Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2019-11-26
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2019-11-26

by shaenon on November 26, 2019 at 12:01 am
Chapter: A Life in the Woods
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Discussion (26) ¬

  1. Doug Relyea
    November 26, 2019, 12:06 am | # | Reply

    This is why Maxim 14 is unsustainable as a biological imperative.

    • D. Walker
      November 26, 2019, 12:21 am | # | Reply

      Except it’s not a biological imperative at all. Why would you think that?

      It’s not even an imperative! It’s not called “Imperative 14”, ya know. It’s a maxim – a concise statement of a general rule or principle.

      More specifically, It’s one of a bunch of general guidelines and tips for people who want to work as mercenaries and do so as effectively as possible. That’s why it’s one of The Seventy Maxims of Maximally Effective Mercenaries.

      We’re talking about helpful suggestion and observations, not even hard and fast rules, much less any sort of actual imperative. It’s not telling you what to do, it’s making a rule of thumb suggestion which might be totally wrong depending.

      And it certainly isn’t some sort of -biological- imperative. It’s not like mercenaries grow on trees, and have an instinctual understanding of 70 pithy sayings.

      We’re basically talking about an equivalent to Ferengi Rules of Acquisition.

      • Doug Relyea
        November 26, 2019, 1:48 am | # | Reply

        Mad Science means never stopping to ask “What’s the worst thing that could happen?” – Maxim 14. While it’s a diagnostically sound method, it guarantees extinction. (the worst thing that could happen)

  2. K. Iceclaw
    November 26, 2019, 12:08 am | # | Reply

    Alas, experiments in hard sciences are rarely that interesting to actually do.

    • Stroth
      November 26, 2019, 1:36 am | # | Reply

      Depends on how much grant money you can get ahold of really.

  3. awgiedawgie
    November 26, 2019, 12:10 am | # | Reply

    Eris, you’re military. I’m pretty sure you could handle Tainter if he tried anything.

    • Ms. Neutrino
      November 26, 2019, 12:32 am | # | Reply

      With sufficient frog venom coffee, all things are possible. Or at least seem so.

    • Robert Nowall
      November 26, 2019, 11:23 am | # | Reply

      Unless you’re a murder duplicate who doth protest too loudly.

  4. David B Huber
    November 26, 2019, 1:00 am | # | Reply

    Given that the only known casualty so far is the erzazt Dr. Phillips, the humans appear to hold the upper hand.

    • Paul
      November 26, 2019, 1:33 am | # | Reply

      As always, the biggest danger to humans is humans.

    • BMunro
      November 26, 2019, 1:54 am | # | Reply

      If any of them are. The plants may have already won and don’t know it.

  5. Archeo Lumiere
    November 26, 2019, 1:41 am | # | Reply

    Wait… Are we playing Doubt?

    • WuseMajor
      November 26, 2019, 1:46 am | # | Reply

      ….I have to say that tricking the advance team into killing each other instead of just killing them with murder bears wearing hats is certainly a novel approach.

  6. BMunro
    November 26, 2019, 1:53 am | # | Reply

    You are lacking a control group, Mr. Ask. Also, there needs to be someone to take records: can’t properly document an experiment if it’s all guinea pigs and no observers.

    • Frank
      November 26, 2019, 12:27 pm | # | Reply

      Not to mention that if your only metric for determining duplicates is “partner died, was maimed or otherwise impaired” in a building defined by death traps, we’re talking a serious problem with survivorship bias

      • BMunro
        November 26, 2019, 8:04 pm | # | Reply

        That probably goes under documentation problems: you’re reliant on survivor say-so as to the nature of the death (accident [1] or survivor action)

        [1] If you can call being killed by the Murder Hospital _accidental_.

  7. Robert Nowall
    November 26, 2019, 7:26 am | # | Reply

    You’re supposed to wander off one at a time. That’s traditional in horror movies.

    • Towering Barbarian
      November 26, 2019, 8:08 am | # | Reply

      But when did Sparks ever do the traditional? o_O

  8. Benedict Ide
    November 26, 2019, 8:17 am | # | Reply

    Ordinarily I’d just chalk it up to a coloring glitch, but given that we’ve been given reason to believe sweaters are an important clue in this arc, I have to wonder whether it means anything that Mr. Ask’s sweater was gray in Friday’s comic, but black now. As in… perhaps he’s a duplicate, but he got sweatered, so he… dunked it in ink or burned it or something like that to hide it.

    Except… no, presumably he’d just take it *off* first. Can they do that? If they can do that, then we’re in some trouble. I feel like the knitting ninja would’ve thought of that- but then again, the knitting ninja *himself* is wearing a sweater, and when you account for the broadcast Mr. Green showed Tip at the start of the arc, it’s possible people can be duplicates *involuntarily*, at least enough so that you can scream a warning before you die.

    So… yeah, I have no idea to what extent we’re really dealing with a hidden traitor situation versus… something way weirder.

    • awgiedawgie
      November 26, 2019, 8:54 am | # | Reply

      Well, Tip’s top was purple last Wednesday, but it’s been blue every day since.

      Maybe this really is one big VR hell, and Ira is trying to drive Tip mad through a series of fashion incongruities.

  9. Dr. Steve
    November 26, 2019, 10:21 am | # | Reply

    in panel 3, is that plant material oozing in ?

    • Shadowmehr
      November 26, 2019, 10:27 pm | # | Reply

      I hadn’t noticed. Thank you for adding an extra level of paranoia to the proceedings.

  10. The One Guy
    November 26, 2019, 1:38 pm | # | Reply

    Hey, it works for the people in horror movies!

  11. Dr. Steve
    November 27, 2019, 9:13 am | # | Reply

    Is that creepy music I hear?

  12. jdreyfuss
    February 5, 2020, 3:59 pm | # | Reply

    Okay, so it’s the Clue method of searching for the murderer.

    • awgiedawgie
      February 5, 2020, 4:29 pm | # | Reply

      You can’t make an omelette without breaking some eggs. Any cook will tell you that.

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