Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE

Unanswered Questions from the Alice-verse

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improvnerd:
I've had a bunch of questions rattling around in my head for a few months, so I thought I'd write them down:

Unanswered Questions from Alice Grove

Where is the village?

* Future Earth?
* Another world (possibly terraformed)?
* Space habitat?
What is the tech level of the village?

* The village looks like c. 1900 North America, but there is also a wind turbine which appears to be c. 2000 technology (however Alice maintains it so it may not be relevant to the village’s level).
What is the village?

* Amish-style society that rejects high tech?
* Reservation/nature preserve/zoo for primitive people?
Are there other villages on the same world?

* An Earth-like planet could sustainably support at least hundreds of millions of people.
* If other villages exist, are they the same tech level as this village?
* Are there other “Alices” for the other villages, or does Alice handle the entire planet?
Where do Ardent and Gavia come from?

* Ardent says “higher" than the sky.
* Another planet?
* Space habitat in orbit around Alice's planet?
* Other space habitat?
What is a praeses?

* All the ones Gavia calls out to have tree names.
* Gavia refers to Cupressaceae as "it'.
* Praesides have the ability to transport people to (and presumably from) the village, although according to Alice, they’re not supposed to do so.
* They're also supposed to be impossible to circumvent, although Ardent claims to have had a friend "hack the console" to transport him to the village.
* Gavia assumes the praesides can hear her when she calls on them to send her and Ardent home.
What is Alice?

* Robot?
* Human with technology boosts?
* Actual witch?
* Is Alice a praeses? Or a praeses substitute for the village?
I'm probably leaving lots of stuff out, so feel free to add.

Thrudd:
Well we know that there is at least one other place of residence from her admonishment of our young tough, Jebediah, saying something to the effect "since before your whole family moved here".
They would have moved there from somewhere.

As to the Location, it can be narrowed down to planetary since there is a moon, though then again they could be in a bio dome orbiting a larger body yet inside the orbit of it's moon and still get similar celestial phenomena.

It would be funny if the "up there" was a Dyson Sphere though.

improvnerd:
Right, but did they move there from off world, or someplace else on the same planet?

BenRG:
You'd be surprised how many of these things are guesses but also how many things have already been revealed.

Where is the Town?
In this strip, we see the moon of the world on which Alice Grove is set. Interestingly, the pattern of dark mareia on the face of the moon is the same as the one on our moon...with an additional large impact basin. Those big basin-forming impacts are rare, as in 'once in a hundred million years' rare. So, not only is this a future Earth, it is likely a far future Earth.

I have a suspicion that it is also an extremely long-time post-apocalyptic setting.

What is the town tech level?
Based on both the architecture of the town and the fashions, I'd say that they're around turn-of-the 20th Century mid-Western North America. The Wind Turbine is, in my view, a red herring. Notice that Alice was working on it. It is possible that she is trying to introduce non-polluting advanced technology to the town, such as renewable resource electricity. One wonders how long she has been quietly and discreetly doing stuff like this. It is quite possible that, when she came across these people's distant ancestors, they were pre-civilised hunter-gatherers.

Are there other towns?
Almost certainly, yes. Alice remembers when Jeb's ancestors moved to the town from elsewhere. However, it is quite likely that, thanks to Alice's work, this town is the most advanced settlement.

That said, it is not inconceivable that Alice indirectly rules over a distinct territory of advanced technology and settled civilisation surrounded by barbarian lands that are still at neolithic/early bronze age levels with mostly-nomadic tribes.

Where do Ardent and Gavia come from?
Somewhere in space; likely the Moon or Mars. The fact that Gavia feels the need to float suggests that, wherever they call home has a significant gravitational field. Ardent shows that their society has no hang-ups about extreme body modification; I'd expect that a civilisation on a free-floating space colony (even with a gravity-generating habitat area) would have genetically engineered in free-fall adaptations (such as monkey-like 'hand-feet' for working in the zero-gee areas).

What is a Praeses
Good question. We don't know. We do know that Gavia referred to Cupressaceae as 'it'. So I think it's unlikely that they're humans or even biological. The most likely explanation is that they are like the ruling AIs in Ian Banks' 'The Culture' stories - disembodied AIs that, through the computerised infrastructure of the civilisation, provide for, protect and, effectively, rule over the humans whose ancestors created them.

What is Alice?
There are two possibilities that occur to me.

The first is that she is a robot, built at the order of the Praeses but long since having exceeded the limits of her programming simply by the effect of millennia of independent operation. She was intended to look after the humans who were left on Earth after a lucky minority evacuated (either shortly before or shortly after The Apocalypse happened). Protecting the town and its people, supervising their technological and social development and ensuring that they are not contaminated from the outside.

The second option is that she is a post-human from Ardent and Gavia's civilisation but had chosen to live amongst the primitives as a protector and guide many millennia ago. She is functionally immortal thanks to the early-variant nanotech in her body (I'm sure that, if seriously injured, she would regenerate like Gavia's face and Ardent's tail).

Either way, whilst Alice is dedicated to her charges, she isn't a particularly nice individual. Time has caused her to develop a certain degree of condescending superiority towards the mayfly-like beings living around her. She also seems to have a psychotic behavioural disorder (or a programming error, if she's an AI) that seems to be triggered off when she's in a fight.

The thought that she's a Praeses who has gone into exile for some reason (either by choice or because the Council regarded her ideas as dangerous) is an interesting one. However, I think that, if that's the case, Jeph might have given us a clue by now, such as by Alice showing some ability to communicate with her peers (whilst Ardent and Gavia aren't watching, of course).

improvnerd:
I think we mostly agree. One of my goals was to post all possibilities I could think of, not just the ones I thought most probable. I think this is because I've read too many mystery novels lately, so I'm reluctant to assume anything beyond clearly proven facts.

A few comments:


--- Quote from: BenRG on 29 May 2015, 01:59 ---Where is the Town?
In this strip, we see the moon of the world on which Alice Grove is set. Interestingly, the pattern of dark mareia on the face of the moon is the same as the one on our moon...with an additional large impact basin. Those big basin-forming impacts are rare, as in 'once in a hundred million years' rare. So, not only is this a future Earth, it is likely a far future Earth.

--- End quote ---

I just compared that image of the moon on that strip with a bunch of moon images from Google image search. It's not a perfect fit, even taking into account for the new impact basin. But close enough that I'm inclined to agree. (I suppose it could be a fake, but that would be a damn hard thing to fake.)


--- Quote from: BenRG on 29 May 2015, 01:59 ---The Wind Turbine is, in my view, a red herring.

--- End quote ---

It sticks out like a sore thumb. The thing about the wind turbine is that it's not something you could easily bootstrap without full-fledged 20th century industry. So is it an ancient relic, or did it come more recently from a more advanced culture elsewhere on the planet (or off)?


--- Quote from: BenRG on 29 May 2015, 01:59 ---Alice remembers when Jeb's ancestors moved to the town from elsewhere.

--- End quote ---

But is that elsewhere on-world or off?


--- Quote from: BenRG on 29 May 2015, 01:59 ---Where do Ardent and Gavia come from?
Somewhere in space; likely the Moon or Mars. [...] I'd expect that a civilisation on a free-floating space colony (even with a gravity-generating habitat area) would have genetically engineered in free-fall adaptations (such as monkey-like 'hand-feet' for working in the zero-gee areas).

--- End quote ---

Why a planet in the Solar System? Gravity-wise Mars and the Moon are problematic. Mars is about 38% of Earth gravity, and the Moon is 16.6%, yet neither Ardent nor Gavia seem to be suffering under the pull of what would be 3-6 times their normal weight. (Although that would be one explanation for Gavia floating everywhere.)

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