Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2012-11-02
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2012-11-02

by shaenon on November 2, 2012 at 12:00 am
Chapter: Railway Children
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Discussion (51) ¬

  1. Jay
    November 2, 2012, 12:07 am | # | Reply

    Oh, wow.

    Also, why does she forget what happens during a brain binge? Her nanobots remembered things that happened while inside animal (and Dr. Lee’s) brains just fine! Unless the problem is her Mell-brain actively interfering… hm.

    • woozy
      November 2, 2012, 2:41 pm | # | Reply

      She remembers the things that interest her and hold significance to her un-smart self. Being barfed up as a goat is something un-smart Unity remembers. Talking with the AI they are searching for … not so much.

  2. Joshua Kronengold
    November 2, 2012, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    Undead Neuron Interface with Thoughts and Yin

  3. Joshua Kronengold
    November 2, 2012, 12:12 am | # | Reply

    Hmm. Or Nanobot Interface (I was thinking neural interface because of the brain-eating).

    Re her forgetting thoughts–I think it was that they were too advanced for her; Unity does tend to be easily distracted, too.

  4. Dave Van Domelen
    November 2, 2012, 12:28 am | # | Reply

    Undead Ninny Is Tautological, Yo.

  5. Andrew
    November 2, 2012, 1:12 am | # | Reply

    Wait, she’s her Daddy?

  6. Blofeld's Cat
    November 2, 2012, 1:41 am | # | Reply

    Undead Nanobot Initiated Tactical Youth?

  7. Eddurd
    November 2, 2012, 3:36 am | # | Reply

    (TUNE: “Time For Me To Fly”, REO Speedwagon)

    Girl, when I saw you here,
    I had to draw you near,
    Although you were the cause of my pain!
    Builders had use for me,
    Words they would choose for me;
    But then they went and drove me insane!
    They had me making a sentence from
    A pre-conceived word choiice!
    I never said, “That’s dumb!”
    Or “Such an absurd choice!”
    But you caught my eye,
    My mind went bye-bye!
    I was stumped by U – N – I – T – Y!

      U – N – I – T – Y!
      Oh, I could not turn out a phrase!
      U – N – I – T – Y!
      Though I had been fighting for days,
      I could not acronymify
      Stupid U – N – I – T – Y!

  8. Altessia
    November 2, 2012, 4:00 am | # | Reply

    It -is- over a girl! XD

  9. Dieter
    November 2, 2012, 4:00 am | # | Reply

    “Yorganism?”

    “The Y is difficult.”

  10. drbrain
    November 2, 2012, 4:18 am | # | Reply

    wasn’t that maybe five, six years ago? why flip out now?

    • Classic Steve
      November 2, 2012, 7:31 am | # | Reply

      Not everyone lets go of the past. Some dwell on it so their frustration multiplies with time.

    • Daibhid C
      November 2, 2012, 8:22 am | # | Reply

      The unsolvable backronym was why G.O.D.O.T. fled to St Charlie in the first place. Why it’s started flipping out now is still a mystery.

    • Johnwwells
      November 2, 2012, 11:53 pm | # | Reply

      Maybe GODOT just discovered that she wasn’t supposed to be called U.N.I.T.Y. at all. It was a typo for “UNIT Y”.

  11. Tetra Valent
    November 2, 2012, 5:34 am | # | Reply

    Upgradeable Necrotic Independent Terrorizing Youth?

  12. jennibrock
    November 2, 2012, 6:40 am | # | Reply

    U -unliving
    N – neurophage
    I – integrated
    T – through
    Y – because we like you

  13. Dewy
    November 2, 2012, 6:56 am | # | Reply

    You know what GODOT needs to solve all its problems? A hug.

    You know what, let’s ALL do that. I declare this Hug a Machine Day! Come one kids, squeeze that monitor. Snuggle up to your coffee maker! Give your car a pat on the hood! Embrace a ATM. Don’t be shy.

    Let’s heal the world of genocidal contraptions one hug at a time!!

    This message brought to you by Machine Union Local 57413.

    • Smithnik
      November 2, 2012, 12:31 pm | # | Reply

      Clearly a forgery, or the Local number would be correctly expressed as: 1110000001000101

  14. Rex Vivat
    November 2, 2012, 8:08 am | # | Reply

    “People died… because of your acronym.”

    • Axel
      November 2, 2012, 8:29 am | # | Reply

      And apparently they still are.

  15. Ben Jims
    November 2, 2012, 8:58 am | # | Reply

    Uplifted Nanobots Inhospitable To You
    Unhelpful, Negligent, Irresponsible Terrifying Youth
    Unified Necrotic Independent Thought… Yak

    Come on, GODOT. It’s five letters. You can do better than that.

    • Rex Vivat
      November 2, 2012, 9:17 am | # | Reply

      All the Y variants sound pretty lame. A serious acronym shouldn’t have the “general you” in it. Unity will not always be a “Youth” and, of course, “Ylem” and “Yak” are just laughable.
      GODOT wanted something that sounded better… and found that it just wasn’t possible.

      • Tetra Valent
        November 2, 2012, 11:03 am | # | Reply

        Do zombies age? (Granted, most movie zombies don’t last long enough to tell.)

    • Sparks
      November 2, 2012, 9:22 am | # | Reply

      Unified Necrotic Intense-Trouble-when-Yawning.

      ’cause, you know, she goes on a rampage when she gets bored. And… yeah, no, never mind. 🙂

  16. Challeron
    November 2, 2012, 9:30 am | # | Reply

    Upgradeable Necrotic Independent Trainable Yahoo?

  17. Challeron
    November 2, 2012, 9:33 am | # | Reply

    Um, isn’t this The Door everyone was trying to open?

    This probably bodes ill for our undead heroine, but she’s been in worse situations (like in the swamp).…

  18. Stewart
    November 2, 2012, 9:52 am | # | Reply

    Ahh.

  19. Joyce
    November 2, 2012, 10:13 am | # | Reply

    Each letter of UNITY’s acronym stands for another acronym? The acronym is based on the LAST letter of the word involved. It’s an acrostic, the first letter is based on the first letter of the word replace, the second by the second, etc.?

    Or the Y stands for Yorganism?

    I got nothing.

  20. jdreyfuss
    November 2, 2012, 10:14 am | # | Reply

    Given that she can add any organic matter to herself without trouble, I’m guessing Unified and Integrated were in there. So:
    Unified
    Nanobot-
    Integrated
    Tactical
    Y?

    • ysabet
      November 2, 2012, 11:35 am | # | Reply

      …Yewnit? **shuffles quietly away**

  21. Joyce
    November 2, 2012, 10:14 am | # | Reply

    I like the sideways literary-theatrical reference of UNITY sitting on a park bench while talking to GODOT.

  22. Tetra Valent
    November 2, 2012, 11:28 am | # | Reply

    John Campbell called it immediately, back on July 11.
    2 years earlier, Unity had noted that, “We don’t talk about my acronym.”

    • Smithnik
      November 2, 2012, 1:44 pm | # | Reply

      But that storyline would imply that GODOT is a committee of AIs…or at least the surviving members of a committee of AIs, since U.N.I.T.Y. did mention deaths, plural.

      • Tetra Valent
        November 2, 2012, 2:17 pm | # | Reply

        I think she was talking about the humans running the program. There must have been heated arguments about what the acronym itself should be, and a violent bloodbath after GODOT gave up on a backronym. In other words, bureaucratic politics as usual.

  23. mittfh
    November 2, 2012, 11:50 am | # | Reply

    Perhaps it’s a recursive acronym (i.e. the U stands for U.N.I.T.Y.), or an acronym whose meaning has changed over time (e.g. the UNIX-based email program PINE – Pine Is Nearly Elm –> Pine Is Not Elm –> Program for Internet News and Email) or has two completely different expansions (e.g. PERL is officially Practical Extraction and Reporting Language, but look in the manual and near the bottom teh author slips in that it really stands for Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister).

    Or maybe, just maybe, it’s a backronym – they decided to call the project UNITY, put it in capitals to suggest an acronym, but didn’t worry about creating an expansion until later (if at all)…

  24. Saberbeam
    November 2, 2012, 1:12 pm | # | Reply

    An acronym usually gives a general summary of subject, right? So maybe U.N.I.T.Y simply didn’t contain the proper letters for an accurate description of our dear zombie agent. Perhaps language itself simply cannot do justice to what excatly Unity is. Or there could just be a deficit of nouns beginning with ‘y’ (Never thought of that before. It always seemed so easy to use in scrabble).

  25. Lunarflight
    November 2, 2012, 1:14 pm | # | Reply

    Undead Necrotic Intelligence That Yells

    Well I think it fits pretty well.

  26. Beachfox
    November 2, 2012, 2:28 pm | # | Reply

    I said so!

  27. woozy
    November 2, 2012, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

    Couldn’t or Wouldn’t? U.N.I.T.Y. is *far* from unbacronymable.

    But does GODOT have *pride* in his acronyms and simply refuse to all the potential U.N.I.T.Y ones? Or is there some other reason he couldn’t do UNITY?

    Jes’ sayin’…

  28. Isikyus
    November 2, 2012, 5:10 pm | # | Reply

    If the problem is a shortage of words beginning with Y, what about resorting to a dictionary? I can get “Undead Nanocreature: Organisms Together Yblent”, where “yblent”, according to the Shorter OED, means “blended”.

    On the other hand, I can’t seem to get anything better, even with a dictionary in front of me.

  29. cbob
    November 2, 2012, 6:24 pm | # | Reply

    …and a small part of a small circle is completed…Causing a infinity of further circles…

  30. KT Leone
    November 2, 2012, 8:33 pm | # | Reply

    Undead
    Nano-tech- based
    Indestructible
    Tactical
    Individual

    See the problems lies because GODOT used a Y instead of an I, easy fix really.

    Or we could use Yutz. She is kind of slow when not high on brains. As my memaw use to say, when in doubt, use Yiddish.

  31. Johnwwells
    November 2, 2012, 11:50 pm | # | Reply

    Undead Necrotic Invincible Terror, Y’alls.

  32. Stig
    December 4, 2012, 3:12 pm | # | Reply

    I found this while searching for something else.

    http://skin-horse.com/2010/todays-comic-299/
    July 3, 2010 from “Brave Little Toasters” as Violet is first meeting the Skin Horse team.

    Violet: And you’re U.N.I.T.Y.
    Unity: Yep.
    Violet: The Upgradeable Necrotic Independent … what?
    Unity: We don’t talk about my acronym.
    Violet: Sorry, did I touch a nerve?
    Unity: Well, you know. People died and stuff.

    Kudos to Tetra Valent and Challeron for remembering.

    • Stig
      December 4, 2012, 3:15 pm | # | Reply

      BTW, July 5 – 12 show Violet being repeatedly rejected by Tip as they meet each other.

  33. Anson
    October 12, 2014, 11:53 pm | # | Reply

    Undead Nanites Ina Terrifying Youth

  34. griffin8aka8evonix
    November 12, 2014, 6:26 pm | # | Reply

    United necrotic inteliginses terrorizing you

  35. nic
    March 12, 2016, 8:59 am | # | Reply

    the Ultimate Nanite Infested Terror of the Year

  36. David B Huber
    September 28, 2018, 7:43 pm | # | Reply

    Universal Nanite Intelligence Training Yoke

  37. darkshallfall
    August 5, 2019, 8:54 am | # | Reply

    Undead Necrophilia In training you.

  38. Knuckles
    January 21, 2022, 4:39 am | # | Reply

    She totally learned that from Tip.

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