It’s been speculated, by myself and others, that the events of the Very Bad Day were actually engineered by Ira/Mr. Green; that he spoofed the emails to Skin Horse & the Dept of Irradiation so as to bring everything down. I also wondered if Mr Green had manipulated Gavotte with bee pheromones so as to disable her.
But looking at this, and taking into account that Gavotte actually anticipated and wanted the Annex One building to become a giant robot, it occurs to me that it would make sense that the events of the Very Bad Day were in fact engineered by Gavotte with the specific goal of emptying the Annex One building, thus making it a desirable Mad Science lair for Tigerlily, who was presumably the only one with the Mad Science chops to actually turn the building into a walking robot, even though she was lacking the mojo to do so until recently. Presumably Gavotte anticipated Tigerlily getting a mojo recharge eventually.
Is it still the Positronic Love Tower, now that it’s a giant robot?
Hmmm, you might have something there. Based on what we have seen, it is actually kind of hard to imagine Mr. Green engineering all of this, because, frankly, he doesn’t seem to be nearly as intelligent as he thinks he is. Gavotte on the other hand, appears to be a super-genius with exceptional people skills. (Weird to say about a swarm of bees, but there it is.). I could buy Gavotte manipulating Ira/Mr. Green into playing right into her hand (er, wings?)
I would hope that Gavotte is ‘playing’ Green. In conversation she calls him “a great humbug”, ie, he is not what he appears. I have considered that he might actually BE a giant insect, perhaps competing with Gavotte for control of Lovetron.
Annex one didn’t need to be empty for it to become a giant robot. Gavotte could have had any number of plans for getting Tigerlily back there. It was fairly obvious early on that the only way she would get her Mojo back was through Tip, so getting Tigerlily to Annex One while Tip was still working there was probably the first choice. Once she got her Mojo back, it wouldn’t have mattered who thought they ran the building – Tigerlily would have taken over.
I still think that Ira arranged the events of The Very Bad Day to get rid of Skin Horse, and especially to get Gavotte out of the way, since he knows she is his most serious threat. But then it turned out that non-humans (and enhanced humans) were becoming more and more disorganized, so there wasn’t as much of a threat of imminent war, and quite frankly, I think Ira wants the war to happen during his lifetime. So he reinstated Skin Horse to help get the non-humans organized again. He’s appearing less and less intellingent as things progress because he never anticipated that Gavotte and Virginia would ever escape from Extirpation. When that happened, he had no contingencies for it, so it threw him off balance.
Remember that “Ari” expressed sincere puzzlement when Virginia mentioned the beach town. Later on, Gavotte explains that she got into the system by trying to investigate it only to have her personality fragmented.
Fair enough. That explains what Gavotte was doing on the beach. But as was noted below, Ira basically admitted to being the one who got her out of Skin Horse. Whether he had anything to do with inducing her state of swarm is up for grabs, but I doubt it. I think he merely took advantage of it.
We can also be fairly certain that Gavotte knew from the start that getting Nick into Skin Horse in the first place was part of his plan, from her comment on the phone “I’m quite familiar with the sort of gifts you give, you great humbug.” Had she still been with Skin Horse, she might have been able to prevent his abduction. Ira really had to get her out of the way. He just didn’t do it thoroughly enough. So even if he didn’t have anything to do with Gavotte’s being in VR, he still hadn’t planned for her involvement in helping Virginia escape.
“Ira basically admitted to being the one who got her out of Skin Horse. ”
I think that was because Ira has the same attitude towards leadership skills that Gavotte does. What does he lose by admitting something he didn’t do except some truthfulness that’s just a hinderance in the spy profession anyway? I doubt that he wants the war to take place in his lifetime. That seems too malicious for him. He’d probably be just as happy if it never came at all. But he does know who he wants to win and during this “cold war period” he’ll work for that in the same conscienceless way George Smiley worked towards having his side be the winner as well.
Just about everything he’s done lately has had a reason. It’s not necessarily a reason that you or I would like but it wasn’t just “for the evulz” either.
It’s all but canon that Ira did it — he said “Oh well, we’ve dealt with [Gavotte].” Problem is, Ira is/was just a master of puppets but Gavotte is a master of puppetmasters.
Honestly, I think a strong case can be made that we’re dealing with an extended game of Xanatos Speed Chess, here. Ira and Gavotte are generally playing at a level so fast and furious, each incorporating the other’s moves (as well as random input by outside parties), while also having numerous contingencies in place to ensure they don’t get outflanked.
They each have advantages going for them that keep this from being a Mirror-fight, mind you–Ira has his long association with the Shadow Government (giving him absurd-to-obscene resources to draw upon). Gavotte has more wild cards in her corner, though, and also has one key advantage stemming from Ira himself–namely, Ira’s creepy obsession with bedding Virginia.
This latter works in two ways. One, it makes him more likely to make mistakes because his attention is on the wrong thing at the wrong moment. But even more important, it makes him, in a small fashion, predictable. To a master of the game like Gavotte, that creates a window of opportunity, enabling her to pull off victories from seemingly unwinnable setbacks.
The best strategies aren’t perfect point by point things. And those are impractical anyway.
The best plans are mutable, and give you the tools to act or react well to the circumstances you create. And then you throw wrenches into everyone else’s plans, and wait.
Which is another way of saying “Embrace the healing power of ‘And’!”. ^_~
+1
I do so enjoy answering ‘or’ questions with a ‘yes’ when opportunity and accuracy allow.
Hm.
It’s been speculated, by myself and others, that the events of the Very Bad Day were actually engineered by Ira/Mr. Green; that he spoofed the emails to Skin Horse & the Dept of Irradiation so as to bring everything down. I also wondered if Mr Green had manipulated Gavotte with bee pheromones so as to disable her.
But looking at this, and taking into account that Gavotte actually anticipated and wanted the Annex One building to become a giant robot, it occurs to me that it would make sense that the events of the Very Bad Day were in fact engineered by Gavotte with the specific goal of emptying the Annex One building, thus making it a desirable Mad Science lair for Tigerlily, who was presumably the only one with the Mad Science chops to actually turn the building into a walking robot, even though she was lacking the mojo to do so until recently. Presumably Gavotte anticipated Tigerlily getting a mojo recharge eventually.
Is it still the Positronic Love Tower, now that it’s a giant robot?
Hmmm, you might have something there. Based on what we have seen, it is actually kind of hard to imagine Mr. Green engineering all of this, because, frankly, he doesn’t seem to be nearly as intelligent as he thinks he is. Gavotte on the other hand, appears to be a super-genius with exceptional people skills. (Weird to say about a swarm of bees, but there it is.). I could buy Gavotte manipulating Ira/Mr. Green into playing right into her hand (er, wings?)
I would hope that Gavotte is ‘playing’ Green. In conversation she calls him “a great humbug”, ie, he is not what he appears. I have considered that he might actually BE a giant insect, perhaps competing with Gavotte for control of Lovetron.
Annex one didn’t need to be empty for it to become a giant robot. Gavotte could have had any number of plans for getting Tigerlily back there. It was fairly obvious early on that the only way she would get her Mojo back was through Tip, so getting Tigerlily to Annex One while Tip was still working there was probably the first choice. Once she got her Mojo back, it wouldn’t have mattered who thought they ran the building – Tigerlily would have taken over.
I still think that Ira arranged the events of The Very Bad Day to get rid of Skin Horse, and especially to get Gavotte out of the way, since he knows she is his most serious threat. But then it turned out that non-humans (and enhanced humans) were becoming more and more disorganized, so there wasn’t as much of a threat of imminent war, and quite frankly, I think Ira wants the war to happen during his lifetime. So he reinstated Skin Horse to help get the non-humans organized again. He’s appearing less and less intellingent as things progress because he never anticipated that Gavotte and Virginia would ever escape from Extirpation. When that happened, he had no contingencies for it, so it threw him off balance.
To be fair, he had no way of knowing Gavotte was there since she blundered into that one completely on her own. @_@
Care to expand on that?
Remember that “Ari” expressed sincere puzzlement when Virginia mentioned the beach town. Later on, Gavotte explains that she got into the system by trying to investigate it only to have her personality fragmented.
http://skin-horse.com/comic/jumped-oh/
Bottom line is that Gavotte was the one who got Gavotte out of the way by her own mistakes. For better or worse we can’t pin that one on Ira.
Fair enough. That explains what Gavotte was doing on the beach. But as was noted below, Ira basically admitted to being the one who got her out of Skin Horse. Whether he had anything to do with inducing her state of swarm is up for grabs, but I doubt it. I think he merely took advantage of it.
We can also be fairly certain that Gavotte knew from the start that getting Nick into Skin Horse in the first place was part of his plan, from her comment on the phone “I’m quite familiar with the sort of gifts you give, you great humbug.” Had she still been with Skin Horse, she might have been able to prevent his abduction. Ira really had to get her out of the way. He just didn’t do it thoroughly enough. So even if he didn’t have anything to do with Gavotte’s being in VR, he still hadn’t planned for her involvement in helping Virginia escape.
“Ira basically admitted to being the one who got her out of Skin Horse. ”
I think that was because Ira has the same attitude towards leadership skills that Gavotte does. What does he lose by admitting something he didn’t do except some truthfulness that’s just a hinderance in the spy profession anyway? I doubt that he wants the war to take place in his lifetime. That seems too malicious for him. He’d probably be just as happy if it never came at all. But he does know who he wants to win and during this “cold war period” he’ll work for that in the same conscienceless way George Smiley worked towards having his side be the winner as well.
I think Ira wants the war to happen in his lifetime because he’s so arrogant that he believes that is the only way that his “side” will win.
“That seems too malicious for him.”
Have you noticed anything he’s been doing lately? There is nothing that is too malicious for him.
Just about everything he’s done lately has had a reason. It’s not necessarily a reason that you or I would like but it wasn’t just “for the evulz” either.
It’s all but canon that Ira did it — he said “Oh well, we’ve dealt with [Gavotte].” Problem is, Ira is/was just a master of puppets but Gavotte is a master of puppetmasters.
Honestly, I think a strong case can be made that we’re dealing with an extended game of Xanatos Speed Chess, here. Ira and Gavotte are generally playing at a level so fast and furious, each incorporating the other’s moves (as well as random input by outside parties), while also having numerous contingencies in place to ensure they don’t get outflanked.
They each have advantages going for them that keep this from being a Mirror-fight, mind you–Ira has his long association with the Shadow Government (giving him absurd-to-obscene resources to draw upon). Gavotte has more wild cards in her corner, though, and also has one key advantage stemming from Ira himself–namely, Ira’s creepy obsession with bedding Virginia.
This latter works in two ways. One, it makes him more likely to make mistakes because his attention is on the wrong thing at the wrong moment. But even more important, it makes him, in a small fashion, predictable. To a master of the game like Gavotte, that creates a window of opportunity, enabling her to pull off victories from seemingly unwinnable setbacks.
The best strategies aren’t perfect point by point things. And those are impractical anyway.
The best plans are mutable, and give you the tools to act or react well to the circumstances you create. And then you throw wrenches into everyone else’s plans, and wait.
Or, to quote Terry Pratchett, an intelligent man plans, but a wise man steers.
(Before you ask, that’s from Making Money, I believe.)
It was the plan. And don’t call her Shirley.
I can’t see into the future as well as some, but I’m guessing that the next step of the plan will be a big one… with Annex One striding around…
One small step for Skin Horse, one giant leap for Annex One!
I think you got that backwards. One small step for Annex One would be a giant leap for anyone else.
In that last panel, I do believe Sweetheart made the transition from “bark, bark, bark” to a world weary and cynical “snark, snark snark.”
Seriously, her expression so clearly says she’s done with this $#!^.
Sweetheart is starting to use sarcasm again. That’s proof she’s recovering from her instincts.
Referenced comic: http://skin-horse.com/comic/fewer-people/
Eh, everything always turns out to be according to plan.