What’s the bet HT’s already a fake, and they’re gonna have to team up with the real HT to take this biomass down? I mean, there are bones in there, but it’s not hard for a violent wandering forest to find cat bones.
I’ve been wondering: Shaenon and Jeff, did you come up with the idea for Nick before or after the advent of boring transphobic jokes involving attack helicopters? Because it’s a brilliant skewering of the whole thing.
H. T.’s brain is gone, hopefully this improve the group mind. Unless his mind is already downloaded into the whole thing, that and his influence already happened. If he’s going to replace his body parts he could steal a zombie brain maker, or just make a plant brain like his duplicates.
I really don’t see Nick feeling guilty about taking out an enemy’s WiFi. Nick’s pragmatic enough to recognize that WiFi =/= life&health, however important it may be, and he’s ruthless enough to enjoy causing property damage. If taking out the WiFi helps stall the gestalt trying to create yet *another* Wilkin, Nick might consider even more drastic measures.
Split up into factions
Diplomatic actions
Everything’s in disarray!
Anasigma’s scientists
Really, really like this
Free wi-fi helps them to stay!
Wilkin’s trying to leave them
Hungry Tiger’s found him
Threatens him with greenery!
Nick is a pacifist
But that doesn’t stop his
Shooting of the greenery!
Cypress is a new seed
That’s all Skin Horse really needs!
H.T., you dolt… Never underestimate someone who has spent the past ten years as a glorified brain in a jar with unlimited and nearly constant access to the entire world of information. There is no way he’s not smarter than you.
‘Access to’ is not the same as constructive use of. This is Nick, so unless your definition of smart is “better at online rpgs and action movie trivia” I doubt Nick is smarter than HT/Gestalt Entity.
You think that’s all Nick ever did online? Think again.
And intelligence is not just a matter of amassing knowledge. It’s a matter of knowing what to do with said knowledge. Nick has proven time and time again that he’s pretty smart.
So Nick won’t kill, but he’s not above using violence to further his own ends. Not really much of a pacifist, especially if shooting HT wasn’t his last resort. It’s more like the Biomass got bad intel on him than he’s acting out of character.
Still, one reason for someone who forswears violence to refuse to carry a weapon is that the temptation to use it is much stronger when it’s easily available, and it becomes easier and easier to rationalize using it once you do. Like Vimes once said, if you’ll break the rules for a good reason, you’ll break them for a bad one.
“Bad Intel” makes sense to me. If Nick were a true pacifist, as in whole non-violence, he wouldn’t have been involved in the robot gladiator battles previously.
As has been pointed out many moons ago in the comments, there are different levels of pacifism. Nick most definitely is a pacifist, and he is very firm in his stance against killing. But he’s not an extreme pacifist that is against violence of any kind.
And yes, H.T.’s intel was bad. It wasn’t wrong, per se. He said “You won’t kill us”, which is true. But his intel was bad, because it apparently didn’t include Nick’s recent gratuitous, but non-lethal, use of guns at the A-Sig base where they reunited him with his helicopter body.
That’s my mistake then. I guess I was using a definition of pacifist that means “does not use violence to further his own purposes, with the possible exception of absolute necessity,” rather than “does not kill but is willing to use violence if it is nonlethal.”
Seeing the kind of damage he did to HT without completely blowing him apart, I’m guessing he hit him with a minigun, because if it was a Vulcan or a GAU-8, HT would basically be a set of sentient feet right now and nothing else.
“You won’t leave that easily!” rumbled H.T. “We’ll eat you up, I love you so!” His eyes flared with the rage that he used to protect his heart from the fear of losing Tip.
Arguably he already was a simulacra of a whole tiger body.
H.T. is clearly dead – all that is left is the skeleton. He lacks a brain, meaning his ego is gone. The plants seem to have copied his memories and personality at least, and perhaps even his consciousness, but the actual tiger himself is gone.
At best he’s a sort of “clone” of himself. At worst he’s a convincing forgery.
An autocannon’s large caliber rounds are great at tearing through muscle and organs, but those are dense structures with only so much pliability.
The exact same bullets would do a whole lot less damage to something like a bush – less densely packed vegetation, with a lot of sway and give to it.
It’s like the difference between shooting a watermelon and shooting a bedsheet hanging on a launry line. The former is going to send shockwaves through the inelastic body of the melon, causing it to rupture in chunks. The latter is going to punch a small, neat hole through the sheet, and leave most of it intact.
I hope H. T. can pull himself together before his next adventure with Skin-Horse.
If not, H.T. can now stand for Half-a-Tiger.
Eric the Half-A-Tiger
The Biomass has shown itself to be capable of creating simulacra of whole human bodies; if it can do that, it can do part of a tiger.
What’s the bet HT’s already a fake, and they’re gonna have to team up with the real HT to take this biomass down? I mean, there are bones in there, but it’s not hard for a violent wandering forest to find cat bones.
Don’t f*ck with the talking monkeys, kitty-cat.
but it was a talking helicopter!
I’ve been wondering: Shaenon and Jeff, did you come up with the idea for Nick before or after the advent of boring transphobic jokes involving attack helicopters? Because it’s a brilliant skewering of the whole thing.
Yes.
http://skin-horse.com/comic/arms-being/
The answer is “before”, not “yes”. Scroll down the comments on the comic M linked to, and Shaenon answers it for you.
H. T.’s brain is gone, hopefully this improve the group mind. Unless his mind is already downloaded into the whole thing, that and his influence already happened. If he’s going to replace his body parts he could steal a zombie brain maker, or just make a plant brain like his duplicates.
I suspect H.T.’s mind is already part of the gestalt. Absorbing (or duplicating) H.T. is most likely what turned the Biomass evil in the first place.
Yeh, this H.T. is made of plant matter. His original body must be long gone, as fertilizer for… his.. own new body? … hm. Ew. Hmmmm… ewwwww….
Nah, we can see his skeleton, the duplicates break apart into plant matter.
Yay Nick! (although I suspect he stopped *because* their WiFi went down, and feels pretty guilty about it)
I really don’t see Nick feeling guilty about taking out an enemy’s WiFi. Nick’s pragmatic enough to recognize that WiFi =/= life&health, however important it may be, and he’s ruthless enough to enjoy causing property damage. If taking out the WiFi helps stall the gestalt trying to create yet *another* Wilkin, Nick might consider even more drastic measures.
Didn’t HT+plant-gestalt just try to pull shenanigans a few panels back that wasn’t really fair play, with Plant!Tip?
Live by technically-abiding-by-the-rules, not technically die by technically-abiding-by-the-rules.
…this is my first filk.
Time for a new genre!
Tune: “Battery”, Metallica
Split up into factions
Diplomatic actions
Everything’s in disarray!
Anasigma’s scientists
Really, really like this
Free wi-fi helps them to stay!
Wilkin’s trying to leave them
Hungry Tiger’s found him
Threatens him with greenery!
Nick is a pacifist
But that doesn’t stop his
Shooting of the greenery!
Cypress is a new seed
That’s all Skin Horse really needs!
Greenery!
Green-er-y!
*Applause*
Loving it! Nice work!
Good job.
Thank you very much!
As Prometheus could tell you, being immortal is a pain at times.
Bwah-ha-ha-ha-ha (Looking at half-HT)
And H.T. took the stale bagels as a slap in the face!
H.T., you dolt… Never underestimate someone who has spent the past ten years as a glorified brain in a jar with unlimited and nearly constant access to the entire world of information. There is no way he’s not smarter than you.
‘Access to’ is not the same as constructive use of. This is Nick, so unless your definition of smart is “better at online rpgs and action movie trivia” I doubt Nick is smarter than HT/Gestalt Entity.
You think that’s all Nick ever did online? Think again.
And intelligence is not just a matter of amassing knowledge. It’s a matter of knowing what to do with said knowledge. Nick has proven time and time again that he’s pretty smart.
How did plants create WiFi in the first place?
Ever seen one with wires? How else will they get internet?
The same way they made the headsets.
Organic technology.
Oh, they’re just piggybacking off cellulose phones.
I think you win an Internet!
*flings pens*
“Noooooo! Tip, if you leave, you can’t comfort him and stare deeply into his eyes!”
*flings more pens*
XD
So Nick won’t kill, but he’s not above using violence to further his own ends. Not really much of a pacifist, especially if shooting HT wasn’t his last resort. It’s more like the Biomass got bad intel on him than he’s acting out of character.
Still, one reason for someone who forswears violence to refuse to carry a weapon is that the temptation to use it is much stronger when it’s easily available, and it becomes easier and easier to rationalize using it once you do. Like Vimes once said, if you’ll break the rules for a good reason, you’ll break them for a bad one.
“Bad Intel” makes sense to me. If Nick were a true pacifist, as in whole non-violence, he wouldn’t have been involved in the robot gladiator battles previously.
Uh, wasn’t the whole point of that that Nick won the robot gladiator fights non-violently?
And let’s not forget that we’ve seen Nick use giant rotary saws against mindless plant zombies.
As a plant-entity, the gestalt should have been a lot more cautious about threatening to devour Tip and/or Nick and/or anyone else.
As has been pointed out many moons ago in the comments, there are different levels of pacifism. Nick most definitely is a pacifist, and he is very firm in his stance against killing. But he’s not an extreme pacifist that is against violence of any kind.
And yes, H.T.’s intel was bad. It wasn’t wrong, per se. He said “You won’t kill us”, which is true. But his intel was bad, because it apparently didn’t include Nick’s recent gratuitous, but non-lethal, use of guns at the A-Sig base where they reunited him with his helicopter body.
That’s my mistake then. I guess I was using a definition of pacifist that means “does not use violence to further his own purposes, with the possible exception of absolute necessity,” rather than “does not kill but is willing to use violence if it is nonlethal.”
Be careful with those guns, Nick. You can put an eye out with them.
I was way too happy to find out Daisy really does make a Red Ryder model air rifle with a compass in the stock and a sundial.
HT seems to be down a brain. I assume his consciousness persists elsewhere in the Biomass.
Seeing the kind of damage he did to HT without completely blowing him apart, I’m guessing he hit him with a minigun, because if it was a Vulcan or a GAU-8, HT would basically be a set of sentient feet right now and nothing else.
Do not be confusing ‘pacifist’ with ‘non-violent’
I think H.T. Looks better this way. Less annoying, Though I wish Nick could’ve shot his mouth too, I mean he didn’t need his brains anyways.
“You won’t leave that easily!” rumbled H.T. “We’ll eat you up, I love you so!” His eyes flared with the rage that he used to protect his heart from the fear of losing Tip.
Arguably he already was a simulacra of a whole tiger body.
H.T. is clearly dead – all that is left is the skeleton. He lacks a brain, meaning his ego is gone. The plants seem to have copied his memories and personality at least, and perhaps even his consciousness, but the actual tiger himself is gone.
At best he’s a sort of “clone” of himself. At worst he’s a convincing forgery.
That’s not really accurate.
An autocannon’s large caliber rounds are great at tearing through muscle and organs, but those are dense structures with only so much pliability.
The exact same bullets would do a whole lot less damage to something like a bush – less densely packed vegetation, with a lot of sway and give to it.
It’s like the difference between shooting a watermelon and shooting a bedsheet hanging on a launry line. The former is going to send shockwaves through the inelastic body of the melon, causing it to rupture in chunks. The latter is going to punch a small, neat hole through the sheet, and leave most of it intact.
Gah, my replies aren’t lining up properly as “replies” for some reason! This is a response to “jdreyfuss”.