A Death at the Gates of Heaven – Page 18
The finale.
I was going to address upcoming continuation for 6-Commando this week but I’m just holding on for dear life at the moment so we’ll deal with that later. All the best, folks.
About A Death At The Gates Of Heaven:
This story first appeared in 2018 in the Spiderforest Webcomic Collective anthology Threads: A Gallery of Rogues, which is available in print for the impatient among you by clicking on the image below. It appeared alongside fifteen other graphic short stories in full color, and so for my money it’s a good buy for entertainment during the current time! You can also find other volumes of our anthology, and the work of a lot of other great Spiderforest artists worth looking into.
And of course, please give Ally’s spectacular Wychwood a look as well!
And as always, thanks for the continued support! The notes and emails I’ve received have all been so positive and encouraging, I can’t tell you all how much it means to me. God bless!
Damn S that is cold he sounds like us it makes me wonder P5 get to him
Yeah this page shows Detective Sandoe totally missing the point. I sympathize heavily with S. He’s caught in the position of being hated and mistrusted by the people he’s trying to help, and being treated with contempt by his own people because he’s trying to do right by everyone, not just one side or the other. Trying to do the right thing is tough when you’re caught in a place where it seems like everyone else believes only in what’s relative, or what suits what they would prefer to be true. Like I said early on, this comic seems to me somewhat more relevant now than it was when I first wrote it. It’s in vogue now to treat the whole world like it’s the internet – it’ll be interesting to see what happens when we all get called to account for what we’ve done this year. I’m sure I’ll fail to measure up even to my own standards, as may many other people. But sooner or later we’re going to have to get along with each other again.
She is trying to say he is a good person like some many on left do when they want things from you. I doubt she even means what she said.
I just don’t think she realizes what she’s saying. It’s an intentionally ambiguous thing, she thinks it’s the right thing to say, basically trying to compliment him for being less like what he is and more like what she is, but failing to empathize with him in a more sophisticated way. Were the roles reversed S would probably say something similar to her and would miss the point in the same way. It’s not a political thing, it’s interpersonal. It takes a lot of effort to see beyond one’s own point of view and it does not happen on the level of groups or classes but only one to one. That’s something lost on the current culture when we talk about “doing the work” in regards to various issues, I think. To really get there you have to engage at the level of the individual and it’s not something anyone really knows how to do – it’s a process, not an end result, and it involves a form of reconciliation between people that is not presently in fashion. Domination is what’s in fashion. Being right at any cost is what’s in fashion. And the myth that to be right, someone else must be wrong, that’s the biggest barrier of all, if you ask me.
Frankly I have seen it a lot of times this pseudo empathy reward system covering up their demands and attempt at being right. They shoot and run people off the road while crying victim. I guess you are right S could have the same troubles he is your character after all.
Something tells me that they lost the war. And then that Humanity was merciful. So then they are dealing with that and remnants like P5 never really stopped fighting, they just went to ground, much like humanity would have when we oppress our own. We were possibly merciful for that reason, too much alike. That is my take, reading it all in one shot. It is an interesting short story. some stories are better short, this could be one of them.
@mr average I’m just glad you are creating. Even if it isn’t 6-commando. This was a good story and ended well. Leaving the reader to think. I don’t think I’ve ever really liked a story that buttoned up all the details. Just like life, there are hanging threads.
Kind of you to say that. Seriously. I don’t quite know what will come next here but I’m trying to maintain a positive attitude.
So is this short connected to anything, or it’s all there is for that setting? Because it quite looks very intriguing with all the hints that were dropped in.
It’s set in a world I wrote for what would have been my first graphic novel, titled “Hôtel Métropolitain” and set in a futuristic version of Montreal (later New York) where the Centrans have their “green zone.” The through line of the story was humans and Centrans trying to figure out how to get along with each other now that they have so irreparably damaged the planet that they can’t actually declare victory anymore. You can see that some of the themes translated over to 6-Commando, in a modified form.
“Holding on for dear life” Ooof that does not sound good at all I hope your ok.
Thanks. It’s not as dramatic as all that, it’s just that there’s a lot of work to do keeping my life together, and some of my support network has proven unreliable, so it takes a lot of effort to keep things going. Sixty-to-seventy hour weeks are the order of the day right now. Hopefully not for much longer!
I really like this story, you can flip the roles of the characters and still have the same emotional weight.
Thank you for sharing this story.
Kind of you to say so! I might try sketching a few other episodic pieces to work back up to 6-Commando. We’ll see. In any case I’m glad you like it!
Something tells me he’s not too happy about killing one of his own people. 🙁
I’m very happy with the characterization in this story – there’s a lot to both like and dislike about both the protagonists, and I feel like there is nothing so clear cut that you can write off either of them. Which is the way it is in real life: nobody deliberately does something they think is wrong. Rachel has as much baggage as S-94107, and for all her certainties she’s just as much a product of her world as he is of his. And they both come close to really understanding each other but still miss the point.
You don’t say. Can’t say as I blame him. But with my background I get it. And unlike some would respect how he feels. I know how it is. Let’s just say, samaratins are not gone. But it’s a personal thing.
Jesus Christ, that’s the most well-intended way of telling someone that they’re a traitor to their race that can be.
I know, right? *facepalm*
I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. Take care of yourself first. Keep up your health, mental, emotional, and physical. Let paying jobs come before 6-Commando.
We get far more from you than you get from us. We will still be here, checking in regularly but we don’t want to wear you out. You have a terrific gift, but your fans (and others around you) need you well. Wishing you much well. Greg
Thank you. It’s a bit of a mixed up time for me and I’m trying to sort out what I want to do next. I don’t get a ton of time in between my work at the moment. Just trying to decide how I really want to move ahead.
So what’s next
Not sure yet.
Damn, that is a really awesome short graphic novel you did there. Lots of emotions, suspense and all.
Since we allready saw Earth under a yellowish-grey cloud layer at the beginning of the comic, we can assume there is a nuclear winter going on? Was the overall plot of the Centrans like this, that they fled from their own world of origin, attempting to pacify Earth to live here, yet were heavily decimated by humans, and now both sides live in a kind of stalemate on the planet, simply trying to survive?
Hope you will do better very soon there.
Actually, Earth wasn’t their final destination – they only intended to make a stopover on their way to another star in the galaxy M-33. Before they left their planet they didn’t think Earth would be capable of harboring intelligent life – far too hot, and with too thin an atmosphere. When they stopped to study the Humans they got embroiled in conflict instead and the result was on the one hand the irradiation of the planet as a side effect of the weapons the Americans, Russians and Chinese used on the Centrans to “win” the war, and on the other the destruction of their colony ship, essentially stranding them on Earth.
Ooooh, thanks for that info. That allready gives us more info on what the aliens look like. So, they think Earth is too hot and atmosphere is too thin. So they come from a planet with a thick and cold atmosphere. So, are they originating from a planet that does not have a water cycle but instead a liquid hydro-carbon cycle? Which would explain as to why we have seen them wearing these sturdy looking suits all the time.
Yes, they’re the result of what we would consider an extremophilic ecosystem – their home is in the lower layers of a gas giant and they are non-humanoid. In fact they’re very small and have to live in an extremely dense pressure vessel in the middle of the suit, about the size of a salt shaker, which is basically designed to make their relations with humans easier. During the War they took on whatever shape was most useful – some of them were tanks, some were aircraft, etc. Now that the war is over they all either live in one of their earthbound habitats under artificial conditions, or they live in one of the suits. When released from the vessel they effectively vaporize in our atmospheric pressure so they’re all terribly insecure about it.
Wow, those are truly extremophiles.
At least being that small makes it easier to construct a small number of artificial habitats. Would be harder if they were human sized to construct something like a domed city with such extreme conditions. But being all the time inside that pressure vessel, all alone, controlling a machine that does not resemble your body, must take on quite a toll on their mind, so one can understand why he reacts the way he does.
Poor S, trying to handle the ptsd of killing someone and being told what he did was purely good. How does one deal with that?
An alien having a serious crisis and a human completely failing to notice. Happens between humans, too, of course. All the time.
Merry Christmas, Mathieu, and here’s to a Happy New Year for 6-Commando! 😀
Thank you very much, and Merry Christmas to you too!