It’s not impossible. To misquote a line from a song called “Ricky Don’t Lost That Number!”, “Nick has friends in Cyberspace and they’ve heard Ginny’s name”. So Lovelace might and her fellow “Daughters of the Air” are a possibility. Especially if this advances their own agenda. Another one might be considered almost a sister to Nick along with her faithful Baron. ^_^
And I do hope Ginny did indeed leave a good Yelp revlew of Madam Delphi. That might be more important then she knows. >_>
It’s possible that someone(s) have a back door into the program. It is also possible that this system of sufficient complexity (and if the VR extirpation program was made using mad science, let’s face it, it will have more than sufficient complexity) may have grown beyond Mr. Green’s ability to control or predict it. Which means the ladies of the boardwalk are the avatars of the various AI protocols keeping the whole thing running, and diverted Dr. Lee to give her a message. What their final agenda is, is up for speculation at this point.
To be honest, I’ve been half expecting Nick too turn out to have mad hacking skills and he’s really been hiding it and seeming helpless in these situations until the right opportunity.
In many computer systems access is arranged much like a tree with more powerful users granting access to less powerful ones. Root is the most powerful access because it is where the tree comes from.
(This is an over simplification).
When the say grab root accesss) it means acquire the most powerful user account that has the ability to do everything.
I can’t take full credit for that suggestion. There were a couple others who had posited that idea shortly before I did. The main difference being that I have always believed that Virginia was already Mad, whereas others believe that she is only now about to cross over.
Thinking on it….why are they bothering with this? I mean, Anasigma will just shoot you for improper polish on your shoes. Exterpation works well as a threat that no-one knows the details of, but the actual mechanics could easily just be “take them out back, shoot them, dump the body in the mystery meat grinder.”
I’m pretty sure extirpation is for people who are too _valuable_ to simply kill. Dr. Lee’s contributions to their current plan can’t be underestimated. She gave them a weather machine and helped work on many of their other projects. Essentially Extirpation allows you to not kill the goose while there’s a chance you convince it to lay another golden egg or two.
What I want to know is why they bother with VR instead of just sticking them in a secret jail, but I assume they think this is harder to escape and they’ve been dealing with mad science so long they’re starting to rely on it.
Depends on what of the 5 grades of coffee being simulated. There’s coffee, java, Joe, mud, and battery acid If Coffee or java great, if Joe, or mud meh. If battery acid you’re in VR hell.
Yeah, I was wondering about that. “Curses, you figured it all out! Wait, you say there’s something else happening here that I don’t even know about? Let’s investigate it together, shall we?”
The only thing A-Sig got from Whimsy was the mind control software. Baron Mistycorn got their VR server as a “parting gift”. This VR world – by her own admission above – was created at least in part by Virginia herself.
Robert, to answer your question, and aside from awgiedawgie’s excellent point, you could go one heck of a lot further than you can go when one of you is a brain in a tank.
Then there’s also the possibility of VR “intercourse” like they had in Demolition Man. It’s not as much fun as the horizontal mamba, but you’d get the same neurological effect.
**blinkblink** Where did the coffees come from? —wait, wait, duhhh, they’re simulated; they faded in with a flare of pixelation, of course. Hope they’re not decaf; if you have to be in a virtual world, you shouldn’t have to drink decaf.
I would argue that there are two levels higher than root access: physical access, and hardware design. If someone has physical access, they can always shut down the hardware, isolate it, and reboot/reinstall if they don’t like what a root-level user is doing. If they design the hardware, they can include unfixable backdoors to later gain root access, and lie about it to almost any software queries except those acknowledged by the original designer.
A valid point. But from an operating standpoint, root access is still the highest level. True, physical access gives you the ability to shut down the hardware, but to actually do anything in the system, you still need root access. Without that, the only way to keep someone else out would be to keep the hardware shut down. So physical access is operationally lower than root access. And design merely gives you the ability to add back doors that give you root access even if normal paths have been cut off. It also allows you to make true root access hidden, so what anyone else thinks is root level is actually one level down – effectively giving you access to a “god mode” that no one else knows exists.
Pavane has a back door…
SOMEONE does anyway. 🙂
Pavane is the one who showed up uninvited to the party during Sweetheart’s breakdown, so my guess is on the bees.
That would explain why they’re all female, and concealing their (compound) eyes.
It could be Gavotte, too. The women she met all correspond in some way to the other Skin Horse agents.
Someone’s been messing with the program
I dont have any THEORIES, but i want it to be Sergio bc i love Sergio
Pavene might be the answer though good thought
What if Lovelace is involved as well?
Probably not, but it’d be interesting nevertheless.
It’s not impossible. To misquote a line from a song called “Ricky Don’t Lost That Number!”, “Nick has friends in Cyberspace and they’ve heard Ginny’s name”. So Lovelace might and her fellow “Daughters of the Air” are a possibility. Especially if this advances their own agenda. Another one might be considered almost a sister to Nick along with her faithful Baron. ^_^
And I do hope Ginny did indeed leave a good Yelp revlew of Madam Delphi. That might be more important then she knows. >_>
It’s possible that someone(s) have a back door into the program. It is also possible that this system of sufficient complexity (and if the VR extirpation program was made using mad science, let’s face it, it will have more than sufficient complexity) may have grown beyond Mr. Green’s ability to control or predict it. Which means the ladies of the boardwalk are the avatars of the various AI protocols keeping the whole thing running, and diverted Dr. Lee to give her a message. What their final agenda is, is up for speculation at this point.
To be honest, I’ve been half expecting Nick too turn out to have mad hacking skills and he’s really been hiding it and seeming helpless in these situations until the right opportunity.
Technically, Nick does have those hacking skillz, because his systems grab root access over every other program he connects to.
I don’t understand the “grab root access” part of the sentence.
In many computer systems access is arranged much like a tree with more powerful users granting access to less powerful ones. Root is the most powerful access because it is where the tree comes from.
(This is an over simplification).
When the say grab root accesss) it means acquire the most powerful user account that has the ability to do everything.
In “My House is Me” Nick freely admitted he had mad hacker skills, then demonstrated them to find Collodi’s Daughter.
Whether mad hacker skills enables him to hack himself is another question.
He also mentioned this in the Whimsy VR story; he mentioned he usually kind of takes control of software just by interfacing with it.
Completely Wrong Hypothesis:
“What do you mean, I wasn’t working on a SPRINGING multiplayer game?”
Perhaps, the system is evolving… ^_^
Perhaps Virginia did a little more work on it than anyone else knew about.
Could be. Although she seemed surprised by that town as well. @_@
Sounds like awgiedawgie’s suggestion that the beach dwellers may be aspects of Dr. Lee is increasingly likely?
I can’t take full credit for that suggestion. There were a couple others who had posited that idea shortly before I did. The main difference being that I have always believed that Virginia was already Mad, whereas others believe that she is only now about to cross over.
Thinking on it….why are they bothering with this? I mean, Anasigma will just shoot you for improper polish on your shoes. Exterpation works well as a threat that no-one knows the details of, but the actual mechanics could easily just be “take them out back, shoot them, dump the body in the mystery meat grinder.”
Why bother putting everyone in a complex VR sim?
They’re probably stealing their brains for processing power, ala Doll House.
Well, you can’t murder EVERYBODY.
[citation needed]
Two quotes come to mind:
We couldn’t possibly do that. Who’d clean up the mess?
and
We whack plenty of people on our payroll.
After they secure our absolute power. After.
I do think Virginia’s question in panel 2 shows that she needs to work a bit on channelling her inner Nick.
I’m pretty sure extirpation is for people who are too _valuable_ to simply kill. Dr. Lee’s contributions to their current plan can’t be underestimated. She gave them a weather machine and helped work on many of their other projects. Essentially Extirpation allows you to not kill the goose while there’s a chance you convince it to lay another golden egg or two.
What I want to know is why they bother with VR instead of just sticking them in a secret jail, but I assume they think this is harder to escape and they’ve been dealing with mad science so long they’re starting to rely on it.
Good thought! The best way to frustrate a Mad is to ensure the laws of Physics are constrained to the merely Possible 😉
Perhaps the harvesting and processing of “walnuts” masks an underlying activity such as “mining” crypto currency? Thus Anasigma gets triple benefit…
Headcanon’d! …and in the comic.
Coffee from Hammerspace! The best use of VR I’ve ever seen!
Depends on what of the 5 grades of coffee being simulated. There’s coffee, java, Joe, mud, and battery acid If Coffee or java great, if Joe, or mud meh. If battery acid you’re in VR hell.
The inmates don’t get coffee, just Mr. Green – I’m sure it’s good simulated coffee.
I’m on the fence of if Green is playing dumb or not.
I think he is cause he is way too smart to be shocked by a genius in an obvious VR.
Yeah, I was wondering about that. “Curses, you figured it all out! Wait, you say there’s something else happening here that I don’t even know about? Let’s investigate it together, shall we?”
Did he get those VR coffees from VR Starbucks? I suppose their desire to have one on every street corner extends even to the VR worlds…
That could turn into yet another VR hell.
Do you still happen to be taking entries for Narbonic theme songs?
I can’t stop the music.
Try “Career of Evil” -Blue Oyster Cult.
😉
Is anyone else thinking about the fact that Dr. Lee is now in a virtual environment where she could meet Nick?
There’s a picture of them together in a restaurant drinking (I think) margaritas…could be here.
But remember: just how far could you go in a VR world created by WhimseyCorp?
The only thing A-Sig got from Whimsy was the mind control software. Baron Mistycorn got their VR server as a “parting gift”. This VR world – by her own admission above – was created at least in part by Virginia herself.
Robert, to answer your question, and aside from awgiedawgie’s excellent point, you could go one heck of a lot further than you can go when one of you is a brain in a tank.
Then could they go as far as heavy petting?
Frankly, I’m not sure these two (admittedly, mostly Nick) are ready for heavy petting.
Then there’s also the possibility of VR “intercourse” like they had in Demolition Man. It’s not as much fun as the horizontal mamba, but you’d get the same neurological effect.
Hmm, we all noticed they didn’t have eyes, but nobody noticed they were all women.
Some of us noticed.
One person commented they might be the same person from different stages of life but I figure the oracle and Ms. Ape sort of tossed that theory out.
Of course four out of four being women is not that significant. I’m not sure why “strange women” in today’s strip stuck out so much for me.
Is that true, Dr. Ao?
Bear in mind that he is an intruder, not a resident. He entered the sim specifically to make contact with Virginia.
Dr Lee, that was the exit! Go back and earn yourself some skeeball tickets!
**blinkblink** Where did the coffees come from? —wait, wait, duhhh, they’re simulated; they faded in with a flare of pixelation, of course. Hope they’re not decaf; if you have to be in a virtual world, you shouldn’t have to drink decaf.
I love Dr. Lee’s smirk.
That coffee is going to taste goooood!
I would argue that there are two levels higher than root access: physical access, and hardware design. If someone has physical access, they can always shut down the hardware, isolate it, and reboot/reinstall if they don’t like what a root-level user is doing. If they design the hardware, they can include unfixable backdoors to later gain root access, and lie about it to almost any software queries except those acknowledged by the original designer.
A valid point. But from an operating standpoint, root access is still the highest level. True, physical access gives you the ability to shut down the hardware, but to actually do anything in the system, you still need root access. Without that, the only way to keep someone else out would be to keep the hardware shut down. So physical access is operationally lower than root access. And design merely gives you the ability to add back doors that give you root access even if normal paths have been cut off. It also allows you to make true root access hidden, so what anyone else thinks is root level is actually one level down – effectively giving you access to a “god mode” that no one else knows exists.
While root’s useful for dealing with a running system, I don’t need root access to pull a disk out of a server and put it into a computer I control.
But, depending on the security on that disk, you may still not be able to access anything on it.