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Post by thedoctor on Sept 12, 2014 13:39:48 GMT
One problem I can see with Reynardine as Annie's choice (even though it's understandable, from how she's grown to trust him); the Court doesn't trust him, and looks upon him as a dangerous criminal. He and Eglamore were moving towards peace and reconciliation at the end of the "Quicksilver" chapter, but I'm not sure how much of the rest of the staff would receive him. I certainly think that the Headmaster would look upon this is a trick for Reynardine to escape the Court - maybe even forbid any rescue attempt on the ship at all (even if his own daughter's on board). And, yes, as asyetunnamed pointed out, this is going to lead to some serious problems for the Court about the robots - how many of them have been subverted? They can't shut them all down - but how can they be certain that there won't be more incidents like this? And what will they do to Kat for - unwittingly, of course - help to bring this situation about? Since she didn't know that the robots were building a religion around her (or at least, not to the extent it was), expelling her or giving her detention until she graduates seems harsh - though the Court administration might feel tempted to do something severe to her, simply because it's easier than handling the robot coumunity. (And her project could be considered sheltering an escaped felon.) And how will Annie and Kat feel about Robot, whose words had helped get them into this mess? "Friends don't start religions that put friends in jeopardy." Robot may have to choose between his prophetic career and his friends. All in all, I think the effects of this will outlast the solution of the immediate problem (and with Zimmy concerned, solving it won't be easy).; Huh. And there I was assuming that urgent trouble meant sending an alert to Jones. I mean, what can Renard do to solve this apart from... telling Jones. Or maybe Parley and Smitty if they are not on the boat. But if they aren't, that's two more people I'd tell before I told Renard, who is not the most free to go about his business. Guys, I've seen people referencing Renard's imprisonment several times now. I'm pretty sure (can't find the reference now, but someone should check) that the Court has basically decided that Annie is his jailer, what with her ownership of his present form, and all. As I recall, they've warned her that if he leaves the Court, there will be SEVERE consequences, but they have no power to stop him, unless Eglamore goes after him (and Eglamore wouldn't, except to help deal with the problem). I could be wrong, but that's what my memory is saying. Also, just noticed that our Jenny is left-handed. Not significant? I think Tom's choices are always interesting. In most comics, handedness is somewhat...flexible, just because of the issue of perspective, drawing from the proper angle, etc. It's often the easiest thing to change and have people not notice, ironically enough (it's also easy for cartoonists to forget). I forget if this is true of Gunnerkrigg tho. Thoughts anyone? |
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Post by csj on Sept 12, 2014 14:11:26 GMT
maybe it's not a metaphor at all and the sea will literally be torn; behold the fury of a reality-warping teen scorned  Even a broken clock is right once a day. |
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Post by goldenknots on Sept 12, 2014 14:56:12 GMT
If Renard leaves the Court, especially without Annie, the Court would nuke him. He's not flying to the rescue, not that a powerful fighter to stop the robots would make a difference in this situation if Zimmy is already snapping. If Renard recruits sufficiently puissant allies for the trip, he'll be fine. Sure, if he tried to leave the court on his own and got caught, he'd be violating his parole, but Jones or Parley being along would legitimize his movements. |
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Post by todd on Sept 12, 2014 15:29:16 GMT
Let's hope that Tom's not cruel enough to have something like this next week:
MONDAY: Panels of the students' horrified responses as the cruise ship enters Zimmy's world - and in the bottom corner, another "antimony" symbol representing the end of a chapter.
WEDNESDAY: The next Treatise.
FRIDAY: Tea announcing that it's time for another two-week hiatus with more City Face stories.
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Post by Vilthuril on Sept 12, 2014 15:44:19 GMT
Guys, I've seen people referencing Renard's imprisonment several times now. I'm pretty sure (can't find the reference now, but someone should check) that the Court has basically decided that Annie is his jailer, what with her ownership of his present form, and all. As I recall, they've warned her that if he leaves the Court, there will be SEVERE consequences, but they have no power to stop him, unless Eglamore goes after him (and Eglamore wouldn't, except to help deal with the problem). I could be wrong, but that's what my memory is saying. Coyote said that Renard is not being kept in the Court by force any more, but by his love for Annie. I doubt it would be easy (if possible at all) to keep him there now if he is going TO HER. As for consequences to him then...it would seem a little odd, assuming he had just saved an entire shipload of students that the Court allowed to get into danger.  Not that reason ever stopped anyone, of course. Still, if he did bring along someone more reputable/official... Does Annie still leave Renard in someone's official custody when she's away, like she did once or twice when she told him to obey Kat? My sense is she doesn't now, unless it just hasn't been mentioned? |
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Post by smurfton on Sept 12, 2014 15:54:56 GMT
I think Renard is the right name, Rey(nardine) just a nick name, sort of. Yeah, you guy are right, I couldn't quite remember which one was his real name and which one the nickname. I looked in the wiki and the title of his article was Reynardine, so I went with that. But you're right, it was Surma herself who came up with the name Reynardine in that flashback in Fire Spike. BTW: if someone finds the time that wiki article could use some updates. To be honest, since we know that Reynardine is a nickname, whoever updates it should probably put a redirect to Renard. |
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Post by Daedalus on Sept 12, 2014 15:59:04 GMT
My guess is Renard will come with Parley and Smit for safe and fast travelling and with Robot for negotiations. That is, of course, if Lindsey doesn't intervene first. Who's to say that Robot is not supporting the ship's plan? His preaching has been getting more and more 'ends justify the means' recently. Huh. And there I was assuming that urgent trouble meant sending an alert to Jones. I mean, what can Renard do to solve this apart from... telling Jones. Or maybe Parley and Smitty if they are not on the boat. But if they aren't, that's two more people I'd tell before I told Renard, who is not the most free to go about his business. We haven't seen Renard in combat, but I'm guessing that he's pretty badass. Â He can probably still fly, and he can definitely shapeshift into a more powerful form. Â I'll bet he'd be able to beat pre-bip Parley easily. I don't think we have ever seen any of Rey's powers (shapeshifting and possession don't count; they came from Coyote). I think all of the forms that he could shapeshift into would still be made of plushie cloth*. And lockpicks would not do that much against metal robots. I doubt he can fly in 'bound' form, just because I think we would have seen that already. However, WoT has said that he has other powers of his own, so perhaps we can see them now. We don't know if he could use these powers when bound into a toy, but Annie could release him or move him to a more combat-worthy form.
*though, on second thought, he did generate teeth when attacking Hetty. Who knows...
Coyote said that Renard is not being kept in the Court by force any more, but by his love for Annie. I doubt it would be easy (if possible at all) to keep him there now if he is going TO HER. Agreed. In all seriousness, though, he cannot reach the ship. We don't even know if Parley can anymore, since it appears to be in Zimmingham Bay rather then the real world now. Same applies to whether Annie can communicate via blinker stone. They may well be on their own. |
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lit
Full Member
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Post by lit on Sept 12, 2014 16:18:20 GMT
Renard is terrified of Zimmy. I'm curious to see how he'll handle this.
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Post by smjjames on Sept 12, 2014 16:42:15 GMT
As far as Lindsey goes, there is no way that she is NOT noticing that something is happening. I thought she would be pretty close to the ship at all times? We should consider the possibility that she has already noticed and has started swimming at full speed back to port, although wouldn't she use her telepathic abilities to talk with Bud? Renard is terrified of Zimmy. I'm curious to see how he'll handle this. He is going to have to face his fears then. |
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Post by Eversist on Sept 12, 2014 16:45:56 GMT
Let's hope that Tom's not cruel enough to have something like this next week: MONDAY: Panels of the students' horrified responses as the cruise ship enters Zimmy's world - and in the bottom corner, another "antimony" symbol representing the end of a chapter. WEDNESDAY: The next Treatise. FRIDAY: Tea announcing that it's time for another two-week hiatus with more City Face stories. I remember Tom saying that this chapter was going to be pretty long (I think in the last stream he did), so I wouldn't worry about that too much. |
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Post by asyetunnamed on Sept 12, 2014 16:47:48 GMT
Huh. And there I was assuming that urgent trouble meant sending an alert to Jones. I mean, what can Renard do to solve this apart from... telling Jones. Or maybe Parley and Smitty if they are not on the boat. But if they aren't, that's two more people I'd tell before I told Renard, who is not the most free to go about his business. "The stronger the magic user, the better." I think Renard is pretty much the strongest magic user in the court. I agree. The reason I thought it'd be Renard had nothing to do with how strong he is though (although he must be one of the more powerful characters in comic) but because of his relationship with Annie. He's probably the character that Annie knows best (after Kat) and she needed to make a snap decision. In that position I would think of Reynard before some of the more logical choices (although I would pick someone else if I had more time to think). |
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Post by aaroncampbell on Sept 12, 2014 17:09:26 GMT
An interesting thought: What if somehow Kat ends up using all of the flesh from the Nobodies as material for the ship? It's a really disturbing thought and brings up the question of P-zombies (read the article if you don't know the idea) but on the plus side, it would help clean up Zimmingham a bit, so perhaps that would help Zimmy feel less scared of the place? On the other hand, her fear of Kat would exponentially increase of course, so that's not a great trade. I'm sure witnessing Kat methodically harvest the flesh from all the Nobodies and combine it with a cruise ship as a weird freakish cyborg, all the while acting cool and collected but still having tears pour unnoticed down her face....I think that might just sour any future friendship they may have had. |
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Post by crater on Sept 12, 2014 18:21:51 GMT
Let's hope that Tom's not cruel enough to have something like this next week: MONDAY: Panels of the students' horrified responses as the cruise ship enters Zimmy's world - and in the bottom corner, another "antimony" symbol representing the end of a chapter. WEDNESDAY: The next Treatise. FRIDAY: Tea announcing that it's time for another two-week hiatus with more City Face stories. wow don't give him ideas |
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Post by Daedalus on Sept 12, 2014 18:58:17 GMT
Kat methodically harvest the flesh from all the Nobodies and combine it with a cruise ship as a weird freakish cyborg, all the while acting cool and collected but still having tears pour unnoticed down her face... This suddenly entered a new level of dark... |
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Post by eightyfour on Sept 12, 2014 21:39:39 GMT
Renard is terrified of Zimmy. I'm curious to see how he'll handle this. He is going to have to face his fears then. I agree, I'm really looking forward to see how this plays out. Considering his feelings for Annie, I don't think there's anything or anyone that could stop him from coming to her help if he thinks she's in danger. How he'll come to her help is the big question, though. |
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Post by todd on Sept 12, 2014 22:17:23 GMT
If the ship's been pulled into Zimmy's world (I didn't realize that the first time I read the page, but after reading the comments in the forum I went back and realized that it was getting dragged into there), then I doubt anyone at the Court will be able to help. (We don't know if you can just enter Zimmy's world from outside or not; it certainly wouldn't be easy - or safe.) The students really will be on their own - and with most of the etherically-powered students disarmed.
I think that the real challenge over organizing a rescue party with Reynardine as the blinker stone's recipient isn't "Would he be allowed to leave the Court?" but "Will the Court listen to him when he warns them what's become of the ship?" A lot of the staff might think he's just lying as part of an escape scheme (it doesn't help that he's actually the webcomic's adaptation of a leading trickster in medieval European literature), though I believe that the Donlans, Eglamore, and Jones are reasonable enough to test his claims - say, trying to contact the ship by radio, and when they get no reply (thanks partly to the robots cutting off communications, partly to the effects of Zimmy's world engufing the ship), being ready to believe him. I'm far less certain about the Headmaster, though. (Indeed, if he's appraised of the situation - including the ship and all on board being pulled into Zimmy's world - he'd probably consider it too dangerous to try a rescue attempt - they'd only be thrownig more lives away - and would propose instead holding a memorial service for Year 9 and sending out notes of condolences to the bereaved parents - while hoping that this won't lead to the board of governors - if the Court has one - deciding to sack him.)
But Rey's smart enough that he'd most likely go for those staff members who are ready to listen to him, like Jones (and Eglamore seems to have come to some sort of peace with him at the end of "Quicksilver"), who'd work out something together without necessarily bringing Jonathan into it.
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Post by Fishy on Sept 13, 2014 0:26:36 GMT
I doubt it'll happen, but if the ship really does get sucked into Zimmyngham then the only real option would be for someone on the outside to deal with it. Normally encounters with that place are solved once Zimmy and Gamma are together and reasonably sane (Or Zimmy gets rained on), but I feel that so long as these etheric syphons are doing their thing, that won't work. I mean, if the ship is going to all this trouble to make Zimmy break reality (or something similar), I think it'll have planned for a way to make reality stay broken.
Or alternatively, they could just make Zimmy snap even harder. Y'know, like in movies, where the big villain siphoning power off from some dangerous source suddenly gets overloaded with it. I wouldn't rule out the possibility of such a thing of course since Zimmy could almost certainly do that (however cliche it may be), but at the same time I get that it may not be a good idea to piss off the reality warper any more than necessary.
So long as I'm rambling, I've been thinking about the title again. I'm pretty confident in that The Torn Sea is meant to be both literal with Zimmy snapping and tearing it as well as metaphorical for someone running into relationship issues. There was a lot of discussion over the relationship front at first, but now that I think about it, one particular pair I hadn't seen much talk over was Zimmy and Gamma themselves. Maybe it just doesn't even seem like a feasible option that something could happen to them. But you know, every time I see Zimmy get herself physically overpowered by someone (This happens surprisingly often) I'm reminded of just how mortal, and beyond that, just how human she and Gamma really are. Who knows, I'm probably just overthinking it.
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Post by Ophel on Sept 13, 2014 1:45:22 GMT
Jenny here strongly reminds me of Morticia Addams, of the Addams Family. Ah, what a show.
Edit: Actually previous page. Wrong thread sorry.
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Post by hypixion on Sept 13, 2014 8:10:35 GMT
Am I the only one here thinking that the ship just wants a new flesh body instead of the ship being made flesh?
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Post by warrl on Sept 13, 2014 8:41:25 GMT
Huh. And there I was assuming that urgent trouble meant sending an alert to Jones. I mean, what can Renard do to solve this apart from... telling Jones. Or maybe Parley and Smitty if they are not on the boat. But if they aren't, that's two more people I'd tell before I told Renard, who is not the most free to go about his business. Well, he could also tell Eglamore. And Anja and Donald. And Coyote and Ysengrim. And the former-fairies. By the way, my use of "also" and "and" is deliberate. I don't merely mean he could tell ANY of them, I mean he could tell ALL of them. They would all listen to him. And he's the one being most likely to seriously consider all of them. Anyone else on the list would probably fail to consider some on the list - a few would probably not consider telling ANYONE else before they acted. We haven't seen Renard in combat Actually, we have... ..and he is. At least when combating an etheric flying mantis shrimp. |
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Post by todd on Sept 13, 2014 10:55:46 GMT
Since Reynardine's not allowed to leave the Court, I don't think he could tell Coyote and Ysengrin - the closest he could get to that would be to have someone else (such as Anja or Eglamore) pass the news on to them.
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Post by Per on Sept 13, 2014 11:00:40 GMT
Let's hope that Tom's not cruel enough to have something like this next week: MONDAY: Panels of the students' horrified responses as the cruise ship enters Zimmy's world - and in the bottom corner, another "antimony" symbol representing the end of a chapter. WEDNESDAY: The next Treatise. FRIDAY: Tea announcing that it's time for another two-week hiatus with more City Face stories. I think he could do something like cut away from the ship POV and show the flier arriving at the Court, and then the task force approaching the serenely floating ship much later, walking down its (possibly flesh-covered) corridors to find out what happened. |
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Post by todd on Sept 13, 2014 11:25:16 GMT
One other thought - how will this experience affect Kat? After discovering how her quest to find a new and better way to build a robot had led to herself, Annie, Paz, and the rest of the kids in their year being placed in such danger, I wouldn't be surprised if she lost a lot of her enthusiasm for scientific projects for a long time.
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Post by philman on Sept 13, 2014 14:03:25 GMT
Also: Tom: "that's torn it". I wonder if he's referring to court-forest relations? Or the lightning bolt is Zimmy snapping? I just took Tom's comment as homage to cheesy movies that try and insert the title of the film into the dialogue... |
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Post by Ophel on Sept 13, 2014 15:06:03 GMT
Also: Tom: "that's torn it". I wonder if he's referring to court-forest relations? Or the lightning bolt is Zimmy snapping? I just took Tom's comment as homage to cheesy movies that try and insert the title of the film into the dialogue... To me, it seems like it's one of his quips, regarding title dropping. |
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Post by The Anarch on Sept 13, 2014 15:24:20 GMT
I think he could do something like cut away from the ship POV and show the flier arriving at the Court, and then the task force approaching the serenely floating ship much later, walking down its (possibly flesh-covered) corridors to find out what happened. They'll have to nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Alternate Reference: Can they not feel the glory of the flesh? Do they not yearn to be free of the tyranny of the individual? |
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Post by Daedalus on Sept 13, 2014 16:02:11 GMT
Also: Tom: "that's torn it". I wonder if he's referring to court-forest relations? Or the lightning bolt is Zimmy snapping? I just took Tom's comment as homage to cheesy movies that try and insert the title of the film into the dialogue... See, I like it when a book or movie can pull that off well haha  though admittedly this one seemed forced.* *the title drop, not the chapter, of course |
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Post by philman on Sept 13, 2014 16:03:28 GMT
I just took Tom's comment as homage to cheesy movies that try and insert the title of the film into the dialogue... See, I like it when a book or movie can pull that off well haha though admittedly this one seemed forced.* *the title drop, not the chapter, of course They're always forced, have you watched James Bond? heh. |
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Post by warrl on Sept 13, 2014 16:15:18 GMT
That seeking spell needs to also be powering their little aircraft. A cruise ship typically travels at roughly 25 MILES per hour (actually expressed at 20 knots), although some modern ones can sustain about 35. If the ship left the dock at noon (probably earlier) and it's now 6:00 (probably later), that's 150 miles traveled and a likely straight-line distance in excess of 100 miles. Drones small enough to fly out a window have range much shorter than that. One of the more highly hacker-approved ones has a flight time of 25 minutes. Its top speed is 15 meters per second. This works out to less than 40 MPH, which gives the thing a range of less than 25 miles. (And the hacks for extending its range are about *control* range, which is substantially less than half that - but the seeking spell takes care of the control problem.) |
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Post by sapientcoffee on Sept 13, 2014 16:20:35 GMT
They'll have to nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure. Alternate Reference: Can they not feel the glory of the flesh? Do they not yearn to be free of the tyranny of the individual? Either way, it's game over, man, game over. |
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Not that reason ever stopped anyone, of course. Still, if he did bring along someone more reputable/official... 
though admittedly this one seemed forced.*