Girl Genius XXV: It needs work! BUT THE CONCEPT IS SOUND!

[factotum]

First, because he's yet another Cthulhu Cultist. Second, because he's delusional, like pretty much every other Spark we've met.

These guys aren't necessarily Sparks. The fact Agatha had to fix their machine for them pretty much suggests they're either not Sparks, or weak ones like the guys from the caravan way back when.

[Traab]

These guys aren't necessarily Sparks. The fact Agatha had to fix their machine for them pretty much suggests they're either not Sparks, or weak ones like the guys from the caravan way back when.

I thought the problem was less not sparks and more too many sparks who keep messing with the machine. Then agatha got sucked into the madness place trying to fix and improve it. Also, they want extradimensional knowledge because thats knowledge this dimension doesnt have, and since knowledge is power that means they will be powerful enough to SHOW THEM, SHOW THEM ALL!!!!!

[halfeye]

It's looking quite likely that the creature currently on the balcony with Tarvek is actually Shackleford after absorbing the knowledge of this monster--it would explain why, in answer to the question "Do any of the cultists have guns?" it answered "At least one", or words to that effect. If not that, then his brain is probably going to explode very messily...

Or it might be the monster after Shackleford and the rest have drained most of it's knowledge.

[Radar]

I thought the problem was less not sparks and more too many sparks who keep messing with the machine. Then agatha got sucked into the madness place trying to fix and improve it. Also, they want extradimensional knowledge because thats knowledge this dimension doesnt have, and since knowledge is power that means they will be powerful enough to SHOW THEM, SHOW THEM ALL!!!!!

And none of them had the thought that the extradimensional knowledge could be incompatible with their brains or useless for them, since it concerns a completly different reality.

Knowledge is not a substance on its own - it is always coded in a form of language, visual, auditory, muscle or other kinds of memories or things of that kind. Even IKEA schematics rely on the specific way our brains search for geometric patterns and connect them to seen objects. All those thing are tightly bound to a specific reality and in order to gain some knowledge from another person one first needs to establish a common language and that requires some common reality.

And if the technique is to copy a piece of the alien mind along with knowledge in order to be able to understand it all, then there is still a problem of incompatible hardware and possible translation difficulties after that.

[JavaScribe]

And if the technique is to copy a piece of the alien mind along with knowledge in order to be able to understand it all, then there is still a problem of incompatible hardware and possible translation difficulties after that.

Mad science is more like magic than actual science. It's unreliable, but it often works even when it shouldn't.

It's possible to fit a human intelligence inside a squirrel brain in this universe after all, and I'm pretty sure dimensions in real life don't work the way Agatha described during her theorizing.

[slayerx]

And none of them had the thought that the extradimensional knowledge could be incompatible with their brains or useless for them, since it concerns a completly different reality.

Knowledge is not a substance on its own - it is always coded in a form of language, visual, auditory, muscle or other kinds of memories or things of that kind. Even IKEA schematics rely on the specific way our brains search for geometric patterns and connect them to seen objects. All those thing are tightly bound to a specific reality and in order to gain some knowledge from another person one first needs to establish a common language and that requires some common reality.

And if the technique is to copy a piece of the alien mind along with knowledge in order to be able to understand it all, then there is still a problem of incompatible hardware and possible translation difficulties after that.

I think the first question they should have been asking is if this creature is even sentient. Cause if not, then snackleford is gonna be absorbing the mind of a feral animal, whose "knowledge" wouldn't be worth much in the first place

There are a lot of things that could go horribly wrong with this experiment. Snackleford should know better than to use his own brain as a guinea pig in an experiment; that's what minions are for.

[Scarlet Knight]

"What's working? What Golden Age?" Pity. If they only had some cultists captured to ask BEFORE Agatha summoned the Lovecraftian monster. Oh, wait; they did.

Agatha will now be used as the perfect example of "high intellegence, low wisdom" for people to understand why wisdom should never be your dump stat.

[The Glyphstone]

I think the Madness Place is like a mental Frenzy state; it boosts already high Intelligence stats to truly superhuman levels while applying a large penalty to Wisdom checks. Agatha is often quite perceptive when she is lucid.

[Agi Hammerthief]

are they creating another Other?

[factotum]

There are a lot of things that could go horribly wrong with this experiment. Snackleford should know better than to use his own brain as a guinea pig in an experiment; that's what minions are for.

The problem with using a minion here is, if everything goes as Snackleford hopes it will, said minion would suddenly have super-knowledge and would likely not be happy being a minion anymore. This way, if it works, *he's* the one with the knowledge, as it should be. High risk, high potential reward.

[Radar]

are they creating another Other?

Hmm... that is an interesting idea. We will see for sure. After all, we did not learn yet what pushed Lucrezia into that mindset.

[HandofShadows]

Hmm... that is an interesting idea. We will see for sure. After all, we did not learn yet what pushed Lucrezia into that mindset.

I suspect that Lucrezia is the one that pushed Lucrezia into that mindset. She tried to make herself into a better person an something went very very wrong.

[geoduck]

I suspect that Lucrezia is the one that pushed Lucrezia into that mindset. She tried to make herself into a better person an something went very very wrong.

I would guess "smarter" rather than "better", but yeah.

[Agi Hammerthief]

just after finding out that Lucretia time traveled feels like a good point to find out how she managed to do it.
And maybe provide some progress in getting her out of Agatha‘s head.

[SZbNAhL]

My guess is that it's a variant of the Queens' Mirrors. If we construct time as the fourth dimension, it should be a simple enough piece of mad science to turn a teleporter into a time machine.

[Narkis]

Hmm... that is an interesting idea. We will see for sure. After all, we did not learn yet what pushed Lucrezia into that mindset.

I think it was her imprisonment by Van Rijn. Centuries of isolation can't be good for one's sanity.

[Radar]

I think it was her imprisonment by Van Rijn. Centuries of isolation can't be good for one's sanity.

Not quite, since when she attacked the Queens, she was not as cyborgized as when she was trapped in van Rijn's lab. Besides it is not just about sanity - she is no more insane than any typical spark in fugue state and she was very coherent, when she had control over Agatha.

As a side-note, I found this scence (lower left background), where Agatha enthusiastically modifies something and everyone around is downright frightened.

[geoduck]

Not quite, since when she attacked the Queens, she was not as cyborgized as when she was trapped in van Rijn's lab. Besides it is not just about sanity - she is no more insane than any typical spark in fugue state and she was very coherent, when she had control over Agatha.

As a side-note, I found this scence (lower left background), where Agatha enthusiastically modifies something and everyone around is downright frightened.

We don't know for an absolute fact that the entity in Van Rijn's lab is Lucrezia.

[JavaScribe]

The problem with using a minion here is, if everything goes as Snackleford hopes it will, said minion would suddenly have super-knowledge and would likely not be happy being a minion anymore. This way, if it works, *he's* the one with the knowledge, as it should be. High risk, high potential reward.

Europa may not have computers per se, but they do have artificial intelligences. He probably could have recorded it into a helpless immobile clank and then studied it at his own pace.

[Traab]

We don't know for an absolute fact that the entity in Van Rijn's lab is Lucrezia.

We also dont know what her personal timeline looks like. She seems to be jumping all over the place and we have no clue what order its all done in. For all we know, the copy of lucrezia in agathas head hasnt even killed the other queens yet.

[Onyavar]

Europa may not have computers per se, but they do have artificial intelligences. He probably could have recorded it into a helpless immobile clank and then studied it at his own pace.

And three dozen sparks idly watch him while he takes his time studying the clank. That's so going to happen.

[Rogar Demonblud]

Simply put, I'm not sure we 'actually' know anything about the Other. It's all fanon and theory.

[HandofShadows]

Simply put, I'm not sure we 'actually' know anything about the Other. It's all fanon and theory.

We do know somethings. She can travel time. She is Agatha's mother, Lucrezia Hetrodyne. She uploaded a copy of her mind and that it can be summoned back to inhabit a human or advanced clank body. She killed many of the old God Queens. As she aged she turned herself into a cyborg. She is narcissistic and petty and driven to grain power and control over everything as well as being totally ruthless and is able to commit genocide.

[Fyraltari]

We do know somethings. She can travel time. She is Agatha's mother, Lucrezia Hetrodyne. She uploaded a copy of her mind and that it can be summoned back to inhabit a human or advanced clank body. She killed many of the old God Queens. As she aged she turned herself into a cyborg. She is narcissistic and petty and driven to grain power and control over everything as well as being totally ruthless and is able to commit genocide.

Not even. She has travelled throough time but we don't know that she can (as in we don't know if she has control over that). We don't know that the Other and Lucrezia are really one and the same (or if Lucrezia merged with something older or if something went wrong when copying her brain) we don't know she turned herself into a cyborg aand we don't know if it was really her who attacked the queens (far too much mind transplantations surrounding Lucrezia to know that for sure).

[Rogar Demonblud]

Several of those are assumptions. We still have no idea how Lucrezia Mongfish Heterodyne suddenly got converted into the Other, if she was. It remains possible that (for example) she was testing a prototype beacon engine and ended up installing the Other in her skull. In which case Lucrezia is not the Other, she's just a different kind of revenant (with strong parallels to Agatha and Gil).

[SZbNAhL]

We also dont know what her personal timeline looks like. She seems to be jumping all over the place and we have no clue what order its all done in. For all we know, the copy of lucrezia in agathas head hasnt even killed the other queens yet.

The version of her that commited mass regicide had her face. That implies that she was still in her corporeal shell at the time, as opposed to being a ... the best term I can think of is dybuk. I don't think there's an English equivalent.

Anyway, from physical aging and eventual body loss, we can order some of the events:
Lucrezia discovers the Geisters .... attack on Castle Heterodyne, Lucrezia disappears .... Lucrezia attacks the Queens in the distant past .... Lucrezia is trapped somewhere (probably van Rijn's lab) for a long time, Klaus doesn't save her, she doesn't get cake .... Lucrezia uploads herself to the cloud (or however storing copies of herself in the beacon engines works).

Edit: in response to both of the above posters positing that Lucrezia might have been taken over by The Other, the entity in Agatha clearly self-identifies as Lucrezia and we know from Klaus that it has her mannerisms. Why would a non-Lucrezia Other continue to impersonate her when no longer in her body?

[Radar]

We don't know for an absolute fact that the entity in Van Rijn's lab is Lucrezia.

True, but the fact that Agatha new exactly what to do in order to free that entity without even realizing that consciously (she acted without a single thought of doubt) strongly suggests that whoever was imprisoned and the person hijacking Agatha's brain are one and the same.

[Fyraltari]

The version of her that commited mass regicide had her face. That implies that she was still in her corporeal shell at the time, as opposed to being a ... the best term I can think of is dybuk. I don't think there's an English equivalent.

Body snatcher?

Edit: in response to both of the above posters positing that Lucrezia might have been taken over by The Other, the entity in Agatha clearly self-identifies as Lucrezia and we know from Klaus that it has her mannerisms. Why would a non-Lucrezia Other continue to impersonate her when no longer in her body?

It's been noted that the Other has made absolutely zero advances on her own tech, every innovation has been done by spark minions. Also I doubt that Klaus and the Heterodyne Boys would have missed that Lucrezia was a genocidal maniac. There's also the problem of the attack on Castle Heterodyne.

The Other clearly identifies as Lucrezia, yes, but that doesn't mean Lucrezia is all there is to the Other.

[SZbNAhL]

Body snatcher?

To me, bodysnatchers are entities which kidnap people and then impersonate them through shapeshifting. I suppose the beacon engine could hypothetically do that using a teleporter, but it would certainly be a curveball.

It's been noted that the Other has made absolutely zero advances on her own tech, every innovation has been done by spark minions.

And yet it's also been noted that Othertech is far more advanced than what Lucreia ever produced. My guess is that the spark is part of the physical brain, so Lucrezia lost it when she turned into a dybuk/bodysnatcher. However, thoguh timetravel shennanigans she had decades to advance her tech before that happened.

Also I doubt that Klaus and the Heterodyne Boys would have missed that Lucrezia was a genocidal maniac.

It seems, to me at least, more likely that something happened to her that turned her into a genocidal maniac than that she was taken over by one that decided to impersonate her.

There's also the problem of the attack on Castle Heterodyne.

You've got a point there. If the Lucrezia of that time period were behind that, it would poke a big hole in my "something turned her evil later" theory. Maybe it was evil future Lucrezia, or maybe the evilifying event was something sudden that happened between Bill and Barry running off to fight vegetables and the "attack".

[JavaScribe]

Also I doubt that Klaus and the Heterodyne Boys would have missed that Lucrezia was a genocidal maniac.

Klaus didn't. He just had a thing for bad girls at the time, a mistake he has since thoroughly regretted. As to the Heterodynes, Klaus himself was worried that they were too naive and that even if she really was making a genuine effort to be good, she would get bored.