I don’t care if you’re in a car or not, if you’re covered in cobras biting you to prevent anaphylactic shock, you will not be operating a motor vehicle.
Dies a little. The individual bees aren’t her, any more than a person worries about their component cells. Like that bit in Godel, Escher, Bach with Aunt Hilary the anthill.
If the hive is a hive mind with a collective intelligence, then it’s more like each bee is an individual brain cell, which are a little harder to replace for us than other individual cells. On the other hand, since beehives are constantly replenishing then maybe she can afford to lose a few workers or soldiers as long as she doesn’t lose her queen or isn’t interregnum for too long.
The difference is that a person has somewhere around 37.2 trillion cells, and can afford to lose quite a few cells with every punch.
Meanwhile, bee colonies are usually between 20,000 and 80,000 individuals – with a “swarm” usually being only 50% of a colony at most. So even a “large swarm” of bees should only be around 40,000 individuals – meaning every 400 bees that die is 1% of the total.
The average person can safely tolerate 10 bee stings per pound of their body mass, meaning the average adult can safely suffer over 1000 bee stings. That’s 2.5% of the swarm dead just to make someone HURT LIKE HELL, but not actually get them into dangerous territory.
And that doesn’t at all account for the number of bees that would be crushed by the flailing and swatting and whatnot before they ever get a chance to sting.
It also doesn’t account for things like Sweetheart or Leo having a protective coat of fur that makes stinging her difficult, UNITY and the Kill-Bots just flat out not caring about being stung, and Tigerlily’s brilliantly sequined outfit and fur cloak acting as a pretty decent form of armoring against bee stings.
It ALSO doesn’t account for the fact that the Kill-Bots have flamethrowers, which will make VERY short work of any swarm of flying insects.
Touché. After what may be the fastest I’ve ever read through the archive – twice – I finally found the reference that started rolling around in the back of my head after reading your comment. But it wasn’t back in the second chapter. It was only a few years ago, when Virginia was talking to Gavotte in the Extirpation VR, and Gavotte says “our honey”.
I did find one mention of honey back in the second chapter, when Gavotte told Tip the toffee on her desk was made with real honey, but that’s hardly confirmation of her species. At the time, I took that as Gavotte trying to make Tip uncomfortable (and succeeding, I might add).
I’m not sure if I said this already but I have this theory; you know how in fiction you’ll see stuff like sapient brood parasites who do their thing to other intelligent species, or super advanced godlike aliens who “reproduce” by uplifting a less advanced race to their level, or instances of one intelligent race supposedly evolved to feed off of another? Well maybe the bees thing is that they feed off of the offspring of other sentients except it’s exclusively sentients that were produced artificially through science instead of conventionally through their evolved reproductive means, and Tigerlily was brought along to provide them with more. Either that or the alien thing is a lie and Gavotte just plans on holding them on the ship for generations convincing them that they’re still heading for Lovetron. The latter seems more likely.
I’m voting for some kind of hypnosis or a gas that makes people more suggestible or something. Either there is no ship and this is all VR, or there is a ship and it is flying into the sun.
Easy: they’re both in VR, or they’re both breathing the gas. (But I think that if either was true, we’d have had more hints than the none I’ve spotted. Shaenon plays fair with the reader.)
(Or it’s *really awesome* gas that affects even those who didn’t breathe it, or it’s fallout from the whole normality thing or oh dammit there are so many possibilities in this huge shaggy Sweetheart of a story that I can’t even enumerate them 🙂 )
Unity’s parts are still vulnerable or she wouldn’t have to replace them occasionally. The killbots would need to worry about gunking up their servos, but that would take a lot of bees and I don’t think Pavane is willing to risk that kind of attrition.
Her parts need replaced because they rot away or get destroyed. Bee venom isn’t going to affect them in any meaningful way. She doesn’t have blood or a metabolism.
Before Pavane can move any closer, Sweetheart immediately whips out the Whimsey/Marble cease and desist order for infringement on the character SMARM(tm).
A placid, even petulant young adult bee swarm entity is fine. But act in an aggressive manner and we’ll whip a purple cape around you and you’ll answer to Whimsey’s lawyers. And escaping to Lovetron will not escape their summoning.”
This ship, you cannot just seize it. It’s not that they lack expertise, it. One swarm runs the ship, with a much firmer grip, but the hive mind is now angry bees-it.
If anybody on board is allergic to bee stings, the cobras have anti-allergy medicine in their venom.
Life saving hugs! (May cause drowsiness. Use caution when operating machinery or driving a motor vehicle.)
I don’t care if you’re in a car or not, if you’re covered in cobras biting you to prevent anaphylactic shock, you will not be operating a motor vehicle.
You might be saved from anaphylaxis, but you’ll be suffering from a completely different kind of shock.
Finding the right dosage could be tricky.
I was thinking of the shock of “AAAAAAH I’M BEING BITTEN BY COBRAS!” and I don’t think there is a right dosage for that.
EpiVen™
Hats off!
“why don’t you pick on someone your own size?”
“But if they’re smaller, it’s easy to win!”
“Er, not exactly”
“Try a threat that works. You die a little every time you land a punch.”
And, smoke can calm bees down, even more if it’s one of those funny cigarettes.
Dies a little. The individual bees aren’t her, any more than a person worries about their component cells. Like that bit in Godel, Escher, Bach with Aunt Hilary the anthill.
If the hive is a hive mind with a collective intelligence, then it’s more like each bee is an individual brain cell, which are a little harder to replace for us than other individual cells. On the other hand, since beehives are constantly replenishing then maybe she can afford to lose a few workers or soldiers as long as she doesn’t lose her queen or isn’t interregnum for too long.
well we did see Gavotte, to quote Sweetheart, “sex herself stupid”
The difference is that a person has somewhere around 37.2 trillion cells, and can afford to lose quite a few cells with every punch.
Meanwhile, bee colonies are usually between 20,000 and 80,000 individuals – with a “swarm” usually being only 50% of a colony at most. So even a “large swarm” of bees should only be around 40,000 individuals – meaning every 400 bees that die is 1% of the total.
The average person can safely tolerate 10 bee stings per pound of their body mass, meaning the average adult can safely suffer over 1000 bee stings. That’s 2.5% of the swarm dead just to make someone HURT LIKE HELL, but not actually get them into dangerous territory.
And that doesn’t at all account for the number of bees that would be crushed by the flailing and swatting and whatnot before they ever get a chance to sting.
It also doesn’t account for things like Sweetheart or Leo having a protective coat of fur that makes stinging her difficult, UNITY and the Kill-Bots just flat out not caring about being stung, and Tigerlily’s brilliantly sequined outfit and fur cloak acting as a pretty decent form of armoring against bee stings.
It ALSO doesn’t account for the fact that the Kill-Bots have flamethrowers, which will make VERY short work of any swarm of flying insects.
Give Tigerlily a moment and she’ll come up with her own spring-powered flamethrower.
Only honey bees die after they sting. Pavane could belong to any of a number of stinging bee species that can sting as much as they want to.
No she couldn’t. She’s the “child” of Gavotte, who it has firmly been established is honey bees, as early as the second chapter of the comic.
Touché. After what may be the fastest I’ve ever read through the archive – twice – I finally found the reference that started rolling around in the back of my head after reading your comment. But it wasn’t back in the second chapter. It was only a few years ago, when Virginia was talking to Gavotte in the Extirpation VR, and Gavotte says “our honey”.
I did find one mention of honey back in the second chapter, when Gavotte told Tip the toffee on her desk was made with real honey, but that’s hardly confirmation of her species. At the time, I took that as Gavotte trying to make Tip uncomfortable (and succeeding, I might add).
I’m not sure if I said this already but I have this theory; you know how in fiction you’ll see stuff like sapient brood parasites who do their thing to other intelligent species, or super advanced godlike aliens who “reproduce” by uplifting a less advanced race to their level, or instances of one intelligent race supposedly evolved to feed off of another? Well maybe the bees thing is that they feed off of the offspring of other sentients except it’s exclusively sentients that were produced artificially through science instead of conventionally through their evolved reproductive means, and Tigerlily was brought along to provide them with more. Either that or the alien thing is a lie and Gavotte just plans on holding them on the ship for generations convincing them that they’re still heading for Lovetron. The latter seems more likely.
I’m voting for some kind of hypnosis or a gas that makes people more suggestible or something. Either there is no ship and this is all VR, or there is a ship and it is flying into the sun.
So then how do you explain what’s happening in the other story?
Easy: they’re both in VR, or they’re both breathing the gas. (But I think that if either was true, we’d have had more hints than the none I’ve spotted. Shaenon plays fair with the reader.)
(Or it’s *really awesome* gas that affects even those who didn’t breathe it, or it’s fallout from the whole normality thing or oh dammit there are so many possibilities in this huge shaggy Sweetheart of a story that I can’t even enumerate them 🙂 )
And robots and zombies will care why?
Would they become zombie bees …zombees?
“So, the ship’s controls are fifty yards down this bee-sized corridor?”
Meh, Unity could send one of her hands down there. She could probably attach an eye to it, too.
Unity’s parts are still vulnerable or she wouldn’t have to replace them occasionally. The killbots would need to worry about gunking up their servos, but that would take a lot of bees and I don’t think Pavane is willing to risk that kind of attrition.
Her parts need replaced because they rot away or get destroyed. Bee venom isn’t going to affect them in any meaningful way. She doesn’t have blood or a metabolism.
Whelp guess its time to destroy up to the command deck and destroy some controls.
Before Pavane can move any closer, Sweetheart immediately whips out the Whimsey/Marble cease and desist order for infringement on the character SMARM(tm).
A placid, even petulant young adult bee swarm entity is fine. But act in an aggressive manner and we’ll whip a purple cape around you and you’ll answer to Whimsey’s lawyers. And escaping to Lovetron will not escape their summoning.”
Frighteningly plausible.
And plausibly frightening.
This ship, you cannot just seize it. It’s not that they lack expertise, it. One swarm runs the ship, with a much firmer grip, but the hive mind is now angry bees-it.
Maybe it’s a good thing that Tip didn’t make it onto the saucer…
Indeed. Gavotte wouldn’t have stung Tip, because she liked him. Pavane obviously has no such compunction.
:Got to say, it’s getting better, it’s getting better all the time’…..
Can’t get no worse.