Wild Speculation

[todd]

The only connection we have between the Tic-Tocs and Anthony Carver anywhere in the comic is Ysengrin's claim that Anthony was behind the sabotage, and that stemmed from his misinterpretation of Annie's sweater.

[rohaigirl]

Newly speculating.

Mort x Annie.

Reproduction = death issues solved.

[paxjax123]

I ship Mannie (haha, Mortannie) and I was like when I saw that.
Could it solve the problems? If the child was half ghost, half fire, and not human, would that solve the death issue?

[rohaigirl]

Feb 3, 2011 14:31:47 GMT paxjax123 said:

I ship Mannie (haha, Mortannie) and I was like when I saw that.
Could it solve the problems? If the child was half ghost, half fire, and not human, would that solve the death issue?

My first question would be, "How in the world would they procreate?" You kind of need to be living for that, I'd think.

I was thinking of a more chaste relationship.

[AJ]

Newbie with wild speculation that might get her shot:

Ysengrin/Annie?

ohgoddontkillme

[mrjeeves]

Feb 3, 2011 15:04:03 GMT @rohaigirl said:

How in the world would they procreate?.

Couldn't be harder than engaging in coitus with a flame.
Though that spawned a living child of some sort, so perhaps not a viable alternative after all.

[socodax]

Jan 27, 2011 3:54:01 GMT @rohaigirl said:

Jan 27, 2011 3:37:24 GMT warrl said:

And also invented a time machine to send them way back into the past.

Wild guessing. And hey--if you can create a mechanical bird that will literally grow into the earth why can't you create a time machine, eh?

Red Fairy said Ysengrin buried the device shortly after finding it. We know Ysengrin has seeds which he plants in robots and arms grow. While no arboreal growth was seen at the bird's site, it's possible it began to have "a mind of its own" as a result of those seeds. But I guess this argument is kinda weak.

It's probably just a crazy piece of technology.


On a similar note, if Ysengrin buried the bird, then did it really colonize like was depicted? And if it DID, then why was the bird still intact when he brought it to the court? Perhaps it's not the first bird he's found, or the first one he's swatted down.

FURTHER CONJECTURE: Where did he get that bird then? Did he get it on the way into the Court, or do the birds venture into the forest?

OR MAYBE HE CREATED THE BIRDS ZOMG

(not really)

[q3]

Feb 3, 2011 21:59:41 GMT AJ said:

Newbie with wild speculation that might get her shot:

Ysengrin/Annie?

ohgoddontkillme

Terrible, terrible idea!

I mean, their child would have so much angst over being both half-fire and half-tree!

[basser]

Hey if we're going for present-day characters making the Tic-tocs and sending them back in time then my vote is for Kat. I mean come on they're birds.

Plus she built an anti-gravity machine at age eleven. If anyone in the comic is able to build a functional time machine to fire robotic toucans into the past it's gonna be her. (Oh man and I just realised they're all camera birds. Kat built a time machine or wormhole-generator or whatever and sent a bunch of robots in first to see where it went. Why do they all look like toucans? Because it's Kat.)


ANYWAY. I was originally just going to wildly spec about Kat's mad technology skillz. She inherited her mom's magic powers but instead of purple bubble shields she subconsciously uses it whenever she builds something to make it function how she wants it to. Once she realises what it is she's actually doing she'll be an unstoppable ethertech factory.

[Stately Buff-Cookie]

No.. you see..

Kat's mother and father couldn't conceive a child no matter how hard they tried. So they built one instead.. combing both the etheric and the technological.

Kat is a magitech robot.

[hargharg]

Feb 5, 2011 7:21:24 GMT Stately Buff-Cookie said:

No.. you see..

Kat's mother and father couldn't conceive a child no matter how hard they tried. So they built one instead.. combing both the etheric and the technological.

Kat is a magitech robot.

Now I won't be surprised if this turns out to be true.

[jasmijn]

Not so much wild speculation as a wild question, but what would happen if Andrew went bowling for example? Would he only make strikes, or not manage to knock a single pin because that's less entropic? Or something else entirely?

[icekatze]

hi hi

They're all secretly mummies! Wait no... Annie will eventually burn down the forest in order to consume enough fuel to reach critical mass? No, thats no good either...

So, is wandering eye coyote's polar opposite? In mythology there's often a wise authority deity that the trickster foils, though coyote does sometimes play both... So did wandering eye create the mechanical birds, that wander and watch at the same time?

[tetrapteryx]

Long time reader, some time forum lurker, first time poster and today I uh, noticed something and I don't remember seeing it on here before so apologies if this is a repeat.

I saw there were three super awesome new comments on today's strip -- and as they've been banter between characters I went and clicked. I noted that one of the comments seemed to be from a character that hadn't posted before a "A_Caudatus". Though the writing style seemed nothing like Jones, I figured it had something to do with her since all the other messages seemed to be left by characters, and this 'poster' was new and appeared in the strip with her. So I went and looked up what "caudatus" is.

A. caudatus is a species of Amaranth plant native to South America and a bit of wikipedia reading seemed to indicate that A) caudatus is the most important amaranth plant in the region and B) amaranth plants in general are important to the Aztec religion in general.

On a hunch I googled "Aztec Goddess Wandering Eye" and then just "Aztec Goddess Eye" and uh, found this:

"Xochiquetzal was given in marriage to the rain god Tlaloc. It proved to be a perfect marriage at first, since his water was a necessary component to make her flowers grow. But as is often true in marriages, the pair became complacent in their marriage and bored with one another, which caused the goddess's eye to wander."
(Source: www.associatedcontent.com/article/433743/uncovering_the_aztec_goddess_xochiquetzal.html?cat=41 -- bolded the relevant part for emphasis. )

P'raps just a coincidence. Could be amaranth and the Aztecs have nothing to do with Jones, but, when I was reading that article and saw that wording I about did a spit take.

[Yin]

A. caudatus can also refer to Aegithalos caudatus, or the long-tailed tit. From previous comments, we think it's this one, especially as his small size is mentioned. But that's an intriguing theory! Layers is a very Tom thing to include in the comic.

(you might have misunderstood, though- there's nothing in his comment about his appearing in the strip.)

[omegax123]

Feb 4, 2011 16:33:25 GMT q3 said:

Feb 3, 2011 21:59:41 GMT AJ said:

Newbie with wild speculation that might get her shot:

Ysengrin/Annie?

ohgoddontkillme

Terrible, terrible idea!

I mean, their child would have so much angst over being both half-fire and half-tree!

No, no, no... You want a terrible idea?

Annie/Boxbot.

[Eversist]

Feb 5, 2011 17:12:40 GMT hargharg said:

Feb 5, 2011 7:21:24 GMT Stately Buff-Cookie said:

No.. you see..

Kat's mother and father couldn't conceive a child no matter how hard they tried. So they built one instead.. combing both the etheric and the technological.

Kat is a magitech robot.

Now I won't be surprised if this turns out to be true.

Wheeeeee:

Nov 6, 2010 16:42:24 GMT Eversist said:

Has anyone proposed that Kat is a really advanced robot that her parents created since they weren't able to conceive?

Great minds think alike.
Or we're just crazy.

[Ender]

Jones is a dragon

[Stately Buff-Cookie]

Feb 15, 2011 1:16:29 GMT Eversist said:

Or we're just crazy.

I won't tell anyone if you don't.

[guyy]

Feb 14, 2011 11:43:27 GMT tetrapteryx said:

"Xochiquetzal was given in marriage to the rain god Tlaloc. It proved to be a perfect marriage at first, since his water was a necessary component to make her flowers grow. But as is often true in marriages, the pair became complacent in their marriage and bored with one another, which caused the goddess's eye to wander."
(Source: www.associatedcontent.com/article/433743/uncovering_the_aztec_goddess_xochiquetzal.html?cat=41 -- bolded the relevant part for emphasis. )

Well, "wandering eye" generally implies looking at and/or trying to get at something you shouldn't. Since Jones works for the Court, a.k.a. "man's endeavour to become God," and also has some superpowers from an unidentified (but maybe not very legitimate?) source, the name seems to fit. I'm not sure if it really tells us much we don't already know, though.

As for Kat being a robot...I dunno. There's some vague hints to that effect ("you're thinking about making one, aren't you?"), but it seems pretty far beyond anything else the Court's managed to do; a robot that's not only indistinguishable from a human, but also apparently grows and ages like a human and (presumably) doesn't know it isn't human?

Though it would be quite a twist if she did know she was a robot, but hadn't told Annie about it...

[icekatze]

hi hi

Has anyone ever wondered just what to the people in the court eat? I know they eat homing beacons, but other than that...

[paxjax123]

Feb 19, 2011 21:34:20 GMT icekatze said:

hi hi

Has anyone ever wondered just what to the people in the court eat? I know they eat homing beacons, but other than that...

They're all robots.
They eat homing beacons disguised as computer chips. They have been for years.

[icekatze]

hi hi

Now, I loves me a good ol' bag of computer chips like the next box (get the cesium flavored ones, trust me), but I'm pretty sure some of the court residents need to eat carbon based food.

Maybe I'm wrong about this, but so far it seems like the court is entirely self sufficient. I've never seen loading docks or anything, thats for sure. So do they grow food themselves or do they get it imported, and if they grow it themselves, how do they pull that off? We've seen a park, but thats a far cry from agriculture. Perhaps some sort of secret underground hydroponics lab where the homing beacons are grown right into the radishes?

[smjjames]

icekatze: Given how technologically advanced they seem to be (in some areas), it's concieveable for them to put some sort of nano-chip or something into food which gets excreted out. Of course though, it would have to degrade or deactivate after some time or otherwise they are going to have to weed out sensors thinking the kids are in the sewers or whatever.

[vollie]

I'm spamming the forums today and I don't care:

Jack and Mort met over the summer and, realizing they both really quite like Annie, became huge bros. They pranked many, many people. Jack is the pranking master, and Mort is the scaring master. (Okay really they probably suck at it)

Annie's first greeting when she gets back to the Court will be a water balloon, which immediately explodes in confetti saying "WELCOME BACK, LOVE JACK AND MORT". It will be absolutely ridiculous.

EDIT: wow it's almost been a month but WHATEVER, have another somewhat more serious guess:

Anthony's grief over Surma's death isn't the only reason he hasn't contacted Annie. It's also because he's been spending all his time trying to figure out a way she can live after having a kid. For Science.

[TBeholder]

One of theories about Jones refurbished:
in GkC-verse Pygmalion did belong to an ancient alchemical tradition and thus got to work with beryllium bronze.

[todd]

It's often been commented that the adults at the Court (the Donlans, Eglamore, Jones, etc.) are highly intelligent and competent. But much of the way that the Court's run (a school at the edge of a forest filled with hostile forest-folk, potentially dangerous dorms, lax internal security systems) seems anything but intelligent and competent. Unless - what if the adults we've seen (even the Headmaster himself) aren't in charge? What if the people who *are* in charge are running things in secret?

The real Court administrators - the people at the very top - are the Founders, who have kept themselves alive for centuries through a mixture of etheric skill and technology (except for Diego, who declined because of his guilty conscience over Jeanne's death - not strong enough to admit his responsibility over it, but strong enough to feel troubled and tormented on his deathbed). But the process of extended life has had unpleasant side effects; not only have they suffered enough physical degeneration that they can't show themselves in public (thus, using the Headmaster as a front man), but their decisions have become increasingly erratic and deranged. Yet they've preserved enough of their power that the teachers, though aware of the flaws in many of their plans, cannot defy them. (Plus, the Founders decree that the teachers have to send their own children to school at the Court - thereby providing themselves with hostages to ensure the teachers' obedience.)

[hal9000]

Mar 28, 2011 11:20:48 GMT todd said:

It's often been commented that the adults at the Court (the Donlans, Eglamore, Jones, etc.) are highly intelligent and competent. But much of the way that the Court's run (a school at the edge of a forest filled with hostile forest-folk, potentially dangerous dorms, lax internal security systems) seems anything but intelligent and competent. Unless - what if the adults we've seen (even the Headmaster himself) aren't in charge? What if the people who *are* in charge are running things in secret?

The real Court administrators - the people at the very top - are the Founders, who have kept themselves alive for centuries through a mixture of etheric skill and technology (except for Diego, who declined because of his guilty conscience over Jeanne's death - not strong enough to admit his responsibility over it, but strong enough to feel troubled and tormented on his deathbed). But the process of extended life has had unpleasant side effects; not only have they suffered enough physical degeneration that they can't show themselves in public (thus, using the Headmaster as a front man), but their decisions have become increasingly erratic and deranged. Yet they've preserved enough of their power that the teachers, though aware of the flaws in many of their plans, cannot defy them. (Plus, the Founders decree that the teachers have to send their own children to school at the Court - thereby providing themselves with hostages to ensure the teachers' obedience.)

I think that's plausible except for the last part. For instance, the Donlans are free to travel the world every year for summer vacation (and could escape at that time), and Annie was born outside of the court with parents who had long-since abandoned it.

No, I think the simpler explanation is a combination of institutional inertia and the banality of evil.

[todd]

Mar 28, 2011 13:28:05 GMT hal9000 said:

No, I think the simpler explanation is a combination of institutional inertia and the banality of evil.

Banality of evil is probably it, especially since it's linked to the famous phrase "All it takes for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing", which echoes the robots' lament for Jeanne (that turns out to come from Diego on his deathbed).

(Did you have the lament in mind when you mentioned "banality of evil", Hal?)

[Clouds]

Hey, I just signed up and I've been reading the comic for a couple of months. Anyway, I have a theory concerning Jones:

It's been confirmed that Jones wasn't a student, but she could've been training as a medium without attending the school. She was the same age as Surma and co., so she wouldn't have looked out of place in the school photo. Surma couldn't stand her because she was training as well, and Jones was her biggest rival.