All Clear 2013-06-13

[illiad]

(and one of those girls was my great, great, great grand mother... got her picture somewhere)

No doubt the priest thought she was great.

yeah... Jay-Em, nice topic but I was talking THIS century.... :/

[Sidhekin]

"Brandi was trying to kill us!"..."We know"

uh...what?

Yeah, I still don't see how Bud knows. Oh well. Even if we don't learn how, it's hardly important whether she knew before or after being told ...

Soooooooo, Brandi's "oh-so-sweet" personality is the evil one, trying to purge Kath and Atsali and...Bud?? As well??!???

Er, no, they are not referring to any specific personality of Brandi's. We're the ones who are naming them.

And no, I still don't think Brandi (in any aspect) had anything to do with Bud being there. Nor that she'd be so stupid as to think that would actually kill her.

But first Jin, now Brandi showing signs of insanity? Is Bud next?? I hope not.

Nah, she's not crazy. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/ignorewhatIsaid/

[ChattaStarhawk]

Bud makes a great storm shelter (as in "any port in a storm") - wonder if it's set up as nicely as the Confusion Corner?

[KnightDelight]

I don't really see how they come to the conclusion that Brandi was out to kill Kath and Atsali as such. I mean, it was a self destruct mechanism set into place for good reason. As computer-aided-Atsali herself said, the beings in the crystals had gone from merely power crazy to honest-to-Freud bat-s**t insane by being "aware" all that time and had even blended, etc. And now they were out. Brandi probably put the self destruct in place later when she found out about the flaw in the design and the fact the restore process didn't work right (to say the least) after really long term storage. Kath and Atsali just happened to be in the wrong place. Now, if it's proven SDO put them in that situation, that would be different. But they don't know that. And if she had really meant to kill them, why divert Bud as well to give them an out?

If it is SDO then she seems to be deliberately bringing Kath close to death, over and over, but not quite there for whatever reason. Maybe to get Kath to transform. Who knows. Kath seems to be her "chosen one," just as Shellinx is Bia's. It's very unlikely SDO would actually kill her. I wonder if Monica is Bud's chosen one? After all, Bud is a founding member of the MIB as well (A Senior Director?). She may not be all she seems either.

[Sidhekin]

I don't really see how they come to the conclusion that Brandi was out to kill Kath and Atsali as such.

Atsali/computer/Etheitians know(s) about the "deal", since Brandi was talking to herself inside the complex, and further that she "helped design the system", that she figured it "all came together nicely" with "everything on track" and "all future moves falling into place" after the six-quadruplet reveal ...

Indeed, she/it/they told Kath that "Brandilyn's grid wasn't just to keep out the ancient gods", but "was used to stop the creation of more golems, and to keep the world in the dark about how you even create golems and chimeras".

Just before telling Kath how the complex was designed to keep the secret by several means, up to and including a "self destruct device".

And Kath and Atsali didn't just happen to be there: They were explicitly told by Brandi to go to Mapimi ...

It's Bud I'm drawing a blank on (ETA: kinda like Paul yesterday, amIright?). I don't know whether I missed something, whether she has an upcoming reveal of hitherto unknown background knowledge (hey, she's got millennia worth), whether Bud and Kath managed to exchange a few choice words between panels (hey, they agree that "we" know, plural), or whether it's just for the sake of a chorus punchline, never to be explained (it doesn't impact the plot, after all).

But our dear adventurers can add two and two. No problem. Atsali just needed some time to process it all.

[scantrontb]

"Brandi was trying to kill us!"..."We know"

uh...what?

Soooooooo, Brandi's "oh-so-sweet" personality is the evil one, trying to purge Kath and Atsali and...Bud?? As well??!???

I just hope that whatever is wrong with her gets fixed in a way that does not affect her super-smarts.

But first Jin, now Brandi showing signs of insanity? Is Bud next?? I hope not.

Nah, the way I see it (and I'll bet Moxana Points on it) is that SDO "IS" a Demon, and the sweet wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-Brandi is the "real" Brandi. The Library obviously knows about her split personality/possession, and i'm pretty dang positive that SDO's orders to Lily were to follow Kat to Mapimi, and do whatever Kat tells her to do. thus BOTH of the LAST TWO SURVIVING Ethitians are inside the crystal complex, and the system was still set up to do exactly the same thing... self-destruct... and since neither Kat nor Lili can poit, thus killing off the last of the Ethitians as per the deal Brandi made (and to prevent those orders from coming to light). but when Lily shows up at Mesa Verde, then Bud, Kat and Atsali show up the wheels are going to come off of SDO's Plans in a big way. Brandi's last thought was to tell Kat/Atslai to meet up at Mesa Verde with the MIB... but K&A's memory will include the whole "any secrets you discover..." blurb... the Library diverted Bud to rescue K&A, and diverted Lily to provide evidence of said orders...
at which point the demon SDO will take complete control of Brandi, and evicting her to the demon realm at which time Monica's new-found Jaguar Girl's powers come into play... she will have to go into the demon realm, get Brandi back, and then as the Demon Wrangler, kick out the demon and re-boot Brandi back into her own golem body...

[jwhouk]

WHEW!

[KnightDelight]

I don't really see how they come to the conclusion that Brandi was out to kill Kath and Atsali as such.

Atsali/computer/Etheitians know(s) about the "deal", since Brandi was talking to herself inside the complex, and further that she "helped design the system", that she figured it "all came together nicely" with "everything on track" and "all future moves falling into place" after the six-quadruplet reveal ...]

But there is no evidence the computer listened to what she was rambling to herself or processed it. If she helped design the system, she would surely have programmed it to ignore such musings. Not even store them. It is possible the crystal people may have heard since she seems to be unaware they were awake. But, again, there is no evidence of that. As far as I can see, nothing Atsali said while in the chamber indicates either the people or the computer knew any of that.

Indeed, she/it/they told Kath that "Brandilyn's grid wasn't just to keep out the ancient gods", but "was used to stop the creation of more golems, and to keep the world in the dark about how you even create golems and chimeras".

Just before telling Kath how the complex was designed to keep the secret by several means, up to and including a "self destruct device".

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how that would lead to the conclusion SDO was deliberately trying to kill them specifically.

And Kath and Atsali didn't just happen to be there: They were explicitly told by Brandi to go to Mapimi ...

That would be the most damning piece of evidence were it not for the fact that's where they were going in the first place even if Brandi had not shown up. http://wapsisquare.com/comic/going-to-mapimi/ It's not like they were about to change their minds and Brandi was there to get them to go to Mapimi after all. Supposedly the library sent her there. It could have just as well sent Bud or Jin. Seems to be pure chance. Unless SDO can manipulate the Library as well.

[eee]

If recall correctly, Brandi did warn folks of just how dangerous she could be, if her mind was set on a course of action.

For Brandi to try an bump off Bud along with Katherine and Atsali takes some serious balls. This can't just be a power play for control of MIB. There are too many pieces on the board, not to mentions all those we can't see lurking in the shadows of the Library.

....and everyone was worried about Jin wigging out and nuking everything.

The worries about Jin were perfectly justified. When you've got someone who can shred the Earth AND is having serious problems telling what's real and what's not, you've got a problem. Fortunately that got fixed...

But I don't think SDO was trying to kill Bud. A nuclear meltdown would affect Bud as much as a gentle breeze. Bud, I believe, wasn't supposed to be there, her 'poit' to Mesa Verde was diverted to the complex somehow. Possibly by the Library or some other force. This enabled her to save Kath and Atsali. Which may mean one of the Senior Director's plans has gone REALLY wrong. Brandi is in for a surprise. And as we all know, Brandi freezes when she's surprised and all her great planning ability goes out the window. If Bud goes after her suddenly, physically or magically, I suspect SDO might get beaten down before she can think to turn Bud off again. And whatever it is that splitting Brandi's personalities might be fixed, too.

[Julie]

Well that's a relief! Also, very amused by the Bud/Kat reaction to Atsali's panic-realization.

Nah, the way I see it (and I'll bet Moxana Points on it) is that SDO "IS" a Demon, and the sweet wouldn't-hurt-a-fly-Brandi is the "real" Brandi. The Library obviously knows about her split personality/possession, and i'm pretty dang positive that SDO's orders to Lily were to follow Kat to Mapimi, and do whatever Kat tells her to do. thus BOTH of the LAST TWO SURVIVING Ethitians are inside the crystal complex, and the system was still set up to do exactly the same thing... self-destruct... and since neither Kat nor Lili can poit, thus killing off the last of the Ethitians as per the deal Brandi made (and to prevent those orders from coming to light). but when Lily shows up at Mesa Verde, then Bud, Kat and Atsali show up the wheels are going to come off of SDO's Plans in a big way. Brandi's last thought was to tell Kat/Atslai to meet up at Mesa Verde with the MIB... but K&A's memory will include the whole "any secrets you discover..." blurb... the Library diverted Bud to rescue K&A, and diverted Lily to provide evidence of said orders...
at which point the demon SDO will take complete control of Brandi, and evicting her to the demon realm at which time Monica's new-found Jaguar Girl's powers come into play... she will have to go into the demon realm, get Brandi back, and then as the Demon Wrangler, kick out the demon and re-boot Brandi back into her own golem body...

My problem with this theory is that Brandi/SDO was aware that Lily wasn't joining Kat & Atsali. She said (as "sweet" Brandi) that she was going to meet with the new MiB agents at Mesa Verde, who would apparently already know/recognize her...those new agents presumably being Lily & Suzie. And while you could take SDO's response to Kat's reveal of the helicopter mishap to mean that she expected Lily would be stargating to Mapimi, that's still just an assumption. She could very well have just been referring to Lily's ability to stargate to Mesa Verde...it's just that her SDO-smarmy-face makes it easy to assume she's got hidden meanings behind every word that leaves her mouth.

[jwhouk]

I would like to point something out:

Atsali was the one who said "Brandi was trying to kill us!" It's entirely possible that our favorite birdbrain wasn't talking about her, Bud and Katherine; she was probably talking about her and the stored Ethetians/Anasazi in her brain.

[Julie]

But I don't think SDO was trying to kill Bud. A nuclear meltdown would affect Bud as much as a gentle breeze. Bud, I believe, wasn't supposed to be there, her 'poit' to Mesa Verde was diverted to the complex somehow. Possibly by the Library or some other force. This enabled her to save Kath and Atsali. Which may mean one of the Senior Director's plans has gone REALLY wrong. Brandi is in for a surprise. And as we all know, Brandi freezes when she's surprised and all her great planning ability goes out the window. If Bud goes after her suddenly, physically or magically, I suspect SDO might get beaten down before she can think to turn Bud off again. And whatever it is that splitting Brandi's personalities might be fixed, too.

I agree that SDO wasn't trying to kill Bud...that she didn't expect Bud to be there (though one can hope she planned for it). However, your post made me think of another possibility for the poit-diversion. While I'm still primarily inclined to think The Library was behind that event somehow, I have to wonder if it was just the nature of the Mapimi Silent Zone that diverted her poit. Maybe the whole "Athena Test Missile" diversion to Mapimi was just a "natural" effect of the area as well...and it just can do that to anything passing within a certain range kind of like black holes can affect the trajectory of anything that passes within a certain range of them...I mean, look at the map.

Poit to Mesa Verde1.jpg (241.38 KiB) Viewed 8961 times

I guess if nothing else it's another theory we can add to the bundle (assuming someone else hasn't already said as much and I missed it ).

[Jay-Em]

(and one of those girls was my great, great, great grand mother... got her picture somewhere)

No doubt the priest thought she was great.

yeah... Jay-Em, nice topic but I was talking THIS century.... :/

Yeah, well, blame the priests... (Hmmm.. Come to think of it, my great, great, great granddad is "unknown". )

[Dave]

It's Bud I'm drawing a blank on (ETA: kinda like Paul yesterday, amIright?). I don't know whether I missed something, whether she has an upcoming reveal of hitherto unknown background knowledge (hey, she's got millennia worth), whether Bud and Kath managed to exchange a few choice words between panels (hey, they agree that "we" know, plural), or whether it's just for the sake of a chorus punchline, never to be explained (it doesn't impact the plot, after all.

I suggested a day or two ago that Bud's wrath isn't for being "blown up", but becase she recognized the Mapimi crystal storage vault (having been there before) and figured something out as she was being tossed skyward by the eruption. My guess is that what she saw in the chamber was entirely inconsistent with something Brandi had told her, so she knew Brandi had deliberately lied to her about the Etheitians. Brandi might have insisted to Bud that the chamber had been destroyed by the volcanic eruptions long ago?

Likely, Brandi was the only one who had been in a position to rig up that self-destruct mechanism in the the first place... she was the "last one standing" when the Etheitians went into storage, and had deliberately gotten Acacia out of the way. The very fact on the self-destruct mechanism's existence is entirely inconsistent with what Acacia said about 'We're supposed to keep them safe". Bud may have just figured out that the whole "Oh hell, activating the Vimana grid is causing a catastrophe, everybody head for the lifeboats" flap was deliberate... a ruse by Brandi to corral all the Etheitians into storage so they could be eliminated... which implies that Brandi / Oduya had been plotting it well in advance and lying to her for a very long time, and that this latest lttle bit of elimination-by-radioactive-steam must be part of the same plot.

In other words, the penny just dropped for Bud... one of those moments when a whole bunch of little inconsistencies in the past snap into sharp focus and make a very disturbing picture you hadn't seen before. I've been there once or twice in my life... suddenly realizing from small clues that someone you trust as been deliberately scamming you and those you care about is a horrid experience.

As to why it's "We know" rather than two independent "I know"... I'll take $5 worth of "makes for a better punchline" please. Either that, or "Bud's interior dialog" being a bit more literal than it is for most of us, considering that she's hollow and Kath was inside. Mayahuel might have installed an intestinal intercom

[DilyV]

My problem with this theory is that Brandi/SDO was aware that Lily wasn't joining Kat & Atsali. She said (as "sweet" Brandi) that she was going to meet with the new MiB agents at Mesa Verde, who would apparently already know/recognize her...those new agents presumably being Lily & Suzie. And while you could take SDO's response to Kat's reveal of the helicopter mishap to mean that she expected Lily would be stargating to Mapimi, that's still just an assumption. She could very well have just been referring to Lily's ability to stargate to Mesa Verde...it's just that her SDO-smarmy-face makes it easy to assume she's got hidden meanings behind every word that leaves her mouth.

You know... if I remember correctly, it was Tsillah who sent the redirect message to Agent Pratt. Here:

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/a-direct-message/

Notice that the way she says it, it would appear that SDO might not realize she's being played by Tsillah and the Library.

Here Brandi asks why anything would be kept from the library... I think SDO might be very near the surface here... the question is not so much meant to be answered by Kath as it is intended to impart the knowledge that maybe its something that is too dangerous to be passed on...

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/human-slide-rule/

But then, listen to Kath's response to Brandi's explanation here:

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/awful-convenient/

Brandi: "The Library pulled the fire alarm." and "...but first wait for you here and tell you to go to the Mapimi stargate then on to Mesa Verde. You'll get all your answers."

It sure sounds like the Library is pulling more than fire alarms... it's pulling strings and it would appear Brandi/SDO hasn't picked up on the fact she being double crossed or out-planned. That last part sounds awfully ominous in retrospect... Kinda like Anuck sun amun in the Mummy when she tells the grave robbers to enter the train car with Imhotep... when she tells then they will receive their just reward or something like that. Just enough to get them to believe they are getting paid off, but meaning something totally different. When I re-read the strip this morning, I heard Anuck sun amun's tone of voice in that statement by Brandi.

Finally, Brandi shows that her intent was to make sure that Kath and Lilly were supposed to be at Mapimi together...

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/last-two/

The Library, as we've seen has other plans for Lilly. Tsillah sends the re-direct order, keeping Lilly away from Mapimi. SDO is going to be furious when it becomes apparent that her plans have been out-maneuvered by the library... so maybe a pissed off Bud is a good thing...

Now... the meltdown... What are the chances that the meltdown didn't happen? What if... wait for it...

what if Bud happened? A nuclear detonation wouldn't/shouldn't result from a meltdown. Unchecked, (as in a reactor with control rods) The core achieves critical mass and begins to melt through everything (China Syndrome). A nuclear detonation is for all intents and purposes, a big ball of...

Plasma.

What if Bud was able to turn off the meltdown got Kath and Atsali into her bellyhatch (belly belly belly belly) and then cut loose with a plasma blast to simulate the blast Brandi was expecting? All the Effect with none of the radiation... just sayin'.....

[RunningBull]

Since it is now clear that Brandi has been trying to kill them, or at least Katherine, I now wonder if Katherine was also the target at the Dead Sea dig, and that Brandi was behind that too?

[kingklash]

Bud's "Okay, you nerds!" cracked me up.

A bigger concern may be lurking, though. 'Sali's head may contain all relevant info on Golem Creation. Is it wise to let the Library have it to complete it's databanks, or should they find a way to delete the secret recipe, because it definitely falls under "There are some things Man was not meant to know"?

[Aed]

A nuclear detonation wouldn't/shouldn't result from a meltdown. Unchecked, (as in a reactor with control rods) The core achieves critical mass and begins to melt through everything (China Syndrome). A nuclear detonation is for all intents and purposes, a big ball of...

Plasma.

What if Bud was able to turn off the meltdown got Kath and Atsali into her bellyhatch (belly belly belly belly) and then cut loose with a plasma blast to simulate the blast Brandi was expecting? All the Effect with none of the radiation... just sayin'.....

Interesting idea. I was pondering if Bud's exhale of plasma was intended to decontaminate the area of any fine radioactive dust thus allowing her "passengers" to exit into relatively safe surroundings.

[chicgeek]

This keeps getting better and better!

Oh, back to the sundress? We know that Kath goes nude when she's at home, so she wouldn't be shocked by a nude Bud. But Astali is a 15 year old kid. Remember in the midst of all hell breaking loose, she still manages to call Bud out on 'You said the S word!' , for saying 'Shit!'? The sundress was for Astali's benefit, keeping the kid from being embarrassed.

[Timotheus]

I can practically guarantee that this is one story line that will continue to make no sense until we finally learn who's directing things and for what goals.

There's a number of individuals pulling strings both behind and in front of the screen, Brandi of course, but also the Library, Tsillah, and possibly Bia, Nudge, and the demon(s) or whatever Brandi made her deal with. There's also long shots involving the surviving priests of Lanthos or the elder gods and Titans who may be sneaking in through a gap in the barrier caused by a missing vimana cell that May may have found. And just what they're all trying to accomplish and how these plans are interacting or fouling each up is yet to be seen.

I just feel this post is worth repeating on this page.

Also, as a possibly interesting side note, my son and daughter in law have informed me of the birth of my first grand child. A girl, at 4:40 AM last night. Everything appears normal.