Minor Mysteries about Robots

[drmemory]

There are a lot of big capital M mysteries in Gunnerkrigg Court these days.  I wanted to bring up a couple of the small ones that I haven't seen discussed so much.  I decided to stick to ones having to do with Robots, just because I'm fascinated by the robots.  Also, I wanted to resist making this yet another "big question" thread.  Maybe bounding it a little will help?  Anyway:

1.  Who runs the robot jail?  Probably the Seraphs but I don't think it's been stated explicitly?  I mean someone must have given the doorman and the information booth guy their jobs, right?  Not to mention the awesome guards!

2.  Who decides who gets put in robot jail?  We know the Seraphs had S-13 paper-clipped and I think we can safely assume that they were also responsible for getting his chip put in the chip repository, but there were a lot of chips there.  I remember mention of robots trying to leave the court in the past and being punished thusly, but who actually controls all that?  Is there a court?  Do the robots police themselves or what?  Based on what rules?

3.  Is the robot king actually king of anything?  Like, does he have a position of authority?  I thought I remembered Tom saying he just welded a piece of yellow metal to his head and that was it, but then in the The Torn Sea he seemed to have a throne and be in charge, and Annie actually called him the Robot King when she told Renard to go to him for help saving their Angel.  Follow-up: If he does have a position of authority, how did it get it?  Appointed by the court?  Voted in?

Those first three questions are partially based on the concept that the court does not seem to have a huge amount of control over the minds of the robots day-to-day.  They got the override hack in there that let them do the shield thing, but when they want to change the behavior of an individual robot they pretty much lobotomize it with one of those scary green chips that Kat hates.  They wouldn't have to do that if they could just give orders and be sure they would be followed, would they?

4.  Is Robot a prophet?  Like the kind with a gift of prophecy, or maybe visions?  He apparently was talking about the Creator and other things that have since actually happened long before Kat came on the scene.  Remember, he was disassembled and hidden sometime before Year 7, and the Seraphs said that was the reason for it.  There have been other signs of prophecy, like the robots just knowing that the tic-tocs were created by the Creator long before Kat was born.

5.  What are the newly embodied robots doing with their days?  It's not hard to envision Arthur hanging out in the basement of Kat's lab, but it seems like they are getting processed and em-bodied at a pretty good clip.  I would think that they would stand out, if seen on the street or in the halls.  There really aren't that many people in the court, and while not all look baseline human, we never saw any with seams and such like Arthur until Arthur.

6.  Are the robots alive?  They certainly seem sentient and to have something very close to free will.

7.  Are all of the newly embodied robots linked to Annie?  Or, more likely, Kat?  If Kat used the arrow to move Arthur's consciousness, and it was only possible because she modified it using Annie's link with Renard, does that imply that they are all her familiars now?  Or at least linked in some way?  Best guess is that the new contract given to her by Arbiter Saslamel works just like the Annie/Renard Familiar Contract.  With Annie and Renard, it gave them a much closer relationship AND attached Renard's soul to Annie instead of the body of the stuffed animal, so I've always wondered what the equivalent operation is when applied to Kat and a golem.  I mean, either it's the same as Annie has with Renard and they are all linked to her, or it's the equivalent with them all linked to RoboGoddessKat.  You know how we always see Kat's Goddess form with a bunch of crazy wires and stuff linked to things off in the distance?  I'm suggesting that the robots are what she's linked to.

Anyway, I know people are more concerned with Omega and Jones thinking Annie may be crazy and Loup and the forest and all the other big picture stuff, but thought there might be some interest in the poor neglected bots and their... religion? 

[Gemminie]

Apr 2, 2021 23:39:54 GMT drmemory said:

There are a lot of big capital M mysteries in Gunnerkrigg Court these days.  I wanted to bring up a couple of the small ones that I haven't seen discussed so much.  I decided to stick to ones having to do with Robots, just because I'm fascinated by the robots.  Also, I wanted to resist making this yet another "big question" thread.  Maybe bounding it a little will help?  Anyway:

1.  Who runs the robot jail?  Probably the Seraphs but I don't think it's been stated explicitly?  I mean someone must have given the doorman and the information booth guy their jobs, right?  Not to mention the awesome guards!

2.  Who decides who gets put in robot jail?  We know the Seraphs had S-13 paper-clipped and I think we can safely assume that they were also responsible for getting his chip put in the chip repository, but there were a lot of chips there.  I remember mention of robots trying to leave the court in the past and being punished thusly, but who actually controls all that?  Is there a court?  Do the robots police themselves or what?  Based on what rules?

3.  Is the robot king actually king of anything?  Like, does he have a position of authority?  I thought I remembered Tom saying he just welded a piece of yellow metal to his head and that was it, but then in the The Torn Sea he seemed to have a throne and be in charge, and Annie actually called him the Robot King when she told Renard to go to him for help saving their Angel.  Follow-up: If he does have a position of authority, how did it get it?  Appointed by the court?  Voted in?

Those first three questions are partially based on the concept that the court does not seem to have a huge amount of control over the minds of the robots day-to-day.  They got the override hack in there that let them do the shield thing, but when they want to change the behavior of an individual robot they pretty much lobotomize it with one of those scary green chips that Kat hates.  They wouldn't have to do that if they could just give orders and be sure they would be followed, would they?

4.  Is Robot a prophet?  Like the kind with a gift of prophecy, or maybe visions?  He apparently was talking about the Creator and other things that have since actually happened long before Kat came on the scene.  Remember, he was disassembled and hidden sometime before Year 7, and the Seraphs said that was the reason for it.  There have been other signs of prophecy, like the robots just knowing that the tic-tocs were created by the Creator long before Kat was born.

5.  What are the newly embodied robots doing with their days?  It's not hard to envision Arthur hanging out in the basement of Kat's lab, but it seems like they are getting processed and em-bodied at a pretty good clip.  I would think that they would stand out, if seen on the street or in the halls.  There really aren't that many people in the court, and while not all look baseline human, we never saw any with seams and such like Arthur until Arthur.

6.  Are the robots alive?  They certainly seem sentient and to have something very close to free will.

7.  Are all of the newly embodied robots linked to Annie?  Or, more likely, Kat?  If Kat used the arrow to move Arthur's consciousness, and it was only possible because she modified it using Annie's link with Renard, does that imply that they are all her familiars now?  Or at least linked in some way?  Best guess is that the new contract given to her by Arbiter Saslamel works just like the Annie/Renard Familiar Contract.  With Annie and Renard, it gave them a much closer relationship AND attached Renard's soul to Annie instead of the body of the stuffed animal, so I've always wondered what the equivalent operation is when applied to Kat and a golem.  I mean, either it's the same as Annie has with Renard and they are all linked to her, or it's the equivalent with them all linked to RoboGoddessKat.  You know how we always see Kat's Goddess form with a bunch of crazy wires and stuff linked to things off in the distance?  I'm suggesting that the robots are what she's linked to.

Anyway, I know people are more concerned with Omega and Jones thinking Annie may be crazy and Loup and the forest and all the other big picture stuff, but thought there might be some interest in the poor neglected bots and their... religion? 

I love to think about unanswered questions (in case you haven't noticed)!

1-2 both have to do with the robots' social structure, which we don't know an awful lot about. But one possibility is that Diego originally made some golems with certain responsibilities (like the security robots) and they built their successors, who inheritied those responsibilities.

3: The Robot King is a very good question! My guess right now is that his position has just sort of evolved over time – it works well for the robots to have someone who can take on that kind of role when necessary, and he does a good job of it. And then the rest of the time the robots just do what they do. But that's just kind of a vague guess. I wish we knew more.

4: My theory about this is that Robot caught a glimpse of Kat's angel avatar when she was very young, perhaps when she was brought to the Court for the first time by her parents as a baby or small child. But it doesn't always appear, so Robot was the first Model S robot to get a look at it, and none of the others could see it. So they thought he was malfunctioning. Either that, or perhaps he had contact with S1 at some earlier point, such as when Anja was using the workshop with the Tomb beneath it. I notice that Robot didn't do a lot of that proselytizing stuff before his contact with S1 in chapter 18.

5: As they say, I know, right? This is a huge shoe waiting to drop. Maybe Kat wants them all to lay low until she can get all the robots converted who want to be converted. Or maybe she's secretly having them slip away from the Court into the outside world (flaw in this theory: where?).

6: I suppose that depends on your definition of alive. They do seem to have personalities and free will, though they have different ideas and motivations than humans. Those were probably built into them by their predecessors, who got theirs from Diego.

7: I don't think they're linked to Annie or Kat. The entire reason the Arbiter had to give Annie and Renard a new contract was because Kat was trying to take the single-use contract giving Annie ownership of Renard's body and use it for other things. The old contract was canceled, and they got a new one. Meanwhile, Kat got a contract giving her the ability to transfer robot personalities into new bodies, probably without using the arrow (although terms and conditions apply, and we don't know what those are). Kat was going to break the rules, and the arrow would've let her do it, causing all kinds of ethereal mayhem, but the Arbiter showed up to prevent it by fixing things so that wouldn't have to happen. So I think Kat can now do that without using the arrow at all. That's not to say, though, that she isn't linked to the robots. I think it's their belief in her that makes her their Angel, and that's got nothing to do with the arrow. Also, the robots used to have no contact with the Ether, but I think that post-transfer, it's quite possible that they do.

[pyradonis]

Apr 2, 2021 23:39:54 GMT drmemory said:

3.  Is the robot king actually king of anything?  Like, does he have a position of authority?  I thought I remembered Tom saying he just welded a piece of yellow metal to his head and that was it, but then in the The Torn Sea he seemed to have a throne and be in charge, and Annie actually called him the Robot King when she told Renard to go to him for help saving their Angel.  Follow-up: If he does have a position of authority, how did it get it?  Appointed by the court?  Voted in?

Tom said about the Robot King that the other robots look up to him because he can make facial expressions, and that he does have authority "in some areas".

Those first three questions are partially based on the concept that the court does not seem to have a huge amount of control over the minds of the robots day-to-day.  They got the override hack in there that let them do the shield thing, but when they want to change the behavior of an individual robot they pretty much lobotomize it with one of those scary green chips that Kat hates.  They wouldn't have to do that if they could just give orders and be sure they would be followed, would they?

1. Normally the robots voluntarily work for the Court ("I enjoy using my strength to help humans!" "Me too!" as well as the golem Kat revived: "If we are not useful then we are nothing" ). The Court officially does not not know yet who installed the shield protocol. And the hardware overrides only turned up after all robots went to create the shield, which is probably because the Court depends on the robot workforce so much, so they felt they had no other choice.
By the way, regardless of what Kat says, this is not lobotomizing or zombifying the robots. Their CPUs are taken out and are sleeping, which is not different from when they are taken out to get a new chassis. She has done so herself with S13, so for once I don't really understand why she gets mad at the Court making those chassis useful. Considering S13's reaction to hearing about his old body having been turned into paperclips was "Oh! Well, it's good to be useful!" the majority if not all robots would be glad to hear that some of their bodies are still useful to help humans.

6.  Are the robots alive?  They certainly seem sentient and to have something very close to free will.

I believe Tom somewhere at least said that the robots are not alive "enough" to go into the ether, not unless they get organic bodies which can die a proper death instead of potentially being reactivated years later.

[drmemory]

Dang it, I can't figure out how to quote only part of a message! This is extracted from Gemminie's message above:

7: I don't think they're linked to Annie or Kat. The entire reason the Arbiter had to give Annie and Renard a new contract was because Kat was trying to take the single-use contract giving Annie ownership of Renard's body and use it for other things. The old contract was canceled, and they got a new one. Meanwhile, Kat got a contract giving her the ability to transfer robot personalities into new bodies, probably without using the arrow (although terms and conditions apply, and we don't know what those are). Kat was going to break the rules, and the arrow would've let her do it, causing all kinds of ethereal mayhem, but the Arbiter showed up to prevent it by fixing things so that wouldn't have to happen. So I think Kat can now do that without using the arrow at all. That's not to say, though, that she isn't linked to the robots. I think it's their belief in her that makes her their Angel, and that's got nothing to do with the arrow. Also, the robots used to have no contact with the Ether, but I think that post-transfer, it's quite possible that they do.

I agree that Kat got a new contract, but not that she doesn't need the arrow any more.

Last panel here: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2155, the "nice try" comment. The arrow is part of what enables the transfer. Also, here www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2160 he mentions that she must not misuse the arrow again. Unless I'm really deeply confused, this means the arrow is part of what enables the mind transfer and/or the conversion from being a golem to a living being.  The arrow only works in this manner because Kat basically copied the old Annie/Renard ownership contract into it.

I interpret the flow of events thusly:

1. The arbiter agrees to change Renard's status from "owned object" to familiar. He spells out that by doing this, he's changing it so that the contract will now be between Annie and Renard, NOT between Annie and her stuffed animal. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2157. So with the new contract, Renard will always be under Annie's control, bound to her as a familiar, regardless of what body he is currently inhabiting, and regardless of whether he is in the court or the forest or somewhere else. It sure sounded unconditional.

2. Renard agreed, willingly. He likes being attached to Annie and doesn't want to go anywhere. Reading between the lines, I'm thinking Renard's attitude about the whole thing may have been a factor in the Arbiter's offer. Doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion though.

3. Renard got an awesome transformation, showing he is now the familiar of a fire elemental.

4. Annie got a handbook, which she'll probably... skim... sometime.

At this point, I'm fairly sure we're now talking about the contract that was just modified - it is now a contract of familiar-ship rather than a contract of ownership. It is also a contract between sentient beings, rather than a contract between a girl and her toy. Apparently, that change could be made without requiring anyone to sign anything.  So, no special terms and conditions I guess.

5. The Arbiter asks Kat if she plans to use the same process on other golems.

6. She says she is.

7. The contract is changed to multi-use. Kat has to sign it, because terms and conditions apply, and he requires consent. I think this is because of the fundamental "dangerous arrow" thing. He did state he was changing the contract, not creating a new one. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2159

Side comment - it was never actually stated why Kat is now considered owner of the arrow! Common sense says it's just because she's been hanging on to it and using it, but it can be dangerous to try to apply common sense to godlike bureaucrats. I mean, it wasn't stolen, she was integral in recovering it, and the creator and original owner is long dead, and she has possession, so it seems fair?

8. The Interpreter flashes his teeth as he warns Kat not to misuse her arrow again, then bails, after a little questioning about shifting (which he mostly evades).

So the contract was changed from a contract of ownership between a person and an inanimate object to a contract of familiar-ship between a person and another person. By person, I mean living, sentient being here (fine print seems very appropriate when talking about contracts!). The new contract was then changed to be multi-use... between a person and more than one other people? I'm not sure how else to interpret it really.

So that's why I believe that Kat and the robots are now linked. I think every time she creates a new body for a robot and transfers its mind into it, she is creating a new living being that is linked to her as a familiar.

I further believe that the only reason we're not seeing this link in action is that Kat doesn't go into the ether. I predict that the first time she uses her little mini-arrow she used to help Annie in the boat, we're going to see some really exciting events. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1725 www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1739 www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=1740

[drmemory]

BTW, "New Contract" and "Divine" are two of my favorite chapters.

[lurkerbot]

Apr 4, 2021 20:27:00 GMT drmemory said:

Dang it, I can't figure out how to quote only part of a message!

After you select the "Quote" button and have started typing a reply, you can then move the curser up into the text block you're quoting and delete the text you don't want. However, this can be somewhat glitchy, so sometimes you also have to select the "BBCode" tab seen below to properly update the quoted text. That's what I had to do in this case.

[warrl]

Apr 4, 2021 20:27:00 GMT drmemory said:

Dang it, I can't figure out how to quote only part of a message!

The only way I know, on this board, is to quote the whole thing and then edit out the part you don't want.

[drmemory]

Thanks guys! I'll try that.

[drmemory]

Addendum: Is there any chance Jones could be a golem? I don't THINK so but I really don't have an alternate theory to explain her. The current chapter, focusing on her, caused me to think about this some more. I mean, if she is more of a diety or some other kind of creation of the human mind and the ether, shouldn't there be mythology describing something similar to her?

Tom has played quite fair with us on that sort of thing. Look at Coyote and Renard and Ysengrin, for example. Heck, he made it a point to tell us about the significance of the dots on the arms of the fairies, and I bet he is consistent when drawing them! The black dogs, various psychopomps, the Orjacks, and even the throwaway critters in the forest (like the guy with no arms in Tall Tales) all have strong links to existing mythologies. Every named creature we've been introduced to that I bothered to look up turned out to have a basis in history or mythology, including some I had to find via image search.

I am very impressed!

But not Jones. If there isn't and never has been a myth that gave her life... maybe she's a golem? Or a robot, same thing.

[maxptc]

Apr 13, 2021 1:10:02 GMT drmemory said:

Addendum: Is there any chance Jones could be a golem? I don't THINK so but I really don't have an alternate theory to explain her. The current chapter, focusing on her, caused me to think about this some more. I mean, if she is more of a diety or some other kind of creation of the human mind and the ether, shouldn't there be mythology describing something similar to her?

Tom has played quite fair with us on that sort of thing. Look at Coyote and Renard and Ysengrin, for example. Heck, he made it a point to tell us about the significance of the dots on the arms of the fairies, and I bet he is consistent when drawing them! The black dogs, various psychopomps, the Orjacks, and even the throwaway critters in the forest (like the guy with no arms in Tall Tales) all have strong links to existing mythologies. Every named creature we've been introduced to that I bothered to look up turned out to have a basis in history or mythology, including some I had to find via image search.

I am very impressed!

But not Jones. If there isn't and never has been a myth that gave her life... maybe she's a golem? Or a robot, same thing.

A blank AI brain, an indestructible body and time travel would explain Jones in a neat tidy package.

[Gemminie]

Apr 13, 2021 1:10:02 GMT drmemory said:

Addendum: Is there any chance Jones could be a golem? I don't THINK so but I really don't have an alternate theory to explain her. The current chapter, focusing on her, caused me to think about this some more. I mean, if she is more of a diety or some other kind of creation of the human mind and the ether, shouldn't there be mythology describing something similar to her?

Tom has played quite fair with us on that sort of thing. Look at Coyote and Renard and Ysengrin, for example. Heck, he made it a point to tell us about the significance of the dots on the arms of the fairies, and I bet he is consistent when drawing them! The black dogs, various psychopomps, the Orjacks, and even the throwaway critters in the forest (like the guy with no arms in Tall Tales) all have strong links to existing mythologies. Every named creature we've been introduced to that I bothered to look up turned out to have a basis in history or mythology, including some I had to find via image search.

I am very impressed!

But not Jones. If there isn't and never has been a myth that gave her life... maybe she's a golem? Or a robot, same thing.

Jones, though, is powerful enough to face off against Coyote, a god. I have suspicions about how Jones came/will come to be, but the point is that I don't think we've seen a golem with that kind of power. What if Jones has a basis in a culture that only exists (or existed in the past, or will exist in the future) within this story universe? After all, if the Ether can cause things to exist in the past, then the culture whose mythology created her may not yet exist.

[blahzor]

Apr 13, 2021 1:45:06 GMT Gemminie said:

Apr 13, 2021 1:10:02 GMT drmemory said:

Addendum: Is there any chance Jones could be a golem? I don't THINK so but I really don't have an alternate theory to explain her. The current chapter, focusing on her, caused me to think about this some more. I mean, if she is more of a diety or some other kind of creation of the human mind and the ether, shouldn't there be mythology describing something similar to her?

Tom has played quite fair with us on that sort of thing. Look at Coyote and Renard and Ysengrin, for example. Heck, he made it a point to tell us about the significance of the dots on the arms of the fairies, and I bet he is consistent when drawing them! The black dogs, various psychopomps, the Orjacks, and even the throwaway critters in the forest (like the guy with no arms in Tall Tales) all have strong links to existing mythologies. Every named creature we've been introduced to that I bothered to look up turned out to have a basis in history or mythology, including some I had to find via image search.

I am very impressed!

But not Jones. If there isn't and never has been a myth that gave her life... maybe she's a golem? Or a robot, same thing.

Jones, though, is powerful enough to face off against Coyote, a god. I have suspicions about how Jones came/will come to be, but the point is that I don't think we've seen a golem with that kind of power. What if Jones has a basis in a culture that only exists (or existed in the past, or will exist in the future) within this story universe? After all, if the Ether can cause things to exist in the past, then the culture whose mythology created her may not yet exist.

This implies that Coyote would fight fairly. But he could always choose to win by being different places/everywhere at once

[drmemory]

Another robot question: Way back here www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=223 we saw a shadow man take over Robot's body. I'm guessing that this was possible because normal robots are objects. We've seen shadow men take over trees as well, and make those dog-tree things.

My question is, can a shadow man take over one of Kat's neobots? They are new living creatures www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2155 so I'm guessing not? But then again, they are housed in inanimate forms.

I think our friends in the court are lucky that the shadow men have confined themselves to only taking over trees and such, given all the robots and lobotomized robots walking around. Hard to say why that is - maybe I'm mistaken about how their powers work and they can actually only take over living but non-sentient things? In which case, the question of whether the robots have free will and can be considered sentient beings may have more importance than previously thought. In this theory, the shadow man was only able to take over Robot due to his tree-arm.

Dunno, just another robot-related mystery.

[drmemory]

Apr 13, 2021 1:45:06 GMT Gemminie said:

Apr 13, 2021 1:10:02 GMT drmemory said:

Addendum: Is there any chance Jones could be a golem? I don't THINK so but I really don't have an alternate theory to explain her. The current chapter, focusing on her, caused me to think about this some more. I mean, if she is more of a diety or some other kind of creation of the human mind and the ether, shouldn't there be mythology describing something similar to her?

Tom has played quite fair with us on that sort of thing. Look at Coyote and Renard and Ysengrin, for example. Heck, he made it a point to tell us about the significance of the dots on the arms of the fairies, and I bet he is consistent when drawing them! The black dogs, various psychopomps, the Orjacks, and even the throwaway critters in the forest (like the guy with no arms in Tall Tales) all have strong links to existing mythologies. Every named creature we've been introduced to that I bothered to look up turned out to have a basis in history or mythology, including some I had to find via image search.

I am very impressed!

But not Jones. If there isn't and never has been a myth that gave her life... maybe she's a golem? Or a robot, same thing.

Jones, though, is powerful enough to face off against Coyote, a god. I have suspicions about how Jones came/will come to be, but the point is that I don't think we've seen a golem with that kind of power. What if Jones has a basis in a culture that only exists (or existed in the past, or will exist in the future) within this story universe? After all, if the Ether can cause things to exist in the past, then the culture whose mythology created her may not yet exist.

Interesting point about Jones being powerful enough to face off against Coyote.  I'd dearly love to see their first encounter!  Did they fight?  Is that when she first experienced the view from space?  They sort of hinted that there was some excitement, right?  www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=816  "Are we getting into this again, Wandering Eye?"  Sounds like fun!

She isn't powerful in the same sense as Coyote.  Reality doesn't flow and shift to her desires.  But she has no fear (no emotions at all, supposedly), can't be hurt (not even one hair on her head), and physical materials are like putty in her hands.  So she can be banished to space or maybe buried deeply but not hurt, and not intimidated really.  It's not really the classic immovable rock - more of an unchangeable rock.  I have to imagine this would give one a different perspective.

So maybe she is the ultimate golem, created by Future Kat for reasons we do not yet have the context to know.  (I don't know how to quote two messages in one post.  Sorry maxptc, I did see your time travel suggestion and am talking about it here.)

As for the time part, the Norns weren't specific about the circumstances of when they previously saw Kat before.  Verdandi said "Yes, you've come to us many times.", then talks about how the times aren't important, just the events.  www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2345

So we don't really know whether our Kat will be visiting the Norns again in the future in this timeline.  I have to think it's a possibility.  I'm not even going to speculate on what would make Kat create Jones and feel that she must send her back in time to the creation of the earth - that way lies madness and bad Terminator spin-offs!

[Timberwere]

Welcome to the forum, drmemory!

By the way, you can create text which includes the link you want to post by using the following structure:


[url=www.TheLinkYouWantToUse.com]The text[/url] you want to show up as the link

Which will look like this: The text you want to show up as the link (linking to your example above)

[drmemory]

Apr 14, 2021 7:56:48 GMT Timberwere said:

Welcome to the forum, drmemory!

By the way, you can create text which includes the link you want to post by using the following structure:


[url=www.TheLinkYouWantToUse.com]The text[/url] you want to show up as the link

Which will look like this: The text you want to show up as the link (linking to your example above)

I've done ok creating links like that (with text) when creating a new post, but when I try to do it manually I generally don't get the menu with the icons and it doesn't go well for me.  I guess I could try that?  I think you're suggesting I type in the HTML?  Or BBCode, whatever it is here.

In the past when I've tried to edit a draft to make my links look like that, bad things have happened - like corrupt links.  I'm sure it's operator error but I wasn't sure how to fix it.  Thanks for the example of what it looks like under the hood.

[DonDueed]

Apr 16, 2021 16:02:59 GMT drmemory said:

Apr 14, 2021 7:56:48 GMT Timberwere said:

Welcome to the forum, drmemory!

By the way, you can create text which includes the link you want to post by using the following structure:


[url=www.TheLinkYouWantToUse.com]The text[/url] you want to show up as the link

Which will look like this: The text you want to show up as the link (linking to your example above)

I've done ok creating links like that (with text) when creating a new post, but when I try to do it manually I generally don't get the menu with the icons and it doesn't go well for me.  I guess I could try that?  I think you're suggesting I type in the HTML?  Or BBCode, whatever it is here. 

In the past when I've tried to edit a draft to make my links look like that, bad things have happened - like corrupt links.  I'm sure it's operator error but I wasn't sure how to fix it.  Thanks for the example of what it looks like under the hood.

There's a much easier way.  Copy the URL for your link into the clipboard.  Then, open a Reply window, type your comment, and when you get to the point where you want your link, click on the link icon (looks like a globe with a document).  Then just fill in the blanks -- paste the link from your clipboard into the URL field and type the text you want to be linkable into the Text field.  Click Create Link and hey presto!

[drmemory]

But the problem I was complaining about is, if I just start filling in the reply in the box at the bottom, I don't see the menu with the icons on it! It doesn't show until I click the Reply button.

Hmmm.  Perhaps I should take that as a hint that I'm doing it wrong, and should click the Reply button first, before I start typing.  I'll try to re-train myself to do that, thanks.  If that's all this is, fine, won't be the first time my problem was between the keyboard and the chair. 

[lurkerbot]

Apr 17, 2021 2:03:18 GMT drmemory said:

But the problem I was complaining about is, if I just start filling in the reply in the box at the bottom, I don't see the menu with the icons on it! It doesn't show until I click the Reply button.

Hmmm.  Perhaps I should take that as a hint that I'm doing it wrong, and should click the Reply button first, before I start typing.  I'll try to re-train myself to do that, thanks.  If that's all this is, fine, won't be the first time my problem was between the keyboard and the chair. 

Select the "Reply" button before typing and you'll get a blank text entry field with menu icons above. Select the "Quote" button adjacent to a post and you'll get that post in a quote "box" with text entry field below and menu icons above. 

[drmemory]

Apr 17, 2021 16:35:49 GMT lurkerbot said:

Apr 17, 2021 2:03:18 GMT drmemory said:

But the problem I was complaining about is, if I just start filling in the reply in the box at the bottom, I don't see the menu with the icons on it! It doesn't show until I click the Reply button.

Hmmm.  Perhaps I should take that as a hint that I'm doing it wrong, and should click the Reply button first, before I start typing.  I'll try to re-train myself to do that, thanks.  If that's all this is, fine, won't be the first time my problem was between the keyboard and the chair. 

Select the "Quote" button adjacent to a post and you'll get that post in a quote "box" with menu icons above and text entry field below. 

Ok, that works.  This almost makes me wonder why they bother with the less-functional normal Reply box, where you just start typing but don't have the icons.  Oh well, I'm good now, thanks for the help.  Hopefully no more scrambled links for me.

[drmemory]

In a probably futile attempt to pull this back to the robots, have people noticed that Kat, while doing a lot to help the robots, still doesn't really treat them like people? Or equals? For example, when they are talking about the Jeanne thing, Robot says "and me!" and Kat doesn't even acknowledge it nor include him in the conversation. Should she really be taking him 100% for granted?

She doesn't really treat them badly, and clearly has compassion for them, but when it comes down to what she wants to get done, her needs clearly trump the desires of the robots (like, to stay dead). I'd dearly like to know what that Arthur was thinking in that scene. Thought exercise - try and figure out what each of them was thinking in panel 2. I see Kat as determined to do what she thinks she needs to do, Juliette as just interested to see all these cool-looking robots appear, and Arthur as... in awe of the power of his Angel to bring back the dead.

I think our MechaGoddess has an icy cold core inside. Which makes sense, really. This is probably related to Zimmy's concerns about her.

Another Arthur incident. Here Arthur tells her the robots have long been aware of the birds and who created them. If it were a human that said that, I'd sort of expect Kat to probe further and ask questions like "How long ago these birds first seen"? Or maybe, "What were the birds doing?"  Really, it's not too late, she could do that any time, and perhaps learn more about what's up with her and the Norns and time. I dunno. I just feel like she doesn't treat them like people.

Other incidents include yelling at the little bots when they tried to bring her Diego papers, and leaving Robot in his test frame while she went off to deal with the noisy pigeon baby (City Face). She did apologize for those two incidents, but this seems more like a basic attitude than her just being a butt that day. Frankly, I'd be happier if she acted maternal to the bots rather than... cold.

Definitely getting a High Evolutionary vibe from her these days.  Without Annie, I wonder if it would be more of a Dr. Doom vibe?

[mturtle7]

Apr 13, 2021 15:33:40 GMT drmemory said:

Another robot question: Way back here www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=223 we saw a shadow man take over Robot's body. I'm guessing that this was possible because normal robots are objects. We've seen shadow men take over trees as well, and make those dog-tree things.

My question is, can a shadow man take over one of Kat's neobots? They are new living creatures www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2155 so I'm guessing not? But then again, they are housed in inanimate forms.

I think our friends in the court are lucky that the shadow men have confined themselves to only taking over trees and such, given all the robots and lobotomized robots walking around. Hard to say why that is - maybe I'm mistaken about how their powers work and they can actually only take over living but non-sentient things? In which case, the question of whether the robots have free will and can be considered sentient beings may have more importance than previously thought. In this theory, the shadow man was only able to take over Robot due to his tree-arm.

Dunno, just another robot-related mystery.

I've always kind of operated on the tenuous assumption that Shadow Men can only control objects made partially or totally out of living wood, and Ysengrin only gave him that arm so it could grow its roots all through his body and let that Shadow Man take control. In this view, the tree arm was the key, but it didn't matter whether Robot was sentient or not. But it's really not clear! Two examples of possession is no substitute for that sweet, sweet, exposition I crave.

In general, I think the Shadow Men and the Tic-tocs are two of the most annoying mysteries I've ever seen in this comic, because you really get the impression early on in the comic that they're supposed to be important, but then you just get 1 or 2 tiny bits of exposition for 50 chapters after that. At least the Tic-toc thing was finally resolved - although even that was kind of unsatisfying, since it never bothered to make it clear whether the Tic-Toc had actually grown into the cliff face or not. I guess that's what they actually meant when they said "Ysengrin was lying"? But it's been so long since that incident was relevant, I don't think it's ever going to be explained more clearly than it already has...

[drmemory]

Apr 17, 2021 19:36:48 GMT mturtle7 said:

In general, I think the Shadow Men and the Tic-tocs are two of the most annoying mysteries I've ever seen in this comic, because you really get the impression early on in the comic that they're supposed to be important, but then you just get 1 or 2 tiny bits of exposition for 50 chapters after that. At least the Tic-toc thing was finally resolved - although even that was kind of unsatisfying, since it never bothered to make it clear whether the Tic-Toc had actually grown into the cliff face or not. I guess that's what they actually meant when they said "Ysengrin was lying"? But it's been so long since that incident was relevant, I don't think it's ever going to be explained more clearly than it already has...

I always took that to mean lying about when he found it.  Agree it will probably never be explained more clearly.  I'm still curious about what the point was of getting the seeds into the court - maybe it was just a piece of Coyote's really long-term plan, so they'd be there after Ysengrin killed him, ate him, stole his powers, and wanted to show off those powers by killing humans?

Now that you mention it though, why would a tic-toc grow into a cliff face?  For that matter, why (and how) would a destroyed tic-toc do anything at all?  If anything, this seems more like something a tree would do.  Hmmm.  Who do we know that was present for the incident, that also can control trees and their growth?     I had nearly forgot about that tic-toc, but it's definitely fair game for a robot mystery thread!

My gut feeling is that we'll be learning more about shadow men eventually, and that the relationship between Shadow 2 and Seraph 13 will turn out to be of overwhelming importance - pivotal to events.  Eventually.

I have my reasons for continuing to poke at the question of whether the robots, or at least the neobots, are living and/or sentient creatures.

[maxptc]

Apr 13, 2021 15:51:11 GMT drmemory said:

So maybe she is the ultimate golem, created by Future Kat for reasons we do not yet have the context to know.

I mean, save Annie is a pretty safe bet, she did it before. Maybe Paz instead as a real kick in the pants to her haters?

[drmemory]

Apr 17, 2021 21:10:21 GMT maxptc said:

Apr 13, 2021 15:51:11 GMT drmemory said:

So maybe she is the ultimate golem, created by Future Kat for reasons we do not yet have the context to know.

I mean, save Annie is a pretty safe bet, she did it before. Maybe Paz instead as a real kick in the pants to her haters?

Hah!  Maybe.  I'm not the biggest Paz fan ever.  Not a hater, I just (still) think she's a security leak that is going to cause problems at some point.

That being said, if there is anything to the "ultimate golem created by Future Kat" theory, I don't think we've seen the reason for it yet. For that matter, we really haven't seen Jones do anything that really required an immortal, indestructible teacher.

Checkov's Golem for sure!

[Gemminie]

Apr 17, 2021 19:55:25 GMT drmemory said:

Apr 17, 2021 19:36:48 GMT mturtle7 said:

In general, I think the Shadow Men and the Tic-tocs are two of the most annoying mysteries I've ever seen in this comic, because you really get the impression early on in the comic that they're supposed to be important, but then you just get 1 or 2 tiny bits of exposition for 50 chapters after that. At least the Tic-toc thing was finally resolved - although even that was kind of unsatisfying, since it never bothered to make it clear whether the Tic-Toc had actually grown into the cliff face or not. I guess that's what they actually meant when they said "Ysengrin was lying"? But it's been so long since that incident was relevant, I don't think it's ever going to be explained more clearly than it already has...

I always took that to mean lying about when he found it.  Agree it will probably never be explained more clearly.  I'm still curious about what the point was of getting the seeds into the court - maybe it was just a piece of Coyote's really long-term plan, so they'd be there after Ysengrin killed him, ate him, stole his powers, and wanted to show off those powers by killing humans?

Now that you mention it though, why would a tic-toc grow into a cliff face?  For that matter, why (and how) would a destroyed tic-toc do anything at all?  If anything, this seems more like something a tree would do.  Hmmm.  Who do we know that was present for the incident, that also can control trees and their growth?     I had nearly forgot about that tic-toc, but it's definitely fair game for a robot mystery thread!

My gut feeling is that we'll be learning more about shadow men eventually, and that the relationship between Shadow 2 and Seraph 13 will turn out to be of overwhelming importance - pivotal to events.  Eventually.

I have my reasons for continuing to poke at the question of whether the robots, or at least the neobots, are living and/or sentient creatures.

If you want some questions about the shadow men (not the Shadow Men), how bout this: Coyote said himself that he can't create life. Yet the story says that he created the shadow men. Which is it? Can Coyote actually create life? Or are the shadow men not really alive? Or ... did Coyote actually "create" the shadow men out of his own substance, so they're actually all parts of Coyote?

The Tic-Toc grew into the cliff face because Ysengrin buried it there, in Forest soil that had been watered by Annie's ethereal blood – the magic of the Forest animals, the technology of the humans, and the nature of the Forest itself. Tom spent two panels showing us that blood falling onto the ground. My theory is that we just saw the Seed Bismuth in miniature. And ... Coyote arranged for the Tic-Toc and Annie to fall there, sent Ysengrin to bury it, and then removed his memory of it afterward (that's what "Ysengrin was lying" meant – not that he was really lying, but that Coyote had altered his memory so he didn't remember burying it there), and later sent him to go dig it up. Coyote didn't see the original Seed Bismuth, but I think this was his experiment to find out how it worked.

I'm pretty sure the androids (I'm calling them that because that's what Kat called them) will be considered living, or at least alive enough to be able to influence the Ether. They're going to cause the Angel to exist, because that's already happening.

[maxptc]

Apr 23, 2021 2:23:08 GMT drmemory said:

Apr 17, 2021 21:10:21 GMT maxptc said:

I mean, save Annie is a pretty safe bet, she did it before. Maybe Paz instead as a real kick in the pants to her haters?

Hah!  Maybe.  I'm not the biggest Paz fan ever.  Not a hater, I just (still) think she's a security leak that is going to cause problems at some point.

That being said, if there is anything to the "ultimate golem created by Future Kat" theory, I don't think we've seen the reason for it yet. For that matter, we really haven't seen Jones do anything that really required an immortal, indestructible teacher.

Checkov's Golem for sure!

I don't think we've seen a reason, but Kat seems to have pretty predictable motivations, protecting others, doing what's right and advancing technology as three of the big ones. Who knows whats gonna come up if she gets more power via android belief magic but I don't think she would do something like thia for anything short of a "had to do it, to heck with the implications". I do think that planting Jones in the past is a fringe theory, probably not right but compelling and possible.

[drmemory]

Apr 25, 2021 3:00:57 GMT Gemminie said:

If you want some questions about the shadow men (not the Shadow Men), how bout this: Coyote said himself that he can't create life. Yet the story says that he created the shadow men. Which is it? Can Coyote actually create life? Or are the shadow men not really alive? Or ... did Coyote actually "create" the shadow men out of his own substance, so they're actually all parts of Coyote?

The Tic-Toc grew into the cliff face because Ysengrin buried it there, in Forest soil that had been watered by Annie's ethereal blood – the magic of the Forest animals, the technology of the humans, and the nature of the Forest itself. Tom spent two panels showing us that blood falling onto the ground. My theory is that we just saw the Seed Bismuth in miniature. And ... Coyote arranged for the Tic-Toc and Annie to fall there, sent Ysengrin to bury it, and then removed his memory of it afterward (that's what "Ysengrin was lying" meant – not that he was really lying, but that Coyote had altered his memory so he didn't remember burying it there), and later sent him to go dig it up. Coyote didn't see the original Seed Bismuth, but I think this was his experiment to find out how it worked.

I'm pretty sure the androids (I'm calling them that because that's what Kat called them) will be considered living, or at least alive enough to be able to influence the Ether. They're going to cause the Angel to exist, because that's already happening.

Good question about the shadow men.  I do not have an answer.  We have seen Coyote be more than one thing at a time (dead goose + lake + tree + goose wife), but being a whole race seems a bit different somehow.  Especially one we know can reproduce via sex!  Then again, things involving Coyote often have a disturbing quality to them, so I can't rule it out.

So they could all be Coyote, I guess, though that doesn't feel right somehow.  Maybe all offspring of Coyote?  Jones said they were "born from the body of Coyote, and given life by him and brought into this world".  Coyote said he "laughed part way through", while he was creating them, which is how they got the glass eyes.  So it seems he did try to create them, but he also said later he couldn't create the spark of life.  So, I do not know what to believe.  He doesn't lie, but apparently he doesn't always tell the truth!

Great observations on the Tic-Toc.  I did not catch the blood thing at all - I've always just assumed that was just to show Jeanne really cut Annie.  But maybe it really was the fertilizer for a Coyote experiment!  Also agree on the Ysengrin memory thing - Coyote took a LOT of Ysengrin memories.  I always assumed Y just lied there, but your theory sounds right.  As for reproducing the Seed Bismuth... maybe?  I'm not good at figuring out Coyote's motives for doing things.  I agree that he set this all up, including growing the Tic-Toc with Annie's blood as fertilizer, I'm just not sure that's the reason he did it.  The Ysengrin memory thing seems likely, even obvious now that you pointed it out.

I wonder if there are any other implications of Annie's blood being able to grow technology that we haven't seen yet?  Too bad Ysengrin pulverized the thing, it would be really interesting to see what Kat could learn from what it had become.  Alas, the bird is crushed, Ysengrin is dead, Jeanne is gone from the mortal plane, even the very river and ravine have been destroyed.  So all the evidence is gone.  Of the factors you listed, from the Wisp speech, only the technology and the inherent magic of the forest seem to apply.  Even the technology... well Kat didn't make a bird that could grow into a cliff on purpose as far as I know, just something "cute" and bird-like.  On the other hand, Robot S-13 did use to call her "mommy", so there could yet turn out to be an unrevealed link between Annie and the robots.

Consider this (disturbing) equation: Robot + Shadow 2 + Annie blood + forest magic = ?

I too think the Katdroids or whatever are living creatures.  So there ought to be some dramatic happenings coming from that at some point, like pyschopomps turning up for toasters and such.    I bet the robot/court war is going to be very exciting!  Oops, did I say that out loud?

[Gemminie]

Apr 27, 2021 3:10:51 GMT drmemory said:

Good question about the shadow men.  I do not have an answer.  We have seen Coyote be more than one thing at a time (dead goose + lake + tree + goose wife), but being a whole race seems a bit different somehow.  Especially one we know can reproduce via sex!  Then again, things involving Coyote often have a disturbing quality to them, so I can't rule it out.

So they could all be Coyote, I guess, though that doesn't feel right somehow.  Maybe all offspring of Coyote?  Jones said they were "born from the body of Coyote, and given life by him and brought into this world".  Coyote said he "laughed part way through", while he was creating them, which is how they got the glass eyes.  So it seems he did try to create them, but he also said later he couldn't create the spark of life.  So, I do not know what to believe.  He doesn't lie, but apparently he doesn't always tell the truth!

Great observations on the Tic-Toc.  I did not catch the blood thing at all - I've always just assumed that was just to show Jeanne really cut Annie.  But maybe it really was the fertilizer for a Coyote experiment!  Also agree on the Ysengrin memory thing - Coyote took a LOT of Ysengrin memories.  I always assumed Y just lied there, but your theory sounds right.  As for reproducing the Seed Bismuth... maybe?  I'm not good at figuring out Coyote's motives for doing things.  I agree that he set this all up, including growing the Tic-Toc with Annie's blood as fertilizer, I'm just not sure that's the reason he did it.  The Ysengrin memory thing seems likely, even obvious now that you pointed it out.

Well, what about this? Now that Loup has all the memories that Coyote took from Ysengrin, he knows all about how Annie's blood can make machines grow in Forest soil. Coyote may have done that just so Loup would have the pieces necessary to put that together.

I wonder if there are any other implications of Annie's blood being able to grow technology that we haven't seen yet?  Too bad Ysengrin pulverized the thing, it would be really interesting to see what Kat could learn from what it had become.  Alas, the bird is crushed, Ysengrin is dead, Jeanne is gone from the mortal plane, even the very river and ravine have been destroyed.  So all the evidence is gone.  Of the factors you listed, from the Wisp speech, only the technology and the inherent magic of the forest seem to apply.  Even the technology... well Kat didn't make a bird that could grow into a cliff on purpose as far as I know, just something "cute" and bird-like.  On the other hand, Robot S-13 did use to call her "mommy", so there could yet turn out to be an unrevealed link between Annie and the robots.

My thought is that Annie's blood applies, not because it's particularly Annie's blood that's required, but rather anything that lives in the Ether and can bleed there. Like ... many Forest creatures.

Consider this (disturbing) equation: Robot + Shadow 2 + Annie blood + forest magic = ?

I still wonder about Shadow 2 and Robot's relationship. They're an interesting parallel. In various treatise pages they're shown as parallels, and they're both also shown as empty bodies with some kind of hole in the middle (no soul, perhaps, or at least some kind of unfulfilled potential). I have no idea what direction they're going. But I do think that the robots and the shadow people are parallel. One's able to become more humanlike by going backward to a way they used to be in the past (Shadow 2's becoming three-dimensional) while the other's able to become more humanlike by going forward into the future (robots getting new advanced bodies and brains). It's kind of like how Kat's "magic" comes from the future (the machine angel), while Annie's comes from the past (her distant fire elemental ancestor). It's as if all these elements are coming together into a huge nexus, and what will form there?

I too think the Katdroids or whatever are living creatures.  So there ought to be some dramatic happenings coming from that at some point, like pyschopomps turning up for toasters and such.    I bet the robot/court war is going to be very exciting!  Oops, did I say that out loud?

Hehe, who knows what will happen? Not me! This comic's always been about the characters and how the strange events happening around them affect them.

[todd]

One other thought about the robots, linked to my suspicion that the story's been taking a darker, more serious approach ever since "The Tree" (and even more so after Ysengrin became Loup) and shifting out the more comedic elements.

The robots were a major source of comic relief in "Gunnerkrigg Court", until Loup's attack. Almost all of the robots became "force field generators", entering a kind of trance in so doing. The only exceptions are Robot and the other Seraphs.

There are only two ways of getting the robots out of their "force field generating trance" and active again. The first is the Court's way, which turns them into mindless servants, almost robot zombies. The second is Kat's way, which transfers the robots' consciousness into new, much more humanlike bodies.

Clearly the robots are unable to indulge in their familiar comically scatterbrained behavior while either part of the force field or serving the Court as zombies. And the ones that are part of Kat's project seem more serious (it helps that their new bodies, as I mentioned above, are more humanlike; the robots' original character design helped reinforce their comedic tone. So no matter which of the three options is in play, the robots have become more solemn, less laughable.