I wouldn’t say that Unity disagreed, per se. It was more of an exclamation of disbelief, followed by a feeble alternate possibility. So at this point I’d say that everybody who was there at Annex One now knows about Ira, But I doubt they managed to tell Dr. Lee before she was paged to Hangar 3.
I never trust anyone’s opinion of themselves, it’s either inflated or self deprecating and it’s very difficult for a person to see and hear themselves as others do.
Just be the best person that you can be and ask others to decide if you are worth having around. But don’t forget to ask others, whom you like, to be around you, too.
I kinda have a theory, Mr. Green / Ira is really an ancient gestalt intellignce similar to whimsycorp who’s human hosts are unaware of it’s prsence and existance. When the rise of human intelligence led to the creation of non human sentient organisms it realized that coexistance peaceful or otherwise would mean humans would have to make room for them and thus less humans therefore lessening it’s power, so naturally it treated constructs like an infection and created anasigma to fight it.
Yeah, Shaenon said way back that they don’t map exactly onto Oz characters on a 1:1 basis. There’s an actual cowardly lion in the very first arc, for instance, but Sweetheart was the Cowardly Lion for the purposes of setting up the Ira = the Wizard plotline. Unity is the Patchwork Girl, but was the Scarecrow when Ira gave her pins. Nick is the only member of the core team who really consistently maps onto just one Oz character.
Not likely. She’s attracted to Nick, and he doesn’t even have…. you know.
She’s demonstrated that she’s attracted to bravery, and this guy’s a coward.
(Although, looking back, she’s also demonstrated that she falls for self-confidence and chiseled good looks. Mr. Green is, at the very least, self confident.)
Less of a coward than a humbug. Mr. Green / Ira / Dr. Ao, well, I can’t recall any overt cowardly behavior on their part, whatever part there was.
(Nick doesn’t seem to have chiseled good looks or self-confidence. I suppose in the good looks department, Dr. Lee does seem attracted to brains out of skulls. (And I never thought much of the look of the Osprey helicopter he wears as an attractive aircraft.))
Seems he’s just resorted to defining his own terms now. And as long as he’s doing all this using a drone (drones), it’s kind of hard for anyone to prove it’s him.
“Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate–and quickly. – “The Notebook of Lazarus Long” by Robert Heinlein.
I’d buy the argument more if he wasn’t trying to set up a romantic relationship with someone whose entire body of perception and sensorium was under his control. There’s a lot of shallow people in Skin Horse, but this whole section has been creepy.
I disagree. Truly good men face hard choices every day. Wrong choices can turn one into a bad man. Right choices can also turn one into a good man who looks bad to the casual onlooker. But if one continues to be a good man, one will continue to face hard choices.
But in this case, I am with Dr. Lee. He is a very bad man. He may have objectives that might appear to be good on their own — such as world peace, and a date with Virginia — but his methods for achieving those goals are evil.
Say maybe that good men sometimes have to make hard choices, but they don’t say regarding their choices that “good men must make hard choices”.
Any good person faced with a morally hard choice is going to be too busy wondering if/how they could have made a better choice to call themselves “good”.
The best I’m willing to submit is that there are good men that have only a selection of bad choices and they choose the least worst.
The difference between good men that made bad choices and good-to-bad-men is that the good men admit that they were defeated by choosing bad. One can refuse their choice or make new choices or do something else. Or the very least, admit responsibility for what that bad choice will bring.
Good-to-bad-men are almost proud at their sacrifice of their moral standing and flaunt it. They absolve themselves of the responsibility by citing circumstance or time or whatever. Excuses in other words.
Blame it all on my lust,
I did what I must,
And entered your VR affair.
The right one to yelp,
The right one to help,
I am your last hope inside there.
You’re surrounded by spies,
All without any eyes,
And I offered an out from your chains.
I wasn’t too late,
Said, doctor, how ‘bout a date?
But all that you think of are brains…
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices,
While the walnuts crack
And your fear voices your doubts away,
And you’ll be okay.
Not expecting rejoices,
But I’ll help you out and make noises,
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices.
Well, I hoped you would see
And you’d come back with me,
And maybe, a chance that I’d score
But you quickly realize,
Saw through my disguise
And turned down your chance at the door.
Hey, I’m confident,
And I never meant,
Just give me a minute and then,
Well, you’ll be released
From the VR hell limit
That you’re stranded in…
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices,
While the walnuts crack
And your fear voices your doubts away,
And you’ll be okay.
Not expecting rejoices,
But I’ll help you out and make noises,
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices
—from “Friends in Low Places,” Earl Lee and Dewayne Blackwell, sung by Garth Brooks.
I disagree that there are no hard choices, but I really, really like your phrasing anyhow. (Wondering if there’s a pithy way to phrase the _kind_ of “hard choices” we mean, so your line works out of context.)
I see widespread ethical confusion from people looking at this from the perspective of the wrong millennium. Ira controls an actual weather machine. All glory to He who protects us from the titans, but who knows how much harm could befall Man if Ira is roused to wrath. It is a matter of forces of nature, not mortal morality. What Ira needs to soothe His disquiet should be given gratefully.
Yes Ira, good men sometimes have to make hard choices. But A: they don’t say ‘good men must make hard choices’, and B: the future of humanity being at stake is different to you getting into Virginia’s pants being at stake.
I can’t help but wonder if this exchange is due to the authors realising ‘Ira’s motivation of protecting humanity from the very real threat of extinction isn’t villainous enough, better have him harass Virginia a bit’. After all, this nobody is going to sympathise with.
And now he’s gone full-blown Colonel Jessup. Or wait, Jessup believed he was an evil man doing good for the sake of good, not a good man doing evil for the sake of good.
It’s really hard to come up with a good analogy without coming up with Reinhard Heydrich. Alfredo Stroessner maybe?
I suppose it depends on how hot the drone he uses is.
She doesn’t realize he’s Ira yet, does she…?
Probably not. ^_^
Not sure anybody does. Sweetheart stated it, Unity disagreed, and I don’t know if either shared it with Dr. Lee.
I wouldn’t say that Unity disagreed, per se. It was more of an exclamation of disbelief, followed by a feeble alternate possibility. So at this point I’d say that everybody who was there at Annex One now knows about Ira, But I doubt they managed to tell Dr. Lee before she was paged to Hangar 3.
Sweetheart realized that Ira was the Anasigma spy. Not necessarily that he is mr Green himself.
I never trust anyone’s opinion of themselves, it’s either inflated or self deprecating and it’s very difficult for a person to see and hear themselves as others do.
Just be the best person that you can be and ask others to decide if you are worth having around. But don’t forget to ask others, whom you like, to be around you, too.
Place the sides of your hands to either side of your head fingers up and palms back just in front of your ears. Then speak.
That’s how others hear you. Your hands stop the vibration of your voice through your jaw bone.
I kinda have a theory, Mr. Green / Ira is really an ancient gestalt intellignce similar to whimsycorp who’s human hosts are unaware of it’s prsence and existance. When the rise of human intelligence led to the creation of non human sentient organisms it realized that coexistance peaceful or otherwise would mean humans would have to make room for them and thus less humans therefore lessening it’s power, so naturally it treated constructs like an infection and created anasigma to fight it.
“Oh, no, my dear, I’m a very good man—I’m just a very bad wizard.”
Ginny = Dorothy confirmed.
But Tip was the one he gave a balloon … but Tip’s name and cross-dressing is already a reference to Ozma … but …
Yeah, Shaenon said way back that they don’t map exactly onto Oz characters on a 1:1 basis. There’s an actual cowardly lion in the very first arc, for instance, but Sweetheart was the Cowardly Lion for the purposes of setting up the Ira = the Wizard plotline. Unity is the Patchwork Girl, but was the Scarecrow when Ira gave her pins. Nick is the only member of the core team who really consistently maps onto just one Oz character.
Or rather, Ari = Ira confirmed (as if there was ever any doubt)
Yes, first thing I thought of also.
Yup, that Oz reference is nearly the only thing that makes sense to me in this arc — other than Ginny’s outlook on the whole thing.
Yup.
What if Ira was just another drone and this avatar looks like the real
person?
Maybe they’re all drones, and Mr. Green is just a brain in a jar.
Or as I said before, not even a brain… but a very advanced AI
If he’s a brain in a jar, and he’s hiding this so Ginny will date him, he doesn’t know her nearly as well as he thinks he does.
Pay no attention to that brain behind the curtain?
In reality, it is far more important that hard men must make good choices. (Sorry.)
Well, Dr. Lee *might* settle for *that*…
Not likely. She’s attracted to Nick, and he doesn’t even have…. you know.
She’s demonstrated that she’s attracted to bravery, and this guy’s a coward.
(Although, looking back, she’s also demonstrated that she falls for self-confidence and chiseled good looks. Mr. Green is, at the very least, self confident.)
Less of a coward than a humbug. Mr. Green / Ira / Dr. Ao, well, I can’t recall any overt cowardly behavior on their part, whatever part there was.
(Nick doesn’t seem to have chiseled good looks or self-confidence. I suppose in the good looks department, Dr. Lee does seem attracted to brains out of skulls. (And I never thought much of the look of the Osprey helicopter he wears as an attractive aircraft.))
For the chiseled good looks and self confidence, I was thinking of her weakness for Tip and Artie.
Nick is as hard as they come. At least his chassis is.
Either that’s not as dirty as it sounds or it sounds less dirty than it is.
Well, I was hoping for more.
Seems he’s just resorted to defining his own terms now. And as long as he’s doing all this using a drone (drones), it’s kind of hard for anyone to prove it’s him.
And he’s still very bad at this.
Yeah, he’s resorting to just throwing out pat phrases. It’s like he’s throwing spaghetti at the wall to see if anything sticks.
“Your enemy is never a villain in his own eyes. Keep this in mind; it may offer a way to make him your friend. If not, you can kill him without hate–and quickly. – “The Notebook of Lazarus Long” by Robert Heinlein.
I’d buy the argument more if he wasn’t trying to set up a romantic relationship with someone whose entire body of perception and sensorium was under his control. There’s a lot of shallow people in Skin Horse, but this whole section has been creepy.
There are no hard choices. There are merely choices that make good men into bad men with excuses.
I disagree. Truly good men face hard choices every day. Wrong choices can turn one into a bad man. Right choices can also turn one into a good man who looks bad to the casual onlooker. But if one continues to be a good man, one will continue to face hard choices.
But in this case, I am with Dr. Lee. He is a very bad man. He may have objectives that might appear to be good on their own — such as world peace, and a date with Virginia — but his methods for achieving those goals are evil.
The thing is, people who talk about needing to make “hard choices” usually mean choices that will be hard on _other_ people.
Quite true. Truly good men don’t brag about the choices they make.
Say maybe that good men sometimes have to make hard choices, but they don’t say regarding their choices that “good men must make hard choices”.
Any good person faced with a morally hard choice is going to be too busy wondering if/how they could have made a better choice to call themselves “good”.
YES, THIS! “Hard choices” are usually actually the easy way instead of doing things properly the hard way.
The best I’m willing to submit is that there are good men that have only a selection of bad choices and they choose the least worst.
The difference between good men that made bad choices and good-to-bad-men is that the good men admit that they were defeated by choosing bad. One can refuse their choice or make new choices or do something else. Or the very least, admit responsibility for what that bad choice will bring.
Good-to-bad-men are almost proud at their sacrifice of their moral standing and flaunt it. They absolve themselves of the responsibility by citing circumstance or time or whatever. Excuses in other words.
If you’re willing to do it for a good reason, you’d be willing to do it for a bad. So don’t do it at all.
-Sam Vimes (paraphrased), with apologies to Sir Terry.
Dr Lee is getting more focused! She didn’t nitpick at whether he was good in this [virutal] reality
Blame it all on my lust,
I did what I must,
And entered your VR affair.
The right one to yelp,
The right one to help,
I am your last hope inside there.
You’re surrounded by spies,
All without any eyes,
And I offered an out from your chains.
I wasn’t too late,
Said, doctor, how ‘bout a date?
But all that you think of are brains…
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices,
While the walnuts crack
And your fear voices your doubts away,
And you’ll be okay.
Not expecting rejoices,
But I’ll help you out and make noises,
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices.
Well, I hoped you would see
And you’d come back with me,
And maybe, a chance that I’d score
But you quickly realize,
Saw through my disguise
And turned down your chance at the door.
Hey, I’m confident,
And I never meant,
Just give me a minute and then,
Well, you’ll be released
From the VR hell limit
That you’re stranded in…
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices,
While the walnuts crack
And your fear voices your doubts away,
And you’ll be okay.
Not expecting rejoices,
But I’ll help you out and make noises,
‘Cause I’m a man with hard choices
—from “Friends in Low Places,” Earl Lee and Dewayne Blackwell, sung by Garth Brooks.
I disagree that there are no hard choices, but I really, really like your phrasing anyhow. (Wondering if there’s a pithy way to phrase the _kind_ of “hard choices” we mean, so your line works out of context.)
Argh. My comment was supposed to show up as a reply to Adam.
I see widespread ethical confusion from people looking at this from the perspective of the wrong millennium. Ira controls an actual weather machine. All glory to He who protects us from the titans, but who knows how much harm could befall Man if Ira is roused to wrath. It is a matter of forces of nature, not mortal morality. What Ira needs to soothe His disquiet should be given gratefully.
Fine. You can give yourself to him. And don’t forget to be grateful that you can do it.
Yes Ira, good men sometimes have to make hard choices. But A: they don’t say ‘good men must make hard choices’, and B: the future of humanity being at stake is different to you getting into Virginia’s pants being at stake.
I can’t help but wonder if this exchange is due to the authors realising ‘Ira’s motivation of protecting humanity from the very real threat of extinction isn’t villainous enough, better have him harass Virginia a bit’. After all, this nobody is going to sympathise with.
And now he’s gone full-blown Colonel Jessup. Or wait, Jessup believed he was an evil man doing good for the sake of good, not a good man doing evil for the sake of good.
It’s really hard to come up with a good analogy without coming up with Reinhard Heydrich. Alfredo Stroessner maybe?