I meant to say this several strips back, it’s nice to see that Unity is opening up to Dr. Lee like that, since they are technically mother and daughter. And this doesn’t even need to be said but Unities reasons for hating Dr. Lee are nonsensical, especially since she’s a remorseless canniballistic serial killer.
Of course not. Nick was born, raised, and aged to at least his teen years before he ever met Dr. Lee; sure, she transplanted his brain to his real body, and oversaw the (failed) project to acclimate him to it gradually, but that’s miles away from being his creator and/or mother.
Unity, on the other hand, was literally brought into being by Dr. Lee, created and raised by her and other tutors until the funding ran out and she had to be abandoned. Even if her body was adult shaped from the beginning, it’s more than clear that she was a child then (hell, she was barely less childlike at the start of the comic).
Nonetheless, I suspect if pressed Dr. Lee would consider herself perhaps UNITY’s nanny but not mother or stepmother. I also don’t get the impression that UNITY regards Dr. Lee as even that – a ‘creator’ certainly but that’s a whole other category.
It really depends on the individual. Artie never called Helen “mum” once during Narbonic, and while he has adopted the Narbon name he may still not call her that. Zeta, on the other hand, called Helen that without hesitation when they finally met.
It would be Oedipal, though not incestuous, if she’d appeared to him as herself in the whirligig VR program. As it is, it’s more like a teacher and student dating after the latter graduates.
Every super genius in this setting is simultaneously an English major and a theoretical physicist and a biologist if not an engineer too. Its kinda getting too ridiculous.
I feel like he was a character who wouldn’t have been out of place at Tesladyne over in Atomic Robo. They’ve probably got an Action Linguistics department, right?
Actually, pretty much everyone I know is a bit like that. Most people in my circle (science fiction fandom/gaming) that I interact with regularly have at least a solid understanding of science (if they are not professional scientists, computer programmers, or both, which some/many of them are), can make puns in multiple languages whether or not they speak multiple languages, write poems and more than passable short stories (or songs), etc, are highly literate as a matter of wide tastes, etc.
The difference in Skin Horse/Little Mel/Helen is that it’s a mad science world, so when you’re a genius with science, you can do the impossible, not just the improbable. But even in the real world, genius doesn’t fit into little boxes.
I get the impression that a bunch of the people in Shaenon’s world are inspired by, among others, people she met at Vassar. And yeah, I know a bunch of those people, and they’re pretty much like that.
Yeah, my husband is a computer programmer by trade but he also has a First in German literature from Oxford. And many of his computer-science tutors seemed to have a background in languages or philosophy or something.
I meant to say this several strips back, it’s nice to see that Unity is opening up to Dr. Lee like that, since they are technically mother and daughter. And this doesn’t even need to be said but Unities reasons for hating Dr. Lee are nonsensical, especially since she’s a remorseless canniballistic serial killer.
Well looking at it that way, wouldn’t that make Nick and Ginny’s relationship technically incestuous?
Of course not. Nick was born, raised, and aged to at least his teen years before he ever met Dr. Lee; sure, she transplanted his brain to his real body, and oversaw the (failed) project to acclimate him to it gradually, but that’s miles away from being his creator and/or mother.
Unity, on the other hand, was literally brought into being by Dr. Lee, created and raised by her and other tutors until the funding ran out and she had to be abandoned. Even if her body was adult shaped from the beginning, it’s more than clear that she was a child then (hell, she was barely less childlike at the start of the comic).
Nonetheless, I suspect if pressed Dr. Lee would consider herself perhaps UNITY’s nanny but not mother or stepmother. I also don’t get the impression that UNITY regards Dr. Lee as even that – a ‘creator’ certainly but that’s a whole other category.
Well, Unity refers to Dr. Lee as her “creator,” but what connotations that has, I can’t say.
It really depends on the individual. Artie never called Helen “mum” once during Narbonic, and while he has adopted the Narbon name he may still not call her that. Zeta, on the other hand, called Helen that without hesitation when they finally met.
It would be Oedipal, though not incestuous, if she’d appeared to him as herself in the whirligig VR program. As it is, it’s more like a teacher and student dating after the latter graduates.
Every super genius in this setting is simultaneously an English major and a theoretical physicist and a biologist if not an engineer too. Its kinda getting too ridiculous.
No. Sergio has been like this since grade school.
ANTONIO SMITH forensic linguist was not a theoretical physicist
I miss ANTONIO SMITH, FORENSIC LINGUIST.
I feel like he was a character who wouldn’t have been out of place at Tesladyne over in Atomic Robo. They’ve probably got an Action Linguistics department, right?
Somebody’s got the write the style guide for how to document a thing’s position on the Zorth axis, so almost certainly.
It’s a mad science setting. People knowing more than anyone could reasonably expect to learn in a lifetime sort of goes with the territory.
Actually, pretty much everyone I know is a bit like that. Most people in my circle (science fiction fandom/gaming) that I interact with regularly have at least a solid understanding of science (if they are not professional scientists, computer programmers, or both, which some/many of them are), can make puns in multiple languages whether or not they speak multiple languages, write poems and more than passable short stories (or songs), etc, are highly literate as a matter of wide tastes, etc.
The difference in Skin Horse/Little Mel/Helen is that it’s a mad science world, so when you’re a genius with science, you can do the impossible, not just the improbable. But even in the real world, genius doesn’t fit into little boxes.
I get the impression that a bunch of the people in Shaenon’s world are inspired by, among others, people she met at Vassar. And yeah, I know a bunch of those people, and they’re pretty much like that.
Yeah, my husband is a computer programmer by trade but he also has a First in German literature from Oxford. And many of his computer-science tutors seemed to have a background in languages or philosophy or something.
It’s the super genius thing. Not just regular genius.
Is he implying the sestina is a step below a poem because of the “used to complain” thing? (see wikipedia article)
Back to the old office, eh? Should be interesting, by now the basement dwellers have probable colonized the whole building.
Or at least full of Tigerlilly’s attempts at getting her mojo back. With any luck Sergio will help with *that* in some small way.
“Now close your eyes, and concentrate. Let your energy flow through you. Breathe in, breathe out”
“Gawd you ARE the man!”
Maybe Sergio could write Nick a check…
But then he’d spend it all on porn video games!
Wouldn’t mixing Nick and Sergio be the socio-psychological equivalent of combining matter and antimatter? The meltdown should be seen for miles.
So Sergio is familiar with Nick then.