So, they look REALLY similar in the 'None of your business' panel. If they're sisters or clones, makes sense. If they're ex-lovers, a bit sick but whatever.
My obviously-wrong theory of the day: Maybe she doesn't have a name. Alice may have gotten her name from her townsfolk. Malice is antisocial, so has nothing but the number she was issued when she was decanted from the growth vat.
'territory'(http://static2.fjcdn.com/thumbnails/comments/5148277+_57eef2c4458e0c6d0e17250e36d97d16.gif)
A porn star name is just your first pet followed by the first street you lived on.Oblig xkcd
A porn star name is just your first pet followed by the first street you lived on.
What if she doesn't have a name? Alice didn't either, before she chose one for herself. However, as she's a recluse, 'Malice' hasn't ever felt the need.I can see her not having a name, but when did it say that Alice picked out her own name?
What if she doesn't have a name? Alice didn't either, before she chose one for herself. However, as she's a recluse, 'Malice' hasn't ever felt the need.
I can see her not having a name, but when did it say that Alice picked out her own name?
What if she doesn't have a name? Alice didn't either, before she chose one for herself. However, as she's a recluse, 'Malice' hasn't ever felt the need.
I can see her not having a name, but when did it say that Alice picked out her own name?
It doesn't say that anywhere that I remember. It's just a feeling that I have.
Making friends is harder if you're more intelligent than average. You're more self-conscious and overthink things more.
Also, introverted people have a harder time making friends than extroverts do.
Ardent definitely doesn't seem as bright as either Alice or Gavia, and he's more extroverted than either, so it's easier for him.
New comic! (http://www.alicegrove.com/image/141109595324)
I just can't get over how good Jeph is at implying so much and giving so much background with a few strokes of a very broad brush. We've learnt almost as much about Alice in this strip as we have learned for the rest of the strip to date:Sedna's earlier denial to Ardent aside, I'm taking panel 4 in this strip as proving that she and Alice have some kind of common origin.
- Whatever happened between Alice and Sedna happened ~300 years back;
- It seems likely that Alice was somehow in the causitive chain of The Blink and she's never forgiven herself... not even five millennia later;
- Sedna didn't hesitate to let a woman whom she claims to hate sleep beside her; is that the result of bittersweet memories? As Jeph says in his endnote - They have a weird relationship!
Alice is sleeping in her armor. That implies something about her relationship with Sedna right there.
That, or the armor disintegrated her clothes when it, uh, apparated? manifested? materialized? Whatever it did.
Alice is sleeping in her armor. That implies something about her relationship with Sedna right there.
That, or the armor disintegrated her clothes when it, uh, apparated? manifested? materialized? Whatever it did.
If that's true then my indecision is gone and I'm pretty certain they were a couple. Siblings don't tend to sleep with another who's not wearing anything.Alice is sleeping in her armor. That implies something about her relationship with Sedna right there.
That, or the armor disintegrated her clothes when it, uh, apparated? manifested? materialized? Whatever it did.
Sedna, on the other hand, might not be wearing anything. Her top is definitely gone.
There are other options besides couple and related, you know. They are the only ones we've seen, possibly the only ones they know, who are from before the Blink. Though Alice did allude to the fact that there were other sources of information she could have gone to, but Sedna was the closest. So she went to her, instead of a more preferred source. That doesn't necessarily mean they are of similar vintage to these two. But the sheer commonality of being immortals in a human world would draw them together. Nobody else could understand them as well. Unfortunately, understanding doesn't equal friendliness. Sometimes quite the opposite. Which is a long way around saying they may have just been friends, or acquaintances who shared a similar background. Think more military buddies than sisters or lovers.You seem to be forgetting the fact that Sedna knows Alice well enough to know exactly that Alice hates herself. And also a feud that's gone on for 300 years which neither of them have, or at least had intention of breaking.
No pillow for Alice!
Interesting that the grudge between them is only 300 years old though.
No, it's only been 300 years. The line '300 years and you haven't moved on' in relation to the grudge makes no sense if she had just meant since the last time they met. Cause if the grudge had been going on for 5000 years then why should Alice be surprised or whatever reaction that is, that in 300 years she hadn't moved on. Especially in combination with Sedna saying how this comes from the queen of grudges.Interesting that the grudge between them is only 300 years old though.
I took that to mean merely the last time they met, not the origin of the hostility which could even have been in the immediate aftermath of the blink.
I'm beginning to get a hint of what Alice is about. Remember her PTSD flashback when she was about to kill Ardent? I think that she did things in the Great War; things that no sane person could do without leaving permanent scars. I suspect that Sedna spend centuries trying to get Alice to move on but couldn't. In the end, she couldn't hang around whilst Alice was continuing her self-imposed penance. For the sake of her own sanity, she had to leave and find her own life. The problem? She still loved her and it's hard to forgive the woman who broke your heart.Oh my god I'd love if Alice said something on the townsfolk part of what you said in the next page.
The irony? I bet that Sedna giving Alice the "I can't do this anymore, Ali. I've tried but I can't just sit here anymore and watch you trying to find some way to kill yourself or at least make yourself suffer forever. I have to get out of here before it kills me!" speech may have done the trick. I bet that Alice helping the Townsfolk originated with the shock of Sedna walking out on her and realising that she was right and that just sitting there and trying to will herself to death was stupid and wrong.
Is it just me, or does anybody else think it'd be cool if Jeph started updating AG once per weekday, and took QC down to once or twice per week.
Oh, they're all transhumans, in that they clearly have all been modified from natural homo sapiens.
The townsfolk, as far as we know, are still unmodified humans.
I wonder: what happens when Ardent's nanobots come in contact with other nanobots?They create a jellyfish-like metastructure called a nan-'o-war
I'll leave now.Don't you dare :parrot:
"Long ago, humanity split into two factions. One favored the advancement of the species by enhancement through biological means. The other favored the development of artificial intelligence, to aid humanity and enhance it through its own methods.
The AI faction pulled ahead - they created truly sentient artificial life, and began integrating it into their society. This led to a series of regional conflicts that finally escalated into all-out war. It lasted for years. Billions died."
"I should know. I was a weapon too, once."
There doesn't seem to me to be any reason at all for a re-opening of hostilities.Alice said that the Praeses have held some unfading grudge since The Blink and want everyone on the ground wiped-out so they can "come down from orbit and reclaim earth"[1] (http://www.alicegrove.com/post/126112043354/at-last-the-central-conflict-of-alice-grove-is)
The problem with that theory is that there seems to be more evidence for the biological faction being in space. The praesides seem to be biological, and Ardent shows obvious signs of biological augmentation. Gavia has nanotech (as does Ardent), but seems convinced that sentient AI is impossible.
Alice: The Praeses have been here since the Blink. Their ideological grudge hasn't dissipated with time.
Gavia: We have everything we need in orbit. We have no reason to take over earth.
Alice: You don't. The Praeses clearly have a motive.
Gavia: You're answering every flaw I point out with another, even more paranoid explanation. You don't know the truth, you're just manufacturing a conspiracy theory out of your own fears and prejudices!
Alice: You may be right. But I can't afford to take any chances.
I've long held the opinion that the sentient AIs were the cause of the Blink and that they were operating independently of the pro-technology human faction.This much I absolutely agree with. It's my theory, and I'm sticking to it, that there was a run-away AI scenario, and they ultimately took matters into their own hands.
Alice: The Praeses have been here since the Blink. Their ideological grudge hasn't dissipated with time.If both the orbital and earthbound populations are a mix of both pre-blink factions, then why would the Praeses have an "ideological grudge" against those on Earth at all? The only major ideological schism we've been presented with so far is AI faction vs. bio-mod faction. The only explanation I can see is that one faction stayed on earth and one wound up in orbit. And I can't see the earth dwellers having been the tech faction.
Alice: So Gavia uses nanotech. Why don't you?That definitely reads as support to improvnerd's position.
Ardent: Philosophical differences.
Gavia: Technology has been the way humanity has interacted with the universe since before the dawn of time. By embracing it to the utmost, I am human in the truest sense.
Ardent: Whereas I believer that technology insulates us from the universe. It prevents us from experiencing things as we were meant to experience them - through the senses evolution gave us.
Alice: Evolution didn't give you blue skin, pointy ears, and a tail. Or the ability to regrow body parts.
Ardent: There's nothing in the rules that says we can't help evolution along.
Given that the Night Walker is attracted to Gavia/Ardent (I think Gavia), and has been staring at the Moon for a long time, surely the reason it stares at the Moon is because it detects nanobots in space?
Alice: Do you ever wonder why, with all of your marvelous technology, there are no truly sentient machines?I read this as the Praeses having their origins in synthetic tech.
Gavia: It's just not possible. The Praeses think, but not like we do, and they're not really machines either.
So... Gavia was saying "Help, I've been taken over by the Night Walker!" and the Night Walker was saying "Help, I've taken over a loon!"?
Interesting that he space kids have some sort of telepathic link going.it might just be sibling empathy or something too. Maybe the nano's are buzzing and Ardent could hear that something's wrong. I guess I don't wanna blame tech for this one until we see stronger telepathy between them
I thought the whale tail in Ardent's dreams was kind of obvious. He's what, 12? 13? 14?
Or maybe I am... :angel:
I thought the whale tail in Ardent's dreams was kind of obvious. He's what, 12? 13? 14?
Or maybe I am... :angel:
I had wondered similar, but thought the joke was perhaps too dated. Apparently not.
Mildly NSFW:(click to show/hide)
Interesting that he space kids have some sort of telepathic link going. (BTW, I'm firmly in the camp of it being Gavia calling for help, and that the nightwalker is fundamentally unfriendly.)