The Deal 2013-05-15

[DilyV]

So the calendar is already in effect by this time and she knows she wont remember what she's doing or why she did it

[The Old Wolf]

Ok, my brain is melting now.

[Fairportfan]

So the calendar is already in effect by this time and she knows she wont remember what she's doing or why she did it

No - the calendar cycles began in roughly the Seventh Century CE.

This is basically Brandi arranging to wipe some of her own memory - or to create a secondary personality, "Senior Director Oduya".

[Stigmartyr762]

So Brandi split herself (?) in order to prevent others from learning how or at least try to undo what she's about to do?

So this is going on after the calendar machine has been created and before the attempt at creating the Chimera?

[Wapsi]

So the calendar is already in effect by this time and she knows she wont remember what she's doing or why she did it

Nope, the calendar loop started when May fraked with the machine in the 6th century CE. =) Much, much later.

[Wapsi]

So Brandi split herself (?) in order to prevent others from learning how or at least try to undo what she's about to do?

So this is going on after the calendar machine has been created and before the attempt at creating the Chimera?

This is taking place after the creation of the Chimera and long after it was separated. Brandi is under the watch of Tepoz by this time. This is 4354 B.C.E.

[Dave]

So Brandi split herself (?) in order to prevent others from learning how or at least try to undo what she's about to do?

So this is going on after the calendar machine has been created and before the attempt at creating the Chimera?

Other way around, I think.

Brandi was assaulted, accidentally killed a child, was dragged off by the priests, died, became part of the Chimera, and took part in the slagging down of Lanthis thousands of years before this.

It was, apparently, the trauma of all of this which led to the Demon Realm taking notice of Brandi and set up conditions which led to "the deal" Brandi spoke of. Her part of the Deal was to actually set up the Vimana shield. I'm not fully clear on what she got out of it in return... possibly more free will than a golem would normally have (prior to Monica explicitly releasing the three GGs).

The Calendar Machine existed throughout this period, but it didn't start creating the timeloop until thousands of years after the Kikai caldera explosion.

[Ohnhai]

Ooh... Skin tone... . Nice

[Timotheus]

I'm getting a strong feeling that Brandi has not been sitting around idly wishing things were different for the last few millennia.

And going back to one of my much earlier questions, seeing how she's already a clay doll, it wouldn't be that unreasonable for there to be two Brandi golems running around, both sharing a certain amount of common personality and memory but otherwise keeping their affairs separate from each other.

For everyone's ease of reference, from the chronology table....

The calendar machine is built.
Mayahuel invents golems

10,500
The Chimera is created. It slips the control of its makers, and burns Lanthian civilization to the ground.

Bia, Titan of Force, is on the Lanthian mainland, and is targeted by the Chimera for two direct blasts of fire, shocking her greatly. Charon, ferryman of Hades, guards her by physically interposing himself. He recounts to her a prophecy that Sibyl has told him, regarding a descendant of Bia's "who will set the Powers right".

Quite possibly subsequent to the Chimera's attack, Prometheus is punished for giving fire to mankind. Bia and her brother Kratos are sent by Zeus to bind Prometheus to Mount Kaukasos. --theoi.com, "Prometheus"

The Chimera alters the polarity of the Earth's axis.
The Great Sphinx of Giza is built as a warning and a reminder of the lost civilization of Lanthis.
Glyph readers separate the Chimera into three separate entities.

The Timekeepers, including Mayahuel, assign Tepoz as the Keeper of the golems separated from the Chimera, and he makes the effort to restore the original personalities to them for the first time in thousands of years, creating the Golem Girls. The Golem Girls bear outward resemblance to and the suppressed memories of the girls sacrificed to create the Chimera.
The first question Jin is able to ask is to see her mother.

While under Tepoz' care, Brandi makes a deal with entities of the Demon World.
Tepoz takes the Golem Girls to the Western Hemisphere.

c. 5200?
The adventurer Gisaultees flourishes.

4354
Brandi installs the last vimana cell and completes the World Grid, preventing "and the Elder Gods from ever reaching Earth again". This triggered a VEI-7 eruption in Kikai Caldera (Wikipedia: "Kikai Caldera"), and violent storms and earthquakes the world over. Overlaps in the Grid create twelve vortices of greater permeation, such as the Bermuda Triangle.

[Dave]

How would they all fit in here?

At any moment I expect Brandi to begin chanting in Lanthian Glyph. She will use this chant to activate a technology (or spell, if you wish) which will compact the incoming Anasazi for storage as information, and endure that they will be carefully preserved through many years.

The chant will be in the idiom known as shrink-rap, of course.

(drops a blueprint of the storage cave into the Pun Jar. Watch that first dubstep, it's a doozy!)

Timotheus: I think Brandi's episode of going "urk" and then exhibiting a sudden personality change suggests that there are two Brandis with some shared memory, as you suggest, but that they're sharing just a single golem body. Tsillah's comment last week seems to support this... the separation is in Brandi's brain and mind, not body.

[zachariah]

From her statement this appears to be the deal:
1. The demons want a world free from the elder gods. This will give them a bigger playground without interference. Leaving only the APO's as demon police. The gods left over apparently don't care that much about the demons and what they do.

2. Brandi gets freedom of action and will by splitting herself mentally. The nice Brandi will know nothing about what the Chess Master is doing. Kind Brandi just floats through her time and has no idea what she is doing elsewhere. Chess Mater is pulling strings and shaping the world to right the wrongs done to her and everyone else. Or at least for what CM Brandi thinks needs it.

3. The current Lantian people are removed from the playing field and kept safe from the demons and gods. The Anasazi have to be those who didn't make it to gates and rebuilt, or other people who moved in and adopted the abandoned ruins.

4. This removed the inner conflict she felt from being part of the Chimera and things she's done and wants to fix. Now she can and not know she is doing it. He innate kindness would prevent her from acting. But CM Brandi has none of that and will act.

Boy ain't we got fun.

Sadly I'm off-line for the next month. I'll check in from time to time but won't get a chance to comment. Gonna miss the board. Someone save a seat for me in the corner for when I get back, I'm gonna need it.

[Timotheus]

I forgot to add that Brandi's speech problems earlier might have been related to the cone of silence in that area. If there were two Brandies whose minds were somehow connected through a means of communications and the one Brandi was in an area where such transmissions were interfered with the end result might have been what we saw.

[jwhouk]

I have learned, in nearly a decade of following WS, that the most important thing to do is pay attention to what Pablo is saying in the comic.

Chain link 1: Brandi had a child in her care die while they were abducting her.
Chain link 2: She made a deal with the demon world - how and who was involved is unknown at this point.
Chain link 3: Part of the deal with the Demon Realm was to set up the Vimana cell network to "get rid of" the Chaotic Elder Gods - people like Bia.
Chain link 4: The Demon World would then have, essentially, the "world to themselves" ("a haven free from the chaotic elder gods").
Chain link 5: In so doing, she would be able to not only set up the grid, but save the Anasazi people, and "maintain the ability to set my will in motion, and never be aware of how I'm doing it."

[TheDOCTOR]

Well, I'm not argueing Chain-of-events because Paul can change it at his whim (wibbly-wobbly-timey-wimey) I will state whats obvious that Brandi looks HOT in that outfit.
TOGA,TOGA,TOGA,TOGA,TOOO-GA!!

[Julie]

Soooo...my first reading of today's page made me think that she was lying about the "extinction level" events going on in order to round up the people of that civilization and store them in crystals...therefore saving them, potentially from the volcanic event at Kikai, but definitely from the demons that would have a god-free playground.

Now after reading the comments here, I'm inclined to think that the world-wide devestation could have happened in the Wapsi-verse (even if it didn't happen quite like that in the real world), and she was just trying to save as many of the people as she could before everything went kablooey...which was her fault because she was trying to hold up her end of the deal and give the demons their playground.

Honestly, I have no clue which of my "interpretations" of today's page is correct...or if I'm completely off base with this...so I think I'll go curl up in The Corner to celebrate "breakfast burrito day."

[DilyV]

I get the feeling that it's a lot more in depth that we've thought... Remember Tina, a compilation of demons minus tina inhabiting Tina's body. My take on this is that the 'deal' Brandi made was to allow a demon to inhabit her in return for being able to right the wrongs she couldn't as Brandi. Brandi is the sweet, loving, couldn't-hurt-a-fly Golom we all know and love... Senior Director Oduya is who she becomes when the demon is ascendant. The Demon can't harm anyone... that would trigger the Apo's response... but... as we've heard Brandi say, she can set a plan in motion that is for the greater good with no harm intended, but that could result in a person basically flaying themselves... In other words, 'Brandi' knows the demon is there, knows what the demon is capable of, but when the demon is ascendant, 'Brandi' is unaware of what the demon does... The demon is playing at semantics to achieve it's goal... setting into motion presumably good intentioned, yet dangerous plans that could end up with the injury or death of others through no fault of the demon. We see Brandi in the Library... I wonder if Senior Driector Oduya could enter... or if the Library could detect Senior Director Oduya as a part of Brandi. hmmm... I think we see the goal for the adventure in progress... to remove the malfunctioning demon from Brandi. Question is, does Brandi want it removed?

The question now is... Is Senior Director Oduya a Demon side of Brandi? When the gang sucked the machine into the demon realm through Monica, I got the impression that all free-range demons were sucked through with it... Bud dove in after it, crushed it, presumably so the demons couldn't tinker with it, and brought it back to send it into the sun to totally destroy it. Obviously demons who were currently inhabiting a body were not sucked through the portal, only free-range demons not inhabiting anyone, otherwise, the gang would have went to Mucho Mocha and found a 'Tina suit' on the floor, sans demons. (yes, there's an MiB reference there) If Tina still has her demons, it stands to reason Brandi would still have hers if indeed she is inhabited by one.

That's my two cents... well, maybe three and a half or so... for what it's worth.

In the words of the little aliens from MiB... "Wah nah nee nahh!!!" oooooohh... a Wahnee reference maybe?

[zachariah]

Soooo...my first reading of today's page made me think that she was lying about the "extinction level" events going on in order to round up the people of that civilization and store them in crystals...therefore saving them, potentially from the volcanic event at Kikai, but definitely from the demons that would have a god-free playground.

Now after reading the comments here, I'm inclined to think that the world-wide devestation could have happened in the Wapsi-verse (even if it didn't happen quite like that in the real world), and she was just trying to save as many of the people as she could before everything went kablooey...which was her fault because she was trying to hold up her end of the deal and give the demons their playground.

Honestly, I have no clue which of my "interpretations" of today's page is correct...or if I'm completely off base with this...so I think I'll go curl up in The Corner to celebrate "breakfast burrito day."

An extinction level event would take a lot longer to recover from. The last one took the earth 15 Million years to recover from, and it took the rest of that time to get to us. It did not happen. If it did the wapsiverse would not exist. The earth would be almost lifeless and struggling to recover and it isn't. The eruptions happened but did not cause an extinction event. Maybe two to 10 years of winter but not much else. Does the geologic record record a mini-ice age around then?
I just had to get one final science geek comment in. Ta-Ta.

[Dave]

An extinction level event would take a lot longer to recover from. The last one took the earth 15 Million years to recover from, and it took the rest of that time to get to us. It did not happen. If it did the wapsiverse would not exist. The earth would be almost lifeless and struggling to recover and it isn't. The eruptions happened but did not cause an extinction event. Maybe two to 10 years of winter but not much else. Does the geologic record record a mini-ice age around then?
I just had to get one final science geek comment in. Ta-Ta.

Well, there's extinction and then there's extinction.

The Lake Toba eruption, about 75,000 years ago, is generally categorized as a VEI 8 event... bigger than Kikai but perhaps not bigger in effect than a "Kikai plus several secondary volcanos going off in sympathy". Toba is theorized by some researchers to have created enough ecological effects worldwide to drop the (then quite small) human population by 60% or more. There are indications from DNA research that the human race went through a "genetic bottleneck" at that point... if I recall properly the breeding population may have been down to a couple of thousand adults. That's dangerously low... it wouldn't have taken much more ecological stress to have wiped out archaic H. sapiens entirely.

And, it wouldn't require anywhere near a biological-level "extinction event" to completely crash a complex civilization (Lanthian or ours). Five years of volcanic winter, with few or no crops maturing, would deplete food stores and kill off most of the population by famine and disease. Any remaining "survivalists" would find themselves back in the Iron Age once the dust settled.

Deciding to put almost your entire population into stasis for a few decades or centuries might have been the least-awful option at the time.

[Sphinx-Napped]

I'm getting a strong feeling that Brandi has not been sitting around idly wishing things were different for the last few millennia.

And going back to one of my much earlier questions, seeing how she's already a clay doll, it wouldn't be that unreasonable for there to be two Brandi golems running around, both sharing a certain amount of common personality and memory but otherwise keeping their affairs separate from each other.

For everyone's ease of reference, from the chronology table....

The calendar machine is built.
Mayahuel invents golems

10,500
The Chimera is created. It slips the control of its makers, and burns Lanthian civilization to the ground.

Bia, Titan of Force, is on the Lanthian mainland, and is targeted by the Chimera for two direct blasts of fire, shocking her greatly. Charon, ferryman of Hades, guards her by physically interposing himself. He recounts to her a prophecy that Sibyl has told him, regarding a descendant of Bia's "who will set the Powers right".

Quite possibly subsequent to the Chimera's attack, Prometheus is punished for giving fire to mankind. Bia and her brother Kratos are sent by Zeus to bind Prometheus to Mount Kaukasos. --theoi.com, "Prometheus"

The Chimera alters the polarity of the Earth's axis.
The Great Sphinx of Giza is built as a warning and a reminder of the lost civilization of Lanthis.
Glyph readers separate the Chimera into three separate entities.

The Timekeepers, including Mayahuel, assign Tepoz as the Keeper of the golems separated from the Chimera, and he makes the effort to restore the original personalities to them for the first time in thousands of years, creating the Golem Girls. The Golem Girls bear outward resemblance to and the suppressed memories of the girls sacrificed to create the Chimera.
The first question Jin is able to ask is to see her mother.

While under Tepoz' care, Brandi makes a deal with entities of the Demon World.
Tepoz takes the Golem Girls to the Western Hemisphere.

c. 5200?
The adventurer Gisaultees flourishes.

4354
Brandi installs the last vimana cell and completes the World Grid, preventing "and the Elder Gods from ever reaching Earth again". This triggered a VEI-7 eruption in Kikai Caldera (Wikipedia: "Kikai Caldera"), and violent storms and earthquakes the world over. Overlaps in the Grid create twelve vortices of greater permeation, such as the Bermuda Triangle.

that would be my guess and thabk you for doing that chronological event this might been taken place before, but i wonder is this brandi before or after she was killed?

[Dave]

that would be my guess and thabk you for doing that chronological event this might been taken place before, but i wonder is this brandi before or after she was killed?

Yes.

That is, "Both. But, mostly after."

Brandi died right at the start of Timotheus's (quite excellent) timeline, as part of the "The Chimera is created" event at around 10,500 BCE.

The Brandi who is portrayed in the recording/recap over the last couple of days is "after life, after death, after being turned into a golem and incorporated into the Chimera, after being separated from the Chimera, and after having her individual personality and identity restored by Tepoz."