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Post by Hatredman on May 19, 2024 14:02:38 GMT
I don't think I follow... Why would they be rivals in a time of war? They'd be allies on one level (the big one) but rivals on one or two others. Omega wouldn't have to justify funding but SigInt would, and unless Omega was actively doing so they'd rarely corroborate each other. If the Court ...(three more paragraphs)... Hummm... That makes a lot of sense. Thank You. |
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Post by Hatredman on May 19, 2024 14:06:58 GMT
I was aware of that but inexplicably it did not click for me when I asked. I owe you cookies. PM me your home address so I cand order them to you. |
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Post by TBeholder on May 19, 2024 18:37:45 GMT
If he shows it and she looks, sure. Naming baby girls after antique alphabets and alchemical substances is just a thing in the Gunnerverse. Antique?  What prevents me to think so is the phrasing " No, I'm not zeta" " I am omega." Not "I have no relation with zeta. Actually, my name is omega." Yes, but she also does not explicitly say she is not actually a chickcharney… One of the greatest cases of trolling by Tom. Beats even Chapter 55. As an aside, while getting the link above I noticed that in 2430 Zimmy refers to Omega as "some kind of machine" before correcting herself, with a machine-y thing drawn in the background, so one might think she wouldn't flip out at Annie for making the same mistake later on just to make her look suspect in front of Jack and Jenny. And this probably hints at something. |
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Post by tibert on May 20, 2024 8:03:09 GMT
Naming baby girls after antique alphabets and alchemical substances is just a thing in the Gunnerverse. Antique? What prevents me to think so is the phrasing " No, I'm not zeta" " I am omega." Not "I have no relation with zeta. Actually, my name is omega." Yes, but she also does not explicitly say she is not actually a chickcharney… One of the greatest cases of trolling by Tom. Beats even Chapter 55. Yes, I admit that qualifying the Greek alphabet as antique doesn't distinguish it from the Latin Alphabet as they are only a few centuries apart. (Now, I am trying to imagine how a friend of Snuffle would get a Braille name (Sniff-Sniff-Sniff and dot-dot-dot)) As for chickcharneys, well, Omega's answers can be read on two levels: - From the characters' perspective: It's a straightforward answer addressing Annie's mistake with simple clarity. - From a narrative perspective: First, it aims at a dramatic effect for the chapter's last panel. Second, it parallels (for the first time, I think) the names of Zeta and Omega and would have been an opportunity to tell the reader what to think of the naming pattern. I meant that, if there's actually no story significance to the naming pattern, I would expect the author to put an end to readers' expectations the first time the naming pattern is so blatant. It may also be that Tom prioritized the dramatic effect and the spontaneity of Omega's answer, allowing a misleading phrasing that will be clarified soon anyway if the "Omega" chapter ends with the gang asking questions to Omega about her story. There is a precedent. According to this video, "I understand" is born from prioritizing the effect of a few words ending over explaining in more detail that (if I understood the video correctly) when you're expelled from Zimmingham, you are put back in your right place, and since the Annies are the same person, they ended up superposed (looks like switching off and on the computer to me). The "I understand" trolling was unintentional and this is why I rank Chapter 55 higher in a trolling contest.
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Post by Hatredman on May 20, 2024 11:11:48 GMT
I get the "No, I understand" potential for jokes, but I don't see it as Tom's trolling, and for me it was not off-putting or anti-climax at all. In fact, there was no need for explanation for the reader, so I consider this a quite clever resolution for that chapter. I even went to read the [2438] thread to see the forum's complaints at the time, lots of "cool beans" and "deus ex machina". Well, my perception was different. I *liked* that ending exactly because it was not a page full of text baloon explaining everything in detail. Chapter 55, on the other hand... Coming back to Zeta and Omega, I think guntherkrieg deserves cookies, a cake and hot chocolate for this spot on comment three years ago: So... what is Zimmy in this context? The main characters have been operating at the level of cosmic power for a while now, or at least consulting with it (see: The Norns, time control, and Brinnie). Zimmy, to me, seems to be a personification of the Court's desire. She's a human with the ability the manipulate the ether on a huge scale. Unfortunately, no one ever gave her the user manual. She's like an anthropomorphic Chernobyl. Is she the abreacted result of the Omega Device? |
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Post by pyradonis on May 20, 2024 21:08:29 GMT
In fact, there was no need for explanation for the reader, so I consider this a quite clever resolution for that chapter. I even went to read the [2438] thread to see the forum's complaints at the time, lots of "cool beans" and "deus ex machina". If you went back to read the discussion thread from back then, you should be aware that your statement that "there was no need for explanation for the reader" is obviously wrong. Most readers had no idea what the frag had happened, and it remained that way for a *long* time. |
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Post by Hatredman on May 20, 2024 21:41:38 GMT
In fact, there was no need for explanation for the reader, so I consider this a quite clever resolution for that chapter. I even went to read the [2438] thread to see the forum's complaints at the time, lots of "cool beans" and "deus ex machina". If you went back to read the discussion thread from back then, you should be aware that your statement that "there was no need for explanation for the reader" is obviously wrong. Most readers had no idea what the frag had happened, and it remained that way for a *long* time. Let's agree to disagree. Yes, people complained. I read the entire thread. But for me it was not different from real life, where things happen and not everyone knows why. I still think that three additional pages full of text balloons would be much worse, unnatural, forced, staged. That's not how life works. You don't gather all your friends and discuss a topic that just happened 'till it's exhausted and write a report on it. You don't want to know the whys and hows every single time something happens and you don't know every little aspect of it. I remember when I first read that page. I thought is was a little brisk and sudden, but I did not think that it was absurd. On the contrary, absurd would be if Zimmy (being Zimmy) would stop calmly watching the soccer game with Gamma, put on a lab coat and explain everything in technical terms on a blackboard to Annie. |
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Post by Sky Schemer on May 20, 2024 23:50:59 GMT
Yes and no. It seems that Zimmy wants to not be "like this" at all. So she interprets "controlling it" to mean being able to turn it off at will. I don't interpret it this way at all. Her response is basically saying, "Of course, you idiot. I've tried and I can't." Note how she says she's not like this because she wants to be, or because she is lazy and hasn't made the effort. Nothing in there implies she only wants to turn it off. But with no control, "on and off" are currently her only two options. |
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Post by phantaskippy on May 21, 2024 3:41:30 GMT
This whole comic turning into a love letter to Isaac Asimov is not at all what I expected.
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Post by justcurious on May 21, 2024 6:17:11 GMT
This whole comic turning into a love letter to Isaac Asimov is not at all what I expected. Are you suggesting that someone in the comic is making thiotimolene? |
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Post by tibert on May 25, 2024 1:07:09 GMT
This whole comic turning into a love letter to Isaac Asimov is not at all what I expected. Because of The Last Question vibes?
And on the next pages, it turns in Second Fondation investigating The Mule.
Court robots are not very asimovian though.
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Post by storyteller on May 25, 2024 4:01:00 GMT
Yes and no. It seems that Zimmy wants to not be "like this" at all. So she interprets "controlling it" to mean being able to turn it off at will. I don't interpret it this way at all. Her response is basically saying, "Of course, you idiot. I've tried and I can't." Note how she says she's not like this because she wants to be, or because she is lazy and hasn't made the effort. Nothing in there implies she only wants to turn it off. But with no control, "on and off" are currently her only two options. I have to agree with this. The trick with Zimmy as we see in Divine is that she can start using her abilities the problem is that things are likely to go wrong swiftly. Things stop happening when it's raining and the question is if that's because she's finally at a point of having access to the off switch. Honestly this is probably a very important distinction because at the moment Zimmy is a non-actor/her power taken up by the Coyote nonsense mess. If rain happens... Well whether it turns her powers off or gives her control that she usually uses to turn things off would be rather pertinent |
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Post by Geekette on May 25, 2024 4:59:23 GMT
I will say that if nothing else, it adds an extra dimension into how Zimmy is afraid of (how they see) Kat.
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