Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2013-04-11
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2013-04-11

by shaenon on April 11, 2013 at 12:00 am
Chapter: My House Is Me
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Discussion (32) ¬

  1. ysabet
    April 11, 2013, 12:53 am | # | Reply

    …..I really want to give you an in-depth comment regarding my suspicions about Anasigma, but my braiin’s stuck on “Shaggy Grey Parkas” and probably will be for a while.

    • Jay
      April 11, 2013, 1:03 am | # | Reply

      I cannot figure out the word substitution. And I don’t really want to. “Shaggy grey parkas” is just too good.

      • Keiya
        April 11, 2013, 7:53 am | # | Reply

        I’m not convinced it IS a substitution. I sort of suspect Nick’s been growing into the filter…

        • The J is Silent
          March 14, 2019, 10:26 am | # | Reply

          I think it’s one word, followed by a two word phrase.
          Also, I would have put a comma between the second and third words.
          Well s***, ******-***k**s.

  2. Towering Barbarian
    April 11, 2013, 1:41 am | # | Reply

    I guess the logical question at this point would be what made them change their mind about Nick being the spy? o_O

  3. Ogden Wernstrom
    April 11, 2013, 2:14 am | # | Reply

    Root, root, root out the mole! We play that game every year at the teambuilding event. Nine times out of nine, we got our man to confess, and one time out of nine, we even got the right man.

    I can come up with a special reason why every team member is definitely guilty (intentionally or not) except for Gavotte. That means Gavotte stands out like a sore thumb, and she’s definitely the one. This case may call for an Eiger Sanction solution. The only robust intelligence countermeasure is institutional suicide.

  4. nemryn
    April 11, 2013, 2:18 am | # | Reply

    Yeah, I’m not even going to try to guess what that’s supposed to be.

  5. anonymous
    April 11, 2013, 3:00 am | # | Reply

    http://skin-horse.com/2009/treasonable-offense/
    http://skin-horse.com/2012/lot-of-factors/
    Put those two strips together and Gavotte looks like the spy. Assuming Violet was telling the truth about being Goldbug.

  6. Eddurd
    April 11, 2013, 5:39 am | # | Reply

    (TUNE: “Rainy Day People”, Gordon Lightfoot)

    Shaggy grey parkas, why did you believe that I was the mole?
    Shaggy grey parkas, this constant suspicion takes its toll!
     Shaggy grey parkas, my mood’s getting darker!
     I’m a bit surprised!
    Shaggy grey parkas, I’ll now cuss you out, but sanitized!

    Shaggy grey parkas, humans fought machines once, long before …
    Shaggy grey parkas, now A-sig may start a brand new war!
     Shaggy grey parkas! Suspicions, you’ll bark yours!
     It’s a shapely scene!
    Shaggy grey parkas, just who in the hedge is Mister Green?

  7. jdreyfuss
    April 11, 2013, 6:32 am | # | Reply

    It seems a little paranoid to think that someone with no access to the inside of the building and no way to plant surveillance devices could be the spy. He’d only have access to computer files and wouldn’t know what was going on in any secret meetings or anything.

  8. Matthew
    April 11, 2013, 7:32 am | # | Reply

    Calling it right now. Ira is the spy. That ‘forgetful’ act of his? Just an act.

    • Konrad
      April 11, 2013, 2:47 pm | # | Reply

      Ira is the spy, and the forgetting is due to the short-term -> long-term memory transfer being intercepted by Anasigma.

    • Ogden Wernstrom
      April 11, 2013, 3:51 pm | # | Reply

      Sshh! You’re in danger of actually getting it right! Though the strip sets up more punchlines than it could ever knock down, so you’re never sure.

      — Mr. Pot (reformed, uncertainly)

  9. davidbreslin101
    April 11, 2013, 8:17 am | # | Reply

    It’s nice to see fictional characters making an effort to figure out the Super Secret Mysterious Backstory- usually they just blunder around being all mystified ’til it smacks them in the face during the Grand Finale.
    “Sucrose”- clever! (… er, is “sugar” used as a euphemism for “s***” in America?)

    • Katrika
      April 11, 2013, 9:18 am | # | Reply

      I believe it is in the south!

    • jdreyfuss
      April 11, 2013, 11:43 am | # | Reply

      I’ve never heard it used here, but never underestimate the influence of Anglophilia and Terry Pratchett on nerds over here.

      • Dewy
        April 11, 2013, 2:43 pm | # | Reply

        Ha! I was thinking of Monterous Regiment, also.

        • Dewy
          April 11, 2013, 2:49 pm | # | Reply

          Monstrous, that is. I fail as a Pratchett Nerd. I’m so ashamed.

    • Smithnik
      April 11, 2013, 12:30 pm | # | Reply

      Yes, Nick has finally achieved second-order euphemisms! I love it!

      Still puzzled by Shaggy Grey Parkas, but the only thing I can figure out is that it’s a substitute for a longer, more complex phrase than the filter normally has to deal with. That suggests that Nick’s vocabulary of profanity is growing, or that he’s really, really parsleyed-off at the suggestion that he was a suspect.

    • shaenon
      April 11, 2013, 1:58 pm | # | Reply

      My grandma used to say “sugar.”

      • mickeyf
        April 11, 2013, 7:56 pm | # | Reply

        I *still* say “sugar”.

      • JET73L
        March 1, 2015, 6:57 pm | # | Reply

        I use “foo”. Not only is it old-timey, it also works as a punny comp-sci way of saying “boolInsertString CurseReplacement FourLetterFWord”.

  10. Dr. steve
    April 11, 2013, 8:28 am | # | Reply

    um… they are telling this to the Anasigma drone that may recording/transmitting data to other operatives besides Nick? Hmmm… unless they are cleverly feeding information in the old triple play ploy (speaking into the flower arrangement, as it were).

    • BMunro
      April 11, 2013, 11:46 am | # | Reply

      Well, presumably Dr. Lee checked it out before hooking it up to Nick…but can they feel they can trust Dr. Lee?

      Hmm. Is the lack of a team mad scientist a plus or a minus for Skin Horse? Possibly Gavotte made the call that putting someone likely to meddle with Things Man Was Not Meant To Know and Unity on the same team would just be asking for trouble.

      • Tetra Valent
        April 11, 2013, 4:47 pm | # | Reply

        She’s already seen the effect of Tigerlily Jones on the place … and on Tip. Calling in another mad scientist might still be a violation of Moustachio’s union contract, as well.

    • Shadowmehr
      April 11, 2013, 8:41 pm | # | Reply

      Not to mention that even if the drone is clean, his Osprey body was designed in a military airbase, and conceivably could have hidden spy eyes and ears in places on the cabin.

      Not to mention that if the Mad Scientist outreach program was messing with its inmates heads, and Tigerlily was fixing Moustacio in an outreach program, she may have put more than little arms in him and not even have known it.

      Mad science and paranoia are never a good combo, but often a potent one.

  11. Evil Midnight Lurker
    April 11, 2013, 8:59 pm | # | Reply

    “In the past, there was a conflict called the ‘Old War.'”

    I don’t think Sweetheart has thought that name through. You don’t call *one* conflict fought some time ago the Old War. You call a war that if it’s the same war fought over the same thing(s), and it doesn’t so much end as it dies down to a cinder, only to flare up again. Over and over and over.

    To quote Pratchett, “The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.”

  12. David McKenney-Barschall
    April 12, 2013, 1:48 am | # | Reply

    “The Old War” reminds me of Dresden Codak.

  13. Ziggerung the Omnipatient
    April 13, 2013, 11:51 pm | # | Reply

    You know I just had a thought. Nick’s censor only works on swear words. If Nick used clever enough euphemisms he could work his way around it. (pause) Again, just a thought.

    • awgiedawgie
      March 14, 2019, 3:19 pm | # | Reply

      The filter also works on vulgarity. It seems to read his intended meaning and usage. It might not catch those clever euphemisms the first time around, but if the euphemisms are that clever, no one else would catch them either, so the main point of swearing at people would be lost. At least when the fur-curdling filter kicks in, people know he’s swearing, even if they don’t know exactly what he meant to say.

  14. Ziggerung the Omnipatient
    April 16, 2013, 10:15 am | # | Reply

    I have a theory. I think that the Old War was pre-Narbonic. The war either a battle royale between masses of mad scientists or a battle fought by their creations for independence.

    • awgiedawgie
      March 14, 2019, 3:23 pm | # | Reply

      I suspect Moustachio was actually a part of the Old War, which would put it roughly in the 1850s.

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