[2712] Loup's off the hook, I guess

[Timberwere]

Kat getting lost in technobabble, but getting back around to the matter at hand.

[blahzor]

Kat about to write her own laws now

[Ophel]

Ok, but which hook are we referring to?

[basser]

So the established rules for how ether works should mean that if you get enough people to believe that a metaphorical space transport puddle exists, then at some point it will sublimate itself out of the ether and you can skip the tedious business of actually building the thing.

Am I implying that the Court has harnessed the power of misinformation as a form of magic? Maybe.

[maxptc]

I'm confused, why would Loup be off whatever hook he was on based on the information we just heard? The Courts hook kinda makes sense, a confirmation of the information Shell already gave? That kinda makes sense. Did they think the whole thing or this new development could be part of a Loup ploy? Honestly, not a bad theory given Coyetes near endless power and them not knowing Loups current status, self imposed rules and plan.

[stef1987]

"Loup's off the hook"? What is she talking about?

[stclair]

When you start drawing the paths of the planets in a non-heliocentric reference frame, it gets real hard for (most) people to follow real fast.

[blahzor]

Nov 28, 2022 8:32:06 GMT Ophel said:

Ok, but which hook are we referring to?

I assume the court isn't going to retaliate now since they are peacing out

[guntherkrieg]

Errr... Tom... what hook?

[todd]

We'll probably get an explanation on the next page, though I agree that it's a bit puzzling the way it's currently phrased. Kat might mean that the Court may not need to capture him to supply the ether for the Star Ocean after all, but that's just a guess at this point.

[ohthatone]

I originally read "Off the hook" as the modern vernacular for the bees knees.

[ctso74]

+1 to "the hook" being the Court needing Coyote's power.
If so, why did they think they needed it? And what is its substitute?

He's off the hook to the Court. To Lana, he's simply off the chain. The kids are saying that these days, right?... Right?...

[TBeholder]

But who is on the hook?

Nov 28, 2022 12:30:32 GMT todd said:

We'll probably get an explanation on the next page, though I agree that it's a bit puzzling the way it's currently phrased. Kat might mean that the Court may not need to capture him to supply the ether for the Star Ocean after all, but that's just a guess at this point.

And this raises questions.

[drmemory]

Exercise for the reader: When you see Kat talking, imagine her in her mechagoddess form.

I've been doing that with my Mind's Eye and it certainly adds something. Like Annie and her flame form, it's just a different view of the same person, but in Kat's case I keep thinking that those tentacles or cables going off into the distance connect her to all the NP and her computer and maybe other things. Makes me wonder what kind of information is flowing across those connections.

[hannibalbarca]

reveal that they knew it was loup the whole time and "loup's off the hook" somehow is related to the fact that jerrek has been AWOL for days now, go

[Gemminie]

I think I skipped a page, so I'm going to cover both Kat pages so far here. Right after Annie admits that there seems to be no way to avoid killing Loup at this point, Kat shows up. Annie asks her if she found anything out (question 1: about what?). Kat replies that she did, following that up with the news that some Court people came to try to convince her to go to the new world. Looks like they're really, really wanting Kat to go. The very though of this makes Annie unhappy, so Kat reassures her that she still said no. Kat adds that, as we suspected, her parents aren't invited. She doesn't want to go to some new place where she won't have either Annie or her parents (and, in fact, Annie and her parents would then forget she'd ever existed).

Can I just add that there was a Word of Tom that said that Zimmy's parents would probably miss her, if they remembered she existed? Um, did Zimmy come here from somewhere else?

Today's page sees Kat going off on a tangent about how awesome the star ocean's technology is. Thinking about that and the compressed dimension in which the Court resides has sparked her to entirely rethink her computer. Her matter-transmission technology is based on her knowledge of spacetime before she knew she was even in a compressed dimension, but it works anyway, which means the compressed dimension's spacetime is fundamentally designed so that other physics (including wacky matter-transmission physics) can work normally on top of it. Annie and Renard by this time have no idea what Kat's talking about, so she returns from her tangent.

And then Kat tosses off, "It's official. Loup's off the hook, I guess." (question 2: what was he on the hook for?) (question 3: why is he off the hook now?)

Question 1 is probably related to the news about Loup, and questions 2 and 3 will probably be answered as soon as Kat gets another word in edgewise, likely on the next page. (Bet it's about the Court needing Coyote's power to run the star ocean trip.)

[mordekai]

Kat, your magical computer works despite your wrong assumptions because it's magic, not technology...

[pyradonis]

Add me to the pile of people who have no idea what Kat is talking about in the last panel. But it might be that what she is going to say next is the actual answer to the question from the previous page about whether she found anything out.

[Runningflame]

Nov 28, 2022 17:07:03 GMT Gemminie said:

Can I just add that there was a Word of Tom that said that Zimmy's parents would probably miss her, if they remembered she existed? Um, did Zimmy come here from somewhere else?

It's rather darker than that, actually:

If they could remember her, they would be glad she is gone.

(Second from the bottom here: www.chrysoprax.org/gunnerkrigg/results?term=helps)

But it is true that they don't remember her, which is an interesting potential connection.

[blahzor]

Nov 28, 2022 14:56:47 GMT ctso74 said:

+1 to "the hook" being the Court needing Coyote's power.
If so, why did they think they needed it? And what is its substitute?

He's off the hook to the Court. To Lana, he's simply off the chain. The kids are saying that these days, right?... Right?...

If you can take it take it

[TBeholder]

Nov 28, 2022 14:56:47 GMT ctso74 said:

+1 to "the hook" being the Court needing Coyote's power.
If so, why did they think they needed it? And what is its substitute?

Or they “let it slip” for the benefit of Annie and Renard to mask the emerging smell of a certain synanthropic rodent that could provoke them to dig deeper and wreck the project further (consider the “Gunnerkriegsmarine” moment).
Or even Loup, in case Annie still communicates with him.

[csj]

all I know is that's got a hook

[Igniz]

dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/off-the-hook

[warrl]

Nov 28, 2022 9:16:59 GMT stclair said:

When you start drawing the paths of the planets in a non-heliocentric reference frame, it gets real hard for (most) people to follow real fast.

Epicycles... yuck.