Post by silicondream on Dec 18, 2023 0:37:51 GMT
I didn't mean that Kat should have decided to stop her work completely, just pause for a while and think if the way she's going about it is right.
In the aftermath of the Torn Sea incident, Kat thinks everything that happened is all her fault...Because she has taken too long!
In the aftermath of the Torn Sea incident, Kat thinks everything that happened is all her fault...Because she has taken too long!
I think she did pause and think, which is exactly why she was having that "it's my fault" conversation with Annie afterwards. She just didn't pause for very long, because…well, she'd taken too long already!
Kat's a tech wizard, after all, and she depends on prep. If Kat didn't work at the rate she works, so that she had just the right tech at the right time, she wouldn't be able to overcome the latest obstacle or recruit the latest ally. Annie wouldn't have been rescued from the Annan Waters, the Seraphs would have chosen to recapture S13 and deliver Renard and Shadow to the Court, Jeanne would have killed the whole gang, Juliette would have betrayed her to the Shadow Men, all the robots would have died when the Court triggered their shield protocols, and so forth. She can't afford to slow down.
Of course Kat shouldn't work herself to death, or to the point of reduced competence as she did in "An Aside." But it was reasonable for her to decide that she should've spent more time on lifesaving research and less on flirting with her girlfriend.
Not maybe because she shouldn't have allowed the robots to make her into their deity in the first place,
Methinks part of the reason Kat can't do that is that the robots don't see her as a deity; they see her as an angel. The thing about angels is that they're powerful and helpful but they don't make the rules. The robots ask Kat to help them all the time, and they've asked her to explain things like Diego's behavior, but they pretty much never ask her to guide their choices. They're stubborn that way, which is probably by design; a reliable tool has very consistent behavior.
So Kat doesn't really have much choice about whether the robots venerate her. She's preternaturally talented with tech, she established a lab over Jeanne's shrine, and she's purty; as far as the robots are concerned, that settles it. She could refuse to help them, of course, but that would just make her a bad angel. And we know what happens to bad angels in most mythologies.
Since the robots both maintained Court infrastructure and enforced Court security, it was vital that Kat stay on their good side. The robots could easily have apprehended Kat and Annie at any time, had they collectively chosen to. The Court's always had individual subversives and malcontents, like Jeanne and Tony, but the only reason it now has an organized and effective resistance movement is Kat's alliance with the robots. For that reason alone, she'd have to keep them happy even if she didn't care about robot rights and welfare—but, of course, she does.
or promise to make biological bodies that can interface with CPUs
When did Kat make such a promise? I know she committed to researching the possibility, but I don't think she ever promised success, at least not until she was close to completion.
or maybe because she finally realized that everything she does and says has ramifications on robot society.
Ramifications are a feature for her, not a bug. Kat's a born activist, and reforming society is one of her major life goals. The Ship and Seraphs may have reacted badly to her work, but they're a tiny minority, as illustrated by all the other robots who came to the students' rescue. If robots as a whole are now less obedient to the Court, friendlier to her team, more tolerant of dissent and more comfortable treating humans as equals, well, mission accomplished.
That really seems like an unlikely series of events to have happen, and I don't see how it could have been predicted. Now if somebody were playing with time, and that was actually one of many attempts, that's a very different story.The Ship never had a hope of success, and Robot knew it. Even in Zimmingham, Kat wouldn't have been able to complete a stable body for it immediately, and the Court wouldn't tolerate an entire class being held hostage for long. If the robots hadn't dealt with the Ship themselves, Eglamore or someone would have showed up to help Lindsey subdue it.
Also, Robot's scheme was probably a relatively minor variation on the Court's original plan. At least according to Mystery Court Rep X, the whole trip was an experiment to see what effect the Star Ocean had on the students. I imagine the Seraphs were ordered to trigger the siphons and stress-test the kids; that's why they had access to the Court's antimagic wards. As long as they scapegoated the Ship for any irregularities at the end and didn't actually injure the students, the Court would be satisfied.
I also think he didn't have any big problems with making the other Seraphs take the blame, considering how they had previously treated him.
I think Robot deliberately chose to break the other Seraphs' influence by making them obvious enemies of the Angel. Afterwards, by leading them through the "it was worth it" justification, he reconciled them to being social outcasts, leaving him as the bots' sole prophet.
Given his disdain for self-serving motives, I doubt Robot did this out of conscious power-hunger or resentment toward the other Seraphs. He probably just judged that since they were theologically mistaken and prone to repressing perceived heresy, it was better for robotkind if they were no longer in positions of authority. Typical religious infighting.