Comic Discussion > ALICE GROVE

Alice Grove MCDLT - MAY 2017

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brasca:

--- Quote from: jheartney on 14 May 2017, 15:05 ---I know it's a convention of most sci-fi that everywhere has 1g gravity and a breathable atmosphere, but in point of fact all our heroes and villains are in orbit well above the Earth. So apparently the inside of wherever they are has gravity and life support (this despite the rather large hole Church made in it), or else Gavia has extended her bubble around all the proceedings, and her bubble has artificial gravity along with instantly generated atmosphere.

So far these vaunted praeses have yet to actually do anything in the story other than allowing the twins to make a trip to Earth. I hope they (the praeses) get off their wooden butts and do something soon, as the main characters seem to have arrived at an impasse. (Given Church's apparent lack of need for sleep, I bet on him winning any temporary standoff.)

--- End quote ---

Since they're inside the habitat I imagine some automated system has already sealed the hole and artificial gravity and life support have taken over so Gavia isn't responsible for keeping them alive beyond taking Pate hostage.  Perhaps the Praeses will finally show themselves or maybe we'll get some long awaited exposition.  Either from a cracked Alice or if Gavia orders Pate to order Church to talk.

Morituri:
As I read it:  (Conjecture, really)...

We've already seen that Alice and Sedna have a thing going where Sedna's abilities aren't as great as Alice's, nor does she feel a personal duty to a community and human welfare in the same way that Alice does.  We've already conjectured that Alice is a "more advanced" or later version of whatever advanced weapons program produced them both.  Church is a "More advanced" model than Alice and Sedna.  He was developed later, when both the knowledge about how to make somebody that strong and about how to keep somebody that strong under their control was more advanced than it was when Alice and Sedna were produced. 

So when it was over - when the old world had gone to shit and there was really and truly no more point in fighting - Church was the one who couldn't stand down.  He had orders from some recognized authority and could not overcome his compulsion to obey them.   He was stronger, faster, more durable, and as ruthless or more ruthless than anyone else standing, and could not stop fighting.  Alice felt duty to human welfare and so on, but she was free to reinterpret her duty and make choices about how to carry it out, and because Church didn't have that freedom, he had to be taken down. And taken down he was, with Alice to wield a hammer and an orbital laser strike to make a handy pool of lava.

Now that Church is above ground again, we see him under the exact same compulsion he could never overcome, to obey orders from some recognized authority.  I don't think loyalty or gratitude or valuing that entity as a person or anything like that comes into play here.  Church is literally stuck on a compulsion, as in an obsessive-compulsive disorder, that he can't overcome.  Pate is some kind of recognized authority figure, whether he sees Pate as a worthless worm of a man or not, whether Pate ever did anything for him or not, and when a recognized authority figure gives an order, Church obeys it.

And now Alice is laughing at his predicament.  His is greater strength than hers, greater speed, greater endurance and durability, but this one crucial weakness - the very same weakness that forced her to put him down fifty centuries ago (possibly even the same type of threat that forced him to stand still for it) - prevents him from taking his revenge on her.  That's some high-grade irony there.  Her sanity hasn't broken; there's an element of nervous laughter there as she experiences relief instead of death, of course, but this is to me clearly a laugh at a situation which is funny as hell if you have a very very dark sense of humor.

KevxD:
Church looks like a teenage girl about to throw a temper tantrum...

hitmiccs:
Alice might be laughing about the fact, that Gavia made herself Church's enemy no.1 by threatening Pates life directly. Gavia might now be an even greater priority than Alice for Church - she will not have a single moment of peace from now on and has to be aware of Church at any time. The moment Gavia removes the life-threatening blade, Church will attack, if he sees a chance.

OldGoat:

--- Quote from: jheartney on 14 May 2017, 15:05 ---So far these vaunted praeses have yet to actually do anything in the story other than allowing the twins to make a trip to Earth.
--- End quote ---
Twins?  I was under the impression that Gavia is the elder by a few years (or cycles, or whatever Orbitals use to mark time).

Church's expression when Ellie tried to cold-cock him was the first time we'd seen him drop his flat affect, like he was thinking, "You've crossed the line - now I can act."  The appearance of his eyes seems to signal which mode he's in.  Even a threat to Pate doesn't appear to release the control, whatever it is, but a threat to his own person does.

If he's programmed, Alice may be chuckling because she knows that Church's perception of the threat to himself will diminish, he'll drop back to 'droid mode, and the knife in Pate will attenuate into part of the background.  At that point all Gavia has to do is prevent Pate from issuing instructions to Church and she can snooze (if she even needs to now - we don't know what effect the nanobots have on that part of her physiology). 

We also know from early in the story that Ardent elected to not use nanotech.  He may still be able to adopt it, especially if they can retrieve another nanopod from the wreckage of the Valkyrie.

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