Wapsi Square Forum

typo: second panel, second word balloon, second word: it should be AND not End...


and Boy o' Boy is that a doozy of a punishment for Thup... to be concious, and unable to leave... EVER... and maybe not even after the sun goes out in a supernova... ouchy!...

Ooo. Scary face.

It certainly seems like a fitting sort of fate and punishment... the Nu Gui's chosen method of retribution upon the Lanthians, has just become an infinitely-prolonged boomerang.

"Before you set out on a mission of vengeance... dig two graves."

AND... Atsali's description of what the vase looked like WAS correct... the Spider WAS eating the Baby!!!

Not eating, confining. It's just like locking a floppy in read only mode, if anyone remembers what a floppy is. lol.

There has to be a better end to this story than this! To many loose ends. While the action is over where is the reveal and tieing up loose ends?? Come on finish the story correctly.

Wow... While I think Lily is bent on smashing the crystal, I find myself thinking Bud is going to pop back in and stop her... I honestly hope not. Thup needs to suffer... if for no other reason than to pay for all those children's lives she so callously snuffed out.

On the other hand, Maybe Bud could gauge her throw to give the crystal enough escape velocity, but limit the speed of transit to hundreds of years enroute to a fiery end in the sun. The Klingons had it only half right. Revenge is a dish that is best served cold. I suggest that revenge is a dish that is best served cold then heated to plasma. Imagine Centuries of freezing cold to ruminate about your crimes against innocents all the while knowing that you will end up in the sun...

scantrontb wrote:AND... Atsali's description of what the vase looked like WAS correct... the Spider WAS eating the Baby!!!

I'm struck by a memory here... almost a distorted-mirror image of a phrase which was repeated several times in another story, decades ago. I've been reminded by what's been going on ever since Bud described the nature of the Chessmaster.

The story is "The Region Between", by Harlan Ellison. It was one of "Five Fates" - five stories, by five different well-known SF authors, each based on the same one-page prologue which apparently involved a man undergoing voluntary euthanasia. The five stories diverge wildly - they're a fascinating study in writing... if you can find a copy of the collection I quite recommend it.

Ellison's story took up the idea that the dying man's soul had been harvested by an alien, and was stored in an arcane device and then re-sold (well, leased out, actually) to beings on different planets who had lost their souls somehow and needed to be re-animated. The alien doing this made a good business from it... in human terms he was immensely rich. He was gold, and he was dry, and he had vast amounts of "face"... and he was known as the Succubus.

William Bailey, the protagonist of the story, was "trapped in the lens of the Succubus."

Pablo's storyline is completely separate and distinct... no connection at all... and yet it somehow brings up the same image to me at this point. This time, it's the succubus which has been trapped in the "lens" of one who is dead.

actually considering what Lilly said about breaking the crystal, I would break it into a bunch of small pieces and throw them in different directions away from the sun.

Dave wrote:It certainly seems like a fitting sort of fate and punishment... the Nu Gui's chosen method of retribution upon the Lanthians, has just become an infinitely-prolonged boomerang.

"Before you set out on a mission of vengeance... dig two graves."

Two graves? You underestimate me...

zachariah wrote:Not eating, confining. It's just like locking a floppy in read only mode, if anyone remembers what a floppy is. lol.

There has to be a better end to this story than this! To many loose ends. While the action is over where is the reveal and tieing up loose ends?? Come on finish the story correctly.

yeup... death is too easy.... BTW no-one has said 'but its only Tuesday!!' :/ tying up loose ends, start of new story I guess..... hey *I* dunno..

Dave wrote:It certainly seems like a fitting sort of fate and punishment... the Nu Gui's chosen method of retribution upon the Lanthians, has just become an infinitely-prolonged boomerang.

"Before you set out on a mission of vengeance... dig two graves."

Problem is, now vengeance has been taken on the NG. The 2 graves thing would be equally applicable to those involved in her capture. It's one thing to confine her, quite another to take pleasure in her suffering. While it's true she caused untold death and suffering herself, all those who were involved are now dead and their souls free. IMHO, no one deserves eternal punishment, ever. Maybe a term twice as long as the crystal people might be applicable, but not forever with no hope of an end. I'm sure there are many spirits who would like to see Lily and Suzi locked forever up like NG for what they did to them. Lily can gloat now, but her past isn't exactly free of wanton slaughter either. There is a pot-kettle element to all this. Careful what you wish on others ... others may be wishing it happens to you.

I just feel I need to point out that even for a literary setting we still do not know enough about the parties involved to make absolute judgements of positive or negative motives concerning them. Most of what we know is what other characters have said in passing, and much of this can be considered subject to reinterpretation at any time by the author. Certain key events have become definite, but the steps and people involved are still up for discussion.

Hopefully this will be resolved in the near future (to the mass relief of the confusion corner), but until then please keep an open mind as to who was responsible for what.

DilyV wrote:Wow... While I think Lily is bent on smashing the crystal, I find myself thinking Bud is going to pop back in and stop her... I honestly hope not. Thup needs to suffer... if for no other reason than to pay for all those children's lives she so callously snuffed out.

On the other hand, Maybe Bud could gauge her throw to give the crystal enough escape velocity, but limit the speed of transit to hundreds of years enroute to a fiery end in the sun. The Klingons had it only half right. Revenge is a dish that is best served cold. I suggest that revenge is a dish that is best served cold then heated to plasma. Imagine Centuries of freezing cold to ruminate about your crimes against innocents all the while knowing that you will end up in the sun...

Nope, take it to the Library. It goes in a concealed, locked, forbidden, annex where nobody ever goes. Cast in an adamantium equivalent, so there is nothing ever to see outside its prison.

Remember, the Library exists out time and space. Our universe will cease to exist at some point, but the Library is eternal. Thats a very long prison sentence in nothingness.

Ah, justice. Nothing else is quite so satisfying.

zachariah wrote:There has to be a better end to this story than this! To many loose ends. While the action is over where is the reveal and tieing up loose ends?? Come on finish the story correctly.

Sheesh, Zack, show a little patience. The story isn't over yet; hell, this WEEK isn't over yet.

KnightDelight wrote:It's one thing to confine her, quite another to take pleasure in her suffering. While it's true she caused untold death and suffering herself, all those who were involved are now dead and their souls free. IMHO, no one deserves eternal punishment, ever.

Concurred. What is Thup, really?

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/a-nu-gui-deal/

Seemingly, she's a human soul that persisted after the destruction of Lanthis, and made a deal with the post-Chimera Brandi. That's a lot of suffering already. The Etheithians were said by Atsali to have desired to create an army of golems-- Lanthian-style evil, which Brandi was eager to stop, but the nu gui was able to. "Oft evil will evil mar."

As for Lily's delight, it's not undeserved, but we have yet to hear Suzy's opinion. I think Eternal Torment is an idea she will not be party to.

Since the Stygians are keeping their distance on this one, I suspect this ethical quandary will be set before the multiverse's youngest subTitan. Time to grow up, kitten.

Nice F U face, Lily.

zachariah wrote:Not eating, confining. It's just like locking a floppy in read only mode, if anyone remembers what a floppy is. lol.

Still have a floppy drive in my PC, and it will keep getting moved into each rebuild as long as motherboards still support it.

Jabberwonky wrote:

Dave wrote:"Before you set out on a mission of vengeance... dig two graves."

Two graves? You underestimate me...

Really, you only need one. Just make it the mass grave variety.

Yamara wrote:

As for Lily's delight, it's not undeserved, but we have yet to hear Suzy's opinion. I think Eternal Torment is an idea she will not be party to.

Since the Stygians are keeping their distance on this one, I suspect this ethical quandary will be set before the multiverse's youngest subTitan. Time to grow up, kitten.

Lilly doesn't seem particularly delighted to me; more of a bit of satisfaction. As for eternal torment, we still don't fully know the details of the Waspiverse's afterlife; the crystal might be an easier sentence....and - Thup did not die alone, and no way in hell are these people ever gonna forget her....

MerchManDan wrote:Ah, justice. Nothing else is quite so satisfying.

Except the beginning of a new Wapsi Arc!!!!

KnightDelight wrote:

Dave wrote:It certainly seems like a fitting sort of fate and punishment... the Nu Gui's chosen method of retribution upon the Lanthians, has just become an infinitely-prolonged boomerang.

"Before you set out on a mission of vengeance... dig two graves."

Problem is, now vengeance has been taken on the NG. The 2 graves thing would be equally applicable to those involved in her capture. It's one thing to confine her, quite another to take pleasure in her suffering. While it's true she caused untold death and suffering herself, all those who were involved are now dead and their souls free. IMHO, no one deserves eternal punishment, ever. Maybe a term twice as long as the crystal people might be applicable, but not forever with no hope of an end. I'm sure there are many spirits who would like to see Lily and Suzi locked forever up like NG for what they did to them. Lily can gloat now, but her past isn't exactly free of wanton slaughter either. There is a pot-kettle element to all this. Careful what you wish on others ... others may be wishing it happens to you.

You always played the Paladin in D&D when you were a kid didn't you? LOL

DilyV wrote: Maybe Bud could gauge her throw to give the crystal enough escape velocity, but limit the speed of transit to hundreds of years enroute to a fiery end in the sun.

She's done it before...I say let her cast it right into the sun with the calendar machine...perhaps since the crystal requires a nova-sized explosion to be destroyed, sending it into the center of the sun won't destroy it. So Thup will sit in the sun's core roasting for billions of years, may or may not get ejected when the sun explodes into a red giant (again assuming only a nova can destroy the crystal), and then spend the rest of eternity inside the cold core of the now white dwarf sun or travelling across interstellar space hoping that she defeats the astronomical odds of colliding with a large star just as it goes supernova...anyone want to place bets?