An Important Offer 2013-07-11

[DilyV]

I'm just thinking about what's going on in her head.
When all those people got squaked into her head she had thousands of voices and lives talking, arguing, venting, crying and screaming all at once.
Somehow she was able to glean what infomration she need at the right times. Otherwise it was pure babbling. Right before the gate it was, "Children lost and washed into the ocean and left to dieinthesandandtrappedincrystalsandmakeitstoppleasepleaseplease!"

Now, praticularly in the library, there only silence.


___________________________________
Went back and reviewed the comic once more. Atsali is off center of the frame. Her wings are markedly absent. Whether on purpose or not it just feels like something else is missing in that last picture.

I distinctly remember her saying the Ethetians in the crystals "escaped through" her. That implies transience, not being trapped in her head. What did get trapped in her head, at least temporarily until she reached the exit into the library was the computer system and all the knowledge stored there. It was the knowledge of what happened to the Ethetians that caused Atsali to freak out. My question is this: Was it the knowledge of what happened that sent Atsali into hysterics, or were the emotions of the ethetians somehow converted to data and that data was transferred to Atsali's mind in the computer dump? Just as a really good writer can write such a compelling story that will make you laugh or bawl your eyes out, emotions converted to data and downloaded into her brain had to have affected her.

[DilyV]

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, go over to the Fan Art Section and check out WDOT's picture of Kath and Atsali...

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=14&start=1140#p20482

[Dave]

I think the time has come for Paul to take a bow. He has successfully crafted a fable upon which his fandom is asking deep philosophical questions of one another. Now is the hour for the Aristotles, Avicennas and Aquinases of Wapsidom to step forward.

We should have weekly meetings to discuss the story; bring the family. Since Wapsi doesn't run on Saturday or Sunday, I propose we choose one of those.

/snip/

In the specific of Katherine, she's e pluribus unum. Kath now has the life experience of a military brat, the knowledge that one of the women who wanted her persists as a vampire agent of manipulation, and the burden that her creation depended on the heartless slaughter of all those around her by a sentient wrath* squeezed from a lone innocent.

So it's hardly the End of Story for Thup and Lily. They're both mothers of Katherine Gilchrist.

Definitely yes for the bow! The philosophy round-table seems like a great idea, too. Maybe we can sub-let part of Confusion Corner for the occasion?

I like your terminology*, but it does have one unfortunate side effect. It defines "the Nu Gui's centuries-long scheme of deception and misdirection" in terms of a four-word pun that even I dare not utter. The Pun Jar payment would bust the budget (I'm momentarily between jobs)

[Avenger_Reloaded]

I'm just thinking about what's going on in her head.
When all those people got squaked into her head she had thousands of voices and lives talking, arguing, venting, crying and screaming all at once.
Somehow she was able to glean what infomration she need at the right times. Otherwise it was pure babbling. Right before the gate it was, "Children lost and washed into the ocean and left to dieinthesandandtrappedincrystalsandmakeitstoppleasepleaseplease!"

Now, praticularly in the library, there only silence.


___________________________________
Went back and reviewed the comic once more. Atsali is off center of the frame. Her wings are markedly absent. Whether on purpose or not it just feels like something else is missing in that last picture.

I distinctly remember her saying the Ethetians in the crystals "escaped through" her. That implies transience, not being trapped in her head. What did get trapped in her head, at least temporarily until she reached the exit into the library was the computer system and all the knowledge stored there. It was the knowledge of what happened to the Ethetians that caused Atsali to freak out. My question is this: Was it the knowledge of what happened that sent Atsali into hysterics, or were the emotions of the ethetians somehow converted to data and that data was transferred to Atsali's mind in the computer dump? Just as a really good writer can write such a compelling story that will make you laugh or bawl your eyes out, emotions converted to data and downloaded into her brain had to have affected her.

You make a good point. Even without them in there their message remained. I wonder if it's like reading 1,000 diaries instantly. That can leave a hell of a mark on a person. It would explain the indexing searches she did. Entire lifetimes to reference but one message seems to have been made clear in terms of the children.

[Forklifter]

I just love Katherine to pieces right now. I really hope she tells those smug MIB jerks where to go.

[MerchManDan]

I'm just thinking about what's going on in her head.
When all those people got squaked into her head she had thousands of voices and lives talking, arguing, venting, crying and screaming all at once.
Somehow she was able to glean what infomration she need at the right times. Otherwise it was pure babbling. Right before the gate it was, "Children lost and washed into the ocean and left to dieinthesandandtrappedincrystalsandmakeitstoppleasepleaseplease!"

Now, praticularly in the library, there only silence.


___________________________________
Went back and reviewed the comic once more. Atsali is off center of the frame. Her wings are markedly absent. Whether on purpose or not it just feels like something else is missing in that last picture.

I'll bet it's entirely purposeful, and I can guess what's missing: Atsali's youthful vitality. Hell, maybe even her youth. Such an experience you've just described would drain some life out of anybody and even age them (mentally speaking).

[Hansontoons]

Even though I be a male of the species, I identify with Kat's frame of mind at the moment. She having been subjected to a harrowing experience not of her design has earned the right to go tell the powers that be to essentially go jump in the lake (or perhaps be poited to said locale). I am ready to exhibit the same disdain of authority at my place of employment due to the actions of those that think they know best how to run a business but are managing to simply eff it up magnificently. Problem is the message will not travel high enough up the food chain to have an effect. Oh well. And Atsi will be fine. She will emerge with the same youthful energy but be wise beyond her years. Which could be a good thing for her b'cause now she will be able to draw on knowledge that will get her out of trouble as fast as she can get into it! Time for another Fat Tire. It's hot in Texas.

[Wdot]

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, go over to the Fan Art Section and check out WDOT's picture of Kath and Atsali...

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=14&start=1140#p20482

I'm glad you thought it was sweet, but I'm sorry it made you feel like crying. I didn't expect to see it brought up in this section, but I am pleased that you thought it warranted it.

I read a lot of the comments on this particular one. People seem to think Kat should adopt her. I kinda thought it might be better if it worked out like Lilo & Stitch. Kat might not be her mother, but she could be a really good big sister like Nani was. I kinda really like the concept of 'Ohana.' Your Shakespeare quote and Fairportfan's " Benevolent and Protective Order of Them That Has Been Shot At by Bill Mauldin reminded me family doesn't have to be 'blood.' Atsali is 15, three years from her majority. I think she could do with a big sister and that's "family." Which is kinda why the comic.

[Mark N]

Am I the only one that has a feeling that Tsillah is pulling a "Nudge" on Katherine to see her response (or to make her respond to Atsali's plight)?

As for Atsali, the poor girl has just had the knowledge database of an entire advanced (and doomed) culture siphoned out of her Eidetic noggin. That has to leave a mental scar or something. And with her memory there has to be a good trace left of that information (there is a good reason why it is known as a photographic memory after all).

[DilyV]

For those of you who haven't seen it yet, go over to the Fan Art Section and check out WDOT's picture of Kath and Atsali...

viewtopic.php?f=14&t=14&start=1140#p20482

I'm glad you thought it was sweet, but I'm sorry it made you feel like crying. I didn't expect to see it brought up in this section, but I am pleased that you thought it warranted it.

I read a lot of the comments on this particular one. People seem to think Kat should adopt her. I kinda thought it might be better if it worked out like Lilo & Stitch. Kat might not be her mother, but she could be a really good big sister like Nani was. I kinda really like the concept of 'Ohana.' Your Shakespeare quote and Fairportfan's " Benevolent and Protective Order of Them That Has Been Shot At by Bill Mauldin reminded me family doesn't have to be 'blood.' Atsali is 15, three years from her majority. I think she could do with a big sister and that's "family." Which is kinda why the comic.

It made me cry in a good way... remembering battle buddies and friends lost... I can never get through that part of Henry the fifth without shedding a tear... I don't think many true patriots can. My love of my country and my fellow soldiers is deep seated and meaningful in my life... when reminded of honor and sacrifice, I tend to shed a tear for those who have made the ultimate sacrifice.

[GuySmiley]

As for Atsali, the poor girl has just had the knowledge database of an entire advanced (and doomed) culture siphoned out of her Eidetic noggin. That has to leave a mental scar or something. And with her memory there has to be a good trace left of that information (there is a good reason why it is known as a photographic memory after all).

The worst part is it may have been intentionally inflicted on her by the Library/MIB. Somehow I doubt that Katherine running into Atsali when she entered the library and then being whisked off on her adventure before she had a chance to have second thoughts about field research (a decent possibility since just going to the library was a fairly big step for her) was an accident. If MIB/Library wanted to make sure that Katherine actually did this then they would have needed some insurance and a hyperactive, adventure seeking side-kick would probably do the trick. We know from Tina's conversation with Euryale that she and Monica didn't meet by accident even though that's how it appeared so I suspect something similar here.

Tsillah may want to leave Kath alone before she comes to this conclusion since it's unlikely that she considers the success of the mission to be worth the cost to Atsali.

[Timotheus]

I wonder if the library has a "used and surplus book sale cart"?




"The wrongs inflicted on one nation by another have never been righted by solemn appeals to the good god or faith in mans inherent goodness, but only by force of arms." A. Hitler, 1936

[Julie]

I do, but Paul was even worse than usual in this arc. He left almost everything hanging loose in the wind. There are only a few things we know for sure.

Kathy's background in a limited sort of way. There is still a lot there we don't.
The Ethianans were just like the Lantan, not nice people.
Lilly was one but we don't know how she got loose from the crystals.
Brandi no longer has the Nu Gui hanging around but there is a lot more to that story as well.
Sali is a orphaned Siren.

Everything else we think we know is speculation with little to support it. That is the problem I'm gripping about. All this arc and not a lot of solid facts to deal with.

Actually, we've been told in comic that the Etheitians were a "lost tribe" of Lanthians...so they not only were like the Lanthians...they were descendants.

Additionally, we know a little about how Lily was released from the crystals. Atsali told us that Brandi and Bud waited 885 years after the volcanic eruption and then tried to release the Etheitians from the crystals by starting with the pregnant women and their quadruplets (which just goes to show that Brandi didn't plan on trapping the Etheitians forever...Thup did). Apparently Thup had the system set up to kill anything released, so all of the mothers were dumped into the desert...which is where Lily randomly found herself before she died and became a vampire.

What are the things that are missing from the Brandi/Thup story and the Atsali-is-an-orphan story? Obviously there's always more detail we can learn, but what pieces do you feel are not being resolved? I kind of think that the Brandi/Thup story has been fairly well addressed and tied off (though I kind of feel like we'll get a more thorough look at Brandi's side of things in the foreseeable future), and Atsali is a brand new character...so we've got plenty of time to learn more of her backstory (which is where I think things are going right now).

[Sidhekin]

Missing stuff? Okay, I'll bite:

• What about Jin? Miss Goodie-Goodie and Bud have implied that they were all to go to Mesa Verde two hours before sunset. Since Bud ended up diverted, and SDO played hostess to various brass, Jin should have been the first to meet up with the vamps. I jokingly suggested that "two hours before sunset" may have been interpreted differently (local time) by the GGs, but seriously ...
• What favours was Bud going to call in? Just the butcher?
• What was the deal with that Wile E. Coyote dynamite ride? Does Kath have some sort of staying-alive charm to her (as possibly suggested by the dig and the cave-in, but never stated)? Did anyone protect Kath? Or both of them? Or was this entire operation saved by phenomenally too-good-to-be true luck?
• Why are "we" calling a culture that was terminated more than 6000 years ago "the Anasazi", a name otherwise applied to a culture that (a minimum of research suggests) arose about 1900 years ago and was terminated as late as about 700 years ago?

[Julie]

Missing stuff? Okay, I'll bite:

• What about Jin? Miss Goodie-Goodie and Bud have implied that they were all to go to Mesa Verde two hours before sunset. Since Bud ended up diverted, and SDO played hostess to various brass, Jin should have been the first to meet up with the vamps. I jokingly suggested that "two hours before sunset" may have been interpreted differently (local time) by the GGs, but seriously ...
• What favours was Bud going to call in? Just the butcher?
• What was the deal with that Wile E. Coyote dynamite ride? Does Kath have some sort of staying-alive charm to her (as possibly suggested by the dig and the cave-in, but never stated)? Did anyone protect Kath? Or both of them? Or was this entire operation saved by phenomenally too-good-to-be true luck?
• Why are "we" calling a culture that was terminated more than 6000 years ago "the Anasazi", a name otherwise applied to a culture that (a minimum of research suggests) arose about 1900 years ago and was terminated as late as about 700 years ago?

Well I'd agree that those are all very good questions and things that I look forward to learning (goodness knows I've been wondering where Jin went for a while now), I don't feel like they are gaping holes in the story that make it feel unresolved. I feel like they are preludes to more story. Also, I don't remember who pointed it out, but I do think it would be interesting to know if what Atsali almost said after the structural collapse of the underground room (which led to them noticing the hourglass cut into the cliff-face)...I'd bet it was going to say a fair amount about Kat's ability to not die through all of that insanity. (Aha! Found it! It was scantronb!)

You know...I've also been wondering about that Anasazi bit. We know the actual term for the group of people who were stored in crystals was Etheitians and they were a "lost tribe" of Lanthians/Lanthian descendants. Let's see what else we know that can help us piece the puzzle together so far...
Kat mentioned that the stargate proved a connection between the Anasazi and the Mayans, and Atsali seemed nonplussed by that "discovery" and said that the ancestors of the Olmecs were followers of Mayahuel...
Kat tells us that the glyphs in the stargates are Mayan glyphs that are probably "phonetic" translations of Lanthian glypths...
But then SDO called Lily one of the last two living Anasazi, and Atsali explains that the Olmec and Anasazi civilizations were started by Lanthian survivors...
And Lily called herself an Anasazi...
Which put all together makes me wonder if "Anasazi" is just the name modern historians gave the Etheitians, and it really wasn't as recent a civilization as those historians have believed.

I've kind of gotten the feeling lately that we shouldn't rely too heavily on our own past historical knowledge to determine the nature of Wapsi's historical truths... I mean, our history indicates that the Kilkai caldera eruption was not an extinction level event, but we learned from Atsali that Brandi waited 885 years for "things to clear up" which suggests that there really was some sort of seismic instability that could have compromised the Etheitians' ability to survive. Maybe it wasn't on a global scale, but it must have rocked a large chunk of their known world for Brandi to have felt the need to wait that long before attempting to release them. If that's the case in the Wapsi-verse, then I think it's safe for us to throw a lot of the known truths of the real world aside expecting the Wapsi-verse to have a very different spin on the situation.

[Sidhekin]

Well I'd agree that those are all very good questions and things that I look forward to learning (goodness knows I've been wondering where Jin went for a while now), I don't feel like they are gaping holes in the story that make it feel unresolved.

Oh, I didn't mean that. These are unresolved questions in my opinion pretty obviously posed by the story, but they don't add up to "unresolving" the entire story.

In that respect, there seems just one thing to go: The final disposition (story-final, not life-final) of Atsali. (I'd also like to see Lily again before the curtain falls, hinting at whether or not she'll seek out her "kind of like" daughter, but that could as effectively be left an open point.)

You know...I've also been wondering about that Anasazi bit. We know the actual term for the group of people who were stored in crystals was Etheitians and they were a "lost tribe" of Lanthians/Lanthian descendants. Let's see what else we know that can help us piece the puzzle together so far...
Kat mentioned that the stargate proved a connection between the Anasazi and the Mayans, and Atsali seemed nonplussed by that "discovery" and said that the ancestors of the Olmecs were followers of Mayahuel...
Kat tells us that the glyphs in the stargates are Mayan glyphs that are probably "phonetic" translations of Lanthian glypths...
But then SDO called Lily one of the last two living Anasazi, and Atsali explains that the Olmec and Anasazi civilizations were started by Lanthian survivors...
And Lily called herself an Anasazi...
Which put all together makes me wonder if "Anasazi" is just the name modern historians gave the Etheitians, and it really wasn't as recent a civilization as those historians have believed.

<glib>Only if those "modern historians" were Navajo.</glib>

"Anasazi" is a Navajo Indian word for "ancient ones" or "ancient enemy". So, if the Navajo were enemies of "our" Anasazi ... just how long have Navajo been around? "Archaeological and historical evidence suggests the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajo and Apache entered the Southwest around 1400 CE," according to Wikipedia. About 600 years ago.

To push that back by more than 4000 years would throw things around a little, no? :-\

[Grantwhy]

<glib>Only if those "modern historians" were Navajo.</glib>

"Anasazi" is a Navajo Indian word for "ancient ones" or "ancient enemy". So, if the Navajo were enemies of "our" Anasazi ... just how long have Navajo been around? "Archaeological and historical evidence suggests the Athabaskan ancestors of the Navajo and Apache entered the Southwest around 1400 CE," according to Wikipedia. About 600 years ago.

To push that back by more than 4000 years would throw things around a little, no? :-\

however, in the waspiverse, the "Anasazi" don't have to be the Navajo's "ancient ones" or "ancient enemy", do they?

We'd just need someone with knowledge of the Etheitians/Lanthians and pass that knowledge on the early Navajo while describing them as (a) ancient and (b) not very nice.

Perhaps even, that person could be someone long lived, with a grudge (or hatred) against the Etheitians/Lanthians?

Or someone who was stuck in a (looooong) time loop and need to plant knowledge of a very old culture?

Another option could be that when the Navajo's arrived they incorporated some of the knowledge of a people that were already there who did know of the Etheitians/Lanthians?



and that's all before finishing my first coffee of the day
although maybe I should use a smaller cup - drinking coffee from a largish beer stein probably invalidates my 'I only drink two cups of coffee a day at work' :-p

[Julie]

What Grantwhy said.

[bmonk]

In Double Star, Heinlein's Great Lorenzo explains that his father's theory was that the problem with boys' behaviour was that there was too much blood in their brain and the proper remedy was the vigourous application of a strap to the gluteus maximus to warm it and draw the excess blood away...

But how does this explain the phenomenon that "God gave men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to operate one at a time"?