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Post by foresterr on May 25, 2022 22:17:24 GMT
Ah, yes, the ether.
Actually, now I'm wondering if one of the Departments is the Coincidence Control Office.
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Post by shaihulud on May 25, 2022 23:01:17 GMT
Yes, at the risk of meriting a Carly-Simon-ish rebuke for vanity, I couldn't help but wonder if forum posts played at least some part in inspiring the writing of Kat's remarks here. I thought Mr. Siddell kept a healthy buffer of three chapters? |
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Post by drmemory on May 26, 2022 5:08:10 GMT
While Kat brings up some good points, I still suspect that the Omega Device would have to exist (in the story), since it seems to be central to the Court's doings (and to Loup's statement that the Court's doings are eroding his maintenance of the Forest). I think it's a given that it exists, or else either Tony would have to be lying, or the Court would have to have had to randomly send him to places to check predictions that didn't exist for absolutely no reason.
Which makes it even more strange for me that Kat dismisses it so easily. Not only has she seen so many "impossible" things be possible during her time at the Court that she could have breakfast at Milliways every morning, it also means she either calls Tony a liar, or dismisses all the work he's done for years.
Agreed, just trying to cover all the possibilities. I don't really believe nothing exists, I'm just suspicious that what the court thinks they created may well be something very different than what exists now. Like, perhaps a self-aware AI acting autonomously, telling the court what it needs to to keep them complacent and get the resources it desires for its own goals.  So maybe the court created Omega, but Omega has evolved and does something very different while letting the court think it is under their control and doing as it is told, and Kat is objecting to what they claim for Omega rather than what it really does.
Also, ya, I can't see Tony being able to lie really. Choose to conceal information, sure. Lie? Can't see it, and even if he could, he wouldn't lie to his daughter!
As for Kat, I would think after the whole timey-wimey thing with the Norns and her bird, after going to the RoTD, and after meeting and interacting with more than one pychopomp, that she'd be somewhat open-minded about things these days. God, she even has a way to get into the ether herself (the little green arrow-related tool she made). Yet here we are, back in denial. I don't get it and I don't think I buy it.
I suggest that maybe Kat is right that Omega couldn't do what is claimed, and Omega exists but doesn't actually do that. Meaning Tony, the Shadow Men, and the Court have all been taken in by Omega. What better name for a Big Bad? |
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Post by drmemory on May 26, 2022 5:17:27 GMT
Minor follow-up - I don't think Omega as a self-aware, autonomous AI acting in its own self-interest is even a stretch at this point. Even before Robot and before Kat's NPs we saw a lot of free will behavior in both robots and golems.
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Post by maxptc on May 26, 2022 6:00:39 GMT
Now that I've learnt more about Omega/predictions, both from the comic and people here, I personally think it is just a prediction machine that is losing its accuracy and the prediction(s) are going to be important to the story rather then the details of the device. Still likely powered by an orphan soul, but I also wouldn't be surprised if the how of Omega isn't focused on beyond what we've seen and are seeing speculated, which could turn out to be more or less the details of how it works, making only the predictions relevant storywise.
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Post by bedinsis on May 26, 2022 6:02:07 GMT
I believe Kat's comment was written in anticipation of how he thought readers would react. The comment below the page might've been due to forum response but it might as well have been part of the buffer. |
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Post by justcurious on May 26, 2022 11:28:14 GMT
Renard is claiming that the Omega device will not work because there is an entity called the ether that the Court has not taken into account. Kat is saying that whether the Court has taken the ether into account or not the Omega device still could not work because they have got the properties of what they are modelling wrong. That is they have got the processes wrong.
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Post by speedwell on May 26, 2022 16:44:40 GMT
I could speculate that the reason the Court and Forest are "unbounded bounds" that appear to have no location but that can be exited and re-entered is that they are not "real" locations, in the same way that Anthony traveled to "not real locations" in his travels. The Court founders may have been 19th Century mysticists of a stamp that was current in that era of burgeoning spiritual awareness. In the context of Gunnerkrigg history, they may have discovered these extrareal locations and used that discovery to construct one of their own. Unfortunately they didn't properly reckon with the confounding influence of entities that did not need technology to transcend the borders. Coyote was right, then; all myths are true - somewhere and somewhen.
The Omega device would then have been a second attempt to stabilise the Gunnerkrigg milieu, and, in the same way as the work of the Donlans, might well have been an Etheric quantum computing device running the Gunnerkrigg simulation. The "program" then would have defined existence within the context of the simulation. Hybrid individuals whose existence was partly human and partly simulation-derived could come and go because the simulation was still active and supported them. But if the hybrid individual were to be cut off from the program, the part of them derived from the simulation would cease to be. Anthony, at least, appears to believe that the result would be so dire that he would make huge personal sacrifices to avoid it happening to a daughter he otherwise abandoned.
I think maxptc is correct in saying the Omega device is a prediction machine. However it isn't predicting; it has already in a sense written the script, is playing it out, and it knows how the story ends. The Court founders would have programmed it to do so.
If I'm right, it makes sense to suppose that the Court wish to leave the Gunnerkrigg "beta" context for an upgraded context free of interference by border-crossers and Etheric-based individuals. I have my doubts that any of them are considering leaving to go back to the reality they left behind when they created Gunnerkrigg, since they have no control over that except insofar as they can manipulate Etheric people and objects originating in Gunnerkrigg. Could there be a new Omega device in the wings - Omega-prime, you might say?
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Post by shaihulud on May 26, 2022 21:44:18 GMT
I think the Omega device is just future Kat pulling a fast one, pretending she knows all when really she is just a time traveler. Now that the stable time loop is busted and antimony has survived her fall, Omega-Kat's so called "predictions" will get more and more wrong as the time lines diverge.
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Post by pyradonis on May 27, 2022 10:41:14 GMT
I think the Omega device is just future Kat pulling a fast one, pretending she knows all when really she is just a time traveler. Now that the stable time loop is busted and antimony has survived her fall, Omega-Kat's so called "predictions" will get more and more wrong as the time lines diverge.
What do you mean, "busted"? Annie surviving her fall is part of the stable time loop. |
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Post by Isildur on May 31, 2022 14:50:27 GMT
Yes, at the risk of meriting a Carly-Simon-ish rebuke for vanity, I couldn't help but wonder if forum posts played at least some part in inspiring the writing of Kat's remarks here. I thought Mr. Siddell kept a healthy buffer of three chapters? That would in no way preclude the possibility of editing panels up until the moment of posting, especially (but not necessarily limited too) a bit of dialogue adjustment. (For that matter, I recall that he at least once even edited a panel of Renard after posting, after people noted it could look funny depending on the viewer's interpretation. It was a front view of a serious-expressioned Renard drawn without a mouth line, but the outline of his lower jaw's lower edge could be interpreted as a mouth line, potentially giving Renard the appearance of having a giant, goofy grin. A true mouth line was consequently added in.) |
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So maybe the court created Omega, but Omega has evolved and does something very different while letting the court think it is under their control and doing as it is told, and Kat is objecting to what they claim for Omega rather than what it really does.
