Friday's comic

[kelkyag]

I am actually pleased to see you! What a strange future this is!

Apologies for the html error in the initial post!

Comments

[murgatroyd_666]

https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20250530

Inexplicable!

WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[murgatroyd_666]

What's going on?

Time travel!

The Baron cannot explain at this time.
What a strange future this is.

The odd apparatus behind the Baron is a time machine. He has either come forward from the past (relative to this point in the story) or else he has come forward from a trip to the past, possibly made with the intent to change history. (And perhaps he has.)

The Baron may be under the mind control of The Other ,,, possibly under only partial control. (The professors have been drawing our attention to his surgical scars. Klaus is a patchwork construct. It may be that his brain includes grey matter from two or more brothers, and only part of his brain is affected by Lucrezia's Spark Wasp.)

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[spectrum_09]

Klaus was aware he was wasped. He did manage to tell Philbert a coded story that Tarvek decoded.
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120210

Also possible, he knows he has been frozen in Mechancisburg for over two and a half years. It's now 2 1/2 years later than his last memory, especially if he has only recently been removed from the town. So Tryggvassen, Boris, Thorpe, Martellus allied is a strange future he is now in.

Just my thoughs.

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[mikeda]

Being pleased to see Othar may be enough by itself to make it strange...

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[marycatelli]

Very true

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[murgatroyd_666]

Once again, I wish we had a "vote up" function for comments like yours!

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[bunsen_h]

He knows that he was frozen in Mechanicsburg for some duration, so it's definitely sometime in the future relative to when he activated the time-stop device. I get the impression that he's pleased to see Othar, for some reason, and that it's that pleasure he finds strange given their history of conflict. It's possible that he's pleased to be confronting Othar under circumstances that might let him finally kill Othar, but that doesn't feel quite right.

If the side stories such as "Revenge of the Weasel Queen" are canonical, we know that Othar will survive these events.

[kelkyag]

I think Klaus is happy to see Othar because Boris and Chakraborty will attempt to follow established protocol, Trelawney will at least try non-violent methods first, and Martellus might consider the political implications before attacking, but Othar is just trying to take Klaus down, and that's the most likely thing to prevent Klaus from doing whatever Lucrezia ordered him to do. (Which is probably growing her a new body and copying her personality into it. Which would be Bad. Protecting the tank from Othar is legitimately following orders without moving the plan forward.)

[murgatroyd_666]

Othar is just trying to take Klaus down, and that's the most likely thing to prevent Klaus from doing whatever Lucrezia ordered him to do.

Oh my! Good point!

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[murgatroyd_666]

If memory serves, the Professors have stated that only "ElectriC Coffin" is canon.

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[jbwoodford]

Othar's Twitter may not be officially canon, but it does line up interestingly with the known timeline.

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[murgatroyd_666]

Also possible, he knows he has been frozen in Mechancisburg for over two and a half years.

You're probably right, but I'm not yet entirely convinced that this Klaus is the same one who might have been recently released from the Take Five Bomb stasis. The Professors might want us to believe that, though.

Wheels within wheels within wheels ...

[kelkyag]

That's a fascinating possible diversion. Lucrezia could have been dragging Klaus around in time to do things for her indefinitely. The apparent lack of Lucrezias in the current time who weren't instantiated in the current timeline suggests some limitations on time travel, but what? Other than Lucrezia herself (as seen in Albia's memories), has anyone been physically present in an earlier time? There are various examples of viewing earlier times, with two-way information transfer. Could Lucrezia have "traveled" back in time by copying herself onto someone from the distant past?

... that meandered more than I intended, but the core question about what time travel can actually do exists.

[murgatroyd_666]

There were statements in the early books that Professor Beetle had knowledge of actions by Klaus the Klaus himself knew that he hadn't done (yet) ... a strong implication that a later version of Klaus had visited the past.

[kelkyag]

Extra information in the books feels a bit unfair. Ah well.

[murgatroyd_666]

No, that's in the webcomic, too.

[murgatroyd_666]

He knew something was up ...
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060322
https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060322

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[turbobeholder]

The odd apparatus behind the Baron is a time machine.

It’s not pulp, it’s a pastiche of pulp. :]
Also, spectrum_09 identified it in the last thread as a cloning jar. Whether for himself or “SKEERY CLENK LADI” (and which one), remains to be seen.

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[murgatroyd_666]

Thank you! Happy to be corrected.

Too bad we can't see who or what is in it ...

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[jbwoodford]

Not cloning, or Olga's body would have had a brain. The Baron's description of what he did, from HERE:

"Fortunately, I decided to attempt revival....it was tricky--to rebuild the body when it was so badly damaged. The brain was a total loss, of course."

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[turbobeholder]

Her recovered body did not.
What Klaus said was ambiguous. As was whose opened skull he was toying with.
Also, that’s how she looked like after zap and the grave. At this point growing a body from scratch would not be harder, and the only part that makes an important difference between restoration and cloning was ruined anyway, so…

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[jbwoodford]

Sure, but he goes on to say "Even a substitute brain in a Heterodyne body would be of some use." The implication seems to me to be that the rebuilt body would lack a brain. OTOH, there's the skull he's holding. (OTOOH, he's a Spark...he probably has all kinds of things in his lab that are only useful as props when he wants to rant about something.)

Re: WARNING! RAMPANT SPECULATIONS AHEAD!

[murgatroyd_666]

Oy! Rich and confusing possibilities if a previously deceased character is being regenerated ... and with mind transfer technology *and* time travel, you could even install the personality of the dead character!

I wonder what happened to Madame Olga's regenerated body. Long ago, Klaus had said that she might be useful ...