Monday's comic!

[murgatroyd666]

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20191014

BIG Chekhov's gun! I KNEW IT!

Comments

[madfilkentist]

Logical, and I hadn't seen it coming at all.

[murgatroyd666]

This is from my list of potential Chekhov's Guns, so ancient that it was on LiveJournal and last updated in 2012:

28. Tarvek's voice override for Anevka's clank body. When Tarvek built Anevka's clank body, he neglected to inform her that he could disable it at will with a voice command. Anevka is out of the picture now, but Lunevka is using Anevka's clank body; only the head is new. Lunevka probably doesn't know about the voice override capability. Will Tarvek have occasion to use it on her? I'm betting that he will ...

[spectrum_09]

Good call, Murg!

[kelkyag]

Yes. That's been waiting a looooong time, and Tarvek kept that secret close.

Clank-Lucrezia *has* had 2.5 years, or a little more, to build a Molecular Crystal Loom. Why do they take so long, and can clank-Lucrezia not hit the spark overdrive that gets (some) things done in a hurry? If it's known tech, was finding one to suborn not an option? And meanwhile, why not build herself new/additional clank bodies, even if they weren't built on her favorite tech?

[marycatelli]

You got it!

[kognar]

To save you all searching for the 13 year old memory of when this Chekhov's gun was established.

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060906

[spectrum_09]

The next thing to stop Lucrezia/Agatha is Martellus' chemical leash. Another plot reason he is present - to revive Agatha and Mom once properly restrained. Who knows where the weasel went.

[turbobeholder]

"Tarvek will use killswitch on Lunevka" was obvious, but this body is upgraded almost beyond recognition.

[doc_w_31415]

I have to say it.

Pride goeth, before the fall.

[doc_w_31415]

Ps excellent work, Murg

[tceisele]

So, she's not a time traveller, then - a time traveller *would* have had time to make a proper clank body. Does that mean that we've got two of the three known current-time Lucrezia instances here in the same room? If these can be eliminated or trapped, that would just leave the Zola instance (which is apparently both constrained, and stuck in a non-spark brain), and the Muse of Time (which is presumably the original Lucrezia body). Are there any others I am forgetting?

[jbwoodford]

She's apparently not currently capable of time travel, even if she has the knowledge of how it's done.

[murgatroyd666]

Yeah, my original assumption was that Spiky Lunevka had stepped through a Time Portal. Apparently it was "only" a point-to-point portal, albeit one that needed no infrastructure at the destination.

If these can be eliminated or trapped, that would just leave the Zola instance (which is apparently both constrained, and stuck in a non-spark brain), and the Muse of Time (which is presumably the original Lucrezia body).

Which leads me to believe that one or both will escape . ;^)

... the Muse of Time (which is presumably the original Lucrezia body).

Or the Muse of Time might be a future version of Spiky Lunevka.

I still suspect that there might never have been an "original" Other personality, just a time-looped entity who gains and loses memories around the loop and thus doesn't realize the futility of her actions.

Are there any others I am forgetting?

None that we know about. But when the Geisterdamen toted the Summoning Engine off to parts unknown, it was mentioned that Lucrezia had fixed it to be able to download The Other into women who weren't her close relatives. So ... there might be Hidden Lucrezias among the cast members!

[jbwoodford]

It's odd that the different instantiations of Lucrezia get on so well--megalomaniacs seldom cooperate except under duress. I wonder if the plan is for the original to absorb all of them once she's been freed from where/whenever she's imprisoned?

On a completely unrelated topic, I hypothesize without evidence (except for the notable lack of time travel capabilities in Zola's faction) that even though Zola can access Lu's memories it may take a second-level Spark to even begin to comprehend the theory of temporal displacement. Zola may have the memories, but she can't explain them to anyone else--at least in any understandable way.

[kelkyag]

Lucrezia thus far seems happy to consider all instances of herself to be herself, with a little convincing storytelling, and to run around in multiple bodies.

Tangentially, I wonder whether there's a single, immutable version of Lucrezia that can only be downloaded via the summoning engine, or whether there's also an upload/update option of some sort. Lucrezia talks about giving other downloaded copies the latest gossip over tea, but nothing about bringing the core image up to date.

Zola hasn't shown any sparky inclinations so far, nor is it clear whether Lucrezia has made a second breakthrough. Whether Zola could convey what she knows about Lucrezia's work usefully to a spark is a fascinating question. (Whether she has one she'd trust with that information is, too.)

[cmdr_zoom]

He did say she was a very good first try.