Official "Discuss the latest page" thread

[NefariousDrO]

I also notice that the marauder that is taken out first is the one that appears to have greater flexibility with its gun placements (Supplemental turrets on the top of the "arrowhead-shaped" hull, in addition to the more powerful forward-fixed guns) It'll be interesting to see if this Greater-Marauder" is also more maneuverable than the other ships.

[LeonT]

I'm hoping that's a friend showing up, but I've been following this comic for a while so I won't get my hopes up

I'm betting it's Sapphira's personal ship.

I'm guessing that too.

I'm also not sure Sapphira really qualifies as a friend though.

[CorvusCorax]

I'm also not sure Sapphira really qualifies as a friend though.

Friend is a relative term.
I'd say if Sapphira is alive and flying that ship, she'd be the closest thing to a real friend they currently have.
She might be scheming, ruthless and have her own agenda, but the list of agents who

- have any amount of power
- are not controlled or manipulated by the collective

is currently VERY short.

Let's not forget they came to Golgatha to meet Sapphira for exactly that reason.

On the other hand, considering the physical state of Golgatha and presence of rogue marauders, Sapphira's list of trustworthy allied must be extremely limited right now. She might need the Niobits as much as they need her.

[NefariousDrO]

I'm also not sure Sapphira really qualifies as a friend though.

Friend is a relative term.
I'd say if Sapphira is alive and flying that ship, she'd be the closest thing to a real friend they currently have.
She might be scheming, ruthless and have her own agenda, but the list of agents who

- have any amount of power
- are not controlled or manipulated by the collective

is currently VERY short.

Let's not forget they came to Golgatha to meet Sapphira for exactly that reason.

On the other hand, considering the physical state of Golgatha and presence of rogue marauders, Sapphira's list of trustworthy allied must be extremely limited right now. She might need the Niobits as much as they need her.

On the plus side, Saphira also demonstrated that she does have an ethos (of some sort) and does have loyalty and sense of responsibility to those she considers "her crew". The open question is whether she considers the Niobids to be "her crew" or merely useful pieces on the chess board. Given that she gave them the list of names, she probably needs them to help deal with the Souri infiltration. Also, it seems likely that the Syndicate has lost a very large number of its members, and if she has any hope of rebuilding it, she's going to have to consider incorporating some new blood.

[Aegeus]

Sapphira is the obvious choice for someone with a super-marauder, but I'll point out that Sapphira is augmented, so she could be infected with Wisdom and it's someone else filling her shoes. One of the remaining Mengsks would be really ironic.

[CorvusCorax]

well, for getting infected she'd
1. require controller class augs
2. require official brand and to-spec controller class augs that are compatible with wisdom
2.5 which rules out something crazy like whisper has
(2.5.1 where and how whisper got her augs and where Sapphira got her augs might be related, which makes something 'nonstandard' more likely)
3. there'd have to be an attack vector and a vulnerability for wisdom to get to Sapphira (which might be hard if she's paranoid enough and keeps an air-gap all the time)

[NefariousDrO]

Much as I'm glad that it IS as we'd all hoped, their concerns about the likelihood of a Collective's Behemoth showing up are still just as valid (if not more so) Hopefully they can figure out a nice quiet and SAFE place to parlay.

[CygnusX1]

Safe place in space? Just pick a random direction and fly there for a random amount of time. Chance to meet someone by accident in the vast empty space is nearly zero.

[NefariousDrO]

Safe place in space? Just pick a random direction and fly there for a random amount of time. Chance to meet someone by accident in the vast empty space is nearly zero.

Well yes, but as you pointed out, the chance of meeting-thing is a big issue. They need to be able to *coordinate* so that they find a nice random spot, but make sure nobody listens in on their plan, but both ships are able to jump into the same place close enough to each other that they can talk.

[CorvusCorax]

The interesting question is how did Sapphira know when to jump in (with her lance capacitors apparently already fully charged and ready to fire)

The destroyed maraudeurs didn't respond to the broad-band comms call, but I suspect something left behind in the Golgatha remains must have picked up the signal and relayed it so her.

Most likely, she was waiting for the Niobids to show up eventually. Good opportunity to also deal with the local riffraff laying in ambush.