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Post by csj on Sept 6, 2014 9:45:59 GMT
These robots really need to do their research about this type of power. Would save them a lot of hassle later. Yes. I patiently anticipate Paz's Squirrel Girl moment/s.  |
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Post by todd on Sept 6, 2014 10:38:55 GMT
Except (as I pointed out in my last post), we've seen no evidence that there are squirrels or any other animal on board the cruise ship (and from what we know of the Court, it's extremely unlikely that any are on board). So the robots' dismissing Paz's ability is less foolish than people are assuming.
(There are the animals in the sea about, of course, but it's stormy weather. And what exactly can they do? The robots will presumably be all below deck for the big experiment, and out of reach - unless it's something like a whale overturning the ship, which would endanger the students.)
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Post by todd on Sept 6, 2014 10:44:01 GMT
Heck, it'd be nice if they at the very least asked instead of outright stated their demands like there's absolutely no choice in the matter. Whatever happened to the polite robots? They should have been in charge of the cruise. For that matter, when Robot was going around spreading the word about Jeanne's shrine to other robots like Sky Watcher, he would simply tell them to follow him there as if giving him a command. Apparently the Court robots only understand commands (maybe in part because robots are, essentially, servants - the very word "robot" means "worker"), and just don't comprehend how those come across to Kat and the others. |
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Post by TBeholder on Sept 6, 2014 15:19:57 GMT
Except (as I pointed out in my last post), we've seen no evidence that there are squirrels or any other animal on board the cruise ship We've seen no evidence that there's a galley on board either. But both are pretty much inevitable. (and from what we know of the Court, it's extremely unlikely that any are on board). How so? |
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Post by thedoctor on Sept 6, 2014 15:25:42 GMT
Except (as I pointed out in my last post), we've seen no evidence that there are squirrels or any other animal on board the cruise ship We've seen no evidence that there's a galley on board either. But both are pretty much inevitable. (and from what we know of the Court, it's extremely unlikely that any are on board). How so? This. Animals get everywhere; even on a completely metal and human-constructed ship, you can still get insects, rats, etc. This is even more true on a cruise ship than (say) a destroyer or aircraft carrier. Anywhere there is food/a kitchen, there are cockroaches (and other unwanted guests)! |
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Post by sidhekin on Sept 6, 2014 16:45:31 GMT
Well, what we know of the Court tells us otherwise: There are no rats.
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Post by Daedalus on Sept 6, 2014 17:18:53 GMT
Well, what we know of the Court tells us otherwise: There are no rats. Which I always found surprising - has someone engineered etheric super-cats? |
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Post by Gotolei on Sept 6, 2014 18:27:47 GMT
Heck, with our technology, all it takes to disable a laptop is a few ants in the wrong place. Ketrak might have a busy day, but how would the robots defend against stuff like that?
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Post by keef on Sept 6, 2014 19:00:58 GMT
Well, what we know of the Court tells us otherwise: There are no rats. Which I always found surprising - has someone engineered etheric super-cats? There is of course a superstition that rats will leave a doomed ship, and superstitions in the Gunnerverse tend to become true. |
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Post by sebastian on Sept 6, 2014 20:25:55 GMT
Nobody mentioned yet a possible intervention by Bud? He is a powerful psychic and the ship is trying to make a move on his missus. He could want to have words with him.
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Post by keef on Sept 6, 2014 20:55:12 GMT
what happens to them if they're inside when it's made flesh? That might not be a problem.. Nobody mentioned yet a possible intervention by Bud? He is a powerful psychic and the ship is trying to make a move on his missus. He could want to have words with him. .... sebastian's remark made me think; the size of the body the ship needs to win the hart of Lindsey, is only one bucket full. To answer your question: Bud just needs to wait till the experiment is finished, and challenge the AI when he is his size. |
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Post by todd on Sept 6, 2014 22:07:45 GMT
Having the animals on board only show up after Paz's ability is brought up, with not even a hint that they were there in any of the previous pages, seems too much like "deus ex machina" writing to me. I certainly don't think that Tom would do something like that.
Having Paz contact Lindsey (whose presence on board *has* been established already in this chapter) does work from a storytelling point of view. (Though, as I said, the ship wants her to come, since that's the whole point. Maybe that's the real reason why the robots considered Paz's ability "no threat" - they *want* her to send the message to Lindsey so that she'll be there in time to see the ship in its new form, the form that it believes will win her over.)
(If being "made flesh" *does* shrink the ship down to Bud's size, that's bad news for the students on board (and in this weather, taking to the lifeboats doesn't seem like an option). Though from what I've seen of Zimmy's abilities, I think the cast will be in far worse trouble than that.)
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Post by keef on Sept 6, 2014 22:36:44 GMT
todd That's not what I meant, I think it is possible that what is asked of Kat is to make a "real" body for the AI similar to a male merostomatazon. The AI is then uploaded to that body and leaves the ship. There is no metamorphosis of the ship itself.
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Post by todd on Sept 6, 2014 22:59:56 GMT
todd That's not what I meant, I think it is possible that what is asked of Kat is to make a "real" body for the AI similar to a male merostomatazon. The AI is then uploaded to that body and leaves the ship. There is no metamorphosis of the ship itself. Whoa, I hadn't thought of that. I'd probably assumed there'd be a metamorphosis because of the reality-distorting powers of Zimmy being involved (and because of other changes that we'd seen of human to animal - like Alistair - or forest-dweller to human, even if those were in a different context). |
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Post by Vilthuril on Sept 7, 2014 0:09:53 GMT
This. Animals get everywhere; even on a completely metal and human-constructed ship, you can still get insects, rats, etc. This is even more true on a cruise ship than (say) a destroyer or aircraft carrier. Anywhere there is food/a kitchen, there are cockroaches (and other unwanted guests)! Even aside from what sneaks aboard when docked: birds and bugs come from the sky(*), animals little and big come out of the water or hang around in the water (Super Dolphin Shark Rescue Squad**, to the rescue!), other critters are carried as eggs and such in the *ahem* poop of the aforementioned and grow from there... (*)Golly, where are the Giant Eagles when you need them? (**) (**) |
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Post by todd on Sept 7, 2014 10:41:34 GMT
In this kind of weather, I suspect that the ocean life (both birds and water-dwelling) would be more inteested in finding shelter and staying there than in getting involved with the events on board the ship.
And we only know that Paz can speak to the animals. Nothing about commanding them to do her bidding. If they're indifferent to the goings-on with the robots and don't see why they should help, I doubt she can do anything about it.
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Post by TBeholder on Sept 7, 2014 11:36:20 GMT
Which I always found surprising - has someone engineered etheric super-cats? There is of course a superstition that rats will leave a doomed ship, and superstitions in the Gunnerverse tend to become true. Yup. About the only way there are no rats is something far nastier than their usual evolutinary pressure, which got to be impressive. Hmm... plenty of spiders? Either that, or they can't/won't go there. That is, someold spell or they just feeel like on a ship with bad prospect. Either way, this doesn't necessary apply to the ship. Except the last part, maybe. todd That's not what I meant, I think it is possible that what is asked of Kat is to make a "real" body for the AI similar to a male merostomatazon. The AI is then uploaded to that body and leaves the ship. There is no metamorphosis of the ship itself. too sane, given the setup. |
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Post by davidm on Sept 7, 2014 17:20:40 GMT
There is of course a superstition that rats will leave a doomed ship, and superstitions in the Gunnerverse tend to become true. Yup. About the only way there are no rats is something far nastier than their usual evolutinary pressure, which got to be impressive. Hmm... plenty of spiders? There are basically no rats in entire province of Alberta, Canada where millions of people live. There tend to be no rats or mice in food production buildings (know of one). Bunch of rules from health board, that make it hard for rats to have holes to crawl into to have nests, harder to crawl up and snack on food, mouse bait must be left out at all times and a different arms length company is in charge of that and keeps log to make sure happens, etc, and health inspectors check once in a while, etc. (If evidence of a mouse is ever found despite precautions then exterminators, etc are called in to quickly eliminate. Rats do well with stuff like wood and confined spaces, don't do well with metal/tough plastic and enough room for cat/predator to lay in wait and hunt. (Ferret can usually follow a rat into any hole and is more deadly to rat than a cat) With robot cows that can cut grass with lasers, not that hard to have a boxbot or robotic ferret with a rat killing laser to seek and destroy all vermin. Since this is court and court fears forest, may even be something given priority as rats could be spies for the forest. One other way to exterminate almost all life forms is to turn up the heat once in a while... Eg between sets of passengers, ship could heat internal temp to 50 or 60 degrees Celsius for a short period of time. Then only rats and insects on ship would be ones that got on when passengers boarded. |
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Post by davidm on Sept 7, 2014 17:51:51 GMT
Jack and Jeanne left the party early, so robots may not be disabling them. Zimmy and Kat can't be disabled because they are needed. There may be other animals in ocean like Lindsey and Bud, and even a small friendly animal/pet can sneak into important spaces if robots not thinking a threat.
(Right now Jack's skill set is probably the most dangerous to robots... is leaving party early enough to escape being neutralised?)
Annie is pictured with a spider in her hand in previous title page. Reynardine and Shadow creatures were normally "threats" before interacting with Annie. One of Annie's powers is crazy diplomacy that somehow works very well.
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Post by Vilthuril on Sept 7, 2014 20:42:42 GMT
With robot cows that can cut grass with lasers, not that hard to have a boxbot or robotic ferret with a rat killing laser to seek and destroy all vermin. Since this is court and court fears forest, may even be something given priority as rats could be spies for the forest. And what could possibly go wrong with giving a robot a laser and the autonomous authority to decide what should be killed?   (from Your Friend the Rat, by Pixar. Go Mounties! We got rats here in B.C., though, both the four and two legged kinds.) |
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Post by todd on Sept 7, 2014 23:27:21 GMT
The robots seem to have a mixture of good planning in the short term and bad planning in the long term. They've figured out how to keep Annie and the other students with etheric abilities from interfering, but:
1. They don't seem to realize that Zimmy's abilities are incredibly dangerous and not a toy.
2. They don't seem to have considered that once Lindsey finds out about this, she'll see the cruise ship as a kidnapper (and the Seraph robots as its accomplices) of her charges rather than a welcome suitor. This isn't the way to win a chaperone's heart.
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Post by Daedalus on Sept 8, 2014 5:27:21 GMT
The robots seem to have a mixture of good planning in the short term and bad planning in the long term. Like how computer models often turn out in real life, huh. Good catch!  |
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Post by ed1300 on Sept 8, 2014 5:38:40 GMT
2. They don't seem to have considered that once Lindsey finds out about this, she'll see the cruise ship as a kidnapper (and the Seraph robots as its accomplices) of her charges rather than a welcome suitor. This isn't the way to win a chaperone's heart. Not unlike their dear pappy, I can see this ending in a similar way. The woman scorning the advances, not the rage ghost plan afterward. |
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Post by thedoctor on Sept 9, 2014 2:21:52 GMT
In this kind of weather, I suspect that the ocean life (both birds and water-dwelling) would be more inteested in finding shelter and staying there than in getting involved with the events on board the ship. And we only know that Paz can speak to the animals. Nothing about commanding them to do her bidding. If they're indifferent to the goings-on with the robots and don't see why they should help, I doubt she can do anything about it. Ah, but if the animals are in the area, what is the best shelter for miles around? THE SHIP! |
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Post by todd on Sept 9, 2014 10:30:38 GMT
In this kind of weather, I suspect that the ocean life (both birds and water-dwelling) would be more inteested in finding shelter and staying there than in getting involved with the events on board the ship. And we only know that Paz can speak to the animals. Nothing about commanding them to do her bidding. If they're indifferent to the goings-on with the robots and don't see why they should help, I doubt she can do anything about it. Ah, but if the animals are in the area, what is the best shelter for miles around? THE SHIP! Except, with Zimmy's abilities apparently about to start up, the storm would soon seem far safer. |
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