Unsounded

There's no way the queen would need to hide that the way she hid this, it has to be something more unpalatable to her legal base or personal politics

That's a pretty good theory, I'm here for this.

Uaid's useful because of his field spreader. Otherwise he's nothing special or powerful. Just another mech when Cresce already has countless. But if Cresce has a mech with the field spreader attached then Alderod's special khert can't keep them out, her mages can't attack them, and the whole country is sitting ducks.

But the Queen isn't like the General, she's trying to conquer Alderod without bloodshed. So my theory to add to your theory is they want a mech that can infiltrate Alderod not to wage war, but for a targeted strike somewhere using the exploit from Roger's soul. Maybe they have to deliver the strike at like the heart of the country's khert?

This is probably what the next part of the story is about. The Uaid clone (or Uaid himself?) making his way deep into Alderod to destroy it.

That's a big footprint.

Don't they have to be intact and in water to regenerate? Lori indicated that they've been separated from their stone things

Duane might be getting at that but Orphans tells us that Quigley fled Cresce BECAUSE the queen was starting to twist his balls about spilling Vienne's techniques
Not sure if that even counts as a spoiler but I'll cover it anyways

>Maybe they have to deliver the strike at like the heart of the country's khert?
there is no precise center to the Dammakhert. It's all spread across Alderode's territory with their modified Khert hubs. Yes, presumably any sort of attempts to interface with it would require reaching a hub, but destroying any given one won't do significant or even irreparable damage to the Dammakhert

I think Quigley's just been assuming that he left before Cresce got anything out of Uaid but what if that's not so. It's awfully weird they've been letting him wander around mostly unmolested unless they already got what they needed when he was in custody, and just let him remain at large as a backup, in case they had more questions. I bet a thousand dollars Duane calls him a dumb ass on the next page.

Something designed that if inflicted on one hub spreads to the others, knocking them down like dominos?

Who's to say there isn't a central hub that's informing all the rest? We know that they can keep building hubs and expanding the network, so it stands to reason there is a First Hub. Alternately, that's the exploit they find in Roger's curse. A way to infect every hub from a certain one and implode the whole system, like a virus.

Well like has been said, Uaid is unique and if easily replicated would be something, but as is the Crescian government probably doesn't consider it worth the trouble of confronting him since Orphans also has him slapping quite a few bitches while hightailing it
I agree with the people that the level of secrecy seems unfitting of something like Nuaids

>Don't they have to be intact and in water to regenerate?
Intact; not necessarily; they create first water as it passes through their ribcage. It just immediately converts back to normal water as it mixes with the normal water.

Consider: water tanks onboard that pump water through the torsos of captive waterwomen (with their limbs restrained, or removed), effectively forming first water generators that can be used for whatever.

They could have potentially removed their pearls in order to regrow the water women into a shape more conducive to this, like making an ivy grow into a certain shape on a wall.

You could split the difference with since one reason to keep Quigley alive and a known, fairly obvious traveller given his means of conveyance, is that you might - MIGHT - be less suspicious if a duplicate rolls up to your front door. But in order to pull that off you'd need to be pretty damn careful not to let it be known you're making knockoffs.

It's possible, anyway.

This is just one piece of the puzzle, the whole plot also ties back to Roger, the Black Tongues, and most importantly Ruck. Whatever's going on it's not just for having an easier way to build a pymary-proof construct.

If true, one major factor you'd consider is if the genuine article falls under your power - do not let it or anyone with it leave again. That would maximize your chances of getting away with it, but otherwise since news travels slowly you could arguably get away with knockoffs walking around. You could even use multiples and it wouldn't be until someone gets the reports of people entering Alderode and realizes a half dozen "Quigleys" riding jolly green giants entered on the same day through various places in the border and goes, "AW FUCK!"

You can't identify first materials, because they're separate from the Khert and thus have no materials-name assigned to them by the Khert.

Quigley's being a cheeky cunt by saying you can identify them just by looking at it.

Actually I wonder if Duane is just going after Quigley's feels by pointedly bringing up the time he and Vienne spent working on Uaid

First Earth is actually differentiable from degraded First Earth by its warmth, since it still things it's ogreflesh. unsoundedcomic.tumblr.com/post/183748142655/so-if-all-of-kasslynes-made-out-of-mountain-ogre

Nah, combined with the footprints last page, he's clearly implying that they are creating another Uaid

That's... that's the joke, user.

>. You could even use multiples and it wouldn't be until someone gets the reports of people entering Alderode and realizes a half dozen "Quigleys" riding jolly green giants entered on the same day through various places in the border and goes, "AW FUCK!"
Can the Dhammakhert be used to put out an APB? Because if it can, it might not be that long. Minutes to hours.

Hours might be long enough to do whatever it is they're supposed to do.

I don't think I've ever heard of anythng like that but there's already basically the same technology with those writing slates that Elka was communicating with that one poor rube with before Bell snitkbub'd them

I can't wait for Matty to see there are a bunch of Uaids. He's going to be so happy. Then they'll raze a village or something and he'll cry bitter tears.

Aldish telegram is having rooms full of Bronze Efghersit standing over lettters; they zap them with very weak stings, and just record in which order the plebs jump.

How the fuck do they get a big ass fucking mountain ogre-construct in/out of an underground beneath a building on an island

What Cresce is going to do with conquered Alderode? They have problems even with lizards and considering half of alds are fucking szaellits the whole country is just one big cauldron of insurrection.
Seriously, HOW are they going to keep control over Alderode? Even if alds revert back to having black skin their cultural differences are fuckhueg.

Sonorie seems to be of the "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it" line of thinking.

Not just duplicating. Massively replicating. If you have a bunch of Uaids you can stomp Alderode. And that field spreader is cutting edge technology. Imagine being able to make more and more regular materials behave as first materials. With Cresce's abundance of, and reliance on, first materials they'd be set much further into the future then.

> "We'll cross that bridge when we come to it"
...Is that a normal approach to geopolitics and (soon to be) domestic affairs? Why Cresce even wants Alderode so much? Alds are isolationists, are they not?

It's a living

No, the alds have tried and succeeded in expanding the Dammakhert, but also lost ground
While they're not as set on exerting control on everywhere else as Cresce is, that's mostly due to Cresce itself serving as a massive obstacle, and various peace agreements are what's mostly stopped it for the time being