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Post by apache on May 28, 2020 5:17:08 GMT
"In a sense, I created one of you." Yeah, I think this is why she's freaking out. |
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manabi
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Post by manabi on May 28, 2020 5:50:14 GMT
No, like Annie herself concluded, Muut's (a North American psychopomp) business must have been retrieving the glass-eyed man's (a being created by the North American god, Coyote) soul. If Annie died without passing on her fire, a British or fire-related psychopomp would come for her. But Muut claimed that when Surma died, there was nothing left for the psychopomps to escort. And yet Annie escorted something, so Muut was wrong. Would the psychopomps think the was anything left when Annie died? (Cannot dismiss the possibility that Muut was lying about why none of them came for Surma.) That can be explained because of Surma and Annie being part fire elemental. Annie wasn't escorting Surma into the ether, she was escorting Surma into her own soul. Tony's attempt to see Surma again shows that Surma is still there in some small way inside Annie after all. That's why no one else could escort Surma, it had to be Annie. Surma likely had to do the same thing for her mother. |
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Post by The Anarch on May 28, 2020 6:02:04 GMT
. . . it's possible the Tic Toc made it rain there as part of its job of protecting Kat's loved ones. |
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Post by justhalf on May 28, 2020 6:06:10 GMT
No, like Annie herself concluded, Muut's (a North American psychopomp) business must have been retrieving the glass-eyed man's (a being created by the North American god, Coyote) soul. If Annie died without passing on her fire, a British or fire-related psychopomp would come for her. Correct, it should be for the glass-eyed men. Annie mentioned it here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=275 |
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Post by basser on May 28, 2020 8:26:38 GMT
Just to keep my fun Zimmy==Annie thing going: could be that the birds watch Zimmy cause Kat either had a hand in creating her (accidentally, one hopes) or she saw what Tony did (as I've noted before, Tony's powers seem to involve time stuff and/or access to transdimensional information, so it'd be natural for Kat to run across him whilst embroiled in such shenanigans). So she started tracking Zimmy, perhaps in an effort to figure out how to fix her?
Another thing is that with the apparent revelation that Kat told the very concept of linear reality to get wrecked in her quest to save Annie, I'm feeling way more solid with the speculation that Tony effectively did the same thing with Surma. Except he discovered that when you remove the mother flame from kindling you end up with a sooty ember.
Hahah or wait, oh no... OR, maybe Tony freaking succeeded in saving Surma, but it was by ensuring Annie never existed, and Almighty Kat was like NOPE, undid his shenanigans with her own, and somehow created Zimmy in the process. In which case she'd be watching her primarily out of guilt. Lord that would be dark.
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Post by saardvark on May 28, 2020 8:36:18 GMT
No, like Annie herself concluded, Muut's (a North American psychopomp) business must have been retrieving the glass-eyed man's (a being created by the North American god, Coyote) soul. If Annie died without passing on her fire, a British or fire-related psychopomp would come for her. But Muut claimed that when Surma died, there was nothing left for the psychopomps to escort. And yet Annie escorted something, so Muut was wrong. Would the psychopomps think the was anything left when Annie died? (Cannot dismiss the possibility that Muut was lying about why none of them came for Surma.) maybe the psychos only escort souls, and if Surma's had already passed to Annie, there was technically nothing for them to do, but Annie could still escort the ... what to call it?... husk of the body that contained the soul? |
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Post by kayback on May 28, 2020 9:48:09 GMT
I'm not really impressed with the time travel aspect. It's a little "get yourself out of a corner" magic wand.
I'm impressed you guys/gals got it I'd never have guessed. I assumed alternative dimensions, possibly, which could still be the case as opposed to repeating loops.
There are a couple of things that timetravel would have helped with and it could be a Harry Harrison "Secrets of Stonehenge" style phenomenon I guess.
I'm interested to see how and where it goes, timetravel won't be the reason I stop reading the series is too good for that but I'm rather "meh" about this revelation. Let's hope Tom can do something magic with it.
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Post by pyradonis on May 28, 2020 10:06:04 GMT
No, like Annie herself concluded, Muut's (a North American psychopomp) business must have been retrieving the glass-eyed man's (a being created by the North American god, Coyote) soul. If Annie died without passing on her fire, a British or fire-related psychopomp would come for her. But Muut claimed that when Surma died, there was nothing left for the psychopomps to escort. And yet Annie escorted something, so Muut was wrong. Would the psychopomps think the was anything left when Annie died? (Cannot dismiss the possibility that Muut was lying about why none of them came for Surma.) I can't find the page right now, but I think Muut only said that "none of us came for her", and "there was nothing to take" is a quote from Renard's angry rant later in the story. Also, had Annie died on that day, she would still have had all of whatever-is-passed-on-from-mother-to-daughter-fire-elemental, so of course a psychopomp would have come to claim her. But Muut claimed that when Surma died, there was nothing left for the psychopomps to escort. And yet Annie escorted something, so Muut was wrong. Would the psychopomps think the was anything left when Annie died? (Cannot dismiss the possibility that Muut was lying about why none of them came for Surma.) maybe the psychos only escort souls, and if Surma's had already passed to Annie, there was technically nothing for them to do, but Annie could still escort the ... what to call it?... husk of the body that contained the soul? I'd go with the psychopomps only being interested in the Etheric energy which makes the world spin, not in the soul. As for the question why six birds were coming to Annie's rescue, but only two carried her, I am going simply with redundancy now. Redundancy is unnecessary when you witness the outcome. Either it would notice it was enough in the 2nd loop and stop there (in case of a stable time loop with a single timeline in which the traveler witness his future self's actions) or it would fail 5 times and be lucky enough to have it work on the 6th despite it's resulting destruction which would deny more tries (and in this case, each time it travels would branch to a slightly different timeline). It all depends on how it works. There's also the possibility of it actually not being THE time machine, but just a self replicating robo-bird sent back by the actual time machine, but I'll politely shut up anyone who tries to convince me of that. But Kat did not witness the outcome back then in the past. Annie might have told her "six birds came to my rescue", so Kat thought she needed six of them, but I doubt Annie was calm enough to count them. And while Kat might tell herself she would just need to try it again until there are enough birds, that means she would needlessly risk seeing her best friend die multiple times (IF she can watch what the Tic-toc is doing from her point in the future), possibly creating a new timeline branch with a dead Annie with every iteration, OR she might risk just seeing Annie fade out of existence if she decided not to use enough Tic-toc instances. So, just do it like an engineer, calculate how many birds are needed to safely carry Annie (two), and use a large coefficient of safety (three) -> use six birds to be sure it works the first time. |
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Post by gpvos on May 28, 2020 10:16:59 GMT
I'm not really impressed with the time travel aspect. It's a little "get yourself out of a corner" magic wand. [...] I'm interested to see how and where it goes, timetravel won't be the reason I stop reading the series is too good for that but I'm rather "meh" about this revelation. Let's hope Tom can do something magic with it. The nice thing to me is that the multiple timeline thing, as well as the time travel, may remain a fairly small aspect of the overall story. It's just one of those things that are also possible in this universe. Yes, there has been a long-term build-up and it is a big revelation, but all those chapters in between were about many other things, and were interesting/funny/heartbreaking/mindblowing in their own right. The mysteries of why Tony is the way he is, what the Court is up to, and what happens when Loup dies and Coyote maybe returns are not going to be solved by time travel shenanigans; there is so much more going on. In the end, this story uses all kinds of different mythologies, stories that have been thought up by humans, and thinking about how time travel would work is just one of the more recent ones among those. |
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Post by arkadi on May 28, 2020 10:46:51 GMT
Sudden idea: I wonder whether Kat used / is going to use Zimmie's reality warping effects to "send" Tic-Toc backwards in time in the same way that space agencies use the gravity wells of planets to accelerate space probes towards their destinations...
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Post by viperys on May 28, 2020 11:30:02 GMT
So…
Can this qualify as the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Mark II reference?
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Post by netherdan on May 28, 2020 11:35:30 GMT
Sudden idea: I wonder whether Kat used / is going to use Zimmie's reality warping effects to "send" Tic-Toc backwards in time in the same way that space agencies use the gravity wells of planets to accelerate space probes towards their destinations... Every leap through time involves a slingshot maneuver around Zimmy. Yeah, that'd be annoying! |
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Post by pyradonis on May 28, 2020 11:58:15 GMT
So… Can this qualify as the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Mark II reference? I hope Tom had something deeper in mind when plotting all of this than wanting to make a Douglas Adams reference. |
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caber
Junior Member
Posts: 77
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Post by caber on May 28, 2020 12:37:54 GMT
As a small addition, since I haven't seen anyone else mention it: Kat's statement in the last panel sounds very similar to the real world one-electron universe postulate, but applied to the macroscopic scale of Tic Tocs: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universe |
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Post by saardvark on May 28, 2020 14:14:42 GMT
maybe the psychos only escort souls, and if Surma's had already passed to Annie, there was technically nothing for them to do, but Annie could still escort the ... what to call it?... husk of the body that contained the soul? I'd go with the psychopomps only being interested in the Etheric energy which makes the world spin, not in the soul. Agreed, that is a better way to look at it. So exchange etheric energy <-> souls in my statement... |
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Post by pyradonis on May 28, 2020 14:33:04 GMT
As a small addition, since I haven't seen anyone else mention it: Kat's statement in the last panel sounds very similar to the real world one-electron universe postulate, but applied to the macroscopic scale of Tic Tocs: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-electron_universeNever heard of that before, but I like it! |
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Post by iconocat on May 28, 2020 14:45:23 GMT
I'm not really impressed with the time travel aspect. It's a little "get yourself out of a corner" magic wand. [...] I'm interested to see how and where it goes, timetravel won't be the reason I stop reading the series is too good for that but I'm rather "meh" about this revelation. Let's hope Tom can do something magic with it. I actually doubt that it's time travel proper. It's already been established that beings with godly powers can enact things after they happened, if there are legends about it. Coyote placed the stars in the sky, even though he didn't yet exist, because humanity believes it was so. Kat made the tictoc, even though she hadn't yet learned how or why, because the robots believe it was so. |
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Post by saardvark on May 28, 2020 16:31:31 GMT
Sudden idea: I wonder whether Kat used / is going to use Zimmie's reality warping effects to "send" Tic-Toc backwards in time in the same way that space agencies use the gravity wells of planets to accelerate space probes towards their destinations... An interesting question (to nerdy me, anyway) is how many dimensions does Zimms warp? Clearly she does the three spatial ones, and time (she's warped in the past before), but the existence of multiple timelines sort of implies there is a second time dimension in GKC (allows "movement" between timelines). Maybe the Zimmster can be all purpose useful here - she can warp the Tic-toc(s) back in time, and maybe she can warp Courtney back to where she belongs.... Control would seem be the issue here though; it doesnt seem like Zimms has much of any control over what happens, making using her for time warping random and dangerous! |
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Post by Señor Goose on May 28, 2020 16:48:33 GMT
Just a heads up: this next chapter may involve trace amounts of time travel.
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Post by Señor Goose on May 28, 2020 16:57:04 GMT
So… Can this qualify as the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Mark II reference? I hope Tom had something deeper in mind when plotting all of this than wanting to make a Douglas Adams reference. Is there even anything deeper? |
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Post by lurkerbot on May 28, 2020 17:29:21 GMT
But Muut claimed that when Surma died, there was nothing left for the psychopomps to escort. And yet Annie escorted something, so Muut was wrong. Would the psychopomps think the was anything left when Annie died? (Cannot dismiss the possibility that Muut was lying about why none of them came for Surma.) I can't find the page right now, but I think Muut only said that "none of us came for her", and "there was nothing to take" is a quote from Renard's angry rant later in the story. Also, had Annie died on that day, she would still have had all of whatever-is-passed-on-from-mother-to-daughter-fire-elemental, so of course a psychopomp would have come to claim her. Here's where Muut says "none of us came for her".
Here's where Reynard says "there was nothing to take".Here's where Coyote explains why. |
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Post by Eversist on May 28, 2020 18:12:28 GMT
Oh. Of course. They even have the Alistair-inspired white crest. Nifty. I wonder if this was intentional or just a stylistic choice. Anyone think the eye color is intentional, too?  (Sorry if it's been mentioned.) |
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Post by pyradonis on May 28, 2020 22:18:29 GMT
But Muut claimed that when Surma died, there was nothing left for the psychopomps to escort. And yet Annie escorted something, so Muut was wrong. Would the psychopomps think the was anything left when Annie died? (Cannot dismiss the possibility that Muut was lying about why none of them came for Surma.) That can be explained because of Surma and Annie being part fire elemental. Annie wasn't escorting Surma into the ether, she was escorting Surma into her own soul. Tony's attempt to see Surma again shows that Surma is still there in some small way inside Annie after all. That's why no one else could escort Surma, it had to be Annie. Surma likely had to do the same thing for her mother. I wonder if they also missed the opportunity of making a final record back then?
I'm not really impressed with the time travel aspect. It's a little "get yourself out of a corner" magic wand. [...] I'm interested to see how and where it goes, timetravel won't be the reason I stop reading the series is too good for that but I'm rather "meh" about this revelation. Let's hope Tom can do something magic with it. I actually doubt that it's time travel proper. It's already been established that beings with godly powers can enact things after they happened, if there are legends about it. Coyote placed the stars in the sky, even though he didn't yet exist, because humanity believes it was so. Kat made the tictoc, even though she hadn't yet learned how or why, because the robots believe it was so. We do not yet know whether Kat will build a time machine, or just create it with godly powers. So far the Tic-toc seems easier to construct than lots of the other things Kat has built in the past. Except if you mean that all of her technical genius comes/will come from the robot's belief in her. Which I would find a little sad, if none of it was "her own".
Sudden idea: I wonder whether Kat used / is going to use Zimmie's reality warping effects to "send" Tic-Toc backwards in time in the same way that space agencies use the gravity wells of planets to accelerate space probes towards their destinations... An interesting question (to nerdy me, anyway) is how many dimensions does Zimms warp? Clearly she does the three spatial ones, and time (she's warped in the past before), but the existence of multiple timelines sort of implies there is a second time dimension in GKC (allows "movement" between timelines). Maybe the Zimmster can be all purpose useful here - she can warp the Tic-toc(s) back in time, and maybe she can warp Courtney back to where she belongs.... Control would seem be the issue here though; it doesnt seem like Zimms has much of any control over what happens, making using her for time warping random and dangerous!
Seriously, though, the Seraphs seemed to know pretty well what they were doing when they used Zimmy for reality warping. I wonder where they got this knowledge. Is S13 better at hacking than Jack? |
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Post by saardvark on May 28, 2020 22:44:47 GMT
An interesting question (to nerdy me, anyway) is how many dimensions does Zimms warp? Clearly she does the three spatial ones, and time (she's warped in the past before), but the existence of multiple timelines sort of implies there is a second time dimension in GKC (allows "movement" between timelines). Maybe the Zimmster can be all purpose useful here - she can warp the Tic-toc(s) back in time, and maybe she can warp Courtney back to where she belongs.... Control would seem be the issue here though; it doesnt seem like Zimms has much of any control over what happens, making using her for time warping random and dangerous!
Seriously, though, the Seraphs seemed to know pretty well what they were doing when they used Zimmy for reality warping. I wonder where they got this knowledge. Is S13 better at hacking than Jack? That is a very good point. Tho they weren't playing with the time dimension, somehow the seraphs had some control over how Zimmy could warp reality. I suspect its wrapped up in the fact that they themselves were built partly with etheric tech, so they have some understanding of it. If Kat could tap into that knowledge base..... |
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Post by iconocat on May 28, 2020 23:25:23 GMT
I actually doubt that it's time travel proper. It's already been established that beings with godly powers can enact things after they happened, if there are legends about it. Coyote placed the stars in the sky, even though he didn't yet exist, because humanity believes it was so. Kat made the tictoc, even though she hadn't yet learned how or why, because the robots believe it was so. We do not yet know whether Kat will build a time machine, or just create it with godly powers. So far the Tic-toc seems easier to construct than lots of the other things Kat has built in the past. Except if you mean that all of her technical genius comes/will come from the robot's belief in her. Which I would find a little sad, if none of it was "her own". Oh, no, I meant that she didn't have that level of technical genius back when the tictoc was rumored to be made, which was potentially before the court was created. Her skill is her own, it's just that the belief of the robots allows her to have created something before she existed, like Coyote. |
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Post by Dvandaemon on May 29, 2020 10:26:59 GMT
If we're going with the theory that Kat sent these back in time to save Annie in the first few comics. What was the path of this universe supposed to be? What events in Gunnerkrigg would and wouldn't have happened if Annie had died? Jeanne would still be there, Loup wouldn't exist, Robot's CPU would still be stuck in robot jail so the cult would never have started Is it possible for Roko's basilisk to be rewarding instead of punishing and also from mortal apotheosis instead of ex machina? Is it just me or did Annie's "When did you see one?" line come out of nowhere? It's as if she remembers that, like 4 years ago, Kat said that she's never seen one. Well...yes, it's a very simple thing to remember. If she saw one at any point since she'd most likely have told Annie, what with them being significant both as a mystery and the thing that saved her life. Going from off to an on state is generally notable. Maybe the issue with the Tic Tocs as Thousand Eyes is one of recursion: if Zimmy looking into their future sends her into the past, then into that past's future, into that past's future past, etc. Their temporal existence is basically a closed loop, two mirrors facing each other. the image of how Zimms views the Tic-Tocs definitely hints at recursion! www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=194 Just realized Tom pretty much spelled it all out way back then:  Kat dab smack in the middle of the frame. Right there, under our noses. Well played, Tom, you magnificent bastard you.  Edit: screwed up the quote code while copy pasting around this part. maybe the psychos only escort souls, and if Surma's had already passed to Annie, there was technically nothing for them to do, but Annie could still escort the ... what to call it?... husk of the body that contained the soul? "I'd go with the psychopomps only being interested in the Etheric energy which makes the world spin, not in the soul. This seems like a distinction without a difference. Souls and the etheric energy that runs (meta)physics seem to be the same thing for all practical purposes. So… Can this qualify as the Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy Mark II reference? I hope Tom had something deeper in mind when plotting all of this than wanting to make a Douglas Adams reference. Can there be a greater motivation than that? Sudden idea: I wonder whether Kat used / is going to use Zimmie's reality warping effects to "send" Tic-Toc backwards in time in the same way that space agencies use the gravity wells of planets to accelerate space probes towards their destinations... An interesting question (to nerdy me, anyway) is how many dimensions does Zimms warp? Clearly she does the three spatial ones, and time (she's warped in the past before), but the existence of multiple timelines sort of implies there is a second time dimension in GKC (allows "movement" between timelines). Maybe the Zimmster can be all purpose useful here - she can warp the Tic-toc(s) back in time, and maybe she can warp Courtney back to where she belongs.... Control would seem be the issue here though; it doesnt seem like Zimms has much of any control over what happens, making using her for time warping random and dangerous! I can't help but feel like Zimmy's condition isn't helped by these circumstances and maybe there technically being two of her also contributes to her episodes. |
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Post by warrl on May 29, 2020 17:01:35 GMT
There are 13 beaks in that image. Don't know if that's meaningful, or if it's just when Tom decided that the increase in coolness of the image no longer justified the effort of adding another. (Heck, it could be both - "I'm tired of drawing these, so I guess there are, um, one, two, three... thirteen Tic Tocs.") |
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Post by AluK on May 30, 2020 0:24:46 GMT
Funny fact: I joined the forums the day before this page was first published. Still remember we had a blast discussing the crazy next few pages, with the Zimmy eye reveal and all, LAUGHING ON LINE. Very few of that first wave of users are still around, I think ( todd , mudmaniac , dunno if anyone else). |
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Post by jda on May 30, 2020 2:39:11 GMT
I'm not really impressed with the time travel aspect. It's a little "get yourself out of a corner" magic wand. [...] I'm interested to see how and where it goes, timetravel won't be the reason I stop reading the series is too good for that but I'm rather "meh" about this revelation. Let's hope Tom can do something magic with it. I actually doubt that it's time travel proper. It's already been established that beings with godly powers can enact things after they happened, if there are legends about it. Coyote placed the stars in the sky, even though he didn't yet exist, because humanity believes it was so. Kat made the tictoc, even though she hadn't yet learned how or why, because the robots believe it was so. Yes, and I would add the Vonnegut vision: "All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist.” The most important thing I learned on Tralfamadore was that when a person dies he only appears to die. He is still very much alive in the past, so it is very silly for people to cry at his funeral. All moments, past, present and future, always have existed, always will exist. The Tralfamadorians can look at all the different moments just that way we can look at a stretch of the Rocky Mountains, for instance. They can see how permanent all the moments are, and they can look at any moment that interests them. It is just an illusion we have here on Earth that one moment follows another one, like beads on a string, and that once a moment is gone it is gone forever. When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead person is in a bad condition in that particular moment, but that the same person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians say about dead people, which is "so it goes.” |
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(Sorry if it's been mentioned.)
