Friday's comic

[amamama]

http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20170616

So, she offed all the others but left one? Any reason to save the last? I'm impressed by her level of control, she's clearly a worthy heir.

Comments

...I think that might be the =REAL= Beausoleil.

[themadkansan]

I remember her saying awhile back that she felt the "other presence" moving - maybe he felt he needed to shiv Simon in-person.

...I think that condescending chauvinist crack he made about over-exerting herself just made her even MORE furious; if he was going to die slow before, it's going to be HILARIOUSLY drawn-out and painful now...

[kelkyag]

She might want the option of interrogating him. I imagine she's learned a lot from his intrusions into the Paris systems, but maybe not everything she wants to know about what he did and why.

Heh.

[themadkansan]

As thoroughly as she pwn3d his arse, I'd bet Tiny gave her whatever keys he snatched - if you can make your target quack like a duck on demand, you can do So Much More...

[kelkyag]

Being able to operate Beausoleil's clank bodies might not translate into being able to read his mind. Gil reanimated Lord Selnikov's head to question him, and for all Lucrezia could move minds between bodies, or overlay minds on each other, there only seemed to be information sharing when they were stuffed into the same brain, and that seemed to be incomplete and interactive.

That said, attempting to asserting what is or isn't possible with current technology in this genre is fraught. But perhaps we'll at least get a clue of Colette's intentions before she's rudely interrupted by some other bit of plot.

Re: Heh.

[jbwoodford]

Along those lines, I'm guessing from his reaction that normally he's got cutouts so that if a body is damaged or destroyed he doesn't feel it, and Colette shut those down.

[marycatelli]

And she's established that she's serious.

[madfilkentist]

There was a suggestion last time that we're seeing their representation in cyberspace. It's consistent with what we're seeing today. I very much doubt that the real Beausoleil looks just like his clank bodies. Most likely he can't travel by normal means.

If you make decoys...

[themadkansan]

...you make them look like the real thing - if they can pick you out from the crowd, the crowd's kinda useless. :)

Re: If you make decoys...

[madfilkentist]

That assumes he ever is in a crowd in person. But we'll see next week.

[spectrum_09]

Agreeing with the MadKasan. I think that's the real, flesh-and-blood Beausoleil.

[deckardcanine]

Maybe she just decided to save him for last so she could watch his reaction to all the other deaths first.

[therru]

Lovely "kill Beausoleil" montage! ^^

[jhameia]

I love how "CUBE!" is an onomatopoeia.

*snrk*

[themadkansan]

kinda like "TOME!" ~XD

Re: *snrk*

[skybreak]

Yeah 'TOME' is my favourite unsound effect in the series so far, but I also love that fact that the book is called "Using found objects as weapons".

Comment from my off-Lair friend...

[doc_w_31415]

1) Given at least 22 doppelgangers killed in violent and painful fashion, and given the fact that per his own admission he felt every one, Collette's statement, "Think of it as a final moment of SANITY" takes on unpleasant meaning.




2) Given a sudden and distinct lack of background details in the last two strips (beginning with Collette's appearance and the sudden cessation of racket in the W strip, and excepting only the cobblestones in the last panel of today's strip), I am rapidly coming to the conclusion that they are indeed in the Paris Matrix, and one of the bodies destroyed may well have been his original.




3) Given points 1 & 2 above, it may well be that the only thing of Beausoleil left is the personality in the matrix. As in, she just did him out of anywhere he can flee.




...except Der Mini-Kestle...?

Re: Comment from my off-Lair friend...

[murgatroyd666]

Setting this scene in The Matrix/Cyberspace/The Other Plane would also explain how Colette is able to float and to change her appearance.

Re: Comment from my off-Lair friend...

[spectrum_09]

Well, the Master managed floating, both himself and others, in front of witnesses. The fight with the Geisters and Andronicus didn't seem to be "in the Matrix".

Re: Comment from my off-Lair friend...

[doc_w_31415]

Reply from my off-Lair friend:

>>Well, the Master managed floating, both himself and others, in front of witnesses. The fight with the Geisters and Andronicus didn't seem to be "in the Matrix".<<




No argument with that. But Colette went straight from:

1) "can't see her legs because of the cables" to no cables whatsoever, not even the one connected to her throat, and no sign of a PLUG for said throat cable (and just as an analogous aside, remember that Neo's ports disappeared and his hair grew back when he was in the Matrix, because self-image);

2) fully costumed to incompletely reassembling something that vaguely looks like the dress she was wearing;

3) full backgrounds (which we also saw with Voltaire's scenes) to nothing but a purple background -- no streets, no buildings, no stars in the sky, nothing -- at the exact same time the street-based noisemakers STOPPED.




I submit for consideration the notion that Beausoleil now lives in the matrix of Paris and that NONE of the automatons he has used is his body, that he is one of the entities she detected in the matrix and about which she tried to warn her father, and that she has now decided to confront him in his "lair," if you will, and permanently oust him therefrom. Having now destroyed all of the escape routes he might otherwise have had, and in such a way that HE KNOWS SHE DID.




What comes next should be interesting...

Re: Comment from my off-Lair friend...

[themadkansan]

Simon's control was totally wireless as well, and his clothing was most likely designed to stand up to the kind of energy fields that permeated him - Colette's is/was nothing more than a party dress, and as such neither capable nor expected to stand up to what amounts to regulated ball-lightning.

She has established full command/control over the City, and so no longer needs the physical connections she employed earlier - she now commands as Simon did, through direct mental transmission, so the cables withdrew. Her previously-placed autonomous subsystems appear to be supporting the administrative load of the overall network, relieving her of the strain that Simon experienced, having to command the entire city at once.

As far as entities in the network, she felt her father moving through the network as he was physically moving through the city - I think she felt Beausoleil the same way, as =he= was physically moving through the city.

But we'll see in the morning. :)

Re: Comment from my off-Lair friend...

[jbwoodford]

Also, in the last panel Beausoleil is on cobblestones.

[jbwoodford]

What's the onomatopoeia in the panel to the left of "Blub?"