Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2018-09-26
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2018-09-26

by shaenon on September 26, 2018 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Figgs and Phantoms
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Discussion (57) ¬

  1. Urlance Woolsbane
    September 26, 2018, 12:02 am | # | Reply

    Pavane has a back door…

    • K. Iceclaw
      September 26, 2018, 12:06 am | # | Reply

      SOMEONE does anyway. 🙂

      • Anson
        September 26, 2018, 9:30 pm | # | Reply

        Pavane is the one who showed up uninvited to the party during Sweetheart’s breakdown, so my guess is on the bees.

        • Micher
          September 27, 2018, 2:54 pm | # | Reply

          That would explain why they’re all female, and concealing their (compound) eyes.

    • jdreyfuss
      February 3, 2020, 3:28 pm | # | Reply

      It could be Gavotte, too. The women she met all correspond in some way to the other Skin Horse agents.

  2. Tuiteyfruity
    September 26, 2018, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    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

    • Gyrre
      September 26, 2018, 2:41 am | # | Reply

      What if Lovelace is involved as well?

      Probably not, but it’d be interesting nevertheless.

      • Towering Barbarian
        September 26, 2018, 8:11 am | # | Reply

        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. >_>

    • Shadowmehr
      September 26, 2018, 7:55 pm | # | Reply

      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.

  3. Alphaghoul
    September 26, 2018, 12:16 am | # | Reply

    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.

    • WuseMajor
      September 26, 2018, 1:15 am | # | Reply

      Technically, Nick does have those hacking skillz, because his systems grab root access over every other program he connects to.

      • Alphaghoul
        September 26, 2018, 3:21 am | # | Reply

        I don’t understand the “grab root access” part of the sentence.

        • David “Q the Platypus” Formosa
          September 26, 2018, 4:19 am | # | Reply

          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.

    • Daibhid C
      September 26, 2018, 12:48 pm | # | Reply

      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.

  4. Peter M Eng
    September 26, 2018, 12:16 am | # | Reply

    Completely Wrong Hypothesis:

    “What do you mean, I wasn’t working on a SPRINGING multiplayer game?”

  5. Towering Barbarian
    September 26, 2018, 12:22 am | # | Reply

    Perhaps, the system is evolving… ^_^

    • awgiedawgie
      September 26, 2018, 12:38 am | # | Reply

      Perhaps Virginia did a little more work on it than anyone else knew about.

      • Towering Barbarian
        September 26, 2018, 2:56 am | # | Reply

        Could be. Although she seemed surprised by that town as well. @_@

  6. David B Huber
    September 26, 2018, 12:40 am | # | Reply

    Sounds like awgiedawgie’s suggestion that the beach dwellers may be aspects of Dr. Lee is increasingly likely?

    • awgiedawgie
      September 26, 2018, 1:09 am | # | Reply

      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.

  7. WuseMajor
    September 26, 2018, 2:03 am | # | Reply

    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?

    • irdburns
      September 26, 2018, 2:11 am | # | Reply

      They’re probably stealing their brains for processing power, ala Doll House.

    • Marisa Mockery
      September 26, 2018, 2:28 am | # | Reply

      Well, you can’t murder EVERYBODY.

      • Ray Radlein
        September 26, 2018, 2:38 am | # | Reply

        [citation needed]

        • s854
          September 26, 2018, 1:28 pm | # | Reply

          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.

    • shikome kido mi
      September 26, 2018, 4:40 am | # | Reply

      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.

      • David B Huber
        September 26, 2018, 4:51 am | # | Reply

        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…

        • This Guy I Know
          September 27, 2018, 4:47 pm | # | Reply

          Headcanon’d! …and in the comic.

  8. David B Huber
    September 26, 2018, 4:55 am | # | Reply

    Coffee from Hammerspace! The best use of VR I’ve ever seen!

  9. keecoyote
    September 26, 2018, 7:48 am | # | Reply

    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.

    • greenknight32
      September 26, 2018, 8:04 am | # | Reply

      The inmates don’t get coffee, just Mr. Green – I’m sure it’s good simulated coffee.

  10. Dave Doss
    September 26, 2018, 8:20 am | # | Reply

    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.

    • Daibhid C
      September 26, 2018, 12:50 pm | # | Reply

      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?”

  11. Robert Nowall
    September 26, 2018, 9:40 am | # | Reply

    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…

    • OneUniverse
      September 26, 2018, 2:24 pm | # | Reply

      That could turn into yet another VR hell.

  12. ForbushMan
    September 26, 2018, 9:49 am | # | Reply

    Do you still happen to be taking entries for Narbonic theme songs?

    • shaenon
      September 27, 2018, 12:08 am | # | Reply

      I can’t stop the music.

      • ForbushMan
        September 29, 2018, 8:38 am | # | Reply

        Try “Career of Evil” -Blue Oyster Cult.

        😉

  13. The J is Silent
    September 26, 2018, 10:42 am | # | Reply

    Is anyone else thinking about the fact that Dr. Lee is now in a virtual environment where she could meet Nick?

    • Robert Nowall
      September 26, 2018, 10:46 am | # | Reply

      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?

      • awgiedawgie
        September 26, 2018, 11:50 am | # | Reply

        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.

        • The J is Silent
          September 26, 2018, 4:23 pm | # | Reply

          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.

          • Robert Nowall
            September 26, 2018, 4:56 pm | #

            Then could they go as far as heavy petting?

          • The J is Silent
            September 26, 2018, 5:44 pm | #

            Frankly, I’m not sure these two (admittedly, mostly Nick) are ready for heavy petting.

          • awgiedawgie
            September 26, 2018, 9:16 pm | #

            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.

  14. woozy
    September 26, 2018, 10:53 am | # | Reply

    Hmm, we all noticed they didn’t have eyes, but nobody noticed they were all women.

    • awgiedawgie
      September 26, 2018, 11:52 am | # | Reply

      Some of us noticed.

      • woozy
        September 26, 2018, 2:07 pm | # | Reply

        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.

    • Robert Nowall
      September 26, 2018, 1:26 pm | # | Reply

      Is that true, Dr. Ao?

      • awgiedawgie
        September 26, 2018, 3:20 pm | # | Reply

        Bear in mind that he is an intruder, not a resident. He entered the sim specifically to make contact with Virginia.

  15. Frank
    September 26, 2018, 12:17 pm | # | Reply

    Dr Lee, that was the exit! Go back and earn yourself some skeeball tickets!

  16. Suzanne Barnes
    September 26, 2018, 1:03 pm | # | Reply

    **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.

  17. Sheik
    September 26, 2018, 3:31 pm | # | Reply

    I love Dr. Lee’s smirk.
    That coffee is going to taste goooood!

  18. Jonathan Fisher
    September 26, 2018, 4:06 pm | # | Reply

    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.

    • awgiedawgie
      September 26, 2018, 9:32 pm | # | Reply

      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.

      • s854
        September 27, 2018, 1:34 am | # | Reply

        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.

        • awgiedawgie
          September 27, 2018, 5:40 am | # | Reply

          But, depending on the security on that disk, you may still not be able to access anything on it.

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