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Post by imaginaryfriend on Nov 25, 2022 8:04:24 GMT
Kat's mom and dad are pretty cool. Not surprising that the leavers haven't given up on persuading Kat, though, since she'd be pretty useful. [edit] It does occur to me that if they're so bent on protecting the new world from the ether that they're getting rid of the memories of people who left in the people who remain to avoid any contamination, can they allow those who go to retain their memories of how the ether works as well as culture stories and myths they read or heard of? If so, wouldn't they blank Kat's mind of her etheric tech so she'd have to start over with a completely materialistic mindset? That puts a different spin on the whole "research whatever you want" thing, by which I mean it's just spin, more like "research whatever you want once we cleanse your mind of anything we don't want you to know." [/edit]
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Post by arf on Nov 25, 2022 8:18:23 GMT
I can understand why Anja fails the purity test; what with her etheric computer and her association with Norse dieties. But Don? (Not that Don would be tempted any more than his daughter)
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Post by philman on Nov 25, 2022 8:22:30 GMT
And Kat is refusing for now, but there will definitely be a time in the future when she is forced to make a harder choice to go or to stay, the Court won't just let it slide, they WANT her there, and will find some way to make her make the harder choice.
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blackouthart
New Member
Avatar drawn by Shelby Cragg!
Posts: 49
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Post by blackouthart on Nov 25, 2022 8:24:46 GMT
Don and Anja have been presented as a united front the entire time, and besides, the Court really only wants Kat. Any appeal to sentimentality would be kind of hamfisted if they just went “you can take your dad but not your mom, sorry!!!”
Edit: imaginaryfriend’s edit is even more horrifying when you realize they likely plan to wipe Kat’s memories of her parents as soon as they get their hands on her.
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Post by Isildur on Nov 25, 2022 9:02:04 GMT
There appears to be an error. From the context and the pink shading, it appears that Annie is the one to whom the "Did you find anything out?" speech balloon should be attributed, but its tail is pointing at Kat.
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Post by basser on Nov 25, 2022 9:40:13 GMT
Court be like "Well Glasses McGee obviously can't come on account of magic computer or whatever, but his teenage daughter who may or may not have straight up created a whole other plane of existence and got deified by ascended robot flesh golems, and who incidentally also has a magic computer? Totes fine sign her up."
Either they're comically oblivious or they's up to shenanigans.
I'm also so deeply curious if Tony gets to go considering it's based on his spreadsheets and all. He was involved with the whole business before getting with Surma (the business is in fact what got him with her), so he's not trying to delete magic for reason of saving his kid or anything, though I do vaguely recall him saying something about having to come back and work on it so they won't kick Annie out. So maybe there's a plan to negate Annie's magic by fusing her with Zimmy or something idk.
Kinda starting to think Tony is only involved by virtue of needing to create Annie in order to set up the macrostate leading to Kat creating her enlightened robot species, and they've just got him working on spreadsheets as busy work. Fits best with the stat mech themes, and also I just think it would be very funny if the Court went to all this trouble to set up the conditions for the birth of a race of perfect etherless beings, only for the dang things to come preloaded with a homebrew messianic religion and also one of them is boinking a dog god, I guess?? Just, like, y'all focused so much on getting rid of Ether you went and made Hyperspace Ether. With robots. And a furry.
Also also the fact that the Star Ocean is literally called metaphorical could easily mean it doesn't actually do anything.
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Post by TBeholder on Nov 25, 2022 12:17:35 GMT
So they are stupid enough to expect everyone will just flock to them, indeed. But was this because of the same echo-chamber hubris that left Aata without any exit strategy the last time, or are they flailing around and grabbing straws in panic? Place your bets! And Kat is refusing for now, but there will definitely be a time in the future when she is forced to make a harder choice to go or to stay, the Court won't just let it slide, they WANT her there, and will find some way to make her make the harder choice. That’s an escalation and it cannot be pretty. Especially for them, since they obviously are a minority and already spread themselves thin. But they might be just that stupid.
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Post by todd on Nov 25, 2022 12:41:59 GMT
[edit] It does occur to me that if they're so bent on protecting the new world from the ether that they're getting rid of the memories of people who left in the people who remain to avoid any contamination, can they allow those who go to retain their memories of how the ether works as well as culture stories and myths they read or heard of? If so, wouldn't they blank Kat's mind of her etheric tech so she'd have to start over with a completely materialistic mindset? That puts a different spin on the whole "research whatever you want" thing, by which I mean it's just spin, more like "research whatever you want once we cleanse your mind of anything we don't want you to know." [/edit] All the holes in the Court's claims that we've noticed (combined with its past record) suggest all the more that the Court's got some dark secret that they don't want known - say, wiping out everyone on Earth in such a thorough annihilation that they won't even be able to enter the ether upon dying and contribute to it. (They obviously wouldn't want the "regular Court people" like Kat to know about it, since they've got enough of a sense of right and wrong to object - just as the Court leaders had to hush up what they did to Jeanne, taking it to such an extreme that they erased her from the records. An admission that most of the Court has a stronger grasp of morality than the leaders do.) Or maybe the Court just didn't think it through (might even have gotten so dependent on the Omega Device's revelations to work out everything for them that, by the time it began to go faulty, their planning skills had atrophied).
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Post by TBeholder on Nov 25, 2022 12:58:02 GMT
All the holes in the Court's claims that we've noticed (combined with its past record) suggest all the more that the Court's got some dark secret that they don't want known - The current speculation is that without stealing Coyote’s power this “Exodus project” ( if it’s even supposed to work as advertised) will have to use some other power source… that is chomp an enormous amount of Ether somewhere else. Which already leaves very little space for charitable interpretations. More so now that we know the entire Court sits in an artificial transitional area. Speaking of which, concerns about this already can create urgent need for the real Coyote, rather than a clumsy moronic substitute.
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Post by speedwell on Nov 25, 2022 13:19:28 GMT
Also also the fact that the Star Ocean is literally called metaphorical could easily mean it doesn't actually do anything. Down in the deep dark dungeons of physics, where the quantum sausage gets made, and where describing things with words is like trying to use two telephone poles to eat your Chinese takeaway, processes we think of as "physical" hold hands with the "theoretical". The actual, physical world works the way it does because of how numbers fit together. This is not some sort of sciencey poetry - a friend who is a university professor in what I think of as "advanced research maths" once told me, in the same tone of voice that Teresa of Avila might have used to recount her latest vision, "Numbers make things". In the Ether, the substrate of reality, rather than mathematical processes, is imagination. Metaphor makes things. Someone once referred to the vastness of the cosmos as an ocean (I bet it was in one or more of ancient Greek, Oceanic, or Celtic mythologies; we see it in Homer, for example) and the notion became indispensable. The usual, and accurate, formula is imagination plus will equals magic. "Because we said so" is the motto of Etheric engineering. Therefore an ocean exists, and has the characteristics of oceans, including the attributes of "supports aquatic life" and "allows ships to sail on it". We see this a lot in this comic, actually. The Donlan Etheric computer is a computer, rather than an Atlantean quartz chunk or a cabal of muttering necromancers, because the Donlans are moderns. Because they needed something to run what they thought of as programs, instead of to cast spells. James and Jenny make a few marks on a surface, and the meaning they lend to the markings manifests as what they intended. Surma sews a few patches of fabric together and stuffs and embroiders it into a vaguely catlike toy, but because she intended it quite strongly for a wolf, bearing in mind the metaphorical correspondences between the element antimony and the alchemical "wolf", the toy was a wolf so emphatically that it imposed its wolf identity on Renard's shapeshifting ability.
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Post by pyradonis on Nov 25, 2022 13:27:29 GMT
In which we are reminded again of how incredibly crappy the Court's sales pitch for their new world is.
I mean, this is also completely disconnected from any immoral, possibly murderous or even genocidal plans they might have to make it possible. There's just no reason anybody but a handful of fanatics would ever decide to embark on this journey.
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Post by Per on Nov 25, 2022 15:24:08 GMT
"So then they shot me with a stun gun and brought me anyway, this is just an afterimage"
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Post by Runningflame on Nov 25, 2022 16:49:40 GMT
Does anyone else find the perspective choice in panel 1 odd? Not sure why we're on the floor next to Annie's foot looking up at Kat.
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Post by speedwell on Nov 25, 2022 17:21:31 GMT
Does anyone else find the perspective choice in panel 1 odd? Not sure why we're on the floor next to Annie's foot looking up at Kat. Just a guess - it's Renard's perspective from where he's lying on the floor.
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Post by wanderer on Nov 25, 2022 17:38:23 GMT
All I can think when I see this page is "good lord, Annie, don't hold the tooth like that! You'll slice your fingers off!"
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Post by bedinsis on Nov 25, 2022 17:50:25 GMT
When I first saw the page I thought they had skipped a page and this was actually Monday's page, since Kat's presence was not established on last page.
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Post by Gemini Jim on Nov 25, 2022 18:31:08 GMT
There appears to be an error. From the context and the pink shading, it appears that Annie is the one to whom the "Did you find anything out?" speech balloon should be attributed, but its tail is pointing at Kat. Annie is getting better at her ventriloquism = Darker interpretation: Kat isn't actually there and Annie has to fill in both sides of the conversation.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Nov 25, 2022 18:47:38 GMT
All the holes in the Court's claims that we've noticed (combined with its past record) suggest all the more that the Court's got some dark secret that they don't want known - say, wiping out everyone on Earth in such a thorough annihilation that they won't even be able to enter the ether upon dying and contribute to it. (They obviously wouldn't want the "regular Court people" like Kat to know about it, since they've got enough of a sense of right and wrong to object - just as the Court leaders had to hush up what they did to Jeanne, taking it to such an extreme that they erased her from the records. An admission that most of the Court has a stronger grasp of morality than the leaders do.) Or maybe the Court just didn't think it through (might even have gotten so dependent on the Omega Device's revelations to work out everything for them that, by the time it began to go faulty, their planning skills had atrophied). The Court is bubbled. It would not surprise me if a big factor in the decision-making of those who are leaving is that they're worried about losing the protection and guidance of the leadership, Omega included. A new (highly-predictable) planet and a vague mission statement may seem less frightening than returning to their countries of origin and facing the challenges of regular life. Those that have been living in the Court for generations may not have much in the way of friends and relatives to help them out (maybe none at all in some cases). Worst of all most of these people don't get paid, Anthony being a notable exception who worked outside the Court at the hospital, so I think in most cases their finances would be severely limited. At best, they've spent many/most of their most productive years in the Court. Some might not even have bank accounts, others may be completely unfamiliar with the concept. Imagine not having to pay for your own clothes for years/decades. Imagine not having to face a job interview for decades (if ever) and suddenly having to do it ASAP. What about having to educate your kids about what real crime is with the knowledge that soon they'll have to face the possibility on a regular basis? Learning/relearning how to drive? How to deal with negligent local government, crude neighbors, indifferent landlords who demand prompt payment with a paper check, health care from doctors who barely passed med school, or tyrannical Home Owners Associations? Thinking about myself suddenly placed in that position makes me sweat a little. I think you're correct that the Court leadership can't have a good impression of the masses/plebs/narod though I'm not sure they want to wipe them out. They may wish they could reprogram all the robotniks or likewise force humanity (and everything else) to conform to their vision of what they should be but to their credit they seem to understand that wouldn't succeed. That or any other plan for world domination would bring them into direct conflict with all the etherium and probably as a bonus some sort of conventional war of the sort they took pains to flee from. Though not that out-of-touch they are used to wielding unaccountable power and they're bubbled the same as the less important Court people, except more so. Them being very bad at persuasion is good evidence of this presumably the MIB have/had specialists who took care of recruitment. I could write a better pitch for their exodus in 20 minutes than they did after having weeks/months to consider it.
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Post by drmemory on Nov 25, 2022 18:56:07 GMT
Two things:
1. Is that a scabbard Annie's sword is in? Don't remember her obtaining or even looking for anything durable enough to contain a sword sharp enough to cut the very Earth!
2. I still think the other planet is a scam. Not necessarily one instituted by the court.
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Post by todd on Nov 25, 2022 23:58:11 GMT
One other thought. On the last page, we see a discussion about Loup and the problems involving him. On this page, we see a discussion about the Court leadership and its plans.
I think there's something appropriate about these two placed side by side, since together, they're causing the trouble Annie, Kat, and the rest have to deal with. It's not one big antagonist (Loup) but two (Loup and the Court leadership). Indeed, the Court's schemes and the problems they're causing the ether seem to be the root of the trouble; without it,Loup wouldn't be attacking (or at least, would have less of a motive to attack the Court). Annie and her friends have to solve a quarrel between two self-centered super-powers that are wrecking everyone else's lives.
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Post by todd on Nov 26, 2022 0:01:41 GMT
"So then they shot me with a stun gun and brought me anyway, this is just an afterimage" I doubt the Court would try kidnapping Kat, no matter how tempting it would be. An abducted person, aware that she'd been taken there against her own wishes, would perform far less effectively than someone who went with them voluntarily. (Unless the Court leadership really are starting to suffer a loss of intelligence.)
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novia
Full Member
Posts: 221
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Post by novia on Nov 26, 2022 1:32:35 GMT
Does anyone else find the perspective choice in panel 1 odd? Not sure why we're on the floor next to Annie's foot looking up at Kat. He just wanted us to know that Kat is wearing cargo pants Two things: 1. Is that a scabbard Annie's sword is in? Don't remember her obtaining or even looking for anything durable enough to contain a sword sharp enough to cut the very Earth! The tooth has always had a scabbard. Without it, it would just be cutting through things all the time.
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Post by maxptc on Nov 26, 2022 2:48:18 GMT
I don't see the Court as being into the idea of kidnapping or even forcing Kat/people to do things. They are the arrogant type of entity, I see them having a more "If you can't see our genius, we don't want you anyways. Despite how good you are at whatever it is that interested us, we would be benifiting you more then you would benifit us" attitude. Not saying that line of reason is anything close to accurate in regards to the situation, just what I assume the Court thinks. Keep in mind Kats biggest thing, New people, isn't known to them, so why would they kidnap her? Sure antigravity and awesome prosthetics are cool, but I kinda assume they want Kat for her potential and known genius. A good candidate of course, but not needed for the plan or worth abducting.
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Post by drmemory on Nov 26, 2022 7:52:47 GMT
Does anyone else find the perspective choice in panel 1 odd? Not sure why we're on the floor next to Annie's foot looking up at Kat. He just wanted us to know that Kat is wearing cargo pants Two things: 1. Is that a scabbard Annie's sword is in? Don't remember her obtaining or even looking for anything durable enough to contain a sword sharp enough to cut the very Earth! The tooth has always had a scabbard. Without it, it would just be cutting through things all the time. You are correct. I flat out forgot. Senior moment, I guess.
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Post by drmemory on Nov 26, 2022 8:18:06 GMT
I'd like to know who in the court is trying to get her to go. Shadow men? Agree that kidnapping seems unlikely. However, I could see blackmail maybe. Either threaten the robots or Annie or both, and say they'll be safe if she goes along with them... Also, I don't think they really understand what they'd get if Kat went along. Perhaps she has no inherent sensitivity to the ether, but she has figured out Diego's tech well enough, and he powered the golems with etheric energy! She also made that green gizmo that let her actually enter the ether! So like, if they want to bar anyone who might have anything to do with the ether, she is not a great choice. Finally, let's not forget the whole mecha-goddess thing. She's manifested that form in the ether, on the boat when there was a lot of etheric energy around from the Seraphs messing with Zimmy (but in meatspace!), and apparently she always looks like that to Zimmy. It seems safe to say that it's a part of her, or maybe all of her, and that it isn't going away just because she goes to another planet or wherever the scam artists really want to take people. I still kinda think it's these guys.
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Post by davidm on Nov 26, 2022 17:04:56 GMT
This whole thing sounds suspicous... court tracked nearly every student using food, etc. Annie was well known for being in middle of big events. Court would logically watch Annie and see Kat is in middle as well, including "new people". If they can watch Anthony when he is far away from court and thinks out of their reach, certainly they can watch Kat and Annie when right under their nose...
So either they are watching and plotting something, or their prediction computer is watching and plotting something and hiding it from court or some other powerful entity is secretly pulling strings.
One option is their prediction computer is really a coyote joke or Nords or some other entity pulling a fast one on court.
Another is court's real scheme isn't revealed yet, this is just the cover story, and the real game involving Kat is still to come. We have hints from Nords, etc that things could have gone much worse without the Tik tok and whatever will come in future with Nords.
Or maybe the court knows and just doesn't care because they think they will soon be gone to a better world and Loup/Kat/Annie/Robot drama will be someone elses problem. Maybe they can find enough volunteers among teenagers who have relationship issues with parents and others in regular world to want to leave everything behind.
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Post by drmemory on Nov 26, 2022 22:01:47 GMT
This whole thing sounds suspicous... court tracked nearly every student using food, etc. Annie was well known for being in middle of big events. Court would logically watch Annie and see Kat is in middle as well, including "new people". If they can watch Anthony when he is far away from court and thinks out of their reach, certainly they can watch Kat and Annie when right under their nose... Thanks for reminding us about the food tracking! I had totally forgotten about that. There is a reason people hate modern mass surveillance - you can learn a lot about people by just seeing where they are over time and who they are with. I've been thinking for some time now that we can't really trust people that say they've blocked monitoring in various places, such as Juliette and Kat's lab, but the tracking thing means that even if that is true, they still know who is hanging out with who, and when and for how long, if they want to know.
I wonder what they saw when Annie fell off the bridge? Did they know all along that there was now a new Annie? What about when Loup shifted her? Another new Annie? Or possibly two of them, if the one he kept talking to (Fannie) wasn't the same one all the way through? It all depends on how the monitoring is keyed - if it is just tags that say "Annie" or "Kat", then they probably didn't see anything that exciting, aside from the extra signal. It it's more specific, like serial numbers, then it was probably a bit more interesting.
Also, "Norns".
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Post by crater on Nov 27, 2022 1:17:19 GMT
The way Loup reacted to the Star Ocean, it doesn't really seem like you need to be there to be transported by it. And with precautions about the cloaked person but ALSO allowing any old child to visit the Star Ocean. I think its something that grabs you, not something you can just step into. Kat probably doesn't have a say in the matter.
If she really didn't want to go, she would should sabotage herself with magic.
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Post by arf on Nov 27, 2022 3:46:53 GMT
Peoples' thoughts about how the Court will handle Kat's decline of their invitation reminds me of a short story by David Brin ('Temptation') where an alien race keep making an offer almost too good to refuse, and wiping the memories of the offer when anyone turns them down.
Which is a bit like Coyote's treatment of Ysengrin, come to think of it...
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Post by TBeholder on Nov 27, 2022 5:08:01 GMT
The way Loup reacted to the Star Ocean, it doesn't really seem like you need to be there to be transported by it. And with precautions about the cloaked person but ALSO allowing any old child to visit the Star Ocean. I think its something that grabs you, not something you can just step into. Kat probably doesn't have a say in the matter. If she really didn't want to go, she would should sabotage herself with magic. That’s one possible interpretation. Another, as above, is that plain abduction as a fallback plan, but for now they still hope to talk the chosen subjects into cooperation. Yet another is that this won’t matter.
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