Catch Up Shortly 2013-07-03

[Julie]

GAH! This is like a Wednesday cliff-hanger! I may not have interweb access until Monday, and how am I supposed to survive this crazy need to know what happens next???

While that is true on recovered memories, it will not induce a sudden personality change. Lilly suddenly goes from low-level vamp who just tries to keep her BBF butt out of trouble to Okay everyone we do it this way and takes charge.

This is not unprecedented. Pratt seems to be the type who stays quiet until crunch-time, at which point the discipline kicks in and she kicks ass where needed - a trait she apparently shares with Kath. Like 1/6 mother, like daughter.

Yeah, I'm with MMD on this one. I think Lily has shown herself to be a take-charge kind of gal on many occasions (wasn't she the leader of the dynamic duo when they worked for the FBI or cops or whatever?)...she just doesn't handle being in the presense of her "betters" very well.

She also said that they were crazy before they went into the crystals and got worse inside the crystals from the sound of it. Here:

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/self-destruct-device/

That strip also confirmed the World Grid was not only to stop the elder Gods from getting to Earth, but to stop the knowledge of how to create golems and Chimeras from reaching earth as well (I'm assuming it takes the intervention of an elder god to make it work).

I don't know that an elder god is required for the creation of a golem. The Etheitians already had the knowledge...and like Dave said, Brandi wanted to trick them into storage to lock that knowledge away.

[kingklash]

Maybe Brandi was planning a System Restore for the 'Gate netowrk, creating a non-centralized computer minus certain packets of info, with Atsali as temporary storage until passing through the system as Atsali+Computer, and emerging as Just Atsali.

We still don't know what exactly the Library needs from this situation. It may extract the info on Kat and 'Sali's arrival.

[KnightDelight]

But the minute she sticks her hand into Sali's cleavage Sali is going to say, "What's wrong with you?'I'm a good girl I am!'

I don't know .. Atsali seemed to be quite enjoying Kath's breasts when she had the chance to lie on them. There may be aspects of her personality that have yet to be exposed.

Kinda funny how Lilly has gone from clueless to know-it-all. She arrived in Mesa Verdi without an idea of what was going on. Now she not only has a clue but is leading in taking action to fix things. Where did this sudden change come from? It can't be just the recovery of some of her memory. In fact this side of her is a complete break from her personality that we've seen so far ever since we met her. It helps the story line but it isn't really consistent with who we've seen Lilly being in the past.

Must remember, we are seeing just a tiny bit of Lily's life here, given her 5000 years of existence. It would be hard to make any valid conclusions as to what she is capable of. Also, for the first time since we have known her, she is fully in her element. It is she who has the knowledge needed to manipulate the stargates, and who knows whatever else. Prior to this event, all we have seen is Lily trying to cope with 21st century conditions and methods, none of which involve stargates and storage crystals. Now she is the go-to person of the group since she knows what it is all about and none of the others do. It's only natural for her to take command.

We still don't know what exactly the Library needs from this situation. It may extract the info on Kat and 'Sali's arrival.

True, and we need to keep in mind the Library can probe people, as it did Monica, and discover things about their true nature. It may also be it can probe Atsali to attempt to extract the data from Atsali but may find it needs a different storage medium to do the job like storage crystals. Or, as I think has been mentioned, keep her sane long enough for Lily to set up what is needed to save her.

Most likely Paul has something more circuitous in mind, however, not anything that straight forward.

[Dave]

GAH! This is like a Wednesday cliff-hanger! I may not have interweb access until Monday, and how am I supposed to survive this crazy need to know what happens next???

A nice bottle (or several) of Samuel Smith's Organic Chocolate Stout?

I tried one, night-before-last, based on your recommendation.... yummie!

[NOTDilbert]

Excuse me, has anyone realized that May is probably in terrible danger? She is the only living(well, Golemized) person who can make and repair golems - and since she is Jin's Mom, she might have enough knowledge of her habits and whereabouts to place her in danger.....

*EDIT* Or, if she really wanted to hurt May - place no-longer-indestructible Jin in danger. Where was it she was sent, again?

[KnightDelight]

Excuse me, has anyone realized that May is probably in terrible danger? She is the only living(well, Golemized) person who can make and repair golems - and since she is Jin's Mom, she might have enough knowledge of her habits and whereabouts to place her in danger.....

This is true, but I see it the other way as well. Makes me wonder if Maya is one of the players in all this. She was once a powerful player and did things that caused horrible damage and loss of life. She may have been trying to help her daughter but the results were devastating to many, many innocents, paving a whole new road to hell. I don't know if she is evil by nature, but what she did in the past certainly led to a lot of evil. Who knows, she may be doing things in the background now to try to stop further harm. Still, as we have seen, her good intentions lead to disaster.

[Dave]

This is true, but I see it the other way as well. Makes me wonder if Maya is one of the players in all this. She was once a powerful player and did things that caused horrible damage and loss of life. She may have been trying to help her daughter but the results were devastating to many, many innocents, paving a whole new road to hell. I don't know if she is evil by nature, but what she did in the past certainly led to a lot of evil. Who knows, she may be doing things in the background now to try to stop further harm. Still, as we have seen, her good intentions lead to disaster.

Given her known history, and her tendency to drink (or even personify drinking) I wonder whether "chaotic neutral" might be Mayahuel's proper alignment? Neither good nor bad, but not at all prone to follow the rules... anybody's rules.

[DilyV]

This is true, but I see it the other way as well. Makes me wonder if Maya is one of the players in all this. She was once a powerful player and did things that caused horrible damage and loss of life. She may have been trying to help her daughter but the results were devastating to many, many innocents, paving a whole new road to hell. I don't know if she is evil by nature, but what she did in the past certainly led to a lot of evil. Who knows, she may be doing things in the background now to try to stop further harm. Still, as we have seen, her good intentions lead to disaster.

Given her known history, and her tendency to drink (or even personify drinking) I wonder whether "chaotic neutral" might be Mayahuel's proper alignment? Neither good nor bad, but not at all prone to follow the rules... anybody's rules.

Point well taken... having played a lot of D&D in my younger years, I'd say yes... May is aligned Chaotic Neutral. She's somewhat self centered and is all about getting what she wants at almost any cost, but she doesn't do evil for the sake of evil, but her actions might be interpreted that way. They say the path to hell is lined with the best of intentions...

[Mark N]

Kinda funny how Lilly has gone from clueless to know-it-all. She arrived in Mesa Verdi without an idea of what was going on. Now she not only has a clue but is leading in taking action to fix things. Where did this sudden change come from? It can't be just the recovery of some of her memory. In fact this side of her is a complete break from her personality that we've seen so far ever since we met her. It helps the story line but it isn't really consistant with who we've seen Lilly being in th epast.

There is something I have noticed in the real world that answers this. I have known many people that when exposed to something from their past for long enough they start to remember things from 40 years ago that they had completely forgotten even languages. Now apply that to a 5,000 year old.

While that is true on recovered memories, it will not induce a sudden personality change. Lilly suddenly goes from low-level vamp who just tries to keep her BBF butt out of trouble to Okay everyone we do it this way and takes charge.

She regained her memory of what happened and the fact that SDO is wholly responsible for it and her current state. She realized that she just helped get revenge for herself and all of her fellow victims, now she has been forced to take control or lose it all. I have seen this kind of thing in RL. Remember, she spent most of her unlife trying to stay under the radar of the truly terrifying supernaturals, that means playing meek and harmless not take charge. It is a mater of what one WANTS to do and what one HAS to do.

[DilyV]

GAH! This is like a Wednesday cliff-hanger! I may not have interweb access until Monday, and how am I supposed to survive this crazy need to know what happens next???

She also said that they were crazy before they went into the crystals and got worse inside the crystals from the sound of it. Here:

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/self-destruct-device/

That strip also confirmed the World Grid was not only to stop the elder Gods from getting to Earth, but to stop the knowledge of how to create golems and Chimeras from reaching earth as well (I'm assuming it takes the intervention of an elder god to make it work).

I don't know that an elder god is required for the creation of a golem. The Etheitians already had the knowledge...and like Dave said, Brandi wanted to trick them into storage to lock that knowledge away.

My point was in relation to Atsali stated understanding of the world grid:

"They were nuts before they went crazy in the crystals! Brandilyn's grid wasn't just to keep out the ancient Gods! It 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."

Odd way of stating this if the Gods didn't have something to do with it. If the knowledge exists and no Elder God influence is needed, how does the grid being up and working stop the knowledge from being used? I suspect we've missed some subtle point along the way that would clarify things, but I got the distinct impression that the creation of a Golem required the action of an Elder God. Indeed, most accounts of the creation of golems in our own past seem to revolve around a holy person creating a body of clay, mud or dirt and inserting a 'shem' (a writing, containing any of the many names of God) into the mouth or forehead of the golem to animate it. You could say that the old adage of speaking a person's name gives them power holds true in that sense. Also, it was the Lanthian priests (by default, 'holy men') who seemed hell bent on creating these golems and it also seemed to be Golem Brandi's mission in life(?) after being separated from the chimera to stop the proliferation of golem making.

[Black Cat Godess]

The fates are rolling the dice of decisiveness and her name came up this turn.

"What dice did the Graveyard Hag roll?"

You always have to watch yourself around the Graveyard Hag. Almost as much as you have to watch yourself around Kyprioth.

[bmonk]

Kinda funny how Lilly has gone from clueless to know-it-all. She arrived in Mesa Verdi without an idea of what was going on. Now she not only has a clue but is leading in taking action to fix things. Where did this sudden change come from? It can't be just the recovery of some of her memory. In fact this side of her is a complete break from her personality that we've seen so far ever since we met her. It helps the story line but it isn't really consistant with who we've seen Lilly being in th epast.

There is something I have noticed in the real world that answers this. I have known many people that when exposed to something from their past for long enough they start to remember things from 40 years ago that they had completely forgotten even languages. Now apply that to a 5,000 year old.

Nathan Brazil (an immortal, mostly) is millions of years old--so he tends to forget lots of stuff until he needs it again. There is just so much that can be kept in active memory. . . .

[bmonk]

This is true, but I see it the other way as well. Makes me wonder if Maya is one of the players in all this. She was once a powerful player and did things that caused horrible damage and loss of life. She may have been trying to help her daughter but the results were devastating to many, many innocents, paving a whole new road to hell. I don't know if she is evil by nature, but what she did in the past certainly led to a lot of evil. Who knows, she may be doing things in the background now to try to stop further harm. Still, as we have seen, her good intentions lead to disaster.

Given her known history, and her tendency to drink (or even personify drinking) I wonder whether "chaotic neutral" might be Mayahuel's proper alignment? Neither good nor bad, but not at all prone to follow the rules... anybody's rules.

Point well taken... having played a lot of D&D in my younger years, I'd say yes... May is aligned Chaotic Neutral. She's somewhat self centered and is all about getting what she wants at almost any cost, but she doesn't do evil for the sake of evil, but her actions might be interpreted that way. They say the path to hell is lined with the best of intentions...

Another likeable CN rogue is Johnny Depp's Captain Jack Sparrow--always out for his personal goals, and willing to do anything, cut any deal, to get one step closer. And not exactly evil--just not concerned with how anything he does will affect anybody else.

[Fairportfan]

The fates are rolling the dice of decisiveness and her name came up this turn.

"What dice did the Graveyard Hag roll?"

You always have to watch yourself around the Graveyard Hag. Almost as much as you have to watch yourself around Kyprioth.

Heh.

Speaking of Kyprioth, i think my favourite line from any of Pierce's books (i'm re-reading all of them - well, not Melting Stones - and i'm just started on Terrier) is probably "I'll deal with you later."

[Julie]

She also said that they were crazy before they went into the crystals and got worse inside the crystals from the sound of it. Here:

http://wapsisquare.com/comic/self-destruct-device/

That strip also confirmed the World Grid was not only to stop the elder Gods from getting to Earth, but to stop the knowledge of how to create golems and Chimeras from reaching earth as well (I'm assuming it takes the intervention of an elder god to make it work).

I don't know that an elder god is required for the creation of a golem. The Etheitians already had the knowledge...and like Dave said, Brandi wanted to trick them into storage to lock that knowledge away.

My point was in relation to Atsali stated understanding of the world grid:

"They were nuts before they went crazy in the crystals! Brandilyn's grid wasn't just to keep out the ancient Gods! It 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."

Odd way of stating this if the Gods didn't have something to do with it. If the knowledge exists and no Elder God influence is needed, how does the grid being up and working stop the knowledge from being used? I suspect we've missed some subtle point along the way that would clarify things, but I got the distinct impression that the creation of a Golem required the action of an Elder God. Indeed, most accounts of the creation of golems in our own past seem to revolve around a holy person creating a body of clay, mud or dirt and inserting a 'shem' (a writing, containing any of the many names of God) into the mouth or forehead of the golem to animate it. You could say that the old adage of speaking a person's name gives them power holds true in that sense. Also, it was the Lanthian priests (by default, 'holy men') who seemed hell bent on creating these golems and it also seemed to be Golem Brandi's mission in life(?) after being separated from the chimera to stop the proliferation of golem making.

I guess I can see where you're coming from. I just think it was stated that way as more of a "and BTW either the whole keeping-out-the-elder-gods thing was a pleasant side-effect of the grid, or being able to accomplish locking-away-a-psychotic-ancient-civilization was...either way, both goals were accomplished...yay dual purpose actions!" If you find something farther back that links the elder gods to golem creation though, please please please share it!

[Jabberwonky]

Considering the near infinite power of the golem, I don't think it would be out of line to need the power level of a god, or titan, to create one.

I don't know if that's a good thing or not...

[Fairportfan]

Considering the near infinite power of the golem, I don't think it would be out of line to need the power level of a god, or titan, to create one.

I don't know if that's a good thing or not...

Ummm, Ordinary humans can create a hydrogen bomb.

Step up an order of magnitude or so in power of the creator...

[Jabberwonky]

Considering the near infinite power of the golem, I don't think it would be out of line to need the power level of a god, or titan, to create one.

I don't know if that's a good thing or not...

Ummm, Ordinary humans can create a hydrogen bomb.

Step up an order of magnitude or so in power of the creator...

Exactly, and again, I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing.