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Post by Daedalus on May 25, 2020 8:40:35 GMT
I think she's captured one and analyzing the data inside it. Those birds probably have recorded information, maybe even on different dimensions. Gamma calls them the thousand eyes. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=194Maybe we'll finally find out why the rescued Annie from falling off the bridge all those years ago? Oh, dang! Gamma says Zimmy can’t stand the Tic-Tok looking at her, and Zimmy recently said she can’t stand looking at Kat. I can’t wait for the next page. I am leaning toward Kat being their creator. Incidentally -- - This gives an interesting possibility for what Zimmy’s vision of machine-Kat is (recently seen again). We know Zimmy may have some ability to warp time. If her vision of RoboKat is really a premonition of sorts, then it quite literally matches Robot’s ‘prophecies’: a robot-like angel, with a bird (either a pigeon or tic-toc) to match. Again, the bird motif with the angel. This could either be metaphorical or a literal depiction of what she would look like in the future. Furthermore, this could give a rationale to the confusing name of 'Divine' for the chapter - either Zimmy has 'divined' the future, or Kat is a 'divine' being (noted by Lightice ). Or both. It's also possible that, by overwriting reality, Zimmy causes Kat to ascend.
More stuff I'd like to highlight from my mega-theory thread seven years ago. |
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Post by arf on May 25, 2020 8:45:41 GMT
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, FINALLY I posted this seven years ago. If I'm right after all this time, do those long-delayed cookies come with compound interest?? More importantly, are those cookies still within their use by date? |
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Post by arf on May 25, 2020 8:46:48 GMT
PSA: 'Tic toks' are not to be confused with 'tic tocs'
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heranje
Full Member
Oh super wow!
Posts: 176
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Post by heranje on May 25, 2020 9:07:35 GMT
Wow. Delayed cookies to the people who guessed the Kat created the tik toks and Annie was supposed to have died theory.
But why does Kat look so sad? Discovering that your best friend was supposed to have died several years ago must rattle you, sure, but this suggests that Kat saved her, and the Annies are demonstrably alive... Unless Kat has discovered some kind of resulting tear in the space-time continuum that means the Annies need to die?
Next page: Kat pulls out a gun, crying. "The universe will tear apart unless I do this"
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Post by turniptree on May 25, 2020 9:13:01 GMT
Oh, dang! Gamma says Zimmy can’t stand the Tic-Tok looking at her, and Zimmy recently said she can’t stand looking at Kat. I can’t wait for the next page. I am leaning toward Kat being their creator. Incidentally -- - This gives an interesting possibility for what Zimmy’s vision of machine-Kat is (recently seen again). We know Zimmy may have some ability to warp time. If her vision of RoboKat is really a premonition of sorts, then it quite literally matches Robot’s ‘prophecies’: a robot-like angel, with a bird (either a pigeon or tic-toc) to match. Again, the bird motif with the angel. This could either be metaphorical or a literal depiction of what she would look like in the future. Furthermore, this could give a rationale to the confusing name of 'Divine' for the chapter - either Zimmy has 'divined' the future, or Kat is a 'divine' being (noted by Lightice ). Or both. It's also possible that, by overwriting reality, Zimmy causes Kat to ascend.
More stuff I'd like to highlight from my mega-theory thread seven years ago. All the cookies! Re: many eyes, that could symbolize omniscience or an ever-watchful god, and reminds me of the entities (angels?) in Revelation 4:8. This is super exciting and I’m psyched that your theory is coming to pass! Again, all the cookies. |
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Post by Eily on May 25, 2020 10:06:56 GMT
I wonder how much the psychopomps' insistence that Annie should join them comes from the fact that she should have died (assuming the theories are correct, but it does look very plausible imho), so they're still trying to claim her in some way. Although they did already work with Surma so there might be another reason.
I never realised what those time traveling theories meant for Robot until now, I kind of always saw him as some kind of fanatic who for some reason started believing in some crazy stuff, and Kat just happened to match his expectations. But with time manipulation maybe he actually witnessed something...
I wonder what Kat is trying to do with that bird, is she actually intending to send it back in time, or is she just trying to explore other timelines with time travel being a side effect?
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Post by theonethatgotaway on May 25, 2020 11:42:09 GMT
This is just... man, I keep on coming back to this thread and the page. The endgame seems so near. So many threads in the story are starting to connect it would seem. My mind is just getting blown to smithereens with all the questions that seem to get answered and all the ones that start looming in the background. I'm especially adoring all the old threads and comments that are being pulled up again (cookies all around, btw, for the intricate theories that now seem to be coming true).
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Post by pyradonis on May 25, 2020 11:50:32 GMT
She built a small robotic Eglamore! Kawaii! <3
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Post by najmniejszy on May 25, 2020 11:59:48 GMT
I’m sure this had already been folded into the theory, but we’ve all wondered I’m sure why the remains of the “dead” tictok... grew. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=276So... makes sense with Kat’s recent work. I wouldn't be so quick to assume it grew. As we've seen, Ysengrin lied about what happened that night, and the part about it damaging the cliff face might just be Ysengrin trying to find excuses for conflict with humans |
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Post by pyradonis on May 25, 2020 12:00:16 GMT
Obvious jokes aside, the discovery Kat made is presumably not "I found out these birds are actually robots" or "I invented a robot bird, but someone beat me to it by five hundred years". Saying "I've been building something." before opening the doors suggests that she built the tic-toc, and did not capture it. What seems strange to me is that Kat looks away as if she was ashamed for building this contraption, which does not make sense, except if she intended to use it for a purpose Annies would not like. But I might just be reading it wrong, and Kat feels bad because of the discovery she made. Question is: How does said discvory relate to what she was building? Wow. Delayed cookies to the people who guessed the Kat created the tik toks and Annie was supposed to have died theory. But why does Kat look so sad? Discovering that your best friend was supposed to have died several years ago must rattle you, sure, but this suggests that Kat saved her, and the Annies are demonstrably alive... If Annie was saved by time travel, there is very probably another timeline branch. In one timeline she fell to her death, in the other one she was saved. The "discovery" Kat made might well be that she saw that timeline. I’m sure this had already been folded into the theory, but we’ve all wondered I’m sure why the remains of the “dead” tictok... grew. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=276So... makes sense with Kat’s recent work. Good catch, although the growth depicted here looks much more artificial and less organic than the stuff Kat grew in her lab when working on new bodies. |
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Post by pyradonis on May 25, 2020 12:05:54 GMT
I’m sure this had already been folded into the theory, but we’ve all wondered I’m sure why the remains of the “dead” tictok... grew. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=276So... makes sense with Kat’s recent work. I wouldn't be so quick to assume it grew. As we've seen, Ysengrin lied about what happened that night, and the part about it damaging the cliff face might just be Ysengrin trying to find excuses for conflict with humans You're right, he was lying (or not remembering, because Coyote had taken that memory). Although I always understood it as him having buried the dead tic-toc in order to "plant" it and make it grow, so as to create a reason for conflict. And the unearthed tic-toc definitely looks like there are new cables and tubes growing out of it. |
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Post by arcuna on May 25, 2020 12:12:46 GMT
I wouldn't be so quick to assume it grew. As we've seen, Ysengrin lied about what happened that night, and the part about it damaging the cliff face might just be Ysengrin trying to find excuses for conflict with humans You're right, he was lying (or not remembering, because Coyote had taken that memory). Although I always understood it as him having buried the dead tic-toc in order to "plant" it and make it grow, so as to create a reason for conflict. And the unearthed tic-toc definitely looks like there are new cables and tubes growing out of it. I'm drawing a blank here, can you point me to what the lie (as well as the truth) was? Or do you just mean that he was looking for an excuse to plant the seeds in the Court? |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on May 25, 2020 12:21:14 GMT
^I think they mean that Ysengrin may have misrepresented the situation at the place where he found the remains of the crashed Tic-Toc on purpose as a justification to attack or at least humiliate the Court in some way.
Re: Antimony... To muddy the waters even further, if the theory about Kat building the Tocs is correct the correct Antimony would exist only in the ether, where she would have experienced a different timeline assuming she survived the fall and was alive at all... so while being correct she wouldn't be real, whereas the two existent Antimonies are real but aren't correct.
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Post by pyradonis on May 25, 2020 13:41:29 GMT
You're right, he was lying (or not remembering, because Coyote had taken that memory). Although I always understood it as him having buried the dead tic-toc in order to "plant" it and make it grow, so as to create a reason for conflict. And the unearthed tic-toc definitely looks like there are new cables and tubes growing out of it. I'm drawing a blank here, can you point me to what the lie (as well as the truth) was? Or do you just mean that he was looking for an excuse to plant the seeds in the Court? Ysengrin claimed he discovered the tic-toc only after it had been lying for several months at the shore, infecting the cliffside: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=276However, Red said Ysengrin appeared right after Annie was brought away, buried the tic-toc, and ate Red and Ayilu as a quick snack: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=320
I understood it as Ysengrin having buried the tic-toc in order to make it grow, so later him and Coyote would have a reason to enter the Court. I am also not sure whether getting the seeds intside the Court was his plan, or Coyote's. Ysengrin didn't seem to be thinking straight when he dropped them. Coyote had provoked Annie into slapping him, which enraged Ysengrin, which made him attack Annie and drop the seeds. Sadly, Annie never asked him about that one, or about the tic-toc, so we do not know which of these things Ysengrin did of his own will and which were Coyote's doing. We also do not know which ones he remembers. Ysengrin might well have "found" the tic-toc again because Coyote had stolen his memory of finding and burying it the first time.
^I think they mean that Ysengrin may have misrepresented the situation at the place where he found the remains of the crashed Tic-Toc on purpose as a justification to attack or at least humiliate the Court in some way. Re: Antimony... To muddy the waters even further, if the theory about Kat building the Tocs is correct the correct Antimony would exist only in the ether, where she would have experienced a different timeline assuming she survived the fall and was alive at all... so while being correct she wouldn't be real, whereas the two existent Antimonies are real but aren't correct. Hm, it would be an interesting third option if she did not die, but the story still developed differently (although the "correct" Annie would not necessarily exist only in the Ether, she could still exist in a branched off timeline). BTW, I am still curious why the Court never went searching for her, but Anja and Donald had no problem letting Kat go into the ravine alone. |
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Post by Jelly Jellybean on May 25, 2020 13:50:56 GMT
Toc Tocs - check
Seed Bismuth - remains to be seen
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Post by netherdan on May 25, 2020 14:18:46 GMT
So is this one she captured? Or did she make it? If she made it from scratch then that answers where they came from and what they are for, and presumably we'll have some weird time travel shenanigans at some point. Also, assuming she made it and that they do go back in time, I think netherdan deserves some cookies from Friday! Bird shaped time machines. I'm betting on bird shaped time machines (or at least an egg) She specifically said on the previous page that she had been building something, then cut to the Tic Toc. Unless Tom is throwing a curveball, that's self evident. Also: I'm not touching hot cookies fresh out of the oven, Imma wait to find if they're mine Also, is it just me or does that beak look horribly off? Like it is a skull peeking out of ill-fitting flesh (or feathers in this case, I guess?) Toucan skulls aren't exactly very fitting |
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Post by DonDueed on May 25, 2020 14:59:22 GMT
I’m sure this had already been folded into the theory, but we’ve all wondered I’m sure why the remains of the “dead” tictok... grew. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=276So... makes sense with Kat’s recent work. Good catch, although the growth depicted here looks much more artificial and less organic than the stuff Kat grew in her lab when working on new bodies. True, but who knows what abominations might grow from the remains of a half-demolished cybird? Ysengrin may have prevented the apocalypse by destroying it. |
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Post by Gemini Jim on May 25, 2020 15:01:04 GMT
This is just like the crazy thought experiment Coyote had and Annie discussed with Jones. Can something exist before it's created? www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1121Can a Kat be driven to save a past Annie by a current Annie that wouldn't exist if not for time travel? Oh, it gets worse. If the "Kat invented the Tic Tocs" theory is correct, there is a definite Bootstrap Paradox here. Kat finds a broken Tic Toc, reverse engineers it. She then sends it back in time so it can be discovered by a younger Kat, who reverse engineers it... where did the Tic Toc come from? |
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Post by DonDueed on May 25, 2020 15:08:06 GMT
I'm truly blown away by this fantastic discussion and all the connections to early chapters that have been discovered. Well done, Tom! Well done, commenters! It's raining cookies up in here!
I only have one question: why did Kat need to use a 20-conductor ribbon cable to hook up a pair of batteries?
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Post by nightwind on May 25, 2020 15:24:21 GMT
Guess it's time for another moon-sized cookie. ;-)
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Post by netherdan on May 25, 2020 15:32:05 GMT
If the "Kat invented the Tic Tocs" theory is correct, there is a definite Bootstrap Paradox here. Kat finds a broken Tic Toc, reverse engineers it. She then sends it back in time so it can be discovered by a younger Kat, who reverse engineers it... where did the Tic Toc come from? That can be fixed if she never saw one. It'll add to the Annies confusion too if that's the case! (it can still be considered a paradox if she was inspired by the Tic-Toc banner as that's the only confirmed "Kat has seen it before" that we are aware of) why did Kat need to use a 20-conductor ribbon cable to hook up a pair of batteries? Because they're pretty and colorful |
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Post by saardvark on May 25, 2020 15:46:15 GMT
Wait, is the leading theory that a future Kat made the birds... ...and sent them back in time to save Annie from falling off the bridge? And Annie was supposed to die that night, and that's why NEITHER of them should be in this timeline? WHAT Edit: I'm now getting on the 'she can only save the one from this timeline' train. Yup, but I think (hope?) its more like, she can only keep one from this timeline. Loup borrowed Courtney from another timeline/universe, and tossed her out of the forest so he could chat with Frannie, who is "our" Annie, but shouldn't really be here either since Kat saved her via tic toc made (or reprogrammed?) by her and sent in to the past for bridge rescue service. Since Courtney's Kat will be missing her, Kat feels she must send her back to her timeline, though how she does that remains to be seen. Its one thing to be able to travel in two directions on your own timeline... quite another thing to move things across timelines that aren't usually even causally connected! It implies not only 4th dimension travel, but 5th.... time as a plane rather than a line! edit: aline got it exactly right, I think! |
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Post by pyradonis on May 25, 2020 15:51:27 GMT
If the "Kat invented the Tic Tocs" theory is correct, there is a definite Bootstrap Paradox here. Kat finds a broken Tic Toc, reverse engineers it. She then sends it back in time so it can be discovered by a younger Kat, who reverse engineers it... where did the Tic Toc come from? That can be fixed if she never saw one. It'll add to the Annies confusion too if that's the case! (it can still be considered a paradox if she was inspired by the Tic-Toc banner as that's the only confirmed "Kat has seen it before" that we are aware of) Yes. And not even that was confirmed, as Kat seems to be looking at the scenery, not at the banner, and only Annie asks about the banner. |
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Post by saardvark on May 25, 2020 15:56:07 GMT
AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, FINALLY I posted this seven years ago. If I'm right after all this time, do those long-delayed cookies come with compound interest?? More importantly, are those cookies still within their use by date? it would be truly sad to win all those cookies with such a massive prediction, only to find they were all stale..... |
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Post by saardvark on May 25, 2020 16:05:04 GMT
The broken glass was a metaphor for time/continuity being shattered with this event??? ... and Annie getting cut trying to "fix it/clean up the [time] mess" bodes ill for what might follow here.... (tho it could just imply that in one of the timelines, Annie dies...) |
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Post by hp on May 25, 2020 16:11:01 GMT
I think she's captured one and analyzing the data inside it. Those birds probably have recorded information, maybe even on different dimensions. Gamma calls them the thousand eyes. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=194Maybe we'll finally find out why the rescued Annie from falling off the bridge all those years ago? Oh, dang! Gamma says Zimmy can’t stand the Tic-Tok looking at her, and Zimmy recently said she can’t stand looking at Kat. I can’t wait for the next page. I am leaning toward Kat being their creator. 1. Gamma calls them the thousand eyes.
2. Gamma says Zimmy can’t stand the Tic-Tok looking at her, and Zimmy recently said she can’t stand looking at Kat.
3. AND Kat's mecha form has a whole lot of tubes going out of her eyes
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Post by imaginaryfriend on May 25, 2020 16:35:36 GMT
Hm, it would be an interesting third option if she did not die, but the story still developed differently (although the "correct" Annie would not necessarily exist only in the Ether, she could still exist in a branched off timeline). I think in this case "other timeline" or "other dimension" effectively means "in the ether." According to Skippy, who is the only source on this stuff to date, there is normally no need for more than one timeline or dimension though they can be created by powerful entities who aren't supposed to do so (or at least Coyote isn't). I think we can infer that other people have been shifted in the past but timelines aren't multiplying. Antimony Prime, iff she isn't in this timeline and assuming she exists in any sense, doesn't exist in the same sense as Kat or the two other physically-present Antimonies, at least not from the perspective of this time-line. Though it's true that she doesn't exist the closer you get to the ether the less true it is that Antimony Prime doesn't exist (subject to the aforementioned terms and conditions). It may be the case that this whole time-line we've been reading about will wind up not continuing, of course, but until/unless that happens... BTW, I am still curious why the Court never went searching for her, but Anja and Donald had no problem letting Kat go into the ravine alone. Not entirely sure that the Donlans were fully up to speed on what Kat was doing. They may have given her permission because they thought that she wouldn't be able to complete her flying machine before news of Antimony's fate came in and working on it kept Kat distracted. All else held equal the only way Antimony could survive the fall would be landing in the river; without the Tocs breaking her fall she would have hit harder and gone deeper, and thus returned to the surface farther down the Annan (regardless if she survived or not). That means the search area would have probably been outside the Court. They couldn't really search in Jeanne's territory, anyway. What might have happened was that after Eggers made his report the Court contacted the local authorities downriver and alerted them to the situation. Maybe those authorities sent some bobbies around for a look but the Court does have MIBs for that so more likely they made plans to assemble the local search and rescue volunteers in the morning. They'd check the local fields and underbrush for a few kilometres on either side, maybe knock on some doors, but considering the height of the bridge the main focus would probably be on rafts and divers with nets and hooks to drag the river... and there would not be much need to get the majority of people out of bed too early. |
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Post by Gemini Jim on May 25, 2020 17:10:37 GMT
If the "Kat invented the Tic Tocs" theory is correct, there is a definite Bootstrap Paradox here. Kat finds a broken Tic Toc, reverse engineers it. She then sends it back in time so it can be discovered by a younger Kat, who reverse engineers it... where did the Tic Toc come from? That can be fixed if she never saw one. It'll add to the Annies confusion too if that's the case! (it can still be considered a paradox if she was inspired by the Tic-Toc banner as that's the only confirmed "Kat has seen it before" that we are aware of) The paradox still ought to exist even if Kat is unaware of it. You go back in time. You shoot somebody. You fade from existence. That person was your grandfather, whom you never met. Now, since time travel is only theoretical, maybe the paradox only resolves itself when it is revealed to Kat, like gravity in a cartoon. But, like that cartoon cliff, it still exists. |
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Post by mturtle7 on May 25, 2020 17:12:34 GMT
...WOW. This is such a long callback, and one so often discussed on this forum, it feels kind of UNREAL for it to FINALLY show up in the comic again!!!! It's like the seeds Ysengrin dropped, or the legendary hairclip, but somehow even crazier than either of those things because so many of us were specifically waiting for this. Also, I'm shocked to realize just how much evidence related to this mystery I've missed, despite being very familiar with Daedalus 's legendary 7-year-old thread. I never realized that Kat has never actually seen the Tic-tocs - I knew that Annie has talked with her about them before, but somehow forgot that Kat specifically says she hasn't seen them before, in that very page. Furthermore, I can't believe I never realized that the Tic-Tocs pretty much stop showing up after they save Annie at the bridge - some part of me has always carried this peculiar assumption that the Tic-Tocs were still around in the Court, but Annie had just stopped seeing them. But what if they weren't? If they were sent back in time in order to find & save the "real Annie", then it makes perfect sense for them to simply leave the timeline after their mission is complete!
Anyway...I'm looking forward to seeing Kat have her heavy confession interrupted by Annie's completely bizarre revelation. K:"Now, don't freak out, Annie, but this robot is actually-" A:"Kat, you're building the Tic-tocs?!" K:"The what-whats? Um, no, I don't even know what that is. Anyway, as I was saying, I made this robot in order to-" A:"You remember, those robot birds that saved me at the bridge all those years ago?!" K:"Annie, stop interrupting me while I'm confessing to my crimes against science. I'm telling you, I made this thing to-"
A:"This looks exactly like them, right down to the last detail!" K:"...wait, what? That doesn't make any...seriously, what?"
Edit: Gemini Jim, just to be clear, I think what netherdan was trying to say was that Kat has never seen the Tic-tocs, so she can't be "reverse-engineering" them like you're assuming. Kat is building a time-traveling bird robot all on her own, and it turns out that they were the Tic-tocs which saved Annie all along. You can't have a Bootstrap Paradox if you're younger self isn't acting on the information you send back. Does that make sense? |
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Post by TBeholder on May 25, 2020 17:31:24 GMT
I only have one question: why did Kat need to use a 20-conductor ribbon cable to hook up a pair of batteries?
Because it was the first she could find. Or maybe it's an "umbilical cord" used both for data and power when it's plugged into some base unit, so when the birdie is autonomous, most of it is not needed, but it's already there, so accumulators can be stuck on its end? Or the other way around: the extension is attached there when the bird "roots in". |
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