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Post by madjack on Dec 9, 2021 10:46:32 GMT
A poster on Something Awful pointed out that any new body probably wouldn't have the data jack that Robot uses to connect to the others minds during the crossover.
So he might just be keeping his old body for the utility.
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Post by blahzor on Dec 9, 2021 12:55:28 GMT
I do think Tom has deliberately made Robot seem rather creepy, but I'm sympathetic to him/her/them (I'll use "they" for now because Robot doesn't have a set gender at the moment). Actually Tom has stated Robot identifies as male in the past. So far we have seen no indication this could have changed. What are you referring to exactly? My impression was that the Seraphs had always been sorta interested. in evolving/improving into something better. Before Kat, the robots had been sort of stuck. They could repair themselves, but not improve themselves. Then S13 saw what Kat could do with her early experiments on his own form, became a "true believer", and began preaching the "religion" of a new Creator, with Kat/Angel-driven robotic improvement/transformation. Interesting observation: The Seraphs say just because Kat looks like an angel does not automatically mean she is "the real angel". Sounds as if they did have a concept of "the Angel" before they ever met Kat. That concept need not have included the belief that the Angel would transform the robots, though, that could have been S13's own idea. that also says most robots indentify as male we've seen 8 NP's so far and 3 female bodies. so maybe the robots just been assuming they had to be male identifying and see no choice to question it |
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Post by Gemminie on Dec 9, 2021 16:43:39 GMT
I do think Tom has deliberately made Robot seem rather creepy, but I'm sympathetic to him/her/them (I'll use "they" for now because Robot doesn't have a set gender at the moment). I've gotten the feeling more and more like his and the Seraph robots' chips were put in them by a Future Kat who wanted them to help her along this process. I'm fairly certain their angelic appearance is voluntary on the part of the robots sent back, possibly a plan hatched by Robot themselves. "Angelos" in Greek means "messenger". Robot has been preaching the "gospel," i.e. news, of the coming of The Angel, aka Kat. She herself has said that if it weren't for Robot and the creepy Seraphs she wouldn't have made so much progress on the synthetic bodies project, particularly when she was 'distracted' by her new relationship to Paz. And when you add to all of this the fact that the Court would essentially have allowed robot genocide were it not for the intervention of Kat and Juliet, there's a real urgency to Robot's mission throughout the series. I hope Robot gets their body and gets to enjoy it because Robot has actually done a lot for their fellow robots, even if some of it required snatching them out of a way of life they were okay with before, and not disclosing the urgency of the mission or their own goals to Kat or to Annie. If it turns out this was all Kat's own doing, it will vindicate Robot's whole arc. Maybe Robot couldn't even tell Shadow the truth??? At some point in the past, Robot/S13 got himself disassembled by the other Seraph models because of spreading "disinformation and rumor," and then in chapter 41, they captured him again, as a ploy to get Kat to come so they could evaluate her. The other Seraphs seem to have believed in a coming angel; they just didn't necessarily believe that Kat was that angel. It's not clear what disinformation and rumor Robot/S13 was spreading back in the pre-comic times before he got disassembled, though. But this means that the Seraphs got the message that there would be an angel at some unknown point in the past. What's more, I'm still confused about how the robots believe that the Tic-Toc predates the Court and was sent by a divine being to watch over them, when Kat didn't send the Tic-Toc that far back in time before it was destroyed. I'm still predicting that at some future date, information about the Angel will be sent back in time via the Ether. It's likely that eventually some of the New People will die and take their beliefs into the Ether, which can affect the past. How and when that will happen remain to be seen. But what's also unclear is why Robot/S13 specifically became the prophet. Why not any of the other Seraph model robots, or all of them? What did he experience that the others didn't? (I'm using "he/him" for Robot because that's what's used for him within the story.) |
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Post by maxptc on Dec 10, 2021 0:41:22 GMT
A poster on Something Awful pointed out that any new body probably wouldn't have the data jack that Robot uses to connect to the others minds during the crossover. So he might just be keeping his old body for the utility. This explanation makes sense, but I dunno if I agree with it or understand why it would work this way. Being biological doesn't indicate that they no longer have the ability to operate like machines in some ways. Why can't they be humanoid but with a USB port that allows them to connect and interact with other systems, computers, robots or new people? And if they can't, how would the system be able to upload a mind into a new person in the first place? |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 10, 2021 3:59:22 GMT
I wonder what they eat? And why? I don't remember any mention of Kat studying digestive systems and such... Biology really isn't her thing!
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Post by maxptc on Dec 10, 2021 5:31:07 GMT
I wonder what they eat? And why? I don't remember any mention of Kat studying digestive systems and such... Biology really isn't her thing! That's been Tony's contribution if I recall right? If this isn't confirmed, it still makes sense to me, his being a doctor and the creations getting significantly more human like once he was involved. |
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Post by madjack on Dec 10, 2021 6:11:57 GMT
A poster on Something Awful pointed out that any new body probably wouldn't have the data jack that Robot uses to connect to the others minds during the crossover. So he might just be keeping his old body for the utility. This explanation makes sense, but I dunno if I agree with it or understand why it would work this way. Being biological doesn't indicate that they no longer have the ability to operate like machines in some ways. Why can't they be humanoid but with a USB port that allows them to connect and interact with other systems, computers, robots or new people? And if they can't, how would the system be able to upload a mind into a new person in the first place? Best guess would be that the new brains Juliette designed are... different? than the constrained ol' bucket that regular robot CPUs are depicted as. He needs to be able to fully understand and talk to them as they currently are to be able to shepherd them into something new. |
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Post by fia on Dec 10, 2021 16:36:19 GMT
Also, until/unless the matter is actually brought up in the comics, I think I'll continue using he/him pronouns for Robot. Those are the pronouns he's always accepted before, and one androgynous digital avatar does not a gender transition make, in my view anyway. Fair enough. The angel Gabriel is often given long, flowing hair and an androgynous appearance. (Although I will point out - angels at least in Christian mythology, certain classical paintings notwithstanding, have no sex organs or other identifiable sex characteristics, they're too pure and angelic for the human sin stuff). |
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Post by Runningflame on Dec 11, 2021 2:17:55 GMT
Also, until/unless the matter is actually brought up in the comics, I think I'll continue using he/him pronouns for Robot. Those are the pronouns he's always accepted before, and one androgynous digital avatar does not a gender transition make, in my view anyway. Fair enough. The angel Gabriel is often given long, flowing hair and an androgynous appearance. (Although I will point out - angels at least in Christian mythology, certain classical paintings notwithstanding, have no sex organs or other identifiable sex characteristics, they're too pure and angelic for the human sin stuff). ... Which, IMO, represents a serious misconception about sin (though not about angels). |
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Post by stef1987 on Dec 22, 2021 8:34:29 GMT
A cool thing I just noticed on reread: Arthur (and by extension the New People) has a brain... designed, not by Kat, but by Juliette. Really? can you link the page, I can't find it |
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Post by Runningflame on Dec 22, 2021 20:12:39 GMT
A cool thing I just noticed on reread: Arthur (and by extension the New People) has a brain... designed, not by Kat, but by Juliette. Really? can you link the page, I can't find it It's linked in Gemminie's post that I quoted, but here you go. Panel 4. |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 23, 2021 19:39:41 GMT
But what's also unclear is why Robot/S13 specifically became the prophet. Why not any of the other Seraph model robots, or all of them? What did he experience that the others didn't? S13 has experienced a couple of interesting things that no other Seraph has, and no other robot to our knowledge.
He was disassembled and stored, with his mind still in his disassembled body. We know this because when little Annie put together the parts and hit the shiny red button, he activated. So at that time his brain was not in robot jail. We haven't seen any other robot treated in this way that I can remember, and we never did learn why he was treated specially. If what the golem robot said about robot death is accurate, then S13 should have been dead when he was in the box, and was punished in that way so that he would have no chance of coming back. Except. He also still had power, or again, hitting the button would not have made anything happen. The whole "S13 in a box" story still seems odd to me. It has holes.
When Annie sent him across the bridge to take Shadow 2 home, she told him he only needed to come back if he wanted to. He later said that was the first time ever had been given a choice.
After Jimmy carried his destroyed body back from the bridge, THEN his body was clipped and his brain put in robot jail. I'm not sure what this tells us, and am tempted to move this to my old "questions about robots" threads. Because I'm suspicious it may have something to do with how robots discipline each other when humans aren't looking vs. how they discipline each others when humans know they are. Also, robots in robot jail are studied, and I suspect the hope is that they can at some point be rehabilitated and given new bodies. I still find it disturbing that so many robots are in robot jail!
Later, after Annie and Renard rescued his brain chip and Kat put him in a temporary docking station, he was already acting pretty non-robot like. He called Annie his mum, and seemed emotionally distressed that he had gotten her killed. I suggest that the events prior to this made the initial changes in him, as he was already acting pretty different before Kat gave him his first (mouse) body. It's also a bit odd that he woke up stressed out. Was he really dead in between? It seems like he had been thinking about it, but if robots are dead when not powered, when?
After that, Kat and Annie (and sometimes Renard and Shadow 2) hung out with him and treated him as a friend. Further, Kat kept using him as a guinea pig for her body evolution experiments. So S13 has had more different bodies than any other robot, with the possible exception of Arthur's companion bot line. And they are different too, more organic, more biological.
In summary, I'm suggesting that this goes all the way back to the box and the bridge, and that he has continued to evolve ever since. I can kinda see how all of his different, unique experiences made him quite different from other robots! Still don't know exactly what made him into a cult leader though.
On the wildspec side of things, if time travel is involved, maybe Robot got himself disassembled and put in a box to kick all of this off, because he knew that was needed for the rest to happen. Once you introduce time travel into your story, cause and effect have a much less structured relationship.  |
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Post by warrl on Dec 23, 2021 22:29:38 GMT
Theory: Someone disassembled S13 and put him in the box in the closet to protect him, possibly from the robot jailors - and then for some reason hadn't gotten back to him (perhaps because that protection was still needed) before Annie found him.
Why he needed protection is not clear. But it doesn't seem to me that having left the Court's grounds and having been possessed by a Shadow would be judged a crime deserving of sending his CPU to robot prison and paper-clipping his body. (For that matter, they could have kept the non-damaged portions of his body for spare parts for other robots.) So I think he had committed some unspecified offenses before being put in the closet.
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Post by shaihulud on Dec 23, 2021 23:46:08 GMT
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Post by stef1987 on Dec 24, 2021 13:38:43 GMT
Really? can you link the page, I can't find it It's linked in Gemminie's post that I quoted, but here you go. Panel 4. Oh, I read over that. I assumed the brain was still the cpu, like in robot. So she just casually created a brain, and they treat it like it's no big deal, while the comic made a whole fuzz about kat making muscles. doesn't make much sense to me. :\ |
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Post by mturtle7 on Dec 24, 2021 21:02:54 GMT
It's linked in Gemminie's post that I quoted, but here you go. Panel 4. Oh, I read over that. I assumed the brain was still the cpu, like in robot. So she just casually created a brain, and they treat it like it's no big deal, while the comic made a whole fuzz about kat making muscles. doesn't make much sense to me. :\ Well...to be fair, I think the whole "creating a brain" part mostly happened during the time skip. It probably wasn't very "casual" at the time that they first made it. And artifical muscles were sort of the very beginning of Kat's work, so it makes sense that the story would make a "whole fuzz" about it. It's not that muscles are all that special in and of themselves, it's just that they happened to be the first and easiest biological organ that Kat could work on (also, the subject of her first date with Paz).
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Post by blahzor on Dec 25, 2021 13:03:26 GMT
i'd say the brain is more like she build a SSD but without Kat's knowledge and readability of the instruction code it's useless
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Post by Gemminie on Jan 3, 2022 14:56:50 GMT
But what's also unclear is why Robot/S13 specifically became the prophet. Why not any of the other Seraph model robots, or all of them? What did he experience that the others didn't? S13 has experienced a couple of interesting things that no other Seraph has, and no other robot to our knowledge.
He was disassembled and stored, with his mind still in his disassembled body. I was talking about before that. He was disassembled because of proselytizing, even back then. Why was he the one Seraph robot that started talking crazy (or contrary-to-fact, anyway) about the coming angel? What experiences (or malfunctions) did he have that brought that about? Yes, that led to all the rest, but what kicked it off? |
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Post by blahzor on Jan 4, 2022 1:54:45 GMT
S13 has experienced a couple of interesting things that no other Seraph has, and no other robot to our knowledge. He was disassembled and stored, with his mind still in his disassembled body.  I was talking about before that. He was disassembled because of proselytizing, even back then. Why was he the one Seraph robot that started talking crazy (or contrary-to-fact, anyway) about the coming angel? What experiences (or malfunctions) did he have that brought that about? Yes, that led to all the rest, but what kicked it off? Wild spec Maybe it started when Kat was born that he started to talk about the incoming angel |
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