Echoes 2016-11-7

[Armorlord]

Castela confronts echoes from the past.

[Armorlord]

This definitely seems sharply abbreviated compared to the actual event, does the Library not have an accurate record of the following combat, or is an inaccurate recreation being shared with Castela purposely?
For that matter, how does the Library have a record as good as it does of the events? Down to knowing what was said to.. Atsali.. wait. Did the Library get a copy of her memories when flushing an ancient civilization from her mind?

[TazManiac]

This definitely seems sharply abbreviated compared to the actual event,...

I'm thinking _this_ version is the same as the 'original', but what we, behind the 4th wall see, has been limited in actually showing everything that took place.

...does the Library not have an accurate record of the following combat, or is an inaccurate recreation being shared with Castela purposely?

If we are to believe what Phix said, then yes to the former & 'Paul's Poetic Licence' to the latter.

In the original telling of events, there was a lot more 'stuff' that happened before Atsali's Mom died. In these re-tellings it might not seem like there was time enough, but I think there was; just not every single thing was retold again on 'our' screens.

[FreeFlier]

This definitely seems sharply abbreviated compared to the actual event, . . .

I suspect time-compression so we aren't spending time seeing things we've already seen.

In other words, now that we know when we are, we'll be getting almost entirely new information.

. . . I also suspect that part of the previous viewing - especially the combat sequences - may have been slow-motion so we could see more of what happened.

--FreeFlier

[Dave]

This definitely seems sharply abbreviated compared to the actual event, does the Library not have an accurate record of the following combat, or is an inaccurate recreation being shared with Castela purposely?

On Friday we had a cliffhanger. Today we have Cliff notes?

For that matter, how does the Library have a record as good as it does of the events? Down to knowing what was said to.. Atsali.. wait. Did the Library get a copy of her memories when flushing an ancient civilization from her mind?

That does sound plausible.

Another possibility is that the Library itself, or some other interested party, was "bugging" the Sirens' home. If the latter... if the shadow government group was already listening in... it might account for how quickly the assassins showed up.

[jwhouk]

Castela ran through the attack, and only "recovered" to see Leucosia... well. yeah.

Irony: Castela saw Atsali's mother die. Atsali only found her dead. Which is worse, in the grand scheme of things?

[Armorlord]

I dunno, he's had some nice attention to detail on the timing seeing this event from a different view point, so I'm not certain we are seeing an abbreviation for our benefit. It went straight from the beginning of the encounter to her being shot.

My theory at this point is that up until the red button was hit, it had data subconsciously remembered by Atsali to fill things out, and now the Library has cut to MiB reports of what was found so we have less resolution on details of the event.

Another possibility is that the Library itself, or some other interested party, was "bugging" the Sirens' home. If the latter... if the shadow government group was already listening in... it might account for how quickly the assassins showed up.

Also a sound theory. Audio bugs wouldn't have the fight choreography either.

[jwhouk]

You'll notice that the assassins had headlamps on their ninja-suits. It is entirely possible that they had cameras that recorded the action.

[FreeFlier]

Those might actually be cameras.

--FreeFlier

[AnotherFairportfan]

This definitely seems sharply abbreviated compared to the actual event, does the Library not have an accurate record of the following combat, or is an inaccurate recreation being shared with Castela purposely?

Like a lot of authors who are approaching events already presented in detail in a previous flashback in a flashback from a different viewpoint, or that is going to include material elided in the previous flashback, Paul gave us the beginning of the sequence we're familiar with in order to ground us firmly in the sequence, then skipped most of what we already know, to bring us to where there will be a differing viewpoint, or significant events we don't know, or need to see differently.

Why rerun the whole previous sequence? Get us grounded and running, then feed us what's new and relevant.

[Opus the Poet]

It will be interesting to see what kind of effect this will have on the little thorn bush. I know from my research that jurors in murder trials can get PTSD just from hearing the testimony of the events. This is much more immersive than that.

[oldmanmickey]

Seems to me we also did not see Castela move from the door to get in front of mom so i am thinking the "we skipped that part" line of thinking is correct. Not so sure though about the she cant effect the past part though. Mom did get killed so that to me means that some of the assassins must have been left alive. Some thing had to have taken them out and protected little Sali and widdle pwant.

[TazManiac]

Seems to me we also did not see Castela move from the door to get in front of mom so i am thinking the "we skipped that part" line of thinking is correct. Not so sure though about the she cant effect the past part though. Mom did get killed so that to me means that some of the assassins must have been left alive. Some thing had to have taken them out and protected little Sali and widdle pwant.

My money is on the pre-anthropomorphic plant saving lil Atsali...

[FreeFlier]

Could also be that Walter got home and hit the assassins from behind . . . but was killed in the process.

--FreeFlier

[AnotherFairportfan]

Could also be that Walter got home and hit the assassins from behind . . . but was killed in the process.

--FreeFlier

The MiB show up pretty promptly.

As to "How did Castela get there?" - again, i'm pretty sure Paul's just hitting bigh zpots of what we know and/or shiwing the moments that are important crom Castela's POV.

[AnotherFairportfan]

Going back to the earlier flashback - the action part of that one ends with Leucosia taking out her third and fourth Bad Guys, then we cut to Atsali in the "family room" as she realises she needs potty and steps up to the door, perhaps to open it.

So, it appears that today's page happens between the arrival(s) of Walter (?) {see later} and then the MiB squad.

Next we see Cassi and her MiB team surveying the result of the action, as the forensics guy tells us that "The blackthorn was still in its 'nursery'," which didn't seem to have any particular significance back in May.

Next page Cassi finds Atsali huddled, clutching a stuffie and quietly crying in a beanbag chair - i'm guessing because she DID open that door and saw.

And NEXT page, we get the news that, indeed, Walter is dead: "Nothing in any academy teaches how to explain to a traumatized child that paranoid humans killed their parents because they think we want to kill them," suggesting to me that Walter did, indeed, get home in time to go full incubus and take out the last of the hit team, dying himself.

So what we'll be seeing for a few more pages, i'd guess, is Castela's view of the end of the massacre and the arrival of the MiB squad.

Also, it's pretty obvious that Atsali is either suffering PTSD/traumatic amnesia ... or that her memory was blocked, either for her own good, or/and to keep the whole thing secret.

One ventures to guess that Castela was in the Orphanage right next to Atsali for Reasons.

One also finds it interesting that Atsali and Katherine, both sufferers from PTSD of similar variety, from similar causes, found each other by total coincidence, just in time to set out on an Adventure that starts both of them on the road to recovery.

{I just went looking for Brandi asking them "How's your adventure?" ... but a couple pages later, i hit the first switch from Brandi to Senior Director Oduya, complete with the (relatively subtle) changes in face shape, hairstyle and diction. Creepy in retrospect.}

[illiad]

how about the next thing???


"end of selected archive, replay in more detail?? "

[eee]

This definitely seems sharply abbreviated compared to the actual event, does the Library not have an accurate record of the following combat, or is an inaccurate recreation being shared with Castela purposely?
For that matter, how does the Library have a record as good as it does of the events? Down to knowing what was said to.. Atsali.. wait. Did the Library get a copy of her memories when flushing an ancient civilization from her mind?

I'm not sure what we're seeing is abbreviated. Don't forget, Leucoisa went helling out the moment the door opened, punching through the luckless mook and then attacking his colleagues. Depending on how fast she was moving - and I think she was moving very fast - everything we saw before might have happened in those few seconds Castela spent first rushing after L'il Atsali to try to get her to safety; then after the Wed Buddon, turning around and crossing the room to try to help Leucoisa. Pickle got there just in time to see the end.

Of THAT fight. There's still at least one attacker on his feet, the one who killed Leucoisa. And yet, the little plant wasn't taken. I'm wondering if Atsali's daddy didn't make it in time after all. If not to save his wife, then to avenge her and protect his daughter and prevent the little plant from being taken. We'll see.

As to how the Library knew about all this, it is possible those living quarters are 'bugged' and the MiB or someone was listening in on the conversation. And I'm sure the MiB did a forensics evaluation of the whole thing after the fact and determined how the fight went from beginning to end.

[GlytchMeister]

It's also possible there's a supernatural way this information was recovered. The "Stone Tape" sets a precedent for this... I've heard of this particular brand of magic elsewhere in other fictional universi. Something like "Something absolutely terrible... Something unimaginably awful happened here... The very rocks weep at the memory of the event here."

Basically, events of extreme emotional intensity and power are imprinted upon the rocks themselves... Inanimate objects that, upon normal observation, do not show any sign of having been carved or otherwise had any memory data encoded into them.

I'm guessing it has something to do with the Akashic Records... What we call "dark matter."

Now, the "stone tape" stored that data seemingly permanently, and had to be more-or-less melted down into slag and/or vaporized to destroy the memory. What if a similar event, an event of extreme emotional power and intensity, but less so than an entire civilization being royally screwed, could be "Taped" by less permanent surroundings?

Say, a house?

Huh. That would certainly account for many of the haunted houses and such that are all over the place. Yeah, it's a less powerful event, but then again, it's also not being stored for several millennia. Maybe a few centuries, tops. So... If you take into account the inevitable entropy, I'd say the intensity and quality of the data recorded in the very rocks at mampimi makes sense given how bad the event was and how long ago it was... And the various hauntings all over the world fit that pseudo-formula as well: more recent and less powerful (but still very very powerful).

Maybe Leucosia's death and Atsali's traumatized ion was recorded by the very walls.

"If walls could talk."

And somebody, maybe MIB, walked in and listened to them... The walls told them what happened.

[Dave]

And somebody, maybe MIB, walked in and listened to them... The walls told them what happened.

During her period of post-Calendar-Machine schizophrenia, Jin saw dead people, and (later) implied that the walls had been talking to her.

What if that wasn't entirely madness and delusion?