[2582] Just a digging guy.

[imaginaryfriend]

So it was disguised "Loup" all along. I still wonder why he said pipes, perhaps one of the others will mention their old job was pipes and he'll appropriate it later.

[blahzor]

Hmm so to Loup they are walking corpses. Wonder when they'll get their living sentience ether wise

[madjack]

Interesting that Loup is calling the NPs "dead" when Kat and Clippy tentatively call Arthur 'a new, living creature'. Although being fair, Clippy was at the edge of his area of expertise, and Loup is not an unbiased observer.

[aline]

They perhaps look "empty" to Loup but it doesn't mean they are. Different people see different things in the ether. The fairies couldn't see the strings of fate in Smithy's hand but Annie and Jeanne could. I think it's maybe Loup who is outside his area of expertise.

[pyradonis]

Loup be showing off mad shapeshiftin' skillz.

So there really never was a real Jerrek. I assume he overheard an actual NP talking about their old job having to do with pipes.

[Viridian]

I think this might be a dead goose situation, so Jerrek wouldn't know he is Loup.
That explains how Loup was able to fool everyone so well, but also raises the question of how Loup knew when to emerge

I wonder if were gonna see the events of the previous chapter from Loup's perspective.

[todd]

So now we know that Loup shape-shifted into Jerrik rather than taking him over. I'm glad this is the route the story took.

First, Loup shouldn't be able to possess people. Coyote had given that ability away to Reynardine,and Rey still has it. Loup hasn't recovered it.

Second, if Jerrek actually was a pre-existing New Person whom Loup took over, he'd need a characterization of his own, a sense of who he was before Loup took him over etc., all having to be hurriedly introduced (presumably mostly through flashbacks), a person whom Annie and Kat barely know, ut who, as Loup's host, would need to become a major character all of a sudden. Having Jerrek being just Loup's disguise allows us to keep the story focused on Loup Annie, and the other established major characters.

[ctso74]

At least, Jerrek didn't have a sheriff's hat, or a barbed wire bat. Might not have blended in, as well.

[shadow3]

"Become your subject entirely"

Maybe the death that Coyote wants for Loup is not the sort that means the end of life, but rather the death that comes from learning to love.

Death of the old self, birth of the new.

[drmemory]

So if the NP don't seem to be alive when viewed from the ether (which I have always wondered about and speculated about repeatedly!), then if Annie were to kill Loup he could in theory still be around later in NP form.  Maybe.

Not sure if that's where things are going.  Tom is very clever!  But it seems possible.  Also, it seems like, if Annie were to look into the ether, that Jerrek should look rather different from the other NP, no?  At this point, I would guess that NP look fairly static and are in shades of grey, kinda like Renard's body and the NP shown in panel 2 today.  I wonder if Loup is controlled enough to hold his form in the ether tightly enough to look the same as the other NP?

Also, really cool to see Loup doing things in a way that Coyote might have!  I like sneaky Loup that can hold an illusion over time based only on a little observation a lot more than immature, enraged, petty Loup.

You know, he still respects Coyote, despite all that has happened - otherwise he wouldn't be swallowing his anger and investigating in the court as directed.  I have a feeling he still loves him as well.

[fia]

Hmm. This "dead" thing is worrying me somehow. Maybe it's just because from an etheric perspective the New People don't use the ether and so aren't 'alive'? They don't have 'souls'? Is Jones dead according to Coyote, then?

I guess it's worrisome in the sense that if you make a form of life that has no etheric presence, have you made something without consciousness? But that can't be right. Robot has conscious experience, he describes it extensively, no?

[blahzor]

Feb 7, 2022 22:50:14 GMT fia said:

Hmm. This "dead" thing is worrying me somehow. Maybe it's just because from an etheric perspective the New People don't use the ether and so aren't 'alive'? They don't have 'souls'? Is Jones dead according to Coyote, then?

I guess it's worrisome in the sense that if you make a form of life that has no etheric presence, have you made something without consciousness? But that can't be right. Robot has conscious experience, he describes it extensively, no?

I don't think anyone in the comic would say Jones is alive outside of Annie

[csj]

if the ether is your definition of 'alive', then perhaps... for now...

[blahzor]

Feb 8, 2022 7:12:59 GMT csj said:

if the ether is your definition of 'alive', then perhaps... for now...

I mean to a good chunk of people the ether is how the world works in the life and death cycle. To Loup (probably) the NP aren't alive yet dead and not in the ether cycle

[drmemory]

We've actually learned a couple things recently.

If the NP are "walking, dead creatures" to Loup, that almost certainly means they aren't a source of ether. So that rules out one horrible thing the court might do to get more!

Shell actually gave us a clue here.  I thought she was actively not trying to be useful, but that little side comment... "... the ether, something that can be measured and extracted..."!  That right there clarifies how the court views the ether - as a source of energy.  Which is consistent with their behavior and activities.  They had the power stations to extract ether, and they no doubt then used it to do... stuff.  We don't know just what yet.  They also have tried, multiple times, to steal Coyote's energy, and recently we've learned that they claim they need a big chunk of ether energy for their move (for some reason not yet explained).

Loup doesn't think robots are alive.  The court doesn't either - they are treated as tools, and totally without respect.  Expendable.

The court, especially Llanwellyn, thinks little of the "animals" with their "unfair power" and would probably be just fine killing any or all of them to get their power.  I'm not sure how you can look at someone like Coyote and not think "sentient, living being" but I think they manage it, or at least don't care.

If the court is seeking out large quantities of ether, they don't have that many potential sources at this point.  Loup, if they could find him, but they may be shy about trying THAT again.  Renard, they had locked up for years, but we don't know if they tried to take his ether or not.  In any case, I get the sense they don't think he is nearly as powerful as Coyote (probably true, in terms of raw energy levels).  Kat, so far hasn't been shown to have her own ethereal energy, though it's entirely possible that she has lots in her mecha-god role, so maybe...  The only other two ether batteries walking around that we are sure of are Aata and Annie.

Hey, doesn't Llanwellyn strongly dislike Annie?  I certainly remember him being really mad when she accepted Coyote's job!  On a related note, Annie's dad is deeply involved in the court and the shadow men, and has gone to great lengths to keep Annie in the program.  Yet, he surely must know about the plan to move and not take along anyone that can use the ether.  What if he has a plan to extract the ether from Annie, so that she can stay in the program and go along with the move?  It would be naive and doomed to failure but remember, he just can't seem to comprehend non-scientific things, and I'm sure he doesn't quite get that it is part of her.  No way does he accept or believe that both she and Surma are part fire elemental.

I could picture Tony thinking "Annie - ether = normal daughter" rather than "Annie - ether = dead daughter".  I'm calling it - we're gonna see a big emotional scene eventually, where Tony tries to steal Annie's energy for the court and realizes he's hurting her and saves her.  Out of the mind cage!

[davidm]

Feb 7, 2022 12:55:09 GMT todd said:

So now we know that Loup shape-shifted into Jerrik rather than taking him over. I'm glad this is the route the story took.

First, Loup shouldn't be able to possess people. Coyote had given that ability away to Reynardine,and Rey still has it. Loup hasn't recovered it.

Second, if Jerrek actually was a pre-existing New Person whom Loup took over, he'd need a characterization of his own, a sense of who he was before Loup took him over etc., all having to be hurriedly introduced (presumably mostly through flashbacks), a person whom Annie and Kat barely know, ut who, as Loup's host, would need to become a major character all of a sudden. Having Jerrek being just Loup's disguise allows us to keep the story focused on Loup Annie, and the other established major characters.

And yet after coyote gave away that power, Red and Blue quit being fairies in forest and became humans with coyotes help. Loup can create multiple versions of Annie, then probably merge them back into same mind. Kat and friends can "transfer" the minds of robots into "new people". IMO Loup going into an existing new person body does not seem harder than what Loup and Kat have already done and Loup is likely able to copy what Kat has done first.

Even a shadow person can hijack a robot which is what lead to Annie falling off bridge long ago.

[davidm]

Feb 8, 2022 17:39:29 GMT drmemory said:

I could picture Tony thinking "Annie - ether = normal daughter" rather than "Annie - ether = dead daughter".  I'm calling it - we're gonna see a big emotional scene eventually, where Tony tries to steal Annie's energy for the court and realizes he's hurting her and saves her.  Out of the mind cage!

I disagree, Tony has already learned that lesson when trying to bring back Surma, he is only back in court for sake of his daughter, his family clearly has always meant a lot to him, while court on other hand very little, he had hoped to escape their grasp.

[Druplesnubb]

It's interesting that Loup apparently doesn't see Kat's etheric form.

[pyradonis]

Feb 7, 2022 14:43:36 GMT shadow3 said:

"Become your subject entirely"

Maybe the death that Coyote wants for Loup is not the sort that means the end of life, but rather the death that comes from learning to love.

Death of the old self, birth of the new.

Doubtful that having his beloved Fire Head Girl stab him with a divine knife would help with that.

Feb 7, 2022 16:13:34 GMT drmemory said:

Not sure if that's where things are going.  Tom is very clever!  But it seems possible.  Also, it seems like, if Annie were to look into the ether, that Jerrek should look rather different from the other NP, no?  At this point, I would guess that NP look fairly static and are in shades of grey, kinda like Renard's body and the NP shown in panel 2 today.  I wonder if Loup is controlled enough to hold his form in the ether tightly enough to look the same as the other NP?

I think Loup is either able to mask his Etheric presence at will, or "becoming the subject [of his/Coyote's shapeshifting ability] entirely" includes the Etheric appeareance. The denizens of Gillitie, animals included, all seem to be be able to look into the Ether constantly, and none of them realized the dead goose (which should look just as grey in the Ether) in a bush was anything else than a cadaver.

Feb 9, 2022 1:41:04 GMT davidm said:

Feb 7, 2022 12:55:09 GMT todd said:

So now we know that Loup shape-shifted into Jerrik rather than taking him over. I'm glad this is the route the story took.

First, Loup shouldn't be able to possess people. Coyote had given that ability away to Reynardine,and Rey still has it. Loup hasn't recovered it.

Second, if Jerrek actually was a pre-existing New Person whom Loup took over, he'd need a characterization of his own, a sense of who he was before Loup took him over etc., all having to be hurriedly introduced (presumably mostly through flashbacks), a person whom Annie and Kat barely know, ut who, as Loup's host, would need to become a major character all of a sudden. Having Jerrek being just Loup's disguise allows us to keep the story focused on Loup Annie, and the other established major characters.

And yet after coyote gave away that power, Red and Blue quit being fairies in forest and became humans with coyotes help

What do the Hollow Fairies have to do with the powers Coyote gave away?

[drmemory]

Thanks for reminding me of the hollow fairies! Another data point for the wild theories of light and dark light...

Way back here, when Coyote removes the life from our friend the jackalope and puts in a totem, it is shown as a bright light.  This... is probably coincidence.  Life is usually shown as light I think.

But in the next possible pages, they talk a little about the hollow fairies.  Two excerpts that may be important:

One:

Coyote: They are handled differently. They are born with their minds and spirits already removed and waiting.

We then see two totems linked with threads (not unlike Andrew's threads) to two hollow fairies.

Two:

Annie: How cruel!

Coyote: Crueler still to keep them separated from their spirits! They are mere hollow vessels without them!

Annie: But... Why are they born this way?

Coyote: Hahaha! The court wants what it wants!

Annie: The court?

Then we get distracted and move on to another topic.  So we never find out why the court wants the hollow fairies to grow up with their spirits separated from their bodies.  So many questions!  Where are their totems stored? What happens if a hollow fairy never passes their test? Does the court do experiments on these spirits?

As an aside, here we see a bunch of totems staged with new bodies and the creepy medical tech from Cardiff. Which lends credence to the theory that the fairy's spirits really are stored in totems.

So how are the hollow fairies created? Does Coyote pick some newborn fairies to be hollow, split out their spirits, put them in totems, and hand those over to the court? That seems... cruel. Or something. Not right.

Yet, I also can't picture the court being able to create fairies, hollow or not.

Anyway, I have no answers here, just looking for old mysteries that might be related to the light/dark light mystery.

One more disturbing facet of the hollow fairy thing: Coyote laughed bigtime when Annie tried to explain how the court used DNA sequencing to create the empty bodies for the forest expatriates.  Was this just general mockery of how the court does the easy part, or a hint that this is NOT how the bodies are created?  I'd feel better if we knew what happened to the Foley students later in life!

The court grows (or otherwise acquires) bodies. The court knows how to put spirits into those bodies. The court has a stash of totems with spirits in them somewhere. The court does experiments with the ether. The court finds putting mechanical consciousness into human bodies to be distasteful. I feel like this all forms a pattern I can't quite see yet.

[saardvark]

Feb 13, 2022 20:27:26 GMT drmemory said:

...

As an aside, here we see a bunch of totems staged with new bodies and the creepy medical tech from Cardiff. Which lends credence to the theory that the fairy's spirits really are stored in totems.

So how are the hollow fairies created? Does Coyote pick some newborn fairies to be hollow, split out their spirits, put them in totems, and hand those over to the court? That seems... cruel. Or something. Not right.

Yet, I also can't picture the court being able to create fairies, hollow or not.

Anyway, I have no answers here, just looking for old mysteries that might be related to the light/dark light mystery.

One more disturbing facet of the hollow fairy thing: Coyote laughed bigtime when Annie tried to explain how the court used DNA sequencing to create the empty bodies for the forest expatriates.  Was this just general mockery of how the court does the easy part, or a hint that this is NOT how the bodies are created?  I'd feel better if we knew what happened to the Foley students later in life!

The court grows (or otherwise acquires) bodies. The court knows how to put spirits into those bodies. The court has a stash of totems with spirits in them somewhere. The court does experiments with the ether. The court finds putting mechanical consciousness into human bodies to be distasteful. I feel like this all forms a pattern I can't quite see yet.

If the Court can grow whole bodies, would think they could have grown Tony his hand back, making Kat's success at that, or even her growing NPs not such a big deal.  But since they were interested in her bio-grow limb replacement methods, that might suggest they are not fully responsible for the fairy-grow tech. (?)

[drmemory]

Feb 14, 2022 12:37:15 GMT saardvark said:

Feb 13, 2022 20:27:26 GMT drmemory said:

...

One more disturbing facet of the hollow fairy thing: Coyote laughed bigtime when Annie tried to explain how the court used DNA sequencing to create the empty bodies for the forest expatriates.  Was this just general mockery of how the court does the easy part, or a hint that this is NOT how the bodies are created?  I'd feel better if we knew what happened to the Foley students later in life!

The court grows (or otherwise acquires) bodies. The court knows how to put spirits into those bodies. The court has a stash of totems with spirits in them somewhere. The court does experiments with the ether. The court finds putting mechanical consciousness into human bodies to be distasteful. I feel like this all forms a pattern I can't quite see yet.

If the Court can grow whole bodies, would think they could have grown Tony his hand back, making Kat's success at that, or even her growing NPs not such a big deal.  But since they were interested in her bio-grow limb replacement methods, that might suggest they are not fully responsible for the fairy-grow tech. (?)

Agree, good point.  Something more to this.

[DonDueed]

Feb 14, 2022 16:27:54 GMT drmemory said:

Feb 14, 2022 12:37:15 GMT saardvark said:

If the Court can grow whole bodies, would think they could have grown Tony his hand back, making Kat's success at that, or even her growing NPs not such a big deal.  But since they were interested in her bio-grow limb replacement methods, that might suggest they are not fully responsible for the fairy-grow tech. (?)

Agree, good point.  Something more to this.

There may be a significant difference between growing a complete human body from scratch and the other items you mentioned.  Given some starting point, such as a fertilized egg, the only tech required would be an artificial uterus (and subsequent life support for the growing human body).  There may or may not also be some sort of accelerated development so that the bodies don't take many years to reach the appropriate maturity level.  The "ensoulment" part of the process (aka the "ritual") is said to come from Coyote so isn't part of Court tech.

The replacement hand and NP bodies are both artificial biotech, apparently, not simply human tissue.  They are a new technology developed entirely by Kat -- indeed, as far as we know there is no human DNA involved.

All that being said, there's one other aspect to the Court's body production that feels really off.  If the fairy and animal bodies are fully human, how are they grown without souls such that they can receive the tokenized souls without destroying a preexisting human soul?  I guess this comes down to what a soul actually is in the Gunnerkrigg universe.  In the real world there doesn't seem to be any such thing that is distinguishable and separable from the body.

[Runningflame]

Feb 14, 2022 16:49:34 GMT DonDueed said:

All that being said, there's one other aspect to the Court's body production that feels really off.  If the fairy and animal bodies are fully human, how are they grown without souls such that they can receive the tokenized souls without destroying a preexisting human soul?  I guess this comes down to what a soul actually is in the Gunnerkrigg universe.  In the real world there doesn't seem to be any such thing that is distinguishable and separable from the body.

Technically, do we know that the bodies don't have souls, or that putting the totemized soul into the body doesn't destroy a preexisting human soul? I don't see the tech saying anything on the subject. Annie refers to "mindless children," but I'm not sure whether she knows that or is just assuming...

[abbomeister]

Feb 15, 2022 1:28:44 GMT Runningflame said:

Feb 14, 2022 16:49:34 GMT DonDueed said:

All that being said, there's one other aspect to the Court's body production that feels really off.  If the fairy and animal bodies are fully human, how are they grown without souls such that they can receive the tokenized souls without destroying a preexisting human soul?  I guess this comes down to what a soul actually is in the Gunnerkrigg universe.  In the real world there doesn't seem to be any such thing that is distinguishable and separable from the body.

Technically, do we know that the bodies don't have souls, or that putting the totemized soul into the body doesn't destroy a preexisting human soul? I don't see the tech saying anything on the subject. Annie refers to "mindless children," but I'm not sure whether she knows that or is just assuming...

If the humans in the vats DID have souls, then I would think they'd just poof into the Ether once the magic creatures' souls were planted. That way, Coyote could get energy from the human souls, the woods creatures won't try to sneak into the Court (knowing they can turn human), and the Court gets to monkey around with DNA sequencing.

I can't see Coyote doing something like giving away his subjects' souls without getting something in return.

[DonDueed]

Feb 15, 2022 3:58:17 GMT abbomeister said:

Feb 15, 2022 1:28:44 GMT Runningflame said:

Technically, do we know that the bodies don't have souls, or that putting the totemized soul into the body doesn't destroy a preexisting human soul? I don't see the tech saying anything on the subject. Annie refers to "mindless children," but I'm not sure whether she knows that or is just assuming...

If the humans in the vats DID have souls, then I would think they'd just poof into the Ether once the magic creatures' souls were planted. That way, Coyote could get energy from the human souls, the woods creatures won't try to sneak into the Court (knowing they can turn human), and the Court gets to monkey around with DNA sequencing.

I can't see Coyote doing something like giving away his subjects' souls without getting something in return.

If the bodies-in-vats did have souls, they would be useless to Coyote.  They (apparently) have spent their entire existence in their vat and would never have heard of Coyote, let alone believed in him.  Without that belief they contribute nothing to Coyote.

If the bodies have souls, only to be destroyed when the totemized souls are installed, and the Court knows this, it's a whole new level of horror.  It reminds me of those rare cases where a couple has a second child only because they are needed as an organ donor for the beloved but ailing first child. 

[abbomeister]

[/quote]

If the bodies-in-vats did have souls, they would be useless to Coyote.  They (apparently) have spent their entire existence in their vat and would never have heard of Coyote, let alone believed in him.  Without that belief they contribute nothing to Coyote.

If the bodies have souls, only to be destroyed when the totemized souls are installed, and the Court knows this, it's a whole new level of horror.  It reminds me of those rare cases where a couple has a second child only because they are needed as an organ donor for the beloved but ailing first child. 

[/quote]

Thanks for reminding me of the belief part of the Death process. I forgot about that when I posted. XD
The whole thing with the totems and vat-children is very mysterious, and I wonder what part it will eventually play in the story.