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Post by drmemory on Nov 30, 2023 21:27:01 GMT
I am hesitant to start another thread about contracts, but here we are.
Way back in "New Contract", the Interpreter said that the Arbiter isn't called out very often, so rarely that he isn't up on current languages, but that he IS called out for problems with contracts. In "New Contract", that was specifically an impending dispute caused by a breach of contract, because Kat wanted to use Annie's contract (which she had captured and decrypted) and the arrow on a new creature. Which she was even then creating.
The actual contract violations described were "using the arrow would allow you to use the contract on a living mind, which is not acceptable" and "illegally use a copy of a single-use contract in a multi-use conflict". The workaround was that the Arbiter changed Renard's status from "owned object" to "familiar", applied it, then changed it AGAIN to a multi-use contract and had Kat sign it. So actually two things happened.
1. Annie's contract was modified to change Renard's status. Or so I believe. If they didn't need to modify the contract to change his status, why would they need to change his status? What does it mean that the contract now binds them together in a Familiar relationship rather than an Owned Object relationship? Did the new contract somehow make it so Annie still owned Renard, but a Renard with free will? If that is the case, if Annie gives him an order, does he have to obey, or not?
2. A new contract was written and signed by Kat. This new contract was supposedly based on Annie's contract of ownership, as modified in step 1. I think. In the case of Renard, it is my belief that he was still more or less "owned" by Annie, but perhaps less of a slave? That's never been clear. She didn't order him around much when he was officially owned, and hasn't done so since then either, so???
But regardless of this, Kat's multi-use contract, which she agreed to, was still ultimately based on a contract of ownership. I am REALLY curious about what was changed to make it acceptable to allow her to use the arrow and create new living beings! Most importantly, does she own them in some way? Or what? This could have perhaps been added to my "Kat the Creator" topic but I think it's different enough to be separate...
And of course, Annie never read her damned book and Kat never read her damned contract. I guess they just "understand" (or think they do).
Side note - the only one in the entire universe that we were told can't lie is Coyote. I have to think that's a contract thing... like maybe a formal agreement he made with the Court back in the day? That "can't lie" thing may turn out to be the reason behind his using convoluted schemes to do fairly simple things!
Anyway, back to current events.
Arbiter Saslamel and Interpreter showed up when Annie was about to escort Sam into the ether, because it's up to Kat to do that because she (obviously) is the other party in Sam's contract. Most likely, still a contract of ownership, but we'll see.
The Arbiter knew about the arrow back in "New Contract". That makes it seem like he may not be as out of touch as advertised, doesn't it? The Interpreter explained that the arrow had been used in the past to negate several contracts. Does this mean that the Arbiter showed up when Diego made the arrow? Or maybe when the Huntsman used it to shoot the elf? We didn't see them but it seems like that's when the earlier arrow-related violations happened! Heck, there may have been other violations too - not just the obvious one where it was used to capture a soul and confine it forever. I'm wondering if Diego ever had to deal with the Arbiter, and if not, why not.
Also, whether Kat has violated the terms of her contract, and is about to be punished. If they even can do such a thing.
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Post by drmemory on Nov 30, 2023 21:46:43 GMT
Another thing from "New Contract". I don't think the arrow was specifically mentioned in the contract. I think the new contract just allowed her to do something that happened to require it. In other words, it isn't a contract about the arrow.
Some evidence:
Interpreter said "We ask that you do not misuse the arrow again, however. Breaking contracts may result in sever consequences in the future.". But the only mention of using the arrow to break contracts was the earlier "...that arrow was used in the past to negate several contracts...".
This is also more evidence that Diego did other bad things with the arrow! Once it was used to pin the elf and his soul, it stayed in the water until the massive effort was made to free Jeanne. No more than two contracts could have been affected by that - the elf (for sure) and Jeanne (maybe). I'm thinking it probably affected Jeanne because it seems like keeping her trapped there, preventing things from crossing the river, was part of Diego's plan. So even though all we saw it do was kill one elf, it actually caused a lot more to occur.
"Several contracts" sounds like more than "one, possible two", to me!
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Post by gpvos on Dec 1, 2023 9:00:39 GMT
Side note: we weren't told that Coyote can't lie, only that he doesn't.
That some contracts were negated was clearly a nuisance to the ethereal contract department, but it doesn't mean that the Arbiter had to intervene.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 1, 2023 12:12:05 GMT
Probably not enough time to devote to these questions but I'll give it a shot and maybe revisit things later... I don't think the arrow allows Kat to create new, living beings. It just transfers (or breaks) ownership contracts. Kat made the bodies, Diego made the CPUs, robots supplied the memories and the OS, and Robot contributed the narrative; the arrow is only part of what enables the transfer/assembly that Kat could probably replace with something else now. [edit] I should have explained better... it makes the Noobs' bodies and all their components theirs and not Kat's or the robots. Kat could probably do that some other way, though. [/edit] It's a stamp that makes the official seal on the paperwork... or it will be, once this all gets hashed out. Re: # of Antimonies: I'm not sure that the new contract changes Antimony's ownership of Renard's actions while he occupies a body she owns. Antimony was shifted at that point in time so there was two of her. Antimony may be both the party of the first part and the party of the second part in the new contract. A multi-use contract may not have been strictly necessary, since both Antimonies were Antimony, but was probably more appropriate. Re: # of contracts: So I'm thinking Diego wanted to get revenge on Jeanne for not responding to his one-sided crush, breaking his heart, by turning the mutual relationship between Jeanne and her lover Mr. Green into something to ruin them. If it had been a normal arrow it could have killed Mr. Green but wouldn't have broken any contracts; Mr. Green would've drowned and it would have broken Jeanne's heart, likely causing permanent trauma, but she wouldn't have been literally stuck there. Mr. Green had Jeanne's heart metaphorically-speaking, but that's good enough for the ether. The arrow leveraged Mr. Green's claim on Jeanne's heart to trap her; one might think that strictly speaking Mr. Green's part would be over once he was dead but it looks like him being trapped wasn't just collateral damage, it was part of making Jeanne stuck there. My speculation is that the arrow somehow broke the series of events so that the story couldn't complete for better or worse; Mr. Green didn't fail to swim across the Annan nor did he succeed, Jeanne was left perpetually waiting, the story was frozen... thus frustrating the ether and creating the chain of events that eventually led to Antimony liberating Jeanne. I'd count that as three broken contracts, two soul-keeping ones and the one between Jeanne and Green. The etheric pressure caused may have contributed to more but indirectly so I don't think it counts. [edit2] I probably should have said here that we don't have enough information to say it caused other breaches in contracts. We saw in the RotD that one 'pomp that Jeanne killed got to leave his final record so the arrow and its use didn't prevent him from being reaped, but the etheric pressure of the frustrated story may indeed have caused more breaches elsewhere. Things done with Coyote powers don't count, though, because he's a god. [/edit2] Diego almost certainly would have known about psychopomps though he may not have believed in them as such. I'm not sure Diego knew or cared about the contracts, and as a technomancer/whatever I doubt he'd have given a crap if he did. He'd be approaching this from a technical perspective, how he could keep the dead (once they both died) from moving on, how to keep the 'pomps and ether at bay, and I suppose how to get the Court on board with his scheme. |
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Post by mturtle7 on Dec 2, 2023 2:56:59 GMT
"In Jeanne's case, someone at Gunnerkrigg Court made some kind of device...It tore through the ROTD and caused a great deal of damage. Specifically pertaining to the woman called Jeanne. We can't access her records directly at all. We aren't the only department affected. Whoever built the thing knew exactly what they were doing."
First of all, please note that Vampire Dude has no idea what the device actually is or who made it! If the ROTD couldn't figure it out, I doubt Salsamel the reclusive bureaucrat could either. And frankly, I think it makes sense they wouldn't know what the arrow is, because until recently, literally any being that got even slightly in its vicinity (even in the ether!) was insta-murdered by the mysterious Guardian of the Annan Waters. And apparently, the initial event of the Device's use didn't just break some contracts and damage ROTD infrastructure - it did so in a very noticeably specific and targeted way, such that Vampire Dude could say with confidence that it had to have been very deliberate, and done with insider knowledge. Diego was a heckuva lot more than just a tinkerer, it seems! Perhaps one might consider him a wizard of the more classical tradition, exploiting his deep knowledge of arcane secrets in order to work miracles of power (don't tell Kat I said that, though).
All this adds up to indicate that Diego did not, in fact, have to directly deal with anyone like Arbiter Salsamel when he executed his plan, simply because he was very good at covering his tracks so they couldn't find him. He made a device, which he then activated both remotely AND by proxy, and when it activated it not only tampered with a bunch of metaphysical paperwork, but also destroyed almost all the corroborating paperwork that could possibly be used to identify where and how the tampering occurred, and just for good measure it also created its own autonomous invincible guardian who could use brute force to stop any nosy investigators who might find it and its ill-gotten goods.
Salsamel and Clippy explicitly stated that the only reason they can track the Arrow's use now is "probably" because Annie & Co. got rid of the problem. Like, there's a case file or something that's been sitting practically empty for centuries, and Salsamel just now checked it and noticed it recently auto-updated with a ton of info, and he had no idea why until these kids spoke up and mentioned they recently solved the problem which the Arrow created.
I hope that all helps clarify why Diego probably didn't have to deal with the Arbiter! As for exactly what kind of contracts the Arrow originally negated, and how that might pertain to the current situation, um, I haven't the foggiest. I'll leave that to better minds than my own, haha.
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 2, 2023 8:36:13 GMT
Re: Radical Subjectivity: I can't help but think that Diego would have wanted to test his contract-breaking tech before trying to implement it. He'd only get one opportunity at getting revenge on Jeanne (perhaps literally one shot) and if something went sideways he'd not only miss his chance but look like a doofus to the leadership of the Court. He wouldn't necessarily need to test the arrow itself (beyond some common-sense quality control) but he would want to try out the principles and theories that went into its design. However, as mturtle7 points out, there couldn't have been any personal interaction between Diego and the etheric bureaucracy. So where did he get his knowledge of the afterlife/contracts/whatever? Well, Diego should have had access to the Court's knowledge which should include a number of belief systems and anecdotes... and from those he might be able to extract some principles... but I think by necessity these would be contradictory even if all true. They're based on individual experience. As we saw with Kat and Antimony in the RotD, who were essentially interacting with the exact same people, what they experienced was radically different and if they hadn't both been there they wouldn't have been able to compare notes and the experiences would have probably diverged further. Yet the problem of testing Diego's tech remains. Maybe he's a bit of a loner but could he have observed someone else perform a demonstration and gone unnoticed in the crowd? Maybe, but I don't think that would have been enough to have confidence in the arrow. Then, perhaps there was direct interaction between Diego and the etheric bureaucracy but the bureaucracy, or perhaps both parties, didn't experience it as such? What if it was just readings on gauges to Diego as he performed small experiments? I don't think the Court would have permitted him to kill anyone to test the gear, so he couldn't have tested the soul-reaping aspect directly, therefore he'd have to test with animals and go after the other more general properties of ownership. He probably monitored the extinguishment of some lab animals (likely at the hands of his golem-robots) and like Kat did maybe transactions between simple and complex property. The 'pomps responsible probably wouldn't have given those animal deaths a second thought, and as long as the transactions of ownership weren't problematic neither would the etheric bureaucracy... but if they did, they apparently didn't perceive the forces involved as personal and therefore didn't make any connection to what happened with Jeanne. So, I'm wildly speculating that was the case. Experiments were done, but to Diego the interactions were just representations appearing on a scroll or dials ticking forward a notch or two, and to the 'pomps and arbitrators it was business as usual. If they noticed anything odd at all they didn't connect it to the bigger picture and they certainly didn't perceive the person behind any pattern. |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 14, 2023 3:23:32 GMT
Well Kat is hitting the first of no doubt several problems from not reading the fine print of the contract she signed. This one isn't SO bad - she either has to sign up to be a psychompomp for the NP or designate Annie to do it. Or something else, out of left field, I suppose. I'd still very much like to know why it matters which psychopomp takes a soul into the ether. Is this an Amway thing? Do they get points per soul so they can pick gifts from a catalog? Or do they just move up the pyramid?  Maybe they get fired and/or killed if they don't make quota? This is all guesswork, of course. But we know there are issues - we've seen a psychopomp dispute, where two of them thought they should get the soul, and we've seen one whine vigorously when Jones interfered with his pickup. So they have to be getting SOMETHING out of it.
I bet there are contracts involved. Perhaps a version of a contract of ownership?
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Post by pyradonis on Dec 14, 2023 11:31:52 GMT
Re: Radical Subjectivity: I can't help but think that Diego would have wanted to test his contract-breaking tech before trying to implement it. He'd only get one opportunity at getting revenge on Jeanne (perhaps literally one shot) and if something went sideways he'd not only miss his chance but look like a doofus to the leadership of the Court. He wouldn't necessarily need to test the arrow itself (beyond some common-sense quality control) but he would want to try out the principles and theories that went into its design. However, as mturtle7 points out, there couldn't have been any personal interaction between Diego and the etheric bureaucracy. So where did he get his knowledge of the afterlife/contracts/whatever? Well, Diego should have had access to the Court's knowledge which should include a number of belief systems and anecdotes... and from those he might be able to extract some principles... but I think by necessity these would be contradictory even if all true. They're based on individual experience. As we saw with Kat and Antimony in the RotD, who were essentially interacting with the exact same people, what they experienced was radically different and if they hadn't both been there they wouldn't have been able to compare notes and the experiences would have probably diverged further. Yet the problem of testing Diego's tech remains. Maybe he's a bit of a loner but could he have observed someone else perform a demonstration and gone unnoticed in the crowd? Maybe, but I don't think that would have been enough to have confidence in the arrow. Then, perhaps there was direct interaction between Diego and the etheric bureaucracy but the bureaucracy, or perhaps both parties, didn't experience it as such? What if it was just readings on gauges to Diego as he performed small experiments? I don't think the Court would have permitted him to kill anyone to test the gear, so he couldn't have tested the soul-reaping aspect directly, therefore he'd have to test with animals and go after the other more general properties of ownership. He probably monitored the extinguishment of some lab animals (likely at the hands of his golem-robots) and like Kat did maybe transactions between simple and complex property. The 'pomps responsible probably wouldn't have given those animal deaths a second thought, and as long as the transactions of ownership weren't problematic neither would the etheric bureaucracy... but if they did, they apparently didn't perceive the forces involved as personal and therefore didn't make any connection to what happened with Jeanne. So, I'm wildly speculating that was the case. Experiments were done, but to Diego the interactions were just representations appearing on a scroll or dials ticking forward a notch or two, and to the 'pomps and arbitrators it was business as usual. If they noticed anything odd at all they didn't connect it to the bigger picture and they certainly didn't perceive the person behind any pattern. Funny, I just read and discussed Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat" in Introduction to Philosophy yesterday. |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 14, 2023 13:26:53 GMT
Funny, I just read and discussed Thomas Nagel's "What Is It Like to Be a Bat" in Introduction to Philosophy yesterday. There's some irony in the fact that the GCU is fundamentally subjective yet a place where a human can literally be a bat. In my quest to understand the comic I feel I have been enabled by my understanding of philosophy ancient and modern and I think I'm slowly moving towards improved framework. The ethics courses of my undergrad majors were trash but I could take more interesting equivalents from the Philosophy department so I did, made a bunch of friends and took more courses than necessary. The key is find out which professors are crap at teaching and avoid them. I particularly enjoyed Existentialism and Aristotle, Positivism was underrated, and Logic was useful even though the adj professor was extremely bad. I started skipping classes because I was unlearning things I was learning on my own by reading the text. |
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Post by yellowb on Dec 14, 2023 14:19:25 GMT
Antimony may be both the party of the first part and the party of the second part in the new contract. Off topic, but was this a deliberate Marx Brothers reference? |
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 14, 2023 15:34:38 GMT
Antimony may be both the party of the first part and the party of the second part in the new contract. Off topic, but was this a deliberate Marx Brothers reference? Haha no but I did briefly think about them when I wrote it. |
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Post by louisxiv on Dec 22, 2023 10:04:45 GMT
Off topic, but was this a deliberate Marx Brothers reference? Haha no but I did briefly think about them when I wrote it. Can't be a Marx Brothers reference because there ain’t no sanity clause. |
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Post by silicondream on Dec 22, 2023 21:26:36 GMT
Then, perhaps there was direct interaction between Diego and the etheric bureaucracy but the bureaucracy, or perhaps both parties, didn't experience it as such? What if it was just readings on gauges to Diego as he performed small experiments? I don't think the Court would have permitted him to kill anyone to test the gear, so he couldn't have tested the soul-reaping aspect directly, therefore he'd have to test with animals and go after the other more general properties of ownership. He probably monitored the extinguishment of some lab animals (likely at the hands of his golem-robots) and like Kat did maybe transactions between simple and complex property. The 'pomps responsible probably wouldn't have given those animal deaths a second thought, and as long as the transactions of ownership weren't problematic neither would the etheric bureaucracy... but if they did, they apparently didn't perceive the forces involved as personal and therefore didn't make any connection to what happened with Jeanne. So, I'm wildly speculating that was the case. Experiments were done, but to Diego the interactions were just representations appearing on a scroll or dials ticking forward a notch or two, and to the 'pomps and arbitrators it was business as usual. If they noticed anything odd at all they didn't connect it to the bigger picture and they certainly didn't perceive the person behind any pattern. Agreed. I'd wager that Diego didn't know "exactly what he was doing" any more than Kat does; he was just really good at what he was doing, and the etheric bureaucracy misattributed this to intent. From a materialist POV, he may have seen ghosts as etheric AIs spawned from the original being through a destructive copy process, same as Cortana in Halo. He would have aimed to "perfect" them along the same lines as his golems: servant devices that were long-lasting, reliable in their behavior, secure against hacking, and able to channel large amounts of energy without losing control. On the metaphysical level this amounted to establishing absolute and exclusive ownership over their spirits, but Diego might not have perceived himself as doing that, any more than I perceive myself as enslaving and mind-controlling my laptop when I register it, create a user account and update the OS. |
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Post by drmemory on Dec 22, 2023 22:00:26 GMT
Here's a thought: Did Coyote go through the same process Kat is going through, when one of his glass-eyed men died? Evidence (sorta):
The Arbiter and Interpreter clearly know Coyote, or at least a lot about Coyote. For example, they knew he could fork off new realities, and the Arbiter specifically knew he was dead.
When Annie was pushed off the bridge, Muut showed up, even though our Annie was saved by Kat's burb swarm. I've always believed that an Annie died and that was why Muut came. But, it's been pointed out that Muut could have been there for the shadow man Jimmy sliced up. If that's the case, perhaps Muut is the psychopomp Coyote designated for that?
We know Coyote knows Muut. He actually mentioned Muut's poker face, among other things.
I'm suggesting that Coyote's contract with his creations is something the Arbiter would have been very interested in, and that it's basically the template for Kat's contract with her NP. Not the only parallel between the situations! I think the created races have a lot of parallels, including being animated by soul energy pulled from the ether.
On a related note, given that Coyote and Muut know each other... is that how Coyote knew about Annie being friends with the guides of death? It's possible she told him, but I don't remember seeing that. I'd say it's also possible that they are embroiled in his schemes.
Coyote doesn't lie, but he certainly doesn't disclose everything he knows!
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Post by imaginaryfriend on Dec 22, 2023 23:04:45 GMT
Then, perhaps there was direct interaction between Diego and the etheric bureaucracy but the bureaucracy, or perhaps both parties, didn't experience it as such? What if it was just readings on gauges to Diego as he performed small experiments? I don't think the Court would have permitted him to kill anyone to test the gear, so he couldn't have tested the soul-reaping aspect directly, therefore he'd have to test with animals and go after the other more general properties of ownership. He probably monitored the extinguishment of some lab animals (likely at the hands of his golem-robots) and like Kat did maybe transactions between simple and complex property. The 'pomps responsible probably wouldn't have given those animal deaths a second thought, and as long as the transactions of ownership weren't problematic neither would the etheric bureaucracy... but if they did, they apparently didn't perceive the forces involved as personal and therefore didn't make any connection to what happened with Jeanne. So, I'm wildly speculating that was the case. Experiments were done, but to Diego the interactions were just representations appearing on a scroll or dials ticking forward a notch or two, and to the 'pomps and arbitrators it was business as usual. If they noticed anything odd at all they didn't connect it to the bigger picture and they certainly didn't perceive the person behind any pattern. Agreed. I'd wager that Diego didn't know "exactly what he was doing" any more than Kat does; he was just really good at what he was doing, and the etheric bureaucracy misattributed this to intent. From a materialist POV, he may have seen ghosts as etheric AIs spawned from the original being through a destructive copy process, same as Cortana in Halo. He would have aimed to "perfect" them along the same lines as his golems: servant devices that were long-lasting, reliable in their behavior, secure against hacking, and able to channel large amounts of energy without losing control. On the metaphysical level this amounted to establishing absolute and exclusive ownership over their spirits, but Diego might not have perceived himself as doing that, any more than I perceive myself as enslaving and mind-controlling my laptop when I register it, create a user account and update the OS. I think there would be some element of not knowing exactly what he was doing, since it probably was ground-breaking in some aspects, but basically what we're talking about is necromancy. Diego is just approaching it from a etheric-tech/alchemy angle instead of traditional spells and rites. Even if he had no particular knowledge about necromancy (it's usually frowned on, even in places where they're trying to create bridges across disciplines) there are myths about raising and controlling the dead so he should have at least known something about what was possible with magic. One thing we can infer is that he wasn't using enough of the traditional methods to raise any alarms. |
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Post by silicondream on Dec 22, 2023 23:12:10 GMT
When Annie was pushed off the bridge, Muut showed up, even though our Annie was saved by Kat's burb swarm. I've always believed that an Annie died and that was why Muut came. But, it's been pointed out that Muut could have been there for the shadow man Jimmy sliced up. If that's the case, perhaps Muut is the psychopomp Coyote designated for that? We know Coyote knows Muut. He actually mentioned Muut's poker face, among other things. Both Coyote and Muut are part of Cahuilla mythology, so they may be the etheric equivalent of family. |
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Post by blahzor on Dec 23, 2023 11:25:51 GMT
the problem with the Diego ties to begin with is he (or the court) had some level of control to wipe records of him and Jeanne
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Post by Storel on Jan 2, 2024 23:04:31 GMT
I couldn't remember how/why Kat involved the arrow in transferring Renard's ownership back to Annie (especially since it was not involved in the original transfer from Annie to Kat), so I went back and checked. In chapter 65, "Katurday!", Kat starts explaining why she's using the arrow here. Hypothesizing (for no reason I can see) that the ownership transfer somehow works like what the arrow does ("But the arrow was used to entrap two poor souls in torment for all time!"), she has the arrow hooked up to her computer (how?) and will do the transfer using the computer as a proxy (but why is the arrow needed for that?) so she can somehow monitor the transfer process. So I guess she's using something like a network sniffer to see what signals are sent from Renard to the arrow and from the arrow to Annie? But why does she think the signals would be electromagnetic? Or does she have some way to send/receive etheric signals somehow? Given that the computer was based on Anja's computer, which Anja used to interface with the ether, I suppose it can deal with etheric signals. At any rate... So far, Kat's just using the arrow to transfer ownership of an inanimate object (the wolf doll that Renard inhabits) from one person to another, which doesn't violate any contracts. The trouble starts when she attempts (in chapter 71, "New Contract") to use the computer/arrow interface to transfer Arthur's mind from his old body (inanimate robot body) to a new, living body. The problems with this are: - She's somehow using a copy of Annie's single-use contract (ownership over Renard's doll) in a "multi-use conflict" (even though they don't confirm until a few pages later that Kat will be doing this more than once).
- Using the arrow allows her to use the contract on a living mind, even though the original contract was only for ownership of an inanimate object.
So the Arbiter changes Renard's status from "owned object" (inanimate) to "familiar", which then modifies Annie's contract to apply to a living mind (Renard the familiar) instead of an inanimate object (the wolf doll). I guess this allows Kat to use her copy of Annie's contract on a New Person body. (Why didn't they just set up a whole new contract for Kat and leave Annie's contract alone?) Then, after (finally) confirming that Kat will be doing this more than once, they change Kat's (copy of Annie's) contract from single-use to multi-use. They don't say anything about Annie's version of the contract becoming multi-use, which seems to confirm that they could have just modified Kat's (copy of the) contract to apply to living minds without modifying Annie's contract with Renard. Since they did modify Annie's contract, which then modifies Kat's copy, does this mean that each of the New People that Kat "creates" automatically become Kat's familiars? She didn't get a copy of the Familiar Guide that they gave Annie... |
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Post by silicondream on Jan 3, 2024 5:40:34 GMT
So I guess she's using something like a network sniffer to see what signals are sent from Renard to the arrow and from the arrow to Annie? But why does she think the signals would be electromagnetic? Or does she have some way to send/receive etheric signals somehow? Given that the computer was based on Anja's computer, which Anja used to interface with the ether, I suppose it can deal with etheric signals. At any rate... In preparation for the Jeanne fight, Kat worked from Diego's notes to create technology that could potentially interact with the arrow. This allowed her to build a tracker and shielded enclosure for the arrow, as well as a third device that let her astrally project inside the arrow and join Annie. So by Chapter 65 her research must have progressed to where she could analyze the arrow's emissions in detail and extract a signal for further decryption. We have yet to see Kat actually duplicate the arrow's abilities, but that doesn't mean she couldn't. She's studying Diego's work in order to remedy and prevent the sorts of crimes he committed, not to perpetuate them. As I understand it, they gave Kat Annie's original contract, modified for multi-use and living minds. Annie and Renard got an entirely new "familiar" contract, which was presumably applicable to living minds to begin with. The familiar contract must be less legally complicated and binding, since they didn't bother to show Annie a written copy or get her signature and they said she could cancel it at any time. I imagine it's also more common and uncontroversial; familiars show up throughout the lore of witches, sorcerers and cunning folk. Both Renard and Annie have some status and recognition within the Ether, so Saslamel was probably willing to do them this small favor. As for why they didn't give Kat an entirely new contract...well, her needs were unprecedented, and she was a lowly human troublemaker, so it was a bigger ask. They probably wanted to emphasize that they were respecting the historical legitimacy of the contract itself, not just giving her whatever she wanted. So no, I don't think Kat's contract makes the New People her familiars. They can't share thoughts, she can't give them orders, they can't draw on her energies. All her contract does is legitimize her as their creator deity, so she can incarnate their souls in living bodies as long as she properly disposes of them after death. Doesn't seem like they're required to do anything for their creator in return, though they still need her consent for births and proper deaths, so the contract is another pragmatic reason to show her respect. But who knows. It's a long-ass contract so there must be more stuff in there. Maybe things like "familiar" and "cleric" are included as options, along with "psychopomp." |
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Post by Storel on Jan 3, 2024 7:37:06 GMT
In preparation for the Jeanne fight, Kat worked from Diego's notes to create technology that could potentially interact with the arrow. This allowed her to build a tracker and shielded enclosure for the arrow, as well as a third device that let her astrally project inside the arrow and join Annie. So by Chapter 65 her research must have progressed to where she could analyze the arrow's emissions in detail and extract a signal for further decryption. Aha, that's right. I'd forgotten about that bit. As I understand it, they gave Kat Annie's original contract, modified for multi-use and living minds. Annie and Renard got an entirely new "familiar" contract, which was presumably applicable to living minds to begin with. The familiar contract must be less legally complicated and binding, since they didn't bother to show Annie a written copy or get her signature and they said she could cancel it at any time. I imagine it's also more common and uncontroversial; familiars show up throughout the lore of witches, sorcerers and cunning folk. Both Renard and Annie have some status and recognition within the Ether, so Saslamel was probably willing to do them this small favor. Ooh, that makes a lot more sense than what I was thinking. So no, I don't think Kat's contract makes the New People her familiars. They can't share thoughts, she can't give them orders, they can't draw on her energies. All her contract does is legitimize her as their creator deity, so she can incarnate their souls in living bodies as long as she properly disposes of them after death. Doesn't seem like they're required to do anything for their creator in return, though they still need her consent for births and proper deaths, so the contract is another pragmatic reason to show her respect. Hmm... but Annie wasn't Renard's creator deity, she just owned his house (the doll). So if it's Annie's original contract, modified in those two ways, wouldn't that make Kat the owner of the New Folx? But if you can't own living minds, then... I suppose they could have modified it so that Kat is responsible for them, as their deity. But that would be a third modification that they didn't even mention, wouldn't it? I mean, the Arbiter may have understood that the "living minds" mod would include the "creator responsible for her creations" mod, but for him not to even mention that to Kat seems... Well, they've been kinda sleazy/sloppy about not telling them everything about the contracts anyway, so I suppose this could just be another part of that sloppiness. But who knows. It's a long-ass contract so there must be more stuff in there. Maybe things like "familiar" and "cleric" are included as options, along with "psychopomp." Yeah, probably a bunch of stuff about what the Creator's various responsibilities are to the Created, including provisions for when they die, etc. etc. Except all that verbiage probably wouldn't have been in Annie's original ownership contract, so it seems they basically ended up writing a new contract for Kat anyway! |
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Maybe they get fired and/or killed if they don't make quota? This is all guesswork, of course. But we know there are issues - we've seen a psychopomp dispute, where two of them thought they should get the soul, and we've seen one whine vigorously when Jones interfered with his pickup. So they have to be getting SOMETHING out of it.
