I would have wiSSSShed... what is missing from SSSS?

[uktoer]

Kind of the opposite of what was missing from SSSS, but could have done without. I think the 60-page prologue was largely unnecessary, it was kind of neat to see the modern-day ancestors of the main cast and how the world fell apart and the environmental storytelling at the end was cool but... It had little to no relevance with the rest of the comic.

I relate to this so much. Every time I try to recommend the comic to anyone, I fear that the prologue will scare them off. But I kinda like to re-read it with the whole comic, because it feels a bit nostalgic (i think?)

[lwise]

But  yes, even if the concept of 'scout' exists everywhere (maybe apart from Iceland) it's unclear how far afield they are supposed to explore.  (Although, even in Sweden... I know it's not mentioned on the poster, but, logically speaking, wouldn't some amount of scouting be helpful BEFORE the Cleansing begins? To identify promising directions, dangers, etc? The Cleansers absolutely do not seem like the type of people capable of doing this for themselves. And the boundaries of what is immediately useful to explore would move every year, wouldn't they? So maybe Swedish scouts have more immediate reason to explore than Finnish ones, given the amount of cleansing they do.)

Looking at the map of the Known World, there's an awful lot of land north of any known settlement in Norway, Sweden, or Finland.  It doesn't seem to me that scouts would go up there since there is no possibility of Cleansing those areas for generations.  The Sami could be roaming all over up there with their herds, avoiding any Y0 cities, and never encounter anyone from the Known World.

Though it's possible that scouts from either side sometimes find dead campfires at the extremes of their ranges, and wonder who else might be out there.

[JoB]

And, yes, as you say, her working with Finns before seems unlikely. I suppose working with Swedish cleansers (and their scouts) would be possible, since there is no language barrier, and we know from Emil that Norwegians do this from time to time, seemingly for fun.

... yeah, doing a fun thing would be right up Sigruns alley, I guess ...

I know it's not mentioned on the poster, but, logically speaking, wouldn't some amount of scouting be helpful BEFORE the Cleansing begins? To identify promising directions, dangers, etc?

Hmmm. The impression I'm getting from "phase 1" is that they blanket the entire area with a huge fire, and wait at the perimeter for anything that tries to get out. I suppose that it would be helpful to know what might be coming at them, but where it hid before is pretty much irrelevant - and the cleansers do strike me as candidates for a "whatever shows up, we can handle it (and if not, there's no insurance to explain any details to, anyway, so we ignore that)" attitude ...

(Now that I rethink the four phases, I'm rather asking myself how they prevent getting swarmed by grosslings from outside the area once they do phase 2 ...)

Note that they do have people specialized on scanning an area for grosslings, but they're called "cat squads" in phase 4, rather than "scouts".

That said: based, again, on my "reading" of that is going on in the comic (in full awareness that I have no proof), the way Lalli immediately slips into a routine of 'memorize a map, go into unknown territory, observe, report your findings' suggests to me that this is something he is very used to doing.

... I tend to agree. In theory, it would be possible that the people in Keuruu sent Lalli into areas without telling him what they already knew about them, the mirror image of his infamous "kyllä" report to them, if you will, but what the %*#!! would they have everything on file if that's the kind of disuse they make of it ...

Though it's possible that scouts from either side sometimes find dead campfires at the extremes of their ranges, and wonder who else might be out there.

Or the occasional wandering reindeer with tack or other accoutrements ...

[lwise]

I'm curious, how did this process work? It sounds like some great work, and it really stands out to me for some reason.

Once upon a time, I worked in a law office, and we found ourselves representing a woman who was administering the estate of a woman with no known heirs at all.  Our client had two choices: hand the estate over to the State (escheat), or track down the heirs.  She chose to track down the heirs, and hired a private detective agency to scour birth, death, census, and church records, visit graveyards, and so on.  Our decedent was so old that the detectives had to start with people born during the Civil War!  As they turned up relatives, I would build the family tree and then send it to every known relative to see if they could contribute.  It took three years and we found over a hundred heirs.  The estate wasn't huge, so some of them got just a few hundred dollars, but several wrote to us that the family tree was the most valuable thing they could have received.

One heir discovered that she was living down the street from a fifth cousin.  One was the mother of someone I went to school with.  The one who was hardest to find turned out to have been living in the next city south of us, but she died of old age (she was in her 90s!) while we were searching for her.

[Jitter]

All things considered, I think and kinda hope that Minna recognized the fact that the Sami would be a different cultural group with their own language(s) and gods, and realized she doesn’t know enough to present them correctly/ believably, as she had no resources and/or interest to research them. If this is the case, it was a good call.

When asked about them, a better way of dealing with it could have been to just say they are not known to the Known World humans, and leave it at that. On the other hand there could just have been a couple of settlements with Sami village names and a decision the team will never go there. In any case, not having them at all seems preferable to representing them badly. But then saying that they have been completely assimilated was very unfortunate.

Here’s btw a short (about 5 min) video possibly relevant to some of this discussion: https://www.bbc.com/reel/video/p0b2t4nk/why-vikings-weren-t-who-we-thought-they-were?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=exchange&tblci=GiAjBe5waQ6lD152nqpBwE4kFeFHm9jDbs8AVSRz3vjK6yCMjFQo8Mfe8vTwr6hb#tblciGiAjBe5waQ6lD152nqpBwE4kFeFHm9jDbs8AVSRz3vjK6yCMjFQo8Mfe8vTwr6hb

Spoiler: Vikings weren’t “ethnically pure Scandinavians”

[Kevin_Redcrow]

I would have wished for the originally intended Adventures 3, 4, and 5.

Each would have built upon the prior Adventure and ventured into new physical and metaphorical territory.

Adventure 1 was developing some interesting metaphysical themes. The spiritual realms we were shown were very much culturally specific. But the Dream State gave Lalli, Reynir, and Emil equal access to these different realms, thus implying the possibility of what I call the Poly-Pantheistic Plane. I've seen this device in other webcomics such as Darwin Carmichael Is Going To Hell and No Future.

However, this will not happen now, for a reason which we all are aware of.  And yes, this is sour grapes on my part.

I am dismayed by the drop-off in character interactions as Adventure 2 winds down.  The last 30 pages or so remind me of fight scenes in the campy vintage Batman tv series. "POW!"... "BIFF!".... "OOF!"

I imagine Adventure 3 would have been more generously funded and better equipt.  Besides searching for valuable artifacts and hard-copy data, our team might have the mission "to seek out new life and surviving civilizations, to boldly go where no Post Rash Person has gone before!"

The rich memes on languages Ms. Sundberg gave us early on could have very well played some part as the team perhaps encountered German, Polish, or Russian enclaves, for example. Such encounters (assuming they were friendly)would have benefited both our team members and the Known World in interesting and unexpected ways. And given Ms Sundberg's wry visual humor, a lot of amusement for the reader.

Some of you have mentioned encounters with the Sami. As I am fully ignorant about this ethnic group I cannot comment, but such encounter sounds intriguing.

For you Shippers out there: I would not have minded a tender bl hookup in the story, but for it to actually happen seems to be incompatible to the "vibe" of the story. I noticed very early on an utter lack of sexual or romantic tension. I ascribed it to the artist wanting a mainstream, wholesome appeal for the saga, partly for commercial reasons.

SSSS does have a Disney-esque flavor in terms of the personalities and behaviors of all the characters. We do not  see much of the dark side of humanity even in background characters. The one memorable exception was in the Prologue where Reynir's ancestor became a traumatized witness to a boat of survivors being blasted into fish food by the Icelandic Coast Guard.

I would have also liked to have seen an "Adventure" like the chapters set at Reynir's home. Just a lot of social interactions between our team members and friends not appearing in the story before; just focusing on the characters themselves without the external threats.

[Jitter]

Kevin_Redcrow, I agree with you that the ships would not have sailed in canon even if there were many more adventures. It’s not a theme in this comic (except lately with Sigrun and Mikkel, which frankly is a tad bluntly carried).

I am under the impression that travel to outside of the Nordics was out of the question long before the abandonment of further adventures. Minna wanted to make a comic about a Nordic apocalypse. Of course if she had kept going for decades and very many adventures, the world may have grown. But the handful of adventures she had ideas for were all to be set here.

[lwise]

I wonder what the plan was for the next three adventures.

In Denmark, the team went in as mere scavengers and explorers, learned of the cure but found it was worse than useless, and indirectly led to the cleansing of ghosts from the land.  In Finland, the team went in to assist Onni, indirectly caused the death of the big bad Surma (and maybe Mama Bear too), and destroyed the Kade, leaving behind a swarm of kadettes.  (Given the demonstrated lethality of the kadettes, I'm not sure that's a net positive.)

So what would they do in Sweden, Norway, and Iceland?  We presume that what they would do in Sweden would have to do with Emil's family, and the reason for their poverty, but how?  Sweden and Norway both have infested cities; I suppose the team could go into some of them for some reason.  But Iceland?  What would the team do in Iceland?

[tehta]

But Iceland?  What would the team do in Iceland?

My preference would be for "deal with the consequences of Iceland's handling of the refugees", which could have all sorts of spiritual consequences.

But there are other options. For example, Iceland could come under threat (from kadettes, or something similar).

[Kevin_Redcrow]

Kevin_Redcrow, I agree with you that the ships would not have sailed in canon even if there were many more adventures. It’s not a theme in this comic (except lately with Sigrun and Mikkel, which frankly is a tad bluntly carried).

I will need to go back a bit and re-read. I guess I was too distracted by the body-horror of the bears. I kinda thought that those extras showing the team on vacation together strongly implied the Sigrun/Mikkel ship.  These beach trips looked like Auntie Sigrun and Uncle Mikkel taking their distant nephews on a trip to give their parents Alone Time.

I am under the impression that travel to outside of the Nordics was out of the question long before the abandonment of further adventures. Minna wanted to make a comic about a Nordic apocalypse. Of course if she had kept going for decades and very many adventures, the world may have grown. But the handful of adventures she had ideas for were all to be set here.

At the very least I had hoped that the team would have been supplied with a new and improved half-track vehicle like the one they had in Adventure 1.  One that had Emil-proof side-view mirrors.

[wavewright62]

Looking at the map of the Known World, there's an awful lot of land north of any known settlement in Norway, Sweden, or Finland.  It doesn't seem to me that scouts would go up there since there is no possibility of Cleansing those areas for generations.  The Sami could be roaming all over up there with their herds, avoiding any Y0 cities, and never encounter anyone from the Known World.

Though it's possible that scouts from either side sometimes find dead campfires at the extremes of their ranges, and wonder who else might be out there.

this lines up with my thinking, except for the loss of herds and seals to the Rash.

I wonder what the plan was for the next three adventures.

<snip>But Iceland?  What would the team do in Iceland?

Start up a greenhouse business with citrus that does not suffer from suicidal tendencies. 

[lwise]

I kinda thought that those extras showing the team on vacation together strongly implied the Sigrun/Mikkel ship.

I thought the strongest implication of a Sigrun/Mikkel ship was on page 38, when Sigrun proposes that Mikkel come with her to Norway to be a "brick layer? Butcher? Mail-man? Food taster?" and says her father will make a position for "at least one" food taster if she asks him to.

So, unlike Lalli, whom she wanted to steal and put in her unit, she just wants to take Mikkel home for himself, not for anything he can do.

[JoB]

But Iceland?  What would the team do in Iceland?

Start up a greenhouse business with citrus that does not suffer from suicidal tendencies. 

I guess that the Icelanders would rather want some expert advice on how to pick up the snail's pace of their reforestation efforts.

[Kevin_Redcrow]

I guess that the Icelanders would rather want some expert advice on how to pick up the snail's pace of their reforestation efforts.

This is exciting news! That article nailed my impression of the Icelandic landscape. I scanned the article primarily to see which species of trees they wish to introduce.

I am gratified that the list includes the conifers which can grow to immense size, as they do here (somewhere near the West Coast of North America).

The images I've seen of Finland, Norway, and Sweden show forests of trees with very slim trunks; they seem to be no larger than 1/2 Meter in diameter.

I'll never live to see it, but the idea of deep forests on Iceland gives me pleasure!

[JoB]

The images I've seen of Finland, Norway, and Sweden show forests of trees with very slim trunks; they seem to be no larger than 1/2 Meter in diameter.

At least to some extent, comparatively thin trunks with almost no branches or foliage are a telltale sign of that tree having grown within a well-established forest - where newcomers have to grow tall fast to secure the sunlit patch of the treetops stratum that their fallen predecessor opened up. Note how many of the trees that us humans find "notable" - including, but not restricted to, those famed for their girth or top-to-bottom foliage - happen to be isolated ones ...