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Post by todd on May 12, 2018 0:14:55 GMT
Arthur being lost to the URSP. Juliette holding his hand. I think his name may be significant after all. In what way? The only "signiicant" Arthur I can think of is the legendary king, and I don't see anything in this scene particularly evocative of the Matter of Britain. Now, if you were talking about Juliette's name, I'd get the significance there at once. |
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Post by todd on May 12, 2018 0:26:57 GMT
Also that Annie hasn't obeyed the sky signal yet. I do wonder when that'll be addressed. Especially since I think the Court will really have to have some proper negotiation with Gilltie Wood - the kind of negotiation that gets to the roots of what this grievance and anger from Ysengrin and the other forest-folk who've been at the Court is about. Defences like enslaved ghosts or robot-generated force fields might keep the fighting at bay for a while, but they're little more than a patch. It's time for some proper talking - preferably before Coyote finds a way to return, since knowing him, he'll find a way to disrupt any attempt to find a lasting solution to this quarrel, and keep things in an "uneasy truce" at best. Though even if the Court can learn at last the reason behind all these attacks, what can it do? If this is about wrongs the Court has committed, I can't imagine its leaders being ready to humiliate themselves by apologizing to talking animals. If it's about the Court's experiments, no way is the Court ever going to abandon them. (At most, it might make a frantic promise to call those off - but would then break it at the earliest opportunity with a tone of "It was made under duress, to inferior creatures. Besides, this enterprise is so important that it will be worth breaking our word to achieve our goal. Questions of morality, of right and wrong, must come second to the grand discoveries of great scholars and scientists like ourselves.") And if this is about the humans creating etheric beings from their imagination, as per Coyote's Secret - that's something the humans couldn't help doing, didn't even realize that their imagination was molding the ether. |
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Post by foresterr on May 12, 2018 10:20:46 GMT
What are the Tic-Tocs doing, right now? Watching. |
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Post by pyradonis on May 12, 2018 19:33:29 GMT
What are the Tic-Tocs doing, right now? Ticking. |
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Post by fia on May 12, 2018 20:19:22 GMT
I continue to suspect the extra chip was put there either by Ysenyote, when Robot toddled into the forest, or by future-Kat, before he was awakened by Annie.
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Post by todd on May 13, 2018 0:03:06 GMT
Could Juliette and Arthur be intended, in part, as a foil for Jeanne and her lover? The Court's defense system again causes a tragic separation between two lovers (one human, one non-human), but this time unintentionally (whoever designed the robot-powered force field hadn't foreseen Juliette and Arthur's falling in love), as a side-effect.
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Post by warrl on May 13, 2018 2:11:40 GMT
What are the Tic-Tocs doing, right now? Ticking. And tocking. I wonder what they are tocking about. |
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Post by TBeholder on May 13, 2018 8:53:03 GMT
I wonder if other Seraph models have been unaffected? Otherwise, this protocol sounds like it's down to Robot and his religion. It's probably a Seraph thing indeed. As internal security and all. We just won't see the rest because they are still on Kat's order to get lost and stay lost. |
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Post by TBeholder on May 14, 2018 1:55:06 GMT
The best guestbook comment:
gunnerkirgg fan
what about boxbot
11 May 2018 | 12:35 AM
AJ Bulldis
I just realized this will severely impact Kat's research. No bio-robots running amok and having horrifying robot babies for a few chapters at least.
11 May 2018 | 5:28 AM
MadmanLava
Wait, if Elgamore and Parley didn’t activate the shield with the powerstation, then what did they do to help???
11 May 2018 | 5:45 AM
WLB
But now how will we know the temperature, humidity, and number of angels? http://www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=660 this guy is off the job!
11 May 2018 | 6:31 AM
SomeCallMeTim
Anja doesn't know either? Now that's a bit of a surprise. So what sinister mastermind at the Court does know? Boxbot. I knew it.
11 May 2018 | 8:25 AM
Blackburn
I hope that Boxbot is okay! Was he affected? How was he affected? Is he going to make it through this okay? I'm worried about him! He was so... terrible before.
11 May 2018 | 8:51 PM
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Post by imaginaryfriend on May 14, 2018 4:47:00 GMT
It's a bit strange. Using all the mobile robots (as far as Antimony knows) to create a large and powerful but stationary shield over the Court would greatly reduce internal surveillance capabilities and their ability to respond to infiltration or repair damage, or even to do the routine tasks that keep the Court functioning. Yes, it would seal off the Court from many external threats but the Wood has always had shadowmen and various other creatures against whom the robots are now apparently helpless. The Court likely does not have the manpower to guard all critical locations and if they try they would have to scatter what people they do have. It would not take many infiltrators to do a great deal of damage, perhaps even bring the shield down through disabling enough robots. Depending on how they're linked it might be possible that a single shadowman could cause the entire shield to fail. Furthermore, I doubt regular aircraft or ground vehicles could go through the shield and it must be using a lot of energy. Maybe it was designed to fend off Coyote or the Wood's denizens long enough to prepare an evacuation but the Court is probably heavily dependent on the outside world for food and supplies so this strategy wouldn't be good against a siege; even supposing the Court has underground tunnels they can use to evacuate or resupply those would also be potential ways that enemies could bypass the shield entirely.
Strength aside, the other advantage that a defense like this would have is that the modifications required would be less complicated and probably less difficult to make if all the robots are modified in the same way. If not in place before the enemy attacks this shield seems like a rubbish defense against threats on the ground, something Diego should have been concerned about, but it would work well against conventional aerial bombardment and possibly ICBMs. Even if the current court regime is against etheric science perhaps a past one would have been more accepting; around WWI they might have worried enough about the air threat to overcome their distaste for things they can't explain in favor of things that work. But I'd figure if it was an official project there would be classes of mobile robots (aside from the Seraphs) who were exempt from the shield protocol and there would be more reliance on fixed equipment. I'd think Anja Donlan would also be concerned about infiltration since she had a run-in with a bound dog when she was younger but perhaps this was the only feasible plan. But if this isn't a Donlan project it may have been the work of similar people who had similar talents and were concerned about threats that the Court regime didn't seem to be responding to a generation or two ago.
Counterargument: It could be said that the shield plan relies on the Annan (physical barrier plus lights plus Jeanne) as part of the defenses as well as enemies knowing little about technology and how the Court works, and of course any secret tunnels remaining secret. In that case it makes more sense for a budget-conscious institution who wanted some insurance against the worst possibilities but didn't want to expend too many resources, but like I posted before bureaucracies love large expensive projects.
So, probably the Donlans or someone like them made the shield but I can't rule out a previous generation of the Court or Diego.
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on May 14, 2018 9:11:28 GMT
Was it already established that the ceramic addition was unique to S13? I was under the impression that all robots, or maybe only the Seraphs, had something like it. The ship's CPU didn't have the extra part. I can't recall if any other robot CPUs were shown in the comic, but I'm pretty sure it was never explicitly stated S13 was the only one with it (and Kat apparently never asked about it, at least not onscreen). There were no Seraphs shown among the robots creating the shield, were there? strongly implies that there are multiple Bots with the extra blue bit. |
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Post by pyradonis on May 14, 2018 9:39:41 GMT
The ship's CPU didn't have the extra part. I can't recall if any other robot CPUs were shown in the comic, but I'm pretty sure it was never explicitly stated S13 was the only one with it (and Kat apparently never asked about it, at least not onscreen). There were no Seraphs shown among the robots creating the shield, were there? strongly implies that there are multiple Bots with the extra blue bit. Well, indeed! Now to me it seems like a gross oversight of Kat not even asking any robot about that part. |
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Post by Runningflame on May 14, 2018 16:03:46 GMT
The ship's CPU didn't have the extra part. I can't recall if any other robot CPUs were shown in the comic, but I'm pretty sure it was never explicitly stated S13 was the only one with it (and Kat apparently never asked about it, at least not onscreen). There were no Seraphs shown among the robots creating the shield, were there? strongly implies that there are multiple Bots with the extra blue bit. Now I'm super impressed. Tom's consistency notes must be legendary. |
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Post by blazingstar on May 14, 2018 16:46:23 GMT
Was it already established that the ceramic addition was unique to S13? I was under the impression that all robots, or maybe only the Seraphs, had something like it. It was implied from the beginning, yeah. This page strongly implies that there are multiple Bots with the extra blue bit. Now that's an interesting detail! Perhaps all the bots that have been found escaping have the extra ceramic chip. They were destroyed, so only the robots themselves have any records of it. |
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Post by jda on May 15, 2018 1:38:14 GMT
Blue chip = independent volition?, or immunity to Thought Control. as in "Divergent"?
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