Skin Horse

By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
By Shaenon K. Garrity & Jeffrey C. Wells
Color by Pancha Diaz
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2022-02-25
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2022-02-25

by shaenon on February 25, 2022 at 12:01 am
Chapter: Space-Bat-Angel-Dragon
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Discussion (34) ¬

  1. alphaghoul
    February 25, 2022, 12:04 am | # | Reply

    Well, those opossum’s are kinda hypocritical considering that they’ve been willingly killing people.

    • Candace
      February 25, 2022, 1:02 am | # | Reply

      When? When did they kill people?

      • David B Huber
        February 25, 2022, 4:57 am | # | Reply

        Similar to the “Unity eats babies” thing, it’s deemphasized.

        • Daibhid C
          February 25, 2022, 5:34 am | # | Reply

          Okay, to me that says less “willingly killing people” and more “horribly unconcerned about inadvertantly killing people”. Which, by the standards of this strip…

          Also, we have yet to be told that Pavane’s mission of peace and dignity doesn’t involve killing people, which is not something I’m prepared to assume.

          • David B Huber
            February 25, 2022, 5:52 am | #

            You’re right, Daibhid. Points taken.

            Which reminds me – where are Reynard and #12?

          • Robert Nowall
            February 25, 2022, 12:47 pm | #

            One would hope they were delicious.

        • Frank
          February 25, 2022, 12:49 pm | # | Reply

          Only when seasoned properly

  2. Ladon
    February 25, 2022, 12:05 am | # | Reply

    Rub her face in it in a dignified manner then

    • awgiedawgie
      February 25, 2022, 12:12 am | # | Reply

      And do it peacefully.

      • Shadowmehr
        February 25, 2022, 1:04 pm | # | Reply

        Would that be with a minimum of gloating and haughty laughter?

  3. awgiedawgie
    February 25, 2022, 12:11 am | # | Reply

    So Pavane is the bee colony equivalent of a teenage daughter?

    • Towering Barbarian
      February 25, 2022, 12:49 am | # | Reply

      Was there ever any doubt? 🙂

      • bergerjacques
        February 25, 2022, 9:58 am | # | Reply

        That’s the problem when strong, independent minded gestalt entities raise their offspring well. You get upstart gestalt entity youths eager to prove to their narrow-minded parents that THEY were right all along. Pavanne to Gavotte, The Cypress and the Biomass, Ginny and UNITY.

        • Trivena
          February 25, 2022, 7:23 pm | # | Reply

          And the whole point of Pavanne splitting off IS her disagreement with Gavotte. So naturally her relationship with Gavotte centres around prooving her wrong.

    • JSStryker
      February 25, 2022, 11:20 am | # | Reply

      Always has been…

    • StClair
      February 25, 2022, 12:53 pm | # | Reply

      Well, yes. But “I was right, and now I’ll show you, I’ll show you ALL” is also a classic Spark Mad thing.

      • Duane B.
        February 25, 2022, 6:54 pm | # | Reply

        Moody, strange choice in clothes, bad friends (or henchmen), loud parties (or explosions in the lab), awake at all hours….I never considered how much alike they were.

    • Robert Nowall
      February 25, 2022, 9:57 pm | # | Reply

      It’s interesting how Pavane holds her bees together in a vague body shape. Can’t recall Gavotte doing that.

  4. G. Grue
    February 25, 2022, 4:45 am | # | Reply

    Hmmmm. My predictions for the comic’s potential endings at this point:

    Option 1, the downer ending.
    In this ending, Pavane takes all the non-human sapients on the planet away, or almost all of them, either with their blessing or against their will. The few remaining go into hiding, and Skin Horse itself has basically been for naught. Tip is, of course, left behind, and left to wonder whether this is what’s best for everyone… or whether denying humanity the chance to grow and embrace the value of life beyond itself is the worst ending possible.

    Option 2. The moderate ending
    Pavane takes those who want to leave. Those who choose to remain are drastically lower in numbers than before, but find ways to integrate into society… at least to a degree. The new Skin Horse continues to serve as an intermediary, helping these sapients to talk with and work in a world that is still struggling to recognize they exist. In essence, Old War averted… but nothing changes in the process. Humanity is still on the slow, inevitable path to revelation… but it’s not now, or any time soon.

    Option 3. The Big Reveal ending.
    The vast majority of the non-human sapients of the world decline to leave with Pavane, if not all of them. With the perception altering machines gone, instead a new path is taken: the path of revelation. Non-human sapients begin their march across the world, using a mix of social savvy and intimidation to show the people of earth that they’re here, they’re valid, and they are part of society. Everyone might not live happily ever after… but they’re all on the path to equality and unity.
    Not U.N.I.T.Y. Like, *regular,* non-infectious unity.

    Thoughts? I’m personally hoping for something akin to 3 myself, but I’m excited to see what direction Shaenon and Jeff choose to go.

    • DWVR
      February 25, 2022, 1:54 pm | # | Reply

      You forget that Ira is still out there not quite defeated.

    • Robert Nowall
      February 25, 2022, 2:18 pm | # | Reply

      We never did find out what happened to Mr. The Dane, either.

    • David B Huber
      February 25, 2022, 11:59 pm | # | Reply

      G. Grue, I too lean towards the “Big Reveal” denouement and agree with you that Jeff and Shaenon have something epic in store! I wouldn’t be surprised if Drs. Jones and Wilkin ended up being the only ones going to Lovetron…

      Good thing the entire state of Pennsylvania is available for homesteading! 😉

  5. Robert Nowall
    February 25, 2022, 5:42 am | # | Reply

    I’d kinda thought that Gavotte gave birth to Pavane on Earth, not Lovetron. (Though “gave birth” isn’t the right term for it.)

    Also, someone ask Pavane if she was behind the “I’m coming for you” dreams.

    • jwghaller
      February 25, 2022, 9:38 am | # | Reply

      I am Jacob Haller of Rhode Island, even though I was born in Arkansas.

      • BMunro
        February 25, 2022, 12:06 pm | # | Reply

        Also, Lovetron citizenship may be by ancestry, not place of *birth. (Intermarriage with terrestrials presumably isn’t an issue.)

        • Robert Nowall
          February 25, 2022, 12:46 pm | # | Reply

          Switzerland, at least, has a right of return unto the fourth generation, I think. Maybe Lovetron has some similar arrangement.

    • srfoxley
      February 25, 2022, 4:23 pm | # | Reply

      So… I can’t resist the urge to be the pedantic beekeeper here. Assuming Gavotte and Pavane mimic how earth-native apis mellifera reproduces: The act of a honeybee colony reproducing is known as swarming. When it happens, the colony “decides” to produce a number of new queen cells, and a day or two before they hatch, about half the workers gorge themselves on honey and then leave the old hive with the old queen to go and search for a new cavity in which to start a new hive. This isn’t a choice the old queen makes (bee colonies are much more akin to a democracy than a monarchy), and in fact she kind of gets forced into it. Meanwhile, in the old hive, the newly hatched queens have the option of staying (and a queen that does this will crawl around the hive and kill her rivals, usually by stinging them through the wall of their cell before they hatch), or to leave with another large portion of the remaining workers and honey. We’re still learning about bee colony decision making, and it’s not clear that any of these new virgin queens actually “choose” to leave so much as being forced into it by the workers. On a good year (for the bees, not the keeper) with a lot of nectar to gather and good weather, a healthy colony can throw off 5-6 swarms, always starting with pushing the old queen out.

      So… who is the offspring of whom, when a bee colony swarms, is not always entirely clear. Are they sisters? Mother and daughter? Something else? But in any case, again assuming we’re following similar dynamics of apis mellifera: Gavotte’s and Pavane’s relationship could be considered… complicated.

      Of course, earth is home to a huge variety of bees and wasps, only a few of which reproduce the way apis mellifera does. (Solitary bees and wasps, or bees with colonies that only live for one year like bumblebees, are far more common.) Though, such a pattern wouldn’t apply to Gavotte or Pavane, since solitary bees never form colonies (hence the name); and annual bees and wasps don’t swarm, and daughter colonies and mother colonies are never alive at the same time. (Mother colonies die off in the fall, after sending out a bunch of new queens that overwinter somewhere safe–usually a burrow in the ground–and emerge about the time the first dandelions show up to start their new colony.)

      • David B Huber
        February 25, 2022, 4:44 pm | # | Reply

        So only apis mellifera is capable of forming a *persistent* hive mind, accumulating knowledge across many generations?

        • srfoxley
          February 25, 2022, 6:14 pm | # | Reply

          There are a few other species we know about that also reproduce the same way as apis mellifera (the European honeybee). Apis cerana (Asian honeybee) comes to mind, as well as the several species of stingless bees from central and south America (like melipona beecheii). There might also be other wasps and bees that live longer than a year in tropical climates where the temperature differences between seasons is small and winters never get cold enough to kill off colonies and whose reproductive cycles are as yet unexplored by humans. I guess all I’m really saying in my post (other than taking the opportunity to nerd out) is that reproduction processes of usocial organisms and presumably also hive minds is weeeeeeird if you’re only used to thinking of the way us mammals usually do it. 🙂

        • srfoxley
          February 25, 2022, 7:09 pm | # | Reply

          I will also l say, though, that your question brings up an interesting topic to consider: Given the way apis mellifera reproduces, if it did have a hive mind, it would be interesting to consider what happens to that mind when a swarm happens: Does the daughter colony start with the same hive memories as the parent, or do memories of the mind get partitioned in some way (and if so, how? And does the colony leaving the hive get more of the experience-based behaviors and memories than the one staying behind? From an evolutionary perspective this would make sense, as the colony staying in the hive is at less risk than the one seeking a new home.) I doubt a daughter colony would experience anything like what we would consider a childhood… but who knows, eh?

          We do know that individual members of an apis mellifera colony definitely have ways to communicate with each other (using both pheromones and actions–foragers communicate the direction, quality and distance to resources using their famous waggle dance, for example). Research is ongoing, but it’s assumed that most behavioral traits are genetic: individual honeybees don’t live all that long, and we assume most behaviors they exhibit are instinctual– that they don’t “learn” the same way humans do. Though they are surprising: I have read that bees have enough congitive capacity to recognize the facial features of individual beekeepers’ faces (and will be more aggressive toward keepers they don’t like), and apparently bees can be taught to sniff out blood or drugs better than w bloodhound. Though so far we’ve yet to see any evidence that bees have “culture” or societal memories that are passed down in ways other than genetics.

          • David B Huber
            February 25, 2022, 11:43 pm | #

            Being mammals, we can only speculate, srfoxley. But I’d expect that memory and personality persist at the hive level so swarming produces a new “individual” carrying a holographic imprint of the parent’s knowledge and experience (as well as carrying away the divisiveness triggering the swarm) while cognitive ability and intelligence would be proportional to the number of bees in the colony similar to the way Unity gets smarter when she consumes brains (even though her consciousness persists in her nanite goo).

            Perhaps this persistence survives the demise of individual drones by storing thought patterns as scents literally “in the cloud”? Even mammals carry olfactory memories as some of the strongest.

  6. jwghaller
    February 25, 2022, 9:37 am | # | Reply

    #lifegoals

  7. Robert Nowall
    February 25, 2022, 12:00 pm | # | Reply

    The Mother-Love-Ship-Tron’s arrived. And Tony and Merc—they survived. But Pavane and Gavotte, as likely as not, have issues that’ll eat them alive.

  8. mnemex
    February 25, 2022, 11:23 pm | # | Reply

    One goal, ok, sure.

    Wait, which one?

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