Gunnerkrigg Court 8: Thrown for a Loup

[WanderingMist]

Theory time:

Zimmy is a failed Omega device, isn't she? Her real name is Zeta and she can't tell the difference between the past and the present. And since Gamma comes before Zeta in the Greek alphabet, that would mean the Court created Gamma first as a sort of control for their Omega Device.

[Gez]

Since the Court uses Omega to make decisions, that means they had the option to save Annie and... decided not to. If there wasn't enough reason to before, I would want to get far away from the Court if I were in Antimony's shoes.

That's the problem of perfectly accurate prescience and free will. If you have perfectly accurate prescience that lets you know in advance of something bad that you could, from a non-prescient perspective, theoretically stop. But you know, with perfectly accurate prescience, that it will happen. That means that you know that you will not stop it. Maybe because you will actually fail to stop it. Maybe because you will not even bother. Regardless. You know why you will not stop it. If you make an attempt, you know that you will fail. But you do it anyway.

The only way to retain free will is to make the predictions not perfectly accurate. You see the future, but "it's only the future if you don't act" and you can change it. A lot of fiction goes this road. The problem, then, is that your actions are based on predictions that you know are false, and you know they are false because your actions will falsify them. So if you want perfectly accurate predictions... you need to never do anything, so the predictions can be validated as true, and that means that you can never do anything other than what you have predicted yourself doing, no matter the consequences.

The amusing thing about the whole exchange is that it's actually Kat who broke the entire prediction machine by sending her birdbot back in time. And the Court invited Kat to come with them on their ether-free planet...

[sihnfahl]

That's the problem of perfectly accurate prescience and free will. If you have perfectly accurate prescience that lets you know in advance of something bad that you could, from a non-prescient perspective, theoretically stop. But you know, with perfectly accurate prescience, that it will happen. That means that you know that you will not stop it. Maybe because you will actually fail to stop it. Maybe because you will not even bother. Regardless. You know why you will not stop it. If you make an attempt, you know that you will fail. But you do it anyway.

Or you become apathetic.

I'm looking at you, Jadis.

The amusing thing about the whole exchange is that it's actually Kat who broke the entire prediction machine by sending her birdbot back in time. And the Court invited Kat to come with them on their ether-free planet...

I doubt the Court knows Kat was the one who created the birds. Or that time travel shenanigans thanks to the Norns was involved. I don't see the Donlans talking about that to the Court.

[Devlerbat]

Or you become apathetic.

I'm looking at you, Jadis.



I doubt the Court knows Kat was the one who created the birds. Or that time travel shenanigans thanks to the Norns was involved. I don't see the Donlans talking about that to the Court.

I'm sure they don't know. And that is part of what makes it amusing; that they don't know how much they misunderstood their situation.

[JavaScribe]

That's the problem of perfectly accurate prescience and free will. If you have perfectly accurate prescience that lets you know in advance of something bad that you could, from a non-prescient perspective, theoretically stop. But you know, with perfectly accurate prescience, that it will happen. That means that you know that you will not stop it. Maybe because you will actually fail to stop it. Maybe because you will not even bother. Regardless. You know why you will not stop it. If you make an attempt, you know that you will fail. But you do it anyway.

That's pre determinism. If it was using pre determinism, then there wouldn't be any point in using the machine for advice. From the sounds of it, their machine is derived from Laplace's Demon, which is determinism. So yes, acting on the machine's predictions will mess up previous predictions, but you can just recalculate them. Heck, if your machine is really good, it can calculate you different paths you can plan out.

I assume the reason the machine has been messed up is because it relies on the ether, both for gathering data and the calculation. And as we all know, the Court doesn't really get the ether.

[Kornaki]

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that this is not kat's fault. Sure, she built the birds and did the weird time travel. But she isn't the person that initiated the events of that night.

Ysengrin set up robot to go back across the bridge, but he's just coyotes tool, and we know coyote is the one that took down the tik tok. I used to think he did that because he wanted something down there to piss off ysengrin, but now I think he did it because the tik tok had accomplished his goals - break the omega device, and set up all the events in this comic that lead to him forcing Annie to kill him/loup.

He can know everything if he wants to, so he certainly could have rigged things to get into this stable time loop they're currently in.

[Gez]

That's pre determinism. If it was using pre determinism, then there wouldn't be any point in using the machine for advice. From the sounds of it, their machine is derived from Laplace's Demon, which is determinism. So yes, acting on the machine's predictions will mess up previous predictions, but you can just recalculate them. Heck, if your machine is really good, it can calculate you different paths you can plan out.

But then the machine would not be getting increasingly wrong as time passes from the first missed prediction. It could be asked to recompute the situation based on the world as it is now, with a live Annie, and be just as accurate as it was before. Apparently it cannot.

[sihnfahl]

He can know everything if he wants to...

Except on what it's like to die.

That he had to engineer.

[JavaScribe]

But then the machine would not be getting increasingly wrong as time passes from the first missed prediction. It could be asked to recompute the situation based on the world as it is now, with a live Annie, and be just as accurate as it was before. Apparently it cannot.

I assume the nature of her survival messed up the magic that makes it work. As we all know, the Court knows how to use the ether, but doesn't actually understand how it works. Jealousy aside, one reason they dislike it is because they view a lot of etheric tech as intrinsically unreliable.

[sihnfahl]

I assume the nature of her survival messed up the magic that makes it work.

Well, time manipulation will mess up almost any predictive machine. It's not something that can be predicted, really, if the concept of time travel isn't even in your tool set of 'possible actions taken'.

As we all know, the Court knows how to use the ether, but doesn't actually understand how it works. Jealousy aside, one reason they dislike it is because they view a lot of etheric tech as intrinsically unreliable.

I don't recall them saying it was unreliable. Problem is that it IS reliable, and they're tearing their hair out because they can't figure out the whys and hows. It's a black box.

[Kornaki]

The omega device is unreliable since it doesn't work anymore.

[sihnfahl]

The omega device is unreliable since it doesn't work anymore.

But up until Annie's 'anomaly', it had been pretty reliable and accurate. It was sending Court folks to places around the world to witness 'events'.

All the rest of the etheric tech continued to work, apparently. The 'ring' that defines Gunnerkrigg is regular tech + etheric channeling.

[Willie the Duck]

Not that I think this will come to fruition, but:

Loup, seriously? You think this might be what Coyote was interested in, so now you are done with Annie? 1) what if this guess is wrong? 2) can't she help you get closer to said ocean? 3) What if Coyote had other goals/interests? 4) don't you think whatever you are planning will raise more suspicions than just going along as before?

Of course either Annie or one of the powerhouses will stop this or more likely his crush/residual Ysengrin affection/whatever will stop him before he starts.

[Manga Shoggoth]

Loup, seriously? You think this might be what Coyote was interested in, so now you are done with Annie? 1) what if this guess is wrong? 2) can't she help you get closer to said ocean? 3) What if Coyote had other goals/interests? 4) don't you think whatever you are planning will raise more suspicions than just going along as before?

I think "this fool" may refer to Jerrek rather than Annie. He's itching to dump the body.

[Willie the Duck]

I think "this fool" may refer to Jerrek rather than Annie. He's itching to dump the body.

That would make more sense story-wise, but I didn't think Loup thought of the form as an entity, just a disguise. I guess we'll see next update.

[eee]

Not that I think this will come to fruition, but:

Loup, seriously? You think this might be what Coyote was interested in, so now you are done with Annie? 1) what if this guess is wrong? 2) can't she help you get closer to said ocean? 3) What if Coyote had other goals/interests? 4) don't you think whatever you are planning will raise more suspicions than just going along as before?

Of course either Annie or one of the powerhouses will stop this or more likely his crush/residual Ysengrin affection/whatever will stop him before he starts.

Don't forget, Ysengrin would occasionally go off the tracks and get violent, even towards Annie. That might be the cause of Loup's rush to judgement and his harsh attitude.

[Willie the Duck]

Don't forget, Ysengrin would occasionally go off the tracks and get violent, even towards Annie. That might be the cause of Loup's rush to judgement and his harsh attitude.

Yes, I know. That's why my alternate theory is that Annie, Eglamore, or similar will have a response. I certainly don't think Loup will kill Annie tomorrow. Manga Shaggoth raises a good point about him maybe meaning his guise-form, but him treating it like a separate person seems off.

[Typewriter]

I feel like I've said this before but the pace of the comic has been shot all to hell for me for the last few years. Like I feel like the first 'arc' was everything up until Jeanne. Then we had a few chapters that served as an intermission. Then the second 'arc' began and I have lost all concept of time and story progression since then.

Loup is here.

The forest attacks!

Time jump time~

Two Annies?

One Annie?

The forest attacks again!

Space magic~

And I'm just... I don't know. I love the comic, I don't even think any of the above is bad necessarily, it just doesn't flow as well as the first 60 chapters. It's like those 60 chapters established a foundation to a pyramid that was going to build upon itself and eventually reach a point. Everything felt like it was in place, everything worked well together. Then they started doing the second layer of the pyramid - putting down a few bricks to move forward some of those established plot points - Jeanne, the return of Annies dad - and then it just went crazy. Now we've got piles of bricks everywhere and we run back and forth between piles and each pile is becoming its own creation instead of building upon the foundation that was laid for it. Is the school still going? Are they all still in refugee status? How long has it been since... any of this stuff started? I seem to recall that the time jump was 6 months but how long has it been since then? Since the most recent attack? Days? Months? Years? I feel like in one chapter we get a view of the court and it's destroyed and in the next chapter it looks like its fine - and people are sitting around drinking martinis under beach umbrellas.

About a year ago I thought maybe it was just the fact that I needed a re-read and I did so and still felt like the whole shift was jarring and awkward.

Sorry for the rant, I don't know anyone else who reads the comic so this is the only place I have to talk about it and right now talking about it runs parallel to venting.

[JavaScribe]

I feel like I've said this before but the pace of the comic has been shot all to hell for me for the last few years. Like I feel like the first 'arc' was everything up until Jeanne. Then we had a few chapters that served as an intermission. Then the second 'arc' began and I have lost all concept of time and story progression since then.

You are hardly alone. I stopped reading it for a while, and only recently decided to catch up. There are major plot points I can't make any sense of.

Like the two Annies thing. At first I thought it was sort of cool that Antimony now had a twin sister, and while I figured it was highly vulnerable to a status quo reset, I wondered if the two Antimony's might diverge over time, or at least promote some other form of character development.

First we hear that the duplicate, whomever it was, involves multiple timelines, then we hear that they have nothing to do with time travel (without receiving a replacement explanation), then there's suddenly one Antimony again. And that's it. The most we got out of it was something about her father temporarily opening up. What was even the point of that?

[Kornaki]

I think the problem is this comic was founded on mystery. The Forest, the Court, the robots, the Ether, there was just a lot of stuff going on. Then we learned how it all works. I think the whole story would flow better if we knew about the star ocean for the last 30 chapters, and only learned last chapter coyotes great secret.

Then we might be invested in wondering if the plan even works, and wonder is where the comic thrives. Instead we already know it's a terrible plan that has no chance of succeeding. Even the big bad ether creature is like, operating at a lower level than our actual protagonists.


Maybe that's why ysengrin was so annoyed at coyote. He knew the story was going downhill once the beans were spilled.

[Ionathus]

I've felt like we're in the endgame for years now -- ever since Coyote died. It's just been taking awhile to come to fruition, presumably because Tom had a lot of setup to get through.

But I think that frazzled, jumbled feeling is intentional. I kinda like how everyone's been pushed around, jostled, in refugee status and being toyed with by Loup and not certain how it's all going to come together. The execution could've been better for me, but the arc of it makes sense given how big of a shakeup Coyote's death was.

Webcomics are hard to end with good pacing. I remember the pacing of Dr. McNinja also got really muddled in its last 4 or 5 storylines as he tried to tie off all the loose ends so they'd pay off in the finale.

[Jimorian]

I think the problem is this comic was founded on mystery. The Forest, the Court, the robots, the Ether, there was just a lot of stuff going on. Then we learned how it all works. I think the whole story would flow better if we knew about the star ocean for the last 30 chapters, and only learned last chapter coyotes great secret. [...]

That's one of the major issues with serial storytelling in general. It's very easy for a story early on to ask questions and leave things to the imagination of the audience. But when it comes time to wrap things up and answer those questions, then each answer is going to close off possibilities, some of which the audience may have significant mental investments in hoping will be the outcome.

So you have a shift into a restrictive storytelling structure instead of the initial expanding one, and even if it's done well, it's inevitable that you're going to lose people in that act of bringing everything back to the point of the whole exercise in the first place.

[Pax1138]

We also lost the grounding of the school setting. The passage of the years as they changed grades and dorms, structure for kids who had places to be and things to do. But now post-attack, they just kinda hang out all the time (and Kat makes robots). I just finished a reread of the whole thing, and it does feel more cohesive read that way, but it does still feel like they're skipping over the top of highlights, rather than establishing what life is actually like for them now. There has been a lot of exposition lately, which leads me to hope something big is going to hit soon. There's nothing between Loup and Annie/the tooth but air and opportunity at this point.

[Willie the Duck]

Okay, so definitely not how I had this pictured. Loup seems to very much treat his guise as a separate entity which he delivers commands to, rather than a disguise he wears.

[Typewriter]

I think it's sort of a 'role' he's taking on that is a bit more honest than he prefers. Like if you are talking to someone and find yourself saying something you know you shouldn't - your brain is screaming at you to shut up as the words pour out.

[WanderingMist]

There's 2 tails on Loup's last speech bubble. Someone's starting to split apart.

[wingnutx]

Neat sleeping pods.

[Ionathus]

I think it's sort of a 'role' he's taking on that is a bit more honest than he prefers. Like if you are talking to someone and find yourself saying something you know you shouldn't - your brain is screaming at you to shut up as the words pour out.

I've been there. Granted, I wasn't a fractured woodland god posing as a robot-turned-pseudo-human, but I've definitely shouted "stop, stop, you dunce" at myself mentally.

[eee]

Loup keeps running into these unforeseen complications...

[Gez]

Another story of a girl that falls in love with a jerrek