“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. — Upton Sinclair
Adjusting for gender, this might explain Virginia’s particular flavor of reality blindness. For her it’s likely not the salary per se but the kind of work she wanted to do, that caused her to more or less tune out the implications of what her work was being used for.
She’s not totally blind, with varying degrees of awareness from “I think I’m technically evil” to identifying with Sycorax. And she’s not with Anasigma any more, of course. But it’s evident she’s still compartmentalized a lot of her experience there.
Well, when you are completely and literally isolated from the rest of the universe, it’s understandable to believe what you are told
Look at it from their view: think of how much time, effort and resources (people and machines) it would take to manually mine a planet, compared to blowing it up and sifting through the rubble
The people at The Maw never got to leave or know what the Death Star or Starkiller (and fairly sure they would have had a different name for them) were actually used for
Remember, Nobel invented dynamite as a peaceful aid for mining, he had no way of knowing what it would eventually be used for
Given her neuroscience specialization and role in Unity and NIck’s programs, it seems likely her function was to suppress the soldiers free will so they could more easily be enslaved and controlled. That and picking out the color.
She is a cyberneticist. She undoubtedly had something to do with tying their armour into their nervous system. Maybe like installing little sub-dermal micro transmitters and sensors so they can actually remove their armour and take a shower once in a while. She may be evil, but she still values good hygiene.
Dr. Lee is a scientist, and possibly not altogether sane, but she’s something stranger and more rare than a mere mad scientist.
See, “mad scientist” is a misnomer. They’re not pushing the boundaries of sapient understanding through reproducible experiments. They’re doing the impossible through means they barely grasp and no one else can reproduce. What they’re doing isn’t science; it’s magic. They’re not scientists; they’re wizards whose trappings are technology.
Dr. Lee is uniquely capable of taking the magical devices mad scientists produce and figuring out how they work so that they can be reproduced by non-wizards. She turns mad science into just plain science.
Agatha Heterodyne tells us that any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. Dr. Lee doesn’t do magic. She does the analysis.
At times like this Virginia reminds me of the not even slightly mad scientist who’s the main character in The Leaky Establishment by David Langford. He works for a nuclear weapons development lab. And he gets up in the morning by working as hard as possible to avoid thinking about why he works for a nuclear weapons development lab, and what a nuclear weapons development lab actually does. He just focuses on interesting applications of atomic physics, and pretends the rest of it isn’t happening.
(Depending on your definition of mad scientist, you could apply the term to either those of his colleagues who do think about what they’re doing, are horrifyingly enthusiastic about doing so, and use terms like “megakills”, or to the one who campaigns to get the whole place shut down and is secretly building a reactor under his house. Neither of these are exactly mad scientists in the Skin Horse sense, though, although the latter comes close.)
Yes, that sounds exactly like Dr. Lee. She is so focused on the pixels (the tech she’s building) that she doesn’t see the entire picture (the why she’s building the tech).
Now that she’s out of A-Sig’s lab, she’s getting her face shoved into the picture. If she wasn’t mad before, this little adventure might drive her over the edge. Which makes me fear for Nick, now that I think about it.
As it happens, I worked for a time at the same Establishment, as of course did Dave Langford some time before me. During my period a major activity was actually dismantling and disposing of weapons: also, my efforts were more directed towards maintaining the infrastructure (including fixing leaky taps and replacing dud lightbulbs), so I wasn’t required to display mad genius and, honestly, didn’t feel any angst about the work.
The Hoverboard Disambiguation Committee disagrees with the Department of Jetpack Suppression’s improper classification of repulsion-and-antigravity-based levitation platforms as “Jetpacks.”
Allegory for what, the Manhattan Project? “Once the rockets go up, who cares where they go down? It’s not my department” Nazi scientists? (Von Braun wasn’t naive about the uses of his rockets, from what I understand, he just didn’t care.)
I think the general consensus among scientists working on the Manhattan Project was something along the lines of, “if the good guys didn’t get nukes first, the bad guys will be the first to use them.”
I don’t remember if Feynman agreed or disagreed with this philosophy. If he mentioned it at all in his memiors, it was in passing between more pressing details like how he cracked top-secret safes and and annoyed 5-star generals.
“No it ISN’T! It’s a subtle variant on Hunter Green called Olive Of Doom!”
“Can confirm that the fabric those guys were wearing was a little off-color for Hunter Green. It also clashed with their laser-eyes. Impressive thread count though.”
Virginia, you are so naïve it’s adorable.
She’s adorable for *many* reasons.
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it”. — Upton Sinclair
Adjusting for gender, this might explain Virginia’s particular flavor of reality blindness. For her it’s likely not the salary per se but the kind of work she wanted to do, that caused her to more or less tune out the implications of what her work was being used for.
She’s not totally blind, with varying degrees of awareness from “I think I’m technically evil” to identifying with Sycorax. And she’s not with Anasigma any more, of course. But it’s evident she’s still compartmentalized a lot of her experience there.
Wait you mean all that stuff was meant to be taken at face value?
I thought she was *joking* all this time! Defensive humor about the horrible company she worked for!
Like how The Maw research facility in old Star Wars EU thought that it was turning out useful stuff for use on uninhabited planets and star systems.
Boy oh boy, have I been there.
Wow.
What were those uninhabited planets and star systems like?
Well, when you are completely and literally isolated from the rest of the universe, it’s understandable to believe what you are told
Look at it from their view: think of how much time, effort and resources (people and machines) it would take to manually mine a planet, compared to blowing it up and sifting through the rubble
The people at The Maw never got to leave or know what the Death Star or Starkiller (and fairly sure they would have had a different name for them) were actually used for
Remember, Nobel invented dynamite as a peaceful aid for mining, he had no way of knowing what it would eventually be used for
Can I get panel 3 as a t-shirt?
I was thinking coffee mug, but yeah.
Let’s hope the safe phrase is “Avocado Blintz”…
Emerald City denizens.
Neat connection! Or maybe Mr. Green’s shock troops? Or just because green=environmentally friendly? (“We plug ’em, you plant ’em!”)
“I thought it was meant to be an ironic name!”
What’s the pastry equivalent of ‘You’re just a pack of cards!’
Strudel?
You know what? I looked back a few strips, and it really is a nice shade. Good job, doc.
Given her neuroscience specialization and role in Unity and NIck’s programs, it seems likely her function was to suppress the soldiers free will so they could more easily be enslaved and controlled. That and picking out the color.
She is a cyberneticist. She undoubtedly had something to do with tying their armour into their nervous system. Maybe like installing little sub-dermal micro transmitters and sensors so they can actually remove their armour and take a shower once in a while. She may be evil, but she still values good hygiene.
…. How are we not classing Dr Lee as a mad scientist, again?
I know we had a reason, but then there are moments like this when I can’t seem to remember it.
Her science is reproducible by non-mad scientists.
She is somewhat mad, and definitely a genius scientist, but that is not enough to be a ‘Mad Scientist’.
Pretty sure that just makes her a more successful mad scientist. Reality stays warped where she’s gone.
She’s a Gageteer, not a Deviser
Dr. Lee is a scientist, and possibly not altogether sane, but she’s something stranger and more rare than a mere mad scientist.
See, “mad scientist” is a misnomer. They’re not pushing the boundaries of sapient understanding through reproducible experiments. They’re doing the impossible through means they barely grasp and no one else can reproduce. What they’re doing isn’t science; it’s magic. They’re not scientists; they’re wizards whose trappings are technology.
Dr. Lee is uniquely capable of taking the magical devices mad scientists produce and figuring out how they work so that they can be reproduced by non-wizards. She turns mad science into just plain science.
Agatha Heterodyne tells us that any sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science. Dr. Lee doesn’t do magic. She does the analysis.
At times like this Virginia reminds me of the not even slightly mad scientist who’s the main character in The Leaky Establishment by David Langford. He works for a nuclear weapons development lab. And he gets up in the morning by working as hard as possible to avoid thinking about why he works for a nuclear weapons development lab, and what a nuclear weapons development lab actually does. He just focuses on interesting applications of atomic physics, and pretends the rest of it isn’t happening.
(Depending on your definition of mad scientist, you could apply the term to either those of his colleagues who do think about what they’re doing, are horrifyingly enthusiastic about doing so, and use terms like “megakills”, or to the one who campaigns to get the whole place shut down and is secretly building a reactor under his house. Neither of these are exactly mad scientists in the Skin Horse sense, though, although the latter comes close.)
Yes, that sounds exactly like Dr. Lee. She is so focused on the pixels (the tech she’s building) that she doesn’t see the entire picture (the why she’s building the tech).
Now that she’s out of A-Sig’s lab, she’s getting her face shoved into the picture. If she wasn’t mad before, this little adventure might drive her over the edge. Which makes me fear for Nick, now that I think about it.
As it happens, I worked for a time at the same Establishment, as of course did Dave Langford some time before me. During my period a major activity was actually dismantling and disposing of weapons: also, my efforts were more directed towards maintaining the infrastructure (including fixing leaky taps and replacing dud lightbulbs), so I wasn’t required to display mad genius and, honestly, didn’t feel any angst about the work.
Do these green soldiers have the big flat pad connecting their feet? Because that would really be awkward.
Makes it really hard to run away. You can only “wobble” away.
Joke’s on you, it’s actually a flying platform hoverboard thing.
The Department of Jetpack Suppression won’t let them have those.
The Hoverboard Disambiguation Committee disagrees with the Department of Jetpack Suppression’s improper classification of repulsion-and-antigravity-based levitation platforms as “Jetpacks.”
An elegant blend of art… science… and wanton destruction.
this isn’t a very subtle allegory is it
Allegory for what, the Manhattan Project? “Once the rockets go up, who cares where they go down? It’s not my department” Nazi scientists? (Von Braun wasn’t naive about the uses of his rockets, from what I understand, he just didn’t care.)
I think the general consensus among scientists working on the Manhattan Project was something along the lines of, “if the good guys didn’t get nukes first, the bad guys will be the first to use them.”
I don’t remember if Feynman agreed or disagreed with this philosophy. If he mentioned it at all in his memiors, it was in passing between more pressing details like how he cracked top-secret safes and and annoyed 5-star generals.
Maybe they’re new green recruits.
Every so often, a character gets a sentence which encapsulates them wonderfully, and today, Virginia Lee gets hers.
Virginia Lee has gotten hers literally every time she talks about work.
Also, it’s Dr. Virginia Lee. She didn’t spent 6 years at Evil Medical School to become thank you very much.
I hope Virginia installed an override command in these cybernetics as well. “Pistachio ice cream” perhaps?
“It’s literally called Hunter Green!”
“No it ISN’T! It’s a subtle variant on Hunter Green called Olive Of Doom!”
“Can confirm that the fabric those guys were wearing was a little off-color for Hunter Green. It also clashed with their laser-eyes. Impressive thread count though.”