Girl Genius Minion Break Room

'Tis always the season for that episode!

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Not entirely unexpected.

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kelkyag

But we might *finally* get some backstory!

... I can dream, anyway.

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marycatelli

click into place

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occams_pyramid

So did she survive that long? And in that case what finally killed her- Bill & Barry?
Or was it serial mind transfer, and somehow the family look survived that long?

Was Lucrezia also Lozz? Presumably not or Albia would have recognised her.

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There are two important questions:
1. Was Albia's identification correct? It could be just common family features, false positive due to their presumably brief meeting with the Queen Slayer and quality of Luzrezia's portraits.
2. Was commonly known biography of Luzrezia Mongfish correct? In that Lu supposedly was born in Mongfish family, is a sister of Demonica, of much the same age as Klaus and Heterodyne Boys, etc.

A. True/True:
Albia met true Luzrezia Mongfish's body before said body had a good reason to exist. As in, time travel, probably using whatever made those "time windows".
B. True/False:
"Lu" was hiding for all these centuries, and conspired with Mongfishes to arrange her official "rebirth".
C. False/True:
Not really Lucrezia, but her ancestress! We know Zola rather strongly resembles her auntie (see e.g. when she walked right under Lucrezia's portrait on 20090408). Why couldn't this apply to Lucrezia as well?
The scope is vast. It's plausible the current Queen-Goddess of Geisters didn't really start with Lucrezia. After all, we don't know what turned her into The Other, but the "attack" points at some sudden turn.
C.1. Lucrezia have read some secret diary of the Queen Slayer, got an ambition to reach this status and began to work toward this end.
C.2. Agatha was supposed to become the next body for "The Other" before Geisters saw her the first time, maybe before she was born, right? Again, why the same could not apply to Lucrezia?
But if so, this entity chose in advance two known hosts of the same family. Perhaps there's a compelling reason for this, and it may well apply to the rest of the bloodline.
Most likely aiming to become a truly immortal "God-Queen" rather than relying on body jumps.
D. False/False:
With this much red herring, too little is defined. No bets. :]

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Or perhaps "Lucrezia" is really Garcia Flynn.

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A. True/True:
Albia met true Luzrezia Mongfish's body before said body had a good reason to exist. As in, time travel, probably using whatever made those "time windows".

This one gets my vote.

To me the most interesting thing about the current revelation is that this is the first time we have evidence for The Other actually inhabiting Lucrezia's body.

One of the big mysteries has been "What happened to Original Lucrezia?" And one of the fan theories is that Lucrezia, in an effort to please Bill Heterodyne and become one of the Good Guys, somehow extracted the "evil side" of her personality. The recording of her evil side somehow made it into a clank body and became Enigma/The Other. Somewhere/somewhen there might be a Good Lucrezia in Lucrezia's original body. The current revelation might preclude that possibility.

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Well, there had to be some cause for the sudden turnaround and discrepancies.

My favourite used to be the simplest one: a mind transfer experiment gone wrong — whether by accident (as in "The Fly"), outside interference (or trap?), or maybe Lucrezia outsmarted herself or reached too far beyond her firm grasp (like if she tried to transfer herself into that "Muse of Time"). Considering she already had interest in this area.

But such great increase in scope also increases likelihood of other actors participating. This alone makes (B) and (C2) almost as plausible as the simplest version.

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katzedecimal

What if The Other is Lozz? She'd have the motivation to wipe out the Queens. She controlled the Mirrors, what else could she do? The Professors rarely introduce someone if they won't contribute in some way, sometimes surprising (see Dr Vapnoople). What if we haven't seen the last of Lozz?

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marycatelli

Funny time stuff could be involved. For all we know, this -- from her point of view -- happened AFTER Agatha's birth. Perhaps she realized it was necessary.

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Lozz in another body is possible, but…
— Albia presumably killed or contained her predecessor upon overthrowing. And upon figuring out her new capabilities, would make sure she did it thoroughly enough to make it stick.
— "returned" Lozz would probably attack Albia either first or last.

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I really dislike stories where time travel pops up to tangle the plot. Anything can happen except consistency.

GG may be headed rapidly downhill.

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Well, yes.
But at this point "time travel" is not the only option.

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marycatelli

It was precluded earlier when Bang reported on how Gil and Agatha, with Moloch, looked at her.

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It has always been a time travel story!

I just hope the Professors don't get lost in the tangle of timelines.

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There are time travel stories, like the one by Wells, and then there are time tangle stories, like "All You Zombies."

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elmegil

Time travel has been known to be part of the plot from the very first book.

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turk187

This is "popping up" it dates back to page #3.

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The existence of time travel in a story is not the same as tangling cause and effect, having causal loops, and making anything possible.

In the early pages, there were interactions with later versions of the characters, but they didn't do anything except confuse the characters (mostly Agatha) who observed them. In the present case, we have at least the outline of a causal loop involving Lucrezia, Agatha, Gil, Albia, and others. Saying "we've had time travel before" doesn't mean that running wild with it isn't breaking any new ground.

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Two strong pieces of evidence for causal loops:

* The original time window, with Enigma, "caused" all of the subsequent events of the story.

* Tarsus Beetle didn't trust Klaus because he overheard him plotting nefarious deeds. But when Klaus read Beetle's notes, he didn't know what Beetle was talking about. To me this indicates one of three possibilities: ① Someone not visible to Beetle imitated Klaus' voice (unlikely); ② Klaus was talking to someone in Beetle's era through a Time Window (more likely); ③ Klaus was visiting Beetle's era, having traveled through a Time Portal (my money's on this one).

BTW, have you read Stephen Baxter's The Time Ships? It's an authorized sequel to The Time Machine.

Edited Date: 2018-12-24 10:28 pm (UTC)

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I had heard that Baxter had written a sequel, but I haven't read it.

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occams_pyramid

overheard him plotting nefarious deeds
I thought it was from something Barry told him? (I don't have time today to track down the reference)

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spectrum_09

Interested in the source of Beetle overhearing Klaus.

I just remember that Barry had told Beetle that Klaus was involved with the Other. Klaus then reads this in Beetle's notes. He doesn't know why Barry would have said that but he understood why Beetle didn't trust him.

I am probably forgetting something.

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doc_w_31415

It took a little digging, but

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060324

it's not quite so straightforward... but then, what is about the professor's plotting and foreshadowing?

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spectrum_09

Agatha H. and the Clockwork Princess. Page 324. Klaus talking to Bang.

"...Barry Heterodyne claimed that I worked for the Other."

"But the notes don't say why."

Edited (spelling ) Date: 2018-12-26 01:24 am (UTC)

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bunsen_h

Near the beginning of Vol. 2, Klaus was concerned by Bang's report of seeing someone who looked like Gil, dressed like a Geister, through a time window. At the end of Vol. 2, he was even more upset when Bang identified Agatha as one of the people she'd seen with Gil. He ordered Agatha to be sedated. The actions of a number of people escalated from there. Seems to me that there was an influence of the window's information on people's actions from that point, not merely "I'm so confused!" stuff.

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spectrum_09

Edited (spelling) Date: 2018-12-25 11:33 am (UTC)

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Lucrezia and Klaus

Smoother-than-oil-film Lucrezia in flashback, confirming "manipulative and consummate actress" summary from Klaus.
And here's the infamous "I am the Agatha girl!" moment of the Other's instance in Agatha — compare and contrast, as they say.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100716

Agatha is not the perfect

Also, the transfer process itself was far from perfect, as the beacon engine was assembled incorrectly and it's a wonder it worked at all. According to Lucrezia.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060920

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