[2950] None of this pesky ether

[Timberwere]

That's one happy Omega.

[lightshade]

Glad to see that Omega truly does just seem to be genuine in happy to no longer being overstimulated and having a body of her own again instead of wanting to "correct" Annie's existence as if she is a problem. If she's a devious villain, she is playing the long game, and is being far too darn cute in the meantime for me to find it effective if that is the end result.

[arf]

Still wondering how Omega will react to having the distortion shut down (once the 'how' has been figured out).
Annie's guarded expression suggests she's wondering too.

[imaginaryfriend]

If the model uses abstraction and is presumably adaptive, then an AI?

[exquisitecorpus]

I like the fact that Omega subverts the whole "cursed child powering Omelas" trope and is an agentic character in GKC.

Panel 5 has my questions-feelers tingling--"construct a new predictive model artificially"? Are we talking about constructing computers here, or human experiments?

Edit: Wait. Holy shit. Are the fairies involved? The whole thing about the model being ether-less is throwing me off though.

[blahzor]

Yet another person losing their job to AI

[Cori]

Omega thinks the court is done with her? I recall Zimmy also saying that the court was done with her.

I wonder if either of those statements are actually true.

[guntherkrieg]

"I ain't going back"

Maybe she plans an ol' switcheroo with Zimmy taking her place.

[Elysium]

So there is a Omega device, after all, interesting.

[csj]

"I'm free, they'll let me walk away." - clueless

[speedwell]

A closed system with a built-in predictive function.

What could possibly go wrong?

[furubafan3]

Jun 5, 2024 7:01:47 GMT Timberwere said:

That's one happy Omega.

So basically the court just wants to create our reality. A world with no magic, only technology. Yeah..I REALLY don't like that.

[ctso74]

What could possibly go wrong?

[Gemminie]

Raising her arms, Omega exults in being able to live in the world "under [her] own agency." Looking back at Annie over her shoulder, she tells her that she's able to see and hear with her eyes and ears without being overwhelmed with information. Sitting down on the ground, she reiterates that the distortion cuts her off from the Court, adding that they didn't need her anymore anyway; she's done her task.

Annie asks what the Court needed her to do, and she replies that she created the model for the Court's new world, a closed system (as has previously been stated) in which everything was artificially predictable. There will be no Ether there to confuse matters.

Apparently this means that the Court will no longer need Omega, as they've got a predictive model based on her specifications and created a world based on that model. I suppose that means that Omega is free ... but again only until the distortion ends, and it's unclear (to me) how long the thing will last. That suggests to me that Omega either will do or has done something to ensure that it will last indefinitely, but I'm unsure what or how.

Or perhaps Omega knows it won't last and is just enjoying it for as long as she has.

Or perhaps she's taken other steps. She has a new body, and that new body might persist after the distortion, as it's a New People body, something that we know was possible prior to the distortion. But will her ethereal abilities return and overwhelm her senses again, when the distortion ends sooner or later? Or has she managed to do something about that as well? Maybe this new body has built-in measures to block or control her ability.

[pyradonis]

Jun 5, 2024 7:19:51 GMT exquisitecorpus said:

Edit: Wait. Holy shit. Are the fairies involved? The whole thing about the model being ether-less is throwing me off though.

I assume the work of the Foley people is ether-less data crunching with computers and part of the preparation work of creating or tuning said model.

[blazingstar]

Oh, I understand now. Omega is just a neurodivergent girl after she's found medication that works for the first time. And for once in her life, she's experiencing the world without feeling like her head will explode. Relatable.

[Gemini Jim]

Jun 5, 2024 7:58:41 GMT guntherkrieg said:

"I ain't going back"

Maybe she plans an ol' switcheroo with Zimmy taking her place.

Oh, interesting. She switches places with Zimmy (how? I dunno, Distortion). Meg is free, if stuck in a creepy body like Zimmy's (that can probably be fixed, ask Jenny for help).

And Zimmy? Kind of sucks for her, because it's possible that Meg's new "raven-haired, but not Zimmy" body is only possible in a Distortion-type situation. Perhaps Zimmy ends up permanently stuck in Zimmingham because there's no place in the real world left for her - "I'll die here one day"

That just leaves the question of how Kat "kills" Zimmy, unless it's some roundabout way, like for example - Kat saving Annie's life in the past knocked over all of the predictive dominoes which led to Meg setting herself free, by stealing Zimmy's body.

Or Kat is the one who figures out how to turn off/ pull the plug on the Distortion, and then *blip* goodbye Zimmy (in Meg's body).

[Igniz]

[bedinsis]

I cannot be the only one reminded of how Coyote was a being with potential knowledge of everything who wanted it to end.

Jun 5, 2024 11:46:43 GMT speedwell said:

A closed system with a built-in predictive function.

What could possibly go wrong?

Hey, Speedwell! Long time no see.

[drmemory]

Omega is very happy to be "alive", and is totally giving credit for her newfound freedom to the distortion. This may make her want to keep the distortion forever. We know that Zimmy doesn't like to be controlled, and I doubt if Kat wants to be in a distortion forever ether. This may not lead to death but I'm pretty sure it will lead to conflict!  Possibly unnecessary conflict. Now that Omega has a body, can't she just keep it, even if the distortion shuts down? If it isn't an actual NP body, I bet she could still move into one or be moved into one.

The other thing is, as I've said before, I still think the new world is a scam. But it probably is not Omega's scam. It sounds like she thinks that the court will be able to have their little self-contained, deterministic world even without her. However, we know that ether is what gives things life, based on the Arbiter's speech (through the Interpreter). So when people on the new world start dying (I'm assuming natural causes and old age here, not conflict necessarily), either they will start populating a new ether supply with their life energy, or new people will stop being born because there is no life energy. Either way, it's a doomed effort.

The scam part is, I think someone bad gave them the idea because they plan to steal the etheric energy as it is released. Which would lead to the "no more life" scenario rather than the "new ether pool" scenario.

[drmemory]

Don't forget, we have two "murder" predictions to be resolved still. Annie killing Loup and Kat killing Zimmy. I don't think they will come true in a straightforward manner, with anyone chasing someone else with a laughing sword or whatever, but I do think they will eventually be resolved.

We've also got someone else with something to lose now. Omega has her freedom for the first time. I guess I can believe that this is the event she wanted to reach - the ability to walk around freely in a working body. It doesn't quite explain why their goals were expressed as "their goals" rather than "her goal", but maybe that's as simple as James loving Miss Omega.

One more piece of possible drama to remind y'all of: Kat was going to try to hack Omega. Many assume that's done with since Omega is now a girl, but I'm not sure it is - she could still be working on it, and there is a possibility that her target is the system Omega gave the court rather than Omega herself. I sort of hope she's hacking the computer and not the person but...

[gpvos]

We don't know for sure that Omega has an NP body. It could be a normal human body, or even something entirely different, and she has just put on an NP sweater to blend in more easily.

[blahzor]

Jun 5, 2024 8:02:16 GMT Elysium said:

So there is a Omega device, after all, interesting.

it's more of a alpha device

[Sky Schemer]

Jun 5, 2024 11:46:43 GMT speedwell said:

A closed system with a built-in predictive function.

What could possibly go wrong?

If it works, they should already know.

[imaginaryfriend]

Jun 6, 2024 2:16:32 GMT Sky Schemer said:

Jun 5, 2024 11:46:43 GMT speedwell said:

A closed system with a built-in predictive function.

What could possibly go wrong?

If it works, they should already know.

Probably? Supposing the new Omega device has a basket of rules for making predictions from inputs which is modeled from Omega's perceptions and consciousness of same, if it has been making accurate predictions for some time in a small closed system it should in theory be able to do so indefinitely.

The problem is some of the rules aren't really rules. They're shortcuts developed from deep and long-term observation of Omega. They're mostly based on causality... but the GKU doesn't entirely work on causality. As time passes some of these will cause the device to begin to make wrong predictions. They can modify the rules through continuous verification and synthesis of new shortcuts, and presumably the new Omega device already does that, and if they do that enough it should continue for a very long time before something that the AI can't compensate for comes up... either a shortcut that can't be identified as bad because of a blind spot in sampling* or can't be replaced with a new one. Even then, maybe they can brute force it if they throw enough computing power at the problem.

However, that means only that the device's utility could outlast the closed system. Locality means something to the ether so travelling an effectively-mythical distance to an otherwise empty planet only presents something of an obstacle. It isn't an inviolate barrier, and even with scrubbing the memories of people who remain and with (anti)etheric tech isolating the really real new planet, they're still within the same overall system. The ether is going to find their Story insufferable and that's assuming they're not deluding themselves from day one. The only questions are how long until it fails and in what manner. I think a sudden catastrophic Roanoke colony disappearance is most likely but a natural disaster or an alien attack is always a possibility. The latter is what I'd most like to see in the comic; I'd really dig seeing the Court leadership desperately trying to figure out why these aliens are attacking, why they always wear porcelain gorgets, why they keep saying, "Skibidi" and how they can invent new weapons and increase the production of robots to fight them.



*I think over time the errors would be chased into blind spots where they can't be recognized as such, and from there cause problems with other new rules that would also be hard to deal with. This might go undetected because they wouldn't always result in an identifiably wrong prediction, in fact they'd probably only rarely result in something obviously bad.  At first.

[tibert]

Jun 5, 2024 20:02:21 GMT gpvos said:

We don't know for sure that Omega has an NP body. It could be a normal human body, or even something entirely different, and she has just put on an NP sweater to blend in more easily.

She chose the comfy sweater because it matches her feelings in this comfy distortion.

[pyradonis]

Jun 5, 2024 20:02:21 GMT gpvos said:

We don't know for sure that Omega has an NP body. It could be a normal human body, or even something entirely different, and she has just put on an NP sweater to blend in more easily.

She does have the special speech bubbles that only NP have, and on some panels you can see she has the typical extra lines on her hands/wrists (most obvious here).

[sgleysti]

Jun 6, 2024 10:17:43 GMT pyradonis said:

Jun 5, 2024 20:02:21 GMT gpvos said:

We don't know for sure that Omega has an NP body. It could be a normal human body, or even something entirely different, and she has just put on an NP sweater to blend in more easily.

She does have the special speech bubbles that only NP have, and on some panels you can see she has the typical extra lines on her hands/wrists (most obvious here).

Very interesting.

Another data point is how the new people and Omega look in the ether. In 2825, you can see the chips in the new people, near where the heart would be.  In 2853, Omega doesn't have one.  That makes sense, since she never was a robot...

"my body has long since died, but the distortion allowed me to form a new one." –Omega (2947)  This makes me think that she didn't go through the process that the new people underwent to obtain a body.

[Geekette]

Jun 6, 2024 21:28:06 GMT sgleysti said:

Jun 6, 2024 10:17:43 GMT pyradonis said:

She does have the special speech bubbles that only NP have, and on some panels you can see she has the typical extra lines on her hands/wrists (most obvious here).

Very interesting.

Another data point is how the new people and Omega look in the ether. In 2825, you can see the chips in the new people, near where the heart would be.  In 2853, Omega doesn't have one.  That makes sense, since she never was a robot...

"my body has long since died, but the distortion allowed me to form a new one." –Omega (2947)  This makes me think that she didn't go through the process that the new people underwent to obtain a body.

She has the same colour though. I wonder if that the Omega we're seeing here could be more akin to an astral projection given flesh. That fits pretty well with her previous use of animals to interact with the world.

As an aside, I'm actually really curious about the fact the new world is being defined as a closed system here. Because that term has multiple definitions depending on the type of physics you're talking about. In thermadynamics and in chemistry, a closed system doesn't allow matter to pass in or out, but it does allow energy (heat, force... ether?) - a system that doesn't allow even energy transfer would be an isolated system.
(Or, if we're going for the engineering definition, its one where every input is known and every resultant is known - that would fit in nicely with Omega's predictive powers, but it means that because we haven't thrown every individual person into the mix yet her work couldn't possibly be done.)

[TBeholder]

Jun 6, 2024 21:28:06 GMT sgleysti said:

In 2825, you can see the chips in the new people, near where the heart would be.  In 2853, Omega doesn't have one.  That makes sense, since she never was a robot...

Those things don’t look like chips, but Bismuth crystals. As jda noted back in the second post of that page’s thread. The rest still applies, of course.