Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2021-02-02
‹‹ First ‹ Prev Buy! Comments(29) Next › Last ››

2021-02-02

by shaenon on February 2, 2021 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Off to the Fair
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Discussion (29) ¬

  1. Towering Barbarian
    February 2, 2021, 12:28 am | # | Reply

    We do, Nick! We do. But most of us are on the other side of the 4th wall. ^_^

  2. WuseMajor
    February 2, 2021, 12:51 am | # | Reply

    To be fair to Nick, he IS the most consistently competent member of the Skin Horse team.

  3. palenoue
    February 2, 2021, 1:16 am | # | Reply

    How awesome is Nick? Have you seen who he’s banging? He’s _that_ awesome and more!

  4. Robert Nowall
    February 2, 2021, 6:32 am | # | Reply

    Nick’s divided himself in two. But the half that Sweetheart is talking to has the most important part.

    • nebulousrikulau
      February 2, 2021, 6:39 am | # | Reply

      The opposable thumbs?
      Hey, somebody’s got to deal with the doorknobs and can openers. 😉

  5. Jim Janney
    February 2, 2021, 7:29 am | # | Reply

    Paying attention! My old nemesis!

  6. D. Walker
    February 2, 2021, 8:16 am | # | Reply

    I mean, does Sweetheart think drones are weird? Or remote control in general?

    It’s only “weird” because they insist on treating a helicopter as if it’s an integral part of a human person, when in reality the only integral part of any human person is a human brain. The helicopter is a just a machine, the same way a corpse is a machine – if you can keep the machine in physical working order with appropriate maintenance and deliver the proper electrical signals to control how it functions, there’s no reason it shouldn’t function exactly as you desire, within it’s capabilities and your capacity to tell it what to do.

    • D. Walker
      February 2, 2021, 8:17 am | # | Reply

      typo – last sentence, “its”, not “it’s”

      • Robert Nowall
        February 2, 2021, 1:10 pm | # | Reply

        Don’t show this to Sweetheart.

        • Pygar
          February 2, 2021, 5:31 pm | # | Reply

          http://skin-horse.com/comic/the-new-2/ I can’t imagine why not?!

    • jdreyfuss
      February 2, 2021, 9:53 am | # | Reply

      It’s probably as difficult for her to conceive of how a transorganic lives as it would be for us if we met a real life NHS with the ability to talk. In order to empathize, you have to be able to actually imagine how the other party thinks and feels, so even though Nick is her friend, she’s a little too grounded (so to speak) to be fully empathetic to him.

      • =Tamar
        February 2, 2021, 12:33 pm | # | Reply

        Yes, but the empathetic imagination doesn’t have to be accurate. Humans have empathized with rocks.

        • jdreyfuss
          February 2, 2021, 1:50 pm | # | Reply

          Right, but that still requires the ability to imagine what it must be like to be a rock, even if you’re wrong. And even then, the people who empathize with the rocks are anthropomorphizing them, not considering that an intelligent rock would have a very different mindset and set of priorities than a person.

          Sweetheart is too focused on the practical to imagine how it must feel to not define oneself solely by morphology, the way Nick is able to.

    • Mooring
      February 2, 2021, 4:27 pm | # | Reply

      I mean the helicopter absolutely IS an integral art of a human person! It’s Nick’s real body, last time we checked explicitly!

      Possibly/it seems like the human body also is? Which might be the think I think Sweetheart is weirded out by — Nick is in two places at once plus all the places he is online right now, see look posthuman constructions of identity are useful for day-to-day living. Somebody give me a philosophy degree, and I’m not sure if Sweetheart has ever seen anything near that? The closest we’ve seen is Gavotte (who stays in one place) and the Cypress, who when she divided (although note that was divided, not just physically separated) one of them became the child of the other.

      (I also think you’re a bit underselling the amount of thinking and emotions and identity and self is in broader endocrine systems, but that’s just quibbling and possibly underplayed in the narboniverse.)

      • Manifesta
        February 2, 2021, 5:08 pm | # | Reply
        • Manifesta
          February 2, 2021, 5:09 pm | # | Reply

          That was supposed to be laugh emoji, but apparently they don’t post. Still, you’ve earned that degree.

      • awgiedawgie
        February 2, 2021, 6:10 pm | # | Reply

        Nick refers to the humanoid body carrying his brain around in its head his “meat peripheral”. So, no, not also his real body.

        I think what disturbs Sweetheart is that he is able to control his helicopter body even with hundreds – if not thousands – of miles between it and his brain.

  7. jdreyfuss
    February 2, 2021, 9:50 am | # | Reply

    Good answer.

  8. Shadowmehr
    February 2, 2021, 1:04 pm | # | Reply

    I’m surprised that Buck’s joining them, really. “Sorry guys, I need to stay near the Osprey. And Dr. Lee needs to come with to monitor my implants.”. And the two of them take a circuitous route to the Bahamas to throw Anasigma off. And other reasons.

    • Shadowmehr
      February 2, 2021, 1:04 pm | # | Reply

      Nick , not Buck. Stupid autocorrect.

    • Robert Nowall
      February 2, 2021, 1:35 pm | # | Reply

      They just had a stay on Bad Island…

    • awgiedawgie
      February 2, 2021, 6:16 pm | # | Reply

      We already knew Nick could control the Osprey from a very long distance, so saying he needed to stay near it wouldn’t fly (no pun intended). And Virginia can still monitor him along the way (monitor his implants, and other… things). They can go to the Bahamas on their honeymoon later.

  9. Robert Nowall
    February 2, 2021, 2:03 pm | # | Reply

    I’m a talking dog, always.
    Not a pollywog, always.
    With this Kansas trip, I’m in charge, not Tip.
    I will lead our ship, always.

    Skin-Horse mission creep, always.
    Getting in too deep, always.
    Just because we care, we discharge our share,
    Show we really care, for always.

    Problematic foes, always.
    Autopilot woes, always.
    Allies who aren’t friends, Anasigma ends,
    VR world transcends, always.

    —from “Always,” written by Irving Berlin. (It’s in public domain this year.)

    • Manifesta
      February 2, 2021, 5:10 pm | # | Reply

      Lovely!

  10. siraureus
    February 2, 2021, 3:55 pm | # | Reply

    In before nick discovers latency and becomes unable to keep the drone body standing upright.

    • siraureus
      February 2, 2021, 4:02 pm | # | Reply

      (Round trip delay for a satellite in geostationary orbit is on the order of 300ms)

      • BMunro
        February 2, 2021, 6:33 pm | # | Reply

        Some communications satellites are as low as 2000 kilometers. (OTOH, any delay caused by the satellite receiving, processing, and re-broadcasting the signal – I don’t think they actually “bounce” signals – will be inescapable).

        • Jay
          February 2, 2021, 10:30 pm | # | Reply

          Nick’s a black-ops mad science prototype; maybe he does have a perfected “bounce signals off meteor trails” ionosphere radio. (And now he’s a Tigerlily/Dr Lee collaboration, maybe he can *make* the meteor trails. Tigerlily likes crashing satellites and Dr Lee’s transceiver packs a punch…)

  11. Manifesta
    February 2, 2021, 5:12 pm | # | Reply

    Nick has not always been awesome, but he has been be-awsomed over the course of Skin Horse, which is one of my favorite things about Skin Horse.

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