Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2014-09-22
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2014-09-22

by shaenon on September 22, 2014 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Mixed-Up Files
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Discussion (49) ¬

  1. Anderson
    September 22, 2014, 12:08 am | # | Reply

    Ooh, can it make good odd-numbered Star Trek films?

    …..actually, I’d probably use this to catch up on an infinite number of hiatus’d-forever webcomics. AND rule the world, on the side maybe.

    • Batteryhorse
      September 22, 2014, 12:44 am | # | Reply

      A world where Antics, MS Paint Adventures, and Achewood are all back from hiatus would be one I’d use an interdimensional portal to get to.

      • Norman
        September 22, 2014, 12:48 am | # | Reply

        Last I saw of Cheyenne Wright’s Arcane Times, Alan Arcane was being shown season two of Firefly…

        • Hielario
          September 22, 2014, 11:32 am | # | Reply

          The colorist for Girl Genius?

          • Sheik
            September 22, 2014, 4:52 pm | #

            The same!

      • Freezer
        September 22, 2014, 12:49 am | # | Reply

        A world where Avalon and RPG World had proper endings!

      • Anderson
        September 22, 2014, 12:50 am | # | Reply

        Paradigm Shift, The Meek and about 5-6 others I can’t remember the titles of off the top of my head (some paused, some outright dead) would make my list

        • GMan003
          September 22, 2014, 11:00 am | # | Reply

          Let’s add No Rest For The Wicked, Keychain of Creation, and Wayward Sons to that list of comics I really wish were still updating.

          • Kitirena
            May 17, 2016, 2:22 am | #

            I feel the same way about Pawn, nyao… it was just starting to get to the good part…

        • Konrad
          September 22, 2014, 3:47 pm | # | Reply

          The Meek may be returning by the end of next year. Hopefully Interstellar Tea House will be back by then too.

      • xiombrag
        September 23, 2014, 2:44 pm | # | Reply

        Am I the only one who fondly remembers Acid Reflux?

      • Kitirena
        May 17, 2016, 2:21 am | # | Reply

        You mean that somewhere, there’s an alternate universe where MegaTokyo actually updates on a regular schedule, nyao? >O.O<

      • Darkstarr
        May 17, 2016, 2:28 am | # | Reply

        A world where Narbonic is still running alongside Skin Horse? I’ll go!

    • jdreyfuss
      September 22, 2014, 7:13 am | # | Reply

      At least we can take Goblins off the list. Lackadaisy updated yesterday, too.

      • harryvoyager
        September 22, 2014, 9:11 am | # | Reply

        Holy beep! really?

        • SashaHoneypalm
          September 22, 2014, 9:18 am | # | Reply

          Thanks! I hadn’t checked in a while!

  2. Sandy
    September 22, 2014, 1:05 am | # | Reply

    Oh great, a freestanding Class-3 Gate. A-Sig is going to bring about Case Nightmare Green at this rate, isn’t it. (Wave if you got the reference! Please! Don’t let me be the only Laundry fan reading this…)

    • Paul
      September 22, 2014, 1:15 am | # | Reply

      I think Skin Horse works in a universe where Nightmare Green already happened.

      • Candace
        September 22, 2014, 2:23 am | # | Reply

        Uh, I think a world where Case Nightmare Green had already happened probably wouldn’t exist any longer unless certain Laundry employees were very, very lucky. And they’ve just lost a major asset.

    • Chris Battey
      September 22, 2014, 1:36 am | # | Reply

      With the number of additional sentients running around in the Skin Horse universe, CASE NIGHTMARE GREEN is certainly being accelerated already…

      • Candace
        September 22, 2014, 2:27 am | # | Reply

        Could be…certainly Jonas and Nera have found some very disturbing things during their “road trip.”

  3. maarvarq
    September 22, 2014, 1:29 am | # | Reply

    I’ve always wanted a whatnot that could get dead composers to finish their unfinished works, e.g. Mozart and his Requiem (and C Minor Mass for that matter), but this is even better. Is Mr Green, in line with his Genre Savvy comments, avoiding showing his face to the Fourth Wall in the first panel?

  4. BRGR
    September 22, 2014, 3:48 am | # | Reply

    What I never get about these things is how they assume there are many possible futures, but not equally many possible pasts.

    There are millions of possible lottery numbers you could have picked that didn’t win, and nobody remembers them, so there should be accordingly many possible pasts to chose from that led to the current present.

    • Manifesta
      September 22, 2014, 5:23 am | # | Reply

      If there are an infinite number of futures, doesn’t that imply that there are an infinite number of pasts? If cause and effect are operative, infinite pasts must have existed to have caused those infinite futures.

      • jdreyfuss
        September 22, 2014, 7:22 am | # | Reply

        Not necessarily, every moment that happens spawns an infinite number of futures, but from the individual’s perspective there is only one path that leads to his present. Look at what happened to Jonah. He always started at the exact same point, with the exact same starting parameters, but led to a seemingly infinite number of outcomes resulting from just a few minute changes along the way. See also: A Sound of Thunder.

        • Dr. Steve
          September 22, 2014, 8:08 am | # | Reply

          The number of ‘possible’ futures (and/or pasts) is not necessarily infinite (although it may be very very large).

        • Mental Mouse
          September 22, 2014, 9:14 am | # | Reply

          Even Jonah remembers all the alternate paths that lead to his deaths. But more significantly, it’s entirely reasonable that timelines could merge, most likely by the rule that “a difference that makes no difference is no difference”. Consider the common case of multiple witnesses to an incident reporting it quite differently. Who’s to say they aren’t all right? But the process of their argument (or a procedure such as a trial) provides an “official story”, and their varying memories have no effect on the actual present situation.

        • asinclinationleadsme
          September 22, 2014, 9:15 am | # | Reply

          There can still be multiple possible pasts, just not ones that lead to the present. If every moment can lead to many possible futures, but only one actually occurs, then for every moment in the past there must be roads-not-taken. The third panel seems to imply that the Second Gate continues to show those paths even when they’re no longer futures that could possibly happen.

        • Shay Guy
          September 22, 2014, 8:20 pm | # | Reply

          In a cellular automaton such as Conway’s “Game of Life”, there are in fact multiple possible pasts for a given “present” state. Consider four Life universes, for instance: one where all cells are dead, one where one cell is alive, one where many cells are alive but no cells have more than one living neighbor, and one where all cells are alive. One generation into the future, all four will be identical to the first. So even in a “void” universe, the simplest possible configuration, there’s no telling what the universe’s state was even a single time-step ago.

          The interesting thing is, there are some patterns with no possible pasts, patterns that cannot be generated by any possible predecessor. Such a pattern is called a Garden of Eden.

          • BRGR
            September 23, 2014, 2:38 am | #

            Thank you. That is very interesting, and the kind of response I was hoping to get.

  5. Jürgen Hubert
    September 22, 2014, 4:15 am | # | Reply

    As a lackey, you _really_ don’t want to come up with any _inventive_ stuff for any miracle technology lying around the office.

    Because doing that could result in extirpation… or worse, promotion.

    • BrokenEye, the True False Prophet
      September 22, 2014, 4:31 am | # | Reply

      Correction. You don’t want to come up with any inventive stuff out loud.

      • bellringer187868
        September 22, 2014, 12:50 pm | # | Reply

        Among *true* Mad Scientists, that is no protection…

  6. Tim Tylor
    September 22, 2014, 6:47 am | # | Reply

    Let me through. I want to see the lost first season of the original “Quatermass”.

  7. Andrew
    September 22, 2014, 6:52 am | # | Reply

    I’d go to a world where Star Trek: Voyager never existed.

    • Darkstarr
      May 17, 2016, 2:25 am | # | Reply

      Actually, ST: Voyager wasn’t that bad, once they got rid of those damn Kazon, although the Vidiians could easily have been left on the cutting room floor. And the way the producers severely nerfed the Borg? Ugh, don’t get me started…

      Okay, let’s split the difference: a world where ST:VOY actually lived up to its promise.

  8. Robert Nowall
    September 22, 2014, 7:32 am | # | Reply

    I wouldn’t mind seeing a sixth season of “Daria”…

  9. Treesong
    September 22, 2014, 9:08 am | # | Reply

    Alien Fire, Replacement God, Eye of Mongombo, Lust of the Nazi Weasel Women, Stig’s Inferno….

  10. Mental Mouse
    September 22, 2014, 9:14 am | # | Reply

    Why, the Second Gate can even pierce the fourth wall!

  11. Treesong
    September 22, 2014, 12:00 pm | # | Reply

    And above all, Beatrix. It’s past time to acknowledge that it’s dead.

  12. Ray
    September 22, 2014, 2:54 pm | # | Reply

    Pasts and futures are — not nearly as simple as we’re accustomed to thinking. They aren’t even shared by everyone who is in them. I had breakfast this morning with a person who arrived at that table by traversing a different past than I traversed to get there. Odds are that the rest of you did also (well those who ate breakfast with someone else anyway), but most of us lack the perspective to notice when it happens. And after breakfast, we got up and wandered separately into two different continuums of probability — our presents also diverge when we are experientially separate — in faith that, this evening, some threads of probability will allow our realities to temporarily reconverge with some versions of each other mostly derivative of the experience of shared realities we had in the morning.

    Perspective is a real bitch. Have you ever looked up, startled and alarmed to realize you’re less than a hundred million miles from a STAR?! I mean, holy crap!

  13. Shaenon
    September 22, 2014, 3:56 pm | # | Reply

    This strip is a tribute to my friend who was on the writing staff of “Dads.”

  14. Barking Monkey
    September 22, 2014, 5:43 pm | # | Reply

    Cool, a world where New Coke died a well deserved death and ‘The Simpsons’ had a second season! Wait – what are YOU guys all talking about…

  15. Shadowmehr
    September 22, 2014, 7:18 pm | # | Reply

    Wait, Mr. Green and Mr. Bravo? Does everyone in Anasigma use code names?

    Also, I have to agree with Green here. One of the primary purposes of lackeys is as a blank sounding board. The last thing you need while organizing your ideas is someone butting in with their own.

    • Saberbeam
      September 22, 2014, 9:49 pm | # | Reply

      You don’t need a codename to be in the shadow government, but having one is half the fun of working there.

  16. Erin Palette
    September 23, 2014, 11:47 am | # | Reply

    I am curious: if the lackey had mentioned seeing a second season of Firefly instead, would it have been interpreted as a sign of good taste? Or a distressing amount of independent thought?

    • xiombrag
      September 23, 2014, 2:47 pm | # | Reply

      At least I’d have gotten the reference. I had to look up “Dads”

  17. Splat, the nightmare cat
    May 8, 2018, 9:03 am | # | Reply

    Clearly wasted on this guy. Any competent person would start by looking for a third season of Fawlty Towers.

  18. David B Huber
    December 4, 2020, 9:30 pm | # | Reply

    I’d love to watch 17 more seasons of “Dark Matter”.

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