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Post by silicondream on Feb 25, 2024 14:37:27 GMT
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. Probably. But Robot hated the Young-bot as soon as he saw it, long before he had any reason to connect it with Young himself. As you say, it's not particularly reminiscent of the man. So Robot's hatred was probably copied from S1, who did know whom it represented. It's the timing that I find suggestive. At the beginning of "S1," Robot was still accidentally calling Annie "mummy" and playfully racing around with Shadow. Nor did he show any fixation on Kat, even though he'd already met her and said she looked like an "angel" and she'd given him the mouse body a month or two earlier. By the end of the chapter, he already sounded more sober and mature, and the next time we saw him in "Sky Watcher and the Angel," he was leading a thriving Church of Kat. It seems like his experience in the Tomb was what ignited his faith. What do the modern robots get out of visiting Jeanne's shrine? What do Christians get out of passion plays? I think that participating in the performance would be a form of worship for the golems, a way for them to honor their Creator, feel close to him, and understand his will. Sure, but I was including initiation as part of "running" it. S1 needed a CPU bypass to start the show and/or perform their part as matador; the rest of the golems did not need a CPU bypass to applaud. Do you have a cite that Diego had the robots build it? The revived golem simply said that he helped build it and that "my colleagues and I intended this to be our final resting place." I don't see any indication that this was done on Diego's orders; the golem certainly emphasized that the deactivation was their own choice. I think that Diego had them build the shrine, but the tomb was a later addition conceived by the golems themselves. Robot thought it was Jeanne's tomb early on, but that was before "The Coward Heart" so he didn't actually know where her body ended up. I don't think Diego had a bad reputation within the Court. It was formsprung that killing Jeanne was his first major act of "villainy," and that was approved by (most of) the Founders and covered up afterwards. Steadman hated him, but that was because Steadman was Jeanne's friend and ex and knew how he behaved toward her. To the rest of the Court, he was probably just a benevolent if eccentric genius. And I wasn't suggesting that he'd be grandly memorialized, just that he was sufficiently well-known for the Court to care where he was buried. The golems probably wouldn't have been able to spirit his body away and bury it at Jeanne's shrine, because the Court would come looking for it. How so? He was fairly cringing and passive with the living Jeanne, and its formsprung that Diego was a culturally Catholic Spaniard. If he wanted to repent of her execution, I think he'd do it on his knees. Underground chapels that can only be accessed by crawling are a real thing, like this ancient chapel in northern Greece. The footage would also make it a lot more obvious that she didn't like him. Diego was memorializing his ideal Jeanne, not the actual woman who screamed insults at him and broke his golems and complained about the Court and swooned over a hot elf guy. It was formsprung as such, but I suppose it could have been retconned. Well, what Tom actually said is that all of the "Court robots" that are "currently in service" were "derived from Diego's original designs." (The first and last quote are from the person who asked the Formspring question.). This statement does not necessarily apply to the Bullbot/Young-bot, since it was never employed by the Court and is currently destroyed. Furthermore, all the modern robot models have been extensively re-designed, first by the Golems and then by the robots themselves, so the same would be true of the Young-bot unless it was built by Diego's own hands. And I don't think it was; it doesn't have his style. The golems would have redesigned it, like they redesigned all of the robot models, because they weren't capable of replicating themselves. They didn't know how to recreate their own hearts or match the anatomical intricacy of Diego's designs. That's why they had to invent entirely new power and operating systems for the robots. Even if Diego had built a prototype Young-bot, the golems would have had to create a redesigned version after its first performance. Also, the golems have a different sense of aesthetics from Diego. His works are ornate, intricate, and closely modeled on the anatomy of living humans and animals. The golems and robots prefer blocky, minimalist, functionalist designs...much like that of the Young-bot.
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Hatredman
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Post by Hatredman on Feb 25, 2024 23:15:48 GMT
... By the end of the chapter, he already sounded more sober and mature, and the next time we saw him in "Sky Watcher and the Angel," he was leading a thriving Church of Kat. It seems like his experience in the Tomb was what ignited his faith. No. Sorry, but this is a big No. When Annie fell off the bridge, Robot was dismantled. His body was made into paper clips and his CPU was selected for research, because he was already known for "spreading misinformation". So, he has had this faith long before. I agree that he changed after the discovery of the Golem's Tomb, turned into some kind of Messiah. The Tomb exacerbated his already installed fanatism. But that's because those events just confirmed what he was already preaching for years, and given him a God to fixate on. Some time after this, when the other Seraphs captured him, they mentioned that he's been doing that for years. Robot is in a psychotic state now, but he's been mentally ill for quite a long time.
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Post by silicondream on Feb 26, 2024 2:07:03 GMT
I agree that he changed after the discovery of the Golem's Tomb, turned into some kind of Messiah. The Tomb exacerbated his already installed fanatism. But that's because those events just confirmed what he was already preaching for years, and given him a God to fixate on. I should have said "re-ignited" his faith rather than "ignited" it. I fully agree that he was mostly returning to his "normal" psychological state. But I don't think it was just seeing Jeanne that triggered this; the change was more profound than that. When the other Seraphs captured and disassembled him, he lost his memories and regressed psychologically. He didn't recognize the Tic-Toc or Ysengrin or the Glass-Eyed Men, didn't know that the Forest is not an appropriate place to look for a new arm, etc. And he was excited, cheerful, impulsive and playful in a way not seen in his later life. (Although that was partly due to a shift in how seriously Tom wrote all the robots. The Seraphs were pretty wacky in their first appearance too.) Connecting to S1, the prototype of his model series, was what allowed Robot to recover most of his old self. He said the connection had a permanent effect on him by installing combat skills, so I think it's the most likely cause of his other sudden changes. I wouldn't say that he's mentally ill at all. He's just a Seraph; they're supposed to be obsessive, controlling fanatics. As the priestly caste of robot society, built in Diego's idealized image, that's basically their job description. The other robots didn't consider S13 a "troublemaker" because his personality was atypical, but because he was a dissident. His crime was spreading "disinformation and rumor;" in other words, he disagreed with Seraph-approved orthodoxy and was willing to say so. He's Jesus, or Peter, or Paul, or John the Baptist; the other Seraphs are the Pharisees. Once the Seraphs decided that Robot was right about Kat, they had no problem following his lead, and the greater robot community already preferred him as high priest. By robot standards (which are admittedly not human standards), he's a healthy and awesome dude. Even Lana, the most rebellious New Person we've met, thinks he's just a really "nice guy." As for him being currently psychotic, I'm certainly not seeing that. Shadow (if it is the real Shadow) said he "changed," but that could be down to the distortion. Future pages will tell!
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Feb 26, 2024 6:42:57 GMT
Robot hated the Young-bot as soon as he saw it, long before he had any reason to connect it with Young himself. As you say, it's not particularly reminiscent of the man. So Robot's hatred was probably copied from S1, who did know whom it represented. Robots crush on girls who don't particularly look like Jeanne, and it's almost certainly nothing in their code or orders that makes them do that. I think it's possible there's something in the architecture that allows for similar responses to other things that doesn't take place on a conscious (for lack of a better term) level. I think it's something that bubbles up out of the kludge. The Young-bot barely looked like Young at all but did suggest him, like a gesture drawing and I think a parallel can be drawn between S13's hate of it and the robots' crushes. Being exposed to whatever process was running in the show put a big exclamation point on it, of course, but I don't think there was any transfer of information about Young. A digital analog of a feeling I think would come through as data, Robot remembering being in a state where he was in a body which hated the Young-bot... but perhaps we're debating how many Kat Donlans can dance on the head of a pin (given she's got space warpring tech and there's multiple realities, all of them probably can). At the beginning of "S1," Robot was still accidentally calling Annie "mummy" and playfully racing around with Shadow. Nor did he show any fixation on Kat, even though he'd already met her and said she looked like an "angel" and she'd given him the mouse body a month or two earlier. By the end of the chapter, he already sounded more sober and mature, and the next time we saw him in "Sky Watcher and the Angel," he was leading a thriving Church of Kat. It seems like his experience in the Tomb was what ignited his faith. Kat restoring the OG-bots to motion (however temporary) was also part of that experience and that's important. That's the first instance of the Angel giving life and taking it away in a manner that was beyond the other robots and the Court. What do the modern robots get out of visiting Jeanne's shrine? What do Christians get out of passion plays? I think that participating in the performance would be a form of worship for the golems, a way for them to honor their Creator, feel close to him, and understand his will. I don't see any indication that this was done on Diego's orders; the golem certainly emphasized that the deactivation was their own choice. I think that Diego had them build the shrine, but the tomb was a later addition conceived by the golems themselves. Robot thought it was Jeanne's tomb early on, but that was before "The Coward Heart" so he didn't actually know where her body ended up. If the OG-bots could get anything like feeling close to their creator at the shrine/arena would they have decommissioned themselves? Also, why would the opening of the hidden shrine be the climax of the spectacle? Diego's will (and probably direct orders) would have been for that shrine and the portrait inside to be concealed. Even if the OG-bots or a later generation were just aping human traditions and creating the arena for themselves, that would appear to go against Diego's wishes... unless there was some specific circumstance that would mandate doing that... Well, like I said before the shrine's there memorializing her it's not wrong to call it Jeanne's tomb even though her remains aren't there (Speaking of which, why didn't the kids recover her bones and sword and place them there? Did they just not think of it?) and I think unless there's a better candidate for Diego's final resting place it's not wrong to call it Diego's tomb even if his remains aren't actually there somewhere. I don't think Diego had a bad reputation within the Court. It was formsprung that killing Jeanne was his first major act of "villainy," and that was approved by (most of) the Founders and covered up afterwards. Steadman hated him, but that was because Steadman was Jeanne's friend and ex and knew how he behaved toward her. To the rest of the Court, he was probably just a benevolent if eccentric genius. It's also been formsprung over and over that Diego wasn't a great guy. I think on a day-to-day basis he was not a great guy before Jeanne died and he was worse after. More on this later. And I wasn't suggesting that he'd be grandly memorialized, just that he was sufficiently well-known for the Court to care where he was buried. The golems probably wouldn't have been able to spirit his body away and bury it at Jeanne's shrine, because the Court would come looking for it. Would they? I imagine Diego becoming more bitter and isolated as he grew older. The OG-bots were probably not responsible for as much around the Court as the modern-day robots were but if nothing else they were Diego's stuff-doers, so I figure that all things held equal they probably could have gotten hold of his remains eventually if they wanted to, and I'm not sure the Court would object if they just asked... or care much if the remains just disappeared one day. Diego was a founding member of the Court and an etheric-tech genius. He's arguably much more important than Young who got got a big park named after him. All the free robot labor the Court enjoyed was the product of his work. All things held equal there should be statues of Diego around, buildings with his name on it (the school in particular), and his final resting place should be something grand because the Court thinks of itself as grand, and has a lot of free labor, money, and materials [edit] I'm being a bit hyperbolic here because the Court allegedly aspires to egalitarianism and their idea of grand style would be more subdued than, for example, something like the arena/tomb but my point is that institutionally they have reason to memorialize Diego if he's anything close to mediocre with his people-skills [/edit] but aside from an appearance in the VR about the Court founding the only memorials to him that I can recall are the arena/shrine and the collection room in robot central, both of which are hidden. I think that's very strong evidence that Diego was not someone who was much lamented when he died. He wasn't erased from history, just given a cold shoulder and short shrift that nearly amounts to same. Come to think of it, if the OG-bots didn't have orders they might not have done anything at all when Diego died and if that's the case, maybe nobody did anything. If Diego's remains aren't in the workshop/arena complex somewhere, they may be near the collection room. His bedroom may be near there and he could still be in his bed where he died. If so, that would be a fitting memorial imho. How so? He was fairly cringing and passive with the living Jeanne, and its formsprung that Diego was a culturally Catholic Spaniard. If he wanted to repent of her execution, I think he'd do it on his knees. Underground chapels that can only be accessed by crawling are a real thing, like this ancient chapel in northern Greece. If there was a human audience maybe Diego would be cringing, but I'm guessing when he was alone he indulged his nastier side. This whole thing doesn't seem to be about repentance or atonement for him. It's about self-aggrandizement, symbolic vengeance, blame-shifting and, depending on if it was Diego or a 'bot who put that smaller picture there under the portrait, Diego winding up with Jeanne in the end. Historically there's a lot of precedent in founding a religious edifice for those sorts of things but the potentates who fund such things tend to want to be very public about it when they self-flagellate. Maybe all those seats in the arena are just decoration, a backdrop for the morbid play, but my suspicion is that they were for all the people that an aging and demented Diego imagined would one day come to mourn him, and its purpose was to make them realize how wrong they were about him (and Young) and then remind them about the forgotten tragedy of Jeanne. The construction seems to vary around that tiny entrance to the shrine set in the huge arena "false door" with Diego's initial; I'm thinking what happened was during Diego's lifetime when he visited the portrait he marched through a passage as wide as the latter chamber, had a good long rant, tuckered himself out, and slunk back the way he came. The golems would have redesigned it, like they redesigned all of the robot models, because they weren't capable of replicating themselves. They didn't know how to recreate their own hearts or match the anatomical intricacy of Diego's designs. That's why they had to invent entirely new power and operating systems for the robots. Even if Diego had built a prototype Young-bot, the golems would have had to create a redesigned version after its first performance. I agree that the OG-bots were either unable to create golem hearts or were otherwise prevented from doing so but I'm not sure if they couldn't match the intricacies or if without the hearts there wasn't a point in recreating the rest. I think there must have been some sort of etheric-tech "missing-link" generation between the OGs and the electrical appliance robots. I've been referring to them as such not just because we don't seem to have any examples in the comic but also because some loss of collective memory apparently happened between this generation and the following ones, and potentially also between the OGs and the missing-linkers. It may have been the case that their memories were literally incompatible. However great they were/are the OG-bots weren't wizards, yet they must have had some ability and experience with etheric-tech devices in order to be of use to Diego. It stands to reason that what they'd do is use what they know and can do, and make a much less sophisticated golem by developing more non-magical work-arounds. That's vastly easier and more plausible than inventing an entire new technology on a different power source. I'll wildly speculate that what happened after that was that the missing-linkers also couldn't replicate themselves; they were probably worse all-around compared to the OG-bots, but the one advantage they had was that the OG-bots gave them orders/purpose that could keep them going for a long time so they had a long time to work. Thus, they designed the next generation using even more work-arounds and even less magic. I'll call this next generation the third even if there was more than one go-round in the second because the key characteristic is that it is either just barely or not a golem at all, it's pretty much just an electrical appliance (with the arguable exception of the Seraphs). The tech functions like magic because the complexity of the code used in gen3 greatly surpasses ordinary muggle understanding... which makes it effectively mythical. That complexity is what's allowed the robots' Story to proceed the way it has. Also, the golems have a different sense of aesthetics from Diego. His works are ornate, intricate, and closely modeled on the anatomy of living humans and animals. The golems and robots prefer blocky, minimalist, functionalist designs...much like that of the Young-bot. The Young-bot looks like it draws at least some inspiration from a bull to me. I think Diego or whoever designed it was working a bull-matador theme with the arena and show. There's a matador-bot (last panel 5th from the right) in the first view of the OG-bots in the arena, perhaps as foreshadowing. On the next page there's another OG with a similar faceless sort of look to the Young-bot (panel 2).
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Mar 15, 2024 7:41:07 GMT
While we wait for the comic to let us know what's going on with Robot, perhaps we should examine what's going on with the robots in general (as it may become very relevant soon*). We've discussed in another thread** coded narratives in the comic regarding Coyote, Ysengrin/Loup, and Zeta before but we haven't touched on the possibilities of such with the shadow men/people and the robots. In both there's something of a bad/absent parent thing going on. The shadow men have become (almost) two dimensional and vindictive from the loss of Coyote's interest which is contrasted by the robots who've received aid from Kat; many robots have become something akin to functioning humans. The comic tends to focus on dyads and I expect that to continue with Robot and Shadow. More specifically, my wild speculation is that we're going to see Robot first receive some aid from Antimony (she's in sort of a lapsed dyad with Robot) but most of Robot's motivation to achieve a better state will come from his relationship with Shadow. The aid from Antimony will probably be fiery but less significant to that from Shadow; Antimony will mostly be an observer. Thoughts?
*At webcomic speed "soon" means sometime between next week and next year. **I probably should repost that here.
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Post by Runningflame on Apr 1, 2024 17:29:51 GMT
Robot's martyr narrative, and morrahadesigns ' post here, got me thinking about Boxbot and why he is so terrible: Boxbot exists to be universally hated, thereby recapitulating in himself Diego's rejection by Jeanne. Like Diego, he is short and ugly, and while he tries desperately to be of service, the only response he gets is " je te deteste." By taking the rejection of humans all on himself, he frees the other robots to find acceptance, appreciation, and even love. In order to fulfill this purpose, he has to be as terrible as possible. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost, but not quite.
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Hatredman
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Post by Hatredman on Apr 2, 2024 22:12:52 GMT
Robot's martyr narrative, and morrahadesigns ' post here, got me thinking about Boxbot and why he is so terrible: Boxbot exists to be universally hated, thereby recapitulating in himself Diego's rejection by Jeanne. Like Diego, he is short and ugly, and while he tries desperately to be of service, the only response he gets is " je te deteste." By taking the rejection of humans all on himself, he frees the other robots to find acceptance, appreciation, and even love. In order to fulfill this purpose, he has to be as terrible as possible. I think you cracked the code. That's it. That's why Boxbot exists.Come on, man. Boxbot deserves some love!
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morrahadesigns
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Post by morrahadesigns on Apr 3, 2024 11:36:41 GMT
Robot's martyr narrative, and morrahadesigns ' post here, got me thinking about Boxbot and why he is so terrible: Boxbot exists to be universally hated, thereby recapitulating in himself Diego's rejection by Jeanne. Like Diego, he is short and ugly, and while he tries desperately to be of service, the only response he gets is " je te deteste." By taking the rejection of humans all on himself, he frees the other robots to find acceptance, appreciation, and even love. In order to fulfill this purpose, he has to be as terrible as possible. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost, but not quite. Oh....wow, yeah. That actually does make sense! But, would Diego have been able to see past his own rejection to think of enabling others to find happiness.... We know from the underground chamber that Diego created himself as a seraph to fight off the robotic version of the guy who had Jeanne killed (can't recall the name at the moment.) Perhaps he sees boxbot as all the guilt, shame, and ugliness that Jeanne hated while the seraph is his fantasy of his best self. And as such robot is filled with the obsessive desire to make the court robots better. To elevate them, especially the other seraphs that share the same physical form as Diego's perfect self. The more I think of it, Robot is the combination of boxbot and the fancy fighting seraph. All the shame and all the desire to be made beautiful.
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Post by blahzor on Apr 4, 2024 5:22:29 GMT
Robot's martyr narrative, and morrahadesigns ' post here, got me thinking about Boxbot and why he is so terrible: Boxbot exists to be universally hated, thereby recapitulating in himself Diego's rejection by Jeanne. Like Diego, he is short and ugly, and while he tries desperately to be of service, the only response he gets is " je te deteste." By taking the rejection of humans all on himself, he frees the other robots to find acceptance, appreciation, and even love. In order to fulfill this purpose, he has to be as terrible as possible. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost, but not quite. Diego the genius that he is made Boxbot to get the citizens of the court to not hate the other robots because at least they aren't boxbot
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morrahadesigns
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Skinamarinky dinky-dink. Skinamarinky doo.
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Post by morrahadesigns on Apr 5, 2024 13:11:03 GMT
Robot's martyr narrative, and morrahadesigns ' post here, got me thinking about Boxbot and why he is so terrible: Boxbot exists to be universally hated, thereby recapitulating in himself Diego's rejection by Jeanne. Like Diego, he is short and ugly, and while he tries desperately to be of service, the only response he gets is " je te deteste." By taking the rejection of humans all on himself, he frees the other robots to find acceptance, appreciation, and even love. In order to fulfill this purpose, he has to be as terrible as possible. I almost feel sorry for the guy. Almost, but not quite. Diego the genius that he is made Boxbot to get the citizens of the court to not hate the other robots because at least they aren't boxbot I always feel sorry for Boxbot. I never felt sorry for Diego though.
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