I'm
very grateful for all the answers, thank you everyone for devoting the time to answering me. That said, the whole shebang about the wiki: I'm well aware that it isn't up-to-date, but there were still things, there and otherwise, that got me thinking enough to write these questions. Again, very grateful for all the answers, but I'd like to prod a little further, if I may.
We'll be getting more into this later in the comic, souls on Repiton are a big deal, so this is obviously some sort of grand gesture. But we don't really know the extent of it past what it ended up leading them to doing together.
I'm sure it will be explored, but the burning question I have about that is the term itself: Are souls in Repiton but a concept, or is it a tangible object trolls are aware of? Because, in page 417, the description is "a power all trolls on this planet believe they have dwelling strongly within them.", and thus, a "soul ownership" would be naught but a figure of speech, but the picture I'm getting here is that this is a "sign a contract with the devil" situation, hence the question.
I don't find it particularly interesting to know what the deal entails ahead of time (given you've already said you'll explore it further down the line), but are these deals, generally, things which happen normally in Repiton? If souls are "real" instead of just a collective belief, does this mean that there are methods to manipulate a troll's soul?
(Also, what about that relationship flip between dream/real selves, what uh- what about that? Can I get an answer on that or...)
(the page where he examines his anatomically correct Dismas body pillow comes to mind)
I'll be honest, I earnestly thought that was just Murrit being Murrit, it's stated that he watches over every troll 12/6 (nice number there), and Repiton doesn't have a taboo regarding nudity, so I simply chalked that up to expected behavior, nothing more, nothing less, and I thought that it'd be a bit of a reach to assume that such a simple detail would entail something that seems so significant, you know? Likewise with Laivan starting to get freaked out by Taz, I thought it'd be well within realm of reason for him to freak out over a life-and-death situation, no need for chucklevoodoos, but it appears I was mistaken, so moving on.
last that I checked, the Wiki is very NOT up to date with where the comic is currently with almost anything.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
But it is deliberately vague and coated in crypticism and biased information on purpose.
What for? I hardly doubt giving away the central conflict up front would harm the story in any way, and I dare posit that this would enhance it, if anything, because then we'd know the stakes at hand! Not that I'm suggesting "give away the plot!", but telling us "Gæiæon is gonna destroy the world/kill your lusus and steal your car if you don't get into the game!" would give us (and the characters) a sense of stakes and urgency, moreso than the meteors ever could, no? After the initial threat's established, we could then move onto greater stakes, like "erasing existence for perfection", and ultimately lead to whatever motivation there is for Gæææon's actions.
As is, I don't feel like there's much to go about to
care for this major and central conflict of the story. In any case, you mentioned that Gideon and Katarina are morally grey, but we're not shown as much, because the only narrator we have is White Noise, who, as you mentioned, is biased, and whatever perspective we have from characters seemingly on Gideon's side are less-than-stellar like Weird Al, Hulk Hogan, Pozzol and Edolon (the last of which I'm
pretty sure killed his own lover, so that's not a good track record for your followers there), and while you could argue that Katarina has less-than-ideal solutions, the only thing I could point out is the Exemplar or Repiton itself, and even THEN that's White Noise's doing, not Katarina, and as a matter of fact, I've yet to see that one do anything to earn judgement from me. So...
Lastly, I have to ask: Was my idea that Gideon was interfering on Murrit and Arcjec true? Because I feel like it holds up logically, but you never know. If it's true, then bravo, that's very clever.