hkmaly

Surprisingly, more than one shapeshifter can exist.

I thought she was saying "I'll start with this and work my way up to hammers of twapping" Yes, however it's not exactly "proof of concept" because only thing those two would have in common would be being Hanma-powered artifact. She simply isn't sure she has enough power for hammers yet but wants to do something anyway. It's interesting that TEDD is. Maybe Susan would be as well with proper explanation ... after all, we are not sure the original reason for hammers actually WORKED. And Hanma's version might be more painful and more widespread ...

I don't think she has any. She always needs to remember Blaike and think about what he would do, she doesn't feel it herself. Alternatively, he ALWAYS resets improperly due to the artifact, but doesn't really care because he can remember using the artifact. I wonder if she will warn anyone about her reset or the nature of it. Part of me thinks, Yes, obviously so, but another wonders if maybe she wouldn't or wouldn't let anyone know that she is attempting something new, so that they wouldn't worry about her or try to talk her out of it. Hmmm.... She DOES have the option of saying something and disappearing before they start talking her out of it. But yes, that's why I said "probably Adrian". I think she would tell Sarah because she likes her and because Sarah is unlikely to object, but she MIGHT avoid telling Adrian or tell him in way which won't allow him to reply because she would be afraid what the reply would be.

Actually, Hanma herself is not sure she can already power a hammer artifact, BUT she definitely has more power than Jerry so the point still holds. Pandora after reset would be WEAKER than Jerry. And regarding canonicality ...I think that the character being canon but storyline not actually means that the storyline might've easily happened but didn't. Possibly in canon Hanma got different idea OR decided for someone else than Susan to be her moral compass. (Frankly, WHY Susan? It's possible that in canon Jerry would actively prevent her from interacting with Susan, for Susan's protection.)

The important lessons are the ones we tend to NOT forget. Humans don't forget the oldest stuff first, they forget the least important stuff first. Based on the "passing lies" possibility, the most recent incarnation can definitely choose to edit what is to be passed, but it seems that USUALLY they doesn't. I don't think there is any hard limit on how big the "library" can be, but USUALLY the most recent incarnation keeps the amount relatively small ... and it's also possible the next incarnation can choose to not read everything immediately or skip the boring parts. Does it MEAN anything, though? Are there really distinct Pandora's sub-personalities (similar to Susan's logic and curiosity) or was it just for reader's convenience? I think Adrian already knows how to defuse the dam. However, she may need to tell him WHERE. Anyway, yes ; while she seem to reach conclusion that attempt to do reset might be better than not, I definitely don't see her doing it so fast. I would also expect that she would WARN at least Sarah and probably also Adrian about that. Yes ... although maybe she WILL somehow manage to keep the emotional ties regardless.

And each older self tries to deny or forget what she did in her youth not realizing she will end up repeating the experience, proving they may be older but not that much wiser. Yeah totally. I don't think they NEED any guiding and empowering. Also, I don't think there are THAT many immortals on Earth.

... right. It might be because they only had one Oracle and one One and it would cause problems if some people would be in other simulation. It's true Middle-Earth mytology wasn't AS much thin-veiled as Christianity in Narnia. You can still see pretty lot of parallels. How would you know? But maybe isn't. Yet. Starwars did something similar later. But I'm not arguing against this. I'm just saying that even in the first movie agent Smith seemed broken. The sentinels didn't HATED humans. They were killing them, sure, but just because it was in plan. In fact I suspect sentinels are not true AI's like Smith, Architect or Oracle, but have relatively simple programming. The machines can afford a "crunch all you want, we'll make more" attitude to a point. But they need a minimum number of Sentinels to keep the human ships away from targets of interest. Maybe they kept those forces in reserve or maybe they threw everything into their attack. If they threw everything in and got chewed up, there comes a point where they would have to consider a retreat in order to have enough forces to maintain security. You are underestimating their strategy planning. IMHO they had enough Sentinels ready to defeat Zion even if Smith's trick wouldn't worked. Also, yes, they definitely left the "defense" Sentinels in place. The Sentinels Neo met weren't recalled from the battle with Zion. The premise of movie is that machines were true artificial intelligence, capable of learning and adapting. We saw how different programs developed different personality, on top of their original function. Oracle is one of such AI's, created to interpret aspects of the human psyche. I believe that through her study of human psyche, she came with theory how can world be changed if humans would be willing to risk peace. With Neo, she found a way to prove this theory. Machines in Matrix are not Borg collective mind.

She looks little like those girls from splatoon. She's supposed to be mixing multiple stuff, which may make her less attractive that ANY of the girls she's mixed from. Presumably. I didn't see that many anime and I don't think I'm recognizing what's she's supposed to be mixed from. ... yes. Also, Jerry is too immature to realize it was bad idea telling it to her. It's possible she reset improperly - or that she declared the notes from her previous selves boring and didn't read them. Or her previous selves were just different enough they didn't had any similar experience. Or maybe they did but were ashamed of it later and didn't put it into notes. Actually, this last one seems most likely.

Smith only tells us that they tried creating a "perfect world" and failed. Implicit in Smith's saying "Some thought we didn't have the programming language" to create a perfect world is the idea that they tried multiple different versions of "perfect world" at the very least. Building on that, they probably tried multiple historical settings as well. But it's still possible that they had multiple problems - for example with the other historical settings being poorly documented or their information poisoned by missconceptions - and the 20th century was just the best they were able to come with. Also, I think the idea of dividing people into multiple words based on which they fit more didn't occurred to them. Gandalf was/is something akin to an archangel so there might be some point to not questioning. And calling ancient wise powers on their collective crap is a concept which only came in wide use in the late 20th century. Akin? The biggest difference between Gandalf and archangel is that Gandalf doesn't have wings. While in middle-earth at least. over the algorithms of the search and what gets displayed? I'd expect a lot. The EU recently fined Google a heft sum for the way they presented their results. EU fining them doesn't mean they can influence it. Also, the fine was specifically over position of price-comparators. The core of Google search index is likely using neural nets or something similar and might already reached point when engineers of Google are honestly unable to say why something went up or down. True. Also, they still can just turn it off. I don't count THIS bit between those clumsy and obvious retcons. And I think even compared to other agents he was already looking broken in first movie. I don't think those losses were punishing to them. I think they could easily replace those sentinels. Remember they have experience with destroying Zion: they deliberately chose this strategy likely because it's best strategy they have. Yes. Yes Machines? No. Architect? No. Oracle? Yeah totally. The Oracle is independent program, likely the most different from all other AIs. And what you described definitely seem like her strategy. And there is little "I told you so" vibe from her conversation with Architect - she won and machines now seem to accept at least some of her theories, which they previously ignored.

Tedd telling about what happened to Grace: "You wouldn't believe what happened! My Grand-Godmother is ok with me being girl! Also, apparently I'm seer but that's not so important." Try this bookmarklet . Assuming it survives posting. That would be nice. Sounds too nice to actually happen. Sigh. Yes. Unfortunately. ... someone calling him Lord Protector and Tedd shivering ... Big WANDS. I mean staffs. ... Noriko and Mrs. Kitsune fighting back to back, Edward pointing it out, those two looking at each other and jumping away, as it turns out they were not aware of each other ... Think of it as Extreme Urban Renewal. Extreme Urban Renewal will be what happens afterwards if someone decides to rebuild the city.

Even if they were dolphins? Considering lack of opposable thumbs, I wouldn't recommend driving OR text-messaging to dolphins of any gender. They might be fine using hands-free and swimming at the same time, though. Well okay then. I would vote for octopi as well over the current administrations at both our federal and state level. Wow, that is some realization. I need more coffee (AM here). We do tend to have candidates who MIGHT be better than octopus. Of course so far they always lost, so I would likely choose between them and the octopus based on who has better chance to win over current administrations according to election polls.

Do you think he ever saw his dad use the lightning wand? No, I don't think he did.

I think it was the other way around - The matrix was kept within the setting because the machines were unable to think of anything better. Except the first version which probably had other problems on top of "not enough suffering". If they had fusion ... well, technically it's finite resource, but hydrogen is the most common stuff in universe. But maybe they don't have fusion. Hell, they seem to not be able to get on orbit. There may easily be one One every 50 years. Well it wasn't to deflect blame. Apparently, neither Frodo nor Gimli called him on it being nonethical. I guess Frodo was busy writing and Gimli just complained they didn't took him with them. Also accused Gandalf he is still not saying the whole truth - and he just replied "of course I don't". On second though, maybe they didn't DARE to protest. Exactly what I though about. How much control you think Google has over their search? Machines weren't presented in the first movie - only agents were, and those were programmed to police ... and Agent Smith might already be broken. Yes, it was a joke. He stopped the attack on Zion. When they practically already won. And recalled the attacking sentinels. Sounds like pretty good demonstration of good intentions, isn't it? And it's not like Neo would be able to verify what he did. Would Zion WANT their help?

Most humans probably wouldn't WANT to be freed anyway. In fact, I'm sure Architect has pretty good estimates about how many humans want out of matrix so he knows it won't be problem for long time. And, yes ... long term, they may fix the sky. Or the bug in programming which made machines not consider nuclear power I think that the AI's in Matrix are limited, that humans actually can invent stuff they can't. And it's possible Neo made them realize how necessary that is. I think it was just hundreds and yes, they have problems understanding that stability is not best solution. I do not own a copy of Unfinished Tales. Then your guess was surprisingly correct. I specifically talk about those ON the battle field. In book it was mentioned that after Sauron's dead, there were still some smaller battles with allied humans, but none with orcs or trolls. Those simply lost the will to fight. That sounds like noone tried yet, but there ARE stories like that. Not from the big houses, though. THOSE go for quantity, not quality. Machine would never say that. Actually generate sounds using muscles? WiFi is much cheaper than talking. Unfortunately, few lines of dialogue is cheaper than 30 minutes bonus movie on topic of how machines actually fulfilled the contract ... nevertheless, I'm convinced the authors MEANT architect to be sincere. And from the meta perspective ... if the war started because humans were paranoid and feared AI's will enslave them, your unwillingness to accept the possibility Architect will keep his word is example of the same way of thinking.

Unless there is some director's cut, the entire negotiation of Neo with Machines is AI: Speak. Neo: The program Smith has grown beyond your control. He will spread through this city as he spread through the Matrix. You cannot stop him. But I can. AI: We don't need you! We need nothing! Neo: If that's true, then I've made a mistake, and you should kill me now. AI: What do you want? Neo: Peace. Pretty short negotiation, open to speculation about exact meaning. However, later we have Architect talking with Oracle: Architect: You played a very dangerous game. Oracle: Change always is. Architect: Just how long do you think this peace is going to last? Oracle: As long as it can. What about the others? Architect: What others? Oracle: The ones that want out. Architect: Obviously, they will be freed. Oracle: I have your word? Architect: What do you think I am? Human? THIS is where I think the AIs - represented by Architect - are INSULTED by implication they might lie or cheat. They will keep the peace as long as it's possible (presumably until humans would attack them) and won't be trying any "technically fulfilling the terms but not the spirit of agreement" stuff.

And poisoning the water supply for the rest of the town for decades to come with a giant rotting corpse. ... that IS something they should've think about, yes ... but they didn't really had that much choice. I would say it's ELLIOT doing this fighting against status quo, in both cases. I mean, he is not using Cheerleadra abilities, look or anything for that. Explain why they are harvesting energy from humans instead of using nuclear sources then. They consider the strategy they were using before failure. They are trying to come up with new one. How much nicer it will be to free-range humanity is to be seen, but they are AIs. They don't do revenge. They don't get anything from being mean to people. Successful strategy for them means sustainable, it doesn't matter if humans suffer or not. Did you read it meanwhile? Yes, he mentioned being different person and looking differently at some stuff he did. He also mentioned that he will only give full debriefing on West. Well why do you think orcs made no real resistance after Sauron died, while some of the humans allied with him did? NOT changing the comics earth despite lot of reasons for change breaks the suspension of disbelief. I don't think you can do successful indefinitely running comics. Even Garfield starts to look repetitive. They should START with earth being similar to our earth, then diverge as makes sense given what's happening, and give up and try something else when readers stop to relate. Or limit themselves to the "advanced" audience who have no problem to relate to elves, Jedi or Klingons. Pininterest links don't work. Also, Artimis? Not Artemis?

We could try, but I think dolphins are too intelligent for that. I mean, they wouldn't be interested. Women seems usually better at multitasking than men. It's still not good idea for them to drive and phone at same time. I'm pretty sure even the better-not-named top politician is able to sleep with whole brain. He definitely doesn't use whole brain when tweeting, though. In fact, maybe sleeping is ONLY thing he does with whole brain.

Good point, but I think that would require Edward to make the transition from overly-protective parent to reasonably-protective parent, one who would be willing to teach Tedd to protect himself instead of just protecting Tedd himself. I think it would be good for Edward to get to that point, but I don't think he's there yet. That, or to pay attention while Edward will be doing the protecting, like in the vampire attack. Even if it goes just little bad, he may, similarly as Grace with the ASMA training, realize that having some serious battle spells which he may never use would be better than nothing. Neither Noah nor Susan went the full revenge route. Oooooh, Jerry's serenity spell ... that would certainly be useful. Although not in case of vampires. .... well, ok, those are offensive, but it's like boost to physical attack. Someone like Tedd, not trained in physical combat and hardly able to run a mile, wouldn't get much from them. I was talking about spells Tedd could use for offense.

While Tedd probably CAN use mind-bending aspects of Elliots secret identities in combination with emotional changes of FV5, I doubt she would be the type to make actually useful offensive spell from that. She can also use some of EDWARD's spells. I'm sure Edward does have strong offensive spells, yet possibly non-lethal. Are we talking before or after the vampires attack Moperville and <spoiler>? Good questions, although I suspect answer is "no" on all.

Good question. It is possible that immortal can't DIRECTLY attack aberration attacking her child. However, I'm sure there is lot of indirect stuff they can do. Note that the vampires are supposed to be DISTRACTION. They are not expected to survive the attack on Adrian. That's why I think there will be no hostage situation.

You might have been. Romantisizing Rome doesn't seem a part of WW2 beyond the obvious of italy. I don't get that from Nazi Germany or japan. My knowledge of WW1 motivations beyond a webwork of alliances that forced a bunch of nations to fight, is a little murkier. Hmmm ... ok, the connection to Roman Empire itself might not be as direct as I though ... Nazi Germany however saw itself as successor state of Holy Roman Empire. And their salute was supposed to be based on Roman salute, although it might actually be just what was supposed to be Roman salute at that time, the actual Roman works don't seem to display it. I repeat, they are not human. Human wouldn't keep the promise. Agent Smith wouldn't. But the ruling AI's actually might, and I think that's what the movie is supposed to say. He didn't said anything to Thorin. I have Unfinished Tales here and he told it to Frodo and Gimli after Aragorn's coronation. He was much more ready than Gandalf expected, which was proven when Gandalf with rest of White Council attacked Dol Guldur, where Sauron was at that point. THATS where Gandalf was when he wasn't helping Bilbo and the dwarves, and it IS actually shown in movie. The attack succeeded, but Sauron was already planing to move to Mordor so it was extremely short victory. However, it's true it is not directly mentioned there if the orc army attacked on Sauron's direct order. And some are VERY far from that. There is no real villain similar to Joker. There are lot of them in comics. The law can be changed. ... I must admit I know more about Middle-earth than about Batman.

The status quo of "orcs in Mordor" was totally broken. ... was I too subtle? There was a world war about the topic. Machines planed to destroy Zion ... again, to continue the cycle. Neo made them promise they won't, and they, being AIs and not human, will keep the promise. That WILL change things - the destruction and rebuilding of Zion each time it become too powerful was status quo. Although I agree that I expected more after the end of first Matrix. After Bilbo made it out of Smaug's lair safely, the dragon flew off to Laketown. Bilbo told a thrush to send word to Bard of Smaug's weakness. Bard shot the Black Arrow at the bare spot, killing Smaug and sending him to rot at the bottom of the lake, but destroying part of Lake Town. Sauron was not POV character obviously, but the fact he lost the battle suggests something. The big pot of gold not protected by dragon anymore obviously forced everyones hand. Sauron DID send an army, but it wasn't in optimal condition. What Sauron would prefer would be to ALLY with Smaug and make coordinated attack with him. Gandalf specifically wanted Smaug to be destroyed before the "war of the ring" because he feared the possibility. This is mentioned in The Quest of Erebor, part of Unfinished Tales, along with fact that in time of battle of Minas Tirith, there WAS also battle on North which would certainly ended differently if Smaug wasn't be dealt with - Gandalf in fact feared Imladris might've been sieged and Arwen killed. There is an endless number of good stories, but comics writers seem to not be able to prove that when they repeat already written story again and again with just minor changes. The Joker is mentally ill. You don't execute someone because they're sick. What kind of monster are you? Practical one. Every time Joker escapes he kills people. Their lives have bigger value than Jokers. Logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. There was argument that Batman is responsible, but he isn't, he can't be if he's supposed to remain on side of law. The officials are responsible. Note that I don't propose killing him on first try. I just conclude that they should've already exhausted all other possibilities. Either they didn't, which suggest they are corrupted or incompetent, or they did, in which case capital punishment is only remaining solution.

Ah, but he thinks Adrian is the son of either Helena or Demetrius. He's going to expect a reaction from an immortal who only recently reset, and improperly at that. Instead, he's going to get an immortal who hasn't reset in several centuries. He thinks the approaching light is a motorcycle, but it's an express train. ... personally, I wouldn't stay in way of motorcycle, despite it being much less risky than express train. Yes, it does seem optimistic for him to assume they remember their son ... on the other hand, he might assume that based on "Abner" saying it, they remember because otherwise Abner wouldn't know.

Jerry's niece? Though given her personality, she'd probably prefer the sempai thing. She sounds like she would really like to be someone's niece but that doesn't mean she actually is. She MIGHT grow out of it. Maybe. Pandora actually KNOWS western culture references. Based on the "Poorly spoken Japanese" comment last comix, I suspect this immortal doesn't know anime as well as she pretends. We should test her.

Yes. Especially comics heroes are preserving status quo a lot. That's wasn't what I argued against. I was talking about the minority of cases where they don't. Yes, fighting against status quo is political statement because you need to describe it good enough to explain WHY the hero fights against it. Meanwhile, you can make story about protecting status quo without describing it enough to make political statement. Also note that Cheerleadra is NOT fighting against status quo with being genderfluid because her being genderfluid (or transformed and gender-meh) is not public knowledge. Unless you count people who both believe Voltaire and correctly guessed what he spoke about - despite the Cheerleadra sightings disproving that. Destroying the One Ring destroyed Sauron's empire. Not exactly preserving status quo, especially if you realize that fighting Sauron was basically status quo since Melkor's defeat. Replacing one status quo with other is not preserving status quo. Note that I did mentioned that Sauron wanted to change the status quo more than the heroes, so it can be said that they tried to preserve status quo and just weren't completely successful. But I would say that lot of people believed Aragorn as king will do plenty of changes. One hundred years. And what followed wasn't exactly same as before either, although it presumably returned to previous status quo when the children disappeared. Then other humans came of course ... And, again, replacing one status quo with other is not preserving status quo anymore. For example, attempts to recreate Roman Empire are generally not seen as preserving status quo ... When you end with The Matrix, Neo directly SAYS he will change things in end of movie. When you end with Revolutions, the change is already there. Note that Zion is small anomaly, the artificial world is where most people are - and Neo cared more about the Matrix than Zion in first movie. Wasn't Bilbo originally telling someone about the flaw in Smaug armor? Not in the movie of course. But, yes: the main thing Bilbo and maybe more importantly Thorin II Oakenshield did was ending the status quo of Smaug occupying the Lonely Mountain by making him angry enough to get himself killed. They also forced start of battle of five armies, which Sauron would definitely prefer to happen later. My point wasn't (just) that heroes don't support the status quo. As I already said, I was commenting that heroes who don't support the status quo can still make good stories. I agree that most superheroes spend most of their time supporting status quo. I would even say some of them support status quo so well (and long) it's getting boring, therefore not good story. If you think of the status quo as people able to go about their daily business as they see fit, then yeah. But he doesn't affirm the gloomy corrupt aspect of the status quo, so you get a mixed bag that is a qualified yes or qualified no depending on how you want to view it. Batman is trying hard to both protect the status quo for normal people and change the status quo for politicians. His results seems to be that both statui quo holds, meaning he failed in his revolutionary aspect. The authorities are so corrupt they were still not able to execute Joker, despite repeated proofs they are not able to keep him in jail!