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What do you think the praeses look like?  

Just like baseline and augmented humans, but it's just a holographic projection since they are the habitat.
Just a tree and it's really the middle managers who do everything they think it wants them to do.
Groot, but with a greater vocabulary.
The Lorax and 5000 years still hasn't made him very forgiving of what happened to the truffula trees.
A clone of Alice because you know that would be a twist.

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Author Topic: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017  (Read 40360 times)

brasca

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #50 on: 18 Mar 2017, 12:54 »

Strip is up and Gavia looks pissed...  Well more so than usual. 
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pwhodges

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #51 on: 18 Mar 2017, 13:17 »

Well, I think her glowing hands and eyes remove any doubt that Gavia was the cause of the explosion.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #52 on: 18 Mar 2017, 13:30 »

Yeah, I guess it was her after all. I figured Jeph might have given us a slightly more obvious clue that she had gotten her powers back than the extremely subtle things others have pointed out, but obviously I was wrong.
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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #53 on: 18 Mar 2017, 13:33 »

"I HAVE THE POWEEEEEEERRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!"


Well, this is a turn-up for the books!! I'm wondering if the Praeses 'Recharged' her when the
y got close, and just how much of a match she might actually be now for Church especially
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James The Kugai 

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #54 on: 18 Mar 2017, 13:50 »

The 'bots are back in town.
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BenRG

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #55 on: 18 Mar 2017, 15:26 »

"Oh no! It can't possibly be Gavia" they all said! :wink:

Firstly, I just love the way that Sedna is putting Ardent's 'elegant tail' to unexpected use as an emergency tow rope. I also wonder if Alice will need to punch out Gavia's lights before she compromises her pressure suit. However, most of all, I'm wondering if Gavia is 100% in control of what is happening or whether she's been the Night Walker's meat puppet since the moment it grabbed her in Sedna's house!

Is Pate the target here or is it the Praeses?

Oh, and FWIW, given the apparent size of the Earth from this strip, I'd say that they're in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO).
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SubaruStephen

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #56 on: 18 Mar 2017, 15:28 »

Since Ardent was secretly implanted with bootstrap tech, it's not unlikely that Gavia was also secretly implanted with instructions to protect the Phraeses in case this happened.
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pwhodges

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #57 on: 18 Mar 2017, 15:30 »

Or at some point Ardent unexpectedly(?) upgraded Gavia (maybe she had one odd nanobot left...)!
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brasca

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #58 on: 18 Mar 2017, 20:20 »

"Oh no! It can't possibly be Gavia" they all said! :wink:

Firstly, I just love the way that Sedna is putting Ardent's 'elegant tail' to unexpected use as an emergency tow rope. I also wonder if Alice will need to punch out Gavia's lights before she compromises her pressure suit. However, most of all, I'm wondering if Gavia is 100% in control of what is happening or whether she's been the Night Walker's meat puppet since the moment it grabbed her in Sedna's house!

Is Pate the target here or is it the Praeses?

Oh, and FWIW, given the apparent size of the Earth from this strip, I'd say that they're in Geostationary Earth Orbit (GEO).

It could still be the Praeses or the Night Walker behind this because if Gavia had any nanotechnology she would've attempted to use it when Pate made his intentions clear.  However, it could be Gavia if she's more than just an augmented human.  I've had a theory that Gavia might be a prototype clone of one of the super soldiers, but never realized her full power because she was inhibited by her nanotechnology.  Since the Nightwalker attacked her body regenerated to function without the nanotechnology and building up strength she never knew she had until finally on impulse she popped the balloon ship.  The Praeses may be interested in a countermeasure against the immortals so they tested it on Gavia and now that it's proven to work they could suppress Alice, Church, and Sedna's abilities.  Of course that's just my theory. 

Regardless of who is behind it what happens next is far more critical.  The pressure suits seem to be keeping Ardent and Pate alive, but they can't live in the vacuum of space indefinitely and considering the direction they are going with the Earth in the background everyone except the immortals will burn up on reentry if something doesn't block them.  As for Gavia I'm not sure if she's even still wearing her pressure suit and may not need it if she can conjure up fire like that. 
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OldGoat

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #59 on: 18 Mar 2017, 21:17 »

Is Gavia scared shitless, berserk angry, or both?  Pate, OTOH, is bloody terrified and Church is clearly protecting him with what looks, from just this one frame at least, like actual loyalty.
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BenRG

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #60 on: 19 Mar 2017, 01:11 »

Regardless of who is behind it what happens next is far more critical.  The pressure suits seem to be keeping Ardent and Pate alive, but they can't live in the vacuum of space indefinitely and considering the direction they are going with the Earth in the background everyone except the immortals will burn up on reentry if something doesn't block them.  As for Gavia I'm not sure if she's even still wearing her pressure suit and may not need it if she can conjure up fire like that.

Trust me, they'd suffocate long before their orbit decayed enough for them to reach the top of the denser atmospheric layers. The destruction of the ship will have maybe knocked a few miles off of their perigee at worst. They're still orbiting at around 22,000 miles altitude and that orbit won't change in less than a century unless one of them has a high-efficiency long life propulsion system stashed away on their persons.
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Samik

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #61 on: 19 Mar 2017, 21:49 »

Agreed with BenRG that there's no way the explosion imparted enough delta-v on them to meaningfully alter their orbit.


I came to link this, and only in doing so noticed that I wrote it exactly a year ago today:

Quote from: Samik
One more thing that came through very clearly on my re-read: although occasionally childlike/naive/impulsive, Gavia is extremely intelligent and observant. I do not think that she's going to simply be a victim/witness - she'll have some major role to play in how this all turns out, before all is said and done.

(Now, it didn't occur to me until reading the thread that Nightwalker or other outside influence may be a factor here.)
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Sorflakne

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #62 on: 19 Mar 2017, 22:23 »

Well, that was an unexpected turn.
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ConmanTheBarbarian

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #63 on: 20 Mar 2017, 10:49 »

Trust me, they'd suffocate long before their orbit decayed enough for them to reach the top of the denser atmospheric layers. The destruction of the ship will have maybe knocked a few miles off of their perigee at worst.
Agreed (unless the magic bubble suits can keep them alive for years, and this is LEO)
They're still orbiting at around 22,000 miles altitude and that orbit won't change in less than a century unless one of them has a high-efficiency long life propulsion system stashed away on their persons.
I don't think we have ever been told the praeses are in geosynch orbit. You get a lot less radiation if you stay below the Van Allen belts...
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asr

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #64 on: 22 Mar 2017, 19:25 »

"Oh no! It can't possibly be Gavia" they all said! :wink:

Firstly, I just love the way that Sedna is putting Ardent's 'elegant tail' to unexpected use as an emergency tow rope. I also wonder if Alice will need to punch out Gavia's lights before she compromises her pressure suit. However, most of all, I'm wondering if Gavia is 100% in control of what is happening or whether she's been the Night Walker's meat puppet since the moment it grabbed her in Sedna's house!

Is Pate the target here or is it the Praeses?

I've thought that this whole thing has been set up by the Praeses, who want/need Alice and Sedna (and possibly even Church) in orbit with them.  Did you think it was a coincidence that Alice and friends got to the archaeophile community just after they had uncovered a bunker that just happened to have a launch vehicle?

The Praeses sent Ardent down with his midas touch to force Alice into action and to give her a way to get off-planet in spite of the technology decay, and they sent Gavia down with a nanotech payload that would provoke the Night Walker into doing whatever it did. Between Ardent's touch, Gavia's temper, and both of them being annoying idiots, there was no way that Alice could do nothing. And having been passive for so long, she would need the help of someone who would know where to get access to a transformable way into orbit, hence Sedna. Finally, Pate, being a sociopath, would not be able to resist the temptation to take control of the situation, and would bring Church with him.

The Praeses then needed a way to get Alice and friends out of the spaceship and into/onto the tree, so they re-enabled Gavia's nanotech and provoked her.

And now we're slowly going to find out what task they have in mind for Alice and her motley crew...
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Welu

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #65 on: 22 Mar 2017, 19:30 »

That's an interesting idea. Very good first post!

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #66 on: 25 Mar 2017, 23:16 »

Welcome, new person!

That would account for lots of odds and ends of plot points.
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TinPenguin

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #67 on: 28 Mar 2017, 03:49 »

Maybe even hyper-intelligent-sentient-tree-overlords have all the impulses of a small boy poking a stick into an ants' nest.
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BenRG

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #68 on: 28 Mar 2017, 03:51 »

Maybe even hyper-intelligent-sentient-tree-overlords have all the impulses of a small boy poking a stick into an ants' nest.

"We made them smart. Unfortunately, we were never able to make them smarter than us."
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JimC

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #69 on: 28 Mar 2017, 12:13 »

Up!
Flashback?
Still not sure I quite understand it...
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WareWolf

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #70 on: 28 Mar 2017, 12:21 »

Up!
Flashback?
Still not sure I quite understand it...

Ardent handed Gavia a breast implant. Apparently, she felt like it was some kind of insult and she lost her temper.
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brasca

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #71 on: 28 Mar 2017, 12:51 »

Up!
Flashback?
Still not sure I quite understand it...

From what I can discern Ardent's upgrade advanced the contents within like space suits transformed into pressurized body stockings and apparently those spherical things contained nanotechnology.  It's uncertain if Ardent knowingly did this or it happened when he upgraded what was a highly state of the art space fighter 5000 years ago or what could have been on board that would transform into nanotechnology, but both he and Gavia recognized it since he wordlessly hands one over to her and as soon as the opportunity presented itself she absorbed it back into her body and made her move.  With everyone else so distracted by being in space it couldn't have worked out more perfectly and despite everything that's happened these two can work together for the common good.  As such Gavia seems to be acting on her own although she may be temporarily crazy as she reintegrates the nanotechnology into her body.  Hopefully, she'll return to her senses and save Ardent, help Alice and Sedna, and if she's feeling merciful do something that doesn't involve leaving Pate to float around in orbit until he suffocates.  I would definitely theorize that unless the praeses are master chess strategists they did not anticipate nor control this outcome. 
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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #72 on: 28 Mar 2017, 13:27 »

Let's assume Alice was correct, and that the Praeses want to take over the planet. Let's also assume that Alice, Sedna and Church are the only three immortals on Earth, and that they would be the main obstacle to the Praeses' takeover ambitions. Well, all three are now stuck in orbit, out of the way. "There'll be no one to stop us this time."
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BenRG

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #73 on: 28 Mar 2017, 14:17 »

Looks like she's goin' nuclear! Just how many of those jars of nanobots did she ingest anyway?
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brasca

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #74 on: 28 Mar 2017, 14:31 »

Just one by the looks of it, but with Ardent's upgrade she might have better nanotech than before or just enough to destroy the bubble ship and send Church and Pate hurtling through the vacuum of space. 
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Kugai

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #75 on: 28 Mar 2017, 18:19 »

So, Ardent decided to apologise for what happened with Gavia by finding a way to give her her Nanobot Powers back.

Nice  gesture in his part if you ask me - especially after she tried to beat the crap outta him over it.
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brasca

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #76 on: 28 Mar 2017, 18:26 »

It was as much as way to atone for his actions as an act of self preservation.  I'm not sure if Ardent could control nanotech and even if he could he was constantly being watched.  Gavia has the preparations and neither Church nor Pate were watching her when she reemerged with the nanotech. 
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OldGoat

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Re: Alice Grove MCDLT - March 2017
« Reply #77 on: 30 Mar 2017, 21:45 »

Spacing Jesper ("eyes bulging, peeing blood," Robert A. Heinlein) and burning Church up as he reenters the atmosphere is too easy.  Look for Alice & Friends to be forced into an uneasy alliance with Pate and his Monster Flunky with at least one of the Praeses as the likely antagonist(s).  Political intrigue between the Orbiting Ents can make for an even more interesting script.
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