[2669] And yet here you are

[philman]

Back to this jerk Jerek



Also, cookies for shaihulud :

Aug 27, 2022 0:11:35 GMT shaihulud said:

Aug 26, 2022 7:06:46 GMT philman said:

Hmm, was Omega never perfect, or as someone been tinkering with it?

Or have recent etheric events thrown it's predictions way off course?

Still think the point of divergence is that Annie survived her fall.

[imaginaryfriend]

Interesting that Antimony's death was predicted yet she was allowed to wander with little supervision. Or maybe because her death was predicted it wasn't considered worth the effort to try to protect her?

[madjack]

Didn't expect that to be straight out answered. Guess this is why they didn't make her the Court medium, all the uncertainty she was introducing was bad enough for them.

Also since when is Jerrek someone Annie just vents to?

[philman]

This does start to feed into why that TicToc story was important though. Kat literally changed fate, and I guess the Omega Device runs on that same fate, but doesn't realise it has been changed.

[justcurious]

So now we know why the Court wanted to get rid of Annie.
And it would probably have been a wasted effort even if they had succeeded. It's probably Kat who interfered with the Omega Device by, with the Norns' help, affecting past events. It would not be surprising for such an interference with causality to have disrupted the workings of a machine designed to analyze causality.
We still don't know how the Omega Device dealt with quantum effects on causality or with its need to be bigger than the Universe or at least bigger than the part of the Universe centered on the machine and of a radius equal to the distance light could have travelled since the machine's creation. The reason for this distance is that the speed of light is the speed of causality.

[basser]

Kinda feelin like if Tony was involved in Omega before Annie was born, then perhaps the magic spreadsheet tossing a nice fat "Anthony Carver's kid gonna die" in the output field provided ample incentive for him and his wife to peace the heck out that weird little dimension hole.

Also might explain why he didn't want anything to do with the kid once predicted events progressed to the point where it seemed like her death was inevitable. Imagine it might be pretty jarring to get a call like "ey Tony, your kid didn't die, come back and fix the stupid machine so it'll be right next time it predicts tragedy for you". Reckon someone in that position might not be super interested in fixing any spreadsheets. Might be more interested in doing unpredictable stuff like helping a teenage girl ascend to robot godhood.

[stef1987]

So they were just gonna let her die? And apparently so was Aata.
Nice people

Aug 29, 2022 7:40:49 GMT basser said:

Kinda feelin like if Tony was involved in Omega before Annie was born, then perhaps the magic spreadsheet tossing a nice fat "Anthony Carver's kid gonna die" in the output field provided ample incentive for him and his wife to peace the heck out that weird little dimension hole.

Also might explain why he didn't want anything to do with the kid once predicted events progressed to the point where it seemed like her death was inevitable. Imagine it might be pretty jarring to get a call like "ey Tony, your kid didn't die, come back and fix the stupid machine so it'll be right next time it predicts tragedy for you". Reckon someone in that position might not be super interested in fixing any spreadsheets. Might be more interested in doing unpredictable stuff like helping a teenage girl ascend to robot godhood.

I highly doubt Tony or anyone else we know (besides some of the shadow men) knew that Annie was gonna die.

[heranje]

"You will not just be saving Antimony, but yourself also. And the changes brought by the both of you will extend outward and bring profound changes to the world."
There's been a lot of discussion on here about that statement in relation to the Dark Robo!Deity Kat timeline, but this reveals a second dimension to what the Norns said. Kat's time-loop shenanigans got the timelines all out of whack - in what seems to be a good way. I'm not sure the timeline where the Court has a functional omniscient Omega Device is a lot better for everyone else.

I'm sure this means that at one point at least, there must have been a serious discussion among the Shadow Men about the pros and cons of just killing Annie in an attempt to fix things and get the predictions back on track. Guess they settled for not making her the medium and attempting to have her expelled instead.

"We thank you for your time, but you are now free to concentrate fully on your studies" Translation: please stop messing up our predicted timeline with your antics.

[blahzor]

Omega predictions are based off a different timeline/universe so abandon planet

[blahzor]

Aug 29, 2022 7:17:01 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Interesting that Antimony's death was predicted yet she was allowed to wander with little supervision. Or maybe because her death was predicted it wasn't considered worth the effort to try to protect her?

Or they preferred the outcome long after her death and saw the court go for the better with little Coyote interaction. They didn't have a medium because they waited for her to arrive

[jda]

Aug 29, 2022 7:56:11 GMT stef1987 said:

So they were just gonna let her die? And apparently so was Aata.

Aug 29, 2022 7:40:49 GMT basser said:

I highly doubt Tony or anyone else we know (besides some of the shadow men) knew that Annie was gonna die.

Yes, they were. They told KAt to go to sleep. I kind of see the appeal for them to have TWO trapped souls down there guarding the Annan Waters (yes, I know it'd need green arrow shenanigans, but spare me).

[jda]

Aug 29, 2022 8:07:27 GMT blahzor said:

Omega predictions are based off a different timeline/universe so abandon planet

So IF/WHEN they find that it was not exactly Annie that "broke" the predicions, but KAT that broke time via Tik Tocks, will they then responsibilize Kat of all that? Will that change the calculations so they now can STAY in this world, since Omega only needs some polishing on its data?

[heranje]

Aug 29, 2022 8:36:52 GMT jda said:

Aug 29, 2022 8:07:27 GMT blahzor said:

Omega predictions are based off a different timeline/universe so abandon planet

So IF/WHEN they find that it was not exactly Annie that "broke" the predicions, but KAT that broke time via Tik Tocks, will they then responsibilize Kat of all that? Will that change the calculations so they now can STAY in this world, since Omega only needs some polishing on its data?

I'm not sure - Kat may have caused the timeline split by saving Annie, but I think the thing that is messing up the timeline is Annie being alive. She's done a lot since being saved from the Annan waters that would change events and make the predictions inaccurate, if the Omega Device is 'stuck' on a timeline where she is dead. Such things include freeing Jeanne, befriending Coyote and Ysengrin and thereby enabling Coyote's plan, keeping Renard with her rather than him being placed back in the 'care' of the Court, bringing Shadow back into the Court, releasing Robot from robot jail, etc. Also, we've had several hints that Kat would have gone down a darker - and perhaps more Court-aligned - path had Annie actually died, most recently with the whole conversation about Kat's curiosity about the new Court.

If the Omega Device is for some reason unable to predict Annie's actions post- her predicted death, knowing why she didn't die may not fix much.

[jda]

Aug 29, 2022 8:59:00 GMT heranje said:

Aug 29, 2022 8:36:52 GMT jda said:

So IF/WHEN they find that it was not exactly Annie that "broke" the predicions, but KAT that broke time via Tik Tocks, will they then responsibilize Kat of all that? Will that change the calculations so they now can STAY in this world, since Omega only needs some polishing on its data?

I'm not sure - Kat may have caused the timeline split by saving Annie, but I think the thing that is messing up the timeline is Annie being alive. She's done a lot since being saved from the Annan waters that would change events and make the predictions inaccurate, if the Omega Device is 'stuck' on a timeline where she is dead. Such things include freeing Jeanne, befriending Coyote and Ysengrin and thereby enabling Coyote's plan, keeping Renard with her rather than him being placed back in the 'care' of the Court, bringing Shadow back into the Court, releasing Robot from robot jail, etc. Also, we've had several hints that Kat would have gone down a darker - and perhaps more Court-aligned - path had Annie actually died, most recently with the whole conversation about Kat's curiosity about the new Court.

If the Omega Device is for some reason unable to predict Annie's actions post- her predicted death, knowing why she didn't die may not fix much.

I disagree, since I think they went

"Oh well, Carver's daughter didnt die, Omega was flawed predicting how tough she were, so our predictions are flawed. Also predicted Donlan's daughter would be brooding and dedicating to goth tech studies. It must be the _____ Ether",

it is different from

"ermm, so Donlan's daughter caused a time manipulations, thus inserting time loops on the equation. Go back and correct data. Yes, yes, now all it is explained and Omega predicts everyting that already DID happen. Lets deal with D's daughter before she threatens more our linear-time predictor"

[blahzor]

Aug 29, 2022 8:36:52 GMT jda said:

Aug 29, 2022 8:07:27 GMT blahzor said:

Omega predictions are based off a different timeline/universe so abandon planet

So IF/WHEN they find that it was not exactly Annie that "broke" the predicions, but KAT that broke time via Tik Tocks, will they then responsibilize Kat of all that? Will that change the calculations so they now can STAY in this world, since Omega only needs some polishing on its data?

I'm thinking they don't find out til too many of them are gone with the cut off. And the fact that Annie lived blinded them to how expansive Kat's NP program is now. Like in the previous timeline maybe she does the work for Tony's hand at best and then gets redirected to a different route seen by Omega. That's how she saves herself also would explain why she would get to the point she destroys a entire timeline just to save Annie and don't care about the ripples after knowing doing so will lead to Annie living x amount more years

[rafk]

Well, now we know the Court are poor scientists, because treating Annie's incident as the CAUSE is not justified. It's as easily the first noticed EFFECT of the actual cause.

The obvious thing for us as readers is to assume that Kat's adventures in time travel are the true cause.... but we may also be wrong.

[rafk]

Aug 29, 2022 7:56:11 GMT stef1987 said:

So they were just gonna let her die? And apparently so was Aata.
Nice people

I mean, I don't blame them for that, if you have apparently incontrovertible prophecies that never fail to come true, can you really spend your life fruitlessly banging your head against all the ones you don't like rather than working to improve things that aren't absolutely set in stone?

For all you know, if you try to go save Antimony Carver, what will happen is you accidentally end up being responsible for causing her death.

[rafk]

Aug 29, 2022 7:40:49 GMT basser said:

Kinda feelin like if Tony was involved in Omega before Annie was born, then perhaps the magic spreadsheet tossing a nice fat "Anthony Carver's kid gonna die" in the output field provided ample incentive for him and his wife to peace the heck out that weird little dimension hole.

I don't think it is impossible that Tony knew although it would feel like a very late author's saving throw for the character as an explanation for his reasons not to mention turning a lot of previous storytelling into shaggy dog stories.

[pyradonis]

I am 90% sure I already theorized once that the Court not wanting to send any kind of search party to look for Annie was because it had been predicted she would die. Anyway, copying myself from the other thread...

Still, I stand by my assumption that each appearance of the Tic-Toc must have thrown the predictions off. Without the Tic-Toc, Anja wouldn't have found the warehouse with the Golems in the basement, wouldn't have given Kat the key for her to find the Golems which lead to all kinds of consequences. Yes, Annie not dying and instead being present at the meeting with Coyote afterwards was likely the "worst offender" in terms of changes to the timeline, but the other Tic-Toc appearances must have changed things as well. Unless everything else just so happened to turn out the same way as it did before.

But maybe they simply did not get predictions about the other things that were changed.

Aug 29, 2022 7:40:49 GMT basser said:

Kinda feelin like if Tony was involved in Omega before Annie was born, then perhaps the magic spreadsheet tossing a nice fat "Anthony Carver's kid gonna die" in the output field provided ample incentive for him and his wife to peace the heck out that weird little dimension hole.

Unlikely. Surma explicitly wished for Annie to continue her education in the Court. Why she didn't want Annie to be born there, but wanted to send her to school there is still a mystery...

Also: This chapter seems to be flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks.

[mordekai]

Aug 29, 2022 7:40:49 GMT basser said:

Kinda feelin like if Tony was involved in Omega before Annie was born, then perhaps the magic spreadsheet tossing a nice fat "Anthony Carver's kid gonna die" in the output field provided ample incentive for him and his wife to peace the heck out that weird little dimension hole.

Also might explain why he didn't want anything to do with the kid once predicted events progressed to the point where it seemed like her death was inevitable. Imagine it might be pretty jarring to get a call like "ey Tony, your kid didn't die, come back and fix the stupid machine so it'll be right next time it predicts tragedy for you". Reckon someone in that position might not be super interested in fixing any spreadsheets. Might be more interested in doing unpredictable stuff like helping a teenage girl ascend to robot godhood.

I doubt Tony knew about that prediction... he was the one who sent Annie to the Court after Surma's death...

[heranje]

Aug 29, 2022 11:12:29 GMT pyradonis said:

Still, I stand by my assumption that each appearance of the Tic-Toc must have thrown the predictions off. Without the Tic-Toc, Anja wouldn't have found the warehouse with the Golems in the basement, wouldn't have given Kat the key for her to find the Golems which lead to all kinds of consequences. Yes, Annie not dying and instead being present at the meeting with Coyote afterwards was likely the "worst offender" in terms of changes to the timeline, but the other Tic-Toc appearances must have changed things as well. Unless everything else just so happened to turn out the same way as it did before.

One explanation is that the eventual consequences of Kat helping Anja find the Golems really only started happening after Annie was saved. Consequence A was the kids learning more about Jeanne, strengthening their resolve to free her. Consequence B was the development of Kat's tech including the New People, which the Court still doesn't seem to be fully aware of, what with Juliet working to conceal their activities from the Shadow Men. So it would make sense that the Court would interpret the one "big event" (someone living when she should have died, and going on to profoundly affect the relationship between Court and Forest) as the cause. But I think it's safe to say that Annie is a key ingredient in all those other consequences as well - for one, Kat's quest to make a new kind of robot body started with Robot, who she would (probably) never have met if Annie hadn't introduced them post-bridge. She was clearly a frighteningly impressive tech genius in the pre-tic toc timeline as well, but we don't know what direction her research would have gone in.

Also, notably, the fact that the time loop includes the tic toc showing Anja and Donald the way to the warehouse means the Annie-less Kat who started the time loop (or one of the later Kat-iterations continuing it) must have found the warehouse herself at some point, although probably far later than she does in this timeline. In fact, that in itself is interesting - at some point, Kat must have thought "If only I had found this place earlier..." and chosen to alter the timeline to make it so.

[silicondream]

Aug 29, 2022 7:17:01 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Interesting that Antimony's death was predicted yet she was allowed to wander with little supervision. Or maybe because her death was predicted it wasn't considered worth the effort to try to protect her?

Aata didn't say when her death was predicted.  I doubt it was very long before the actual event; certainly not before Tony went off the grid, since he apparently believed that Annie would be safe at the Court.

Giving the Court the benefit of the doubt, maybe it consulted Omega immediately after Eglamore reported Annie's fall.  Omega declared her dead or doomed, and the Court (reasonably) decided to trust it rather than mount a perilous rescue mission into Jeanne's territory.

...which would make the Donlans look even more insane for letting Kat go after Annie instead, but hey.

Aug 29, 2022 8:31:57 GMT jda said:

Aug 29, 2022 7:56:11 GMT stef1987 said:

So they were just gonna let her die? And apparently so was Aata.

Yes, they were. They told KAt to go to sleep. I kind of see the appeal for them to have TWO trapped souls down there guarding the Annan Waters (yes, I know it'd need green arrow shenanigans, but spare me).

Letting Annie die could also be a way to permanently neutralize Renard, assuming he wouldn't be freed from the toy by her death. With green arrow shenanigans and transitive ownership rules, he might even have ended up under Court control.

Aug 29, 2022 9:26:52 GMT rafk said:

Well, now we know the Court are poor scientists, because treating Annie's incident as the CAUSE is not justified. It's as easily the first noticed EFFECT of the actual cause.

I still can't believe it was the first noticed effect. When did the Court ever appear infallible? It couldn't reliably locate Zimmy and Jack; it screwed up multiple times trying to capture and contain Renard; it failed to notice all sorts of illicit activity by the Seraphs, Hetty, etc. Much of this happened before Annie even arrived. If Aata can still believe in Omega's omniscience, then either the Court's screwing with his memories or he's the dumbest bodhisattva in history.

[detefabell]

I have this weird suspicion that omega device is somewhat connected to Kat in some way. That she created or even is the omega device in an alternate future/dimension.

[Bo No Bo]

Loup, inside Jerek, who pretty much caused that fall to happen as Coyote: "Oh, weird, huh, haha"




Also, unrelated, they really didn't have Aata or anyone in the Shadow Men sign an NDA on this kinda intel???

[todd]

Aug 29, 2022 11:53:49 GMT silicondream said:

Letting Annie die could also be a way to permanently neutralize Renard, assuming he wouldn't be freed from the toy by her death. With green arrow shenanigans and transitive ownership rules, he might even have ended up under Court control.

I've wondered about that; Annie's death would have allowed Reynardine to escape the stuffed toy and possess/kill other people in the Court, which the Court obviously wouldn't have wanted. Of course, they didn't find out about his situation until shortly before the bridge incident (and even then, the only Court employees who knew about it were the Donlans and Eglamore, who aren't part of the "scheming inner circle" connected to the Omega Device).

[Nnelg]

Hm, I think Aata may wrong about when the inaccuracies started.

After all, shouldn't they have also known where the Tick-Tocks came from?

[mordekai]

Aug 29, 2022 12:03:18 GMT Bo No Bo said:

Loup, inside Jerek, who pretty much caused that fall to happen as Coyote: "Oh, weird, huh, haha"




Also, unrelated, they really didn't have Aata or anyone in the Shadow Men sign an NDA on this kinda intel???

Now Loup knows how to screw the Court's plans. Even if he doesn't know about the Court tech, he probably still can interfere with the etheric Star Ocean and send the ships to the Event Horizon/Hellraiser Hell

[philman]

Aug 29, 2022 11:57:51 GMT detefabell said:

I have this weird suspicion that omega device is somewhat connected to Kat in some way. That she created or even is the omega device in an alternate future/dimension.

We've already seen her go back in time to "invent" the tictocs, so it's definitely not inplausable that the Omega device is her invention from an alternate timeline where Annie died

[maxptc]

Who would win in a fight; a perfectly accurate prediction machine or main cast protection? Taking all bets.

[Polyhymnia]

A lot of cool stuff upthread.

I'm also one to agree that the court may be scapegoating Annie. The incident on the bridge was a convergence of many actors: We have young Kat, watching from the stairs. We have Annie, falling from the bridge. We have Robot, the seraph ringleader, along with Ysengrin's arm and the shadow person. Presumably the robot was acting under Coyote's instructions (can't remember if this is said in the comic explicitly or not). Then we also have Reynardine, the target of the retrieval mission/attack. Eglamore was responsible for some of the event's immediacy, as he charged Robot. Then, there's future Kat and the tic-toc.

The court clearly blames Annie for all of this chaos, but I suspect she's the easy scapegoat because she's openly both disobedient and etheric. You don't see Kat running flaming into the woods or causing Coyote to destroy buildings for in protest of her treatment, or being body-doubled. I suspect the court has written off completely etheric beings like Reynardine, Coyote, and Loup for their etheric status (note how the court seemed interested in re-capturing Reynardine, but was apparently fine with allowing possessed Robot to abscond with him (unless they were expecting Eglamore to successfully thwart him; note, though, that the whole falling incident seems to have been prompted by the tic-toc's warning screech: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=117). They also haven't shown interest (that we know of) in bringing anyone etheric along with them, not even Smitty, who makes things predictable. (Unless it was a case of "don't invite people who are committed to etheric SOs). Actually, I wonder how much Smitty's abilities were involved in the omega project.

So then you have Annie, who they think is the cause of chaos. However, they have shown no awareness of Kat's involvement in her schemes. They don't try to stop her from building the rescue machine, though they may have allowed it as an exercise in futility. They don't seem aware of her involvement in the success of the Jeanne plot (e.g. discovering Diego's work underneath her lab, enabling the trip to the RotD's success, creating the arrow that made the Jeanne plan work and enabled Loup to breech the court).

Kat's tic toc was responsible for alerting Anja to the existence of her warehouse: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2354. That's the place where the Jeanne plot, but also the New People project were made possible. I have a theory that some of the boat shenannigans were hidden from the court by Seraph robots rather than the seraphs being on the court's errand. If so, then the court may actually be unaware of Kat's NP project and her etheric interactions entirely, as the seraphs could be keeping things from court observation. (I think maybe the shadow men have tracked the seraphs, though? I can't remember if this is the case).

There's also potentially Zimmy, given her interactions with the tic toc and her presence on the boat as a catalyst. www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2353 . I don't know if the court can account for her, or if they view her as a curiosity worth studying to prevent any future interference (presumably this is why they were interested in a captive Reynardine).

Then, there are statements by the Norns that suggest Kat is co-responsible with Annie: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2350 "And the changes brought by both of you will extend outward and bring profound changes to the world" and here www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2349 Kat's shown to have come multiple times, though we do not know what she changed at other times since the Tic Tocs may not have been involved (we don't have any tic toc occurrences unaccounted for, do we?)

On a more meta level, both Kat and Annie have been involved in the Alchemy treatise pages, suggesting co-equal influence (though of course, from a Doylist perspective, this only suggests equal narrative weight). www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2365

Kat, though, does herself consider Annie responsible for her own involvement in the etheric, so perhaps the court isn't wholly unfounded in their conclusions: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2317

Two other side points:

Does the court know about this: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2321 ? And where do the robots fit into their new society? Do they want to bring them to the new world as a slave class, the way they currently exist? Or are they planning to abandon them as compromised? I have a hard time imagining these court people using their hands to build houses when they're used to living in mind-labor only society.


Also, we know Coyote was involved in the bridge-antics somehow: www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2362 and we also know he's the one responsible for the Ysengrin breakdown and birth of Loup; I guess the question is how much of this plan was prompted by Annie and how much it had been in the works for a long time, as I think there's evidence for both. ("A higher power than ours" www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2363)