Would Unity recognize what Artie was saying if he had completed his “You’re just like Mell?” thought? o_O
It’s interesting that she knows or thinks she knows enough about Artie’s Mom to make that kind of judgement which does bring up another question – Files or Holmes-level deduction? @_@
Final question: Is Artie right to be more concerned about Unity being in smart then about his plans failing? I’d’ve focused on that but perhaps that’s just me. <_<
Doesn’t Need Hokmsian deduction, just a shot in the psychological dark based on his attitude and obvious mommy issues. Plus mad scientist behavior in general.
“What has it got in its stomachses?”
“She thought about what she kept in her stomach. Fish bones, goblin teeth, a bit of bat wing, a small stone to sharpen her fangs on, and other nasty things. She wondered what other people kept in their stomachs.”
-The (Zombie) Hobbit
Don’t forget, Unity lives with a former roommate of Artie. She’s likely to know a bit from offhand comments by Sweetheart, the number of clients who started in Narbonic Labs, and then whatever data she can extrapolate from observation. It helps that the Mensa Rat is smart but not exactly complicated.
Besides, she’s exactly like Mell except for the need for brains to bring a worrying level of foresight to bear.
I’d argue that Unity has more morals. Not a /lot/ more, but she’s developing them. She’s still only about 10 years old chronologically, and she spent the first chunk of that being trained to be a brutal supersoldier while canonically not really comprehending that when she ‘played’ too hard, she killed them.
Towards the end of Narbonic even Artie admitted he had no clue exactly how far ahead Helen had planned things. From one perspective he was custom built and modified from the genetic level up to save her from one otherwise lethal situation.
Granted, why she wouldn’t just opt to not have that situation happen was his other existential question.
Along with smarts, Unity gets heaps of knowledge out of nowhere. As a minor example, where did ‘stochastic’ come from? But also, Skin Horse probably has lots of files about Helen, who creates potential clients.
It’s a valid complaint (this happens all the time with characters who get a sudden intelligence boost), but I’m still going to suggest the possibility that Smart!Unity’s knowledge and vocabulary is always stashed away in some dusty corner of Regular!Unity’s head but she normally can’t remember it. Or doesn’t know what to do with it, or both.
People pick up a lot more information than they are aware of.
As Agatha Christie pointed out through her character Hercule Poirot it is the actual basis for “intuition”.
Treesong is making an interesting assumption about what Unity was like when originally alive.
What if she was actually quite intelligent as a live human being, and being reconstructed is what made her the Lucy Ricardo of the undead?
Or, alternatively, it comes via her diet of brains. At one point there was a theory that flatworms could absorb memory of other flatworms via RNA transfer. While I believe that was later discredited, nobody ever proved that a zombie can’t obtain memory or skills [or vocabulary] from eating brains.
Unity started out as a bio weapon project – she was never a single, living human being. However, the closest thing to a “living” Unity is Mell, a successful lawyer-assassin-evil overlord gun nut, who managed to scare the living daylights out of several mad scientists at once, repeatedly. Also, Mell is pretty goddamn knowledgeable when she wants to be. Just not more than “above average” smart, which is a trait she has, like so many things, successfully weaponized.
Thank you, O Esteemed Authors. It is most amusing that between Artie and U.N.I.T.Y., the hyper-intelligent gerbil is the one getting flustered. This is going to be goooood. 😀
Sometimes, the Truth must be wielded like a scalpel; gently, delicately, with a minimum of effort to achieve maximum effectiveness. And sometimes the Truth needs to be inscribed on a 2×4 and used to hit between the eyes before acceptance.
How does U.N.I.T.Y know about what Helen did? What she’s saying is scarily accurate, but aside from how Mell’s DNA was used to clone her brain she’s never met Helen in her entire life.
It was all documented. And it’s very possible that Sweetheart has talked about it, since she lived with Artie for some time. And Unity is in high-on-brains smart mode, so she knows a lot.
Would Unity recognize what Artie was saying if he had completed his “You’re just like Mell?” thought? o_O
It’s interesting that she knows or thinks she knows enough about Artie’s Mom to make that kind of judgement which does bring up another question – Files or Holmes-level deduction? @_@
Final question: Is Artie right to be more concerned about Unity being in smart then about his plans failing? I’d’ve focused on that but perhaps that’s just me. <_<
Doesn’t Need Hokmsian deduction, just a shot in the psychological dark based on his attitude and obvious mommy issues. Plus mad scientist behavior in general.
“What has it got in its stomachses?”
“She thought about what she kept in her stomach. Fish bones, goblin teeth, a bit of bat wing, a small stone to sharpen her fangs on, and other nasty things. She wondered what other people kept in their stomachs.”
-The (Zombie) Hobbit
Thisssss needssss to be a real thing, gollum gollum. (Zombie hobbitses are fond of six brains a day, when they can get them….)
Don’t forget, Unity lives with a former roommate of Artie. She’s likely to know a bit from offhand comments by Sweetheart, the number of clients who started in Narbonic Labs, and then whatever data she can extrapolate from observation. It helps that the Mensa Rat is smart but not exactly complicated.
Besides, she’s exactly like Mell except for the need for brains to bring a worrying level of foresight to bear.
I’d argue that Unity has more morals. Not a /lot/ more, but she’s developing them. She’s still only about 10 years old chronologically, and she spent the first chunk of that being trained to be a brutal supersoldier while canonically not really comprehending that when she ‘played’ too hard, she killed them.
Artie already knows that things are going poorly for him at the moment.
…Helen has principles?
Well, I believe she had at least ONE of them during high school…
*dodges muskets*
Yes, but he wouldn’t remember her because… you know… the whole Mind-Erasure experiment thing. Which YOU clearly don’t remember either…
Oh dear.
Oh, Hi there Mell… why are you pointing that at me-e-e-e-e-e…
goooo-guh-burblebleble-pttttt!
mnem
WhuWeTalkinAbout?
She violated scientific rigor by becoming romantically involved with her test subject. Principles don’t necessarily mean ethics.
I think Artie should chat with her for a bit, while she’s like this.
wow, of all the things helen did, i don’t think manipulating outcomes was among them. remember “because hey, we’re evil!”
though if she did manipulate outcomes, damn, she was good at it.
Towards the end of Narbonic even Artie admitted he had no clue exactly how far ahead Helen had planned things. From one perspective he was custom built and modified from the genetic level up to save her from one otherwise lethal situation.
Granted, why she wouldn’t just opt to not have that situation happen was his other existential question.
Along with smarts, Unity gets heaps of knowledge out of nowhere. As a minor example, where did ‘stochastic’ come from? But also, Skin Horse probably has lots of files about Helen, who creates potential clients.
I should have sent these last few strips to my Aussie friends for Australia Day. They’re reporting drinking activities, too 🙂
It’s a valid complaint (this happens all the time with characters who get a sudden intelligence boost), but I’m still going to suggest the possibility that Smart!Unity’s knowledge and vocabulary is always stashed away in some dusty corner of Regular!Unity’s head but she normally can’t remember it. Or doesn’t know what to do with it, or both.
Or she’ll start to access it and be all like “hey puppies omnomnom” and forget to think on it any deeper, aversion-therapy style.
People pick up a lot more information than they are aware of.
As Agatha Christie pointed out through her character Hercule Poirot it is the actual basis for “intuition”.
This theory isn’t all that implausible. After all, it was established quite some time ago that Helen’s fantasies are more literate than she is.
Treesong is making an interesting assumption about what Unity was like when originally alive.
What if she was actually quite intelligent as a live human being, and being reconstructed is what made her the Lucy Ricardo of the undead?
Or, alternatively, it comes via her diet of brains. At one point there was a theory that flatworms could absorb memory of other flatworms via RNA transfer. While I believe that was later discredited, nobody ever proved that a zombie can’t obtain memory or skills [or vocabulary] from eating brains.
Unity started out as a bio weapon project – she was never a single, living human being. However, the closest thing to a “living” Unity is Mell, a successful lawyer-assassin-evil overlord gun nut, who managed to scare the living daylights out of several mad scientists at once, repeatedly. Also, Mell is pretty goddamn knowledgeable when she wants to be. Just not more than “above average” smart, which is a trait she has, like so many things, successfully weaponized.
The problem with that is the vending machine brains are probably tabula raza and contain no information at all.
With brains as with sandwiches, or any other food you get out of a vending machine…
Thank you, O Esteemed Authors. It is most amusing that between Artie and U.N.I.T.Y., the hyper-intelligent gerbil is the one getting flustered. This is going to be goooood. 😀
Sometimes, the Truth must be wielded like a scalpel; gently, delicately, with a minimum of effort to achieve maximum effectiveness. And sometimes the Truth needs to be inscribed on a 2×4 and used to hit between the eyes before acceptance.
I just realized that Artie’s last line is basically “No, I can’t say ‘you’re just like Mell,’ it’s too horrible for me to contemplate.”
Except he probably used a semicolon before the end quotation mark.
after
“You’re just like my mom’s former intern, except on some kind of rudeness-enhancing smart drug!”
How does U.N.I.T.Y know about what Helen did? What she’s saying is scarily accurate, but aside from how Mell’s DNA was used to clone her brain she’s never met Helen in her entire life.
It was all documented. And it’s very possible that Sweetheart has talked about it, since she lived with Artie for some time. And Unity is in high-on-brains smart mode, so she knows a lot.