• Dusty Coyote

    I think his bodyguards are right.

    I also think that Minerva owes Lt. Golovanov more than they are paying atm. But I also read reddit and twitter every day and shake my head when I realized fought for their right to free speech and they use it to be an idiot. #bittervet

    As for hell, we arn’t there. There is hope. Hell doesn’t have hope.

  • Ydo Ucare

    Love the dialogue on this page. Well done. And boo to someone stealing your bike/daycare plagues.

    • Someone is very welcome to steal my daycare plague. They can have it.

      • Matt [in Middletown]

        Daycare plagues, always fun.
        “Kid monster, are you certain you aren’t a super villain?”

  • Chris

    RAMMING SPEED! …..wrrrrrrr “ponk”.

  • Matt [in Middletown]

    He is part of the problem.
    I get the feeling he is double dealing.

  • Amberlight

    Well, Smith’s reasoning is, well, reasonable. It makes sense to spend resources on more urgent and promising cases rather than the one with extremely slim chance of success. And you can make one very angry and very capable captain even angrier and channel this anger at the enemies of Minerva, hoping to help his friend.

    • theRoUS

      Penny-wise, pound-foolish.

    • Reasonable to recycle injured soldiers enough to put them back out as fodder? Yeah, that would be logical for a man like this. Seems to me that Tenzin and Victor are leaders, military minds that do well leading in combat situations. Not every soldier is capable at that. See that sort of logic never made sense to me even when I was in the military. Kick out the seasoned minds because the grunts are less expensive to have around.

  • Okay well now that DickPunt McGee is gone let’s just shove Jane all up in there so she can get to work

    • Matt [in Middletown]

      Hook her to Tenzin and Viktor at same time.
      But “supposedly” only hooked to Tenzin, have Viktor stashed somewhere out of sight but nearby.
      Say it is a follow up neuro checkup or some such.

    • DeNitro

      Wait a minute, WTG! how did I miss this gem of a comment,,,
      I’d like to make a formal nomination we hearforth refer to President Smith as “Dickpunt”
      Anyone care to carry the vote?

  • theRoUS

    I think he’s a male-type organ.

    “We’ll go back later and do it right.” A promise actually fulfilled perhaps 3% of the time (in the tech sector, at least). Doing something “good enough” is the sworn and implacable enemy of doing it right.

    The result? An incredibly fragile infrabase, held together with bubblegum, baling-wire, and fervent prayers.

  • His reasoning makes no sense. Yes, Viktor is severely brain-damaged, but physically, he seems to be in better condition than Tenzin. Plus, the procedure that saved Tenzin’s life was long, exhaustive, and surely very expensive. If President Cabbagehead was only looking at them with dollar signs in his eyes, why would he save the one who’s almost certainly the more expensive of the two? For that matter, why save them at all, if he’s so pragmatic? Neither of them are fit to serve in active duty anymore.
    I think it’s a big cover-up. They need Tenzin for something and he’s not gonna say what.

    • theRoUS

      Well, Tenzin was probably a special project of Jane’s, and she nagged her mom Angeline mercilessly, I’m sure. Not to mention taking matters into her own, um, hands. If anything is done in the near term to help Viktor, I’m totally expecting it to be Jane doing it for Tenzin off-the-record. I suspect Angeline is driven by making the tech work, and Jane is driven by the imperatives of her relationship with Gospodin Dorje, whatever it/they may be.

      • I don’t think it’s entirely Jane’s idea. After all, she was totally opposed to being put into his head at first. She had to be talked into it, which suggests to me that somebody higher up was motivating Angeline and the other guy (can’t remember his name) to keep Tenzin alive and bring him back. Otherwise, why force Jane into such a risky procedure she didn’t want to do at first? There had to be some stake in it.

        • Jane was pushing pushing pushing for them to do SOMETHING. She just wasn’t convinced of that particular therapy. Which should tell you something about the odds on that therapy.

  • He sounds like every stereotyped bean-counter since (ancient) Babylon. That makes him easy to disregard for a deeper game (props to Melaredblu!).

  • Mark Linimon

    Different topic than the comic. It seems there are … differences … in the topwebcomics.com Top 100. There are lots of new entries that I have never heard of before in the literal top 100; and some things that have been in the literal top 100 for ages have now been pushed down to 101-200 (Earthsong, Widdershins, Everblue). It seems like … quite a coincidence.

    In any case, Demon Archives is at #152, not too shabby in the current list. But it can certainly use the votes.

    Oh, and vote for the Meek as well, dammit. It’s far, far, better than #148.

    • Yeah, everyone has gotten wind of the site now. And of how easy it can be to manipulate votes. It requires more and more votes these days to stay in the top 100.

      • Delta-v

        We are currently receiving the number of daily votes that should have us around Rank 85. :(

        • Adriano

          Maybe it’s because TWC has too mayn ‘bad’ comics in its ranks that ‘takes’ ‘all’ the votes ?

          I mean, it’s logical that the more there are comics, the hardest it is to stick on top 100, no ?

          • TengenMachine

            Especially when many of these bad comics make it in the top 100 and even 1st place! Makes me sick, especially when they are just based off porn, furry interests, and even a mixture of the two! ugh…

          • Adriano

            So true it hurts
            TWC is like a wild jungle, and that makes me sad.
            We need a better TWC. A clean one.
            “Yes, SOPKA ? I have a job for you.”

  • On one hand I can see where he is coming from, and on another I resent him all to hell. If that was me in that wheelchair, I’d be wanting them to do whatever the hell it took to get me out of the prison of my fractured mind. Because as others have said, “maybe someday” never arrives! There is always something that will be higher priority than getting Victor back to his more normal self.

  • John Snari

    President Smith’s reasoning is the same of every state/government: human life doesn’t count at all, everyone is expendable for the so called “common good” (which of course is imposed by the state itself).

  • l33tninja

    reason is always reasonable to the reasoner.

  • TengenMachine

    Damn, I like how witty these conversations are getting. I was expecting some half-assed generic politician talk and yet I ended up taking the President’s side. Keep up the good work!

  • DeNitro

    Here is the emotional & moral issue I feel. Irregardless of the nation, politics, or war, wounded warriors have already sacrificed above and beyond. Commitment takes, training, and teamwork, to stand and fight, as well as confidence. But a big part of confidence is knowledge and trust that if wounded one is be given the best care and earns the respect they are entitled.

    Trusting the story here, Smith making a appearance had to be a under handed bit of manipulation. Restoration of Viktor is likely beyond medical help, let alone the control of a snakey politician who shows him zero repect, using Viktor solely as a pawn with Tenzin.

  • RTM

    Semi-reasonable, but still a shit reason, councilor. I’d love to see how the average Minervan soldier, their families and their friends would think of the government, of you, when you start not caring about your military, about the soldiers who chose to defend you and your families along with their own, who went through grueling training and risked their lives nearly daily so that people could safely live in their settlements or the capital. At least ONE and/or more towns were entirely butchered, men, women and children, the survivors used as bait, you SHOULD be putting a good amount of resources to take care of your wounded, because guess what, just because you’re trying the diplomatic way doesn’t mean that things will automagically become all good, a deterrent of experienced troops (even if they’re basically nothing against the killbots) is more than worth it in case negotiations break down, never even work because they might shoot the messengers or potentially, while they may work, the raiders or rogue nations or whoever might decide that since Minerva has been humbled they could try to encroach on your territories. You may want to speak softly of peace and negotiation and unity, but please do have the goddamned decency and common sense to carry a big, lubricated stick with sharpened spikes, with which you could at the very least defend yourself or better yet, permanently rip any enemy that thinks they can mess with you, a brand new ravaged waste ejection orifice. After all, the world already ended once in a bloody orgy of Oppenheimer’s Light, don’t forget that and don’t ever even doubt that there will be at least one person in the world who will want to screw you over at the cost of everything so they can have what you have.

    Apologies for the rant.

    • NickDA

      No apologies needed, that’s pretty much the feel that is intended.

  • Unwary

    Not to change the subject, but is there/could there be a link that always takes you to the latest page?
    (I have a little doohicky that loads all my webcomics at once, except this one as I don’t have that link.)

    • I do not yet have that coded. My brother is supposedly working on it.

      • Unwary

        Thanks.