She just told them she wasn’t acting aimlessly. She knew exactly what everyone else was asking her to do the entire time and just followed their requests in the way most likely to screw with them. That sounds pretty clever to me.
I think it’s easier to just tell her what to do, on the assumption that she’ll agree wholeheartedly to any suitably stupid and/or violent task, than to try to trick her into doing it
Somewhere back in this story arc, I posted that Gavotte was using some sort of bureaucratic jujitsu to save Skin-Horse. But an alternative is to move SH out of the shadows and make it mainstream government; another is to move the organization into the private sector.
Perhaps they’ll be saved by the R&D wing of the Shadow Government – who, after all, have already supplied two staff members to Project Skin Horse (although one is technically furniture) and mobile hardware for a third (who probably also counts as furniture given her previous life…)
I never said “Skin-Horse” doesn’t teach me anything, and now I have more evidence. Lulz: Beginning as a plural variant of lol, Lulz was originally an exclamation but is now often used as a noun meaning interesting or funny internet content.
Lol -> lul; lols -> luls; lolz -> lulz.
Lulz is the one good reason to do anything, from trolling to rape. After every action taken, you must make the epilogic dubious disclaimer: “I did it for the lulz”.
From the Urban Dictionary.
I’m not sure how I’m going to use this information, but the evil part of my heart will surely try something for the lulz.
We’re failing today …
Didn’t do our jobs, failed in ev’ry way!
Files, looked all through there …
There’s no millipedes mentioned anywhere!
Our day spent in fighting,
And running ’round …
The building igniting,
And burning down!
There’s no doubt,
We’ve been kicked out …
Of Aaaaaaaaaanex One!
This was a plot
By Miss Gavotte!
We’re set up for a fall!
But Unity
Succeeded, she
Will now outrank us all!
We were … failing today,
Failing today,
Spectacularly failed!
We were … failing today,
Failed ev’ry way,
We’re lucky we weren’t jailed!
Unity’s instructions were just for Gavotte’s amusement, as they were completely unnecessary to get this team to disintegrate.
I used to work with a management consultant who’d do tricks like this in workshops. One of his favorites was to give one person the secret instruction to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible, and tell another to stretch it out as long as possible. The second person never had to do anything, as the first person’s attempts to shorten the meeting always backfired and made it go on forever.
Y’know, I didn’t expect a comic about black ops social services, zombies, talking dogs, killer machines, brain-in-a-tank helicopters and cross-dressing soldiers would do a story on project management…
Maybe it’s one of those “succeed to fail” assignments. They succeded in failing at their assignments; they failed to succeed at them. They succeeded in failing to see the merits of it; the failed to succeed in seeing any merit to it.
I can’t help it, it’s the Internet Fan Fiction writer in me.
I believe his psychology degree was based on his ability to fill out research grant forms and run rats through mazes. He sounds perfect for writing massive amount fluff on not much.
This is what I get for not checking in daily, instead catching up on several days worth at once. It is rather unusual to have that big of a bombshell dropped on a Wednesday, though.
In response to Windy Wandering’s big theory yesterday:
Whoa. I had my own theory regarding the department’s name, but yours makes a terrifying amount of sense. My own guesses led to a less sinister conclusion; I thought that Project Skin Horse’s goal was to help nonhuman sapients make a place in the world community, and gradually become visible to the reality-blind, and thus ‘real’.
Gavotte is too smart to be an unwitting tool and too free-thinking to be the knowing architect of a conspiracy designed for the humans’ benefit. That means she has to be shipped out and shut up quick, before she gets her wits back, but everything is in place to do that right now.
But she needs to be studied, so they can’t just finish her off with a half-dozen cans of Raid, and the story is not over.
In keeping with oneuniverse2’s idea, it’s also possible that for all that, Gavotte is one step ahead of everybody else even now, or alternatively that her counterpart isn’t so “counter” and is working towards a denouement not in keeping with the spirit of the orders given by the people nominally in charge.
I’m pretty bad at this game, and look forward to being badly wrong.
I still think Gavotte was framed and is genuinely disabled, but maybe she saw it coming.
To achieve clear victory, Black Ops need a creature with Gavotte’s intelligence and the mynah bird’s insanity. Otherwise they might have to settle for a result in which everyone wins, and nobody wants that.
Has it? Stunning all her bees at once could very well kill her for all we know, even if the individual bees survive. We don’t have any idea how she works.
I just thought of a notion which I think is at least a possible alternative to “Gavotte set up Skin Horse to fail”.
Mr. Green is deeply manipulative, and attacks by way of that manipulation. Gavotte, despite her advanced intelligence, is nevertheless not invulnerable to manipulation. Rather than Gavotte having decided to send the e-mails and form a mating swarm as part of some deep strategy, Mr. Green may have used a hidden pheromone pulse to induce a mating swarm, and then simply hacked her e-mail to get the employees to work at cross-purposes.
As I type this, 4+ years after the Very Bad Day, Gavotte has not appeared in the story to give her version of what happened, or any sign that she is even still alive.
I suspected Mr. Green right from the start. We all know he’s an expert hacker (he did, after all, break Nick out of his VR program), so sending emails that appeared to come from her would be child’s play. Gavotte’s cycle is fairly predictable, so he just had to send the emails when she became “temporarily dull”, so she wouldn’t be able to do anything about them.
For Unity to be an unwitting stooge, she’d have to have wits in the first place.
You’ve seen Unity on brains, right?
She just told them she wasn’t acting aimlessly. She knew exactly what everyone else was asking her to do the entire time and just followed their requests in the way most likely to screw with them. That sounds pretty clever to me.
I think it’s easier to just tell her what to do, on the assumption that she’ll agree wholeheartedly to any suitably stupid and/or violent task, than to try to trick her into doing it
She did plan it? But why?
Is “for the lulz” an answer?
To get Skin Horse closed down?
Gavotte is a pretty good schemer and while she can’t see the future, she can read the signs pretty well.
Whatever is coming, (*NOT* Winter :p), Gavotte wants Skin Horse to be out of Government control.
?
That or everyone is about to be re-hired as ‘independent outside contractors’ to take over the duties Skin Horse used to do?
Or to keep it from closing down? Sometimes it seems like the government departments that screw up most spectacularly are the ones that persist.
Somewhere back in this story arc, I posted that Gavotte was using some sort of bureaucratic jujitsu to save Skin-Horse. But an alternative is to move SH out of the shadows and make it mainstream government; another is to move the organization into the private sector.
I’m sure funding will be a big motivator.
Perhaps they’ll be saved by the R&D wing of the Shadow Government – who, after all, have already supplied two staff members to Project Skin Horse (although one is technically furniture) and mobile hardware for a third (who probably also counts as furniture given her previous life…)
We have had no indication whatsoever that Anasigma are Shadow Government. Everything we’ve seen suggests Corrupt Corporation.
As George Mallory famously replied when asked why he climbed Mt. Everest, “because I was bored.”
I may be paraphrasing slightly
Does Nick know about this yet~?~ Does Moustaschio~?~
Not the sane part of Moustachio, at least. He didn’t remember his previous… episode when he came back last time.
Sweetheart could’ve done her job easily, if she wasn’t so aggresive to everyone.
Couldn’t we all?
I never said “Skin-Horse” doesn’t teach me anything, and now I have more evidence. Lulz: Beginning as a plural variant of lol, Lulz was originally an exclamation but is now often used as a noun meaning interesting or funny internet content.
Lol -> lul; lols -> luls; lolz -> lulz.
Lulz is the one good reason to do anything, from trolling to rape. After every action taken, you must make the epilogic dubious disclaimer: “I did it for the lulz”.
From the Urban Dictionary.
I’m not sure how I’m going to use this information, but the evil part of my heart will surely try something for the lulz.
(TUNE: “Come Sail Away”, Styx)
We’re failing today …
Didn’t do our jobs, failed in ev’ry way!
Files, looked all through there …
There’s no millipedes mentioned anywhere!
Our day spent in fighting,
And running ’round …
The building igniting,
And burning down!
There’s no doubt,
We’ve been kicked out …
Of Aaaaaaaaaanex One!
This was a plot
By Miss Gavotte!
We’re set up for a fall!
But Unity
Succeeded, she
Will now outrank us all!
We were … failing today,
Failing today,
Spectacularly failed!
We were … failing today,
Failed ev’ry way,
We’re lucky we weren’t jailed!
Unity’s instructions were just for Gavotte’s amusement, as they were completely unnecessary to get this team to disintegrate.
I used to work with a management consultant who’d do tricks like this in workshops. One of his favorites was to give one person the secret instruction to get the meeting over with as quickly as possible, and tell another to stretch it out as long as possible. The second person never had to do anything, as the first person’s attempts to shorten the meeting always backfired and made it go on forever.
Y’know, I didn’t expect a comic about black ops social services, zombies, talking dogs, killer machines, brain-in-a-tank helicopters and cross-dressing soldiers would do a story on project management…
Project manglement, however, is a regular aspect of Jeff’s day job.
Maybe it’s one of those “succeed to fail” assignments. They succeded in failing at their assignments; they failed to succeed at them. They succeeded in failing to see the merits of it; the failed to succeed in seeing any merit to it.
I can’t help it, it’s the Internet Fan Fiction writer in me.
So Gavotte is the Skin Horse world’s equivalent of Princess Celestia.
So Tip’s job was to write a 50-page survey of something that doesn’t actually
exist?
They shoulda sent an academic.
I believe his psychology degree was based on his ability to fill out research grant forms and run rats through mazes. He sounds perfect for writing massive amount fluff on not much.
This is what I get for not checking in daily, instead catching up on several days worth at once. It is rather unusual to have that big of a bombshell dropped on a Wednesday, though.
In response to Windy Wandering’s big theory yesterday:
Whoa. I had my own theory regarding the department’s name, but yours makes a terrifying amount of sense. My own guesses led to a less sinister conclusion; I thought that Project Skin Horse’s goal was to help nonhuman sapients make a place in the world community, and gradually become visible to the reality-blind, and thus ‘real’.
Gavotte is too smart to be an unwitting tool and too free-thinking to be the knowing architect of a conspiracy designed for the humans’ benefit. That means she has to be shipped out and shut up quick, before she gets her wits back, but everything is in place to do that right now.
But she needs to be studied, so they can’t just finish her off with a half-dozen cans of Raid, and the story is not over.
In keeping with oneuniverse2’s idea, it’s also possible that for all that, Gavotte is one step ahead of everybody else even now, or alternatively that her counterpart isn’t so “counter” and is working towards a denouement not in keeping with the spirit of the orders given by the people nominally in charge.
I’m pretty bad at this game, and look forward to being badly wrong.
I still think Gavotte was framed and is genuinely disabled, but maybe she saw it coming.
To achieve clear victory, Black Ops need a creature with Gavotte’s intelligence and the mynah bird’s insanity. Otherwise they might have to settle for a result in which everyone wins, and nobody wants that.
It’s possible that Nick’s use of the sound weapon was supposed to kill Gavotte. Luckily for the gang, it seems to have failed.
Has it? Stunning all her bees at once could very well kill her for all we know, even if the individual bees survive. We don’t have any idea how she works.
I totally called it! When is Gavotte ever NOT playing her staff like chess pieces?
Re-reading this arc with the knowledge of Unity’s task was very fun. Very nicely set up there.
I just thought of a notion which I think is at least a possible alternative to “Gavotte set up Skin Horse to fail”.
Mr. Green is deeply manipulative, and attacks by way of that manipulation. Gavotte, despite her advanced intelligence, is nevertheless not invulnerable to manipulation. Rather than Gavotte having decided to send the e-mails and form a mating swarm as part of some deep strategy, Mr. Green may have used a hidden pheromone pulse to induce a mating swarm, and then simply hacked her e-mail to get the employees to work at cross-purposes.
As I type this, 4+ years after the Very Bad Day, Gavotte has not appeared in the story to give her version of what happened, or any sign that she is even still alive.
Or just managed to take advantage of when it happened naturally. I wonder if it’s on something like a predictable cycle.
I suspected Mr. Green right from the start. We all know he’s an expert hacker (he did, after all, break Nick out of his VR program), so sending emails that appeared to come from her would be child’s play. Gavotte’s cycle is fairly predictable, so he just had to send the emails when she became “temporarily dull”, so she wouldn’t be able to do anything about them.