Oxxidation posted:

my big fantasy speculation is that jaggs' death march has him cross paths with maya, who, without a word or a sideways glance, bisects him and continues on her way to incubus

Cryophage posted:

Lights posted:

The last panel, to me, reads of abject terror - not a man who is about to violently snap and kill his people, but one who sees/senses a big red death machine that he now knows in his bones he can't beat marching over to finish the job. His people are all dead/about to die, and he is powerless and afraid.

Poor Dave.

pseudorandom name posted:

It is happening to him, again. And he can't stop it, again.

Except this time his family isn't just his wife and daughter(s?), it is 1/7th of all creation.

CodfishCartographer posted:

Wait a sec, there's mouseover text? Welp, time to reread the whole comic!

skaianDestiny posted:

What happens when they see their leaders fight (when they've established that not only is they are The Best At Fighting but that being The Best At Fighting is the only thing preventing their annihilation) and then loving get their poo poo punched in?

Cowcaster posted:

well now i’m just thinking of a kill six billion demons political cartoon done in the style of ben garrison

Precambrian posted:

Look at how Trump's depicted in a Ben Garrison cartoon and realize that the mental image of the Great Leader can survive any amount of physical evidence to the contrary.

But I think what Solomon David's discovering is that, like a computing pun pointed out, he hasn't actually built a cult of personality, just the facade of one. He had the grand parades, the people declaring their love, all the trappings of it, but he never actually needed it to be load-bearing since Ki Rata, not the State, was his real power base. So his role to the people of Rayuba... was really more like infrastructure. He was the floodwall that kept violence off to the boundaries, but when he broke, like when the subway breaks down, people didn't hesitate to bitch about it.

Precambrian posted:

Look at how Trump's depicted in a Ben Garrison cartoon and realize that the mental image of the Great Leader can survive any amount of physical evidence to the contrary.

But I think what Solomon David's discovering is that, like a computing pun pointed out, he hasn't actually built a cult of personality, just the facade of one. He had the grand parades, the people declaring their love, all the trappings of it, but he never actually needed it to be load-bearing since Ki Rata, not the State, was his real power base. So his role to the people of Rayuba... was really more like infrastructure. He was the floodwall that kept violence off to the boundaries, but when he broke, like when the subway breaks down, people didn't hesitate to bitch about it.

Cryophage posted:

Joe Slowboat posted:

I'm genuinely unsure where he goes next!

Oxxidation posted:

my big fantasy speculation is that jaggs' death march has him cross paths with maya, who, without a word or a sideways glance, bisects him and continues on her way to incubus

quote:

Was thinking on Solomon David and when horrible things are necessity, and of three divine paradigms he could have followed, and what he thought he was following, as opposed to how he actually was.

Let us take three(thinly veiled) hypothetical deities: Benevolent Bob, Heart-Eating Harold, and Baby-eating Jones.

All three of these deities are supremely powerful entities who protect their world from outside monstrosities that want to do terrible things to everyone. If they stop protecting their world, horrible monsters from beyond will enter in, kill everyone, and do unspeakable things to their souls.

Benevolent Bob doesn't need anything from the populace; he appreciates worship to remind him that y'all are still there, but he's mainly all about fighting the forces of evil. His edicts are mainly about not being a dick to one another, and he generally doesn't interfere too much with the populace. He's benevolent, but busy, and only likely to intervene in the affairs of his worshippers when poo poo is going super-south. Benevolent Bob doesn't need anything from any sacrifices-any sort of prayer or offering is purely for the sentimental value, and he'd just prefer you all be decent to each other and maybe send a prayer his way every so often because it's nice to talk to people. Also, being less of a dick to one another keeps him from being distracted when he's focused on fighting the forces of evil.

Heart-Eating Harold is also fighting the forces of darkness, but he has a critical weakness-every year, he has to eat one human heart to keep up his strength, otherwise he'll lose against the forces of evil and then they'll break through his barriers and do unspeakable things to all the people he's protecting. One human HAS to have their heart carved out or else everyone will die, so his priests go around and once a year pick one person and rip out their heart so Harold can eat it and keep up his strength. Everybody knows this but people being people, occasionally they try to game the system so Harold's world has a really rigid structure of laws to keep rebels from upsetting the applecart. Harold, not being a complete dick about this, also ascends the souls of the sacrifices to hang out with him forever and exist as cool-rear end angel beings, because really it's the least he could do.

Baby-Eating Jones, on the other hand, just likes the taste of babies. Sacrifice your babies to Baby-eating Jones and he might do you a solid, give you a leg up, or decide not to obliterate you. Sure, yeah, he's fighting the forces of darkness and protecting everyone, but really it's an ego trip and he's mostly in it for the babies. Sacrifice a baby to Baby-Eating Jones, or he'll go gently caress off somewhere else where they're willing to offer fresh babies and then the forces of darkness will just roll in and eat everyone ANYHOW, your baby included. So offer up the kiddos, and you might get some good poo poo out of it; otherwise Jones will just be pissed about things and might take it out on you.

(thinly veiled references to Ahura Mazda, Huitzilopochtli, and Moloch...)

Solomon David could have been Benevolent Bob-his power level and abilities put him in that scheme. Solomon David THOUGHT he was Heart-Eating Harold; got to have good order otherwise terrible bad things happen, so harsh punishments and a rigid law structure to prevent this!

Solomon David is Baby-Eating Jones. The punishments and sacrifices just increase his ego. He doesn't need anything from his people; they perform the sacrifices and labor because he can put a second sun in the sky and explode a million people by being pissed. But the universe IS full of horrific things that he's ostensibly keeping at bay, so better keep with the sacrifices and the incredibly rigid law structure to keep him happy. Failing to do so in the best case pisses him off; failing to do so in the worst case means he leaves and other, more HORRIBLE gods move in.

If Solomon David required, say, fresh human hearts every so often to maintain his power and was otherwise cool and keeping the horrific power of, say, Gog Agog at bay, you could argue that it was a tragic necessity but not an evil act. Failing to offer up the hearts just means everyone gets Gog Agog'd.

But he doesn't need peoples' hearts. He doesn't NEED anything from them at all; they inherently don't contribute anything to his personal murder power. Instead, he just really enjoys things being incredibly harsh and authoritarian, with endless monuments and sacrifices to how awesome he is. He may not literally eat babies, but he's indulging in pointless suffering for his own ego.

Is he a better ruler than other Demiurges? Probably. If you had the option, it's probably better to live under Salami Dave's tyranny than other places in the multiverse. But his rule is needlessly cruel, so it's not GOOD.

Cryophage posted:

skaianDestiny posted:

Found a pretty good writeup regard Salami Dan.

habeasdorkus posted:

Doesn't Ki Rata require perfect concentration at all times? I think it's possible Dave's breakdown results in him not being able to master himself in the way needed to actually use it, allowing Jaggs to easily squish him.

habeasdorkus posted:

Doesn't Ki Rata require perfect concentration at all times? I think it's possible Dave's breakdown results in him not being able to master himself in the way needed to actually use it, causing all his muscles to instantly explode.

Cowcaster posted:

well now i’m just thinking of a kill six billion demons political cartoon done in the style of ben garrison

A.o.D. posted:

For some reason, I felt an inexplicable need to unite these two Homestuck adjacent properties.

ThaumPenguin posted:

You know, I've always known that both funny pixel game and tyrant toppler were spawned from Homestuck, but I've never had to grapple with the fact that there's only two degrees of separation between them and now I'm feeble from neural swelling

ThaumPenguin posted:

You know, I've always known that both funny pixel game and tyrant toppler were spawned from Homestuck, but I've never had to grapple with the fact that there's only two degrees of separation between them and now I'm feeble from neural swelling