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      Welcome!   03/05/2016

      Welcome, everyone, to the new 910CMX Community Forums. I'm still working on getting them running, so things may change.  If you're a 910 Comic creator and need your forum recreated, let me know and I'll get on it right away.  I'll do my best to make this new place as fun as the last one!
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Story: Friday 12 Jan 2018

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2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Perhaps you are assuming too much. There are other immortal beings besides the Immortals (formerly known as Fairies), including Heka. The fact that Pandora showed great respect (for Pandora) to Heka kind of indicates that's she thought he was powerful enough to be a threat. I think it more likely that Heka or a group of non-Immortals of immense powers imposed the rules on the Immortals, or at least nagged them into what may be the only agreement they ever reached.

And maybe the Will of Magic is the power that got the Immortals to make their laws.

Well, yes, no council (unless I was referring to the other Council of Immortals), though Voltaire is waiting for magic to reset to gain the attention of Magic and Immortals, and while there are other immortals, Immortals seem to refer to themselves by that name without regard to the other types, so yes, I am assuming he wants to get Immortals to change the laws (and Magic also?) since apparently Immortals themselves agreed on these laws.  Though seeing all of the Immortals gather in a council would be cool, and having other immortals gather to watch even cooler.  Chances of seeing that drawn in the near future?  Eh, not so good.

20 minutes ago, Aura Guardian said:

I see two options:

1) The connection of the forced reset

2) The bloodline connection.

If it's 1, then I hope she's stomping lots of other immortals in some way, based on how lots of them do terrible stuff. Maybe she's one-shotting Voltaire, please?

If it's 2, then maybe she's emitting a vampire-killing wave, hence the bullet for Sirleck to have dodged?

Honestly, I think it's 1, but let me throw this out there.  Pandora was already planning on attempting a refresh and the power of the connection gave her more to work with, but what is she doing that is against immortal law?  Using the power for her own purposes or using it for own purposes to directly affect someone else?  Maybe it's not a vampire-killing blast, but she was sending something specifically after Sirleck and Magus, some magical summons or such.  That would be nice, because I think unless someone notices what those two are up to, there is a whole lot of bad still running around tonight. 

Also, I would love it if she was also able to send Sarah and Tedd messages of some sort as well, especially Tedd.  Finding a fairy greatgrandmother and then losing her,  ouch!

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1 hour ago, Aura Guardian said:

I see two options:

1) The connection of the forced reset

2) The bloodline connection.

3. She's referring to the connection between the two sides of the world.

4. She's referring to Tedd's somehow different connection to magic, relating to him being a seer rather than a Wizard or Awakened.

5. She's trying to divert the forced-reset blast from herself to someone else - hopefully Voltaire.

6. Something else that I am not thinking of at the moment, and perhaps has not yet been made apparent in the comic.

I am not arguing for or against any of these possibilities.

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3 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

3. She's referring to the connection between the two sides of the world.

4. She's referring to Tedd's somehow different connection to magic, relating to him being a seer rather than a Wizard or Awakened.

5. She's trying to divert the forced-reset blast from herself to someone else - hopefully Voltaire.

6. Something else that I am not thinking of at the moment, and perhaps has not yet been made apparent in the comic.

I am not arguing for or against any of these possibilities.

It was Zeus that said "she's doing what with the connection?!" so it's likely the connection refers to the link between all Immortals that allows them to know when one has broken Immortal law and to force a reset.

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49 minutes ago, Scotty said:

It was Zeus that said "she's doing what with the connection?!" so it's likely the connection refers to the link between all Immortals that allows them to know when one has broken Immortal law and to force a reset.

Maybe.. she is breaking it???

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1 hour ago, Entropy said:

Maybe.. she is breaking it???

Do you mean breaking Immortal law? Or breaking the system, as I speculated she might be doing?

Voltaire's goal seems to be not just destroying Raven or Pandora  destroying the restrictions on Immortal behavior, thus creating that better world he spoke of to Abner the detective. Better for him, at least.

Unless Pandora is wrong, or her final plan requires deception at this point, it appears she really will be out of the picture as all Immortals seem to be after a reset, forced or voluntary. She seemed completely sincere with her last words as the Pandora we know to Raven, Diane, and Susan. Now even if she hasn't identified Voltaire  yet, she does know there's another Immortal pulling strings, and if she is faking her reset, it has to be for the "benefit" of that Immortal. It's kind of a thin premise, but maybe not for Dan.

The more plausible alternative is that what we saw in today's comic was what it seemed to be. If so, and if Pandora hasn't set up a way to deal with Voltaire in the hiatus between her old self and her next Self, then it has to be up to (ta-da) our familiar group of mostly teenage heroes. This isn't just David vs. Goliath; it's Spiderman vs. Galactus!

But...

Spiderman won. He found a way to save the whole Earth from a being that pretty much eats planets as a regular diet. I've forgotten exactly how Spidey pulled that off, but he must have or we wouldn't have all these Spiderman reboots and re-reboots and re-re-reboots, ad infinitum. That was all the way back in the Silver Age when Jack Kirby breathed life back into the bland American mainstream comic book scene after the blandness produced by the Comics Code. Uncomfortably long ago for me; well before most of you were born. So there's precedence here.

And, no, I didn't just drop the term "Silver Age" here just because Dan used it back in New and Old Flames, although that does kind of prove that Dan knows, loves, and respects that part of the culture of comics.

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8 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

But where's the evidence? All the vampires are piles of ash, and as far as we know, they didn't actually attack anyone else or even do any damage. And no witnesses to the actual killing were shown other than Susan, Diane, Zeus, Raven, and Pandora. The girl who was fleeing from Flying Furry Snake With a Bow Tie wasn't looking at it in the one panel she was shown in, and that wasn't the panels where Susan killed it. Pandora isn't going to be available for questioning; Raven can go back to looking like an old man; Diane didn't do anything magical.

 

Sirleck hired them to be very overt, or the property damage being encouraged wouldn't be mentioned: http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2389

And they followed through on that at least: http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2431

 

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9 hours ago, Scotty said:
14 hours ago, partner555 said:

http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2446

So, is everyone with that affinity Raven's descendant?

Probably not, there could be other Immortals that can pass on that affinity, I think if Pandora was related to Tedd and Nanase because Noriko was a monster hunter, she would have mentioned that as well. Though summoning the bane would be a spell Noriko learned from Adrian? But what's odd is we haven't seen Adrian summon the bane, he borrowed Susan's, so what gives Adrian?!?!

First, it's PANDORA's descendant. Raven is only child of THIS Pandora's incarnation, but she easily could have more before that.

Second, Noriko may be legendary monster hunter but that doesn't mean she has summoning talent. She may use other spells OR, as you mentioned, she learned that spell from Adrian Raven. Or maybe from someone completely else.

And the Murder Shroud probably counts as summoned weapon as well. And maybe Raven COULD summon some weapon but using Susan's was quicker.

9 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:
12 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Dan hasn't done much with the witnesses so far. There's no indication any bystander has taken notice of Zeus, and no remarks from the three people who saw Pandora appear floating in air.  And no Carol Brown. Isn't it funny that there's no Carol Brown? Maybe that will change soon.

Keep in mind that Diane isn't famous like Susan, and Susan turned blond while she was fighting the vampires. People who don't really know her well may not recognize her. And Pandora wasn't floating high in the atrium like Voltaire.

Plus, the vampires didn't last very long at all.

If Dan doesn't want this incident to get big publicity, so far he's set up things so there might not be. Which would mean Magic wouldn't have an excuse to change...yet.

Say, anyone remember Pandora telling her son exactly how he's supposed to remove the magical energy dam she set up?

Well, I think for this part of the battle, most people have fled, or at least moved away  from the combatants?   Still, there were aberrations in monster form tearing up the mall.  That seems pretty big.  I think Voltaire's Magic Operating System Redo is coming.  Perhaps something Magus and Sirleck do will finish the job.

The question of witnesses is completely open now: Dan can either show most people just escaped and there are basically no witnesses to cause problems, OR he can show that the whole event was actually filmed by multiple people and is already on internet and it was just not shown yet because it would distract from the main point of this arc.

However, it's true that despite vampire's orders to be "loud", damage property etc, this fight was over relatively quickly ; it was nowhere near as likely to attract attention as Dame Tara shouting on mall full of people and then played tag with Cheerleadra.

7 hours ago, CritterKeeper said:
Quote

There are other immortal beings besides the Immortals (formerly known as Fairies), including Heka. The fact that Pandora showed great respect (for Pandora) to Heka kind of indicates that's she thought he was powerful enough to be a threat.

Do you only show respect to people who you see as a threat to you?  Or do you show respect to everyone unless they act in a way to lose that privilege?  I would expect good relations between immortals unless there is good reason not.  After all, they're going to be dealing with each other forever, it's in their best interests to get along.  Plus, you know, being a decent person.

Showing respect is one thing, but Pandora and Heka were talking about how powerful they are compared to each other.

Despite that, I think that imposing the laws on fairies from outside would be VERY hard, and if fairies would actually unite against whatever was trying that then impossible. And Pandora directly said fairies agreed to that law. Seems more likely it was something fairies set up themselves.

That said, I don't think there IS council of immortals. There WAS one, but it was one-time event.

5 hours ago, Aura Guardian said:

1) The connection of the forced reset

2) The bloodline connection.

If it's 1, then I hope she's stomping lots of other immortals in some way, based on how lots of them do terrible stuff. Maybe she's one-shotting Voltaire, please?

If it's 2, then maybe she's emitting a vampire-killing wave, hence the bullet for Sirleck to have dodged?

She IS speaking about bloodline before, but neither that nor unclogging (OR severing) the connection to other half of universe seem to be something warranting the "She's doing WHAT with the connection" from Zeus.

I think the connection he speaks about is connection to other immortals.

That still doesn't mean vampires are safe. It might be that she's draining power over the connection AND then uses it for something - and killing all vampires might be that something. Or it's related to her attempt to refresh. Or something else.

I definitely hope Zeus will elaborate next page.

3 hours ago, Entropy said:
4 hours ago, Scotty said:

It was Zeus that said "she's doing what with the connection?!" so it's likely the connection refers to the link between all Immortals that allows them to know when one has broken Immortal law and to force a reset.

Maybe.. she is breaking it???

Unlikely. I don't think even Voltaire would dare to hope for such great victory. Pandora must know that breaking it, even if it would help her (and it doesn't seem so), would mean danger for mortals, including her family and friend. (Tedd counting as family and Sarah being the friend.)

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Possibly it has something to do with the lights in the sky Sirleck and Magus were talking about--or maybe will be talking about soon.

In any case, seems that the lights Sirleck and Magus WILL be talking about soon are what's currently being emitted from Pandora.

10 hours ago, Scotty said:
11 hours ago, Drasvin said:

I think the connection Zeus mentioned is the connection between the two halves of the EGS-universe, the dam she set up. She couldn't remove the dam herself, because that would be depowering Moperville, but since she's breaking laws anyway...

This could very well be likely also now that you mention it, Adrian was supposed to be taking out the clog later, but Pandora might have decided to just do it herself since she's already broken Immortal law and being reset.

Pandora might've already told Adrian enough he would be able to put the pieces together and find the clog. He's centuries old wizard.

It seems Pandora didn't had really enough time for everything. She didn't mentioned Tedd, she didn't mentioned OR do anything with Voltaire ... well, the family is more important. Tedd can explain everything to Adrian himself. And Voltaire IS limited by the immortal law and this way he might became villain the main eight will fight against instead of being shred to pieces by Pandora easily.

(Hmmm ... also, I hope someone will tell Adrian that Voltaire claimed responsibility for that issue with Dex.)

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

The more plausible alternative is that what we saw in today's comic was what it seemed to be. If so, and if Pandora hasn't set up a way to deal with Voltaire in the hiatus between her old self and her next Self, then it has to be up to (ta-da) our familiar group of mostly teenage heroes. This isn't just David vs. Goliath; it's Spiderman vs. Galactus!

Galactus was not limited by immortal law.

5 hours ago, Tuscahoma said:

Maybe it's not a vampire-killing blast, but she was sending something specifically after Sirleck and Magus, some magical summons or such.  That would be nice, because I think unless someone notices what those two are up to, there is a whole lot of bad still running around tonight. 

I think Ashley, Elliot, Ellen, Magus and Sirleck will solve it themselves. They spend lot of effort to not be interrupted. It would work better if they wouldn't, Magus WOULD get his own body and then they either defeat Sirleck or at least learn about him enough to allow them to defeat him later.

 

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14 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Pandora might've already told Adrian enough he would be able to put the pieces together and find the clog. He's centuries old wizard.

I had this discussion on Discord, that while yes Pandora had tasked Adrian with removing the dam, that was before she realized what she'd been doing for the past few years, learned about Tedd and the fact that Adrian was capable of having children and genuinely wanted to try to fix things. It wouldn't be surprising if, after already breaking one Immortal law, she decided that depowering Moperville wouldn't make it any worse for her and she would be taking responsibility for creating it herself rather that leaving the burden on Adrian. Zeus would be able to let Adrian know the dam's been cleared because of the "we'll know what she did and why she did it" bit. It's certainly plausible, the question though is could she do that AND follow through with the Refresh? Or could she only do one or the other.

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I kind of hope that Pandora isn't unclogging the connection between worlds. It's generally a bad idea to blow up a dam before you drain the lake behind it - bad for anyone swimming in the lake and bad for anyone for some distance downstream. And we haven't seen a report that the lake was sufficiently drained.

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6 minutes ago, Don Edwards said:

I kind of hope that Pandora isn't unclogging the connection between worlds. It's generally a bad idea to blow up a dam before you drain the lake behind it - bad for anyone swimming in the lake and bad for anyone for some distance downstream. And we haven't seen a report that the lake was sufficiently drained.

Sarah had been doing well with using up the energy in the area(Thursday night), Adrian was apparently supposed to remove the dam sometime Saturday (assuming Pandora had wanted to tell Adrian about Susan and Diane after the dam was removed or or before she took him to the dam, though I don't see telling him before he removed the dam to be a good idea since she probably wouldn't have wanted him to be distracted by it) so the ambient energy might have been low enough Friday night to remove the dam without too much harm though I guess the danger might have been to Adrian if he had to get close enough to remove the dam. The lights in the sky that Sirleck saw might have been the visual effect of the dam being removed.

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3 hours ago, partner555 said:

Sirleck hired them to be very overt, or the property damage being encouraged wouldn't be mentioned: http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2389

Yes, those are the correct instructions.

3 hours ago, partner555 said:

And they followed through on that at least: http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2431

Not proven as yet.  There's no property damage shown except for one trash can, and not even any off-panel noises that could be from property damage. Only one bystander screamed, and it could have been the same girl running away from Snake-with-a-Bow-Tie, and since she was seen running away and not looking back, there's no evidence she saw Susan kill the vampire in the next three panels. The only other places were possible eyewitnesses to fighting are shown are both in Koalas and Gators, first and last panels. None of them are rendered with enough detail to show they are looking at Susan and her flaming sword.

Dan may not have shown any unmistakable witnesses for the kills simply because it was extra trouble. But as of this Friday's comic, there aren't any credible witnesses we can identify and no phones or cameras have been shown.

Tactically, there's an excuse for the vampires not to call too much attention to themselves. Two excuses, really. Remember, Koala found out there were at least two hunters nearby besides Raven. If you've gone to the trouble of giving up humanity for unaging life, you shouldn't be too anxious to risk dying anyway.

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3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Galactus was not limited by immortal law.

No, but he had a code of honor of sorts. After all, he allowed the Silver Surfer to warn planets he was about to consume so that at least some of the inhabitants could escape.

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13 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:
3 hours ago, partner555 said:

And they followed through on that at least: http://www.egscomics.com/index.php?id=2431

Not proven as yet.  There's no property damage shown except for one trash can, and not even any off-panel noises that could be from property damage. Only one bystander screamed, and it could have been the same girl running away from Snake-with-a-Bow-Tie, and since she was seen running away and not looking back, there's no evidence she saw Susan kill the vampire in the next three panels. The only other places were possible eyewitnesses to fighting are shown are both in Koalas and Gators, first and last panels. None of them are rendered with enough detail to show they are looking at Susan and her flaming sword.

Dan may not have shown any unmistakable witnesses for the kills simply because it was extra trouble. But as of this Friday's comic, there aren't any credible witnesses we can identify and no phones or cameras have been shown.

It doesn't matter what was shown so far. If in next comic, Adrian and girls look around and see crowd of people with smartphones, it would imply good enough that most of the fight is already on youtube.

15 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Tactically, there's an excuse for the vampires not to call too much attention to themselves. Two excuses, really. Remember, Koala found out there were at least two hunters nearby besides Raven. If you've gone to the trouble of giving up humanity for unaging life, you shouldn't be too anxious to risk dying anyway.

Yet they accepted the instruction. In fact, we already speculated that the vampires who let themselves be hired by Sirleck were not so bright, as any bright and experienced vampire would avoid such trap. Unless, of course, he's so convinced his secret weapon of mundane origin will save him like Scarf. On second hand, maybe it's proof he was not so bright as well.

I don't think they would ignored instructions so much this ends up without witnesses. Although I agree that at least Koala guy seemed to prefer ignoring instruction and remain hidden ...

BTW, this reminds me we still don't know where are Helena and Demetrius, who were supposed to be distracted by this in first place.

11 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Galactus was not limited by immortal law.

No, but he had a code of honor of sorts. After all, he allowed the Silver Surfer to warn planets he was about to consume so that at least some of the inhabitants could escape.

I think it wasn't limiting him as much ... or did it? How exactly was he defeated?

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5 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

BTW, this reminds me we still don't know where are Helena and Demetrius, who were supposed to be distracted by this in first place

This is another reason for me to think that maybe Pandora had a little talk with her much younger colleagues (they might not have been able to conceal themselves from Pandora once she had a good reason to go looking for them.) If they aren't with the vampires, they should be with Elliot. So how did Magus and Sirleck get so far?

Possibly because Pandora wants  Magus to regain a body of his own and persuaded Helena and Demetrius to let him do that. I said it before, it's a loose end and something she has felt she should make right eventually. Well, eventually is pretty much now or never unless Pandora hasn't really reset. 

 

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22 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:
35 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

BTW, this reminds me we still don't know where are Helena and Demetrius, who were supposed to be distracted by this in first place

This is another reason for me to think that maybe Pandora had a little talk with her much younger colleagues (they might not have been able to conceal themselves from Pandora once she had a good reason to go looking for them.) If they aren't with the vampires, they should be with Elliot. So how did Magus and Sirleck get so far?

Possibly because Pandora wants  Magus to regain a body of his own and persuaded Helena and Demetrius to let him do that. I said it before, it's a loose end and something she has felt she should make right eventually. Well, eventually is pretty much now or never unless Pandora hasn't really reset. 

So, you think she convinced them to LET Magus posses Elliot BUT they still tagged along for case that - what? Did Pandora suspected Sirleck will be involved and will try to betray Magus? Did Helena and Demetrius?

If Pandora convinced them Elliot doesn't need protection they would be in the mall, guiding someone against vampires.

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31 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

So, you think she convinced them to LET Magus posses Elliot BUT they still tagged along for case that - what? Did Pandora suspected Sirleck will be involved and will try to betray Magus? Did Helena and Demetrius?

It's a plot device that could work.

According to Dame Tara, Helen and Demetrius look like they might be brother and sister, and Lady Andrea agreed. Ever wonder who their mom was?

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49 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

According to Dame Tara, Helen and Demetrius look like they might be brother and sister, and Lady Andrea agreed. Ever wonder who their mom was?

Do they HAD any?

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10 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Do they HAD any?

If Immortals and Humans can have viable offsprings, then I assume if two Immortals did the thing, there might be an Immortal child, so I assume it's possible.

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2 hours ago, partner555 said:
3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Do they HAD any?

If Immortals and Humans can have viable offsprings, then I assume if two Immortals did the thing, there might be an Immortal child, so I assume it's possible.

That's not entirely safe assumption in universe where humans and uryuoms can have child together despite having completely different reproduction mechanism.

And even if it's possible for two fairies to have kid together, the kid may not be fairy - it may count as elf despite not being mixed.

Of course, it is also possible fairies can reproduce normally. It's even possible that Helena and Demetrius are children of Pandora and Voltaire, it's just much more likely we never saw their parents.

BTW it's interesting that it was suggested Helena and Demetrius are siblings but noone suggested they might be partners. That's what I though originally ...

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Way back when Nixon was President, a friend of mine in exasperation once said to me, "All right, I agree with you. Now are you going to go on arguing?"

Yes, I did, countering the arguments I'd just made. I have all the cred of a lifetime of annoying arguments.

And now I'm going to argue with myself about my "Maybe Helen and Demetrius are actually Pandora's chilcren" speculation. While it could be true for all we know and especially all we don't know, and it would still be kind of neat if it were true, and it could support my more serious theory that Pandora got Helen and Demetrius to co-operate with her plans, here are some problems:

  1. If they are responsible, normal (I hope) Immortals, they should have reset at least once besides their presumable forced reset I've been assuming happened after they did their thing with Susan and Nanase. That's one more reason for them to not remember who mom was, assuming they were born before Adrian Raven.
  2. If they came into first existence after Adrian Raven, that would mean Pandora should have had another man in her life, which seems out of character, if she needed to have a man to produce an Immortal child.  I don't think this fits the character we've seen developed so richly in this long arc.
  3. Given how powerful Pandora is, parthenogenesis is hardly off the table. In fact, since Pandora is totally inhuman while taking her naps, it seems likely that this is the normal way for Immortals to make more Immortals if they so wish. Why would Pandora so wish? Well, given that H & D are obsessed with destroying Aberrations, and Pandora's destruction of the Werewolves, that could have been the reason. But that makes the Wonder Twins seem more like tools than kids, and from the ways they've been acting, I think they'd resent that a lot when they learned the truth. Hmmm. Am I stepping on my own counter-argument? Well, sort of. But until I saw them attacking Magus, I saw them mostly as goofy, misguided but well-meaning. I'm not sure I want them to be purpose-built assassins. But, stepping on my counter-counter argument, Grace, because she is Nice to the nth degree, and is a purpose-bred assassin.
  4. It's not really necessary for Helen and Demetrius to be Pandora's children to make them part of Pandora's plan to give Magus her body back. Oops, Freudian slip. I kind of suspect Magus will get a girl body because, well, it's El Goonish Shive, it would be funny, and it would fit not one but two of the titles Dan made for this arc and maybe even the title page Dan created a year and a half of real-world time ago. The previous Part, #19, was The Other Dunkel, and the whole arc is Sister III. on the title page, Elliot, Ellen, and Magus--all indisputable Dunkels--are grouped together. And now we know that Susan and Diane--shown on opposite sides of the title page--are not sisters, then the only sisters can only be Ellen, Elliot (remember that he's a she almost as much as Tedd for most of the series)--and Magus, who would then be (ta-da) the third Dunkel sister. And that's been quite a fascinating journey round Robin Hood's barn which has very little to do with the point I started out with. And that point was and is that Pandora has two strings to her bow here: She has gawdawful power that any other Immortal should be wary of, and she's very good at persuasive argument. Put the two together and getting Helen and Demetrius to co-operate with her doesn't really need any familial connection to happen.
  5. Wake up! If you can't plow through long-winded blather, why are you on this forum?

Going briefly off-topic again, I think Immortals aren't really male or female intrinsically any more than they are human. For all we know, the Demonic Duck is just another Immortal who happens to like duck form.

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7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Given how powerful Pandora is, parthenogenesis is hardly off the table. In fact, since Pandora is totally inhuman while taking her naps, it seems likely that this is the normal way for Immortals to make more Immortals if they so wish.

I've speculated as much myself. In fact, my theory is that the multiple faces in her "Chaos" form and the fact that she seemed to be developing multiple personalities were indicators that she was nearly ready to split into multiple Immortals. Since there was no indication she was expecting to reproduce (otherwise you'd think she wouldn't have been planning on resetting/refreshing soon), I further theorize that this is only something they can do at an advanced age, and that knowledge of it was lost or deliberately suppressed among the Immortal population, much like the knowledge that Elves can reproduce.

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Wake up! If you can't plow through long-winded blather, why are you on this forum?

Why, to post my own long-winded (or not-so-long-winded) blather, of course!

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13 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Way back when Nixon was President, a friend of mine in exasperation once said to me, "All right, I agree with you. Now are you going to go on arguing?"

Yes, I did, countering the arguments I'd just made. I have all the cred of a lifetime of annoying arguments.

Being able to argue against your own idea is important in both science AND security. And tactics.

13 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

If they are responsible, normal (I hope) Immortals, they should have reset at least once besides their presumable forced reset I've been assuming happened after they did their thing with Susan and Nanase. That's one more reason for them to not remember who mom was, assuming they were born before Adrian Raven.

However, after normal reset they lose the emotional bond but still remember it. After forced reset, meanwhile ...

13 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

If they came into first existence after Adrian Raven, that would mean Pandora should have had another man in her life, which seems out of character, if she needed to have a man to produce an Immortal child.  I don't think this fits the character we've seen developed so richly in this long arc.

Definitely agree. She is still faithful to Blaike.

5 hours ago, ChronosCat said:
13 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Given how powerful Pandora is, parthenogenesis is hardly off the table. In fact, since Pandora is totally inhuman while taking her naps, it seems likely that this is the normal way for Immortals to make more Immortals if they so wish.

I've speculated as much myself. In fact, my theory is that the multiple faces in her "Chaos" form and the fact that she seemed to be developing multiple personalities were indicators that she was nearly ready to split into multiple Immortals. Since there was no indication she was expecting to reproduce (otherwise you'd think she wouldn't have been planning on resetting/refreshing soon), I further theorize that this is only something they can do at an advanced age, and that knowledge of it was lost or deliberately suppressed among the Immortal population, much like the knowledge that Elves can reproduce.

IF immortals can reproduce this way, I would definitely assume it was forgot or suppressed. However, there IS possibility Pandora had child this way in one of her recent naps WITHOUT KNOWING IT, while sleeping.

I don't think she could have Helena and Demetrius that way, as that would be at least hundred years ago and she was presumably in better shape back then.

13 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Oops, Freudian slip. I kind of suspect Magus will get a girl body because, well, it's El Goonish Shive, it would be funny, and it would fit not one but two of the titles Dan made for this arc and maybe even the title page Dan created a year and a half of real-world time ago. The previous Part, #19, was The Other Dunkel, and the whole arc is Sister III. on the title page, Elliot, Ellen, and Magus--all indisputable Dunkels--are grouped together. And now we know that Susan and Diane--shown on opposite sides of the title page--are not sisters, then the only sisters can only be Ellen, Elliot (remember that he's a she almost as much as Tedd for most of the series)--and Magus, who would then be (ta-da) the third Dunkel sister.

I would totally agree if not for the fact Magus IS CURRENTLY MAN. If Dan would plan to get Magus girl body, it would make MUCH more sense if Elliot would transform to girl WHEN hit by Ellen and possessed by Magus.

13 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Wake up! If you can't plow through long-winded blather, why are you on this forum?

I don't think the image of snow-plow plowing through blather is appropriate here. The image of icebreaker seems much more fitting. First, it's ship and we have lot of experience with ships here. Second, snowplow can't be big enough.

 

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Ah, let's make a mess of things. Somehow, for some reason, Elliot/Magus and Ellen/Sirleck touch the DD at the same time. Elliot and Ellen are spun free and clear, and a new body is created that is possessed by both Magus and Sirleck. Magus and Sirleck then get into an argument which turns into a knockdown brawl - all by themself. Elliot and Ellen are, naturally, rather confused (by how they got where they are, as well as by what they are witnessing), but Ashley is able to figure out what happened and explain it to them.

Eventually the wizard Magus is able to destroy Sirleck, but then Elliot and Ellen explain to him that by virtue of that damnable diamond he now has the power to spread the curse of being possessed by Sirleck and/or the curse of being possessed by Magus. He doesn't know what to make of that.

Also, one must remember that strictly speaking the new body would not be Magus, but Elliot-possessed-by-Magus-plus-Ellen. Whether it would be male or female is indeterminate in advance, and perhaps afterward.

</wildspec>

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1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Somehow, for some reason, Elliot/Magus and Ellen/Sirleck touch the DD at the same time. Elliot and Ellen are spun free and clear, and a new body is created that is possessed by both Magus and Sirleck.

I'm pretty sure if both will touch the diamond we will get four bodies.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Eventually the wizard Magus is able to destroy Sirleck, but then Elliot and Ellen explain to him that by virtue of that damnable diamond he now has the power to spread the curse of being possessed by Sirleck and/or the curse of being possessed by Magus. He doesn't know what to make of that.

However, the question of what exactly will the curse which Elliot will be able to use on himself at will and Magus will be able to spread be is definitely interesting.

( ... is it valid english to but "be" this far from rest of sentence? Or is that germanism or something?)

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