[1294] It was worth it

[Per]

From the last panel I interpreted it more as "it was worth it for the wing to have lived (a however brief life gifted by Kat)" rather than "it was worth it for the wing to have died (as a pure instrument of Kat's)".

[eyemyself]

Yay plot!

[kalechibki]

Dec 27, 2013 14:17:06 GMT eyemyself said:

Robot has always been a bit... fanatical... and his personality is different when he is with humans vs. with other robots. It is hard to say how much of that difference is intentional without knowing more about how intelligent robots are. We know they are bad at subterfuge gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1139 but are morally ok with making an attempt at it. I guess what I am saying is, robots don't have a problem with lying to further their purposes... we don't really know if robot is being completely genuine with Annie and Kat.

I forget the exact reference, but one of stories I've read has this idea about quality of Liars:
Bad: You know every time.
Mediocre: They get away with meaningless stuff
Pretty Good: You won't catch their minor stuff, but their major bumbles make you wonder
Really Good: Nearly impossible to catch
Best: Make lot of little bumbles that look bad, so everyone thinks they know when they are lying...so they easily get away with their most important ones.

[ctso74]

*ding dong*
Robot 010: Please, forgive the interruption.
Robot 110: But, have you heard the good word about "Kat"?
Annie: ...Um?

We've talked about Kat replacing parts of herself, either through experimentation or from an accident. What if it won't be Kat's doing? What if it's the Robocult, either through selfishness, devotion, or both? Some achieve Transhumanism, and some have Transhumanism thrust upon them, so to speak.

[eyemyself]

Dec 27, 2013 14:44:11 GMT ctso74 said:

*ding dong*
Robot 010: Please, forgive the interruption.
Robot 110: But, have you heard the good word about "Kat"?
Annie: ...Um?

We've talked about Kat replacing parts of herself, either through experimentation or from an accident. What if it won't be Kat's doing? What if it's the Robocult, either through selfishness, devotion, or both? Some achieve Transhumanism, and some have Transhumanism thrust upon them, so to speak.

This... is a sinister turn I had not considered. Very diabolical. 

[Intelligence]

Hopefully Shadow was watching this, and so, will keep a closer eye on Robot and prevent him from doing anything rash.

[eskhn]

Dec 27, 2013 14:44:11 GMT ctso74 said:

*ding dong*
Robot 010: Please, forgive the interruption.
Robot 110: But, have you heard the good word about "Kat"?
Annie: ...Um?

We've talked about Kat replacing parts of herself, either through experimentation or from an accident. What if it won't be Kat's doing? What if it's the Robocult, either through selfishness, devotion, or both? Some achieve Transhumanism, and some have Transhumanism thrust upon them, so to speak.

Nah, this isn't Dresden Codak. But I'm half expecting this to end in Kool-Aid.

[alpacalypse]

Dec 27, 2013 15:07:56 GMT Intelligence said:

Hopefully Shadow was watching this, and so, will keep a closer eye on Robot and prevent him from doing anything rash.

I'm actually surprised we didn't see him at all. Its not like the girls had class so I don't know why Shadow would have been in class as well. I could easily see something happening when Shadow tries to intervene in Robot's fanaticism and Robot giving him a "you're from the forest, you wouldn't understand" or a "you've always been alive" deal and hurting Shadow's feelings. I hope that doesn't happen.

[wanderer]

Really really really really really really really creepy. Really.

Robot! You're freaking the heck out of me!

[zimmyhoo]

Dec 27, 2013 14:43:39 GMT kalechibki said:

Dec 27, 2013 14:17:06 GMT eyemyself said:

Robot has always been a bit... fanatical... and his personality is different when he is with humans vs. with other robots. It is hard to say how much of that difference is intentional without knowing more about how intelligent robots are. We know they are bad at subterfuge gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1139 but are morally ok with making an attempt at it. I guess what I am saying is, robots don't have a problem with lying to further their purposes... we don't really know if robot is being completely genuine with Annie and Kat.

I forget the exact reference, but one of stories I've read has this idea about quality of Liars:
Bad: You know every time.
Mediocre: They get away with meaningless stuff
Pretty Good: You won't catch their minor stuff, but their major bumbles make you wonder
Really Good: Nearly impossible to catch
Best: Make lot of little bumbles that look bad, so everyone thinks they know when they are lying...so they easily get away with their most important ones.

Ooh.  That's... disconcerting.

[Daedalus]

Dec 27, 2013 9:11:55 GMT snipertom said:

Creepy robot suicide cult!

What happens if kat turns her back on the creepy robot cult?

Or, for that matter, what happens if Annie convinces Kat to turn away?

"She died and we...murdered her. It was worth it."

Or what happens when Robert Paulson becomes a martyr?

Seriously, though, where does Annie fit into Robot's theogony? He sees her as his 'mother' (or used to) but not his creator.

[Maeniel]

I don't know, man... The end of Give & Take and the end of this chapter both have robot preaching about how Angel!Kat can kill robots; I think the death angle is probably more important than the ambiguous "worth it" comment. Consider:

Give & Take: You can see how easily she gave life, and how easily she took it away.
Thread: And the Angel looked upon the corpse, a life taken by her own hand, and she said "It was worth it."

Two possibilities here:

• Angel!Kat is a wrathful god. Don't make her mad because she will kill you as easily as she can make you.
• Robot uprising. ("She's killing us! Get her before she gets us!")

The two are not mutually exclusive.

[eyemyself]

Dec 27, 2013 15:27:52 GMT Daedalus said:

Dec 27, 2013 9:11:55 GMT snipertom said:

Creepy robot suicide cult!

What happens if kat turns her back on the creepy robot cult?

Or, for that matter, what happens if Annie convinces Kat to turn away?

"She died and we...murdered her. It was worth it."

Or what happens when Robert Paulson becomes a martyr?

Seriously, though, where does Annie fit into Robot's theogony? He sees her as his 'mother' (or used to) but not his creator.

It has been a long time since Robot addressed Annie as mother, and almost as long since we've seen him treat her with any sort of special recognition. 

[smjjames]

I see this strip and the last strip as a dust to dust, ashes to ashes kind of thing, but the wording, yeah.

[Per]

Also, with regard to gayness and such:

[drdave]

This is getting creepier by the minute

[faythofdragons]

So, nobody else seems to have brought it up yet, but when Ysengrin buried the TicToc, it grew into some odd contraption.

I'm guessing that the Court side works differently, but what if it doesn't? What would this wing grow into?

[smjjames]

'This video is not available in your country' Wut Youtube?

I wonder how Robot interprets Kat being gay? If he does form an interpretation out of it.

[fronzel]

Dec 27, 2013 16:08:22 GMT smjjames said:

I wonder how Robot interprets Kat being gay? If he does form an interpretation out of it.

"Humans sometimes press their facial skin against that of another."

Dec 27, 2013 16:06:38 GMT faythofdragons said:

So, nobody else seems to have brought it up yet, but when Ysengrin buried the TicToc, it grew into some odd contraption.

The TicTocs are apparently not Diego-derived robots, though: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=646

[phyzome]

So we still don't know the meaning of the chapter title, yeah? The chapter icon appears to be a Bunsen burner from the lab, but I don't recall "thread" being mentioned anywhere -- literally or metaphorically.

[nero]

It seems that Robot focuses solely on Kat's actions with the robots. I'm not really freaking out over the burial.
I'm more worried for Kat since Robot has made himself her messenger and Kat has not had a chance to discuss this with him.

Robot might become a big problem if it turns out that he is deliberately making this misinterpretation in order to change Kat's indifference
to the wing seem as if she actually saw meaning in its death.

Also, I wonder if the robots avoided touching the wing because they don't feel worthy enough to touch this metal wing that was once living.

[Karretch]

Dec 27, 2013 17:02:12 GMT phyzome said:

So we still don't know the meaning of the chapter title, yeah? The chapter icon appears to be a Bunsen burner from the lab, but I don't recall "thread" being mentioned anywhere -- literally or metaphorically.

Someone figured it out either in yesterday's discussion thread or the day before, but it has to do with (iirc) Atropos and the first thread of fate to be cut. Now I'm lacking in a lot of Greek myth know-how, but I assume this is the act of creating the first mortal. The wing, while by OUR definitions not truly alive, is thought of by the robots to have been. Thus it was the first mortal robot to them. Kat is the Atropos of the robots.

If I have any of this wrong, I implore anyone to correct me.

[Señor Goose]

Dec 27, 2013 12:05:26 GMT snipertom said:

Interestingly (and this could not have been foreseen by Tom), Alan Turing was pardoned of his CRIME OF HOMOSEXUALITY this Christmas eve.

Good article: www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2013/12/alan-turings-body/282641/

The father of computing was gay, and the first computer programmer was female. Sort of fitting that Kat happens to be both not-straight and female I guess?

I didn't know that. That's great!

[eyemyself]

Dec 27, 2013 17:02:12 GMT phyzome said:

So we still don't know the meaning of the chapter title, yeah? The chapter icon appears to be a Bunsen burner from the lab, but I don't recall "thread" being mentioned anywhere -- literally or metaphorically.

I've been taking thread to mean the threads that connect the different characters to one another. 

[eyemyself]

Dec 27, 2013 17:14:55 GMT Karretch said:

Dec 27, 2013 17:02:12 GMT phyzome said:

So we still don't know the meaning of the chapter title, yeah? The chapter icon appears to be a Bunsen burner from the lab, but I don't recall "thread" being mentioned anywhere -- literally or metaphorically.

Someone figured it out either in yesterday's discussion thread or the day before, but it has to do with (iirc) Atropos and the first thread of fate to be cut. Now I'm lacking in a lot of Greek myth know-how, but I assume this is the act of creating the first mortal. The wing, while by OUR definitions not truly alive, is thought of by the robots to have been. Thus it was the first mortal robot to them. Kat is the Atropos of the robots.

If I have any of this wrong, I implore anyone to correct me.

Ahha, this makes more sense.

[Daedalus]

Dec 27, 2013 16:57:04 GMT fronzel said:

Dec 27, 2013 16:06:38 GMT faythofdragons said:

So, nobody else seems to have brought it up yet, but when Ysengrin buried the TicToc, it grew into some odd contraption.

The TicTocs are apparently not Diego-derived robots, though: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=646

Neither is Robert Paulson.

[warrl]

Dec 27, 2013 17:14:55 GMT Karretch said:

Someone figured it out either in yesterday's discussion thread or the day before, but it has to do with (iirc) Atropos and the first thread of fate to be cut. Now I'm lacking in a lot of Greek myth know-how, but I assume this is the act of creating the first mortal. The wing, while by OUR definitions not truly alive, is thought of by the robots to have been. Thus it was the first mortal robot to them. Kat is the Atropos of the robots.

If I have any of this wrong, I implore anyone to correct me.

I am thinking that perhaps this cremated wing-fragment is seen by Robot approximately the way that a woman who was really thrilled to discover that she was pregnant, and then miscarried after less than a month, might see the embryo she lost.

Although it's not literally a good parallel. The chance of THAT wing-fragment EVER being part of a complete robot was near zero. It was the first *grown* artificial muscle and bone; its most likely fate was testing to destruction, and second most likely was being discarded in favor of a later product.

[GK Sierra]

Dec 27, 2013 15:08:00 GMT eskhn said:

Dec 27, 2013 14:44:11 GMT ctso74 said:

*ding dong*
Robot 010: Please, forgive the interruption.
Robot 110: But, have you heard the good word about "Kat"?
Annie: ...Um?

We've talked about Kat replacing parts of herself, either through experimentation or from an accident. What if it won't be Kat's doing? What if it's the Robocult, either through selfishness, devotion, or both? Some achieve Transhumanism, and some have Transhumanism thrust upon them, so to speak.

Nah, this isn't Dresden Codak. But I'm half expecting this to end in Kool-Aid.

I'm expecting this to end in tears. But at least it won't be boring.

[alpacalypse]

Dec 27, 2013 16:06:38 GMT faythofdragons said:

So, nobody else seems to have brought it up yet, but when Ysengrin buried the TicToc, it grew into some odd contraption.

I'm guessing that the Court side works differently, but what if it doesn't? What would this wing grow into?

Well we have two versions of what happened, Ysengrin's he found it months later and it grew into some contraption, and Red's he buried it immediately. I don't think it was ever cleared up exactly what happened. I don't think Red would have lied, but it is possible Ysengrin was lying, or had his memory of burying the bird taken away. The contraption could either be a lie or the truth.  Ysengrin also didn't say what he did with the contraption, only that it had done damage to the cliff. For all I know it is still down there.

And as other people have brought up, the Tic Toc are not from the Court, at least as far as the robots and Court scientists know. Perhaps they were made by Diego's teacher or rival of some sort and sent to watch over the Court. The ability to turn into that contraption could have been a design for when they are damaged beyond function. They seem to be able to gather information and are rather elusive, much like a certain missing father we know of. Perhaps Anthony is related to the Tic Toc somehow, it would explained why they moved on bridge and saved Annie. Their insides seem much more modern than Diego's original robots, and I would think that the current Tic Tocs at the Court could be newer and simply are replaced over time. I don't think that they could have lasted from before the Court without needing replacements.

As far as the wing growing out of the ground, that seems a bit far fetched since it was growing the wing in culture, so I don't know how it would grow without help.

[keef]

Dec 27, 2013 16:08:22 GMT smjjames said:

I wonder how Robot interprets Kat being gay? If he does form an interpretation out of it.

I don't think robots give a toss, as they are asexual themselves. In the Gunnerverse I mean.