story Story, Friday July 7, 2017

[Scotty 1,061]

58 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

If you look back in the two battles with the Goo, the Goo never attacked Tedd. That's kind of odd if the whole purpose of the Goo was to kill Tedd.

Well the goo never really had a chance to attack Tedd the first time, Elliot was there helping to try to catch it, so the goo retreated bulk up on steroids and such, then it ran into Elliot in the halls probably just by luck, ultimately the goo couldn't touch Tedd because Elliot was in the way so the second time around the goo had determined that Elliot needed to be killed first. We know for a fact that Lord Tedd sent the goo because it cut to Lord Tedd being all disappointed that the goo failed.

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Besides whatever Voltaire wants with Tedd, he's also targeting Pandora.

Yeah, he trying to put her into reacting a certain way as well, it makes me wonder if he knows that Pandora went looking for answers and was counting on her telling Tedd. The main thing seems to be her possible reaction to Adrian being attacked by vampires. If Adrian dies, she'll be livid, it'd very likely be worse that when she wiped out the werewolves, and if she suspected that Adrian's death was orchestrated by another Immortal, she'd likely tear up the spirit realm trying to find who was responsible.

[Tom Sewell 268]

4 minutes ago, Scotty said:

if she suspected that Adrian's death was orchestrated by another Immortal, she'd likely tear up the spirit realm trying to find who was responsible.

So how confident is Voltaire that he can withstand this, or at least avoid Pandora long enough to get the unspecified "they" who are supposed to finally listen?

Well, maybe Voltaire is such a far-gone wacko he's sure no one else can outsmart him. He's not fearless because despite how much he hates the restrictions on what he can do, he's careful to finesse them. So, could he have some ace he hasn't turned up yet? (For those of you who don't get this analogy, it's to stud poker.)

Reaching very deep into my endless barrel of amazing crackpot plot theories, I pull out and dust off--and dust off again because it's had time to accumulate a lot of dust--I once speculated that maybe Voltaire had a thing for Pandora way, way, way back and he's been plotting to finally land her, or get his revenge on her, or both. I didn't like that idea that much even then. But now it's helping dig past the bottom of the barrel to unearth what may be the Mother Lode or at least a very large, pretty nugget of Fool's Gold.

Do you remember when Tara asked Andrea if the Immortals who assisted her in hunting the previous six vampires looked like brother and sister? Being a griffin, Dame Tara may not be the best judge of human or reasonably-humanlike physiognomy, but what she said certainly interested Nanase. 

But it does put the idea that Immortals might have siblings into canon. And going back yet again to the title page, it could make Pandora someone's sister.

[hkmaly 490]

20 hours ago, Scotty said:

On 7/7/2017 at 8:05 AM, hkmaly said:

Nanase is his cousin but might never hang with him without Elliot

Elliot didn't even know Nanase was Tedd's cousin until after they broke up, and when Edward first saw her, it was like he hadn't seen her in a few years, so it's safe to say the three of them never hung out. But that's mainly due to Elliot keeping the fact that he was dating Nanase a secret from Tedd and Sarah, Elliot's parent's apparently knew about Nanase though as Nanase knew Brownie and the fact that she was able to make a fairy doll inside Elliot's house means that she had been there before, so way to be a jerk in leaving your friends out of the loop Elliot!

Hmmm ... and it was actually SUSAN who called Nanase into the battle with Goo. Sure, Elliot was preoccupied, but it's possible that without LORD TEDD of all people Nanase would never become part of main 8 (and Ellen might go crazy).

Well ... ok, they MIGHT meet later when Grace would be going into school - wait. Grace only found Tedd because the news about Goo. Although we know that general Shade Tail found Tedd as well, it might've been later.

Ok. I'm ready to suspect some immortal helped the main eight to form.

20 hours ago, Scotty said:

But in those universes we don't know if anyone else exists or is even close to the group, We only saw Ellen and Beta Tedd together.  Ellen told Nanase that she didn't meet her alternate in the second life dreams, nor Sarah and Susan and Justin apparently, and also for both beta and second life universes, it was clear that Grace wasn't in the picture, but then in those universes as well, the real Grace Scuiridae likely didn't die and thus she'd be like 36-37years old by now.

We don't know which doesn't mean they don't have anyone else.

20 hours ago, Scotty said:

So yeah, the constant seems to be Elliot/Ellen, so if they died in Lord Tedd's universe, that could have been the catalyst for Lord Tedd becoming Lord Tedd, and with Nioi stating that General Shade Tail is corrupting Lord Tedd, it's safe to assume that General Shade Tail pretended to fill the gap in Tedd life when Elliot/Ellen died and took advantage of Tedd's grief to manipulate him into using his Seer abilities

"Pretended to fill"? It's not official job position. He filled it, but with different outcome.

20 hours ago, Scotty said:

Our Tedd has just guessed that Lord Tedd is the way he is because he doesn't keep the same friends he does, I'm wondering if he'll also conclude that maybe Elliot died in that universe which would then make him remember that an Immortal was trying to kill Elliot recently and then realize that it wasn't for craps and laughs, but to traumatize Tedd and make him go a certain way with his abilities.

We've already had Sarah guess at Adrian being Pandora's son, Tedd's really close to connecting some dots as well, lets make it a double!

Yeah ... it would be quite a jump but not an impossible to make considering what Sarah managed to jump. (Or leap)

18 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Second, back in the Beta universe, it's been more than nine months now since Beta Ellen suggested to Beta-Tedd that there were better ways to spend their time together while Beta-Edward was out of town. If Beta Tedd took her up on her suggestion...

If Beta Tedd took her up on her suggestion, it likely wasn't first time (remember how often our universe Edward is out of town - enough for Tedd to learn to cook in female form) and it was likely with protection, just like in previous cases.

14 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

And speaking of hooks for red herrings that Our Dan may have set, are we really sure that Dan's comment about not expecting to see Lord Tedd actually gettiing involved in any storyline soon really means Lord Tedd isn't going to show up in this storyline soon? Of course, "soon" in Dantime could mean anything from "the next comic" to "before Part 38: Jeremy Gets Lucky".

Yeah ... Dan likes red herrings almost as much as real foreshadowing.

7 hours ago, Scotty said:

7 hours ago, animalia said:

Good point. There is enough evidence ti suggest that Voltaire might be trying to traumatize him. Though no evidence to suggest why. (By that I mean from Tedd's perspective) Still it is enough to START connecting the dots, if not enough to finish them.

Well yeah, even we have no clue what Voltaire's end goal is, but it that it does require a seer with a unique condition, despite the fact that there are other seers, Tedd was chosen for a reason, maybe of the other seers, Tedds the only one that's for now still eligible for the second purpose. Heka had stated that if Pandora's assessment of Tedd wasn't favorable, he'd have sabotaged Tedd's eligibility. So my guess is Lord Tedd was eligible for the second purpose and General Shade Tail is exploiting it. Voltaire might want to exploit it as well.

Other eligible seers might be harder to manipulate in direction Voltaire needs - for example, because they don't have so much experience with magic already. Quite likely, seer with little to no knowledge about how it works now will make little to no change to status quo. Meanwhile, if no seer would be eliglible, it would mean the failsafe failed, so I don't think that would happen.

6 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

I am now wondering how long Voltaire has been working on his plan. Could he have set up Blaike with the Undying Wolf in the first place?

And then not doing anything for centuries? That would make him very bad at planing. ... ok, it is possible.

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

Well the goo never really had a chance to attack Tedd the first time, Elliot was there helping to try to catch it, so the goo retreated bulk up on steroids and such, then it ran into Elliot in the halls probably just by luck, ultimately the goo couldn't touch Tedd because Elliot was in the way so the second time around the goo had determined that Elliot needed to be killed first. We know for a fact that Lord Tedd sent the goo because it cut to Lord Tedd being all disappointed that the goo failed.

Well ... maybe we interpret the "kill weak Tedd" incorrectly. Maybe killing Tedd is not only option. Maybe the goo is supposed to be some sort of test, to kill weak Tedds and force the others to start powering up. Lord Tedd's criteria for which Tedd is weak might be flawed, but his goals might actually be related to magic reset and relatively good.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

4 hours ago, Scotty said:

if she suspected that Adrian's death was orchestrated by another Immortal, she'd likely tear up the spirit realm trying to find who was responsible.

So how confident is Voltaire that he can withstand this, or at least avoid Pandora long enough to get the unspecified "they" who are supposed to finally listen?

Well ... he might feel his chances are better with Pandora furious instead of Pandora calm but still angry at him.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Do you remember when Tara asked Andrea if the Immortals who assisted her in hunting the previous six vampires looked like brother and sister? Being a griffin, Dame Tara may not be the best judge of human or reasonably-humanlike physiognomy, but what she said certainly interested Nanase. 

I would assume that Tara and Andrea can judge human relationship similarly well. Also, Tara identified Ellen as Elliot's twin, so she isn't completely clueless.

4 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

But it does put the idea that Immortals might have siblings into canon. And going back yet again to the title page, it could make Pandora someone's sister.

But there must be some reason WHY. I mean, if it's Voltaire's motivation, it's pretty generic. Why would Dan make Pandora Voltaire's sister? Just because the storyline name?

[Tom Sewell 268]

7 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

But there must be some reason WHY. I mean, if it's Voltaire's motivation, it's pretty generic. Why would Dan make Pandora Voltaire's sister? Just because the storyline name?

How about Dan wanting to give Voltaire an edge that would keep him from getting ripped to pieces too soon? Dan doesn't need to have any reason; he's the God of the Moperverse. If he thinks it's a neat idea to have Carol be Sarah's sister, or Susan and Diane to be Adrian's daughters, or for Voltaire to be Pandora's brother, he can make these things so.

Another sibling rivalry setup would be for Voltaire to be Pandora's other son, jealous that Pandora pays so much more attention to half-brother Adrian. But it wouldn't have the neat connection to the title of Sister III.

[animalia 64]

56 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

How about Dan wanting to give Voltaire an edge that would keep him from getting ripped to pieces too soon? Dan doesn't need to have any reason; he's the God of the Moperverse. If he thinks it's a neat idea to have Carol be Sarah's sister, or Susan and Diane to be Adrian's daughters, or for Voltaire to be Pandora's brother, he can make these things so.

Another sibling rivalry setup would be for Voltaire to be Pandora's other son, jealous that Pandora pays so much more attention to half-brother Adrian. But it wouldn't have the neat connection to the title of Sister III.

I always assumed the brother and sister immortal were Helen and Demetrius.

[Scotty 1,061]

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

So how confident is Voltaire that he can withstand this, or at least avoid Pandora long enough to get the unspecified "they" who are supposed to finally listen?

Well, maybe Voltaire is such a far-gone wacko he's sure no one else can outsmart him. He's not fearless because despite how much he hates the restrictions on what he can do, he's careful to finesse them. So, could he have some ace he hasn't turned up yet? (For those of you who don't get this analogy, it's to stud poker.)

Reaching very deep into my endless barrel of amazing crackpot plot theories, I pull out and dust off--and dust off again because it's had time to accumulate a lot of dust--I once speculated that maybe Voltaire had a thing for Pandora way, way, way back and he's been plotting to finally land her, or get his revenge on her, or both. I didn't like that idea that much even then. But now it's helping dig past the bottom of the barrel to unearth what may be the Mother Lode or at least a very large, pretty nugget of Fool's Gold.

Voltaire may expect Pandora's backlash to be dealt with before she find him, or he may have resigned himself to being forcibly reset as long as he feels he succeeded. Maybe he's trying to incite a civil war among Immortals? That be a scary thought.

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Do you remember when Tara asked Andrea if the Immortals who assisted her in hunting the previous six vampires looked like brother and sister? Being a griffin, Dame Tara may not be the best judge of human or reasonably-humanlike physiognomy, but what she said certainly interested Nanase. 

Yeah, they look like they could be related, but we don't really know what their relation is, we just know that they seem to prefer each other's company even before their reset. Maybe Immortals can bond with each other from time to time.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Ok. I'm ready to suspect some immortal helped the main eight to form.

Pandora?

Seriously, I too was just thinking that it was the goo that started everything, thus Lord Tedd would have been the catalyst to getting everyone together. But then I remembered that Pandora catching Magus predated the goo, and it was Pandora that told Magus how to get a physical body again. Of course getting Tedd to zap Elliot and then finding out about the dewitchery diamond would have happened differently because Grace wouldn't have been around if the goo never happened. Maybe Pandora knew about Lord Tedd and timed things to happen when they did?

Maybe she set up Helena and Demetrius to follow Susan and Nanase to France because she knew there was an active vampire there that would pick up on Susan's affinity and try to kill her, I dunno if she'd go as far getting the vampire itself to attack Susan though.

2 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Other eligible seers might be harder to manipulate in direction Voltaire needs - for example, because they don't have so much experience with magic already. Quite likely, seer with little to no knowledge about how it works now will make little to no change to status quo. Meanwhile, if no seer would be eliglible, it would mean the failsafe failed, so I don't think that would happen.

Well the first purpose is to learn the new system and teach others how to use it. That much wouldn't change for seers, so the failsafe wouldn't really fail there, the second purpose, if the Seer was eligible, for either good or evil purposes, they'd probably be the fuel of myths and legends through history. Maybe seers who grasped onto their second purpose became Messiahs or considered children of gods in legends.

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well ... maybe we interpret the "kill weak Tedd" incorrectly. Maybe killing Tedd is not only option. Maybe the goo is supposed to be some sort of test, to kill weak Tedds and force the others to start powering up. Lord Tedd's criteria for which Tedd is weak might be flawed, but his goals might actually be related to magic reset and relatively good.

Beta Tedd believed that Lord Tedd was trying to kill other Tedds. If Lord Tedd realized that he was a Seer with the ability to bend the world to his will, the fact that he knows about alternate universes makes me think he believes that his alternates are also capable of such power, "weak Tedd" could be referring to the fact that our Tedd hadn't realized his potential yet and thus he was assumed to be vulnerable still. I also think that Dan might have got the idea of Lord Tedd wanting to kill all other Tedds from the movie "The One".

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

7 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Do you remember when Tara asked Andrea if the Immortals who assisted her in hunting the previous six vampires looked like brother and sister? Being a griffin, Dame Tara may not be the best judge of human or reasonably-humanlike physiognomy, but what she said certainly interested Nanase. 

I would assume that Tara and Andrea can judge human relationship similarly well. Also, Tara identified Ellen as Elliot's twin, so she isn't completely clueless.

This is also assuming that Tara and Andrea can even detect magic potential in Immortals, and using Adrian inability to detect his own mother, I don't think it's possible for Griffins either.

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

2 hours ago, animalia said:

I always assumed the brother and sister immortal were Helen and Demetrius.

So have I, and I continue to do so. What I'm saying is that if they are siblings, Immortals can have siblings, That also implies Immortals can have parents, grandparents, uncles, nephews, aunts, nieces, etc. If this reminds you of the old pagan gods like, for instance, Zeus, well, Jerry said a lot of them pass themselves off as gods. Pandora doesn't--well, except when she uses "Chaos" which is kind of a god in Ancient Greek mythology. Pandora isn't a goddess in that tradition; she's the creation of the gods--and the original human woman. In other words, the Greek Eve, the mother of us all.

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Ok. I'm ready to suspect some immortal helped the main eight to form.

Pandora?

Seriously, I too was just thinking that it was the goo that started everything, thus Lord Tedd would have been the catalyst to getting everyone together. But then I remembered that Pandora catching Magus predated the goo, and it was Pandora that told Magus how to get a physical body again. Of course getting Tedd to zap Elliot and then finding out about the dewitchery diamond would have happened differently because Grace wouldn't have been around if the goo never happened. Maybe Pandora knew about Lord Tedd and timed things to happen when they did?

Maybe she set up Helena and Demetrius to follow Susan and Nanase to France because she knew there was an active vampire there that would pick up on Susan's affinity and try to kill her, I dunno if she'd go as far getting the vampire itself to attack Susan though.

Actually I was thinking about Helena and Demetrius but you're right about Magus being also sort of important.

Pandora doesn't need to know about Lord Tedd directly: how long was Lord Tedd's demon nuclei searching for outer shell and for Tedd? Maybe she "catched" it as well. Maybe she was ready to do something else newsworthy to help Grace find Tedd and then the goo showed up and she used the opportunity.

Or, well, maybe it's just narrative.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

4 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Well ... maybe we interpret the "kill weak Tedd" incorrectly. Maybe killing Tedd is not only option. Maybe the goo is supposed to be some sort of test, to kill weak Tedds and force the others to start powering up. Lord Tedd's criteria for which Tedd is weak might be flawed, but his goals might actually be related to magic reset and relatively good.

Beta Tedd believed that Lord Tedd was trying to kill other Tedds. If Lord Tedd realized that he was a Seer with the ability to bend the world to his will, the fact that he knows about alternate universes makes me think he believes that his alternates are also capable of such power, "weak Tedd" could be referring to the fact that our Tedd hadn't realized his potential yet and thus he was assumed to be vulnerable still. I also think that Dan might have got the idea of Lord Tedd wanting to kill all other Tedds from the movie "The One".

Beta Tedd might be mistaken - Nioi, for example, has different opinion on Lord Tedd.

Also, well ... maybe Dan originally made Lord Tedd based on The One movie, then got better idea and retconned it.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

This is also assuming that Tara and Andrea can even detect magic potential in Immortals, and using Adrian inability to detect his own mother, I don't think it's possible for Griffins either.

Eh ... while the theory that they are unable to recognize if two humans are similar unless they can detect their magic potential is technically possible, you might also consider alternative.

29 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

What I'm saying is that if they are siblings, Immortals can have siblings, That also implies Immortals can have parents, grandparents, uncles, nephews, aunts, nieces, etc.

Not necessary. There are ways how to have siblings without having parents or childs (although I can't remember anything really popular usable as example). Alternatively, just because immortals CAN have all of that doesn't mean they have.

In any case, Earth doesn't seem to be flooded with immortals, which suggests they don't multiply much if at all.

(Not speaking about fact Griffins might've been mistaken, of course.)

[Tom Sewell 268]

51 minutes ago, Scotty said:

Voltaire may expect Pandora's backlash to be dealt with before she find him, or he may have resigned himself to being forcibly reset as long as he feels he succeeded. Maybe he's trying to incite a civil war among Immortals? That be a scary thought.

Well, Edward said Immortals have started wars for fun; he didn't qualify that they were human wars. To his credit, though, at least Voltaire seems to have a purpose beyond his own pleasure. It may be a totally crackpot purpose, but he seems to sincerely believe. 

 

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

Yeah, they look like they could be related, but we don't really know what their relation is, we just know that they seem to prefer each other's company even before their reset. Maybe Immortals can bond with each other from time to time.

Yes, and if Dan wants it that way, it will be so unless and until he decides it will not be so. Kind of like Tedd creating the Goo and then not creating the Goo. Or like Ellen using Japanese in her fight with the Goo in Sister (I) and then asking for subtitles when she was sitting Akiko along with Nanase.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

But then I remembered that Pandora catching Magus predated the goo, and it was Pandora that told Magus how to get a physical body again.

True, and true again. But I want to expand on the subject of Pandora and Magus. Of all the people Pandora has interacted with, Pandora has only been shown to be seemingly cruel to Magus. I'm not talking about physically attacking Magus when he refused to go along when Pandora asked him to make Edward kill Abraham. What I mean is the way Pandora taunted Magus, teased Magus, belittled Magus. And yet, how many of us felt sorry for Magus until Pandora really let him have it?

These are some of the things Pandora's treatment of Magus reminded me of:

• Lou Gosset Jr.'s treatment of Richard Gere in An Officer and a Gentleman
• Yoda's treatment of Luke in The Empire Strikes Back
• Lee Ermey's treatment of all the boots in Full Metal Jacket, The Boys in Company C (an earliier and better Vietnam War movie), and (probably) the real boots Lee Ermey instructed when he actually was a Marine Drill Instructor.
• My company commander when I went through Navy boot camp
• Deathwish Drang in Harry Harrison's satirical masterpiece Bill, the Galactic Hero

The point being is that Pandora thinks Magus is a pretty sorry human being and is prodding him into maybe some improvement. She wasn't being mean to him because it was fun. If that was the case, where's the chicken on his head?

 

[Tom Sewell 268]

I have a new thought about Voltaire. It's not yet a plot yet a plot theory, not even a less-than-amazing crackpot plot theory. It's a question I don't remember being asked by anyone.

How much does Voltaire know about Magus? Voltaire knows about Sirleck; he manipulated Sirleck by posing as Abner to tell Sirleck about Adrian Raven. Voltaire has never mentioned Magus to anyone, not even himself in one of his monologues. And yet Magus seems to be critical to Plan CM.

Not that I think that Voltaire might have pushed Magus out of his nest two or three years ago...

--------

And now, let's talk fedoras. I believe only five characters have been shown wearing fedoras: Detective Block, Voltaire, Abner, a witness to the Fire Guy at Salty Crackers, and John Troutman. Voltaire is the only one who wears a white fedora. Now, can we think of any famous person who used to live in Chicago and liked to wear a white fedora?

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

Not that I think that Voltaire might have pushed Magus out of his nest two or three years ago...

I wouldn't put it past Voltaire to be the one that caused Magus to end up in his current predicament and done it in such a way to have Pandora find him. We have evidence of Voltaire trying to frame Pandora with Dex's pendant so yeah, it seems plausible to me.

[Tom Sewell 268]

21 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I wouldn't put it past Voltaire to be the one that caused Magus to end up in his current predicament and done it in such a way to have Pandora find him. We have evidence of Voltaire trying to frame Pandora with Dex's pendant so yeah, it seems plausible to me.

Yes, plausible and kind of neat, maybe, but I'm not married to the idea or even going steady. In the middle of his rant Voltaire talks about luck, how lucky he was to find Dex, how lucky to find a gullible griffin (Tara). Even if Voltaire travels to other universes, there are lots of other possible and plausible universes, even as GURPS alludes in its core sourcebook about alternate history, world hopping, and time travel, Infinite Worlds. Perhaps my now-elderly theory that Magus is an alternate Elliot/Ellen could somehow help to explain it, but Dan's already shown us alternates for both the Big Es in alternate worlds that probably aren't the world Magus and Terra are from. Voltaire still seems to require a lucky break here, something like the lucky (for the miscreant) break the average French jerk stumbled upon to make himself into Not-Tengu.

Although...nah, Voltaire couldn't have arranged that too, could he?

[In fairness to average French jerks who don't practice casual murder and mind-control, I must point out that Not-Tengu could quite plausibly have been an average Belgian jerk.]

[Scotty 1,061]

On the subject of Lord Tedd again, I think there's a huge hint in the form of Tedd's dream after Painted Black. It depicted an apparently younger Tedd (shorter at least), he then sees a grave (Elliot's?) and suddenly he's grown up (or taller) with a black arm length glove on his right hand and confronted by an Uryuomoco speaking monster (General Shade Tail?) the glove forms into the gauntlet which he used to fight the monster before waking up. I don't think Tedd would have been dreaming about what might have happened if Elliot had been killed by Damien because where would the Uryuomoco speaking monster come from? I wonder if Tedd saw what happen to Lord Tedd in a similar manner to Ellen experiencing her second life. Makes me think Nioi gave Tedd a bit of a nose beep when no one was looking.

[Tom Sewell 268]

20 minutes ago, Scotty said:

I think there's a huge hint in the form of Tedd's dream after Painted Black.

Yes, there could be. It shows The Gauntlet again, and Dan had Tedd build his own version later on, which he used to discover the interdimensional whales, perhaps distant, uglier relations of the interdimensional whales of Oh My Goddess. I'm not at all sure Dan had many elements of the current storyline in mind so long ago, but he kept on developing trope for the gauntlet.

Many years ago I read a nonfiction book by the great science fiction writer Philip Jose Farmer called Tarzan Alive, which delved not only into our favorite King of the Jungle but also with the other things that Edgar Rice Burroughs wrote. One of Burroughs' books written between the world wars was a crossover between his Tarzan series and a lesser-known series called Tarzan at the Earth's Core. It uses a variation of the hollow-earth trope. In the book Tarzan notices that orbiting the internal sun at the center of his hollow Earth is a planet that looks quite Earthlike. Burroughs doesn't expand on this, but Farmer commented that this was a typical device of Borroughs and other pulp writers of his day, putting in things that could someday be used for further adventures. Think how incidental The Ring is in The Hobbit, and how Tolkien later built an entire mythology around it.

So my suspicion is that the gauntlet started out as just a neat-looking artifact, and then Dan began to fiddle with it...

-----

Since Dan still hasn't published his English-Uryuomoko dictionary yet, how can we be sure it's Uryuomoko? Dan has yet to speak of this, either directly in his comments or through his storyline. Perhaps we will have an answer as early as very early Monday, Central Time (UTC-6).

[mlooney 3,417]

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

[In fairness to average French jerks who don't practice casual murder and mind-control, I must point out that Not-Tengu could quite plausibly have been an average Belgian jerk.]

See Monty Python skit with a punch line of "Sprouts" 

[Tom Sewell 268]

12 hours ago, hkmaly said:

And then not doing anything for centuries? That would make him very bad at planing. ... ok, it is possible.

This is a thought I had last night, but I'm just now getting around to revealing it: Voltaire's planning probably isn't quite as good as he wants to believe it is, but he might be a champion napper. There's nothing that says naps can't be longer than a week. Think months, think Rip van Winkle, think Khan Noonian Singh. If an Immortal wants to stay sane close to the 200-year Best By date, longer naps seem like an excellent idea; the longer the nap, the more surprises, the less boredom, the less temptation to go further and further to stir up things. Beyond the BB date, moreso!

Here's a related thought: The faster the pace of change in the plane of the mortals, the less boring. In the Moperverse, people don't even seem to notice how much things have changed over just the past year or so, almost like the past was becoming as changeable as the future...

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

Since Dan still hasn't published his English-Uryuomoko dictionary yet, how can we be sure it's Uryuomoko? Dan has yet to speak of this, either directly in his comments or through his storyline. Perhaps we will have an answer as early as very early Monday, Central Time (UTC-6).

I think Dan had said at one point that he lost the notes he had on the language which is why he hasn't bothered to use it for a while now. But someone did create an English to Uryuomoco translator. Though it's not completely accurate. I think someone had posted a translation of the dialog in Tedd's dream but that might have been before the great server crash.

The last panel of the first page is the word "Death..." and the rest of the dialog on the next page is "It is time for the end of man. The* master of fire shall inherit the Earth. My very presence eats at your flesh."

Ok so "the master of fire" does seem to refer to Damien, or maybe not specifically Damien. If the dream is from the perspective of Lord Tedd, I wonder if that means General Shade Tail is using Lord Tedd to fulfill the Prophecy in their universe, it actually makes sense of you consider the fact that Tedd seems to be surrounded by Seyunolus, sure we only know of General Shade Tail, Nioi and her duplicate Kaoli, but we haven't seen any humans other than Lord Tedd, and Dr Scuiridae is dead in that universe because Nioi was hoping he was alive in the main universe.

It actually would be fitting for an alternate universe Shade Tail, created in order kill the master of fire that the prophecy foretold, instead turning on his creators to help bring about the unification of all Seyunolus.

[Tom Sewell 268]

35 minutes ago, Scotty said:

It actually would be fitting for an alternate universe Shade Tail, created in order kill the master of fire that the prophecy foretold, instead turning on his creators to help bring about the unification of all Seyunolus.

It's hot and I'm tired here. Could you help me out by pointing out where there's a Dan-definitive Seyunolu is? I'm not sure if they're a type of hybrid or another alien race.

Between our Dr. Scuiridae's revelation and Edward's much too casual remark about Grace not dying in Lord Tedd's universe, I am thinking that:

• Other versions of our Grace may not exist in any universe we will ever know about.
• Many versions of the Moperverse original Grace have existed in other universes, and at least some are still alive
• Since Voltaire has not made an attempt on Grace that we know of, Grace may be part of Plan A, which curiously Voltaire said was still going well, contradicting what he said to himself when he first talked to himself about Plan CM. Maybe Plan A included Grace learning about Tedd through that newspaper story about the Goo, and her escape, and maybe even the creation of our Grace. Hey, once you start with these conspiracy theories it's hard to stop.

Any of you ever played any version of Illuminati, the card game from Steve Jackson and his Austin-based geek mafia? Stop me if I start babbling about robot sea monsters, the Boy Sprouts, orbital mind control lasers...

[mlooney 3,417]

24 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Stop me if I start babbling about robot sea monsters, the Boy Sprouts, orbital mind control lasers...

Fnord, mehum.

 

[hkmaly 490]

8 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

Or like Ellen using Japanese in her fight with the Goo in Sister (I) and then asking for subtitles when she was sitting Akiko along with Nanase.

Ellen's knowledge of Japanese is limited to calling her attacks with weird names, as taught by sensei Greg. She doesn't have vocabulary to understand what Akiko was saying, and might have problem following spoken language anyway.

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

3 hours ago, Scotty said:

I wouldn't put it past Voltaire to be the one that caused Magus to end up in his current predicament and done it in such a way to have Pandora find him. We have evidence of Voltaire trying to frame Pandora with Dex's pendant so yeah, it seems plausible to me.

Yes, plausible and kind of neat, maybe, but I'm not married to the idea or even going steady. In the middle of his rant Voltaire talks about luck, how lucky he was to find Dex, how lucky to find a gullible griffin (Tara). Even if Voltaire travels to other universes, there are lots of other possible and plausible universes, even as GURPS alludes in its core sourcebook about alternate history, world hopping, and time travel, Infinite Worlds.

I'm not sure if that's what you were heading to, but personally I don't think Voltaire did it because while it would match his modus operandi I don't think he is able to. Based on how bored he is, he either can't travel universes or is very limited in that travel. I still suspect that he lied about being from the other half of universe. (Wait - did he even said he is? Or was that just something we speculated about?)

3 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

[In fairness to average French jerks who don't practice casual murder and mind-control, I must point out that Not-Tengu could quite plausibly have been an average Belgian jerk.]

He may also be English jerk or whatever else. He didn't shown that much french and was speaking English most of the encounter. Ellen accusing him of being French monster could've been just jumping to conclusion.

2 hours ago, Scotty said:

I wonder if Tedd saw what happen to Lord Tedd in a similar manner to Ellen experiencing her second life. Makes me think Nioi gave Tedd a bit of a nose beep when no one was looking.

Or, well, the dream was just random dream which hinted Lord Tedd history just for narrative purposes.

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Think how incidental The Ring is in The Hobbit, and how Tolkien later built an entire mythology around it.

He already realized how important it will be in second edition of Hobbit, but yes.

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

1 hour ago, Tom Sewell said:

Since Dan still hasn't published his English-Uryuomoko dictionary yet, how can we be sure it's Uryuomoko? Dan has yet to speak of this, either directly in his comments or through his storyline. Perhaps we will have an answer as early as very early Monday, Central Time (UTC-6).

I think Dan had said at one point that he lost the notes he had on the language which is why he hasn't bothered to use it for a while now. But someone did create an English to Uryuomoco translator. Though it's not completely accurate. I think someone had posted a translation of the dialog in Tedd's dream but that might have been before the great server crash.

And I would add that this dictionary is likely based on what Dan said in forums/commentaries which are lost now. Uryuomoko wasn't supposed to be undecipherable and second reason why Dan stopped using it was that he realized it doesn't really add anything to the comics when he uses language people are supposed to translate back to English.

33 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

1 hour ago, Scotty said:

It actually would be fitting for an alternate universe Shade Tail, created in order kill the master of fire that the prophecy foretold, instead turning on his creators to help bring about the unification of all Seyunolus.

It's hot and I'm tired here. Could you help me out by pointing out where there's a Dan-definitive Seyunolu is? I'm not sure if they're a type of hybrid or another alien race.

When a Uryuom egg is used to house multiple DNA sources, the resulting child is a 'seyunolu', 'chimera' in english. I suspect that it's actually Uryuom term for ANY hybrid, but the prophecy was definitely related to chimeras created from Uryuom eggs.

37 minutes ago, Tom Sewell said:

Other versions of our Grace may not exist in any universe we will ever know about.

That might be relatively safe bet considering we may never learn about more than five universes. Six if you count AF4. And we may never know enough about Beta universe or Magus universe to confirm if our Grace exists there.

[Scotty 1,061]

Just now, Tom Sewell said:

It's hot and I'm tired here. Could you help me out by pointing out where there's a Dan-definitive Seyunolu is? I'm not sure if they're a type of hybrid or another alien race.

Seyunolus are chimerae, Grace and Vladia are Greater Seyunolus as well as Noah, Hedge and Guineas are lesser Seyunolus. Nioi is likely another animal based Seyunolu, maybe a lesser like Hedge and Guineas though that's just a guess. But yeah, greater chimerae are hybrids that include Uryuom DNA and in Grace's case, also Lespuko DNA. lesser chimeras don't have Uyruom DNA but are still created using Uryuom eggs.  Dr Scuiridae explains it in Painted Black.

[Tom Sewell 268]

12 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

He may also be English jerk or whatever else. He didn't shown that much french and was speaking English most of the encounter. Ellen accusing him of being French monster could've been just jumping to conclusion.

Yes, but none of those other possibilities allude to the trope of Hercule Poirot constantly reproaching people who mistake him for a Frenchman when he is obviously a Belgian.

17 minutes ago, hkmaly said:

Or, well, the dream was just random dream which hinted Lord Tedd history just for narrative purposes.

How many little kids have you told there's no Santa today?

But, yes, it could be just a dream, unless Dan decides otherwise. Still, a lot of effort went into bringing that dream to us. I've noticed the dreams chronicled here took a longer average time between posts than was usual back then.

[hkmaly 490]

2 hours ago, Tom Sewell said:

3 hours ago, hkmaly said:

Or, well, the dream was just random dream which hinted Lord Tedd history just for narrative purposes.

How many little kids have you told there's no Santa today?

But, yes, it could be just a dream, unless Dan decides otherwise.

Well ... sometimes it's not his decision but his forgetfulness.

[Don Edwards 548]

On 7/7/2017 at 9:13 PM, Tom Sewell said:

Besides whatever Voltaire wants with Tedd, he's also targeting Pandora. The evidence is that he deliberately used an amulet on Dex that would suggest that Pandora was doing the manipulating, and he informed Sirleck that Adrian Raven was Pandora's son.

Not exactly: Sirleck knows that Adrian is half-immortal, but appears to be assuming that Adrian is the child of one of the immortals Voltaire says have been targeting his flunky-vampires (Helen and Demetrius). We know he was aware of Pandora (thanks to Magus) but may think she's left the area. And of course he's aware of Magus. But doesn't appear to be aware of Jerry. Meanwhile, Magus and Voltaire are aware of him, but nobody else of great importance is - it's safe to assume that if Pandora, Helen, Demetria, Adrian, or DGB were, he'd be thermidor by now.

Voltaire is known to practically everybody, save only indirectly to Pandora. Flip side, we know he's aware of Adrian, Sirleck, Helen, and Demetrius, but I don't recall anything that indicates he's aware of Pandora or Jerry.

Helen and Demetrius are aware of Voltaire, vaguely aware that someone (Magus, but they don't know that) was around for a while, and DGB. Maybe not Adrian. Probably not Pandora or Jerry. Pretty much everyone is aware of them, though.

Jerry is aware of at least four other immortals in the area - unless there's one we haven't been introduced to, that would be all of them. And an extremely powerful being whom most people are assuming (probably correctly) is Pandora, one of those four. He was aware of Adrian, and is probably aware of DGB. As far as being aware of Jerry, that extremely powerful being is the only one we're sure of.

Voltaire is definitely aware of Adrian, Helen, and Demetrius. The odds highly favor him being aware of DGB. We don't know if he's aware of Pandora or Jerry. Also definitely Sirleck, and possibly Magus (thanks Sirleck). Pretty much everyone is aware of him.

Magus is aware of, I think, everyone except maybe Jerry. Sirleck and Pandora are the only ones I'm sure are aware of him.

Did I miss any?

(Note: all the above is qualified with "as far as I can recall". I would express zero surprise if it turns out I've made some errors.)

[hkmaly 490]

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Not exactly: Sirleck knows that Adrian is half-immortal, but appears to be assuming that Adrian is the child of one of the immortals Voltaire says have been targeting his flunky-vampires (Helen and Demetrius).

If he would know he's Pandora's son he would call off the action.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

We know he was aware of Pandora (thanks to Magus) but may think she's left the area. And of course he's aware of Magus. But doesn't appear to be aware of Jerry. Meanwhile, Magus and Voltaire are aware of him, but nobody else of great importance is - it's safe to assume that if Pandora, Helen, Demetria, Adrian, or DGB were, he'd be thermidor by now.

What? Eleventh month in calendar? Or the lobster-based dish?

He is probably outside Andrea's action radius, so Helena and Demetrius wouldn't be able to turn him into anything even if they knew about him ; although I think they don't.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

He was aware of Adrian, and is probably aware of DGB.

He died properly, therefore he likely retained important knowledge like this.

1 hour ago, Don Edwards said:

Did I miss any?

You are consistently missing the last -a of Helena. There is Helen of Troy, but she's named after Helena from Midsummer Night's Dream.