Well, there was some confusion last week about what constituted “threatening” someone with a pistol. I think this is much clearer. Isn’t Major Rucker just SO polite, saying please while holding a gun to the Doc’s head? A perfect gentleman. I don’t know why I wrote that in there way back at the start of the chapter, but I did, and there it is. So, yes.
I should note, by the way, that the REAL Dr. Haakman (who isn’t a doctor, but a cartoonist), would never even THINK of dosing someone with Potassium Cyanide, even in the most dire circumstances. But I needed a sympathetic character for this scene for dramatic reasons, and… well, you’ll see. But if you don’t already know what the real Joost Haakman is all about, I recommend, as I have many times before, his website, where you can read (and also buy a hardcover copy of) his comic Semmie the Forest Gnome.
ANYway… Comic Creators for Freedom had a very successful donation drive, raising over $7000 for their charities, and I was very pleased to have played my very small part in that. So cheers to all the donors. On the 6-Commando front, we’re almost at Page 100, a meaningless but nevertheless pleasant milestone coming two weeks hence, and to celebrate I’ll be inviting everyone to play 6-Commando Poker. How do you play, you ask? Well, tune in next week, and I’ll tell you. For now, I’ll just be cryptic and mysterious about it, and will only say that it will be a LOT easier than the last game – so easy, in fact, that… well, we’ll get to that next week.
For the moment, I must content myself with saying, preemptively, that you guys have all been super great supporters of this comic so far, and that this little turning point is a real thrill to me because of you. Without such a supportive, sophisticated, intelligent and engaging group of readers like you, I doubt I’d be able to get myself off my dupa every week to draw this comic, and I’m quite certain I’d never have made it to page ten, let alone page one hundred. So thank you all!
So until next week, be well, and may a rogue Rumbler not take over you Local Area Network.
Oh, by the way, if anyone here happens be a 3D modeler (say with Rhino or 3DS Max, or even SketchUp), I’d be interested in speaking to you. Email me using the “Contact” info above. No pressure, and nothing really important, just a lark I’ve had in my head for a while I’d like to talk through. Anyway. See you next week!
Mercy killing in the making? Or maybe suicide? Judging by the look on his face he doesn’t seem to happy about. And why would they store so much KCN?
Maybe to terminate Mike’s bio-component wetware?
And that sneaky tricked Rucker into thinking this will be meant for his beloved Quebecoise Major and not the insane-in-the-mainframe Rhumbler…
I think they’d need a bigger needle to do mike.
A bigger, armor piercing needle…
Armor piercing, depleted uranium, liquid metal shaped charge needle.
–M
Fired from outer space. By a rail gun. Because apparently even a nuke can’t kill Mike.
ow, and i think you’ll have to be very sneaky with that, for mike will most likely hack the sat as well, and will just fire the needle on you
Well…at least he said please.
😀
So polite, these American officers.
–M
Rucker considers Haakman a friend and just doesn’t want to kill him. Unless he has to. ^^
“Please don’t make me blow your freak’n head off.”
Very epic page, still scares me that Mike knew this was happening. Scarier than the doctor with the syringe of cyanide, scarier than Rucker holding a gun to his head, is that Mike now seems to be this omnipresent being and no one knows how or why.
Well… They did try to connec to MIKE’s systems and do some diagnostics. They did say he did not respond to their queryes…. but they did not say he refused connection, or that they have disconnected from him, so I guess all electronic network of the base is a fair game for MIKE…. and with his euristyc algorithms and a good number of actual access codes he would run throu like knife through warm butter.
Makes my curious though… As far as I know KCN even in smallest ammounts renders blood unable to deliver oxigen anywhere effectively suffocating the victim without disrupting any breathing channels… so my question if WHY THE HELL DO THEY NEED A WHOLE SYNRGE OF IT???
Pure cyanide is a granular powder, while this is a dilute “medicalized” solution. Honestly, I don’t want this to get into a discussion on means or merits of euthanasia, which I abhor on philosophical and religious grounds. It was very unpleasant to research, and purely in the interest of answering the question, you’re technically right, but on the other hand cyanide would probably not be the method they’d choose. However, KCN has name recognition that other means don’t, so I went this direction for increased dramatic and emotional effect.
–M
Not taht I am trying to get back to ways of euthonasia, but just to notice – a far better (and way more merciful) way would be a large dose of morphine…
And if they wanted the death look natural they only had to blow a small air bubble to her enjection…
And cyanide is really easy to locate if there is an autopsy…
Well, since we went there, the method most likely would be Pancuronium Bromide and Phenobarbital. Morphine, in nuclear conflicts, is considered a restricted substance because of its broad usage as a painkiller and relative difficulty of manufacturing (it’s one of the last natural drugs still in use and a nuclear war would endanger its production.
In the end I chose Cyanide because it would be very clear that the only reason doctors would have been issued with it would be for a situation like this.
–M
It’s probably a good idea to do as the man with the really big gun says…
Even if he’s really polite.
–M
ESPECIALLY if he’s really polite 😀
An armed society is a polite society.
So they ARE killing Sarah… but why?
It should not be health, because FSR medic was quite optimistic of her recovery (And it was NOT trying to make her “just enough to survive interrogation long enough to produce some answers” because he was not up to interrogating her… it was more of hyppocrate’s oath not leaving anyone in need).
I have two versions: 1) She knows something, or UNA commanders belive that she may now know something… Probability of that in low… but still…
2) Alive she is a proof of some details that occured “just before sh1t hit the fan” so removing her is part of a scheme to cover “who actuelly started the war”…
The FSR medic was optimistic about her recovery, BEFORE she got nuked for a second time, heavaly irradiating her.
Differences in treatment protocols. I did that when I read that part of the Soviet and Warsaw Pact protocol on nuclear emergencies was that medical staff were expressly forbidden to perform mercy killings, which, against the backdrop of Kruschev-era Soviet style bureaucratic regulations, I found rather impressive. And again, at the risk of both revealing too much and getting into some really unpleasant territory, the full prognosis of radiation poisoning is usually not knowable for several days, which is the amount if time it takes for bacterial diuresis, the first marker of lethal dosage, to occur. So as first responders, the FSR medical team followed protocol and performed emergency surgery, before her white blood cells crashed, then began the process of “wait and see,” which is the most distressing phase of radiation treatment.
–M
Now here’s the scary thought: Since there have been some hints that the UNA might not be so noble at all, maybe euthanasia of terminal casualties is standard practise?
Remember what MIKE said: “They already told you [she won’t survive – you DO know what that means, Major?]”.
Medical triage can be a horrible thing to do, but in the face of mass casualties a necessity. Or at least subduing the dying with medication until they no longer are of concern (please excuse the cold hearted expressions).
I posted a link to a movie called “Threads” in the past, which dealt with the scenario of post nuclear war Britain. It was considered a scandal at the time since it [realistically] portrayed martial law AND the execution of people beyond mecial aid by the Royal Police.
Scandalous, because it was – at the time and probably still today – due protocol.
The idea of standard practice of euthanasia seems more likely given the rather vast quantities of KCN that they seem to have lying around…
Keep in mind that spy plan pilots kept cyanide on them ‘just in case.’
When the U2 pilot was shot down over the Soviet Union, their where a few hard cases in NATO that where pissed that he allowed himself to be captured vs inject himself with cyanide like a ‘good soldier.’
So far it remains to be seen if the UNA are really the good guys.
It would be a total, but nice twist, to see we all rally for the good guys only to learn the UNA is just another bunch of mass murdering exitus acta probat borderline fascist guys.
One of the things about the Cold War was that the distinction between what constituted a good guy and a bad guy began to blur, and because there was no titanic violent confrontation of the scale of World War II, it was harder as time went on to fall into those easy wartime rationalizations. In the end what really brought the conflict to an end was a general realization that the fight had become futile, because the principals were so disinclined to engage in that kind if conflict when push came to shove. If you read the primary history of that period, the United States and the Soviet Union’s leaders, though divided by ideology, both feared each other intensely, and had to come to grips with the fact that they were coping with human beings on their opposite side who, though often driven by circumstance, were very much like themselves, far more than anyone in the World Wars was willing to admit. Thus, it could be argued that a dichotomy between the good guys and the bad guys is a false one when matters of scale like atomic warfare are involved: when hundreds of millions of lives are at stake, what does it matter who’s to blame? And the fact that in spite of this rational men might still be forced to make those kinds of choices, which in normal circumstances we would use to define ethical standards like good and bad, is what places the underlying themes of this story in such stark relief for me as I’m writing it. It’s an existential territory full of ambiguities, which I find fascinating to explore.
I probably said too much here but you have all gotten into areas of real interest to me, and I wanted to say so.
–M
Are Rucker and Joost Haakman related? Dr Haakman is like a Rucker that never went outside and had a slightly less conservative barber.
The Doc is Rucker’s brother from another mother.
–M
Who’s also related to Chris Tucker.
Someone ought to let him know that fratricide ain’t cool.
I’ll tell him next time we have lunch. 😉
–M
I forget what number it is in the UNA code of conduct, but the relevant section is the one titled “Bros Before Hoes.”
I really like Haakmans expression in the 3rd panel. He doesn’t like what he is about to do, hates it, but somehow reasoned himself into doing it. It carries the emotion very well.
“It’s necessary. She’s dead anyway. I’m a doctor. Ease suffering and heal where possible. Sometimes taking away the pain is all I can do. Poor Major Rucker. He won’t understand…”.
Nice revolver. Carries an impact, I think, that most autos (be it short-recoil, blowback, or gas-operated rotating bolt like in the Desert Eagle). Quite a few folks I know are really unnerved by the sound of the hammer on a revolver being cocked, but are otherwise comfortable with most weapons.
Anywho, I was wondering (and this may have come up elsewhere) but does that gun fire from the top chamber or bottom chamber of the cylinder?
Interesting that you noticed! The Mach Saber fires from the bottom chamber, quite unusually for a revolver.
–M
Just curious, that pistol must be able to perform more than one trick, that is to say, that second trigger is just waiting to unleash some kind of surprise.
Wouldn’t be the first. There’s a French revolver (name escapes and I’m a bit too busy to dig through wikipedia for it) that has shotgun shell fired from a chamber and barrel that runs through the center of the cylinder. I’d guess something similar is in play here. Well, that or the world’s most awkward safety system.
I think I know of what you speak. It was used in the Civil War by officers that could afford that monster gun. Your comment about the safety system made me guffaw.
Nothing like a wheelgun for the intimidation and deterrent factor. 😀
One thing I just realized earlier today, your one of the first guys to show the war after the bombs drop. Most Cold War minded stories, the war ends when the bombs go off. Your one of the few to point out that the war goes on as long as there are people willing to fight it.
“War… war never changes.”(c)
And on the contrary – there are a lot of storyes where war goes on after nukes land.
Nuclear war is sucidal war at its basic. I’ve seen the calculations of the initial death toll. They aren’t nice.
Standard procedure of nuclear warfare is to blast the enemy’s infastructure to atoms (literally), hence why most of the East Cost is targeted alongside nuke silos, here in Montana, there are at least ten missiles aimed at Moscow alone. ETA to Moscow, ~90 minutes. The USSR had what I call the ‘Fuck Everyone Up’ plan. Essentially the title says everything. The USSR would nuke everyone so no one can have the world. China, Warsaw Pact, NATO, EVERYONE. In essence, militaries would be more focused on damage control than fighting. That is the reality of nuclear war.
However, that doesn’t mean fighting can’t continue, but since the USSR had the FEU plan in the Strategic Plan, such warfare would end up killing the soldiers themselves. Nuclear warfare isn’t easy, and from what I’ve seen from some declassified documents that I’ve found, the leaders on both sides knew this. Thus why MAD never became implamented.
The 6 Commando nuclear scenario has been discussed several times. I suggest you read the comments from the last few months. You’ll find it.
From what we understand so far is: There was no all-out nuclear war, more a limited exchange. And not all of the world has been affected.
Still not nice, but something manageable. :/
2 Bolo Man: I would like you to withhold such statements (regarding your “FEU plan”) unless you have access to actual strategical plans USSR had for waging actual nuclear war which I belive you have never seen.
Please keep in mind that there ARE people from Russia reading this comic and they may find it offending to read speculations like this.
There’s still a great deal of opacity involved in what exactly the US and USSR were supposed to be planning to do to each other in the event of a war, but I have never seen evidence in my research for 6-Commando that indicated that either side was prepared to launch preemptive or “total retaliatory” strikes, especially not against nations which were not a nuclear threat. The real issue that I try to speak to in this comic is just that, in fact: we didn’t really know what the other side was doing, and fears led to potentially disastrous misunderstandings which were often stopped only by the intervention of people who were ready to step back and try to see things clearly in the midst of a crisis, like Robert McNamara or Stanislav Petrov. And ironically, because that titanic conflict never happened, no single side conquered the other and so now we’re both left with a lot of ambiguous feelings towards each other as the U.S. and the Russian Federation work to try to figure out how to cooperate with each other, and how to cope with the political and social fallout from our decades of rivalry.
In that spirit, I do think it’s important to be sensitive to that fact. Just as I don’t care for anti-American spirit or rhetoric, I think it’s very important to extend the same courtesy to our Russian friends, as well. This is undoubtedly a very controversial comic I’m writing here, but it’s well to bear in mind that there’s a fine line between making a political or military observation and making an accusation, so I think it would be best if we all tread lightly.
–M
I think Dr Haakman looks stunning! Your faces and gestures are getting better every week by the way, and I’m not only saying that because it is my face on this page 😉
😀
I’m glad you didn’t mind my using a character based visually on you for such a difficult scene. As you’ll see, only a likeable and positive character would do in this situation, and as I had already introduced Dr. Haakman in this chapter as such, he was the natural choice. If it were someone grim and totally self-assured doing this, there’d have been no moral ambiguity and the emotion would have gone right out of it.
–M
Mini-panel 3 captures these emotions very well.
And now for something altogether different. I just read your essay on Occupy Wall Street and found it to be very thoughtful and reasonable. Just thought I would mention it.
Thanks, man! I so rarely have time to write those essays these days, it’s nice to know they still get read, when I do.
–M
Where could I find this essay of which you speak? I would like to read it 😀
http://www.viciousprint.com
I occasionally blog there, though less so recently, as I’ve been devoting all my energies to getting 6-Commando done each week, and edited for print.
–M
Atta’ boy! First things first. Don’t spread yourself too thin.