Is Ira immune to bee stings? I see exposed hands and face.
Does Virginia think she’s in a video game? Why should the “next wave” not be scared off by bees? Unless they learned and put on hazmat suits or similar body envelopes, of course.
I like the hamsters, and even Artie ended up having to concede the point that the world would be better run under them, but I don’t think they’d be as distracted by a human female as Mr. Green has been nor necessarily be as good at social interactions as he is. (Note that this is not an endorsement of Mr. Green’s overall skill at social interactions! :P).
But the Hamster human suits require multiple hamsters to crew them and what are the odds that 12 or 16 hamsters would all have a thing for Ginny? Without fighting one another over it? One or two, maybe. But that many all at once? o_O
More to the point is that Mr. Green has been consistently pro-human from start to finish is both word and deed while the hamsters have been quite the opposite. Hence the reason why I as a human would feel obliged to oppose them in spite of their excellent taste in politics. (With them I’m always reminded of Sarah Hoyt’s blog slogan of “Taking over the world and leaving it ruthlessly alone!”). I could see them forming a close alliance with H.T. because it would be a matter of indifference to him as to who runs the world so long as they were living animals and it would be a matter of indifference to them as to who ran the world so long as it was nonhumans who ran it along libertarian lines. ^_^
That didn’t work out too well for Nick or Sweetheart, though it did for Captain Waters. Though it did okay for Mr. Green until he tried to blow up St. Charlie with it…
I think she’s assuming that A-Sig is competent enough that their reaction to “All our guards have been scared off by bees” won’t be “Send in more guards who are scared of bees and see what happens”. (At least, not if Mr Green has decided that actually stopping her is more important than any amusement value he might find in doing that.)
Virginia is (ex-)Anasigma; she knows the security protocols to a T, and thus knows to a reasonable degree how Anasigma will deal with a threat of this sort.
Of course, she might not have expected Mr. Green at this point.
Gavotte probably is, but she and Virginia may have already parted ways before IRA came into view. Yes, that would be foolish, since they would be smarter to stay together, but then Virginia hasn’t exactly been batting 1000 with the good decisions.
I expect Gavotte is conducting a rear-guard action to slow pursuit and will catch up with Virginia shortly. But if Ginny asks Ira’s help, will her earnest winsomness melt his heart? He did tell Nick that in many ways he was more Ira than Ari…
I think we’re overlooking the possibility that Virginia knows perfectly well who she is confronting and is trying to play _his_ ignorance of what _she_ knows about him to her advantage. Otherwise she would have chosen to address him as someone other than the forgetful Skinhorse security guard.
I expect Gavotte has gone on ahead via a different route (possibly a shortcut through the ventilation system), since she said in the first panel “I’ll clear an exit.” So she won’t “catch up” with Virginia unless she comes back for her.
Wearing nothing but a pair stolen scrubs caked with bioazardous waste, while cradling a possibly dying but most likely (reversibly?) dead human brain encased in meltiing gelatin (it’s one of your dearest friends, for what it’s worth) with your bare viscera-caked hands, while escaping a hostile and malevolent bureaucracy on foot, you’re confronted by a former coworker who is at best warped, possibly delusional, and potentially psychotic. Dr. Virginia Lee has an interesting life, to say the least
Narrativium is certainly a thing, but I have to ask…once Virginia get’s his brain back on life support, revivified/reanimated if necessary, and wired into some type of
sensorimotor Input/output- what’s the likelihood that who/what wakes up will be both sane and still meaningfully Nick Zanacker?
As you point out, the issue of brain survival was thoroughly addressed by the “DARPA grade” plotonium. There’s an entirely reasonable answer to your question, but it’s classified. Madness is not a prerequisite to understanding the answer, but it is the normal consequence of it.
Actually I like your idea. The DARPA preservative not only nourishes Nick’s brain and prevents psychological damage due to lack of stimulus, it provides him with an environment that goes beyond merely prevention of sensory deprivation damage, to fixing suffering that existed in in his real-life environment, as well as correcting the odd bad habit that prevented our darling Nick from attaining the level of perfection of which he was capable. But most of all, in whatever precious moments Nick has left before he and the only substance that ever truly loved him are consummated in a 1500 degree Celsius blaze of glory in the incinerator, the preservative has given him the opportunity to experience the bliss of unconditional requited love and cured him forever of his miserable longing for that woman whose character perhaps only Nick in his unreformed days could have fittingly described. And — oh God what is this organism that the preservative’s nanoreceptors have detected molesting our outer membrane? Lady, we’re a preservative. We preserve. We don’t, for example, use our DNA sequencing and analysis to generate a slurry of individually targeted topical viruses that would kill you in ten minutes if not for the substrate of exotic contact poisons that would kill you in less than one, even though we have already worked out every last nucleotide. If we can help it then Nick will survive so you can speak to him. But you aren’t going to like what he has to say.
(Funny thing about Skin Horse, like Family Circus its fan fiction universe objectively and inevitably occupies a different genre from the strip itself. In this case it seems the genre is cheesy stories of insanely overattached women. It probably says something about whoever wrote it, so you’ll have to ask Shaenon and Jeff why that happens. Or maybe Pancha — maybe she has discovered a way to color a comic so as to subvert its message to personal nefarious ends.)
None of which is necessarily relevant to anything. It’s quite likely that he owns several ties. And while the glasses may have been reading glasses, it’s possible that the glasses were only ever for looks. You can get costume glasses from the dime store (or on Amazon).
They appear to be half-frame reading glasses, the kind you can look over the top of. Ira/Ari is old, and he’s the type who would use old-fashioned reading glasses.
This has nothing to do with his finding her attractive. He is merely expressing (no doubt facetiously) his thoughts on her unwittingly referring to him as “a truly formidable presence.”
I dunno. He does seem to be eyeing the brain in that last panel as he speaks so it might be that you were closer to it the first time. More likely though it’s that the fact that she is holding Nick’s brain is forcing him into tactical analysis and planning mode even as he continues to speak. ^_^
Ira, smooth as apple pie, ya.
Smoother than Lee can know.
He’s out, in the open daylight,
Of dates, he’s spoken, as Dr. Ao.
Seems as though she can’t get past ya.
Hasten, please, Gavotte, do,
‘Cause Ira, you terrify her,
You scare her, ‘deed you do.
So, when nick gets back into a body, how long before he attempts to swear again and will someone have remembered to install a filter on him beforehand or will we get a lovely @%#$? Taking bets now lol.
Depends on whether the filter was part of the helicopter hardware/software, or if it was built into the cybernetics that are still attached to his brain.
Is Ira immune to bee stings? I see exposed hands and face.
Does Virginia think she’s in a video game? Why should the “next wave” not be scared off by bees? Unless they learned and put on hazmat suits or similar body envelopes, of course.
Of course, my guess that Mr. Green is a bunch of wasps or something wearing a human suit would mean that he is indeed immune to stings.
After re-reading Narbonic, it wouldn’t surprise me if Mr. Green was the most recent suit used by one or more of the sociopathic Objectivist hamsters.
I like the hamsters, and even Artie ended up having to concede the point that the world would be better run under them, but I don’t think they’d be as distracted by a human female as Mr. Green has been nor necessarily be as good at social interactions as he is. (Note that this is not an endorsement of Mr. Green’s overall skill at social interactions! :P).
Nor does Green being distracted human women necessarily mean that he is human himself—Artie is plenty distracted by human men.
But the Hamster human suits require multiple hamsters to crew them and what are the odds that 12 or 16 hamsters would all have a thing for Ginny? Without fighting one another over it? One or two, maybe. But that many all at once? o_O
More to the point is that Mr. Green has been consistently pro-human from start to finish is both word and deed while the hamsters have been quite the opposite. Hence the reason why I as a human would feel obliged to oppose them in spite of their excellent taste in politics. (With them I’m always reminded of Sarah Hoyt’s blog slogan of “Taking over the world and leaving it ruthlessly alone!”). I could see them forming a close alliance with H.T. because it would be a matter of indifference to him as to who runs the world so long as they were living animals and it would be a matter of indifference to them as to who ran the world so long as it was nonhumans who ran it along libertarian lines. ^_^
WOULD YOU KINDLY not give the authors terrible ideas? (hands you a golf club)
That didn’t work out too well for Nick or Sweetheart, though it did for Captain Waters. Though it did okay for Mr. Green until he tried to blow up St. Charlie with it…
I think she’s assuming that A-Sig is competent enough that their reaction to “All our guards have been scared off by bees” won’t be “Send in more guards who are scared of bees and see what happens”. (At least, not if Mr Green has decided that actually stopping her is more important than any amusement value he might find in doing that.)
Virginia is (ex-)Anasigma; she knows the security protocols to a T, and thus knows to a reasonable degree how Anasigma will deal with a threat of this sort.
Of course, she might not have expected Mr. Green at this point.
She always wondered why Anasigma’s standard threat response protocols mandated bee immunity for second-wave guards and up.
Virginia is unaware of Ira’s true identity, isn’t she?
But I’d expect Gavotte to be savvy…
Gavotte probably is, but she and Virginia may have already parted ways before IRA came into view. Yes, that would be foolish, since they would be smarter to stay together, but then Virginia hasn’t exactly been batting 1000 with the good decisions.
I expect Gavotte is conducting a rear-guard action to slow pursuit and will catch up with Virginia shortly. But if Ginny asks Ira’s help, will her earnest winsomness melt his heart? He did tell Nick that in many ways he was more Ira than Ari…
I think we’re overlooking the possibility that Virginia knows perfectly well who she is confronting and is trying to play _his_ ignorance of what _she_ knows about him to her advantage. Otherwise she would have chosen to address him as someone other than the forgetful Skinhorse security guard.
It wouldn’t surprise me. He always did have a soft spot in his heart and a soft spot in head where she was concerned. ^_^
I expect Gavotte has gone on ahead via a different route (possibly a shortcut through the ventilation system), since she said in the first panel “I’ll clear an exit.” So she won’t “catch up” with Virginia unless she comes back for her.
Wearing nothing but a pair stolen scrubs caked with bioazardous waste, while cradling a possibly dying but most likely (reversibly?) dead human brain encased in meltiing gelatin (it’s one of your dearest friends, for what it’s worth) with your bare viscera-caked hands, while escaping a hostile and malevolent bureaucracy on foot, you’re confronted by a former coworker who is at best warped, possibly delusional, and potentially psychotic. Dr. Virginia Lee has an interesting life, to say the least
Narrativium is certainly a thing, but I have to ask…once Virginia get’s his brain back on life support, revivified/reanimated if necessary, and wired into some type of
sensorimotor Input/output- what’s the likelihood that who/what wakes up will be both sane and still meaningfully Nick Zanacker?
As you point out, the issue of brain survival was thoroughly addressed by the “DARPA grade” plotonium. There’s an entirely reasonable answer to your question, but it’s classified. Madness is not a prerequisite to understanding the answer, but it is the normal consequence of it.
Actually I like your idea. The DARPA preservative not only nourishes Nick’s brain and prevents psychological damage due to lack of stimulus, it provides him with an environment that goes beyond merely prevention of sensory deprivation damage, to fixing suffering that existed in in his real-life environment, as well as correcting the odd bad habit that prevented our darling Nick from attaining the level of perfection of which he was capable. But most of all, in whatever precious moments Nick has left before he and the only substance that ever truly loved him are consummated in a 1500 degree Celsius blaze of glory in the incinerator, the preservative has given him the opportunity to experience the bliss of unconditional requited love and cured him forever of his miserable longing for that woman whose character perhaps only Nick in his unreformed days could have fittingly described. And — oh God what is this organism that the preservative’s nanoreceptors have detected molesting our outer membrane? Lady, we’re a preservative. We preserve. We don’t, for example, use our DNA sequencing and analysis to generate a slurry of individually targeted topical viruses that would kill you in ten minutes if not for the substrate of exotic contact poisons that would kill you in less than one, even though we have already worked out every last nucleotide. If we can help it then Nick will survive so you can speak to him. But you aren’t going to like what he has to say.
(Funny thing about Skin Horse, like Family Circus its fan fiction universe objectively and inevitably occupies a different genre from the strip itself. In this case it seems the genre is cheesy stories of insanely overattached women. It probably says something about whoever wrote it, so you’ll have to ask Shaenon and Jeff why that happens. Or maybe Pancha — maybe she has discovered a way to color a comic so as to subvert its message to personal nefarious ends.)
I just scrolled back and checked.
Ira wore a black tie and glasses.
Mr. Green doesn’t wear glasses, and has a green tie. Contacts? Or were they always just reading glasses?
None of which is necessarily relevant to anything. It’s quite likely that he owns several ties. And while the glasses may have been reading glasses, it’s possible that the glasses were only ever for looks. You can get costume glasses from the dime store (or on Amazon).
They appear to be half-frame reading glasses, the kind you can look over the top of. Ira/Ari is old, and he’s the type who would use old-fashioned reading glasses.
Take off the emerald glasses, and you’ll see that the wizard was green all along.
Yeah… Captain Amazing and Lance Hunt CANT be the same person. Glasses!
Well, she isn’t wrong. ^_^
I’m a bit confused. Is he finding her more attractive with the biowaste? Or just the brain?
This has nothing to do with his finding her attractive. He is merely expressing (no doubt facetiously) his thoughts on her unwittingly referring to him as “a truly formidable presence.”
Yeh, as Awgie said, he’s refering to the “compliment”, not to her~
Ah. That makes more sense. I forgot that he is self-obsessed. Thanks!
I dunno. He does seem to be eyeing the brain in that last panel as he speaks so it might be that you were closer to it the first time. More likely though it’s that the fact that she is holding Nick’s brain is forcing him into tactical analysis and planning mode even as he continues to speak. ^_^
More like looking nowhere in particular as he makes that last comment mostly to himself.
Oooh, boss fight!
So will Ira do time-honored tradition of bosses monologue their live story or their plan here?
The Wizard of a big too genre-savvy for that. He’ll talk just long enough for the security cannons to come online.
Could be Ira piloting a remote controlled robot version of himself. With nose lasers and chainsaw knees.
She thought she was in deep stuff before… but now…
The look on her face suggests that he knows perfectly well who he is.
I’m sure Ira knows perfectly well who he is.
In that regard he seems to have done a better job then most of the skin horse cast members have. ^_~
Ira, smooth as apple pie, ya.
Smoother than Lee can know.
He’s out, in the open daylight,
Of dates, he’s spoken, as Dr. Ao.
Seems as though she can’t get past ya.
Hasten, please, Gavotte, do,
‘Cause Ira, you terrify her,
You scare her, ‘deed you do.
By the bye, I see Dr. Lee *did* put some pants on, after all.
And got a clothing color change that should probably have happened on Nov 17th after she went to change on Nov 16th.
So, when nick gets back into a body, how long before he attempts to swear again and will someone have remembered to install a filter on him beforehand or will we get a lovely @%#$? Taking bets now lol.
Depends on whether the filter was part of the helicopter hardware/software, or if it was built into the cybernetics that are still attached to his brain.