, my man.

You too see that Tempo is the best girl.

Sure enough! My bad.

He has recently started working on the first DLC for his pet vidya game project, so the comic should be slowing down to his normal pace after page 120 or 121. He already has the next page or two partially finished, so we will be getting at least one more after this before the next hiatus.

I'm honestly surprised you don't. Just look at it, those beady little goat eyes, that derpy trunk for a nose, those floppy ears, and his serious, slightly worried perturbed expression, it's all so damned adorable!

He reminds me of the Asura from Guild Wars and I always thought they were pretty cute.

Well, Beryl is taking the incipient end of all things well.

was that lewd fanfiction ever updated? I don't feel like reading the same three chapters over and over...

I don't believe it ever was, which is a crying shame because it seems to have died before it even got to the lewds.

Please don't remind me, let's just pretend this happy period continues forever.

I just realized he cut out the speech bubbles from the Loroi being surprised he can't read trade.

A category 5 update.

>2005 is over 12 years ago

I'm old!!!

Take your bets on which elf Jardin fucks first. I predict Tempo. Canonically Arioch said he'd probably end up with fireblade due to *chemistry* but you never know if he's just fucking with you when it comes to shit like that.

We all know it'll be Beryl.

>Canonically Arioch said he'd probably end up with fireblade due to *chemistry*

This pleases me.

Isn't there actual art by Arioch of Jardin and Beryl kissing.

So yeah probably Beryl.

I also think Tempo is gonna snatch him up while the others, namely Beryl, squander their chances by not being forward enough.

I don't think the space elves have a problem with being forward.

It's probably just fan service.

It's much more credible she'd be a turn off at the last second and he'd be more inclined to bang one or both of the pilots.

I'm thinking that the blue space elves don't do sarcasm and would consider it a form of lying.

I think it's scary I've been following this comic for almost 9 years.

While I hope for three chapters of Tempo and assistant sex scenes, I'm doubtful that it'll be her. She is a spy, political officer and trained diplomat.

The pilots are way more likely. Especially Talon.
>Pilots have a feeling for each other.
>Your hand is really warm

If she were a human woman, it would be a done deal by now.

I started reading when Fireblade entered Jardins jail cell. Back at the beginning of chapter 1.

>Anything else than Talon

I feel like Talon and Jardin are going to build up a fair bit of tension, but it will end in a hilarious misunderstanding rather than boots knocking

Unabashedly fucking ugly

Ok, hypothetical scenario time.

You must choose from one of the following.
1. Your favourite Loroi becomes your gf, but she has a certain fetish you must indulge in.
2. Stillstorm cuts your balls in two.

What fetish would make you pick option 2?

My answer
Tempo and she really likes to deny me orgasms with her telekinesis, every single time.

Talon best girl. The end times are now. Inna woods.

I can't quite read Beryl's expression in the fourth panel. She's surprised, obviously, but I can't tell whether there's an element of "dammit, now I won't have Jardin all to myself" in it.

Shock and worry. It's a lot like a soldier hearing of a big offensive the enemy has started. In this case the big offensive can only be a surprise with new stealth technology. Whose existence was so far discarded as a bluff and mind game of the enemy, yet still had Beryl very worried when entering the Highland.

Thanks for pointing that out. Maybe its being moved to the next page?

I think it's the surprise of very young and inexperienced officer who thought they were finally in charge of their very own cool, important assignment and who realizes that fantasy is about to be snatched away the instant they see hear their superior officer's footfalls heading towards them. She was already fantasizing about the medals the Emperor was going to personally pin on her uniform when Tempo showed up and smashed that daydream to pieces.

She is having what started out as a good day turn out badly. I wonder if her "don't worry, this is routine" gig is BS.

Probably Beryl, Fireblade was just his animu phase and he's probably past that

These threads probably wouldn't be so cringe-inducing if it wasn't really apparent that you were just trying to drum up forced conversation to bump this thread.

Hush, people are having fun

Beryl.

Fireblade can't even communicate with him properly. She's oathsworn to forsake spoken language and he has no sanzai ability. Talon is more of a bro and Tempo is clearly a conniving manipulator.

That's a given. Beryl is on edge. Not only is Jardin potentially the scientific, political and militaric find of the century, there's also this whole new technology of the enemy thing going on.

Beryl has been on edge since entering the shuttle. Ever since the message from Mr. Bug Beryl and other scientists worked overtime to find every bit of information on how the Umiak were able to avoid detection.

Now there is apparently another huge surprise attack on the frontline somewhere.

Isn't Beryl also pretty anime? Quirky, young science girl with an alien fetish?

>Isn't Beryl also pretty anime? Quirky, young science girl with an alien fetish?

That helps the MC keep his feet through the initial culture shock. Frequently best girl (or herm, Knights of Sidonia is a thing), but never final girl, user.

Beryl looks like if one more waifu elf enters their ship she's gonna go ballistic.

Oh yeah, it's about who fucks him first. Yes, that's possible then. Then again, she might be coming on too strong and too overbearingly. Jardin doesn't strike me as the guy who wants to be mothered.

My money is still on Talon. The pilots seem relaxed and laid back. They're rank and file, they don't care about reglementations as much as the officers.

Final girl is usually the first one, despite rarely being best girl. Damn Japs and their lack of taste.

Though Beryl is pretty damn close to being best girl here.

>Jardin doesn't strike me as the guy who wants to be mothered.

I'm kind of expecting Beryl to turn out to be a complete Loroi pervert- monogamous, maternal instincts, open minded about gender roles.

>and to have been ostracized for it, the least popular officer on the ship, no friends
>Jardin is her fantasy husbando

She may be a pervert for human dick, but she is actively enforcing gender roles. Reread the pages when Beryl and Alex meet again in Chapter 2. She literally said she's going to take very good care of her little baby boy.

>and to have been ostracized for it, the least popular officer on the ship, no friends
That's actually Fireblade. She comes from a war torn hellhole and has no childhood friends left alive. Then she started shipboard duty and was the sole survivor of her ship, losing all her comrades, twice. That's right, they blew up her ship and all her friends twice. That she survived was incredible lucky. As a result the Loroi view her now as a bad omen, since luck has to be balanced out with bad luck sometime, right?

Now she suffers from PTSD because as a child she had to watch the real life version of japanese cartoons [lewd] with bugs and all her aunts. The other Loroi can "hear" her scream at night, since telepaths.

What I'm saying is that Fireblade, like any broken woman probably has a BDSM fetish.

The problem with writing a tactical genius is that few writers are. Arioch will have to shovel in Jardin as an epoxy of some military grunt, forcing the story to be a rehash of history.

Honestly I don't know what Arioch wants to showcase with this whole project. 'Humanity is weak in the face of alien empires'? 'Look, blue tits'? Or what?

>'Humanity is weak in the face of alien empires'?

It's Masters of Orion fanfic, remember.
Humanity isn't weak, it's just that their racial bonus is a slow burn until it becomes OP in the endgame.

I adored Tsumugi, but izana should have won the Nagatebowl.

She is indeed having a very bad day.

That mental image-- a possessive Beryl snapping at the other elf waifus in an attempt to keep Jardin for herself-- is hilarious, though.

Beryl a cute. Cute!

I learned about the comic from the last thread, and I like it, though the update tempo is frustrating. (How many years has Beryl spent waiting to fuck Jardin? This is cruelty to space elves, I tell you.)

... Did Izana not win the Nagatebowl?
I haven't read the manga much further than the anime dropped off at and knowing this I don't think I'll have the heart to continue.

>Izana lost
Please stop reminding me

But isn't our racial bonus just that we're not detectable by the Loroi? That would make more sense if we were fighting them for the Umiak, but it seems we're going for blue all the way. Other than that all we are is a flanking opportunity for the Loroi into Umiak space.

Humaniti has the "Creative" bonus from MoO
Basically their research and development will kick into overdrive at the endgame

The Loroi and their allies are all operating on stagnant tech from a dead empire, and the Loroi themselves are a tech level or two behind even because they haphazardly slapdashed their tech together from blueprints borrowed from the Historians.
Humaniti is comparatively stone-aged, but once they join up and are trusted with full access they will innovate and improve upon it.

Loroi society is such that ideas take forever and a day to propagate and take hold, it took them a few thousand years to get from atmospheric flight to space and they only got into space because they found space ship blueprints from the dead empire.
Humaniti did it quicker and from its own efforts.

Granted this is all decade old lore and the author has decided to make his story less anime since, but this is the original premise.

... Isn't tempo a spy/political officer?

I'd shit my pants if space-elf covert-ops commissar wanted to join me for a ride as well.

>the author has decided to make his story less anime since
I'm still mad about that.

Apropos of nothing, but god damn I hate it when comics have speech bubbles with random words bolded. Makes it seem like the characters are putting emphasis on all the wrong words, like they're robots who don't understand English.

Aw fuck I should have spoilered that. I am genuinely sorry.

The Loroi sex ratio is hard to explain in evolutionary terms without invoking group selection, and the group selection answer implies that they have an incredibly violent past that makes humanity look like a bunch of hippy-dippy pacifists. (Importantly, though, it doesn't imply that the modern Loroi are that warlike.) When I read the comic, that was my first thought regarding the potential advantages of humanity: we are probably far more mellow than the Loroi are, with a consonant degree of academic freedom and scientific progress.

At least in this page, I just read it like everybody's being a bit more dramatic than they need to be, as if the spirit of Shatner was watching over them

Loroi sex ratio (number of wombs is a greater barrier to population growth than the number of cocks) and young maturation is supposed to keep them as fast-breeding shock troops or cannon fodder for Soia. Probably fodder given that only a tiny minority has combat grade telekinesis, though they don't like the idea.

wait, we are the the ENGINEERS of the galaxy there?
the omes that make and improve things?

That's a pretty old scifi trope, user. Even in Star Trek, human Starfleet engineers were half a step from actual wizards and we went from flightless to warp flight in 160 years even. This scared the shit out of the Vulcans, Romulans, and Klingons when they found out.

for being an old trope i dont think i seen it much

will be fun seeing it unfold though

>new page
Holy fuck am I going to die this year.

>will be fun seeing it unfold though

Nope!
The war kicking into high gear and Humaniti making its galactic equivalent to Canada at Vimy Ridge are beyond the bounds of the story.
The comic is supposed to focus entirely on the early contact days, the harem of blue space elves squabbling over who gets to win the Jardinbowl.

>jardinbowl
twenty on beryl!

A high female:male ratio probably IS what you want for high population growth. However, individual-level selection favors a 50:50 send ratio, because as you tilt in one direction or the other (more girls than boys, or vice versa), it becomes more advantageous for an individual to have offspring with the less-prevalent sex, so selection drives the ratio back to 50:50. However, it's theoretically possible for selection between groups to overpower selection between individuals, meaning that group-level traits-- like a high rate of population growth-- would be favored over individual-level ones. (This has an equivalent inclusive-fitness formulation, but it's much less intuitive, I think.) To make a long story short, group selection is normally far weaker than individual-level selection, but it could be a factor if you had a lot of competition between stable groups of social animals. Wars might, in principle, fit the bill. For humanity, however, they have typically been demographically insignificant (I'm getting this from an American Scientist article on Lewis Fry Richardson's book "The Statistics of Deadly Quarrels": stat.berkeley.edu/~aldous/157/Papers/hayes.pdf ). Group selection has been proposed as a factor in human evolution, but it's not remotely strong enough to significantly bias sex ratios. The Loroi sex ratio suggests that their wars were comparatively massive and frequent. However, it doesn't mean that the modern Loroi are necessarily horrible; they might also have experienced strong selection for cooperation, and it's possible that the less belligerent Loroi ultimately came out on top.

I'm going to cover the spread, an unlikely last-ditch alliance of Tempest personnel to secure Jardin from the jaded randy bitches up the social ladder that never lack for men anyway. Nervously cored by Beryl, with Firestorm as the enforcer, Tempo in it for the merry devilment, and Talon for the occasional D.