Tom Sewell

Oh, joy, Yet another variation on Lisp. Beloved of set theory geeks, Lisp is a higher-level computer language that has the dubious distinction of being harder to master than writing assembly code. I suffered through the summer of 1995 at UC Berkeley being tortured by another Lips variation, Sceme--on computers using Gnu. I haven't touched any Lisp clone since. Oh, once you pass that introductory course, you never use scheme again at UC Berkeley; all the other Computer Science courses use C++.

Dan told us in his comment that this will be the only appearance of Comically Evil Guy. But maybe he'll change his mind. At least for part(s) of him. Or maybe the next puppy Good Tom rescues will prompt this dialog: There you go, you're safe now. But boy do you stink. What have you been rolling around in, monster poop? My Molotov cocktail idea was really just an excuse to get in a smoking boot. Someone actually made 25mm figures for Paranoia, and one of them was the signature smoking boot. It represents the highest damage category on the personal combat table: Vaporized. Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy! You may have guessed by now that Paranoia is a satirical game in the great tradition of others of that ilk such as The Awful Green Things From Space, Munchkins, Communist Invaders From Mars, Teenagers from Outer Space, S.P.A.N.C. (Space Pirate Amazon Ninja Catgirls), etc.

I'm really hoping that that one of that guy's feet get's bit off, his molotov cocktail drops and breaks, and when the police finally arrive all they find is a smoking boot. Yes, I've played Paranoia.

That's what I was totally for until a minute ago. I'm a bit less sure now. That last panel might go with Pandora realizing that she's going to need all her power to protect her family soon. In Part 16, not that long before visiting Tedd in Moperville time, Pandora visited Sarah. Pandora told Sarah that: “The ambient energy is going down... At this rate, it should be safe to fix the clog in a few days. ”. Just four comics later, after some hugs, Pandora told Sarah: ““I'm going to talk to my son on Saturday. Can I tell you how it goes after I do?”” “Few” doesn't usually mean “one” or even “two” So Saturday is one or two days away as Pandora fades out at the end of this comic, two comics before Part 17 begins where we see Tedd waking up as Dan tells us that it's: Later that evening, AKA super early Friday morning...” Now I'm thinking that Pandora might have been covering up her anxiety about what's about to happen. The logical time to talk to her son, the person who's actually going to remove the clog, is when Pandora is reasonably sure the ambient magic is down to a level where it will be safe for Adrian to take down the magical dam Pandora has had built (and just exactly who did Pandora empower and guide to put up that dam, anyway?). But she told Sarah that she'd talk to Adrian on Saturday, which doesn't seem long enough for Sarah to reduce the ambient magic far enough by herself. What else could could lower the ambient level a lot in a very short time? Well, remember that Pandora promised to find and shred the meddling Immortal that appeared at the Mall trying to provoke Dame Tara into killing Elliot. That kind of sounds like it would fill the bill. So Pandora may be allowing Sirleck and Magus' plan to go forward in order to draw out Voltaire and finish him. If she knows what's going on now, she may see Friday evening as her best opportunity to destroy her family's most powerful enemy. That last panel also gives me the vibe that Pandora realizes that the battle coming up may destroy her, or at least force a botched reset. I think the whole internal argument she's been having led to her steeling herself to “stay on target”. If this was a World War II manga, Pandora would be tying on her hachimaki in the last panel before climbing into her Zero to fly a kamikaze mission. Incidentally, have any of you seen the manga or the anime The Apprentice of Zero?

Just a thought: aside from resets, Hanma is older than recorded history. She could actually be Pandora's mother, if that's the way Immortals make more Immortals. Or Pandora's daughter. Feel free to add as many greats and grands as you like.

Like I said in the last post and at least one post quite some time ago, Sirleck's not dead yet. Sirleck is the type of abberation Immortals hate the most; he hasn't survived by being careless. There's some prize he's going for that justifies the enormous risk he's taking. I think the only reason he co-operated with Magus to allow Elliot to get to the Dewitchery Diamond. was that he knew Magus could always find him and an Immortal could always find Magus if she wanted to. Maybe Sirleck's real goal is to get Magus killed, removing the connection between himself and that very dangerous Immortal. I suspect it's quite hard for most Immortals to detect aberrations of Sirleck's ilk. It would be sweet revenge to possess Magus' body--but Magus with a body would become once again an extremely powerful wizard. Powerful wizards can even threaten Immortals. Of course, there is another Immortal who's aware of Sirleck, but Sirleck doesn't know that yet.

Well, it sounds to me like Pandora is getting ready to fight, but I don't think she expects to fight tonight. It hasn't been quite explicitly stated that Pandora knows about Sirleck, but Sirleck does seem to know about Pandora, or at least that Magus was working with an Immortal. Why would I think that Pandora doesn't know about Sirleck? Because he's not dead yet. I'm wondering if Dan really had the plot thought out as far as we've gotten when he made this title page a little more than a year ago. Notice someone missing? Sirleck himself is Voltaire's catspaw. Now since Voltaire manipulated Sirleck by impersonating Abner the fedora-wearing detective (maybe he got that hat from John Troutman?) near the end of So a Date at the Mall, it may be that Dan thought you readers were smart enough to figure that out without his squeezing one more background loomer in this title page. I'm also wondering if we're going to see Abner the detective in Catspaws. He could make for a plot device to warn at least one of our characters. And any anachronistic film-noir detective worthy of Dashiell Hammet or Raymond Chandler wouldn't stop digging just because a client told him he was finished with a case.

There's a certain amount of pain and loss that is needed to make you human. You need to experience your own pain to develop real empathy toward the pain of others.

Indubitably, but Jerry 2.0 doesn't know everything Classic Jerry did, so he could be wrong.

Good point. I'm not giving up yet, though. Anything Jerry says in Goonmanji 2 may or may not be true in Canon.

Pandora barely has a history with Jerry 2.0. Explain how this would affect Pandora's reset.

Time for another Amazing Crackpot Plot Theory! Goonmanji 2 isn't canon, but Dan said Hanma as a character is canon. Could it be that Hanma will be the reset Pandora?

"Hanma" has five listings in the names database of the Jim Breen's Japanese Internet Dictionary, all surnames; "Akane" has ten listings, all feminine given names. If Hanma's moral compass is going to be Susan, we may be setting course for the final frontier.

Actually we all sort of reset, continuously. How much do you remember from ten years ago? Do any of you really remember much from when you were three or four? Chances are excellent that much of what you think you remember is wrong. Getting back to the story, I think we should remember that Pandora has had a few words with Young Jerry, who seems to retain some of the affection that Old Jerry felt for Susan beyond the obligation of that Vow. Anyway, Pandora probably isn't going to reset voluntarily before Sarah has drained the excess magic and Adrian has taken down the dam, certainly not before she speaks with Adrian again, which she told Sarah she wasn't going to do until Saturday--tomorrow, Moperville time. She'll at least want to tell Adrian what she's going to try to do and why before she resets in case it doesn't work and she loses the parts of her she wants to keep. However, the forecast is trending toward at least one battle tonight, and Pandora's unlikely to peace out if her family looks like it's about to lose. Thus, she's still quite likely to go too far and get reset without proper preparation.

This is a really revealing comic. Pandora's only borderline psychic when she abandons empathy and kindness. Does that sound dangerously close to an abberation abandoning empathy? I think it's also confirming that Pandora is going to be blindsided by tonight's scheduled activities because she doesn't want to pay the price of becoming borderline psychic again.

According to Young Jerry, she has more than enough power.

Except that they reset improperly soon after this, quite possibly because of this. Still, a good theory as to their motivation. Whatever else, "kill all vampires" still seems to be their Prime Directive.

Could be. But how did they know about Nanase? They just happened to be nearby when Susan was attacked? Paris is a large city, and we're not even sure the attack happened in Paris, only that it happened in France.

Nope, but your theory intrigues me. Mine was that Adrian asked them to watch over Susan. Logic nagged me that it would only work if Adrian knew Susan was his daughter. Since Adrian seems to have lived mostly in Europe before coming to the United States, he could have known H&D from way back. I think Mama Kitsune could have protected Nanase by simply refusing to let her go to France. But then again, why does Mama Kitsune want Nanase to master French?

I agree with your idea that a hasty vow just made before an involuntary reset could screw up things, but since I think that the most likely cause of the H&D reset was witnessing how traumatized Susan was after she killed the vampire in France, I would think said vow would be about Susan, or vampires, or both. Susan was familiar to them, but they didn't seem to remember much else. Exactly why were Helen and Demetrius in France? If they'd been there for any amount of time, they should have had at least once contact with the French equivalent of Edward's outfit; who else is likely to have professional vampire slayers on staff? So why didn't they get local help? The other thing they sort of remembered was they were following someone when they encountered Susan and Nanase. But Demetrius said it didn't make sense because why were they following Elliot? I was about to float another Amazing Crackpot Plot Theory, but unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately for you) my darned logic talked me out of it before I had time to write it down.

Or they could have made a vow to destroy every vampire they located ASAP. Come to think of it, at least to me, Pandora's extermination of werewolves sounds quite a lot like fulfilling a vow she might have made after Blaike was killed by one of them.

No, we don't know. Jerry had a proper reset. Edward's explanation of Immortal vows didn't cover resets. In fact, Edward has never mentioned Immortal resetting at all. Helena and Demetrius' fixation on watching Elliot might have something to do with a vow, but since they don't remember why they're doing it, we don't know.

If she has a next life. Also, this presumes that Pandora will have enough time to properly reset. Even if she does reset, if she does it improperly, she could wind up as clueless as Helena and Demetrius.

Could be, if what Old Jerry said was right. The reason Pandora gets bored so much is that so much is predictable to her. While she doesn't seem to know about Voltaire's or Sirleck's or Magus' plans, Pandora does know that another Immortal is menacing Tedd, and that fighting that Immortal is quite likely to put her over the line into an involuntary reset--or maybe even real death. Pandora started out on her quest to help Tedd after her son broke her heart with his "Father would hate what you've become" remark. Pandora was afraid she'd gone too far during her encounter with Tedd after the "bend worlds to your will" bit. Pandora did admit at one point quite awhile ago that she overreacted with Magus. This supports the idea that Pandora has decided she must reset soon before she harms people she's grown to love. So that's two reasons for Pandora has realized she's made promises to Sarah and Tedd she may not be keeping.

The last panel is really strange. The light-colored Pandora is speaking in the first person, and everything else in the panel is faded--exactly the convention Dan has consistently used to indicate beings that are on a different plane, invisible to anyone not on that plane. Pandora has split herself into four editions twice, but those were both on the same plane as everyone else. Could this really mean that Pandora is splitting into two parts for good? Or is Dan just using a variation on the old devil-angel trope like Good Diane/Bad Diane or Susan's four shoulder buddies (Logic, Curiosity, Nature, and Nurture).