Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2013-03-16
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2013-03-16

by shaenon on March 16, 2013 at 12:00 am
Chapter: Railway Children
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Discussion (54) ¬

  1. Werlitten
    March 16, 2013, 12:12 am | # | Reply

    So… We now know the shut-down phrase for Dr. Lee’s projects.
    Dammit, now I want pancakes.

  2. Randy from Pittsburgh
    March 16, 2013, 12:42 am | # | Reply

    We’re never going to learn UNITY’s acronym, are we?

    • OneUniverse
      September 13, 2019, 3:08 pm | # | Reply

      Not in the next six years, anyway.

  3. Zarathustra's Id
    March 16, 2013, 12:47 am | # | Reply

    There’s some serious song potential in this one, but it’s not my talent. I do look forward to it, though.

  4. Zap Rowsdower
    March 16, 2013, 12:49 am | # | Reply

    And this is why you don’t threaten the person who helps design the weapons being used to threaten them.

  5. Manifesta
    March 16, 2013, 12:58 am | # | Reply

    Aaaaaah! So many questions!
    1. Is “buttermilk pancakes” the default off-phrase for all Anasigma projects? Ginny didn’t know Violet was a machine, let alone build her, but could turn her off. Presumably she told Unity to plug her ears and hung up on Nick because it would turn them off, too (in Nick’s case, only literally).
    2. Ginny created the personal off-switch “blueberry waffles” for Unity. Did she create a similar phrase for Nick?
    3. Ginny explained that “blueberry waffles” came from getting hungry when working in the lab, so “buttermilk pancakes” sounds like her invention. But why would she be able to create a universal Anasigma off-switch, unless she’s much more powerful than we’ve been led to believe?

    • Forzin
      March 16, 2013, 3:09 am | # | Reply

      There’s nothing saying she didn’t build the core basis of Violet’s drone. She probably designed the original version (which wouldn’t have looked so pretty).

    • Blofeld's Cat
      March 16, 2013, 4:46 am | # | Reply

      In answer to question two, Manifesta, yes she did…

      http://skin-horse.com/2009/and-is-to-be/

    • Rex Vivat
      March 16, 2013, 10:28 am | # | Reply

      My first guess was that she installed the backdoor in this strip, but why would she then ask the other two not to listen?

    • DanD
      March 20, 2016, 3:35 pm | # | Reply

      Blueberry waffles doesn’t appear to be a full shutdown code. It locks out homicidal action, but Unity is still active. Buttermilk pancakes may be full shutdown.

  6. The Lone Badger
    March 16, 2013, 1:15 am | # | Reply

    Manifesta: At a guess Ms. Bee is using some components that Miss Lee had a hand in, and said component(s) have a backdoor in them.

    • Manifesta
      March 16, 2013, 1:58 am | # | Reply

      Ooooh, I like that.

  7. Tuityfruity
    March 16, 2013, 1:54 am | # | Reply

    Sweetheart, you should care, like, a lot.

  8. PDP15
    March 16, 2013, 2:44 am | # | Reply

    I’m wondering if the phrase was programmed into Violet back around the time of the October 25th strip, with the USB cable…

    • Stig
      March 16, 2013, 3:44 am | # | Reply

      http://skin-horse.com/2012/laps-around/

  9. dante parker
    March 16, 2013, 3:23 am | # | Reply

    I’m surprised Dr. Lee has a back door to Ms. Bee, but I’m more surprised she didn’t say anything about it. Maybe she has more influence than we know.

    More likely, i think PDP15 is right and she probably added it. Maybe reading Ms. Bee’s memory is one thing, but adding a kill-command is a survival instinct. Also, if Ms. Bee is a drone operator then Dr. Lee probably couldn’t get anything good from the hardware.

    Either way, Dr. Lee rocks!

    • Ogden Wernstrom
      March 16, 2013, 3:40 am | # | Reply

      I apologize in advance, but once the sequence has been triggered, it is not within my power to recall it. It’s a safety feature.

      “I bet Dr. Lee has a back door to Ms. Bee all night long.”

  10. Altarboy
    March 16, 2013, 4:27 am | # | Reply

    Well, component design and info dumps aside, Dr Lee is gonna need a place well away from Anasigma to reverse engineer Violet, so why not Skin-Horse?

    • mittfh
      March 16, 2013, 7:08 am | # | Reply

      Don’t forget that Violet has also worked with Skin Horse before, and attempted to act as a mediator during Brave Little Toasters. Not to mention she’s also Goldbug (who arranged an elaborate setup to donate Nick to SH)…

      Having re-read I Can Fly, it wouldn’t surprise me if whoever’s behind the controls of Violet was a colleague of Tip’s during his military days (or has answered to some of the same superiors) – after all, military guy, (reluctantly) involved in therapy (complete with puppets) and mediation, has heard of Tip’s superpower…

  11. John Campbell
    March 16, 2013, 5:31 am | # | Reply

    Way to be casually awesome, Dr. Lee.

  12. Andrew
    March 16, 2013, 6:13 am | # | Reply

    Somewhere in the bowels of Anasigma is either a fully operational IHOP or a clandestine Waffle House. Maybe even a Tim Horton’s for those Canadian visa holders.

    • Robert The Addled
      March 16, 2013, 9:01 am | # | Reply

      Tim Hortons bought out Bess Eaton Donuts – so they ‘invaded’ New England about 5 years ago.

      • Wayne Zombie
        March 16, 2013, 12:29 pm | # | Reply

        I was about to say that I ate at a Tim Horton’s in Portland, Maine last summer. Sadly I can’t say that I was impressed, but they were co-sited with a Coldstone Creamery in the same building, so that was awesome.

      • Sailorleo
        February 24, 2017, 3:22 am | # | Reply

        Tim Hortons was a division of Wendy’s twenty years ago (1992-2006). The ‘invasion’ apparently had a very late announcement.

  13. Prester Fred
    March 16, 2013, 6:16 am | # | Reply

    You know, maybe Dr. Lee really isn’t a mad scientist. Maybe she’s sane. Completely sane. Incredibly…terrifyingly…sane…

    • abb3w
      March 16, 2013, 9:56 am | # | Reply

      Sane enough to put an off switch into anything she builds.

      • Sheik
        March 16, 2013, 4:04 pm | # | Reply

        Or for that matter, anything she can get her hands on.

        • Sheik
          March 16, 2013, 4:09 pm | # | Reply

          It might explain how she’s survived in Anasigma so long.

          • Sheik
            March 17, 2013, 5:18 am | #

            That and her trusty USB cable.

      • caelo
        March 16, 2013, 9:05 pm | # | Reply

        Except for brain replicators

        • CrazyDreamer
          March 16, 2013, 11:21 pm | # | Reply

          The brain replicators going offline caused a crisis once already. Why would you want to make it easier?

  14. jdreyfuss
    March 16, 2013, 8:05 am | # | Reply

    And once again, Dr. Lee’s propensity to do her best work before breakfast saves the day.

    • ShireNomad
      March 16, 2013, 9:58 am | # | Reply

      And when she’s done eighteen impossible things before breakfast…

      • Wayne Zombie
        March 16, 2013, 12:31 pm | # | Reply

        Milliways! Just remember to go back in time and drop a dollar in an interest-bearing account so you can afford it. The best part is the cow that sounds suspiciously like a Time Lord.

  15. Eddurd
    March 16, 2013, 10:20 am | # | Reply

    (TUNE: “We Will Rock You”, Queen)

    Bee is just robot,
    She got
    Bomb insder her frame!
    Really lame, she is not a dame!
    Now just look at her frown!
    She’ll blow this town!
    But “buttermilk pancakes” are shutting her down!
     Lee, you’ll see, will stop you!
     Lee, you’ll see, will stop you!

    Lee is such genius!
    No fuss!
    Nicholas, my dear,
    Do not fear, ’cause I got this here!
    I know just what to say!
    It’s done this way,
    And “buttermilk pancakes” are saving the day!
     Lee, you’ll see, will stop you!
     Lee, you’ll see, will stop you!

    • Andrew
      March 16, 2013, 11:54 am | # | Reply

      And then a virtual image of Nick does a 10 minute guitar solo riff.

      • Norman
        March 16, 2013, 1:22 pm | # | Reply

        Without said ten minute virtual solo, we’d have to fade immediately into a filk perhaps titled “We Are the Skin Horse”. Alas, this is not my talent any more than it is that of Zarathustra’s Id 🙁

        So, thanks for the guitar solo, Andrew!

  16. Rex Vivat
    March 16, 2013, 10:35 am | # | Reply

    I think Virginia might be in for a lot of trouble for this one.

    • ShireNomad
      March 16, 2013, 11:22 am | # | Reply

      Maybe, but her other option was to be DEAD, so…pp

      • ShireNomad
        March 16, 2013, 12:02 pm | # | Reply

        And I have no idea where those Ps came from.

  17. Eric Burns-White
    March 16, 2013, 12:31 pm | # | Reply

    It’s that last panel that gets me. Because Doctor Lee isn’t mad. They’ve said so. She steals peoples’ brains, invents horrible weapons with breakfast item based shutdown codes, and three seconds after preventing her own horrible death following her preventing her own horrible death by creating a giant room full of replicated neural matter, she is instantly cheerful and hungry. But not mad. No no. Not mad.

    • Wayne Zombie
      March 16, 2013, 12:34 pm | # | Reply

      I’d say she’s amoral and chaotic good, with possibly a dash of sociopathy thrown in.

      • AndaisQ
        March 16, 2013, 11:14 pm | # | Reply

        Chaotic GOOD? Not a chance.

        Neutral, at best. Probably Lawful, at that.

        • CCC
          March 18, 2013, 9:26 am | # | Reply

          Chaotic lawful? Is that allowed?

    • Smithnik
      March 16, 2013, 3:35 pm | # | Reply

      What’s mad about that? It worked, didn’t it? Now, if the only way to muffle the explosion would have been to create a machine to fill the entire chamber with waffle batter, now THAT would have been mad science…but she still would have been hungry.
      Let’s face it, heroic action burns a lot of calories, especially when you’re down below a 5-count on the bomb timer.

    • Andrew
      March 16, 2013, 4:24 pm | # | Reply

      I would hate to see what she used “French Toast” as the shut down command for. Or “Moon Over My Hammy” for that matter.

    • caelo
      March 16, 2013, 9:11 pm | # | Reply

      We have a dilemma in that there ARE off switches in her projects . No the mad ones lustily die or invent something different to prevent death by there own creation. Instead she typically coolly has a preplanned solution.

  18. Brian-M
    March 16, 2013, 10:25 pm | # | Reply

    I can only hope that none of Dr. Lee’s creations visits a pancake restaurant. They’d be shutting down all over the place.

    • duane
      March 17, 2013, 6:47 pm | # | Reply

      could it be that some pancake restaurants hide something
      she does not want to be damaged?

      • Nokob
        March 17, 2013, 10:04 pm | # | Reply

        Yes, pancakes.

  19. Tarlith
    July 8, 2018, 5:43 pm | # | Reply

    I find it a bit disturbing that the shutdown phrase is something so common. I mean, Unity’s “blueberry waffles,” while unpleasant on her end, doesn’t really have negative consequences beyond that. A complete shutdown is a bit more serious. Is the effect temporary? Dr. Lee mentioned a command phrase that would permanently shut Nick down. Is this what she’s using here, or is there another one? Even if it’s a command unique to Nick, I fear, given Lee’s track record, that it would be far too easy to kill our rude helicopter friend completely by accident.

    • awgiedawgie
      July 9, 2018, 12:17 am | # | Reply

      I suspect the shutdown phrase is the same for all of them. “Blueberry waffles” only suspends Unity’s aggression patterns, whereas “buttermilk pancakes” would shut her down. That’s why Virginia hung up the phone on Nick and told Unity to cover her ears.

      The question is not whether the shutdown is permanent, but whether there is damage to the “operating system”, as it were. If it’s simply a shutdown, then Nick, for example, could simply be restarted. The danger with Nick is if someone uses the shutdown command while he is in flight, how long does it take to get him restarted?

    • WJS
      July 8, 2019, 7:45 am | # | Reply

      She never said Nick’s shutdown command would shut him down permanently. She said that she “didn’t know how to disable” his override code. That could be interpreted to mean she didn’t know how to start him up again, but it could just as easily mean she didn’t know how to remove the override code.

      • awgiedawgie
        July 8, 2019, 11:11 am | # | Reply

        Oh, she knows how to remove it, since she installed it. But she doesn’t know to disable it (if it is even possible) without removing it.

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