[1846] In fact, I love him more than ever!

[Nepycros]

Arthur has had quite the diverse growing phases.

[speedwell]

I think it's interesting that Juliette considers herself to have a "normal life" despite having been a Court student and now a Court employee. We see Jones going into the "real world", too. Come to think of it, we don't see the number of people in the Court that we would expect given the number of students who would have been there each year. Makes me wonder whether they're just offstage, or whether they leave, and how they come back if they do leave.

[ST13R]

That's a lot of bodies. Did he change every year o.o?

[fish]

Jun 19, 2017 9:48:40 GMT ST13R said:

That's a lot of bodies. Did he change every year o.o?

If that's true then Juliette would be somewhere in her thirties. I guess that's possible?

[speedwell]

Jun 19, 2017 9:48:40 GMT ST13R said:

That's a lot of bodies. Did he change every year o.o?

He's no stranger to changing bodies, then, and his software is persistent. A great candidate for the first cyborg trial, sure.

[faiiry]

Mk. 19 was...now how can I put this eloquently...thicc.

[philman]

Jun 19, 2017 9:48:40 GMT ST13R said:

That's a lot of bodies. Did he change every year o.o?

How many bodies has our friend the Prophet Robot had now? Although I hope Arthur's replacements are less to do with getting destroyed or sliced up like Robot constantly is and more just updating his chassis now and again to stay the same size as Juliette

[theonethatgotaway]

He's lying. Sorry to burst your bubble. Better get it over with quick!

[rinabean]

Jun 19, 2017 10:35:45 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

He's lying. Sorry to burst your bubble. Better get it over with quick!

I hope not!

Though I think it's fairly likely that maybe they have been found out, they've been told to get to Kat to not be punished, but it is real and they will be actual allies at some point.

[csj]

Arthur will never be played by Robin Williams in a film adaptation. But one can imagine...

[ctso74]

Jun 19, 2017 10:42:49 GMT rinabean said:

Jun 19, 2017 10:35:45 GMT theonethatgotaway said:

He's lying. Sorry to burst your bubble. Better get it over with quick!

I hope not!

Though I think it's fairly likely that maybe they have been found out, they've been told to get to Kat to not be punished, but it is real and they will be actual allies at some point.

It is a sweet tale, but I am getting the feeling that something else is going on, like the other shoe will drop at some point. Though, I'm hoping it's only me.
I don't know what you'd call that: "Other Shoe" Shy? Gunnerkrigg Paranoid?

[luxanima]

This is getting kinda sappy, especially after we had the Ayilu stuff -- which was fantastic -- but quirky love again? I wish there's a twist incoming like someone mentioned, but it doesn't look/feel like it... but maybe that's what HE WANTS US TO THINK.

[jda]

Jun 19, 2017 13:34:58 GMT luxanima said:

I wish there's a twist incoming like someone mentioned, but it doesn't look/feel like it... but maybe that's what HE WANTS US TO THINK.

Tom is a true Dune player.

[ohthatone]

What does Mk. mean?
I guess to Arthur bodies are like clothes that can be changed over and over. Wonder who changes them?

[fish]

Jun 19, 2017 15:06:17 GMT ohthatone said:

What does Mk. mean?

A quick wikipedia search reveals: Mark
But a native English speaker ought to verify this.


Juliette refers to Arthur as a "person" in here which really shows that she sees him as an equal and a partner. It's a bit different from the way Kat and Annie treat Robot. They are not mean to him or anything, but sometimes they ignore him like I would ignore a contemporary piece of AI-equipped technology. They treat Shadow like a child which makes sense, because he is younger than them (I think). But who knows how old Robot really is (the Mk. thing probably doesn't apply to the seraph model).

[nero]

I think Arthur changed his body around four times. The different bodies might be more of a way of showing how Arthur grew up mentally along with
Juliette. And the marks are the years they spent together. This could end up with them lying to Kat for the Shadow Men to test her work. And also a way to hide their relationship in the open from their group. Or maybe one of the pair is lying to the other.

[speedwell]

By the way, what the %*&$ kind of moon is that? The Moon as seen from the Earth NEVER looks like that. Is that intentional?

[Zox Tomana]

Jun 19, 2017 15:15:31 GMT fish said:

Jun 19, 2017 15:06:17 GMT ohthatone said:

What does Mk. mean?

A quick wikipedia search reveals: Mark
But a native English speaker ought to verify this.

Mk. is a common shortening for "Mark," here referring to the version of a particular product.

[The Anarch]

Jun 19, 2017 18:33:40 GMT speedwell said:

By the way, what the %*&$ kind of moon is that? The Moon as seen from the Earth NEVER looks like that. Is that intentional?

Annie's fingerprint has gone all "All Good Things..."

[pyradonis]

Right now I am thinking "You love each other as you are. Why do you even want one of you to change his body?".
It's not as if the skinless violet two-fingered prototype bio-bodies Kat grows in that vat are more attractive than a robot chassis anyway.

[fanofts]

Jun 19, 2017 18:33:40 GMT speedwell said:

By the way, what the %*&$ kind of moon is that? The Moon as seen from the Earth NEVER looks like that. Is that intentional?

As an ex-amateur astronomer I think of it as an expressionistic Moon as in Van Gogh's Starry Night. Tom's used it before: pages four, five, eleven, fourteen and the title page for Chapter 16: A Ghost Story. Some pages have an accurate depiction that allows a good estimate of month and time of night, for example The Wondeful Plan.

[The Anarch]

Jun 19, 2017 22:12:14 GMT pyradonis said:

Right now I am thinking "You love each other as you are. Why do you even want one of you to change his body?".
It's not as if the skinless violet two-fingered prototype bio-bodies Kat grows in that vat are more attractive than a robot chassis anyway.

Can you live and love and laugh with only a portion of the senses of those around you? Of course. Many people do.

But why should you if you have a chance and a desire to do otherwise? A chance to see your family's faces clearly for the first time? A chance to actually feel the hand of the person you're standing with?

[warrl]

Jun 19, 2017 10:34:19 GMT philman said:

Jun 19, 2017 9:48:40 GMT ST13R said:

That's a lot of bodies. Did he change every year o.o?

How many bodies has our friend the Prophet Robot had now?

We've seen at least seven, if I remember correctly, during the 3 years Annie has been at the Court. The first one was turned into paperclips. George cut one in half, and Jeanne cut one in half. I think that's all the casualties. (But then, the wind-up mouse and the test benches were intended to be temporary. And the seraph in the basement had an override that locked up the body at the end of the act.)

We don't know whether the first of those six included any parts of his last-previous body other than his processor chip.

It suddenly occurs to me that if he had been disassembled as part of a disciplinary action, his processor would have been in the storage facility (that Annie had to rescue it from after he pushed her off the bridge) rather than in the closet. Annie would have been able to assemble a robot body, but wouldn't have had a processor chip to put in it. No, he was disassembled and stuffed in a closet for some other reason. My guess is: to hide him from disciplinary action. Which probably would mean he had an ally in the Court before.

In other words, there's a whole extra story about how and why Robot got put in that closet.

As for Arthur's frequent changes, I figure it was basically to stay at a size that would *seem* reasonably close in age to Juliette. Since a robot's identity is in its processor chip which can be easily moved to another body (Robot's got moved to a wind-up mouse!), it may not have much attachment to any given body. So robots, or at least those robots who don't often associate with humans and thus don't need to be identifiable by sight, might be pretty easy-going about trading bodies.

[feraldog]

Jun 20, 2017 1:28:46 GMT The Anarch said:

Jun 19, 2017 22:12:14 GMT pyradonis said:

Right now I am thinking "You love each other as you are. Why do you even want one of you to change his body?".
It's not as if the skinless violet two-fingered prototype bio-bodies Kat grows in that vat are more attractive than a robot chassis anyway.

Can you live and love and laugh with only a portion of the senses of those around you? Of course. Many people do.

But why should you if you have a chance and a desire to do otherwise? A chance to see your family's faces clearly for the first time? A chance to actually feel the hand of the person you're standing with?

Strangely enough, the deaf/hard of hearing community has a some controversies on this exact topic. Some of it is based on the fact that in certain cases things like hearing aids can actually be more harmful than leaving things as they are (same for implants), some is that there is a Deaf culture and a lot of them feel being forced to hear is a form of cultural assimilation, etc.

I wonder if there are any anti-cult robots and if they would think along similar lines?

[pyradonis]

Jun 20, 2017 1:28:46 GMT The Anarch said:

Jun 19, 2017 22:12:14 GMT pyradonis said:

Right now I am thinking "You love each other as you are. Why do you even want one of you to change his body?".
It's not as if the skinless violet two-fingered prototype bio-bodies Kat grows in that vat are more attractive than a robot chassis anyway.

Can you live and love and laugh with only a portion of the senses of those around you? Of course. Many people do.

But why should you if you have a chance and a desire to do otherwise? A chance to see your family's faces clearly for the first time? A chance to actually feel the hand of the person you're standing with?

You are right. In fact, when I logged on here, I was determined to give me that reply myself, had not another one done it before.

And yet...a biological body has its own weaknesses that the mechanical ones do not have, as Robot experienced first-hand(literally). I wonder whether all robots are willing to trade their durability for new sensory experiences. (I could think of a number of humans who would gladly trade in their ability to feel physical pain for legs that allow them to jump meters high.) Robot seems to think that a "frail" biological body is a higher step in evolution, but is that not biased?

[aline]

Jun 19, 2017 7:10:15 GMT speedwell said:

I think it's interesting that Juliette considers herself to have a "normal life" despite having been a Court student and now a Court employee.

What people see as "normal" is what's normal for them and the people directly around them. Juliette has lived at the Court for what, 20 years? Maybe she was even born there, we don't know. Since her job doesn't require her to travel, she might not even really remember what the normal life of a person outside the Court looks like.

Jun 19, 2017 7:10:15 GMT speedwell said:

Come to think of it, we don't see the number of people in the Court that we would expect given the number of students who would have been there each year. Makes me wonder whether they're just offstage, or whether they leave, and how they come back if they do leave.

I don't think it's the norm for Court students to leave. Training kids to work at the Court seems to be the only purpose of the school, and it's a huge waste of effort if they just wave goodbye when they've finished their education. It's been said that the Court is huge. I think it looks empty because it has 30x as many buildings as it needs for its population.