Working Perfectly 2013-05-20

[Aleister Crow]

It's the demons. Instead of one person per crystal, it's putting one person and a number of demons together in each. with no way of separating them.

[jwhouk]

I like the "twins" idea, for a rather obvious reason...

It would explain why everyone's drawn to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.

[Yamara]

I like the "twins" idea, for a rather obvious reason...

It would explain why everyone's drawn to the Minneapolis-Saint Paul area.

Heh. Indeedy.

Though on the twins theme (assuming souls = data here) then perhaps Brandi built too many safeguards in.

I.e. she has automatic duplicate backup engaged.

"SOMEbody's printing up souls! ...And it really lowers their value."

[Julie]

Well...this is definitely Not Good. I'm not even going to attempt to theorize on this situation...

Aaand now I have a slight variation of a 4 Non Blondes song stuck in my head...

And I say heeeey...heeeeey..
I said hey...What's goin' wrong?!?

[Leak]

That was my first thought. You really need the database to be able to re-link the two records again in the output stage. It's important that the pairings at either end are identical...

That's why you always - ALWAYS - add an artificial primary key when there isn't anything that can act as the primary key - otherwise your foreign keys will be a mess.

It's basic database design, guys.

Also - I guess we're just seeing what caused Brandi's multiple personality mishap in the first place.

[TheDOCTOR]

DAVE mentioned pseudo-orphans. Could it be that Katherine (Mom) and our little 'Winged-wonder' (Daughter) have found each other after all this time?

[bmonk]

Brandy seems very so much more confident in the last few strips. I think this is the moment when shw get's ditzy. I think some sort of feedback she didn't take into account which scrambles her mind. Perhaps related to the separation of mother and child?

It could be bad if, through her error, she failed to protect the children.

[bmonk]

Division by zero?

Or, maybe we're about to have a "The Fly" moment. Only this time it's a spider that gets mixed in? Whatever it is, it could be why no one has been reconstituted yet. Brandi doesn't know how to fix the problem. So they have to stay in stasis until she does.

For some reason, this comment reminded me of a teleporting transport system in a future city that worked well--until a passenger died at the very moment of transportation. The system hung up, because it could not make the number of persons entering equal the number of persons exiting--until a mother went into labor and gave birth in the system, restoring the disparity, and allowing the persons trapped within to exit.

[RunningBull]

I love reading all the theories here! It's great. As far as the accident I still think demons are involved. I love the twins idea, but that would only effect a few people. This accident seems to be more catastrophic, possibly effecting everyone.

As for the kachina dolls, what if the six large dolls were priests who were honoring the "Spider Woman" for saving the babies, or unborn children of that city. Maybe the "ancestor baby" doll was a representation of the babies she had saved?

[Geezer]

So - I was wrong - dark-haired girl is Brandi. Mummy girl is Bud. It will be interesting to see how all this fits into the origin of the GG triad. Was the chimera created from its three original members as a result of this colossal SNAFU? Was it payback for Brandi's overconfidence? I'm not even going to attempt to work out the timeline with multiple cycles all collapsed into a Groundhog Day loop-di-loop, with Shellinx in the Time Forest, etc., etc.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

[Dave]

So - I was wrong - dark-haired girl is Brandi. Mummy girl is Bud. It will be interesting to see how all this fits into the origin of the GG triad. Was the chimera created from its three original members as a result of this colossal SNAFU? Was it payback for Brandi's overconfidence? I'm not even going to attempt to work out the timeline with multiple cycles all collapsed into a Groundhog Day loop-di-loop, with Shellinx in the Time Forest, etc., etc.

Tomorrow, tomorrow...

No, unless the timeline is incredibly out of whack, everything we're seeing here involving Brandi and Bud takes place many thousands of years after the Chimera was created, and well after the Chimera was disassembled into its three component golems and Tepoz was able to separate-and-restore the golems' individual memories and personalities. The Brandi and Bud we are seeing here are "apres-Chimera" golems.

The Chimera was created around 10,000 years before present, very shortly after Brandi and Bud and Jin were murdered.

The Akahoya eruption at Kikai caldera has been dated to about 6500 years ago (different measurements give different results). That's long before the Calendar Machine began looping time over and over again... that started only around 1500 years ago.

So, there's no apparent overlap between this (Anasazi-related) period of time, and the Calendar Machine loops during which Shelly was trapped in the Time Forest.

[illiad]

For some reason, this comment reminded me of a teleporting transport system in a future city that worked well--until a passenger died at the very moment of transportation. The system hung up, because it could not make the number of persons entering equal the number of persons exiting--until a mother went into labor and gave birth in the system, restoring the disparity, and allowing the persons trapped within to exit.

well, that author seems to have a different Idea of 'what' was being transported???? a person, alive or dead, is simply an object to be transported, is it not??? and the brain may die, but various autonomous systems in the body carry on for a while...

as for 'giving birth' ?? surely the 'conversion' time would be much shorter, and surely there is some kind of 'stasis' to prevent errors due to moving parts getting missed by the 'scanner' !!! To say nothing about the fact that a 9 months pregnancy is effectively TWO people already....

[Fairportfan]

Division by zero?

Or, maybe we're about to have a "The Fly" moment. Only this time it's a spider that gets mixed in? Whatever it is, it could be why no one has been reconstituted yet. Brandi doesn't know how to fix the problem. So they have to stay in stasis until she does.

For some reason, this comment reminded me of a teleporting transport system in a future city that worked well--until a passenger died at the very moment of transportation. The system hung up, because it could not make the number of persons entering equal the number of persons exiting--until a mother went into labor and gave birth in the system, restoring the disparity, and allowing the persons trapped within to exit.

Brunner, i think. Can't recall the title.

[trainer]

Brandi was watching the data flow for a while. At the speed this was happening, there must have already been several mother/child pairings split successfully.
Then...something happened.
I vote for the twins, with the second held in a buffer and not downloaded to it's own crystal.
Brandi doesn't know what to do.

[bmonk]

For some reason, this comment reminded me of a teleporting transport system in a future city that worked well--until a passenger died at the very moment of transportation. The system hung up, because it could not make the number of persons entering equal the number of persons exiting--until a mother went into labor and gave birth in the system, restoring the disparity, and allowing the persons trapped within to exit.

well, that author seems to have a different Idea of 'what' was being transported???? a person, alive or dead, is simply an object to be transported, is it not??? and the brain may die, but various autonomous systems in the body carry on for a while...

as for 'giving birth' ?? surely the 'conversion' time would be much shorter, and surely there is some kind of 'stasis' to prevent errors due to moving parts getting missed by the 'scanner' !!! To say nothing about the fact that a 9 months pregnancy is effectively TWO people already....

Well, early science fiction? I thought of the difference between instantaneous transmission and the length of time to die or be born too, but. . . .

[Atomic]

The Akahoya eruption at Kikai caldera has been dated to about 6500 years ago (different measurements give different results). That's long before the Calendar Machine began looping time over and over again... that started only around 1500 years ago.

Ah yes, Kiki Caldera -- Put on an excellent show at the Burlesque house back in the day. Sad so few people remember her.

[Dave]

Ah yes, Kiki Caldera -- Put on an excellent show at the Burlesque house back in the day. Sad so few people remember her.

Va va va VOOM!

I suspect the reason she isn't well remembered, is that few who saw the show survived to tell about it.