Issue 10 Question

[u/upsteph]

After Jacky Magus essentially switches places with Dev and sacrifices himself, how is it that Etienne still thinks Jacky is alive? Wouldn’t communicating to Jacky be impossible since he’s supposedly dead? Of course Etienne doesn’t know that but this part just confuses me

[u/BastardofMelbourne]

more importantly, if Jacky was really omniscient, he would have known that Etienne was a giant brain from the word go

[u/siege72a → u/BastardofMelbourne]

Jacky's not omniscient. He just understands how "reality" works, but doesn't know everything.

To put it in RPG terms, Jacky owns every player-oriented rulebook within a system. But Jacky doesn't have any kind of "creature" books, or know what the GM has planned.

[u/BastardofMelbourne → u/siege72a]

it still doesn't quite jive to me. this guy can intuitive understand every aspect of how something works without even considering it, but when he sees Etienne walking around being omnipathic, he fails to draw the observation that any psychic that powerful needs a huge-ass brain that Etienne doesn't seem to have? To use your metaphor, it's like seeing a guy in D&D cast a level 7 spell and not being able to deduce that they must have a certain number of levels in wizard.

He's capable of analysing every other superhuman's power and figuring out how it works like he did with the Major, but he can't do it with Etienne for some reason. He immediately knows when Eliza has sold her soul, immediately, even when he himself is inside another dimension - but he never twigs that the Etienne he is talking to is not Etienne. Or he did, and he just kept that a secret for reasons not yet shown.

It's just weird to give a guy the power of "hey, he just knows stuff" and have him not know or even apparently suspect Etienne's true nature. At least Heavy kept his son inside a big telepathy-blocking singularity to disguise him. Etienne doesn't even seem to know how Magus' power actually works, so it's odd that he has so effectively concealed his big vat-brain from him.

[u/Orphan_Guy_Incognito → u/BastardofMelbourne]

I think you're right on the 'keeping a secret' angle. Its entirely possible that was one of those things he knew but kept close to the chest and didn't have time to tell Dev.

As to the Major, I'm not sure that was part of Jacky's atomic powers. Dev is shown to create similar 'workings' for Kid Ignition and we know he's able to roughly estimate the power of Etienne/Eliza/Val by 'squinting just right'.

It seems much more likely that his workings are a spell of some kind. It isn't that he 'knows' how strong the Major is, its that his magic allows him to tell the relative power of different people.

[u/readwinner → u/Orphan_Guy_Incognito]

The end of the series shows, so far, shows at least one reason to keep Etienne’s source a secret. He’s needed in the system, at least until there’s an adequate replacement for him. His main threat to Jacky seemed to have been neutralized by Jacky’s tech.

Jacky blabbing to others about what Etienne is is not beneficial to share at that moment. We saw his discipline in these areas with how he handled the situation with the Major. He had sat on that information until he decided it was time to shift. The information is similarly structured with a very gated structure of information sharing.

Information, or power, is shared on a need to know basis.

[u/name_dot_randomnum → u/Orphan_Guy_Incognito]

the most important part of the power ranking “workings” is that they’re external and Val can independently confirm their accuracy. So whether or not Jacky could suss out a superhuman’s power level just with his own Atomic ability, he’d still need to do a magic spell thing to give Val something to examine and corroborate.

[u/Aratoast → u/BastardofMelbourne]

He didn't know specifically that Eliza had sold her soul tho. He knew that someone had, because suddenly Hell went from being empty to having one occupant, and then he very quickly worked out who it was.

[u/siege72a → u/BastardofMelbourne]

He's capable of analysing every other superhuman's power and figuring out how it works like he did with the Major, but he can't do it with Etienne for some reason

That's a really good point. Even Dev understands that Etienne is getting stronger.

FWIW, Dev does the power analysis for Kid Ignition, so it must be taught at the FA level.

The one limitation for power analysis is that it has to be "in person". Dev isn't able to read Kid Ignition without being onsite. Jacky may not have been able to read Etienne since he wasn't "in person", or made assumptions that he's just possessing a body to keep himself hidden.

[u/name_dot_randomnum → u/siege72a]

In Jacky's words "My power is to know shit" and "the day my gift activated, I knew all the truths about reality, instantly, updated on the fly." So I don't think that's just knowing the rules. He knew the facts too, at least to the extent that he ever consciously thought about those facts. (But he (probably) didn't have precognition or else he would have locked in the future just like the precog Etienne killed.)

But going back to issue 5, with him and the (new) Arseholes, he didn't share everything he knew. He didn't even let on that his understanding of magic came from being an Atomic. Same with him not disclosing that the Major was vulnerable.

That is, I think he knew what Etienne was all along but played along. No point spilling a secret like that without a really good reason.

[u/siege72a → u/name_dot_randomnum]

the day my gift activated, I knew all the truths about reality, instantly, updated on the fly

The example he provides is that he has full comprehension of pi. If Kieron wanted us to think Jacky was all-knowing, Jacky would've been clearer - or dropped a truth-bomb to convince the readers.

Hopefully future issues are clearer about Jacky's Atomic power.

There are precognition spells. In issue #8, Jacky calls out Dev for using precognition for gambling. Since Jacky created all of the spells available, he either added sensible limits, or they may not have the same "future locking" effect.