[2946] Knowledge of everything

[arf]

..., and that everything is hexagonally close packed.

[imaginaryfriend]

Callback to this page.

[agasa]

Daily reminder that Hexagons are the Bestagons.

[blahzor]

May 27, 2024 7:12:07 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Callback to this page.

So rereading the next few pages til www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2605

It's implying that even with the ether the universe of gunnerkrigg was a enclosed universe until Kat saves Annie and it opens it up to abstraction maybe this other universe Kat

[rafk]

It's still not too late for the surprise "and then she became Boxbot" panel Tom, I'm just saying.

[blahzor]

May 27, 2024 10:35:08 GMT rafk said:

It's still not too late for the surprise "and then she became Boxbot" panel Tom, I'm just saying.

When all knowledge is know the only solution is to become boxbot

[Corvo]

Pantheon feelings.

[morrahadesigns]

This page is beautiful, but also very depressing to me.

[guntherkrieg]

Absolutely amazing page. Siddell hits it out of the park once again.

[imaginaryfriend]

May 27, 2024 8:10:26 GMT blahzor said:

May 27, 2024 7:12:07 GMT imaginaryfriend said:

Callback to this page.

So rereading the next few pages til www.gunnerkrigg.com/?p=2605

It's implying that even with the ether the universe of gunnerkrigg was a enclosed universe until Kat saves Annie and it opens it up to abstraction maybe this other universe Kat

I think it means that an Omega device can't be 100% accurate on Earth forever. There's too many moving parts to make it work from a mundane technical standpoint (even with abstraction) and the etheric bit that makes it work is time-limited. Omega's mortal, the ether isn't going to be interested in her story forever, so no matter what's done to extend her life (or the life of parts of her) eventually there will be a paradox that's cause is beyond her event horizon.

That may imply that one reason the Court decided to escape to the stars is that they can start fresh with a completely known group of people in a place where there aren't any unknown variables (such as weather, for example) and that they've been sending people there longer than we know. I still think they're screwed, though. Even if they're erasing the memories of people they leave behind to reduce etheric pressure against their little closed system the best they can hope for is to wall it off using (anti?) etheric tech and I believe the size of the population dictates that they can't produce enough ether on their own to keep that up forever. That suggests that they may be extracting ether on Earth, denaturing it, and shipping it to the new really-real new world to maintain their defenses longer. It may also explain why they wanted Coyote's power. If they cut off all contact with Earth they lose their supply, but if they had a god-tier level of etheric mojo they could wall off their colony permanently preventing anyone or anything from entering or exiting (except another god). However, I think doing that would make their colony into an etheric pocket-kingdom because it'd effectively become less real. Maybe someone else has better thoughts but however I look at what the Court's doing it just seems like it won't work over the long term.

[Runningflame]

"This next step will be irreversible...


"... We're uploading you to the Internet."

[Gemini Jim]

Everybody keeps saying Hexagons, but I see a CD collection.

(edit: or CD-ROM or DVD)


Omega's Greatest Hits

[Gemminie]

After the previous flashback sequence, there is a closing "bracket" symbol, but this page has no opening or closing bracket symbol, possibly indicating that we're moving on from the sequence-of-flashbacks narrative structure that we've been experiencing in this chapter to something else. This full-page drawing shows the skeletal remains of a human body, perhaps Omega's, looking upward toward a light emanating from the upper left corner, and some tubes or machine parts are visible attached to the skeleton in the lower left. To the right are what look like a cross between clouds of dust and cerebral folds, being blown back as if by some sort of wind coming from the light. And, most prominently, the hexagonal progression pattern we've seen before in association with Omega is shown originating at the top of Omega's head and expanding downward and to the right.

Tom's comment, "Knowledge of everything," is a clear reference to the chapter of the same name, in which the hexagonal pattern appeared (for the second time, I believe).

I think Tom is wise to have left the details of Charles and Omega's experiment largely undefined, as it's more difficult to poke plot holes in that way. "They did something such that these were the results" is better in that regard than "They did X and Y and Z, and these were the results," because that lets pedantic readers say, "But X contradicts Y," or "But X, Y, and Z can't lead to these results because ..." But still, I wish I knew more about what they did.

I can only guess what happens next. Are we going to see Omega's reaction to the event she's been saying she must reach, which presumably is Annie's fall from the bridge and has thus already happened? Or will we be back to the present, revealing that Omega's telling her story to Annie, or to Annie and Kat?

[drmemory]

Coyote still wins. His omniscience doesn't require him to be disembodied. Or does it? He doesn't exist, after all. If you think about it, Omega gave up her mortal existence to gain but one of Coyote's powers.

Speaking of Coyote and Omega, it seems highly likely that he had to have learned about her when he first learned about the court. His big plan seems to be to either make the court do something he wants them to do or not do something he thinks would be really bad. There is no way his long-term plan doesn't take Omega into account. But we now know that Omega (and Charles) also had a long term plan! Frankly, we don't know much more about it than we know about Coyote's plan - we know it has something to do with a girl that shouldn't be and that they thought it was worth putting her mind into a machine rather than letting her die with Charles, but we don't know what she plans to do or hopes to do, and it seems pretty clear that said girl already exists (whether it is Annie, Kat or Zimmy).

Did we ever find out why Coyote manifests in a skeletal form so much when he's not actually dead? I mean, wanting to die seems to be one of his big goals, so it seems safe to assume he wasn't dead. Right?

I have to figure that Omega is at least mostly dead. There might be a bit of brain tissue still alive, but that seems worse somehow.

I'm not looking for plot holes, I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. What could Omega possibly hope to do? The timeline is already borked because Kat already saved Annie years ago. That event is what led Annie to still exist and mess up her predictions. But if that is what Omega was worried about, well, she knows it's already happened, and she didn't show up with a body until Zimmy's uber-distortion.

Honestly I think she couldn't have shown up with a body until Kat did her thing - that's clearly an NP body Omega is inhabiting.

Maybe we are seeing one long-term plan rather than two - perhaps Coyote and Omega have been working together all along. Or it could be one-sided, with Coyote supporting Omega's plan, of course. I am assuming that Miss Omega's plan is a good thing, I just don't know what that thing is.

[drmemory]

I do have to wonder whether Omega's knowledge of everything is the same as Coyote's. Is she alive, and using the ether, as Coyote does? Or is she more of a tiny pebble construct at this point?

It matters because if she's actually an etheric being at this point, then her predictions are probably perfectly fine and she's been lying to the court for her own reasons, ever since the Annie incident. If she's more of a tiny pebble-based machine like Loup's theory, then she's sorta broken due to the Annie incident.

I suspect that this is a very important point but will resist elaborating on why for now.

[Gulby]

... I typed an answer that was intercepted by the ether (my browser decided to go bonkers) and just didn't want to exist it seems. Well. I'll try again... *humpf*

I didn't read the forums for a very long time so I beg your pardon if I'm repeating what has already been said elsewhere. I believe Omega is some sort of "quantic computer experiment", but instead of starting it from scratch, the Court opted for a humain being with some peculiar ability and expanded her capacity through mechanics and robotic until she was mostly virtual (hence the skeletal remains).

So when Kat did what she did, Omega chose a new body, one similar to her old one, because, why not?

But I believe, from what we've seen, that's she's "blind" to the new strings of fate because of the recent events (and that must be kind of refreshing for her, so that's why she's meddling with Annie, she is curious).

And for the Court, yes, they probably want to start from new again, using only people that are not connected to the ether, but they're forgetting something doing so: humans are evolving creatures. They will have children. Their children will have children. Along the way, one of them will develop etheric capacities. And then their project will fail miserably.

[ctso74]

She finally has time to catch up on her "show's to watch" backlog

[Hatredman]

May 28, 2024 14:27:08 GMT ctso74 said:

She finally has time to catch up on her "show's to watch" backlog

That's cruel! Send more.

[Hatredman]

May 28, 2024 11:54:12 GMT Gulby said:

... I didn't read the forums for a very long time so I beg your pardon if I'm repeating what has already been said elsewhere ... So when Kat did what she did, Omega chose a new body, one similar to her old one, because, why not?

A couple of people have said something similar, yes, but your reasoning is very well knit. I had the same impression: it's not just a distortion-created NP Omega. She has hacked into Kat's computer and transfered to a new body without raising suspicions. If Robot were present to assist the transfer, he probably didn't notice that she was not a former CPU. And she could easily hack Kat's system because she knows stuff.

[Hatredman]

May 29, 2024 3:26:18 GMT Hatredman said:

May 28, 2024 11:54:12 GMT Gulby said:

... I didn't read the forums for a very long time so I beg your pardon if I'm repeating what has already been said elsewhere ... So when Kat did what she did, Omega chose a new body, one similar to her old one, because, why not?

A couple of people have said something similar, yes, but your reasoning is very well knit. I had the same impression: it's not just a distortion-created NP Omega.

Turns out it is.

She has hacked into Kat's computer and transfered to a new body without raising suspicions. If Robot were present to assist the transfer, he probably didn't notice that she was not a former CPU. And she could easily hack Kat's system because she knows stuff.

It would be nice, but she did not.

[saardvark]

May 29, 2024 3:26:18 GMT Hatredman said:

May 28, 2024 11:54:12 GMT Gulby said:

... I didn't read the forums for a very long time so I beg your pardon if I'm repeating what has already been said elsewhere ... So when Kat did what she did, Omega chose a new body, one similar to her old one, because, why not?

A couple of people have said something similar, yes, but your reasoning is very well knit. I had the same impression: it's not just a distortion-created NP Omega. She has hacked into Kat's computer and transfered to a new body without raising suspicions. If Robot were present to assist the transfer, he probably didn't notice that she was not a former CPU. And she could easily hack Kat's system because she knows stuff.

Heck, she could probably hack Robot's brain so that he didn't "notice" that Omega was not a former CPU.