Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE

Alice Grove MCDT July 2015

<< < (25/32) > >>

A_S00:
I'm guessing Ardent didn't transform the pump, he revealed it.  Like, the pump (and probably everything else in the grove) was really a high-tech thingy all along, and it's been carefully concealed (by Alice) as a normal pump so as to preserve the status quo in town.  Something about Ardent broke whatever veil Alice had over it.

Evidence:
-Why would the witch be needed to fix a simple pump?
-If Alice doesn't know what the pump's new form is, why isn't she treating it as a potential threat (and evacuating the town)?  On the other hand, if she does recognize it, and is only uncertain about why Ardent made it show up, then wanting to talk to Ardent first makes sense.
-How does Alice do all the stuff she does if she doesn't have a bunch of hidden tech around?
-Seems like "is it right for Alice to conceal all her tech knowledge from the town" is already kind of a theme of the comic.

-----

This has been your daily dose of baseless speculation.

ReindeerFlotilla:
It's not a simple pump. It's motor driven, and electronically controlled. My guess is that Alice built it, and Alice is the only one who knows how it works.

A normal pump would be purely mechanical, and driven by a lever. It seems likely the pump is one of the items powered by the windmill.

This is instructive. Jack knows where the windmill is, so it is likely everyone else does, too. Not Margert Wheelwright know which switch turned on the pump motor.

When shit blew up, Jack implicitly trusted that Alice would deal with it. Alice may have used flight against Gavia (if she did, it was very effective). When she fell off the windmill, Jack expected her to fly. After she demostrated her physical superiority, no one in the village treated her any differently.

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Alice isn't hiding anything from the people. As Amos's "her history is not our history" implies, they don't want to know. Now, it is possible Alice encourages them to not want to know. She's thousands of years old and has been in their lives from the day they were all born, so she's well positioned to manipulate. But it seems unlikely that she'd be hiding tech in plain sight disguised as other tech the locals don't understand. Why bother? It's an unnecearry complication.

Why bother, in fact, living as she does, if she can build super pumps and mega generators? My bet is that Alice has a limited supply of tech. Either because she scavenges, or because she builds each part herself. You could build some fancy stuff if you have decades to make each component.

jwhouk:


--- Quote from: Method of Madness on 23 Jul 2015, 21:14 ---Tomorrow? This is the Friday comic.

--- End quote ---

(Facepalm)

Is it cold in here?:
Maybe the pump had an immune system and this was an allergic response.

Neko_Ali:
I'm thinking the 'immune system' theory may not be far from the truth. Let us posit some things known to be true. To end a self destructive war, someone or something edited the planet and surrounding space. Effectively setting up an agrarian society on the planet and a high tech society in orbit. The two are not supposed to mix. As part of the edit, a lot of technology no longer works according to Alice. There are seemingly aimless nanobots floating around though that really don't seem to do anything other than  come together as a giant shadow mass at night and look at the moon. At least until the sibilings got near the mass. Then it for either Gavia and/or Ardent. Presumably reacting to Gavia's nanobots.

Now supposition: There are nanobots all over the place, possibly that  Alice isn't even aware of. The Black Shadow is just an obvious extension of them. For some reason it gathers together at night. Maybe it's recharging. Maybe it's communicating with the Orbit colony. Even Alice doesn't seem to know, she said it just does that. Presumably the nanobots have a limited sensor range, so it took the Black Shadow to detect Gavia's usage of nanotech and try to investigate. Once she got far enough away it lost the signal and went back to it's programming.

We know Alice has the knowledge and skills to build much more advanced technology that the villagers don't understand. But it still seems very low impact. A windmill to generate power and a water pump to make fetch water easily. Alice herself lives like the locals as far as we've seen. No secret base under her shack. No advanced tech she's keeping from the villagers. She doesn't even have indoor plumbing. But she will make more advanced stuff. Which makes me thing that over the centuries she has probably experimented a bit to see what the edit finds to be 'acceptable levels of technology' and used them to make the villagers lives a little easier. If it doesn't work though, they need to get the witch to fix it.

This is the first time we've seen one of the siblings touch a piece of technology more advanced than a bucket and winch for the much more time-typical well at Alice's house. we see that in the exterior shot of her house right after Gavia showed up. So just being near the Black Shadow was enough to get the nano bots to react. What if there were a group of nanobots on the well. Since it is more advanced than typical for this society and kind of semi-intelligence might well leave part of itself behind to make sure it doesn't exceed allowed limits. Such a thing could explain why if technology never seems to advance. Any time a tinkerer invents something on the nano-bot's 'no go' list it tends to fail. Spectacularly and explosively. Ardent actually touching the nano-bots with his space-cooties (be they nanotech or biological in nature, or both) caused them to freak the heck out.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page