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Post by Gemminie on Feb 20, 2023 22:59:13 GMT
Today's wild speculation from me: Kat has just died in the process of activating her neural link with her computer, and her mind/soul/psyche/etc. has just been transferred into her new computer via that link. The psychopomps won't come for Kat, because she's not dead, just moved to another "body." The activator device was sabotaged by the Court at the direction of Omega, who predicted Kat would do this and prescribed this course of action as the best one – not necessarily for the Court, but for Omega's own plans.
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Post by maxptc on Feb 22, 2023 19:31:31 GMT
Today's wild speculation from me: Kat has just died in the process of activating her neural link with her computer, and her mind/soul/psyche/etc. has just been transferred into her new computer via that link. The psychopomps won't come for Kat, because she's not dead, just moved to another "body." This is basically my wild speculation as well, but I question if the psychopomps will still harvest Kats "soul" and if its also been transferred. Since the new people don't appear to be alive in the way that magic defines alive, she might only be a copy of her mind and/or psyche. Annie might be expected to guide her, and decides to do something crazy that also contributes to Kats robotic form. I wonder if we will see Kats soul talking to Annie next few pages. |
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Post by madjack on Feb 24, 2023 8:21:02 GMT
Today's page looks like that was half-right, but Kat asking them not to touch her real body means it's probably an anchor to life for her and the connection to the computer system is just a projection. I wonder if this explains the appearance of the mecha-angel too, it looks like a suit of armour because it metaphorically is. Perhaps it's the etheric representation of a life support mechanism of some kind, perhaps similar to the ones the Court uses to grow the Foley kids, and Kat used to create the NPs. Kat's real body is contained within it, while the cables that connect where the eyes are her extending herself through other technology. Hmm. What will the Arrow being connected to her computer enable her to do now?
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Post by bedinsis on Feb 24, 2023 17:19:27 GMT
Very wild theory: Kat is Robot. She will lose her sense of identity when unbound from her flesh and blood self, yet still carry a memory of things that she has seen, and travel back in time through... some unspecified machinations to be the robot that would eventually speak of the coming of the Angel.
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Post by Nnelg on Feb 27, 2023 14:54:52 GMT
Just realized...
Kat is her mother's computer confirmed!
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Post by jda on Mar 8, 2023 9:28:13 GMT
/wildspec Kat has shown the ability to think about and then manifest any object. What if Kat has unknowingly tapped into the Ether, condensing it into solid shapes? I think that would be kind of Full Metal Alchemist revelation, that when they use transmutation, really they are spending lives/life forms from other dimensions, effectively "killing" them. It could be considered a crime by a certain arbiter. |
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Post by guntherkrieg on Mar 8, 2023 10:03:49 GMT
Wild spec: Katrina's computer IS Zimmingham.
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 8, 2023 18:12:45 GMT
/wildspec Kat has shown the ability to think about and then manifest any object. What if Kat has unknowingly tapped into the Ether, condensing it into solid shapes? I think that would be kind of Full Metal Alchemist revelation, that when they use transmutation, really they are spending lives/life forms from other dimensions, effectively "killing" them. It could be considered a crime by a certain arbiter. On the page you linked she is clearly using the terminal on her computer to do it. She is pulling objects from storage just like her dad did in "Microsat 5". Later she can also make new objects appear, but clearly states they are manufactured in her secret workshop and then again sent there through the matter transferance system... |
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Post by blahzor on Mar 8, 2023 21:40:09 GMT
Wild spec: Katrina's computer IS Zimmingham. it's when you clean the place up a bit. the nobodies are actually just Kat's manufacturing machines |
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Post by jda on Mar 9, 2023 6:34:05 GMT
/wildspec Kat has shown the ability to think about and then manifest any object. What if Kat has unknowingly tapped into the Ether, condensing it into solid shapes? I think that would be kind of Full Metal Alchemist revelation, that when they use transmutation, really they are spending lives/life forms from other dimensions, effectively "killing" them. It could be considered a crime by a certain arbiter. On the page you linked she is clearly using the terminal on her computer to do it. She is pulling objects from storage just like her dad did in "Microsat 5". Later she can also make new objects appear, but clearly states they are manufactured in her secret workshop and then again sent there through the matter transferance system... I mean, all the "just works, ain't it?" of Kat's matter transferance system, the cubic code of the robots, etc is revealed to be expenditures of Ether, like taking a chunk of spent lives (that makes the world spin, pup) and using them as fuel for transfering a videogame disc. Would you consider ethical takinng Mort's life force and burning it to transfer/create a chair? |
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Post by jda on Mar 9, 2023 7:27:20 GMT
It seems to me that this is a possible violation of the Arbiter Terms and Conditions on the use of the Arrow, like duplicating the holder-body contract, so Kat would be forced to choose which one to use: her organic body or the "electronic wave" one currently in use.
And they will not be fazed by Annie saying that Kat is locked out of her account... err, body.
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Post by AluK on Mar 9, 2023 11:42:03 GMT
In Mage: the Awakening series of RPGs, magic is actually tapping into parallel realms (Supernal Realms) and pulling aspects of them into our own reality. Each Supernal realm is kind of a platonic realm (in Mage parlance, the "real world" is a shadow cast by the Supernal Realms, kinda like shadows are 2D representations of 3D objects).
Kat supercomputer is kind of a Supernal Realm here.
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Post by pyradonis on Mar 9, 2023 15:18:55 GMT
On the page you linked she is clearly using the terminal on her computer to do it. She is pulling objects from storage just like her dad did in "Microsat 5". Later she can also make new objects appear, but clearly states they are manufactured in her secret workshop and then again sent there through the matter transferance system... I mean, all the "just works, ain't it?" of Kat's matter transferance system, the cubic code of the robots, etc is revealed to be expenditures of Ether, like taking a chunk of spent lives (that makes the world spin, pup) and using them as fuel for transfering a videogame disc. Would you consider ethical takinng Mort's life force and burning it to transfer/create a chair? Of course I wouldn't (reminds me of Final Fantasy 7, by the way). I'm just not seeing at the moment why this specific application of Etheric sciences should have such a dark cost? Why would the flames Annie creates not also be fueled by life energy floating around, for example? |
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Post by jda on Mar 10, 2023 8:46:21 GMT
I mean, all the "just works, ain't it?" of Kat's matter transferance system, the cubic code of the robots, etc is revealed to be expenditures of Ether, like taking a chunk of spent lives (that makes the world spin, pup) and using them as fuel for transfering a videogame disc. Would you consider ethical takinng Mort's life force and burning it to transfer/create a chair? Of course I wouldn't (reminds me of Final Fantasy 7, by the way). I'm just not seeing at the moment why this specific application of Etheric sciences should have such a dark cost? Why would the flames Annie creates not also be fueled by life energy floating around, for example? Well, they coulda, you know? Even if it's certain the ability to use fire burns up some joules from her body, for the moral theme of the comic (sometimes vague to me, like with the ownership contracts) it could be "fine" when a life form uses up Ether, accounted for (like in the food chain in nature, when animals kill each other or feed from corpses and it is "fine"), oh, but when a man-made machine does, they are " meddling with the very fabric of existence". |
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Post by exquisitecorpus on Mar 11, 2023 5:38:24 GMT
Apologies if this has already been theorized, but here's my WildSpec: I believe the Nobodies of Zimmingham may in fact be future denizens (born and unborn) of the New World. Compare the eldritch glitch-glyphs that mar their faces to the general shape/form of the distortion on the Court official who relays the Court's plans to leave for the New World. Uncannily similar, though not identical. The similarities are enough to raise eyebrows, though. Nobodies customarily disappear when touched, but Zimmy states on page 460 that this isn't universally the case—sometimes real people also resemble Nobodies, and it happens frequently enough that Zimmy has trouble telling them apart. We see on page 190 that Zimmy sometimes witnesses events that happen in the future—on that page, for instance, she saw a close approximation of Renard's breakout in chapter 3. I say close approximation, because the pole that speared Renard (as Sivo) does not appear in the same exact place, and the gurgling creature likely representing Renard in Zimmy's vision is far more lupine/fox-like than Renard's stolen Orjak body—almost like an amalgamation of Renard's latent, essential form with his stolen corporeal form. This makes sense to me. Zimmy's sight, though not entirely accurate or precise, seems far more equipped to penetrate metaphysical and etheric truths than it is fixated on physical truths. That would account for the slight difference in distortion effects between Nobodies and that one Court official with the anti-memory suit. And if Zimmy can glimpse the future, it stands to reason she can see people who do not yet exist. What about the technology that the Court spokesperson employs to mask their identity and prevent memory formation? It's at least partially etheric—and therefore I don't believe it is or ever will be infallible, however meticulously the Court prepares for every contingency. Certainly someone as immensely etherically powerful as Zimmy (whose power is on par with Coyote, who has been shown to be capable of outwitting Court tech before) could override or negate some part of it. We see on page 730 that Zimmy can manifest memories of real people in Zimmingham. What if she can also see figments of people who are yet to exist? And then there's the fact that no one barred from traveling to the New World have ever to our knowledge appeared as Nobodies in Zimmingham. They all look normal. Here's an inventory of everyone notable (including people I was surprised to find were excluded from the meeting, given their ostensible insensitivity to the ether): Janet Llanwellyn, the headmaster's daughter; William; Paz; Jack; Jenny; and the elves chasing Zimmy in chapter 79. As for Kat, she was only included in the meeting because the Court made a mistake. I think she was originally meant to be ether-insensitive, which would have made her a prime candidate for the New World, but her increasing contact with the ether and time-stream-meddling—set into motion by her friendship with Annie—destined her for apotheosis and made her ether-sensitive. The Court is becoming increasingly fallible, thanks to Annie's existence confounding the Omega Device, and so they are as of yet unaware of Kat's etheric potential. Most salient is the fact that Kat is not going to the New World (unless she changes her mind—highly unlikely). And she also appears normal in Zimmingham. Yes, I know, mea culpa—a negative doesn't necessarily prove a positive, and I can't exactly assert that the mere fact these aforementioned people have not appeared as Nobodies in Zimmingham precludes other ether-sensitive people from appearing as Nobodies in Zimmingham (which would poke big holes in my theory, haha). But in light of everything else? What if there is something to this? What if Nobodies in Zimmingham are figments of New Worlders? What if Nobodies who don't disappear when touched are Court people who currently exist, but who are destined to make the trip over to the New World? What if Nobodies who disappear when touched are descendants of New World pilgrims—not yet in existence, but whose potential for existence makes them real enough to appear as figments in Zimmingham: that bleak, hyper-urban, brutalist sprawl of streets and grungy buildings that appears almost incongruously mundane in the face of the many horrifying etheric creatures that seem determined to invade and populate the space? Zimmingham devours, amplifies, and amalgamates everything real, phantasmagorical, or etheric, past, present, and future. It isn't hard to believe it can manifest a people of the future, separated by a physical and metaphysical gulf—forgotten nobodies, quarantined in a joyless matrix of their own devising. GOD, that's long. Thank you for reading this monstrosity. |
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Post by Druplesnubb on Mar 13, 2023 9:25:59 GMT
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 16, 2023 13:18:12 GMT
Hypothesis: The Court proper isn't after Zeta, Aata is.
The Court had plenty of time to study Zeta and should know a fair bit about her. There's been a state of emergency for a good while now but we haven't seen any sort of effort to corral her. She's got power but not much control and they're just not big on etheric means to ends. That, plus the effect using her would have on her, is why they've probably decided to just leave Zeta to her own devices. Aata on the other hand will resort to etheric methods if he thinks it's needed and could rationalize... well, probably whatever he thinks would serve the greater good.
We never found out what Aata and Shell were after when they were chatting up Kat and Antimony. My guess is that they needed some sort of trust or access in order to do something etheric in nature that would allow them to use Antimony to flush out Zeta for them. I'm thinking that if Aata can either trap or chase away "Loup" (probably trap) then at the very least he's bought them a lot of time to complete their move, and if they cancel the move altogether then Aata will be the savior of the Court. This wouldn't get him his leadership position in the Shadow Men back (because he used etheric means) but so what? He'll be in a position to build his own competing organization where he'll have even more latitude then he had before.
Of course Zeta's power would be very hard to manage. Even if he could flat-out steal her power and use it I'm not sure Aata can do it by himself, but even if he can... I think he'd prefer to have someone else do the dirty work. He likes to play mind games, too. So... A crisis, manipulation, a sacrificed girl and a trap. Sound familiar? I don't think Aata knows about Diego's arrow, though, so he'll need another method. What appears to be called for here is some of that old black magic. Sounds like a job for a witch.
Jenny's been in Zimmingham so she's even got some firsthand experience. Jack's still in love with Zeta so not only could Aata appeal to Jenny's community spirit but the elimination of Zeta would also mean the demise of her bf's crush, hopeless as that crush may be. Aata probably knew of Jenny long before any of this; as a Shadow Man he would have been keeping tabs on the local etheric users, probably the witch community in particular. Maybe Aata found out about the meeting from monitoring Antimony and Kat, maybe he learned about it from Jenny and keeping tabs on the other girls was just for future use in maneuvering Zeta. Either way I think Aata got to Jenny before the meeting with Antimony, which is why Jenny was acting a bit off.
It's possible that Jenny's mentor caught wind of whatever Aata and Jenny had agreed on and that was the reason that Jenny is an apprentice witch no longer. Jenny's magic seems to need stuff to work so she would likely have to cache some extremely inauspicious components she either gathered herself or got from Aata. She's also inexperienced so maybe she asked one too many suspicious questions. Or maybe something else entirely.
In summary, I'm thinking what happened was that Aata was originally hoping that Kat and Antimony would be desperate enough to fall into line behind him and go along with his plans now and in the future. When that didn't pan out Aata somehow used the access and trust created by the two meetings (minimal as they may have been) to keep tabs on them or in some other way that hasn't been shown in the comic. Antimony was a required component in the locate-Zeta spell since she's on good terms with Zeta. Jenny painted a target on Zeta for Aata and then fixed the blame for that firmly on Antimony, to divert suspicion. "Loup" is hiding, so Aata's plan can't proceed until Aata knows where "Loup" is... but when he does I suspect either Shell or Jenny will contact Antimony to manipulate her with the intent to use her against Zeta again, or Jenny will use Jack as an intermediary for same.
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Post by Gemini Jim on Mar 22, 2023 16:02:21 GMT
Wild spec: Katrina's computer IS Zimmingham. it's when you clean the place up a bit. the nobodies are actually just Kat's manufacturing machines OR! What if: The computer is taking over Zimmingham. It's using up Zimmingham space, so that Kat is effectively destroying Zimmingham. No wonder Zimmy's so pissed at Kat. |
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Post by jda on Mar 23, 2023 8:36:58 GMT
it's when you clean the place up a bit. the nobodies are actually just Kat's manufacturing machines OR! What if: The computer is taking over Zimmingham. It's using up Zimmingham space, so that Kat is effectively destroying Zimmingham. No wonder Zimmy's so pissed at Kat. Why not? After all, we know Zimmy is going to die inside of Zimmingham one day. Maybe in a "SWAP SPACE ERROR" after Kathingham runs out of space. |
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Post by guntherkrieg on Mar 23, 2023 11:45:43 GMT
Apologies if this has already been theorized, but here's my WildSpec: I believe the Nobodies of Zimmingham may in fact be future denizens (born and unborn) of the New World. Compare the eldritch glitch-glyphs that mar their faces to the general shape/form of the distortion on the Court official who relays the Court's plans to leave for the New World. ... Nobodies customarily disappear when touched, but Zimmy states on page 460 that this isn't universally the case—sometimes real people also resemble Nobodies, and it happens frequently enough that Zimmy has trouble telling them apart. ... And if Zimmy can glimpse the future, it stands to reason she can see people who do not yet exist. ... What if she can also see figments of people who are yet to exist? ... It isn't hard to believe it can manifest a people of the future, separated by a physical and metaphysical gulf—forgotten nobodies, quarantined in a joyless matrix of their own devising. I think this might be one of my favourite bits of Wild Spec ever. |
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Post by blahzor on Mar 23, 2023 14:15:39 GMT
OR! What if: The computer is taking over Zimmingham. It's using up Zimmingham space, so that Kat is effectively destroying Zimmingham. No wonder Zimmy's so pissed at Kat. Why not? After all, we know Zimmy is going to die inside of Zimmingham one day. Maybe in a "SWAP SPACE ERROR" after Kathingham runs out of space. zimmingham got formatted from FAT32 to NTFS |
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Post by bedinsis on Mar 24, 2023 17:58:35 GMT
Kat is going to finish chapter 88 with her in her body again, but with the twist that there will also be a version of Kat existing in the computer alone. She will be split, just like Annie was from chapter 68 through chapter 79.
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Post by Isildur on Mar 24, 2023 19:44:56 GMT
Probably not, but: What if this hasn't been Kat addressing them this whole time, ever since the "BANG!"? Kat could be in a coma, and something (the omega device itself? one or more people working on it?) hacked into her computer systems, but can't yet get past Kat's defenses to get into her brain due to security defenses Kat put in place. (The initial attempt to brute force its way in, the moment she connected, could have caused the overload, or the overload could have been deliberate to render her unconscious and unable to fight back or warn Annie and Paz.) So the intruder needs to do some phishing (possibly convenienced by Kat having previously designated Annie and Paz as trusted emergency contacts with some emergency access to her systems). Kat could become something bad not due to her own will, but due to "account" takeover. Apologies if anyone else has suggested this yet. This may be an apt moment to warn: Folks, please be even more careful than before about weird emergency calls you receive. AIs can now clone people's voices passably with 30 seconds of audio from a Facebook or TikTok video, and that's already been capitalized upon by scammers. |
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Post by TBeholder on Mar 24, 2023 21:17:34 GMT
Probably not, but: What if this hasn't been Kat addressing them this whole time, ever since the "BANG!"? Kat could be in a coma, and something (the omega device itself? one or more people working on it?) hacked into her computer systems, but can't yet get past Kat's defenses to get into her brain due to security defenses Kat put in place. (The initial attempt to brute force its way in, the moment she connected, could have caused the overload, or the overload could have been deliberate to render her unconscious and unable to fight back or warn Annie and Paz.) So the intruder needs to do some phishing (possibly convenienced by Kat having previously designated Annie and Paz as trusted emergency contacts with some emergency access to her systems). Good point. Always double check your disembodied voices. Promoting “Deep Fakes 2: Electric Boogaloo”… from Washington Compost, no less? 🤦 Humans could imitate voice from prehistoric times. As a security issue, it applied mostly to doors, of course. Telephone lines with manual-only switching vastly increased the attack surface. Software… could do that for decades, too. Basically, from the moment Fourier transformation of audio records became available, it was possible to transform from one pre-measured custom spectrum to another. As cheap signal processing advanced, this meant ever decreasing amount of non-standard hoops that need jumping on this road. |
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Post by storyteller on Mar 24, 2023 22:19:44 GMT
Probably not, but: What if this hasn't been Kat addressing them this whole time, ever since the "BANG!"? Kat could be in a coma, and something (the omega device itself? one or more people working on it?) hacked into her computer systems, but can't yet get past Kat's defenses to get into her brain due to security defenses Kat put in place. (The initial attempt to brute force its way in, the moment she connected, could have caused the overload, or the overload could have been deliberate to render her unconscious and unable to fight back or warn Annie and Paz.) So the intruder needs to do some phishing (possibly convenienced by Kat having previously designated Annie and Paz as trusted emergency contacts with some emergency access to her systems). Kat could become something bad not due to her own will, but due to "account" takeover. Apologies if anyone else has suggested this yet. This may be an apt moment to warn: Folks, please be even more careful than before about weird emergency calls you receive. AIs can now clone people's voices passably with 30 seconds of audio from a Facebook or TikTok video, and that's already been capitalized upon by scammers. This would fit. Robot wouldn't want to permanently hurt Kat but he's already done stuff like hijack the Cruise before. Kat has a possible problem in the workshop and has for years in story at this point. |
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Post by blahzor on Mar 25, 2023 23:25:50 GMT
Kat was never in any danger from the boatnapping. The robots were working with the ship for it and they controlled the level of Zimmy distortion
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Post by madjack on Mar 26, 2023 0:10:15 GMT
Kat was never in any danger from the boatnapping. The robots were working with the ship for it and they controlled the level of Zimmy distortion Speaking of botnapping, wildspeccing that Kat will wake up after the computer problems are solved and find the Seraphs are or have already grabbed her body and run off with it. Perhaps to forcibly install her into some other system, maybe Omega, maybe not. |
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Post by exquisitecorpus on Mar 29, 2023 8:02:04 GMT
Kat was never in any danger from the boatnapping. The robots were working with the ship for it and they controlled the level of Zimmy distortion Speaking of botnapping, wildspeccing that Kat will wake up after the computer problems are solved and find the Seraphs are or have already grabbed her body and run off with it. Perhaps to forcibly install her into some other system, maybe Omega, maybe not. Or they'll demand she retire her mortal coil and instead adopt her "tubes-and-spikes" mecha-bod. Thus: apotheosis come. MuahahahaHA |
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Post by madjack on Apr 10, 2023 8:52:50 GMT
Plot twist: Kat gives Paz user-level access and her eyes go as black as Kat's. They both begin to make a start on bringing the Court robots up to the surface for new NP bodies. Edit: Theory is that Annie was always the only one who could put her on the 'better path' because Paz (self-admittedly) wasn't her anchor. What she could be, however, is her enabler. If Paz gets given access and begins to understand what Kat has been doing and relate to her on that level, which she's already done on a limited scale by picking up on Kat's other computer work, she might change her mind and decide to rekindle the relationship instead. We've already seen Anja and Donny use Anja's computer setup to communicate mentally. Edit: Torpedoed by the chapter bonus page.
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Post by mturtle7 on Apr 10, 2023 18:50:20 GMT
Probably not, but: What if this hasn't been Kat addressing them this whole time, ever since the "BANG!"? Kat could be in a coma, and something (the omega device itself? one or more people working on it?) hacked into her computer systems, but can't yet get past Kat's defenses to get into her brain due to security defenses Kat put in place. (The initial attempt to brute force its way in, the moment she connected, could have caused the overload, or the overload could have been deliberate to render her unconscious and unable to fight back or warn Annie and Paz.) So the intruder needs to do some phishing (possibly convenienced by Kat having previously designated Annie and Paz as trusted emergency contacts with some emergency access to her systems). Kat could become something bad not due to her own will, but due to "account" takeover. Apologies if anyone else has suggested this yet. This may be an apt moment to warn: Folks, please be even more careful than before about weird emergency calls you receive. AIs can now clone people's voices passably with 30 seconds of audio from a Facebook or TikTok video, and that's already been capitalized upon by scammers. This would fit. Robot wouldn't want to permanently hurt Kat but he's already done stuff like hijack the Cruise before. Kat has a possible problem in the workshop and has for years in story at this point.
He has been waiting for the only perfect form there is. Staying a CPU for a while was a small price to pay, for the power to integrate perfectly into the Angel's mechanical systems. Now he can make the Angel become what he always knew she could become, and make himself what he always knew *he* could become, when both are freed of mortal guise. Now, the New Age can truly begin.
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