[2864] "Arbiter Saslamel! And... helper ghost."

[imaginaryfriend]

Saslamel's authority seems to be about contracts, not the dead, so looks like there's about to be a breach.

[edit] Either that, or taking Sam into the ether will cause Saslamel some trouble because of the way the ownership stuff was settled so he/they are going to try to talk Antimony out of it. [/edit]

[Angry Individual]

Maybe it's because, technically, the robots are owned by the court and now we're getting a dispute about whether or not Annie has the right to be essentially moving Diego's creations into the Aether?

I imagine it's less of an issue about the bodies since Kat already dealt with it, unless we're then in a predicament that KAT has to do it and this is where our Angel gives Annie the power to BE their psychopomp.

[Gemini Jim]

Well, a cookie for everyone who guessed the return of Salami Mel.

Those cracks are still worrisome, though. A sign that Mel (or somebody) is going to break the Distortion?


Or is reality itself breaking down because of some NPC contract problem?

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 17, 2023 8:09:30 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Those cracks are still worrisome, though. A sign that Mel (or somebody) is going to break the Distortion? Or is reality itself breaking down because of some NPC contract problem?

I think it's just Saslamel forcing his way into the distortion... it was created by another god(s) so he probably couldn't make as easy an appearance as last time.

Speaking of which, I'd really love to see Antimony carve off a piece of that broken glass-like distortion and put it in her pocket. Kat could probably have fun studying it for years.

[Gemini Jim]

Nov 17, 2023 8:12:58 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Nov 17, 2023 8:09:30 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Those cracks are still worrisome, though. A sign that Mel (or somebody) is going to break the Distortion? Or is reality itself breaking down because of some NPC contract problem?

I think it's just Saslamel forcing his way into the distortion... it was created by another god(s) so he probably couldn't make as easy an appearance as last time.

Speaking of which, I'd really love to see Antimony carve off a piece of that broken glass-like distortion and put it in her pocket. Kat could probably have fun studying it for years.

Well, forcing his way in would definitely "break it," so to speak. I get the feeling Mel wasn't part of the original plan, (assuming that there's a method to the madness) so he could also be "breaking" the sequence of events.

He wouldn't even have to be there if "Jeanne" hadn't "killed" "Saitama" Sam, forcing the whole NPC 'pomp issue. It's really starting to feel like things are going off the rails. And maybe, like Annie punting the Coyote Riddle, breaking the rules is what's needed to bring things to a close.

And physically, he is a giant head trying to squeeze into a "space" not designed for it.... that's a lot of breakage.


I suppose she could try to take a piece, that's a fun idea... until/ unless the shard melts away when the rest of the Distortion disappears.

[philman]

As with all distortion based events, it's almost impossible to tell what is real and what isn't until the end of it all, especially events like this that seem to mirror past events/memories so much. I am going to put my flag in the "this is not real and is just yet another Annie memory/Zimmy thing". We have been in the distortion for a while now, we are due to have something actually start to explain what is going on beyond the series of almost random events we have had so far. It feels telling that as soon as we/Annie begins to focus on one thing we are immediately zipped away to something else, as if something is trying to distract Annie from figuring things out.

[imaginaryfriend]

Nov 17, 2023 8:26:58 GMT Gemini Jim said:

Nov 17, 2023 8:12:58 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

I'd really love to see Antimony carve off a piece of that broken glass-like distortion and put it in her pocket. Kat could probably have fun studying it for years.

It's really starting to feel like things are going off the rails. And maybe, like Annie punting the Coyote Riddle, breaking the rules is what's needed to bring things to a close.

I understand why some people are saying that this past chapter or so has seemed random or without structure... but I gotta say I have been feeling the opposite. Too many fluky things are fitting together in a way that I suspect in retrospect will seem overly-contrived... Or perhaps instead of fluky I should say spooky. I've been thinking about non-locality as a way to analyze the Gunnerverse lately...

Nov 17, 2023 8:26:58 GMT Gemini Jim said:

I suppose she could try to take a piece, that's a fun idea... until/ unless the shard melts away when the rest of the Distortion disappears.

The Tooth is a god-tier power so any resulting cut fragment shouldn't be dependent on the distortion for its existence, though it might change or alter in some aspects after a while (like how Shadow took a while to become 3d).  Might be able to learn a lot from something like that.

[edit] Should add: Since I think that stuff that looks like glass is distortion temporarily clarified and stabilized, I'll wildly speculate that if Antimony cut off a piece and brought it with her what she'd eventually get is a durable crystal that has the potential to see through the layers of reality. With Kat's help I think they could make a pair of see-into-the-ether glasses or at least a monocle, depending on how big the fragment is. This comic has so little in the way of loots, I think the MCs are due... but possibly the reason that there's so few loots is because they don't think in that direction. [/edit]

[arf]

I think that terms and conditions are about to apply.

I suspect that Kat has ownership of Sam, and has to do the psychopomp thing.

[Igniz]

Nov 15, 2023 12:48:22 GMT hnau said:

So many possibilities:

Etheric Departments

• A psychopomp
• The ROTD
• Arbiter Saslamel
• Temporal Affairs
• Some other etheric department

hnau , cookies to you.

[Gemminie]

The "Halt" appears to have come from either Arbiter Saslamel or his interpreter, and the "shoulder" we saw appears to have been some sort of shattering-glass type of effect, which extends across the frame. The frame boundaries have become slanted on this page, and the perspective has gone wonky and bent, as we know that Saslamel is very large and wouldn't normally fit in this hallway. Instead, he seems to have become the hallway, in a way. Annie and Renard are looking at him in the first frame, and Sam is turning to face him.

In the second frame, Annie calls Saslamel by name, remembering him very well. We also see Renard, Sam, and some of the other New People, showing that they can also see the Arbiter, even if they can't see Sam – the Arbiter has apparently chosen to manifest visibly to all, and he doesn't seem to have frozen time for some of those present and not others, as he did last time we saw him. We don't see the NP with the long black hair, but then, we only see the backs of five NP heads, and one of those is Sam's; the majority of them are out of frame. The shattered-glass effect extends across Saslamel's appearance in this second frame as well.

In the third and fourth frames, we focus in on Saslamel's Interpreter, whose proper name Annie doesn't know, but he seems to prefer that she use his title anyway. Yes, he's here too, and he says that he suspected he'd see Annie again. But was it Annie whom he specifically expected to see again, or does he mean "you" in the sense of "you and Renard," "you meddlers in what's alive and what's not," "you unpredictable Gunnerkrigg Court people," or something else?

Is this really Arbiter Saslamel, or is this another creation of the distortion? And what's that shattered glass mean? I rather suspect that the two answers are connected; my theory for now is that the shattered-glass effect signifies that Saslamel has broken into the distortion to deal with another extraordinary contract issue, shoving aside all the rest of this etheric nonsense to get down to business. I got the impression last time we saw him that he doesn't like to be bothered by such matters, which usually take care of themselves, so he probably wants to get in and out quickly to deal with this issue.

So ... what is the issue? Well, Kat has a multi-use contract that (according to how I read it, anyway) allows her to transfer the essences of robots into bodies that she's created (ordinarily owned by her, as she made them), which then became their own beings, no longer owned by her (but possibly under her control, as Renard was under Annie's control because she owned the toy he inhabited). But Annie is about to take Sam's essence into the Ether. As I read things, transferring the essence of things isn't against the rules, so that wouldn't be the conflict – unless I'm interpreting things wrong, of course. So what's the problem?

• It may be that Sam's body is still only mostly dead/slightly alive, because his spirit is still around, so if Annie were to take him into the Ether, the body would die, meaning that Annie (well, the process Annie's involved in) would be breaking something belonging to another person. Except the Arbiter doesn't get involved every time somebody breaks something that belongs to someone else, so it must be more than that.
• It may be that unknown to her, Annie gets some sort of power boost from everyone she takes into the Ether. I've debated with myself quite a bit about why the psychopomps don't think they owe Annie anything for taking Jeanne and her boyfriend into the Ether, and why Ankou insinuated that she was driven to "claim" Jeanne. What if psychopomps get some kind of power whenever they take someone? Annie may be about to claim some kind of benefit for taking Sam into the Ether that would normally belong to Kat.
• Similar to the above, it may be that Annie isn't officially a spirit guide and therefore isn't supposed to do this. She isn't officially licensed, or whatever. This may have to do with that. This could be the form that her deal with the psychopomps has taken – in order to take Sam into the Ether, she'll have to sign a new contract that makes her an official spirit guide.
• Or it may just be that the New People aren't technically people (yet), so taking them into the Ether is some sort of breach of some other rule that we're not yet aware of. Perhaps this will lead to another change in their metaphysical status. Wouldn't Kat have to be here and sign it, or something, though?

Or maybe all of these are wrong.

[drmemory]

I still think that Kat owns all of the NP. She used a modified version of Annie's contract of ownership and the arrow to do the transfers. While Arbiter Saslamel permitted her to get a new, multi-use contract, I've always suspected that it was still fundamentally a contract of ownership, and that Kat in some way "owns" all of the NP. Even though they are living beings. This could be a "slave" thing, where she controls their actions (like Annie controlled Renard with their original contract) or it could be a bit more subtle - perhaps their life is really a piece of Kat's life.

That may not be quite right but the fact that we are now seeing a contracts problem gives it some weight. It's at least partially right.

Putting it all together, I'm going to speculate that the NP aren't really alive in the same sense humans and bugs are, and they can't go into the ether as a result. They may have to go into Kat in some way, or Kat may have to make a place for them to go.

So my short-term prediction is that we're about to see Kat get summoned and that the consequences of violating a contract will be discussed.

Longer term... not sure, but it's possible we may be seeing the start of the path that leads to Kat having to kill Zimmy.

[Gemini Jim]

Nov 17, 2023 8:57:02 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

I understand why some people are saying that this past chapter or so has seemed random or without structure... but I gotta say I have been feeling the opposite. Too many fluky things are fitting together in a way that I suspect in retrospect will seem overly-contrived... Or perhaps instead of fluky I should say spooky. I've been thinking about non-locality as a way to analyze the Gunnerverse lately...

Actually, I've been thinking that this chapter is very structured, like a game with Zimmy/ Coyote/ Ysengrin/ Bridge levels. Mel is the one oddball thing about this "game," as if Annie broke the rules and now they need a rules lawyer.

EDIT: Also, each "level" has dealt with challenges, disputes, and/ or conflict, and the Coyote/ Loup fight may have triggered it. And now we have Mel with a contract "dispute"

[gpvos]

It appears that either Saslamel wasn't able to freeze time due to the distortion, or at least that ZimBot is unaffected by any such freeze (she reacted to the "Halt!" on the previous page).

It looks like we are about to learn something interesting about taking someone into the Ether. I think Gemminie summarized the possibilities well.

Also, I think not only Annie but also Kat may receive some kind of power boost from Sam entering into the Ether, since Gunnerkrigg appears to subscribe to the trope that gods derive power from people who believe in them (albeit here this happens via the Ether). We may be about to witness the bureaucratic part of Kat's ascension to godhood. Or her transfer to contract breakers jail.

[Gemini Jim]

Hmmmm..... crazy idea, but:

The "levels" so far have been "zap the Zimmy spiders!" ... "solve the Coyote riddle!" .... "fight the forest creature!" .... "dodge the crazy Robot" .... and get stabbed by Jeanne? *game over* "Wait, that wasn't supposed to happen."


What if.... "Jeanne" was (Zimmy?) trying to put a stop to the Distortion by disrupting it. Why stab Sam? Because he's the one carrying the box. And he seems to care about the robot CPUs as much as Kat did.

This is the weirdest episode of Sam & Kat ever.


Or maybe Salami Mel is part of the Distortion, only there because deep down inside, subconsciously, Annie knows she isn't really meant to be a RoboPomp ... she also knows (subconsciously) the situation has gone off and needs an arbiter... ... except Mel isn't supposed to be there, so he's cracking the simulation ...

We need a bug report.

[TBeholder]

In the terms of etheric constructs, the notions this dude represents are a fundamental part of sane framework.
No wonder his presence clashes with this distortion.
Also, Annie surprised to see them, but despite their first meeting does not seem annoyed at all.

[drmemory]

A couple of thoughts about vision.

In the current place, it appears the NP can see the Arbiter and the Interpreter. Not only that, but they aren't frozen! You can tell because they aren't greyed out. This includes the suspicious dark-haired NP as well, not just the ones that are probably real/normal NPs. So a piece of Zimmy or Robot or whatever she is is seeing all of this.

The Interpreter said he had a feeling he'd see Annie again. But he didn't see THIS Annie before, did he? During the last visit from the God Squad or whatever, Annie was shifted. There were two Annies there. Neither was one that was supposed to be in this world. So... does this imply that the current Annie is really one of the previous two (Fannie/Cannie) and the other one was absorbed when Zimmy did whatever she did? Or is the Interpreter just speaking imprecisely? I wouldn't give too much weight to this one.

Actually, it's a little odd that Sam is present and not frozen also. But it's not clear who can see him. Renard can't, right? Fake NP might be seeing him, that wasn't entirely clear. The NP can't. I'm sure the Arbiter and Interpreter can see him, but I'm NOT sure why he's not frozen... except that his fate is probably about to be decided, so they may have kept him active so he can get a vote. Or at least hear about it.

I have a feeling that nobody can see the cracks in the world. I take them to just be cracks in the world (or perhaps the distortion), created by the ultra-ancient and ultra-powerful Arbiter entering the scene.

Still, Coyote and Zimmy are around somewhere, and Gamma is probably either in the distortion or watching from her area of darkness (where she met Renard). So it's probable that some or all of those are at least aware of what's going on here, if not actively watching.

My best guess is still that it's really Kat that's in trouble and that she's about to be brought into the conversation. Probably physically.

Dumb question - Do you think it's right to use NP for both the singular and the plural? I've been doing that, but can't really defend the concept...

[fia]

Nov 17, 2023 11:36:03 GMT arf said:

I think that terms and conditions are about to apply.

I suspect that Kat has ownership of Sam, and has to do the psychopomp thing.

Could be, and a neat explanation of the Angel title (who receives you in the afterlife in Christian religions?), but Kat is the Creator God, or at least the person who made the robots be non-objects. It would make sense to me if she is the Life side of the Life/Death duality, and Annie is the obvious Death side.

Then again, there's non-duality. Maybe they're both going to be both, like how in the Treatise they were both hatching that egg.

[fia]

Separately, this may or may not be the right time to mention it, I have a Wildspec that Robot (or at least his CPU) was sent back in time, and he's some kind of time traveling Djinn; he knows the future because he has been there, which is why he knew who Kat was.

The fact that Robot dreamt of looking like an Angel could alternately be an indication that he's going to become the robot Psychopomp. Which is another way of always-existing while also beginning to exist later.

[Geekette]

Purely to speculate before we get to Monday; the original contract issue Kat had to speak to the arbiter about was specifically that they were going to use a contract of ownership on a living mind.

To the best of our knowledge, when someone enters the ether they cease to exist; the 'stuff' that made up a mind is repurposed and the mind is gone. With all the potential translation issues, perhaps a ghost is considered to be dead-of-body but living-of-mind and only truly dies when taken to the ether. So does the destroying the mind, that its no longer living, create some sort of conflict with the contract?

That opens up that either the creation of humans and shadow people didn't involve a contract at all, or the ether itself as a ending destination for death is specific to a different unique contract.

[Isildur]

As noted by Tom a few pages back, this setting is based on Annie's memory of the hall outside Eglamore's office, previously seen in Chapter 9.
And what did we also see in that chapter, a couple of pages after the view of the curved hall? A statue of Saslamel gesturing to halt, while Eglamore discussed contracts of ownership.


www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=161

[gpvos]

A very insightful comment on the site by Scia: "Is Kat gonna get a mind cage, like Annie's dad??"

That's a very interesting idea, that Tony has had a run-in with Saslamel earlier. Although it must have been when he was very young, as he was already like that in the earliest flashbacks. So in the end I don't think it's true.

[pyradonis]

Nov 17, 2023 21:16:03 GMT drmemory said:

The Interpreter said he had a feeling he'd see Annie again. But he didn't see THIS Annie before, did he? During the last visit from the God Squad or whatever, Annie was shifted. There were two Annies there. Neither was one that was supposed to be in this world. So... does this imply that the current Annie is really one of the previous two (Fannie/Cannie) and the other one was absorbed when Zimmy did whatever she did? Or is the Interpreter just speaking imprecisely? I wouldn't give too much weight to this one.

Me neither. He also incorrectly guessed last time that one Annie was from another timeline, so who knows what he's thinking right now.