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Post by mturtle7 on Aug 19, 2023 21:10:00 GMT
Putting it another way... Jones existence doesn't seem to be a natural occurrence. She was either intentionally put at the beginning of times, or "retconned" into existence by the humanity's power over ether via stories and myths.But in this comic there doesn't seem to be any kind of belief/ religion/ myth which would shape Jones into some kind of avatar of non-ether Earth or something. The case where we anticipate the apotheosis of a new myth/ god is Kat, because we're seeing the plot converging towards it. There's no indication of that around Jones.
Therefore she must have been sent to the past. Who could have the power to create a being like that and put it there? Who has the story shown, until now, to be able to design something that advanced AND to be able to meddle in time? Hrrrrrrgh...ok, look. Most of your theory, I like and respect. You drew some really cool thematic parallels there, and it's not completely implausible that Kat will turn out to have been Jones' creator all along (it's *a little* out there, but hey, we have this Wild Speculation thread for a reason).
But this kind of attitude towards Jones - which I've seen a lot of fans take, over the years - really frustrates me, because it dismisses a part of GC's magic system that I've always seen as obviously canon: In the GC-Verse, werid sh*t just happens sometimes.
Take Paz, for example. As everyone knows, Paz can talk to animals. But why? How? It's not like she comes from a long line of Galician animal shamans, or is secretly the Chosen One of the Wilds, or anything like that. Nobody else in her family seems to be able to do it; there's no particular mythological basis for it that we've seen; it just kinda is, and we all nod along and say "well sure, if magic is real, then that seems plausible."
Smitty, Zimmy, and Gamma are also examples of this, I think. Again, there's no particular mythological basis for their powers that we know of, they're just people who were born with super weird, magical abilities Because Reasons - that old ' etherial tenet' that the Court hates so much!
In the same way, I think there doesn't necessarily have to be a popular mythological link to Jones for her to have been created by the Ether. An immortal, indestructible woman with no feelings who's been around since the creation of the Earth, and has chosen to observe human history from the sidelines; why does that need any more explanation than a boy who was suddenly born with the power to manipulate probability so chaos is always minimized around him?
Again, I actually like your theory! I'm not saying that there can't be a cool explanation connecting Jones' existence intot he main plot of the comic, I'm just saying that there doesn't have to be. The boring explanation for Jones is that she's just one of the many, many, etheric things in the GC universe with no (mytho)logical basis for their existence.
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Post by hp on Aug 20, 2023 0:39:28 GMT
Hrrrrrrgh...ok, look. Most of your theory, I like and respect. You drew some really cool thematic parallels there, and it's not completely implausible that Kat will turn out to have been Jones' creator all along (it's *a little* out there, but hey, we have this Wild Speculation thread for a reason).
But this kind of attitude towards Jones - which I've seen a lot of fans take, over the years - really frustrates me, because it dismisses a part of GC's magic system that I've always seen as obviously canon: In the GC-Verse, werid sh*t just happens sometimes. Take Paz, for example. As everyone knows, Paz can talk to animals. But why? How? It's not like she comes from a long line of Galician animal shamans, or is secretly the Chosen One of the Wilds, or anything like that. Nobody else in her family seems to be able to do it; there's no particular mythological basis for it that we've seen; it just kinda is, and we all nod along and say "well sure, if magic is real, then that seems plausible." Smitty, Zimmy, and Gamma are also examples of this, I think. Again, there's no particular mythological basis for their powers that we know of, they're just people who were born with super weird, magical abilities Because Reasons - that old ' etherial tenet' that the Court hates so much! In the same way, I think there doesn't necessarily have to be a popular mythological link to Jones for her to have been created by the Ether. An immortal, indestructible woman with no feelings who's been around since the creation of the Earth, and has chosen to observe human history from the sidelines; why does that need any more explanation than a boy who was suddenly born with the power to manipulate probability so chaos is always minimized around him?
Again, I actually like your theory! I'm not saying that there can't be a cool explanation connecting Jones' existence intot he main plot of the comic, I'm just saying that there doesn't have to be. The boring explanation for Jones is that she's just one of the many, many, etheric things in the GC universe with no (mytho)logical basis for their existence.
No problem, I understand and agree with you on the worldbuilding "rules" leaving space for some random weirdness. And I also think that is an awesome quirk in GC.
Despite that, even when there are ellipses and something is supposed to be left unexplained, we can infer some method to that randomness (bear with me hehehe). For instance, we've had talk about etheric beings on family trees (I think it was Coyote who once said some Court students were descendents of forest beings who chose to remain in the Court side after the rift?); the unique human connection to the ether; the immense power of humankind's stories, beliefs and myths over it; how that power sometimes shapes truly godly beings, who end up having an even more agency over both ether and the material world; etc.
That is, even though there is a lot of background weirdness that is supposed to remain a mistery, we kinda have a general sense of where it's coming from.
But then there is weirdness and WEIRDNESS hehehe. I mean, the distinctive weirdness that the story builds around as a relevant plot device.
That is not to say that Jones' weirdness is important to the plot and Paz's and Smitty's aren't — after all, they were instrumental to a lot of story advancements. But there is such a big "corner" of the plot focusing around Jones that I think we would not be wrong to expect she's being built to have some important role down the road, or at least an even more important role than she had up to now. Would she be developed almost as a Chekov Death Star only to be left unfired?
One thing is having a wild Arbiter Salasmel pop-up from nothing to advance the plot and answer questions, after a whole lot of buildup around the etheric bureaucracy, "property" relationships and the dangers of the kids' meddling away without knowing the whole picture. But if Jones and her unique set of characteristics do have a central role down the road, handwaving her as "the ether is crazy, right?" would go beyond worldbuilding quirkiness and end up being really unsatisfactory.
--BUT of course, I might be completely wrong. Maybe Jones will not be as relevant as I'm anticipating; Or maybe she will, but will anyway be treated as another ineffable product of the ether.
Even so, we simply happen to have a lot more information on her... That blows away some of the "fog of randomness" around her, her origins and her causality. And with more material I think it's natural we wildspec hehehe. Even if our subject ends up being a curveball by Siddell.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Aug 20, 2023 1:01:29 GMT
RE: Jones, I still view her as an "oxbow lake" of ether, an existence that became necessary (therefore became manifest) when humans became inevitable. Causality exists in the GKU, and while I'm not sure if everything's ultimately ether or if ether and matter both exist or if there's a continuum between matter and ether (though I lean strongly towards the last one of those) I think we can observe in the comic that subjective experience is real, at least real in a sense. What does ether do? It flows. We know it flows in nature to some extent but it has the potential to flow through living sentient beings. I don't think it's true that Jones has no desires, because if that was true she'd be immobile, but it may be the case that she moves and speaks because humans move and speak and these actions don't stem from the same causes as for regular humans. That being the case, when humans became inevitable but did not exist I think that created an enormous potential that couldn't find an outlet, an imbalance which was rectified by a one-time etheric flow into a vaguely-human shaped rock. Why a human? Because the form of human was inevitable and the humans would be the conduit through which the greatest manifestations of ether would flow. Now if @korba were still here I think he'd argue that Jones was a requirement of the "harmony" of existence because humans created beings that predated them therefore the ether must have preexistence as a quality (if I understand what he was saying). I think he was arguing for preexisting Forms (forms with a capital F) but I don't think Jones can fulfill that role on two or three counts. Jones is an observer, and apparently has limits to what she can see and hear (and otherwise perceive) similar to those of a standard human. However Jones, as a " stone" as she puts it, does not contribute that same emotional error-prone subjectivity that creates narratives. She says she doesn't feel anything though she seems driven by curiosity to observe and learn, and apparently remembers everything she's experienced. I think that must mean her existence itself is what's necessary, not any particular thing she observes or does. Ether existed, humans became inevitable, therefore Jones, but not necessarily Jones the specific individual. It could have been a different person with similar immutability but different characteristics, though I think there's some reason to speculate that a biological human female was either necessary or more likely. Also, Jones hasn't perpetually existed like a Form (with a capital F) would, and that means something else was required for her to manifest and I think my form (lowercase F) hypothesis is stronger. There's a nine page thread on Jones if anyone wants further reading or needs to do some penance.  |
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Post by hp on Aug 20, 2023 1:03:59 GMT
In light of the recent bombastic return of Coyote ( HA!), I've been rereading key pages to figure out his plan. There are so many moving parts I find puzzling. One: if he simply wanted to experience true death, is it not in his power to maneuver events so that he is the only one killed? Why also stipulate the deaths of Loup and Ysengrin? I don't buy that they're simply collateral damage. Barring Zimmy and Renard, that's consigning the most powerful etheric beings in proximity to the Court to death. Why do this? Two: given Coyote's role in promoting the Forest's primordial chaos, and its effects on the ether, wouldn't his death significantly weaken the ether? However opaque Coyote's intentions are, I cannot imagine his goals include actively sabotaging the ether—all his actions before have been to strengthen it. There has to be something deeper to this whole death thing. In light of everything above, I think there's special significance to what he says on this page, when he asks Annie to kill Loup: "Who better a steward of death than a guide of death?" (emphasis mine) and "When it is done you will know what to do, but not how to do it" (emphasis not mine). I think it's telling he specifically signposts Annie's status as a (newly inducted) psychopomp. "What to do, but not how"? My god. It's been staring us right in the face. What if he intends to have Annie in her capacity as a psychopomp reclaim his soul and bring it back to the ether? Wouldn't that be a big infusion of ether? Has there even been a precedent for this kind of thing? Have gods ever been shepherded through death by a psychopomp? Since they're implicated, I'm also rereading stuff to figure out the psychopomps' agenda, and there are theories a-brewing. I suspect, as psychopomps are a group who both depend on the ether (being mythological beings themselves, with mythological powers) and ensure the ether's continued existence by reclaiming souls (a task they seem almost dogmatically compelled to do—just see how long and hard they kept at Jeanne), they have very good reason to stop the whole New World Pilgrimage thing (a place where people die without psychopomps to guide them through death? Unthinkable!), or barring that, to find some way to establish a foothold on the New World—about as much reason as the New World crowd has to keep psychopomps out. Their machinations to induct Annie into their ranks most definitely has something to do with it. Wouldn't be surprised if some colluding between Coyote and psychopomps took place. Will do full-blown wildspec post later. Edit: now I'm also wondering if the New People will ever be considered "real" people—real enough to warrant psychopomp services when dead. At the very least, they're considered living beings by Arbiter Saslamel. We've seen Muut state that psychopomps "do not deal in electrical appliances," but I imagine that's about to change. I mean, this has to be how Kat achieves apotheosis. We know from Coyote that death and psychopomps are how beliefs gain traction in the ether. What makes me think the whole "Coyote wants to actually die" angle is suspicious is... He's a product of human belief and an important deity in some Native American religions. Will something happen to those beliefs if its product "actually dies"? Or rather, will he ever be able to "actually die" if those beliefs in him remain?
Maybe he'll experience actually dying and after that just go on existing as always, lmao
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Post by hp on Aug 20, 2023 1:49:33 GMT
RE: Jones, I still view her as an "oxbow lake" of ether, an existence that became necessary (therefore became manifest) when humans became inevitable. Causality exists in the GKU, and while I'm not sure if everything's ultimately ether or if ether and matter both exist or if there's a continuum between matter and ether (though I lean strongly towards the last one of those) I think we can observe in the comic that subjective experience is real, at least real in a sense. What does ether do? It flows. We know it flows in nature to some extent but it has the potential to flow through living sentient beings. I don't think it's true that Jones has no desires, because if that was true she'd be immobile, but it may be the case that she moves and speaks because humans move and speak and these actions don't stem from the same causes as for regular humans. That being the case, when humans became inevitable but did not exist I think that created an enormous potential that couldn't find an outlet, an imbalance which was rectified by a one-time etheric flow into a vaguely-human shaped rock. Why a human? Because the form of human was inevitable and the humans would be the conduit through which the greatest manifestations of ether would flow. Now if @korba were still here I think he'd argue that Jones was a requirement of the "harmony" of existence because humans created beings that predated them therefore the ether must have preexistence as a quality (if I understand what he was saying). I think he was arguing for preexisting Forms (forms with a capital F) but I don't think Jones can fulfill that role on two or three counts. Jones is an observer, and apparently has limits to what she can see and hear (and otherwise perceive) similar to those of a standard human. However Jones, as a " stone" as she puts it, does not contribute that same emotional error-prone subjectivity that creates narratives. She says she doesn't feel anything though she seems driven by curiosity to observe and learn, and apparently remembers everything she's experienced. I think that must mean her existence itself is what's necessary, not any particular thing she observes or does. Ether existed, humans became inevitable, therefore Jones, but not necessarily Jones the specific individual. It could have been a different person with similar immutability but different characteristics, though I think there's some reason to speculate that a biological human female was either necessary or more likely. Also, Jones hasn't perpetually existed like a Form (with a capital F) would, and that means something else was required for her to manifest and I think my form (lowercase F) hypothesis is stronger. There's a nine page thread on Jones if anyone wants further reading or needs to do some penance. Really interesting take. What makes me reticent about "Jones manifesting from ether due to humans existence" is that, discounting appearance and some mimicked behaviours, she's so removed from the human experience.
Despite there being a lot of people not able to perceive the ether and act upon it, the plot makes a huge point about the human impact over it and their connection with it. Jones can see material manifestations of the ether such as Mort and Coyote's physical body, but she can't connect with it and doesn't have an etheric body or direct relation to it (take Smitty, he remains "grey" when antimony and the students go into the ether, but even him has his etheric "strings"). She doesn't even feel emotions.
Why would the ether´s response to the human existence be something so different to it?
****
As for the nature of the ether, I agree with your perception of continuity. Ether seems to be just another aspect of reality, like GC's version of the astral or spiritual plane.
In other occasions I have mentioned in threads on this forum how Tom's take on that "alternative layer of reality" reminds me of how Carlos Castañeda approach to the spiritual plane, how people in tune to it are capable of prodigious "superhuman" feats, how there are beings and spirits who are more in tune to it , people can learn to perceive and use it, etc.
In his books (supposedly autobiographical), he is constantly in awe of the miracles his shaman teachers perform. Then in some occasion they do something so amazing (like giant leaps, walking vertically on tree trunks, that kind of thing) that his perception is shifted and he gets a glimpse of the "true nature" of reality. He sees that people under that perception are surrounded by auras like eggs of light, with their "volition" acting as light tentacles originating from a point in their stomach area. Then he sees that the way his teacher did those prodigious feats was by using those "tentacles" to reach away and grab stuff, support themselves etc.
There are also a lot of interesting aspects of his take on the spiritual, like the concept of "personal places of power", the way some "warriors" were destined to each other as a group, the way he treats "enemies" and evil spirits, etc
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Aug 20, 2023 2:37:36 GMT
Jones can see material manifestations of the ether such as Mort and Coyote's physical body, but she can't connect with it and doesn't have an etheric body or direct relation to it... I don't think Jones has the same ability to see into the ether as Antimony or Anja. I think she's able to see and interact with ghosts and 'pomps when they want to be seen and interact with her, exactly the same as for other humans who rely on their sense organs. The difference is that the etheric creatures view Jones with some reverence because of her age and unchanging nature so they will interact with her when they encounter her, where they wouldn't with a standard boring normal muggle except in unusual circumstances. Same goes for gods and other entities but probably for different motives. Coyote probably just found her interesting before, then she was with Antimony more recently. |
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 20, 2023 7:26:26 GMT
RE: Jones, I still view her as an "oxbow lake" of ether, an existence that became necessary (therefore became manifest) when humans became inevitable. Causality exists in the GKU, and while I'm not sure if everything's ultimately ether or if ether and matter both exist or if there's a continuum between matter and ether (though I lean strongly towards the last one of those) I think we can observe in the comic that subjective experience is real, at least real in a sense. What does ether do? It flows. We know it flows in nature to some extent but it has the potential to flow through living sentient beings. I don't think it's true that Jones has no desires, because if that was true she'd be immobile, but it may be the case that she moves and speaks because humans move and speak and these actions don't stem from the same causes as for regular humans. That being the case, when humans became inevitable but did not exist I think that created an enormous potential that couldn't find an outlet, an imbalance which was rectified by a one-time etheric flow into a vaguely-human shaped rock. Why a human? Because the form of human was inevitable and the humans would be the conduit through which the greatest manifestations of ether would flow. That's an interesting theory, though then I would have to ask why does Jones look like she does? Light skin and blonde hair are a quite recent development in human populations. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Aug 20, 2023 10:32:39 GMT
RE: Jones, I still view her as an "oxbow lake" of ether, an existence that became necessary (therefore became manifest) when humans became inevitable. Causality exists in the GKU, and while I'm not sure if everything's ultimately ether or if ether and matter both exist or if there's a continuum between matter and ether (though I lean strongly towards the last one of those) I think we can observe in the comic that subjective experience is real, at least real in a sense. What does ether do? It flows. We know it flows in nature to some extent but it has the potential to flow through living sentient beings. I don't think it's true that Jones has no desires, because if that was true she'd be immobile, but it may be the case that she moves and speaks because humans move and speak and these actions don't stem from the same causes as for regular humans. That being the case, when humans became inevitable but did not exist I think that created an enormous potential that couldn't find an outlet, an imbalance which was rectified by a one-time etheric flow into a vaguely-human shaped rock. Why a human? Because the form of human was inevitable and the humans would be the conduit through which the greatest manifestations of ether would flow. That's an interesting theory, though then I would have to ask why does Jones look like she does? Light skin and blonde hair are a quite recent development in human populations. Well, there's a few factors that probably went into Jones' design and I suspect some of the in-universe ones dovetail with what would make for an effective and desirable character from an author's standpoint. She isn't a floating disembodied eyeball (or anything similar even though etheric means could be used to still allow her to interact with humans and the rest of her environment and whatever) because that's not human enough, she shouldn't use ether that way, and because it's a self-limiting idea for a design. She probably doesn't look like the first humans or previous human ancestors because she wouldn't be able to pass for a modern human, which would mandate a very different backstory and fetter her role as an observer. She's probably female because she would represent an XX chromosome (sorta containing XY therefore more complete I guess, regardless if she actually has chromosomes or cell structures or even organs) and because a lone female character would find it more easy to socialize and therefore observe; in most circumstances a female would be more likely to be accepted into groups of humans and make them lower their guard.* I suspect her hair color, eye color, and body shape represent a balance of idealization and realism but there's a possibility that the specific circumstances surrounding her creation have an impact. She may look like the people who would eventually inhabit that area, and the shape of the rock that was her original form may have had a role regardless if the ether formed around the sufficiently woman-shaped rock or just because of it, leaving the rock where it lay. So, maybe her eyes were dark because they were just a shadow on the stone, but I figure her hair is blonde because that's something of an ideal (both because it was an ideal and because it would have been useful). I think her weight represents a compromise between the stone and what a human woman of the same stature would weigh so she's heavier than she looks. She doesn't sleep because that would get in the way of observing, but I'm not sure why she doesn't eat. If my understanding is correct I think she should be able to, though she wouldn't need to. Eating would be a useful part of socializing, but if she actually can't that may mean inside she is literally a rock and her human appearance is appearance only. [edit] Or, on further reflection it probably just means that she can't intake even the tiny amount of ether that would be in food.[/edit] There's also the possibility that the existence of Jones sped human evolution (which I sort of humorously referenced in a fancomic here). As an extension of my theory on Jones I should mention that I don't think she is currently necessary to the ether, or at least nowhere near as necessary as when she first came to be. She may benefit from myths like Pygmalion's statue Galatia and the interactions she's had with people over the years but she isn't exactly famous and I don't think she could benefit from that in the same way an etheric entity could by virtue of her ethericaly-isolated existence. Should some sufficiently powerful force act on Jones in a way that would truly change her I think that would do her in even if it was something that wouldn't harm or kill a normal human. If the oxbow lake of ether drains, I think that's it for Jones. Probably any change, even the smallest, would be enough, though (perhaps ironically) The Tooth might be able to, say, cut a hair from her head without destroying her... but I wouldn't count on it. Best case she becomes intangible and has to get a job in the etheric bureaucracy, worst case she explodes and she has waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more information in her head than Zeta, and possibly more stored primal ether. *At least until they notice that she's really strong and indestructible, at which point they would reevaluate things. |
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Post by hp on Aug 20, 2023 12:40:36 GMT
Probably any change, even the smallest, would be enough, though (perhaps ironically) The Tooth might be able to, say, cut a hair from her head without destroying her... but I wouldn't count on it. oooooh interesting spec. I wonder if Coyote or Loup would be able to do any harm at all to Jones if they wanted. I even quickly browsed Coyote's story chapters and Jones' chapter (40) after reading your comment, to see if there was any mention of that possibility. But he never touched on the subject and she only says she can't be harmed in any way (without any particular reference to etherial or material damage). I also finished a complete re-read recently and don't remember anything being said about that.
The only hint we have, unless I'm forgetting something, is that when Loup wanted to get rid of Jones he chose to launch her into space. He WAS able to launch her tho, so ether is able to at least affect her in some way. .. Changing the subject a little. While reading your fancomics (nice work BTW, that one about human evolution was awesome) with her musings about future humans, it occurred to me that Jones never mentioned if she "woke up" already in possession of language and being able to articulate thoughts, or if it was something that she developed/learned with time. Did she already have a pre-existing semiotic repertoire with which she could start classifying and signifying the world around her? In what language she used to think when there were no humans? She says she has no memory of the time before the earth's formation, but at that moment when she became self-aware, did she already have any knowledge?
If she was born as a blank slate, did she just invent her own language while "cataloguing" her experiences and later passed it on to hominids? Judging from reports on cognition effects of being raised in isolation, unlikely. Even more so because she is said to have "little or no imagination", as she mentioned in ch.40. How would she be able to devise a symbolic system on her own? Did she only start to signify after meeting her first humans and learning to communicate? Should some sufficiently powerful force act on Jones in a way that would truly change her I think that would do her in even if it was something that wouldn't harm or kill a normal human. Maybe if pierced she starts leaking radiation and causes a nuclear disaster, like Captain Atom in Kingdom Come lmao
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Aug 22, 2023 5:19:15 GMT
I wonder if Coyote or Loup would be able to do any harm at all to Jones if they wanted. I even quickly browsed Coyote's story chapters and Jones' chapter (40) after reading your comment, to see if there was any mention of that possibility. But he never touched on the subject and she only says she can't be harmed in any way (without any particular reference to etherial or material damage). I also finished a complete re-read recently and don't remember anything being said about that. The only hint we have, unless I'm forgetting something, is that when Loup wanted to get rid of Jones he chose to launch her into space. He WAS able to launch her tho, so ether is able to at least affect her in some way. It depends on how much ether is trapped in Jones and how exactly it's trapped in there but I gotta speculate that yes, Coyote or "Loup" could probably destroy Jones, as could anything wielding god-tier etheric mojo. If they wanted to, I think they could look into the ether and figure out how to bypass her immutability... if they think of it and actually commit the time and effort to understand her, that is. They could probably brute-force it too, as long as they're going all-out using etheric means and not just making lots of conventional energy... Although, it could probably done by enough boring normal energy if it was effectively mythic in scale. Maybe the Court could build a big gravity accelerator and fire Jones into a black hole on a course calculated to create maximum stress on her form. Not to get overly wrapped up in semantics but while gods could probably destroy Jones they probably can't hurt Jones. She doesn't feel pain and I think she'd be destroyed if fundamentally changed so they'd have to try something so sophisticated and taxing that I think it's beyond what most gods in the GCU are capable of. They'd have to first transform her into something that can feel pain without destroying her and I'm thinking that's a pretty tall order. Some gods might be capable of an etheric work-around that could allow Jones to experience pain as data, by overlaying some sort of construct over her for example, but in the end that's not the same thing and it would be tough or impossible to keep her imprisoned in it. It occurred to me that Jones never mentioned if she "woke up" already in possession of language and being able to articulate thoughts, or if it was something that she developed/learned with time. Did she already have a pre-existing semiotic repertoire with which she could start classifying and signifying the world around her? In what language she used to think when there were no humans? She says she has no memory of the time before the earth's formation, but at that moment when she became self-aware, did she already have any knowledge? If she was born as a blank slate, did she just invent her own language while "cataloguing" her experiences and later passed it on to hominids? Judging from reports on cognition effects of being raised in isolation, unlikely. Even more so because she is said to have "little or no imagination", as she mentioned in ch.40. How would she be able to devise a symbolic system on her own? Did she only start to signify after meeting her first humans and learning to communicate? The central absurdity of that old fan comic was how silly it would be to have Jones running around in prehistory speaking English with a wide vocabulary and performing invasive examinations on cartoon dinosaurs in the name of science... but I think that Jones must have started with something more than just the data provided by her sense organ analogues. When she eventually found humans she probably discovered... well, symbols, language, that sort of thing, and began processing information on an abstract level. There's a problem if she can't do that before, though, because if she can't move she can't locate humans and interact with them. Maybe she noticed natural forces (erosion, various creatures, what-have-you) moving her body, or maybe just moving nearby, and so learned that her body could move after what might have been a very long period of time... but that would mean she was capable of not only a little imagination but also human-like self-awareness and/or counter-factual thinking from the very beginning or from very early on in her story. Maybe this isn't as big a reach as it seems. We're speculating that Jones is a spontaneous creation of ether, who operates on/contains ether instead of running on mundane material means. If ether can create Jones, can't the ether within Jones cause her to be creative? Should some sufficiently powerful force act on Jones in a way that would truly change her I think that would do her in even if it was something that wouldn't harm or kill a normal human. Maybe if pierced she starts leaking radiation and causes a nuclear disaster, like Captain Atom in Kingdom Come lmao
Not sure exactly what would happen if Jones exploded but it might tell us something interesting about the GCU. Jones should be at minimum a primal flow of ether but she is also a form. She may be a rock (just a normal rock) or she may be a durable etheric impression of the original rock... which could potentially be a thing that's a high-middle state on the ether-matter continuum. It might depend on how she was destroyed but the most likely result would be something like we're seeing now in the comic, an uncontrolled release of ether that warps reality (or maybe better to say pushes regular reality away until the pressure equalizes). Having primal ether and a lot of data I think Jones' spoilsport explosion might semi-permanently change reality in a given locus, but if the impression exists withstands her demise that might create another pocket space and fill it with things Jones encountered during her existence. (shrug) |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Aug 23, 2023 8:53:20 GMT
What makes me think the whole "Coyote wants to actually die" angle is suspicious is... He's a product of human belief and an important deity in some Native American religions. Will something happen to those beliefs if its product "actually dies"? Or rather, will he ever be able to "actually die" if those beliefs in him remain? Maybe he'll experience actually dying and after that just go on existing as always, lmao Was gonna reply to this earlier but got distracted and forgot. After this page ( 674) appeared in the comic, which appeared to show two Coyotes and two Antimonies, we began to speculate that Coyote can be in more than one place at a time if he wants. There was one formspring question where Mr. Siddell replied that Coyote does not exactly split his time between the Americas and Gillite Wood. Finally, in his stand-alone comic it was shown that when Coyote left America (to eventually wind up in Gillite Wood) he also stayed. So, Coyote actually permanently dying and not coming back probably won't impact Coyote any, or his believers, or the ether that causes him to exist (since it's kinda a wash). Maybe the story of Coyote dying will eventually reach Coyote; I'm sure he'd like to hear about it even if it is a tale in which he completely screws up and fails. |
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Post by blahzor on Aug 23, 2023 11:20:25 GMT
New question in my hed
Is Coyote not a trickster god but actually the god of innovation?
Would explain his copying a power and making it actually better. He's man's innovation. We see birds and things fly we make planes
We see things going faster than us and make carriages, cars
We see the stars and things moving and we make spaceships
And the court is the apex of this idea
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Post by AluK on Aug 25, 2023 10:32:59 GMT
New question in my hed Is Coyote not a trickster god but actually the god of innovation? Would explain his copying a power and making it actually better. He's man's innovation. We see birds and things fly we make planes We see things going faster than us and make carriages, cars We see the stars and things moving and we make spaceships And the court is the apex of this idea In comparative mythology, the trickster god archetype is usually seen as the challenger: the one that creates hardships that need to be overcome. Trickster gods often promote growth through change. So, in a way, they're meant to spur innovation. Worth mentioning that Renard the Fox is also generally considered an archetypal trickster. |
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Post by gpvos on Aug 27, 2023 12:50:42 GMT
Metawildspec: when Tom resumes his video commentary series, he will have finished writing the comic and it will end about three months later when the queue empties.
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Post by Runningflame on Aug 29, 2023 3:01:22 GMT
Supposing that Zimmy dies because of this Coyote/Loup brawl that landed on top of her--then in a manner of speaking, it will be true that she died because of Kat. The only reason Coyote came toward her was because he was looking for the creator of the New People.
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Post by pyradonis on Aug 29, 2023 12:52:35 GMT
Supposing that Zimmy dies because of this Coyote/Loup brawl that landed on top of her--then in a manner of speaking, it will be true that she died because of Kat. The only reason Coyote came toward her was because he was looking for the creator of the New People. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Sept 1, 2023 10:32:38 GMT
This was alluded to by a couple of other people, but I feel deserves to be expanded on in this thread. The overwhelming majority of stuff that's in the comic is canon. That disquieting image of Lana in the box may just be a flashback to some pre-Coyote moment or an allegorical representation of her current state but is possibly (maybe likely) literal. Despite what Robot might argue she's the first Noobman to die a real death and, as a former electrical appliance and/or golem, isn't under the auspices of the RotD or other supernatural agency. She is probably aware of several possible human myths about the afterlife but doesn't believe they apply to her and/or has little or no etheric juice so she can't possibly reach them on her own. Lana needs some sort of intervention. Fortuitously, a decent medium is currently mucking around near where she was last operational, is aware what happened to her, and may be aided by the distortion in finding her. That may be what the 'pomps want of Antimony post-Jeanne, but I'm not sure they've got the foresight for that. More likely they just want a living agent at their beck and call to help with difficult cases. They might be willing to settle for Antimony being the semi-official ex-robot wrangler, though what would happen down the road after Antimony is no longer alive could be a problem. Of course if Antimony dies childless then that position could be made official and permanent... or at least permanent as long as she wants it and needs to do it. Eventually enough Noobmen would die knowing that they could get into the ether (or the great workshop in the sky, or what-have-you) and believing in their own afterlife that the RotD and the ether would adapt. I kinda doubt that would be covered in the comic before it ends, though maybe it would be implied. |
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Post by AluK on Sept 3, 2023 0:39:33 GMT
That may be what the 'pomps want of Antimony post-Jeanne, but I'm not sure they've got the foresight for that. More likely they just want a living agent at their beck and call to help with difficult cases. They might be willing to settle for Antimony being the semi-official ex-robot wrangler, though what would happen down the road after Antimony is no longer alive could be a problem. Of course if Antimony dies childless then that position could be made official and permanent... or at least permanent as long as she wants it and needs to do it. Eventually enough Noobmen would die knowing that they could get into the ether (or the great workshop in the sky, or what-have-you) and believing in their own afterlife that the RotD and the ether would adapt. I kinda doubt that would be covered in the comic before it ends, though maybe it would be implied. I imagine that once the Annie transitions the first NP (Lana, probably) into the ether, it will anchor her as a psychopomp (possible NP's psychopomp in specific). Psychopomps are essentially deities and not exactly mortal in a conventional sense. Subsequent transitions would then likely reinforce those beliefs and Annie's nature as, as you put it, NP would likely develop their own conceptual framework for an afterlife. And the funny parallel thing is that it's quite possible the same first transition will also kickstart Kat's ascent into godhood. |
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Post by blahzor on Sept 4, 2023 4:39:14 GMT
Psychopomps aren't immune to dying but don't seem to die without outside influence. So this could workout for her and that whole fire element transfer thing
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Post by blahzor on Jan 2, 2024 13:45:20 GMT
Jones is actually a prototype of Kat's to see if she can get around this death problem and sent her back to the beginging of time for testing.
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Post by silicondream on Jan 2, 2024 15:30:48 GMT
In the same way, I think there doesn't necessarily have to be a popular mythological link to Jones for her to have been created by the Ether. An immortal, indestructible woman with no feelings who's been around since the creation of the Earth, and has chosen to observe human history from the sidelines I've argued before that there is a link to Jones; in fact, she shares it with Eglamore. In Sir Eglamour of Artois, the knight Eglamour is wounded while slaying a dragon. Then he's nursed back to health for a year by the daughter of the Emperor of Rome, whose name is variously spelled as Diamontowre or Dyamuntowre. To translate into modern English: "The Emperor has a daughter bright: She has undertaken [the care of] the knight- Her name was Diamondtower. There she saves him from the dead, With her hands she heals his headA twelvemonth in her bower." There's a repeated motif in medieval romances of a wounded knight being cared for by a wise and/or holy maiden in her personal chambers. She's not an actual love interest for the knight, but she has some sort of strong affection for him that makes her devote herself to his recovery. Then he goes off to do knight stuff, and usually moves on with his life. A more tragic and explicitly romantic example is Elaine of Astolat, "The Lady of Shalott," who tended to an injured Lancelot and then died of heartbreak when he ran off back to Guinevere. This motif can be stretched to include the holiest and most unconditionally loving maiden of all, the Imperishable Virgin Mary, who was strongly venerated by the medieval knighthood. Of course they didn't expect a romantic relationship with her, but that fit with the "courtly love" tradition anyway. A knight's ideal "lady" was a noblewoman of higher rank than himself, usually married, and more or less unavailable. He wasn't really supposed to bang her, just write poems and carry her colors and perform deeds of valour in her name. In a later century, this would resurface as the personality cult around Elizabeth I, the "Virgin Queen." And but so anyway, that's the legendary basis of Jones, I think. She's literally imperishable and immaculate and all that Mary jazz--and probably a virgin too, given the exceptional properties of her body. She's a "diamond tower," an indestructible place of refuge for the men she cares for. She will be a faithful companion and supporter and protector and nurse them for as long as they need, and she can protect them from harm in various ways, but she can never truly be their lover, physically or emotionally. No matter how much she might want to. |
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Post by pyradonis on Feb 20, 2024 14:20:40 GMT
The bodies of the original Golems work with completely different technology than the later models and do not require a CPU to function, yet they have CPU slots. I expect either another time travel point, or vision of the future, or retconning reality through a new deity. But hopefully with a more interesting reason this time than "They were there, so I have to make sure they will have been there." |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 20, 2024 20:50:35 GMT
They do have CPU slots though. But apparently they function without a CPU inserted. Which raises the question why they have those slots in the first place if everything else about them is a completely different technology from today's and they're not needed anyway. Perhaps the golems designed the first CPUs to be compatible with one of their existing ports, so that they could exchange data and reprogram the CPUs directly. There don't appear to have been conventional computers in Diego's day--presumably they were adopted by the Court after their development in the outside world--so the only available computers that could communicate with the CPUs would have been the golems themselves. This would also explain why Robot gained S1's combat skills when plugged into the latter's body; older robot CPUs are made to "imprint" off the golem ancestor to their model class. I think you're correct about the compatibility though I'm not sure about the imprinting. It may have been incidental because the swordsmanship was necessary for the show and Robot's chip retained it like it would any other memory. Also, I question if the chip was strictly necessary to start the puppet show. Why would a visitor who Diego wanted to see the show have to have a Seraph chip that (if I understand the timeline correctly) wasn't even made before Diego's death? In this comic we can't rule out more time-travel or some sort of very specific prophesy, resulting in exact knowledge of what Kat would have/do, but if this show requires a Seraph chip for admission then the purpose would appear to be to have Kat see this show/discover the tomb and shrine at a very specific time in Kat's life. Maybe that's the intervention of a future Kat or another alternate-universe Kat, but there's no evidence for that so far and the simpler explanation is synchronicity. The Gunnerverse is trying to advance a Story regarding the robots that Anja and Surma couldn't complete, but Kat and Antimony will push forward. For that, all that's needed is for the chip to be a bypass that can trigger the puppet show protocol and not a key. We know that the old Seraph model was part of and possibly a lynch-pin for triggering the show because we saw Kat trigger the show via the chip and other robots moved as part of the show where appropriate. It makes sense for a Seraph to be an important part of keeping things running as Diego would wish. So, I speculate that there must have been some other condition that could have been met to start the puppet show, and I will further wildly speculate that it was probably something related to someone Diego thought might visit his tomb to mourn him. In other words, if a specific person visited the arena then that would have somehow triggered the show but they didn't so it didn't happen until Kat triggered it accidentally. The performance showcased Diego's technical ability, his robot/golems in particular, but also cast Diego as heroic by proxy and threw shade on Young. It's a blame-shifting reinterpretation of the events around Jeanne's death that would have been cryptic to just anyone who might inherit Diego's legacy someday. That suggests it was supposed to be viewed by some contemporary of Diego who Diego wished to remind of his achievements and offer a posthumous apologia though if this show was something conceived by Diego in his last days his mind might have already become addled and this person might have predeceased him... or perhaps been a figment of his imagination altogether, a wish for such a person to emerge from the Court somewhere and grieve for him... and apologize, probably, considering the size of the passageway requires visitors to crawl. Caveat: Anja was also trying to get the old-school robots to move and we don't know what she did. It would be a bit weird if she never noticed the damage done to the golem hearts but presumably Diego's code was beyond her and she couldn't fix it and additionally she might not have been able to recognize the golem cores as prime movers, though I think it's more likely she did think of them as a power source (since she's competent with the etheric tech) but for some reason didn't associate them with memory and control. The damage done to the cores was very selective, to decommission them without interfering with the puppet show protocol; perhaps Anja recognized the symbols for power/movement but not command and control and dismissed the scratches as something she didn't understand regarding the core creation ritual. Even so, one would think that Anja would have employed some method by which the golems would have moved in some satisfactory way (beyond just bypassing everything and mechanically operating a limb or something) so it may be the case that Diego's golems have anti-tampering features in their code to block something like that happening. Additionally: The original Diego golems probably could've programmed themselves to decomish but running the play mandates the destruction of the Young-bot and the door. Even if the show was only to be run once the place and the golem-bots would have required maintenance over the years. I think it's probable that their descendent-robots used facilities above ground for that and other purposes, updating the building as times changed and tech improved, then later moved shop to a centralized location around Diego's old workshop and only returned periodically. It's not entirely clear if the regular robots knew about this place but they didn't seem to know about the portrait, so maybe only the Seraphs knew, or knew something but didn't have all the facts. Anyway, once it was vacant it was a prime location for people who wanted to work on robots, so Anja winding up with it was a coincidence but a meaningful coincidence. [edit] I'd forgotten that in the chapter with the Norns the birb lead Anja and Don to the location in question. That may or may not have been when they discovered the OG-bots in the robot tomb but the workshop being somewhere for working on robots probably did set a precedent for Anja getting the place for herself later. [/edit] |
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Post by TBeholder on Feb 21, 2024 12:08:08 GMT
The bodies of the original Golems work with completely different technology than the later models and do not require a CPU to function, yet they have CPU slots. I expect either another time travel point, or vision of the future, or retconning reality through a new deity. But hopefully with a more interesting reason this time than "They were there, so I have to make sure they will have been there." It’s not like there are Diego’s golems and then there are new golems that have nothing to do with them. The new generations inherit their mental oddities. The new robots use easier to replicate hardware… but they had to get from point A to point B somehow. Sockets are likely to be a part of how this happened. |
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Post by silicondream on Feb 22, 2024 20:49:26 GMT
Perhaps the golems designed the first CPUs to be compatible with one of their existing ports, so that they could exchange data and reprogram the CPUs directly. There don't appear to have been conventional computers in Diego's day--presumably they were adopted by the Court after their development in the outside world--so the only available computers that could communicate with the CPUs would have been the golems themselves. This would also explain why Robot gained S1's combat skills when plugged into the latter's body; older robot CPUs are made to "imprint" off the golem ancestor to their model class. I think you're correct about the compatibility though I'm not sure about the imprinting. It may have been incidental because the swordsmanship was necessary for the show and Robot's chip retained it like it would any other memory. Perhaps, though it wasn't just swordsmanship that he got; it was also barehanded martial arts, a hatred for the Young-bot, and arguably a package of personality traits that changed him from a bubbly "mommy"-focused toddler into an obsessive prophet of the Angel. I think Robot ended up far more like the original S1 because of that interaction. I don't think they would have needed a chip, because while S1 was still alive they could start the show at will. Once the golems finished creating the robots and committed suicide, S1's body did not have enough executive function left to perform the show...until it could use a Seraph CPU in place of its broken "heart." The onlooking golems could perform their part even without being repaired or given a CPU bypass, because all they had to do was applaud on cue. They were basically brain-dead but still capable of reflex actions. S1's role demanded more skill. S1 may also have needed a Seraph CPU to reactivate because its heart wasn't just damaged, but actually removed. Parts of the heart were repurposed to create the Seraph CPUs, which is why they have that weird ceramic chip that makes them immune to Court overrides. This would also explain why S1 isn't seen among the golems that Kat revived, though perhaps she simply refrained because she doesn't trust an ancestor of the Seraphs. Note that it's the golems' tomb, not Diego's. The Shrine to Jeanne is probably Diego's work, as Renard suggests, but the golems apparently created the tomb as their own resting place. Given his fame and status, Diego's own body would have been publicly interred or disposed of however the Court deemed appropriate. It's unclear whether the puppet show was designed by Diego himself, or arranged by the golems as a tribute to him. The modernist and functional design of the Young-bot suggests to me that it was created by the golems rather than by Diego. That's an interesting interpretation, though I think it was more likely intended to make visitors repent and apologize to Jeanne, since she was the first thing they'd see when they crawled into the room. Diego's portrait was much smaller and not the focus of things. In fact, since Diego himself was probably the only human visitor during his lifetime, he may have designed the shrine as a way for him to atone. He was likely from a Roman Catholic background, and this may have been his version of "mortification of the flesh" for the dead woman he worshipped yet betrayed. S1 was then instructed, or chose, to continue this ritual in his place. Anja's work seems to focus more on computing and information processing than on mechanical engineering. If she couldn't figure out how to repair the golems' hearts, she may not have cared that much about getting them moving in other ways; it was their original control system which interested her the most. I imagine that the golems would have been using Diego's workshop all along, or their own annex to it, and that the robots inherited and expanded that location. Diego constructed the shrine elsewhere, to allow for private contemplation and also to avoid discovery by the other Founders, who would have destroyed it as part of Jeanne's damnatio memoriae. The golems maintained the shrine, added the tomb and conducted the puppet show while they were alive, but never told the robots about it. They saw themselves as existing purely for Diego's sake, but wanted their descendants to serve future humanity instead. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 23, 2024 2:15:18 GMT
I think you're correct about the compatibility though I'm not sure about the imprinting. It may have been incidental because the swordsmanship was necessary for the show and Robot's chip retained it like it would any other memory. Perhaps, though it wasn't just swordsmanship that he got; it was also barehanded martial arts, a hatred for the Young-bot, and arguably a package of personality traits that changed him from a bubbly "mommy"-focused toddler into an obsessive prophet of the Angel. I think Robot ended up far more like the original S1 because of that interaction. It's been formsprung that the golem-bots hated Young and his successors both because Diego programmed them to and because they wanted to, and I've speculated before that however they were designed Diego used his own mind as at least a pattern in some way, shape, or form. Something in the architecture and code got passed along and adapted along the way. I suspect S13 calling Antimony "mommy" is more about him hoping that she was the father-replacement he was waiting for, as she put him back together and gave him purpose again and he repaid her by nearly killing her (though that wasn't his fault, except as a result of the choice she gave him) and less about toddler-like emotional needs, though. Also, robots getting obsessed with girls is nothing new (and probably also a result of Diego's influence). I don't think they would have needed a chip, because while S1 was still alive they could start the show at will. Once the golems finished creating the robots and committed suicide, S1's body did not have enough executive function left to perform the show...until it could use a Seraph CPU in place of its broken "heart." The onlooking golems could perform their part even without being repaired or given a CPU bypass, because all they had to do was applaud on cue. They were basically brain-dead but still capable of reflex actions. S1's role demanded more skill. I can't agree with describing applause as a mere reflex action but sure, the old golem-bots could have run the puppet show (or parts of it) at will, trigger or no. Would they want to? Diego might have ordered a performance when he was around (and that would have been another trigger). They might want to test it. I don't think they'd get anything out of it other than making sure it was in working order. I don't think it necessarily follows that S1 didn't have enough executive function to run the show because he was decommissioned. The damage could have been selective so that program could run but no others, but if the show had to be started manually (meaning that an operational golem-bot was needed to initiate it regardless if Diego needed to order it or not) then it would still have been a program held in S1's memory/code/whatever which was still usable. It's a lot easier to make something not work then to make it work in the first place. We do know that the robots didn't design any classes of robots that Diego didn't initiate therefore S1 had to have been built by Diego during his lifetime and with executive function. I don't think it was ever shown what his prime mover was. As the beginning of the Seraph series he might have had a prototype of the ceramic chip, or he might have had a ceramic heart, or perhaps some tech that bridges the two. We do know he is/was compatible with the ceramic chip at least to an extent. He must have had some sort of memory to function and it must have been at least partly intact, else the show couldn't run (robots don't have reflexes, Diego's golem-bots probably didn't either). I can think of one other possibility but I'll address it in my next paragraph. S1 may also have needed a Seraph CPU to reactivate because its heart wasn't just damaged, but actually removed. Parts of the heart were repurposed to create the Seraph CPUs, which is why they have that weird ceramic chip that makes them immune to Court overrides. This would also explain why S1 isn't seen among the golems that Kat revived, though perhaps she simply refrained because she doesn't trust an ancestor of the Seraphs. Maybe, but I think S1 didn't reactivate to run the show, he executed a program or a protocol and there was some other way that program could've been run, by Diego's order of course, or perhaps by using S1's sensors to recognize someone entering the arena, or perhaps by some other method. Maybe he isn't around because he's hanging out with the other Seraphs doing Seraph stuff. Kat did seem to be reactivating all of them. I would think that all things held equal S1 would want to find the most important parts of Kat's tech and perpetually guard them, which is arguably Kat herself, but unless he's Zoob we haven't seen him hanging around her. There's a chance Kat has put S1 into a new body, though we haven't been shown any evidence that she's putting golem-bots in bodies (at least not that I can recall). I don't think we've seen any golem-bots for a while, though. It could be he's delegated that guarding to other robots and is somewhere in her lab, her computer-space, or perhaps he's in Diego's other lab. Now, I realize at this point that some of my fellow genteel forum-goers who are taking time to read this post may be thinking, "But what if S1 was never a fully-functional golem-bot? What if he was made by Diego just to be a puppet that stars in his morbid play, and the later robots developed the Seraph series using components from other robots? That would explain why we haven't seen him around after Kat restarted all the other golem-bots." Well, he's got "S1" on him so presumably he was to be the first of a series even if no others were built in Diego's lifetime (and we don't know that). If S1 was just a puppet he wouldn't be able to adapt to anything going wrong during the show which might cause it to dysfunction, and that wouldn't make a convincing argument about how great Diego's tech was. Diego built stuff to showcase the greatness of Diego and casting a mere puppet as himself in his own play wouldn't give him much in the way of narcissistic supply. I think S1 was made, then made into a puppet, rather than the other way around. Note that it's the golems' tomb, not Diego's. The Shrine to Jeanne is probably Diego's work, as Renard suggests, but the golems apparently created the tomb as their own resting place. Given his fame and status, Diego's own body would have been publicly interred or disposed of however the Court deemed appropriate. I had forgotten that was open to debate. Mr. Siddell has made/replied to a number of statements/questions about "the tomb" that can be used to support either contention, probably because it's arguably Jeanne's tomb as there's a shrine to her in it, it's absolutely Diego's tomb because he had the robots build it, and it was the robot's tomb because they were indeed interred within it. The question is, is that a burial vault or just an altar in the tomb? It's really short for an altar and it's true Diego was short but was he that short? I don't think that issue was ever addressed in the video commentaries but I'll rewatch that chapter later and double-check. Given his personality I don't think Diego would have been memorialized by the Court in any sort of grand fashion. I think they put up with him because his technical knowledge was very useful, providing the Court free labor in perpetuity for sure and probably other things as well, but I suspect his death was more quietly celebrated than publicly lamented. If he was grandly memorialized, it was removed/repurposed after his death because the only traces that remain are hidden from public view. Maybe his remains are elsewhere, perhaps even shipped back to the continent, but I don't think we've seen anything else in the comic that is a candidate for Diego's final resting place. Is there a place he would have rather been buried other than near Jeanne's portrait? I don't think he'd have wanted to be buried near the Annan gap... It's unclear whether the puppet show was designed by Diego himself, or arranged by the golems as a tribute to him. The modernist and functional design of the Young-bot suggests to me that it was created by the golems rather than by Diego. It's a dehumanized version of Young. Other than a vague shape and the dual wielding there's nothing about it that looks like Young. It appears to serve two purposes. First, the fight's a spectacle. It's supposed to capture the attention of someone, though a case can be made for it being a potential spectacle the old bots left as something that would outlast them as a tribute to their creator and something he'd appreciate. Second, the fight showcased Diego's robot tech as being superior to the Court protector in martial prowess and ritually destroyed the object to which Diego transferred his sin. That's an interesting interpretation, though I think it was more likely intended to make visitors repent and apologize to Jeanne, since she was the first thing they'd see when they crawled into the room. Diego's portrait was much smaller and not the focus of things. In fact, since Diego himself was probably the only human visitor during his lifetime, he may have designed the shrine as a way for him to atone. He was likely from a Roman Catholic background, and this may have been his version of "mortification of the flesh" for the dead woman he worshipped yet betrayed. S1 was then instructed, or chose, to continue this ritual in his place. Hmm. If there were visitors other than Diego that would pose a big problem since Jeanne merch was verboten and I'm not sure he had any friends, particularly ones he'd trust with a secret like this. If Diego himself used the shrine to mourn Jeanne during his lifetime, and Diego shifted the blame for Jeanne's death to Young, I guess he might have wished to crawl into her presence (so to speak) every time he visited the shrine as atonement for not doing something to save her... but that sounds out of character for Diego. I imagine that the golems would have been using Diego's workshop all along, or their own annex to it, and that the robots inherited and expanded that location. Diego constructed the shrine elsewhere, to allow for private contemplation and also to avoid discovery by the other Founders, who would have destroyed it as part of Jeanne's damnatio memoriae. The golems maintained the shrine, added the tomb and conducted the puppet show while they were alive, but never told the robots about it. They saw themselves as existing purely for Diego's sake, but wanted their descendants to serve future humanity instead. Diego likely delegated all the boring stuff to golem-bots and worked on the most interesting bits himself so the bots were probably everywhere he was. I should say that Diego probably had more than one facility. His personal one was probably at or near where the current robot facilities are. The shrine was constructed where it was because it was a place that Diego had unquestioned access to. Anyone spying on Diego would probably concentrate on his personal shop, and if he was suspected of something they'd search that before anything else... though it's interesting to wonder if Diego also didn't want to build the shrine close to where he spent the majority of his time, or if perhaps he just couldn't make the modifications to the building he wanted. Ah that reminds me, it was formsprung that the portrait of Jeanne was stolen by Diego. Exactly when that happened wasn't mentioned but it was probably before or during the purge of Jeanne from memory... though potentially after, if it got overlooked somewhere and his change-of-heart came late. If he ever had any portraits of her of his own he had to surrender them. I guess the video footage of her he collected and retained wasn't high enough quality to use. |
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Post by pyradonis on Feb 23, 2024 16:07:11 GMT
S1 may also have needed a Seraph CPU to reactivate because its heart wasn't just damaged, but actually removed. Parts of the heart were repurposed to create the Seraph CPUs, which is why they have that weird ceramic chip that makes them immune to Court overrides. This would also explain why S1 isn't seen among the golems that Kat revived, though perhaps she simply refrained because she doesn't trust an ancestor of the Seraphs. I like this theory! If it's true, it might be that the program overriding S13's usual personality was stored on his own CPU all along. Also, yeah... what's up with S1? Information on whether S1 was revived is conspicuously absent. And generally it is weird that with all those golems being active again, Annie and Kat apparently haven't thought about asking them anything about the things that transpired in their time.
We do know that the robots didn't design any classes of robots that Diego didn't initiate We do? I can never read a sentence like this without thinking of a certain android... I think what silicondream meant was that the Bullbot has what looks like hydraulic and electrical lines running along its body, i.e. a power distribution system using technology that is explicitly not found in the golems and did not exist during Diego's lifetime. One could argue that the Court, being ahead of its time, already had developed these types of technology, but Diego perceived them as inferior to his Ether-powered tech and used it on purpose to build the bot depicting Sir Young. However there have been no hints as to this in any of the flashbacks to the time of the Founders we have seen, and IMHO the answer that the Bullbot was built after Diego's death by those who used the same technology to create their own offspring. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 23, 2024 17:18:14 GMT
We do know that the robots didn't design any classes of robots that Diego didn't initiate We do? It was formsprung as such, but I suppose it could have been retconned. I think what silicondream meant was that the Bullbot has what looks like hydraulic and electrical lines running along its body, i.e. a power distribution system using technology that is explicitly not found in the golems and did not exist during Diego's lifetime. One could argue that the Court, being ahead of its time, already had developed these types of technology, but Diego perceived them as inferior to his Ether-powered tech and used it on purpose to build the bot depicting Sir Young. However there have been no hints as to this in any of the flashbacks to the time of the Founders we have seen, and IMHO the answer that the Bullbot was built after Diego's death by those who used the same technology to create their own offspring. Maybe those were electrical cables but more likely pneumatics or some sort of kinetic energy transfer system like an internal rotating cable or possibly belts or chains. The point of the show was the defeat of the Young-bot, representing the defeat of the human Young, and as such the Young-bot needed to demonstrate human-like vulnerability S1 can exploit. A gush of hydraulic fluid would be the best representation of wounds as the cables get cut, but I don't remember seeing any big splashes. Sure, the robots could have (re?)designed it much much later but why? To demonstrate the superiority of Diego's tech over modern tech? They apparently were trying to surpass it. |
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Post by pyradonis on Feb 24, 2024 12:01:56 GMT
It was formsprung as such, but I suppose it could have been retconned. Interesting. However the statement that no robot models are currently in service which are not derived from Diego's original models also leaves a lot of wiggle room. Bird "models" living today are derived (in a manner of speaking) from theropod dinosaurs, but which non specialist would see that? It's really not important what went through those hoses (though you're probably right with the pneumatics suggestion since no fluid is seen leaking out after they've been cut). What looks a lot like cut electrical wires to me is best seen when the Bullbot's leg is halfway cut through. Not sure what you mean by redesigned though? The golems were unable to recreate the technology used in their own design, so if they were the ones who built the Bullbot, they didn't really have a choice what to use. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 24, 2024 17:17:14 GMT
It's really not important what went through those hoses (though you're probably right with the pneumatics suggestion since no fluid is seen leaking out after they've been cut). What looks a lot like cut electrical wires to me is best seen when the Bullbot's leg is halfway cut through. Okay, I'll try to steel-man the argument then take it apart again. The Young-bot appears different than the other Diego Old Golem (OG) bots. It has a bunch of armored cables, some of which have round thingers inside which suggests electrical wires, therefore it works on something more like fly-by-wire which is very inconsistent with what Kat described when examining the other OG-bots. The Young-bot also lacks the characteristic decorative features other OG-bots have. There is no contemporary robot class representing the Young-bot. It looks more modern. That being the case, the Young-bot must have been built during the "missing link" period where the OG-bots were designing their first-generation successors to a simplified and maybe less-capable standard or even later, and that sheds an entirely different light on who may have conceived of and built the puppet-show and potentially the robot tomb and shrine. Here are the problems with that: First, the Young-bot is a single-purpose and potentially single-use device and it's a representation of someone Diego detested. Sure, Diego prided himself on his workmanship but omitting the decorative flourishes and intricate works on something that's disliked, combat-designed, and potentially disposable is understandable. For those same reasons there's no class of Young-bot contemporary descendants regardless of who designed/built it. Second, cables are not necessarily electric (see previous post). Third, other OG-bots are depicted with similar cables. Probably the best view of the severed cables in the neck of the Young-bot also shows two OG-bots with similar cables on that same page, but there is one more here. That's why I look at Young-bot without thinking it's inconsistent with Diego-era tech. Not sure what you mean by redesigned though? the golems were unable to recreate the technology used in their own design, so if they were the ones who built the Bullbot, they didn't really have a choice what to use. If the puppet-show was run then the Young-bot would have to be repaired for it to have to be run again and if it were given short-shrift in the manufacturing process it would probably break down easier and require more maintenance. If one were to find my aforementioned arguments unpersuasive it still isn't necessarily the case that an electrically-driven modern-tech Young-bot means the puppet show was a post-Diego creation because the Young-bot could have been remanufactured at a later date in the name of maintenance or repair. |
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