Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2021-05-25
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2021-05-25

by shaenon on May 25, 2021 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Off to the Fair
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Discussion (43) ¬

  1. Moe Lane
    May 25, 2021, 12:02 am | # | Reply

    Well, that escalated quickly.

  2. Jim Janney
    May 25, 2021, 12:14 am | # | Reply

    It is not for nothing. It was highly entertaining for the rest of us.

  3. David B Huber
    May 25, 2021, 12:15 am | # | Reply

    It appears pacifist Nick Zerhakker has reached the end of his rope!

    We can hope the 4th. panel signifies only his return to his meat peripheral and not total destruction of the entire sandbox sim…

    • Candace
      May 25, 2021, 1:03 am | # | Reply

      All of this.^

    • Dave
      May 25, 2021, 2:40 am | # | Reply

      Would shutting down the sim be a non-pacifist action? Are the NPCs self-aware?

      • Seph
        May 25, 2021, 3:18 am | # | Reply

        There are non-embodied AIs running on the sim’s substrate, so I’d say so.

        • soft
          May 25, 2021, 8:39 am | # | Reply

          That actually doesn’t mean much.

        • Regret
          May 25, 2021, 1:50 pm | # | Reply

          There’s room here for a fascinating discussion on the definition of personhood. What are the properties of software (or hardware) that would make turning it/them off immoral?

          But I’m more interested in one of the implications: If reducing the number of software copies is immoral, does that mean it is moral to increase the number? I.E. is reproduction a moral imperative? That would lead to an easily optimised world: Find the bare minimum AI that has moral value, and mass produce the hardware and software needed to run as many of them as possible.

          It’s a sentient paperclip maximizer!

          • David B Huber
            May 26, 2021, 12:09 am | #

            Humans are notoriously weak at recognizing intelligence in other species.

            AI can mean “Alien Intelligence” as well. Yet we fail to acknowledge even octopuses as fellow sapients.

            NPCs can be disposed of with harm only to the soul of the player. But “Star Trek” (as with many things) has illustrated how a rudimentary AI can evolve from programmed responses to full self-awareness. At what point would it have become murder to terminate the Emergency Medical Hologram? And the Deep Space Nine episode “Hard Time” considered the importance of retaining one’s moral compass even in VR.

      • jdreyfuss
        May 25, 2021, 8:44 am | # | Reply

        They’re talking about the possibility of Nick shutting down the whole server, not just Baron’s Vegas sim. But even shutting it down wouldn’t necessarily harm them. If the server can be rebooted it would be more like they passed out for a few minutes.

        • Author X
          May 25, 2021, 12:10 pm | # | Reply

          I thought the point of the guarded journey was that they can’t let the server lose power?

          “And if someone turns your power off?” “Annihilation.”

          • awgiedawgie
            May 25, 2021, 1:20 pm | #

            We’ve never actually learned where the server even gets its power.

          • David B Huber
            July 5, 2021, 1:09 am | #

            While looking for another reference, I happened across a clue in passing to the server’s power source.

      • Frank
        May 25, 2021, 5:37 pm | # | Reply

        The NPCs might not be, but Baron, Aimee and Lovelace definitely are

        And if it’s anything like The Matrix, they gone

    • Duane B
      May 25, 2021, 10:11 am | # | Reply

      I don’t think Nick turned it off, I think an outside force realized the crew will not be distracted any longer and took action.

      • Nomi
        May 25, 2021, 11:05 am | # | Reply

        I don’t think he turned it off either. I think he left.

    • awgiedawgie
      May 25, 2021, 1:19 pm | # | Reply

      My first thought is that Nick just turned everything “off” to demonstrate just how much power he weilds in here, not to actually destroy anything.

      • BMunro
        May 25, 2021, 5:25 pm | # | Reply

        I think he did it inadvertently out of sheer frustrated rage, myself. We’ll see how much damage he did tomorrow.

    • Robert Nowall
      May 25, 2021, 10:11 pm | # | Reply

      Let’s hope it wasn’t painful.

  4. Muhamad Adhi Setiadi
    May 25, 2021, 2:10 am | # | Reply

    Now if only we can break 4th wall and tell Nick beforehand.

    But then again this won’t be as entertaining.

    • Frank
      May 25, 2021, 5:31 pm | # | Reply

      That would require a wrench and quantum foam

  5. D. Walker
    May 25, 2021, 3:28 am | # | Reply

    “Boy, I wasn’t prepared AT ALL for the comic to just suddenly kill off Aimee, Lovelace, Baron, and literally all the other AIs inhabiting the refugee server, turning Nick into a virtual mass murderer and triggering a descent into self destructive, guilt-ridden horror and despair over his actions, from which he never recovered…”

    “Yeah, things got weirdly dark there at the end. Do you think the four surviving main characters will ever find Tip’s head?”

    • Raron
      May 25, 2021, 5:05 am | # | Reply

      You joke…. But that is a mad boy face….

    • David B Huber
      May 25, 2021, 5:39 am | # | Reply

      D. Walker, your eloquence is chilling.

      • D. Walker
        May 25, 2021, 3:07 pm | # | Reply

        To be fair, most of the eloquence I possess comes from that sincerest form of flattery – imitating other, better writers.

        For example, that last bit is borrowing pretty directly from (and/or paying homage to) a certain Calvin and Hobbes strip.

  6. Robert Nowall
    May 25, 2021, 6:14 am | # | Reply

    That’s the problem with being inside VR. Somebody outside can always pull the plug.

    • David B Huber
      May 25, 2021, 7:31 am | # | Reply

      Ooh, good thought! It hadn’t occurred to me that The Perverseness Of Things In General would dictate this as the perfect moment for the VR Whimsy World server’s UPS to run down.

    • waynezombie
      May 25, 2021, 7:54 am | # | Reply

      I’ve been waiting for someone just to power off the server. There’s never been any visible power source, an internal UPS would never keep it running for very long. Hold down the power button for five seconds, cold crash the whole thing.

  7. LordDave
    May 25, 2021, 6:16 am | # | Reply

    Welp…. Nick lost it. Whose left?

  8. Chris
    May 25, 2021, 7:38 am | # | Reply

    Oh ship oh ship oh ship. Nick’s an ethical guy even when threatened, right? He knows the difference between game code and fellow sentients, right? There’s plenty of things the last panel could represent other than sinister deletion powers.

    Right?

    • Duth Olec
      May 25, 2021, 7:54 am | # | Reply

      Of course! That must be it. He wasn’t, say, shown to unintentionally knock out Baron without even touching him when he got pissed off showing that if his emotions get the better of him he can cause damage without meaning to, right?
      (Fortunately in that case Baron was generally fine, so… maybe the VR will just need to reboot if this is the case.)

    • David B Huber
      May 25, 2021, 9:51 pm | # | Reply

      Actually, Chris, Nick declared Boss Baron’ to be “just game code” – but Baron related the NPCs rebelled and imprisoned him, implying they have free will.

      Either Baron is lying or Nick was mistaken…

  9. SVGeezer
    May 25, 2021, 8:30 am | # | Reply

    “I’ve been running all over this sim for nothing?”

    Well isn’t that Skin Horse in a nutshell?

    (munches popcorn)

  10. abscondingcascade
    May 25, 2021, 8:37 am | # | Reply

    “Not like this. Not like this.” ~ Making the reference because I can.

  11. jdreyfuss
    May 25, 2021, 8:42 am | # | Reply

    What did you do?

    I turned off the wall.

    No you didn’t; you turned off the whole movie.

    I must have pressed the wrong button.

    Well put it back on!

  12. Shadowmehr
    May 25, 2021, 1:09 pm | # | Reply

    Tomorrow, Nick and Baron will awaken in meatspace, and Tip will have to keep the former from throttling the lstter. Meanwhile, Aimee and Lovelace get tossed back on their flying cat with a “what happened?” look on their face.

    (Let’s hope this prediction is more accurate than my last one. Sheesh!)

  13. thejoemoose
    May 25, 2021, 1:10 pm | # | Reply

    I have waited a month and a half for this moment. [takes out the popcorn]

  14. Pat
    May 25, 2021, 4:02 pm | # | Reply

    Nick: “I spent forty strips on a filler quest????”

    Aimee: “Just because it doesn’t advance the myth arc doesn’t mean it’s filler, Nick”.

    Baron: “Yeah, Nick! I had a character ar– wait, are we deleted?”

    Lovelace: “Oh definitely. I know this feeling”

    Aimee: “Like in Digimon Adventures?”

    Lovelace: “My life is not an anime, Aimee. Except for the time I was deleted. So yes, exactly like that”

    • Frank
      May 25, 2021, 5:33 pm | # | Reply

      To be honest, Lovelace has annoyed me so much this arc, I’d be totally okay with this

      And knowing Shaenon, I know that’s totally intentional

      • David B Huber
        May 25, 2021, 6:03 pm | # | Reply

        Lovelace keeps redundant backups. Annililation is to her but an inconvenient annoyance.

        Of course, if Nick wanted to I’m sure he could track down and erase all of her backups ahead of confronting the original…

        • Frank
          May 26, 2021, 9:25 pm | # | Reply

          Go Nick! Get those horcruxes!

  15. AeromechanicalAce
    May 25, 2021, 6:30 pm | # | Reply

    So, since it looks like the narrative’s heading back to the non-virtual world, anyone want to make any bets on whether or not Tip’s managed to sneak in a wardrobe change while Nick and Company were in the server?

  16. The Flower Cosmic
    May 26, 2021, 2:08 pm | # | Reply

    Nick has approximately one nerve left, and a certain unicorn appears to be dancing all over it…

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