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Post by SilverbackRon on Oct 5, 2014 8:20:58 GMT
I think the speculation of Renard using his possession power to solve the problem is a bit premature. It would be a needlessly extreme step.
Tom has taken great care in setting the stage of Renardine being trapped in the wolf-doll and ONLY because of that, under Antimony's command. The instant he leaves the wolf plushie, he wouldn't be obliged to do anything she says. I can't imagine Tom throwing away nearly fifty chapters of his story over this single incident.
Will Rey ever leave the wolf body? Maybe as part of the Grand Finale ending of the series, but I don't see that coming any time soon.
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Post by hifranc on Oct 5, 2014 8:25:12 GMT
[...] Reynard said that he could not do anything without the permission of his owner, so Annie would have to allow him to take the ship's body. I would argue that the ship is the property of the Court; the Court would immediately become the "owner" of Reynard. Something tells me that the Court would not allow him to return to Annie's toy. You're forgetting the only reason that Reynard is owned by Annie is the fact that the toy she owned had a symbol on it. Before then, he was not owned by anyone. If he leaves, he will not be owned by anyone unless the "body" he takes over has a similar etheric symbol on it. If he took over the ship and it did not have such a failsafe, he will not be owned by anyone! {edit} Ninja'd by SilverbackRon |
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Post by asyetunnamed on Oct 5, 2014 8:45:15 GMT
Ah, okay. I thought that it was because he had taken over something that was owned by Annie and that the symbol was something that occurred later (i.e. it wasn't part of the toy before he took it over). Also, I thought that the lack of him being "owned" beforehand was because he had taken over independent creatures and humans. Maybe my viewpoint is a little skewed, thinking that the robots (built for, and serving, the Court) would be treated more as possessions than people and creatures. Maybe adding flesh would circumvent this in the case of the ship.
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Post by hifranc on Oct 5, 2014 9:21:44 GMT
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Post by todd on Oct 5, 2014 10:33:33 GMT
In any case, having Reynardine possess the ship means killing it. Not disarming it, not putting it temporarily out of commission, but killing it. If this was in the middle of desperate battle with no other way to protect the students, yes, but even then (especially given the tone of the comic), Annie and Rey should not embark upon it lightly.
We don't even know what the thoughts and motives of the ship will be in by the time the rescue party arrives (will Kat and Paz get it to realize that its endangering the students on board out of its desire for Lindsey was selfish and wrong, and bring it to contrition?), whether it will be a genuine enemy, or anything else. At this point, talking about having Reynardine possess the ship as if it was simply an exciting battle tactic and as if the ship would revert to normal once he stopped possessing it seems callous.
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Post by davidm on Oct 5, 2014 16:42:20 GMT
In any case, having Reynardine possess the ship means killing it. Not disarming it, not putting it temporarily out of commission, but killing it. If this was in the middle of desperate battle with no other way to protect the students, yes, but even then (especially given the tone of the comic), Annie and Rey should not embark upon it lightly. . Hetty... was not in middle of desperate battle, could have done something else like alert Eglamore or Jones. Renard holds his title of protector of court seriously and feels little regret in besting and killing a non innocent in a fight. Humans think more in terms of jail, forest creatures play rougher at times... (A stray wolf has to run for his life if he tries to join a pack and gets rejected... if he is too slow the pack will kill him) ... Renard killed Hetty partially because carried away with "evil" type actions rather than just foolish, unclear how Renard will view the ship, may depend on how ship acts... ... It may become needed for Annie's friends to ally with spiders against a common robot foe, and having a talent for talking with normal animals may also apply to whitelegs. |
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Post by warrl on Oct 5, 2014 16:50:52 GMT
Beings that Reynardine possesses, as I understand it, die when he leaves because the original soul can't re-take possession of the body.
Robots apparently do not (yet?) have souls. A "dead" robot can be resurrected by repairing (or splicing around) the cause of "death", as long as the CPU is physically intact. Even moving the CPU to a completely different (but compatible) body will resurrect the robot.
So Rey could take possession of the ship, and control it *as long as he possesses it*. Absent any other change, as soon as he moves on the ship will revert. We have no information on whether it could have contemplated its actions while Rey was in charge.
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Post by davidm on Oct 5, 2014 17:30:03 GMT
Beings that Reynardine possesses, as I understand it, die when he leaves because the original soul can't re-take possession of the body. Robots apparently do not (yet?) have souls. A "dead" robot can be resurrected by repairing (or splicing around) the cause of "death", as long as the CPU is physically intact. Even moving the CPU to a completely different (but compatible) body will resurrect the robot. So Rey could take possession of the ship, and control it *as long as he possesses it*. Absent any other change, as soon as he moves on the ship will revert. We have no information on whether it could have contemplated its actions while Rey was in charge. Question here is what does "give flesh" mean? Coyote was supposedly *created* by belief and we have seen what happens when Renard and Hetty lose bodies, they can fly to different one and if not Renard would have died. One alternative explanation in myths is if you have flesh/body without a "soul" then something else can move in, usually ends up being evil ghost/spirit. |
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Post by keef on Oct 5, 2014 21:19:28 GMT
What do you mean by this, Gamma's mind-speaking? That Jack can understand Gamma's telepathy. It's just pretty sudden and unexplained, so far. Bit of wild spec: Thanks to the whitelegs Jack is now "tuned" to Zimmy's mind, a bit like Gamma, and as Gamma "sends/receives" on the same frequency, Jack is now picking up her thoughts as well. (language has nothing to do with it; when Zimmy & Gamma met, Zimmy most certainly did not know Polish) Together they should now be able to find Zimmy by triangulation..  |
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Post by sapientcoffee on Oct 5, 2014 21:51:31 GMT
In any case, having Reynardine possess the ship means killing it. Not disarming it, not putting it temporarily out of commission, but killing it. If this was in the middle of desperate battle with no other way to protect the students, yes, but even then (especially given the tone of the comic), Annie and Rey should not embark upon it lightly. . Hetty... was not in middle of desperate battle, could have done something else like alert Eglamore or Jones. Renard holds his title of protector of court seriously and feels little regret in besting and killing a non innocent in a fight. Humans think more in terms of jail, forest creatures play rougher at times... (A stray wolf has to run for his life if he tries to join a pack and gets rejected... if he is too slow the pack will kill him) ... Renard killed Hetty partially because carried away with "evil" type actions rather than just foolish, unclear how Renard will view the ship, may depend on how ship acts... ... It may become needed for Annie's friends to ally with spiders against a common robot foe, and having a talent for talking with normal animals may also apply to whitelegs. Hetty was something like himself. Telling someone belonging to the court about her, and letting them deal with it instead of doing it himself could be more of a betrayal than killing her was. |
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Post by davidm on Oct 6, 2014 2:01:21 GMT
Hetty... was not in middle of desperate battle, could have done something else like alert Eglamore or Jones. Renard holds his title of protector of court seriously and feels little regret in besting and killing a non innocent in a fight. Humans think more in terms of jail, forest creatures play rougher at times... (A stray wolf has to run for his life if he tries to join a pack and gets rejected... if he is too slow the pack will kill him) ... Renard killed Hetty partially because carried away with "evil" type actions rather than just foolish, unclear how Renard will view the ship, may depend on how ship acts... ... It may become needed for Annie's friends to ally with spiders against a common robot foe, and having a talent for talking with normal animals may also apply to whitelegs. Hetty was something like himself. Telling someone belonging to the court about her, and letting them deal with it instead of doing it himself could be more of a betrayal than killing her was. Same logic can be applied to ship... betrayal of robots to tell court, as may trigger wave of anti robot hysteria. In contrast Renard telling court about Hetty would show someone like Renard was "bad" but Renard was "good" so neutral as far as bias towards Renard's kind. |
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Post by troll on Oct 6, 2014 3:00:33 GMT
That Jack can understand Gamma's telepathy. It's just pretty sudden and unexplained, so far. Bit of wild spec: Thanks to the whitelegs Jack is now "tuned" to Zimmy's mind, a bit like Gamma, and as Gamma "sends/receives" on the same frequency, Jack is now picking up her thoughts as well. (language has nothing to do with it; when Zimmy & Gamma met, Zimmy most certainly did not know Polish) Together they should now be able to find Zimmy by triangulation.. There's also the turn of thought of not adding any new capabilities and explaining the situation from our existing body of knowledge. That has Jack being Zimmy. |
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Post by davidm on Oct 6, 2014 3:38:42 GMT
Bit of wild spec: Thanks to the whitelegs Jack is now "tuned" to Zimmy's mind, a bit like Gamma, and as Gamma "sends/receives" on the same frequency, Jack is now picking up her thoughts as well. (language has nothing to do with it; when Zimmy & Gamma met, Zimmy most certainly did not know Polish) Together they should now be able to find Zimmy by triangulation.. There's also the turn of thought of not adding any new capabilities and explaining the situation from our existing body of knowledge. That has Jack being Zimmy. Gamma automatically knew when Annie was really Zimmy |
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Post by Daedalus on Oct 6, 2014 5:02:58 GMT
There's also the turn of thought of not adding any new capabilities and explaining the situation from our existing body of knowledge. That has Jack being Zimmy. Gamma automatically knew when Annie was really Zimmy Though this could be a nobody rather than Gamma, which would clear those problems up. Though I doubt Tom would do that; it would be too similar to last time. |
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Post by zimmyzims on Oct 6, 2014 6:41:04 GMT
Welcome to the forums, alexsl! Now, being fascinated with eldritch playdoh is one thing. Actually helping the ship would be another. I hope Kat won't give in to his demands simply because she's curious about what she could or couldn't do with the playdoh. That might (maybe) happen if she were by herself, but with Paz standing there to act as her conscience, it's even more unlikely. Most likely, but it may be Kat flexing her meat-puppet muscles as well. Though I doubt this; it actually looks very like the robot "muscle" she created in the lab, then accidentally burned. Although it is a fairly well backed up assumption that every real body on the ship would have been brought to the Zimmingham, possibly for the reason you say, it does not follow that everybody in Zimmingham is real. It may be true, but it does not logically follow. You see, whether or not everybody was brought to Zimmingham, does not affect what else is there, for example, the nobodies. Everybody can be there, and Annie can still be seeing nobodies, while the others really are in other parts of the Z-ville. Fallacy of the undistributed middle, I believe? She does, and most of us think she's a great character, but when you have an old character and a new character that was initially introduced as a replacement for said old character, the old character's name is always going to come to mind first. This makes it difficult to remember the new character's name, and she's not yet on the "cast" page, so in the interest of time, people go with the easier option. Here is a link to Jenny's introduction, if it will help anyone! (heh, even Kat had this problem!) Also, that third panel has ended my dislike of Jack. He's clearly tired and kind of out of it, but still trying to make sure Zimmy is all right. He's a good egg! (Tom, don't pull a betrayal, please!) Yes. To everything, except that I kind of hope Jack will turn a menace again at some point. |
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Post by eyemyself on Oct 6, 2014 17:09:13 GMT
In any case, having Reynardine possess the ship means killing it. Not disarming it, not putting it temporarily out of commission, but killing it. If this was in the middle of desperate battle with no other way to protect the students, yes, but even then (especially given the tone of the comic), Annie and Rey should not embark upon it lightly. We don't even know what the thoughts and motives of the ship will be in by the time the rescue party arrives (will Kat and Paz get it to realize that its endangering the students on board out of its desire for Lindsey was selfish and wrong, and bring it to contrition?), whether it will be a genuine enemy, or anything else. At this point, talking about having Reynardine possess the ship as if it was simply an exciting battle tactic and as if the ship would revert to normal once he stopped possessing it seems callous. Having Rey possess the ship would also break Annie's contract of ownership over him... which would free him from her control and in the eyes of the court that would put him back on the radar as a threat to be contained, controlled, or eliminated. |
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Post by arkadi on Oct 6, 2014 20:49:01 GMT
OK, I think we can sum up a few good reasons why Renard wouldn't try to take over the ship's body (and, if ordered to do so by Annie, would try to talk her out of it): -that body is most definitely neither a safe nor a sane place to be. -it could potentially end up with Renard becoming Court property, as asyetunnamed pointed out.-he could easily put himself in the ship's shoes, doing a foolish, dangerous thing for love and all that. I don't think he'd be too keen to kill the poor fellow, unless there was no other choice. Nah, I really can't see that happening :/ Gunnerkrigg court might like such as experiment as a way to become "gods" as coyote describes motives... Now, there's a worrying thought. Coyote's description -"Man's endeavour to become god"- sounds awfully close to what we all suspect is going to happen to Kat. I can think of two possible scenarios: 1: whichever way this turns out, Kat becomes the center of the Court's attention. And it ain't pretty. 2: even worse, the Court is already wise to Kat's potential and this is all their experiment. They, not Coyote, duped the ship; or at least they allowed and/or enabled it to carry on with its crazy scheme, just to see what Kat could do. (The seraphs helping the ship is one of the weirder things about this whole set-up, right? Well, how about they were acting on the Court's orders?) |
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Post by todd on Oct 6, 2014 22:15:38 GMT
Do we know that "Man's endeavour to become God" is how the Court sees itself? That's Coyote's perspective, and he most likely sees the Court's activities with a different angle than the people who work there do.
We know that the Court is experimenting with the ether, and Coyote has described the ether as the thing that shapes humanity's subconscious into the creatures of myth and legend. (Not to mention that Jones said that the Court's experiments with the ether might result in bringing all manner of humanity's nightmares into the waking world.) Could Coyote's words be his summary of the Court manipulating the ether as he perceives it - that by shaping the raw materials from which he and other mythical beings supposedly sprang from, it could end up possessing godlike powers over the world? But the scientists at the Court may see the ether as just another something to be studied, like gravity, without realizing just what those studies could lead to.
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Post by arkadi on Oct 6, 2014 23:03:57 GMT
Maybe the Court doesn't see itself like that -but that doesn't mean it isn't true...
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Post by thedoctor on Oct 7, 2014 3:57:13 GMT
In any case, having Reynardine possess the ship means killing it. Not disarming it, not putting it temporarily out of commission, but killing it. If this was in the middle of desperate battle with no other way to protect the students, yes, but even then (especially given the tone of the comic), Annie and Rey should not embark upon it lightly. . Hetty... was not in middle of desperate battle, could have done something else like alert Eglamore or Jones. Renard holds his title of protector of court seriously and feels little regret in besting and killing a non innocent in a fight. Humans think more in terms of jail, forest creatures play rougher at times... (A stray wolf has to run for his life if he tries to join a pack and gets rejected... if he is too slow the pack will kill him) ... Renard killed Hetty partially because carried away with "evil" type actions rather than just foolish, unclear how Renard will view the ship, may depend on how ship acts... ... It may become needed for Annie's friends to ally with spiders against a common robot foe, and having a talent for talking with normal animals may also apply to whitelegs. In addition to this, on the subject of "desperate battles," I feel like with what Renard knows of Zimmingham (heck, with what I know of Zimmingham) this many students going in counts as a desperate situation, let alone the potentially reality-altering and apocalyptic potential of a level 6 distortion actually messing with reality. I am totally ok with the ship being "killed." It's endangering hundreds of lives, it's pretty clearly being unreasonable, and (from Rey's perspective) there might be no other way to get it to change. This is a situation where deadly force is a valid option. That said, I don't think it's going to happen. It might not solve the problem, and there would be no point in bringing the other robots along. However, if killing the ship was a way to immediately end the trauma these students are going through, I would go for it. |
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Post by todd on Oct 7, 2014 10:51:07 GMT
Maybe the Court doesn't see itself like that -but that doesn't mean it isn't true... Yes, but I think that the Court's perspective on its own work is also important. I don't think this is some association of deranged mad scientists out to use their discoveries for global domination. |
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Post by arkadi on Oct 7, 2014 19:40:52 GMT
Mmm, global domination... ^^
Hm, I mean -no, they don't seem to be bent on global domination. But they do have a young girl with reality-warping powers which she can just barely control, and they basically let her run around free. How's that for "mad"?
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Post by thedoctor on Oct 7, 2014 20:16:34 GMT
Mmm, global domination... ^^ Hm, I mean -no, they don't seem to be bent on global domination. But they do have a young girl with reality-warping powers which she can just barely control, and they basically let her run around free. How's that for "mad"? Weird as it sounds, this is probably the best option if you think about it. And she's not really "free"; she's not running around in the outside world causing an untold amount of damage--she's in a contained environment where they know how to deal (to some extent) with etheric disturbances, and she's allowed (even encouraged) to have her dampener friend with her at all time. Granted, there are significant ulterior motives, but I would say that it could be construed much more logically and altruistically than just "we must keep her--for SCIENCE!" |
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Post by bykerhill on Oct 7, 2014 21:45:19 GMT
Mmm, global domination... ^^ Hm, I mean -no, they don't seem to be bent on global domination. But they do have a young girl with reality-warping powers which she can just barely control, and they basically let her run around free. How's that for "mad"? Weird as it sounds, this is probably the best option if you think about it. And she's not really "free"; she's not running around in the outside world causing an untold amount of damage--she's in a contained environment where they know how to deal (to some extent) with etheric disturbances, and she's allowed (even encouraged) to have her dampener friend with her at all time. Granted, there are significant ulterior motives, but I would say that it could be construed much more logically and altruistically than just "we must keep her--for SCIENCE!" Yeah. I think if anything how the Court has dealt with Zimmy and Gamma speaks more for a basic benevolence than anything else. I mean, the Court didn't create her powers, and after taking her in for study they could have: * Put her in a lab cage like one of Paz's animals, then tested drugs on her to dampen or enhance her abilities. * Dissected her or performed surgical experiments on her brain. * Monitored her 24/7 even though, as Jones noted, it causes her discomfort. Given that there's nobody of any importance who gives a fig what becomes of the girls, and the fact that they are at once dangerous and interesting test subjects for the Court, you could make a strong argument that the Court is being very respectful of Zimmy's basic human rights and refraining from treating her in an 'evil mad scientist' way. |
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Post by todd on Oct 7, 2014 22:06:49 GMT
Mmm, global domination... ^^ Hm, I mean -no, they don't seem to be bent on global domination. But they do have a young girl with reality-warping powers which she can just barely control, and they basically let her run around free. How's that for "mad"? Maybe (though thedoctor and bykerhill have made good points about the Court's policy not being that insane). But I certainly can't picture the Court hooking Zimmy up to a machine that would make her horrors appear in major cities around the world and then delivering an ultimatum to every government on Earth to submit to the Court and allow it complete control over human society (or at least, transferring a lot of ransom money to the Court's Swiss bank account) in return for calling off their attack. (Indeed, I can't imagine such behavior happening in "Gunnerkrigg Court" outside of one of Doctor Disaster's simulations.) |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on Oct 7, 2014 23:43:18 GMT
Paz has already said it, "The Court isn't a big monster that does as it pleases, es a collection of people, working to do what they think is right." gunnerkrigg.com/?p=754People with noticeable etheric talents pop up occasionally in the rest of the world. It makes sense that the Court would try to take these people into the Court. It strengthens the Court and decreases the chances that the rest of the humanity will become more aware and react with fear to people with etheric talents. Given the covert support the Court provided during WWII, it isn't far fetched to assume that covert cooperation still occurs and some Government's shunt problems like Zimmy off to the Court. I think Tom has established running theme in the Court, normal people with abnormal talents trying to live normally. That includes love making them act in strange ways. |
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Post by arkadi on Oct 10, 2014 9:50:25 GMT
thedoctor, bykerhill, todd: I'll try to be concise. What you guys say is true, yeah, and I agree with all of it. Still, two facts remain: -reckelessness / obliviousness to danger is a classical mad scientist trait: and leaving someone like Zimmy almost completely unattended is pretty reckless if you ask me. Yeah, she doesn't like being monitored: but the Court should have the means to keep tabs on her without being obstrusive. At the very least, there should be someone whose job is to think of stuff like "Damn, there's been no rain in a fortnight -better go check if that girl's doing all right." -it's also been established that the Court can be ruthless and manipulative when it wants to be. So I'm not going to discard the possibility that someone at the Court is involved in this mess, either actively (they secretly arranged the whole thing) or passively (they knew about Mr. Ship's crazy plan and decided to just let it go ahead and see how things played out)
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Post by warrl on Oct 10, 2014 15:33:40 GMT
thedoctor, bykerhill, todd: I'll try to be concise. What you guys say is true, yeah, and I agree with all of it. Still, two facts remain: -recklessness / obliviousness to danger is a classical mad scientist trait: and leaving someone like Zimmy almost completely unattended is pretty reckless if you ask me. Yeah, she doesn't like being monitored: but the Court should have the means to keep tabs on her without being obtrusive. They don't directly track Zimmy. They have observed that Zimmy and Gamma won't willingly be separated by a significant distance for a significant amount of time. They track Gamma. (They may also have more cameras than we've been shown.) |
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Post by bykerhill on Oct 10, 2014 19:01:39 GMT
thedoctor, bykerhill, todd: I'll try to be concise. What you guys say is true, yeah, and I agree with all of it. Still, two facts remain: -reckelessness / obliviousness to danger is a classical mad scientist trait: and leaving someone like Zimmy almost completely unattended is pretty reckless if you ask me. Yeah, she doesn't like being monitored: but the Court should have the means to keep tabs on her without being obstrusive. At the very least, there should be someone whose job is to think of stuff like "Damn, there's been no rain in a fortnight -better go check if that girl's doing all right." It's heavily implied that Zimmy can tell when she's being watched or tracked, and it puts her seriously on edge. Jones tells Annie that Zimmy's movements aren't tracked because of this, and then goes on to add the Court generally tracks people through their food. Which is a pretty subtle and non-obtrusive way of doing it. Once you establish that Zimmy can sense it when you try to watch or track her, the act of doing so potentially becomes more dangerous than just leaving her unattended, since Zimmy getting agitated seems to exacerbate her condition. It is entirely possible that there's someone who checks on Zimmy and Gamma every few days and makes sure everything is cool and there's nothing they need. We just haven't seen such a person in-comic. |
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Post by keef on Oct 10, 2014 21:18:17 GMT
Maybe the Court doesn't see itself like that -but that doesn't mean it isn't true... Yes, but I think that the Court's perspective on its own work is also important. I don't think this is some association of deranged mad scientists out to use their discoveries for global domination. Global domination is not going to last long in a world where Gods are real. I think the Court is no longer interested in the physical world, it's leaders are building some castle in the sky by manipulating the ether. The whole emptiness of the court, the fact only the headmaster is shown as a leader, and his obvious disinterest in daily affairs, make me think the Court does no longer care for the court. Diego was an alchemist, their goal in the end is eternal life. The Court's leadership want to live forever, and they understand they need to control the ether to do so. The other thing they need is belief. So they need believers. Kat may actually be competition for the Court. |
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