Annotated 42-8
HR learning that the Cultists have no capitalism, and immediately channeling their violent culture to approximate some, is about as good as it gets.
Ulak and HR still feel a bit like Carol and HR, only this is the part where the association ends. Carol was at least offered the opportunity to join HR in godhood, but all Ulak gets is a cheery compliment and a promise to return soon that would flummox the most loyal of supporters. HR will be back fairly soon, but not in a form that Ulak can have the same relationship with.
The other day, one of the readers asked if the Countless were a real thing or just some lie the Cultists wosrhipped. I think today’s page provides the answer: the Countless are real but not well understood by their worshippers. To the residents of Cyberia, they’re just another biome, and definitely countable.
So a thought came to me. The original concept presented was that Arkerra was a game-world. Then it was revealed to be a real world affected in some way by the meddling of HR/Hurricaine. The thought is that, how is Cyberia involved? Is it yet ANOTHER real world HR connected a game to, or is it actually a game concept that can be somehow tapped into from Arkerra?
As I understand it, both Arkerra and Cyberia were conceived of by HR, designed by the people at Hurricane, but then shaped by the players and NPCs which inhabit them. In the case of The Five: extended and changed.
The thing which HR does still has not grasped entirely is that “his” worlds have taken on a live of their own, and he is no longer in full control, and can’t assume control ever again.
I don’t know what the comment policy is on “spoilers” for pages that haven’t shown up in this annotated run yet, but already were published as part of the original run, so…uh…
…I think that it’s fair to say that HR has heretofore presented Arkerra and Cyberia as creations of his video game company, but that one or more denizens of Arkerra and/or Cyberia may dispute that origin story by the end.
Yeah, +1. I don’t recall ever seeing a definitive claim on whether Hurricane and HR created them, influenced them, unknowingly simulacrum-linked them, whatever. My personal head-canon has always been that last one – that in HR’s own mystical journeys he “encountered” Arkerra, maybe took it as inspiration or whatever, and ran with it, with the idea being “something something VR float tubes, something something psychic interdimensional portal, step 3 ???, become like unto a god”
In other words, to HR, Arkerra was just a convenient hook to build a game world around to fund his godhood ambitions with. Whether it had had independent, prior existence or not was irrelevant. But that’s just, like, my opinion, man.
I kinda enjoy casual boss HR, he’s just so chill and casual. Like he’s killed innocent people and somehow he still feels like an ok guy. Too bad he eventually falls to his own arrogance and self obsession
His demeanor just keeps reminding me of Ash in Army of Darkness. Too cool to blend in.
Chevron seven… locked.
I thought it’d been established that Arkerra – and likely thus Cyberia as well — were real but as a result of HR’s magicks have been semi-terraformed by the Hurricane code engineers and then further shaped by the psychic connect between player and the person who is their character. For example, the berserker wasn’t a thing in this world until sepia!Byron decided it’d be cool to play one and that got coded into actuality on Arkerra like it had always been there
I’ve always wondered – why didn’t Carol follow HR to “join him in godhood?” When last we saw them, Carol certainly seemed to be all in.
Hw told her to wait a bit without any follow up or quantification of how long a bit should be. I think that once he was no longer physically present, the part of her that knew this was crazy was strong enough to keep her out of the tube, even if it wasn’t strong enough to stop her being a loyalist.
That and the fact that she’s got her own obsession to deal with – Shanna.
Plus she’s used to taking the reins of Hurricane while HR is doing his own thing – it’s kind of her purpose at the company at this point.
Can’t really jump in and join him when she’s got unfinished business to wrap up.