Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2014-06-24
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2014-06-24

by shaenon on June 24, 2014 at 12:01 am
Chapter: The Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day
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Discussion (49) ¬

  1. ngmatt8652
    June 24, 2014, 12:03 am | # | Reply

    I doubt she planed for this

    • Hadashi
      June 24, 2014, 12:55 pm | # | Reply

      Another assault on our dwindling bee population by an aircraft!

      A high-pitched sonic weapon really would do a number on bugs. Now they just have to scoop her up and put her back in her chair or something.

      • robertnowall
        June 24, 2014, 6:10 pm | # | Reply

        Smelling salts?

  2. Burning
    June 24, 2014, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    Does Gavotte understand Biscuit’s thought processes?

  3. Windy Wanderings
    June 24, 2014, 12:08 am | # | Reply

    Sweetheart’s face in panel three is what really sells it.

  4. Towering Barbarian
    June 24, 2014, 12:15 am | # | Reply

    “Lead on McDuff”? Either Gavotte was very brave (Gambled that she could survive what happened and could rely on her staff to revive her!) or very stupid (i.e. she’s stopped thinking of herself as “bugs” as well!). @_@

    • Norman
      June 24, 2014, 12:34 am | # | Reply

      The sonic weapon did nothing to her. She was critically embarrassed that she misquoted Shakespeare. ^_^

    • Frank Hightower
      June 24, 2014, 10:56 am | # | Reply

      or she’s so bestupefied she was wondering “Reconfig? Sonic weapon? Take out? Cilantro? That must be soemthing good, let’s go for it!”

  5. Saberbeam
    June 24, 2014, 12:36 am | # | Reply

    In response to Guesticus on Sunday, Nuku Nuku is a character from an anime (late response I know, but anime!) You could read the Wikipedia summary, or but I would recommend watching the trailer, as it will sum things up in a much more entertaining, albiet more befuddling manner. I haven’t seen it myself, it looks to be loads of potential fun.

  6. Robert Nowall
    June 24, 2014, 1:23 am | # | Reply

    That’s gonna look real good on the mission report.

    • Dr. Steve
      June 24, 2014, 8:31 am | # | Reply

      Ah, the mission report will be highly sanitized for readers at the ultra-violet level. Something along the lines of: Today’s activities included reviewing files, catching up on paperwork, equipment maintenance, team-building exercise…

      • Frank Hightower
        June 24, 2014, 10:57 am | # | Reply

        And a highly-realistic fire drill!

      • Shadowmehr
        June 24, 2014, 7:32 pm | # | Reply

        Somehow, I get the feeling that kind of “sanitization” comprises most of their reports to the higher-ups. They probably don’t want to admit to most of what they have to/need to/get up to in the field, and the brass probably appreciates that fact.

  7. BRGR
    June 24, 2014, 2:30 am | # | Reply

    A remotely deployable sonic weapon against bugs would save a million of lives per year.

    • orcurrentresident
      June 24, 2014, 5:19 am | # | Reply

      Malaria, crop damage (no pesticides!), mosquitoes, whoa.

      • Frank Hightower
        June 24, 2014, 10:59 am | # | Reply

        Malaria is spread by mosquitoes, which are the polinizers in areas where bees… er… didn’t evolve

        • orcurrentresident
          June 24, 2014, 3:56 pm | # | Reply

          But if it affects termites and other bugs…

    • Barking Monkey
      June 24, 2014, 6:31 am | # | Reply

      I suspect indiscriminately wiping out a massive, basal, level of the ecosystem, even locally, would have pretty bad consequences for the human race.

    • jdreyfuss
      June 24, 2014, 6:57 am | # | Reply

      It would make virtually no ecological or economic sense. As monkey said, if it’s too broad, species-wise, you’d do irreparable damage to the local ecosystem. It would also wipe out the pollinating species alongside the pest species for your crops if you tried to use it as a pesticide.

      Even if you managed to confine it to a single species, how would you focus the sound on a single area without doing the kind of massive soil damage that would both cause landslides and ruin your crops?

      Finally, if you wanted to use it to reduce malaria and yellow fever, you’d have to penetrate water and swampy soil, so you’d have to either make it extremely loud, in which case it would do the kind of indiscriminate damage noted above, or focused to the point of being basically a sonic laser, in which case you’d boil the swamp like you were shooting microwaves at it.

      • orcurrentresident
        June 24, 2014, 4:03 pm | # | Reply

        For malaria and yellow fever just use it in houses and buildings or for personal protection.

        Boil swamp? This weapon doesn’t look like it’s boiling anything.

        • jdreyfuss
          June 24, 2014, 8:01 pm | # | Reply

          Note that I said you’d have to focus the sound with a parabolic resonator until it was essentially a sonic laser and that would boil the swamp, not that the weapon in its current state would. I said that in its current state it would be too indiscriminate to be effective without destroying the ecosystem.

  8. vicka
    June 24, 2014, 4:57 am | # | Reply

    panel 3 is brilliant. brava pancha!

  9. grantwhyGrantwhy
    June 24, 2014, 5:36 am | # | Reply

    ok. I’ll bite (or nibble)

    When did Nick get the nickname ‘Biscuit’?

    • jdreyfuss
      June 24, 2014, 6:58 am | # | Reply

      Unity called him that for a while when they first met.

      • Andy4Hire
        June 24, 2014, 11:33 am | # | Reply

        OK, next question: When did Gavotte find out Nick’s nick(ha!)name was “Biscuit”?

        • Frank Hightower
          June 24, 2014, 12:06 pm | # | Reply

          I’m guessing she read Biscuit is Cross and decided to give her a nickname of her own, oblivious to whether unity had done it

          …then again this is Gavotte we’re talking about

        • ackthp
          June 24, 2014, 3:26 pm | # | Reply

          It’s a subtle clue — apparent confirmation that Nick is bugged and Gavotte listened in.

          Now I’m split between two theories — the original one, that the team was attacked by a godlike intelligence higher up in the bureaucracy while Gavotte was handicapped, or that it’s a regular comedy of errors and the only invisible enemy is the writers.

          • ariela
            June 24, 2014, 6:30 pm | #

            Link to the “Biscuit” strips: http://www.webcomicsnation.com/shaenongarrity/skinhorse/series.php?view=archive&chapter=33572

            Maybe Unity insisted that the mission report include the name “Biscuit”. I hadn’t even thought that Gavotte might bug Nick. Now that ackthp mentions it, the idea does seem in-character!

            I notice that all of the “nice names” Unity comes up with are food related. Maybe she got that tendency from her creator…

    • Frank Hightower
      June 24, 2014, 11:12 am | # | Reply

      Nick’s first appearance

      also c.f. Biscuit

  10. matt w
    June 24, 2014, 6:51 am | # | Reply

    Under the circumstances, this seems like it might be a feature, not a… bug.

    Ghod, I didn’t even plan that.

    • GammarayCanon
      June 24, 2014, 7:34 am | # | Reply

      It’s a Bug with features!

  11. matt w
    June 24, 2014, 6:52 am | # | Reply

    Pretty much as soon as Unity met him, in the original “I Can Fly” storyline.

    • matt w
      June 24, 2014, 6:52 am | # | Reply

      Oops, that’s a reply to GrantWhy.

  12. Eddurd
    June 24, 2014, 6:59 am | # | Reply

    (TUNE: “A Bushel And A Peck” from Guys And Dolls, Frank Loesser)

    I forgot,
    My boss is made of bug!
    My boss is made of bug, and the noise is like a drug,
    Noise is like a drug, she was flattened by the sound!
    Flattened by the sound, though she’s wig-gl-ing around,
    She’ll come to … (She’ll come to-oo …)
    ‘Cause I forgot,
    My boss is made of bug!
    I’d give her such a hug or two!

     If I do, a sting’ll
     Hurt, it wouldn’t tingle!
     That is not a thing I’ll
     Do!

    • Tom Flapwell
      June 24, 2014, 4:37 pm | # | Reply

      I don’t know how you think of these things, Ed!

  13. Eddurd
    June 24, 2014, 7:02 am | # | Reply

    I also re-posted yesterday’s filk, which for some reason didn’t show up.

  14. Eddddd
    June 24, 2014, 7:34 am | # | Reply

    Random thought: sweethearts voice. I’ve always pictured (heard? ) her with the highest voice of the three, like how Japanese women talk. Unity with a lower voice. What does anyone else think?

    • Frank Hightower
      June 24, 2014, 12:09 pm | # | Reply

      Funny. I’ve always imagined it more as “jazz singer with canadian accent”

    • Shadowmehr
      June 24, 2014, 7:35 pm | # | Reply

      I’ve always heard her in my mind more as a very formal librarian; highly educated, precisely intoned, and trying very hard to suppress her native accent. The Canadian probably slips out during stressful moments (like when yelling at U.N.I.T.Y.)

  15. Guesticus
    June 24, 2014, 9:41 am | # | Reply

    Eddddd: just remember, Sweetie is a Canucklehead

  16. Blue Wonder
    June 24, 2014, 10:03 am | # | Reply

    Gavotte finally gets taken down a peg.

  17. Samuel Vimes
    June 24, 2014, 11:30 am | # | Reply

    One would have thought Gavotte knew better than to misquote Shakespeare.

  18. Bruceski
    June 24, 2014, 1:48 pm | # | Reply

    See Nick? This is what happens when you’re not speciest!

  19. Rex Vivat
    June 24, 2014, 5:14 pm | # | Reply

    «”Captain Wilkin,” said the dog. It had a rough but unmistakably feminine voice.» From the filename story.
    There’s also a description of Tip’s voice:
    «And then a new voice, low and musical like a clarinet that would rather be off getting a fancy drink, […]»
    But there isn’t a description of Unity’s (yet).

    • Rex Vivat
      June 24, 2014, 5:15 pm | # | Reply

      crap, that was a response to Eddddd.

      • Eddddd
        June 24, 2014, 10:25 pm | # | Reply

        Well now I know.

        Hm well that’s what I thought for tip, but I guess not on sweetheart

  20. Rex Vivat
    June 24, 2014, 5:16 pm | # | Reply

    Oh hell, the silverfish and the centipedes. The Crystal Entities are going to take this as an act of war, aren’t they?

    • nebulousrikulau
      June 24, 2014, 5:56 pm | # | Reply

      But centipedes aren’t insects. They’re different enough that they might be unaffected by things that would take out insects like silverfish and bees.

      Or maybe not.

  21. mickeyf
    June 24, 2014, 7:52 pm | # | Reply

    I am one of those to whom Cilantro will aways be a curse. Bhlaah.

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