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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 1, 2021 8:14:11 GMT
Looks like other groups of NP(C?)s also digging in the area. I count nine or so, not sure if DD is still hanging around somewhere or if they got bored and left. |
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Post by theonethatgotaway on Dec 1, 2021 8:16:19 GMT
I'm REALLY looking forward to the reveal of whether or not the Court approved this, or that Kat is going completely rogue. Cause if the latter, what's the Court gonna do about it??
Might Loup be hiding as one of the New People?
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Post by madjack on Dec 1, 2021 8:17:04 GMT
Might Loup be hiding as one of the New People? Oh that is not a happy thought. |
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Post by noone3 on Dec 1, 2021 8:20:02 GMT
I guess tracksuits are now the thing among notrobots. Not much roofjumping though, since roofs are now out of season.
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Post by philman on Dec 1, 2021 8:35:16 GMT
I'm REALLY looking forward to the reveal of whether or not the Court approved this, or that Kat is going completely rogue. Cause if the latter, what's the Court gonna do about it?? Might Loup be hiding as one of the New People? Ooh interesting. I was hypothesising a few months ago that Coyote's plan was to be reborn into a human body, similar to how the animals and fairies do, so that he could experience the one thing he never has: life. He always said that the most powerful force was human imagination. But inhabiting one of the New People bodies makes a lot more sense given the converging of the storylines. |
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Post by bicarbonat on Dec 1, 2021 8:45:20 GMT
I'm bracing for a conflict of interests. Either Kat sanctioned this search & rescue, or the "new people" are taking initiative (probably spearheaded by Robot). Regardless, all of that's before Kat finds out what Annie's just found out – that the Court plans to pick up sticks and go "far away," as Ysengrin said. Donnie and Anja are considerably free-thinking people, but Kat staying would most certainly depend on their successful* defection. Angel or no, she's a minor (as well as their only child). Unless these "new people" move beyond the point of needing her sharpish, they're going to have to go where she goes and live at the mercy of her availability. And if her focus is diverted to helping her best friend and her cause, that may not go over well. I could see it culminating in a real "come to Techno-Jesus" tipping point for the cult of the Angel. While all of this Loup/Ysengrin/Coyote stuff has been percolating, I feel that we are inching toward the "one day" the Zimmy saw. * How necessary are Donnie and Anja's skill sets in the Court's prospective new world order? |
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Post by speedwell on Dec 1, 2021 8:59:51 GMT
I would find it bizarre if there were no efforts made (by Kat, by the robots, or even by the Court itself) to retrieve the robots buried in the catastrophe. Indeed I would think the Court would assume that (conventional) robots would do so anyway and leave it to them because it is hard manual labour. Whether the Court is aware that the former robots are in charge of this is the open question to me. I think it foolish to assume that the Court is unaware of the existence of the former robots, even if they don't know where they came from (and it would be absurd if they didn't know that too).
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 1, 2021 10:07:43 GMT
I would find it bizarre if there were no efforts made (by Kat, by the robots, or even by the Court itself) to retrieve the robots buried in the catastrophe. Indeed I would think the Court would assume that (conventional) robots would do so anyway and leave it to them because it is hard manual labour. Whether the Court is aware that the former robots are in charge of this is the open question to me. I think it foolish to assume that the Court is unaware of the existence of the former robots, even if they don't know where they came from (and it would be absurd if they didn't know that too). There's a lot of chaos and I'd expect the NP(C?)s may be spending a lot of their time in hiding one place or other; the clothes they wear and the tools they use may be abandoned stuff from yellow and red zones the Court didn't bother with (such as PT clothes and people's gardening shovels, mayhap). Individuals may have noticed apparent-humans passing by that they don't recognize and may or may not have started inquiries official or non, while the Court as an organization remains clueless about the NP(C?)s overall. Maybe the Court leadership has already largely headed off to safer pastures and there's only the minimum to oversee the rest of the move. [edit] Or in other words, in the current circumstances I don't think it's bizarre at all for the Court to have written off the buried robots as a total loss. They're planning on making like a banana while the bananaing is good. [/edit] |
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Post by blahzor on Dec 1, 2021 11:06:49 GMT
Involuntary volunteer doesn't sound so sure. Probably scared of them demons
Also Track Suit Mafia are the NP's
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Post by csj on Dec 1, 2021 13:07:36 GMT
I wonder who finds the tube of lipstick first |
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Post by saardvark on Dec 1, 2021 13:17:20 GMT
The NPs are mostly organic, so presumably they need to "eat" to repair/fuel themselves. Unless Kat has a separate supply of non-doctored food, the NPs would start showing up on Court sensors, which would have to raise eyebrows and unwanted questions....
Although... Forest creatures may start eating Court food supplies spilled here and there, and thus rather confound the usefulness of the Court tracking system. They won't know what they are tracking anymore...
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Post by Igniz on Dec 1, 2021 15:09:54 GMT
One thing is for sure: they wear Adidas. The NPs are mostly organic, so presumably they need to "eat" to repair/fuel themselves. Unless Kat has a separate supply of non-doctored food, the NPs would start showing up on Court sensors, which would have to raise eyebrows and unwanted questions....  |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 1, 2021 16:21:18 GMT
I'm REALLY looking forward to the reveal of whether or not the Court approved this, or that Kat is going completely rogue. Cause if the latter, what's the Court gonna do about it?? Third possibility: Neither the Court nor Kat know about this. High priest S13, who has been shown to lie to his Angel and manipulate her to push her into the direction of his personal vision (see "The Torn Sea"), and whom I recently suspected of coercing all deactivated robots into the transformation whether Kat wants this or not is organizing everything. Which OG robot or New Person would doubt him relaying "the Angel's will"? |
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Post by ctso74 on Dec 1, 2021 16:37:35 GMT
Graveyard Shift. A rather apropos description.
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Post by Gemminie on Dec 1, 2021 17:22:41 GMT
This page starts with an aerial view, showing us that there are multiple teams of the former robots at work, gathering under lights they seem to have set up. There are quite a few more than the two we've been focusing on. In the second frame we see that those two have brought the CPUs they found, carrying them in a protective box, to another pair of former robots. One of them has a clipboard and is therefore coordinating or organizing at least part of this operation in some way. All of them are wearing the same design of track suit that we'd seen the first two wearing. The organizer seems to have the expertise to determine whether each CPU found is in good condition. Perhaps that's why the others have granted him the authority he seems to have.
The organizer asks, rather than orders, our two friends whether they can take these CPUs to "the angel." The red-haired one asks, rather than orders, her partner to come with her before departing. He seems content with this, but uncertain about his decisions, as if perhaps he's not used to deciding for himself.
Then the two of them set forth, presumably heading toward Kat's workshop. It's likely that it's where they came from, and the lights may have been borrowed from the workshop, or perhaps Kat had her fabrication system build them.
The presence of lights raises a question. I had thought they were working surreptitiously, under cover of night, because they didn't want the Court to discover them – after all, to our knowledge, the Court knows nothing about Kat's creation of an entirely new race of individuals. But they're using some fairly bright-looking lights here, so apparently they're not worried about the Court learning about them. Are they being naïve, being newly-transformed beings? Did they actually ask Kat whether they should use lights? Is it the former robots who are being naïve, or is it Kat? How much does Kat know about what they're doing? And if they don't care about being discovered, why are they working at night at all? The answer to that one might simply be that this is happening later that same night, right after Annie and everyone were freed from beneath the wreckage, and the former robots are simply trying to get started as soon as possible, allowing them to rescue as many CPUs as possible before the Court does anything about this.
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 1, 2021 19:46:28 GMT
The presence of lights raises a question. I had thought they were working surreptitiously, under cover of night, because they didn't want the Court to discover them – after all, to our knowledge, the Court knows nothing about Kat's creation of an entirely new race of individuals. But they're using some fairly bright-looking lights here, so apparently they're not worried about the Court learning about them. [...] Probably they put up some signs labeled "NOT a secret brain retrieval operation".
I'm only half joking. The robots were already super naive and generally goofy when they were all still inhabiting robotic bodies. New bodies or not, they will not have all changed their personalities overnight.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 1, 2021 23:28:03 GMT
The NPs are mostly organic, so presumably they need to "eat" to repair/fuel themselves. Unless Kat has a separate supply of non-doctored food, the NPs would start showing up on Court sensors, which would have to raise eyebrows and unwanted questions.... Although... Forest creatures may start eating Court food supplies spilled here and there, and thus rather confound the usefulness of the Court tracking system. They won't know what they are tracking anymore... I still have questions about how the Court tracking works but I am imagining a Shadow Man trying to figure out why Kat is simultaneously present in over a quarter of the Court's geographic area, then noticing that she has been requisitioning tons of food per week. |
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Post by saardvark on Dec 2, 2021 1:38:09 GMT
The NPs are mostly organic, so presumably they need to "eat" to repair/fuel themselves. Unless Kat has a separate supply of non-doctored food, the NPs would start showing up on Court sensors, which would have to raise eyebrows and unwanted questions.... Although... Forest creatures may start eating Court food supplies spilled here and there, and thus rather confound the usefulness of the Court tracking system. They won't know what they are tracking anymore... I still have questions about how the Court tracking works but I am imagining a Shadow Man trying to figure out why Kat is simultaneously present in over a quarter of the Court's geographic area, then noticing that she has been requisitioning tons of food per week. I was more thinking that they would show up as "unregistered/unknown" students, since the Court wouldn't have any biometric data on the NPs to ID them as any known person in particular. But if the Forest refugees start raiding Court food supplies in the abandoned buildings, they will start showing up as well.... and the tracking system will be well and truly spammed up (filled with confusing data)! |
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Post by warrl on Dec 2, 2021 2:34:14 GMT
What we had seen previously, the tracking mechanism didn't rely on biometric data. It relied on, most likely, RFID tags in their food.
The collection of tags in any one person would change - but over time, not all at once. So if a given person (when you can be confident you're scanning exactly one person) has a dozen of the tags that were in Kat yesterday, plus a half-dozen not currently connected to anybody, that person must be Kat and you list the new tags as also being in Kat.
If you have a person with tags, but NONE of those tags are already listed, just wait until you are scanning that person and know who they are by some other means.
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Post by theonethatgotaway on Dec 2, 2021 8:29:00 GMT
I'm REALLY looking forward to the reveal of whether or not the Court approved this, or that Kat is going completely rogue. Cause if the latter, what's the Court gonna do about it?? Third possibility: Neither the Court nor Kat know about this. High priest S13, who has been shown to lie to his Angel and manipulate her to push her into the direction of his personal vision (see "The Torn Sea"), and whom I recently suspected of coercing all deactivated robots into the transformation whether Kat wants this or not is organizing everything. Which OG robot or New Person would doubt him relaying "the Angel's will"? But in that case, who's manning the transhumanism machine? Did the robots take it over to make more New People? Is Kat just going along with it all willy-nilly? Is S13 also against transforming the Seraphs? And we have two NP now going to present new chips to The Angel, that can only be done without Kat's knowledge if we're dealing with a Man-Behind-The-Curtain scenario. I wouldn't put it past the sneaky robots, but still, kinda hard to wrap my head around for now. I'm enjoying this chapter so far! Lots of new stuff happening! |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 2, 2021 8:35:03 GMT
Also relevant is how the "digestive system" of the NP(C?) works. In a human the tags presumably circulate and make a consumer easily recognizable by their movements. If the tags aren't being circulated they'd show as a mass. If the tags do not carry particular identifiers then the mass would probably appear in the surveillance system as unconsumed food or food waste. If they do, they'd likely show as waste. All this also assumes that the NP(C?) is about as transparent to radio waves as a human, which they may not be.
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Post by saardvark on Dec 2, 2021 12:06:43 GMT
Also relevant is how the "digestive system" of the NP(C?) works. In a human the tags presumably circulate and make a consumer easily recognizable by their movements. If the tags aren't being circulated they'd show as a mass. If the tags do not carry particular identifiers then the mass would probably appear in the surveillance system as unconsumed food or food waste. If they do, they'd likely show as waste. All this also assumes that the NP(C?) is about as transparent to radio waves as a human, which they may not be. yeah, clever Kat might have built some shielding into the skin of NPs so they cant be tracked by the Court system. |
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Post by saardvark on Dec 2, 2021 12:33:40 GMT
What we had seen previously, the tracking mechanism didn't rely on biometric data. It relied on, most likely, RFID tags in their food. The collection of tags in any one person would change - but over time, not all at once. So if a given person (when you can be confident you're scanning exactly one person) has a dozen of the tags that were in Kat yesterday, plus a half-dozen not currently connected to anybody, that person must be Kat and you list the new tags as also being in Kat. If you have a person with tags, but NONE of those tags are already listed, just wait until you are scanning that person and know who they are by some other means. Makes sense. But however the tracking works, unless they are shielded, the NPs would still be unidentified as a new unique set of tags not seen active before. They'd not be IDed as someone already in the system (so I don't think they will show up as lots of Kats...) That, combined with Forest creatures probably getting into Court food, will confuse Court tracking for a while.... |
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 2, 2021 22:12:52 GMT
Third possibility: Neither the Court nor Kat know about this. High priest S13, who has been shown to lie to his Angel and manipulate her to push her into the direction of his personal vision (see "The Torn Sea"), and whom I recently suspected of coercing all deactivated robots into the transformation whether Kat wants this or not is organizing everything. Which OG robot or New Person would doubt him relaying "the Angel's will"? But in that case, who's manning the transhumanism machine? Did the robots take it over to make more New People? Is Kat just going along with it all willy-nilly? Is S13 also against transforming the Seraphs? And we have two NP now going to present new chips to The Angel, that can only be done without Kat's knowledge if we're dealing with a Man-Behind-The-Curtain scenario. I wouldn't put it past the sneaky robots, but still, kinda hard to wrap my head around for now. I'm enjoying this chapter so far! Lots of new stuff happening! To me it looks as if everybody able to operate a computer with a touchscreen can do it. Kat has been shown to continuously optimize and automate her creations. It isn't unreasonable to believe the whole operation can go on without her being present, after all there are all the golems continuously working on it as well. |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 3, 2021 4:44:14 GMT
If Kat is considered to be fully human by the court, she'll be expected to go (with her parents). She probably started out as human, even if she isn't entirely so now, so that would make sense. Hopefully they don't know about her evolution! IMHO Kat probably didn't set the NP to retrieving shield robot CPUs. No real direct evidence, just seems right based on Kat and S13's personalities. He's probably the one that has them out there digging - she is not as likely to take the risk of exposing them! I could easily see S13 wanting to force a confrontation with the humans, or even to lure the Seraphs into one. We've only seen Kat control her computer so far. She may have granted admin privileges to the scheming cult leader, not knowing about that, and/or Annie, and/or Paz. This may or may not matter - I don't think we know if the process has been refined to the point of being purely mechanical, and thus able to be carried about by anyone that can operate the console, or if it still requires Kat-in-the-loop. I feel like it probably requires Kat due to the whole "new contract" thing.
It also may require the arrow...
As for the chip retrieval project, the only one I can see putting the NP at risk would be the scheming cult leader. Even if a lot of court surveillance is disrupted at present, having a bunch of them out there digging is sure to be noticed. Not to mention the robot-sized gopher holes, and the missing robot chips! This is going to force the NP into view of the court, one way or another. Which puts Kat at risk too, and probably others (e.g. Arthur and Juliette). Shining a light on her activities will probably also end up exposing Shadow...
I figure 80% chance that S13 is behind this, 20% that the NP came up with it on their own.
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Post by drmemory on Dec 3, 2021 4:53:51 GMT
Two other things:
1. I wonder what time this is all happening? Doesn't Kat sleep at night usually? Taking chips to the Angel right now won't do much unless she is working late or skipping sleep. If she is already abed, perhaps we'll get to see the NP visiting her dorm room, and interacting with whomever is around!
2. Where is Loup in all of this? Hiding in the court, yes, but not de-powered, and I imagine he'll have an opinion about current events! As far as we know, none of Coyote, Ysengrin, or Loup have ever met Kat and do not know about all the stuff going on with the robots. Yet.
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Post by speedwell on Dec 3, 2021 12:50:11 GMT
Two other things: 1. I wonder what time this is all happening? Doesn't Kat sleep at night usually? Taking chips to the Angel right now won't do much unless she is working late or skipping sleep. If she is already abed, perhaps we'll get to see the NP visiting her dorm room, and interacting with whomever is around! 2. Where is Loup in all of this? Hiding in the court, yes, but not de-powered, and I imagine he'll have an opinion about current events! As far as we know, none of Coyote, Ysengrin, or Loup have ever met Kat and do not know about all the stuff going on with the robots. Yet. I think you made an extremely astute call on tying everything back to ownership contract considerations. It's almost as though we are seeing this as if we're sysadmins considering access role permissions within a platform or... program. Didn't someone once use the word "program" to describe the whole milieu here? Probably my imagination 😉 Otherwise I don't think taking chips to "the Angel" needs to literally mean putting them in the hands of Kat herself any more than going to McDonald's to buy a hamburger means Ronald McDonald will be standing at the till, heh. I totally want to know where Loup is. Bodied or disembodied, Antimony will still be able to deal with him, but if I were anyone in the Court, Forest, or No Man's Land, I would find it unsafe to assume Loup wasn't looking over my shoulder at any time. |
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Post by saardvark on Dec 4, 2021 14:35:29 GMT
sorry if this was asked already:
do all the NPs have unusual colored irises? Here we have red, pink and bright flourescent green displayed - Albert had a similar green. Is this on purpose (planned by Kat?), so that NPs are distinguishable from "mundanes"? It seems unlikely that the robots would have all chosen unusual colors in unison.... or that truly random colors would have yielded only these unusual ones so far. But we have a small sample size so far....
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 4, 2021 19:35:20 GMT
sorry if this was asked already: do all the NPs have unusual colored irises? Here we have red, pink and bright flourescent green displayed - Albert had a similar green. Is this on purpose (planned by Kat?), so that NPs are distinguishable from "mundanes"? It seems unlikely that the robots would have all chosen unusual colors in unison.... or that truly random colors would have yielded only these unusual ones so far. But we have a small sample size so far.... There was a tab for eyes back during character generation and we see the eye color changing in the different panels. Original robot eye colors were an option, at least at that point. Kat mentions keeping the randomizer parameters to certain limits later, seemingly in reaction to robots choosing random bodies. The randomizer may have been tweaked to make original robot eye colors and other robot-like features more rare, possibly. If so that would mean that original robot eye colors might be more common among those who customized their bodies instead of hitting the randomizer button. |
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Post by saardvark on Dec 5, 2021 3:27:26 GMT
sorry if this was asked already: do all the NPs have unusual colored irises? Here we have red, pink and bright flourescent green displayed - Albert had a similar green. Is this on purpose (planned by Kat?), so that NPs are distinguishable from "mundanes"? It seems unlikely that the robots would have all chosen unusual colors in unison.... or that truly random colors would have yielded only these unusual ones so far. But we have a small sample size so far.... There was a tab for eyes back during character generation and we see the eye color changing in the different panels. Original robot eye colors were an option, at least at that point. Kat mentions keeping the randomizer parameters to certain limits later, seemingly in reaction to robots choosing random bodies. The randomizer may have been tweaked to make original robot eye colors and other robot-like features more rare, possibly. If so that would mean that original robot eye colors might be more common among those who customized their bodies instead of hitting the randomizer button. so far we have: Albert. chosen. fluorescent robot green library-bot chosen. bright pink pipe-bot. random. fluorescent robot green clipboard-bot. ? red so whether chosen or randomized, all NP eye colors are robot/non-human so far. If there is a 50-50 chance for a selection (however made) to go typical/non-typical color, there's only about a 6% chance that the first 4 we see are all non-typical. Eye color might have been a choice, but maybe the range of valid choices was constrained. The randomizer might have been weighted towards non-typical colors. We clearly need more data though to be more sure if something is weird... |
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