[1073] What is this?

There's nothing wrong with that if he is. Why does a story have to be completely original to be good?

Actually, now that I'm thinking about it... If humans create gods to explain natural phenomena, what about science? What gods has the Court created?

I love how completely unimpressed Annie is, like she knows exactly what to expect from Coyote.

A "what is that for?" question would have been nice, "what for" is my favourite interrogation.

I officially lost track now, but I find some relation with Thus Spoke Zarathustra, with the man alone in the desert, being illuminated and all... so there's me wondering if this is how gods are born or Coyote's a special case.

That same question might have the Seed Bismuth as an answer, what if the fact they understood how it worked instead of relying on another power is what started science?

... Because there's explicitly an afterlife of some sort in GC, which Antimony knows?

I'm dying in the desert and what is this?

So does this mean that somewhere there's a living personification of science?

Or maybe this implies that in the Gunnerkrigg universe, internally consistent theories always turn out to be correct because the scientists will them into existence? That would be pretty convenient.

But they'd have to believe in the theories, and they're scientists, who don't believe in anything.

All she knows is that all creatures have souls get taken somewhere when they die. She doesn't even know if they continue to live then. The dead don't create and pass on myths. They just go somewhere and never come back. There are apparent gods invented by dead people.

So the world has no inherent meaning, and human delusion brings meaning in to existence in their own minds. This is the most ideal situation possible even before you considering things like gods springing from belief. Even if belief had to physical power, it would still be important. What good is a world where it's meaning is written out already? Where 'truth' is on every grain of sand plain to see? What a terrible world that would be. For it is the ability to decide what the world means for yourself that gives life meaning. What good is a predetermined world? It has no need for life or thought.

The world can only have meaning when the world is meaningless.

Suck on that.


Bullshit philosophy aside, the robots have essentially made Kat a goddess then. Potentially. I know this isn't necessarily the case, but in this case we can only pretend the assumption is true for the sake of discussing it. If the robots gave Kat divinity, this brings up some strange implications about the nature of the robots in the court. More than that, it's entirely possible Kat had no etheric ability by default. Just a very smart little girl, but what happens when she impresses a people enough to make them believe she is a god in a world where belief makes gods? Would she gain an etheric affinity for what she became known?

That would be Kat.

The machines believe she is the angel that will save them, and as Robot convinces more of them, so it becomes truer and truer in reality.

I would take it further and say that the world cannot have inherent meaning. The only meaning possible is that which we assign ourselves. If some arbitrary "meaning" were written out somewhere, like a tablet with the meaning of life, it would only be somebody's opinion of the meaning of life but it wouldn't be an objective truth. Even if the tablet was written by your physical or metaphorical parents, they can't create meaning for you. Not by proclamation.

They made her an angel, not a god. Though the difference is slight, since many stories of angels are pagan gods reinterpreted by medieval Christians. Also, they didn't bestow her immortality, which is usually a qualification for being a god.

The usual trope is that they at the very least don't age or become sick. Kat presumably does not qualify.

Many gods were once mortal.

Tiber Septim was a king of men before Akatosh inducted him as the Ninth Divine, Talos.

Heracles became a god after he was slain, the only such example in the entire Greek pantheon.

Jesus of Nazareth was very much human before becoming the third wedge of the Christian Trinity. He even died. Coyote would not approve.