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Exactly what he said, a friend hacked the transporter console and he woke up on Earth.

It was actually someone no one ever heard of that promised this and Alice was wrong about the Praeses.

The Praeses are playing dumb and Laridia is just there to convince them they had nothing to do with Ardent going to Earth.

There's actually a rogue element among the Praeses in cahoots with a mysterious 3rd party.

Nothing.  Spookybot will wake up suddenly and realize this was all just a nightmare.

[Kugai]

Well said


Mister Anderson.

[Tova]

If it turns out that Alice was responsible for getting Ardent to earth in the first place, I'm not sure how I'll feel.

Maybe not as bad as the "it was all a dream" trope, I guess.

[TheEvilDog]

Well said


Mister Anderson.

"My name....is Evil"

[retrosteve]

Whose to say that this isn't a simulation?
Inception-mode engaged!

This is a crazy stupid idea but is consistent with Alice's "he's stronger and faster than us, but still tuned to the same physics". One interpretation of that is that yes, you're right, they're knowingly hacking the weak points of the simulation. But it's crazy until a better explanation comes along.

P.S. It's also the best explanation I can think of.

[retrosteve]

Unrelated weirdness: Since what, his first red-eyed sadistic psycho episode, I think Church's eyes have been the same color even when they're not red. What's up with that?

[Method of Madness]

I don't get it. Why rush through to the end if you're not going to bother with an ending? Am I missing something?

[A Duck]

I don't get it. Why rush through to the end if you're not going to bother with an ending? Am I missing something?

What do you mean? It's not over yet.

[FunkyTuba]

I don't get it. Why rush through to the end if you're not going to bother with an ending? Am I missing something?

jeph's tweet I posted had 12 tabs on the top... I take that to mean there are 12 more comics to go, and then "that's it"

[A Duck]

I know, but I don't get the implication that is "not bothering" with an ending. Things are wrapping up already, 12 comics is plenty. Specially if the last few ones are longer.

[TheEvilDog]

Who says it needs to have a traditional ending? This isn't the kind of story that gets neatly wrapped up. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised if this ends with the simulation looping back to the start.

[A small perverse otter]

I'm getting the vibe that Jeph really wants to have Alice Grove done ASAP (He has basically said so) and is now rushing his narrative a bit.

This. He's killed the narrative arc all at once, almost as if he's lost interest in the comic and just wants to shut it down.

I'm kind of disappointed -- this leaves a lot of plot threads hanging, and I've have liked to see them play out. (For instance, what's the history between Alice and Sedna? Why is the world a simulation? How did the decision to make that happen take place? What was the nightwalker, and why did it want Gavia's nanotechnology? I can go on...)

[A Duck]

This. He's killed the narrative arc all at once, almost as if he's lost interest in the comic and just wants to shut it down.

I'm kind of disappointed -- this leaves a lot of plot threads hanging, and I've have liked to see them play out. (For instance, what's the history between Alice and Sedna? Why is the world a simulation? How did the decision to make that happen take place? What was the nightwalker, and why did it want Gavia's nanotechnology? I can go on...)

According to Jeph, everything was planned out from the start. He's doing it fast because he's excited to finish it, not because he's bored.

Also, nothing says this fictional universe has to be dropped after AG is done.

[brasca]

I suspect that Gavia and Ardent were MI (notice that I used 'Machine Intelligence', not 'Artificial Intelligence' - that matters) algorithms, created by meshing the algorithms of their 'father' and 'mother' and creating something new in a way that mimics how a child's genetics are created from their parents' genetics. Whilst they are code on an electronic media, they are still naturally-developed rather than the product of a deliberate and directed manufacturing process like Bubbles or Pintsize. This level of randomisation is what leads to personalities that the Praeses cannot predict or control beyond very limited levels.

I'm wondering if the Praeses were originally meant to be arks - designed to carry the intelligence of billions of humans to some new home upon which time they would have been re-embodied on the target world. When you think about it, digitising the crew and colonists makes a lot of sense. You still have a full active crew but you only need power to maintain the electronic environment and you can have as many unsuitable target systems as you like as the crew presumably would not age. However, the Praeses decided that they didn't want to go anywhere and just hung out in GEO instead. Maybe they thought that the throw-backs on Earth would die out eventually and they could reclaim the planet.

Then, maybe someone decided to kick them out of their holding pattern, one way or another.

That's a good theory and perhaps to keep these billions of personalities are kept active in these simulations rather than remaining dormant for thousands of years.  They are seemingly born, live out a longer than baseline human life span, die, and begin the process again.  Ardent's full name is Ardent Cardamom Vicissitude XVI.  Perhaps that number is actually his 16th incarnation. 

http://www.alicegrove.com/post/100546047509/theres-nothing-higher-than-the-sky-stupid

[Method of Madness]

I don't get it. Why rush through to the end if you're not going to bother with an ending? Am I missing something?

jeph's tweet I posted had 12 tabs on the top... I take that to mean there are 12 more comics to go, and then "that's it"

Ahhhhh, I misinterpreted that as those being the most recent twelve, I thought it was over. Complaint withdrawn.

[Sorflakne]

Armour that is resistant to projectiles and blunt impacts could potentially be vulnerable to bladed and piercing weapons (knives).

Little late to reply, but Kevlar is useless against arrows and a knife will go through it with a good stab.

[OldGoat]

Armour that is resistant to projectiles and blunt impacts could potentially be vulnerable to bladed and piercing weapons (knives).

Little late to reply, but Kevlar is useless against arrows and a knife will go through it with a good stab.

Or an icepick.  Or a very pointy shard of bone.

[TheEvilDog]

Comic is up and holy crap that is one scary face!

[pwhodges]

Maxwell's Demons......  O.......K........?

[Welu]

I'm reading the wiki and... Maybe I'm not versed enough but it's not helping. This was a well-arted comic though.

[A Duck]

Huh, that explains why Alice said Church is "attuned to the same physics" as she and Sedna.

Also, Alice is currently reminding me a lot of another certain super powerful being created by Jeph

[OldGoat]

Alice, are you planning to dismember and/or ingest Jesper, or are you just trying to scare the shit out of him?

It's looking more and more like Sedna and Church are still with us.

[TheEvilDog]

I'm reading the wiki and... Maybe I'm not versed enough but it's not helping. This was a well-arted comic though.

Hopefully this video can explain it better.

[Welu]

That did, thank you.

[USS Martenclaire]

Maxwell's Demons......  O.......K........?

Actually, looking at Alice's smile in that last panel, it makes perfect sense:

[brasca]

Huh, that explains why Alice said Church is "attuned to the same physics" as she and Sedna.

Also, Alice is currently reminding me a lot of another certain super powerful being created by Jeph

Maybe this is Spookybot after 5000 years of evolution or an offspring.

[BenRG]

Yipes! Quantum entanglement with a black hole? Towards the end of the Great War, technology must have been on a near-infinite rate of acceleration! Goodwin's Law meets exponential growth!

[cesium133]

My brain hurts.

[TheEvilDog]

My brain hurts.

As I have been saying for some time - Space Magic.

[BenRG]

That aside, I am actually genuinely surprised to see that I was sort of right in suggesting that the super-soldiers' powers seem to be some kind of quantum trickery and that the secret of Church's defeat was that he was taken by surprise.

[WareWolf]

Huh, that explains why Alice said Church is "attuned to the same physics" as she and Sedna.

Also, Alice is currently reminding me a lot of another certain super powerful being created by Jeph

Maybe this is Spookybot after 5000 years of evolution or an offspring.

I believe that may well be the case.

[Method of Madness]

She seems nice!

[LKR1009]

This just leaves me wondering why she didn't regenerate her hair after the armor chopped it off.

[Neko_Ali]

If I'm getting what Jeph is going for here, they are not unlike entropic mages. They can twist and bend the laws of physics but there is a price to be paid. Assuming what she said in the last panel is the unvarnished truth, they are pushing the paradox backlash onto their external power source(s), black holes. They are not so much  able to do anything, as they can warp physical laws around them. But that power will eventually come with a reckoning. So they tend to live as simply as possible.

Regrowing her hair quickly was probably not something she felt was worth spending energy on. It does explain the wide range of powers the immortals seem to have and why they don't make logical sense. They can change the rules as they see fit. Jumping or falling incredible distances, smashing nano barriers, being nearly immune to most damage short of another immortal. All through applied manipulation of entropic and physical forces. Same with their increased recovery rate. There is a clear hierarchy of strength though. Whether it's because they have different inherent strength with the power or differentiating access to the source Alice is more powerful than Sedna, and Church is more powerful than both. But not so much that they can't be overcome.

Seems that the villagers calling Alice the witch is a perfectly valid statement. They've probably seen her do things that did seem magical, rather than merely just being immortal to them and far more physically powerful and knowledgeable.

[Kugai]

[SubaruStephen]

So Alice, Sedna, and Mr. Chruch spend their time moving molecules around, one at a time?

[Is it cold in here?]

Global Moderator Comment

It's not shipping if Jeph has explicitly shown us Sedna boning Church.

[brasca]

Seems that the villagers calling Alice the witch is a perfectly valid statement. They've probably seen her do things that did seem magical, rather than merely just being immortal to them and far more physically powerful and knowledgeable.

Except that they think Gavia is a demon.  Of course if they could see Alice right now they would probably think otherwise. 

I'm also wondering if the reptilian eye peeking out is part of her ultimate form. 

[Neko_Ali]

Well Gavia did show up screaming and throwing fireballs around town. Not a great first impression.

[TheEvilDog]

If I'm getting what Jeph is going for here, they are not unlike entropic mages. They can twist and bend the laws of physics but there is a price to be paid. Assuming what she said in the last panel is the unvarnished truth, they are pushing the paradox backlash onto their external power source(s), black holes. They are not so much  able to do anything, as they can warp physical laws around them. But that power will eventually come with a reckoning. So they tend to live as simply as possible.

Regrowing her hair quickly was probably not something she felt was worth spending energy on. It does explain the wide range of powers the immortals seem to have and why they don't make logical sense. They can change the rules as they see fit. Jumping or falling incredible distances, smashing nano barriers, being nearly immune to most damage short of another immortal. All through applied manipulation of entropic and physical forces. Same with their increased recovery rate. There is a clear hierarchy of strength though. Whether it's because they have different inherent strength with the power or differentiating access to the source Alice is more powerful than Sedna, and Church is more powerful than both. But not so much that they can't be overcome.

Seems that the villagers calling Alice the witch is a perfectly valid statement. They've probably seen her do things that did seem magical, rather than merely just being immortal to them and far more physically powerful and knowledgeable.

Thank you for validating my long time theory that it was all space magic.

It's not shipping if Jeph has explicitly shown us Sedna boning Church.

That was painful. Just like Church's neck.

[WareWolf]

Anyone want to venture a guess as to why Alice seems to be suddenly giving off smoke, or maybe steam?

[Is it cold in here?]

Wouldn't you be steamed in her situation?

Wondering whether the reptilian eyes are her true form brings up the question of how you define the true form of a being that lives outside the laws of physics.

Was Alice ever human?

Why was Laridia only mildly concerned about the level of threat from Alice and company? Seems to me that anyone to whom physics is optional is existentially dangerous.

[retrosteve]

Anyone want to venture a guess as to why Alice seems to be suddenly giving off smoke, or maybe steam?

She's not. The drops of blood on her hair and clothes are evaporating very fast, because she wants them to.  And because she can violate entropy to do it.

[retrosteve]

To quote Faye: What the ASS?

This last cartoon is seriously risking losing the plot for me. Not because of the outlandish physics, or the difficult exposition.

No, because it's all wrong. This is the ENDING. In the ending, you resolve the questions and plot complications based on the physics and rules you ALREADY set up. You don't start setting up NEW physics and rules. 

Not only is it wrong from the writer/reader contract point of view, it's wrong from the 'let's just explain what we just saw' point of view. We just saw Sedna rip her own arm off and bleed out while shivving Church. And we just heard was that at least one of the participants' realities was actually a simulation, and maybe the current one too. The explanation we needed was "How did Sedna just go faster than Church and become stronger than his armor?". An explanation based on the last two things would make sense. What we got was just the opposite of that.  Plus Alice using a vague "we" about the ability to violate entropy at will is just...bleah.

FIrst, nothing any of the supersoldiers has done required entropy violation (up to, perhaps, Alice's self-cleaning blood removal). So saying they can do that doesn't really answer much. But it does open up a wildcard that Alice (and whoever else is a "Maxwell's Demon") has weakly godlike abilities and always has. Meaning anything can happen and can have happened if they did it. A plot hole big enough to drive a Praeses through.

Second, it's all totally irrelevant. It doesn't really answer the relationship between Church and Sedna and Alice, or the sudden ability for Sedna to be faster, or the reason the Praeses isn't really nervous about the supersoldiers, or how Ardent and Gavia escaped from a simulation, or the Blink, or the Nightwalker, or anything. It just makes things more complicated and handwavey.

Man I could rant all night about this. However things tie up now, the whole story is suspect!

[A Duck]

I've reread all of AG up to this point today, and there are a few things that can be taken as hints to the whole "entropy demon" thing. Most directly, this could be taken as Alice's view on the nature of her abilities

Even more directly, Sedna directly mentions putting Church's head "on a spike" at one point. From Alice's explanation, I'm guessing Sedna "broke the rules" harder than Church did. He probably didn't consider he needed that much speed to reach (I guess) Gavia on time, or simply didn't consider Sedna a threat.
By using her own bones, which seem to be already naturally strong, and applying all the force into a singular point, she was able to pierce Church's skin.

It seems their powers require a level of intent to be functional. If they're caught off guard, they aren't nearly as durable.

Also, it's not over yet, people. And I have a very strong feeling Jeph won't be done with this fictional universe after this story ends, either.

Maybe this is Spookybot after 5000 years of evolution or an offspring.

Jeph was pretty clear on saying that AG and QC do not share an universe, but these two are certainly drawing from similar sources of inspiration.

[retrosteve]

Even more directly, Sedna directly mentions putting Church's head "on a spike" at one point. From Alice's explanation, I'm guessing Sedna "broke the rules" harder than Church did. He probably didn't consider he needed that much speed to reach (I guess) Gavia on time, or simply didn't consider Sedna a threat.
By using her own bones, which seem to be already naturally strong, and applying all the force into a singular point, she was able to pierce Church's skin.

It seems their powers require a level of intent to be functional. If they're caught off guard, they aren't nearly as durable.

She doesn't just pierce his skin, she pierces his armor.  Then after it goes through his neck, it pierces his armor on the other side. We've seen Alice's similar armor bounce hundreds of machine-gun rounds. Is a hand-driven bone shiv likely to concentrate more force on a singular point than a 10mm round at point-blank range?

[A Duck]

When it's a normal bone, no.

When it's a bone from the same kind of being that resisted said point-blank range bullets, apparently yes.

[TheEvilDog]

The thing is, Alice has just explained that she and the other super soldiers were the kind of nightmare that necessitated the Blink. They defiance of physics is, to all intent and purposes, the ultimate weapon. So if she and the others are able to survive that kind of damage inflicted on each other, well, the options for outright taking them down using the rules of the universe aren't possible.

In a way, it makes even more sense for Church to survive a blast from an orbital laser but to be finally taken down by a bone shard. Outside tech and rules can't hurt them, so if the rules of the universe can't do that why not use the ones who already break those rules?

Alice's mention of a thought experiment is more descriptive than it originally appears. They are literally demons, beings from outside our understanding of the universe. How can we really understand the rules that govern them when they are the embodiment of Clarke's Third Law?

[Sorflakne]

So is Alice slowly losing it (judging by facial expressions), or is she just amused that she can reveal her and the others' true nature now?

[A Duck]

Alice had a few of those creepy-smile moments so far. The first one when she attacked Gavia way back at the start of the story.

I'm guessing Alice is just like Church in the sense she has a VERY strong impulse for violence, but she has learned to cope with it much better.

Now, however? I think whatever restraint Alice had is gone. Pate is screwed.

[Sorflakne]

I was rereading some old comics to see if I could build on a hypothesis that came to me while writing my previous post when I saw this.  Not relevant to the hypothesis, but amusing nonetheless considering Alice and Church's history.  Which makes one wonder if the orbital laser is still up there and still functional...