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Sluggy Freelance frequently indulges in epic storylines of grand proportions - not always as simple diversions but somtimes to develope what is starting to look like a central plotline.
The Demon King and the actions of his followers have finally shaped a united daemonic invasion force. With the physical manifestations of good and evil once again present in the galaxy and prepared to do battle over universal ideologies, Pete has set things up for what can only be described as an epic confrontation to outshine all others.
This is the calm before the storm, that gentle period where all sides are just waiting, and watching, and planning before battle. Before the coming of the Goddess the demons had no reason to unify, and before the coming of Torg they had not known defeat before. Somehow, Torg will be dragged back in to the fight between the two - wether it be because the Demon king sees him as a threat or the Goddess sees him as an ally.
So, what awaits us? What exactly has been set up? What led to it and what shall happen next? These questions are innately hard to answer in Sluggy Freelance, for Pete's writing is a slippery thing to pin down, but I shall try by breaking up my essay into simple slices, focusing on each question in turn.
The cast
Good Guys
Riff, Torg, Gwynn, and Zoe are our team of unlikely heroes - as always. Torg has shown proficiency as a fighter, and when armed with Chaz he is the only one we know for sure who can slay demons. Riff can use his devices to travel to other dimensions, not to mention probably build things to kill demons. Gwynn can - when pushed - call upon the powers of the book of E-ville, although there is no way we can know if that would help against demons. As for Zoe, she gets dragged into everything. Their stake in this fight is the fact that the Demon King is sure to be after Torg to get him back for freeing good and wounding him. Not only that, but the Goddess is sure to need him when she makes her move. Depending on recent events, they might have Aylee or Sam on their side when it happens, or maybe even Bun Bun.
The Goddess is the central force to fight the Demons - she can close their gateways and battle their armies, she can hold the demon king's powers at bay, but if past is any indicator she'll need an extra edge to just one-up the Demons - one she might find in the form of Torg, who was mighty enough to liberate her from her prison. It is unknown if she has any heavenly host or devotees to call upon to back her up, but she might yet be able to get a few from the Dimension of Lame to help fight off the demons. A side note, she may or may not be a president in the Dimension of Lame.
The Dimension of Lame is the multiverses's only hope in stopping the demons from reclaiming the Goddess and beginning their final invasion of all existance - a scary thought, I know. They have confused many tenents of good to the point that they no longer properly represent it - look at the goddess, she's the physical manifestation of all that is good and even she was willing to fight the Demon king (that first time, when she lost). They have become too good to the point of naievity, which isn't good at all. However, considering a Goddess is pretty much Omnipotent, and considering how important they are to keeping her powers flowing, it's likely she'll teach them all about what it really means to be good, eventually - if she doesn't she'll have to face all the demons herself, which she can't.
Bad Guys
The Demon King is our big bad guy. Not a personal enemy of Torg and friends, he is still the source of all evil and the very incarnation of the threat to all of existance. So long as he lives, everyone is in jeopardy. After years of complacency, trying to unite the infighting demons so that he could conquer existance, he might have recieved a boon from the release of the Goddess. Admittedly, Torg proved that he has a weapon capable of killing the very king of Demons (which he nearly did - good work, Chaz!), but he also provided him with something which would rally all the scattered demons to his cause.
The Dimension of Pain is home to the new Demonlord Psyk and his minions, like Reak, Tryka, and countless others. As the private guard of the Demon King himself, they are preparing for imminant war against the Goddess, and soon, the multiverse.
The Dimensions of Grief, Hell, and that buffet place all indicate a vast number of demon realms exist, and their actions suggest they will each bow in turn to the Demon King when his unholy crusade is launched. The Demons might not have anything particularily special under their sleeve (like killer magic weapons, or Riffian Technology, or an alien) but they have raw power and vast numbers.
Wild Cards
Since we have no idea what state Aylee will take on when she transforms again, it's hard to know if she'll be any help or if she'll even be around. An intelligent thing to do might be to expose her cocoon to holy water, in the hopes that it will influence her evolution (like the Clone Aylee) and make her effective at fighting Demons. Just a thought.
Sam is, as always, unreliable. He seems to lack a soul and cannot be physically destroyed, which could make him an effective tool against Demons, but he can't focus long enough to do anything right. If he even knows or cares about a demon invasion, it's anyone's guess what he'd do.
Bun Bun is always a wild card. If he's even made it back when the attack begins, it's likely he'll fight simply on the grounds that if existance ends, so will he. On the other hand, recall what evil-Kiki did, she was turned into a demon. A Demon Bun Bun could spell disaster for mortal defenders.
The Vampires are unlikely to side with the Demons, since the demons want to destroy everything. This doesn't mean they'll side with good, but I seriously doubt we'll see many vampires during the demon invasions, they'll want to be nice and far away.
The Order is destroyed, so no help from them, but the Demon Kittens might still pose a problem. If Riff does the smart thing and goes back to zap 'em with his anti-demon gun, or Torg does the obvious thing and cuts them up with Chaz, then they'll be no problem. As it is, they could pose a serious danger since we have no idea what might happen if Demons attack - they might be 'triggered' and go on a rampage.
Hereti-Corp, Kusari, and Oasis are unlikely to contribute unless the invasion gets REALLY big. If Demons flow into our dimension by the bucket-load, then sure, it's likely Oasis at least will join in to fight back. Even Hereti-Corp must realize that if the world ends, they can't conquer it (And has anyone else noticed Hereti-Corp could also be Heretic?), but they still might go either way.
The holidays and elves are seriously unlikely to be part of it simply because they make things seem a bit silly. If for some reason they did feel like helping, it would probably be in some way related to whatever Bun Bun was doing - driving him back if he becomes a demon, or making strange alliances if he decides to fight the spawn of darkness. If Bun Bun isn't back yet, then I doubt we'll see much of the holidays.
What is yet to come
The story so far has established there are evil demons who have aspirations of multiverse domination. There is a demon king to lead them, and a demon lord to fight with them. The Goddess has been released and is marshalling her power to stop them. Since she's in the Dimension of Lame, and is unlikely to attack first (Good guys never shoot first in Sluggy Freelance, much like Han Solo), so I would guess the 'war' will take place in the Dimension of Lame. Our heroes will be involved when the Goddess gathers all her forces and allies to face the oncoming foes, or if she doesn't call then the Demon King will send in forces to remove the threat presented by Torg and Chaz.
The soonest event of bloodshed we can expect will be halloween. Bun Bun is too far away to distract Pete with a holiday storyline, meaning that to be 'on topic' we will probably see a Halloween party storyline. If the Demon King has good intel, he might even launc the kittens again by disrupting their milk in the hope that those will finish off Torg without him having to interfere. If we see a Halloween storyline with another demon incursion, it will not likely be another one inept demon, it will be an army - dozens of proficient killers prepared to murder every single one of his guests and friends to get to Torg. So probably not Reak.
After that, it is likely the others will become increasingly curious as to just what happened with Torg, if he hasn't told them already or if the halloween thing doesn't kick off the war. Sooner or later, something concrete will happen - someone will be kidnapped, or a call of distress will go out to bring help to the Goddess, or the demons will make a bloody incursion - forcing Torg and friends to fight back. Then we will have our war.
Pete has a knack for the unpredictable. Think back to each of his most renowned plotlines, didn't they just come out of the blue? Therefore, I will not write what I think he will do just yet, I will say what the heroes could do - keeping in mind their personalities and what sort of things they usually do - to win the inevitable war.
A strategy for Sluggy Victory
As things currently stand, Torg is putting his friends in danger by not telling them what happened to him, since they cannot prepare themselves. We can understand why he wants to put it off - he's hurt, and can barely stand to look at Zoe. But the sooner it's out there, the sooner things will get better. Also, the sooner they can ready themselves - the demons saw that Torg was with Alt-Zoe, and I would bet they could identify regular Zoe as 'his' Zoe if they have any brains. She is in danger, in that they might be seeing Zoe as a way to get to him.
If Torg relates his experiences and his fears, they still have time to take action. Not only that, if he's thorough, then Riff can really help, since a bright person like Riff is much more likely to spot several of the advantages Torg learned he had while fighting demons. So assuming they resolve to ready themselves in at least some way, or at least discuss it, or something, here's what they could do.
Firstly, they would need to secure themselves from rear attack. They have a lot of enemies, and they'll need to tie those enemies up if the demons are to be tackled. Chaz might be just the weapon they need to kill the kittens, and Riff would probably be the first to spot this - killing the kittens is especially vital, since they belong to Satan, and he might use them against Torg and friends if the the kittens are left to their own devices.
The Vampires definetly have a score to settle, but currently their attentions are more focused on Sam and Arminius. If Riff was careful, he could probably find them both and convince them to work together - with Sam's power and Arminius's planning, they could seriously tie up the vampires for ages. Also, I think someone should be with Sam to ensure he doesn't go binge drinking - I still find him personally to blame for the death of Amelia, wether he did it or he just left her weak enough for someone else to.
The only other threat I can think of is Kusari and the remains of Hereti-Corp. Admittedly, they are weak now, and this cloning thing may for all we know be more sinister. Either way, the one that could tie this threat up is Oasis. She's practically invincible, has a grudge against Hereti-Corps anyways, the only thing she'd need is some info on where they are. It would be quite dangerous contacting her, however, especially considering how little threat Hereti-Corp is now, so this might be worth ignoring.
That leaves them free to equip themselves to fight the demons. They already have Chaz, and with a little work I think Riff could put together his demon blaster and a new robot for it. Gwynn might be able to find something helpful in the book of E-ville, although I reccomend her doing nothing without supervision - the last thing they need is Gwynn being turned into a double-agent for the demons through K'z'k, although that might be a very entertaining story (perhaps blasting her with that exorcism cannon after every reading is a good idea, since it didn't hurt her last time).
I would like to reiterate the fact that, if they really want to be ready, they should douse Aylee in holy water constantly - perhaps she'll transform into some sort of angel? At the least, it might give her a holy enchantment so that she can harm the dread Demons with her bare teeth and claws.
So now they're armed, and safe from behind, what should they do next? Riff is proving to be more accurate with his dimensional teleporter device thing, so I would imagine the next move would be to teleport to the dimension of lame to take part in whatever plan the Goddess might have. If they can find any allies on our earth, take them along. If Riff can find a way to produce a whole line of demon-blasting guns, he should do so. If they had to rob a bank to finance all of this, it'd be justifiable (If bank robbing was the only way to finance a mission to save the multiverse, that sounds excuseable to me). In the end, once they are equipped and informed, all they can do is join with whatever forces the Goddess (their only other ally) can muster, and wait.
This leads to my final section on the upcoming conflict, a segment I will call:
Speculation on the style and approach
Sluggy Freelance often has difficulties when reconciling it's comedy and drama. If it gets too dramatic, for too long, then it doesn't feel like Sluggy because it has it's roots in comedy. On the other hand, Sluggy's dramatic moments have been it's most breathtaking and memorable, so a balance must be reached. How could Pete convey the gravity of the situation through drama, and yet maintain it's comedic nature?
I could provide some suggestions in that regard, and my key one would be to be unafraid to drop jokes everywhere, between serious scenes. If someone's dying, or souls are being sucked, it's no time to make a joke - those are the very moments of drama that mark Sluggy Freelance's more serious streak, and it is best to go with it instead of troubling it with humour. Of course, Pete is good at that already, so no fears there. The reason why writing another epic plotline would require careful use of jokes was in fact said by Pete in the recent Guest Comic - namely, what does one do after conquering the world? Pete has set up for an unavoidable super-confrontation, gone as high as we can imagine, so how does he handle such a crescendo? It would involve very long, very careful dramatic plotlines, and because of this he'd have to make sure to get his jokes in when he can - nothing would spoil a dramatic moment worse then an inappropriate joke, but at the same time if there aren't enough jokes it just wouldn't be Sluggy.
Now, Torg and Riff are notorious for not planning ahead, and what I have detailed here suggests they'd be preparing from day one for this conflict. So how could it be handled without turning every moment from now to the end of his epic confrontation with training and planning while still delivering a believable win? A lot of it could happen in the background with only a few hints here and there of it happening, and there is much to be said for consolidation - throw them in a room with the Kittens, the Vampires, Horribus, and the Demon King all at once, and it'd probably take less time then tackling each of their enemies one by one.
Need a personal angle? There's just one waiting to be used - Horribus. Horribus and Torg are now certainly nemesies, since Torg got Horribus demoted and cast aside, not to mention avoiding him for years. Torg lost Alt-Zoe and six months of his life to the obsessions of Horribus. What could happen here? Maybe Horribus will usurp the Demon King, fueled by immeasurable hate. Failing that, he might rise on his own free will to face down Torg for vengeance.
No matter how Pete handles it, sooner or later, it's coming. That which Redeems was nothing but a prologue - setting the board for Torg's eventual redemption, the opening battle for the fate of the multiverse. It has all the aspects of inevitable war - a weak force of good guys has formed to make a stand against the flow of evil before it washes away all existance. He might be able to keep them in endless Cold War, but that's generally not Peter's style, it seems. The lines have been drawn, and the slightest spark could start this war - and who's always the one to kick up sparks? It's Torg, and he is an emotional powder keg. What Peter plans to do with him over the next little while will frame his chances for success in the war, and perhaps his hope for redeeming himself and finding his true love. Think about it, because despite the calm of the present, we can almost here it coming.
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