Gods tend to be terrible parents. Maybe poseidon’s ok. He had some kids turn out alright, with steady jobs at stuff like “keeper of the winds” and such. Oh… wait… the monsters. Yeah. Terrible track records across many mythologies.
“Thou has brought besmirchment and cattiness to mine name. For that I shall smite thee, yes, with such a smiting smitefulness that others who’ve smitten shall spite, with fright, the sight of my smite. Thou shalt reap what ye sow, and then thou shalt sew what ye’ve ripped. Fear not: I discipline those whom I loveth. And by discipline I mean I punish. I punish those I hate-eth, too. So it’s a wash. Basically, you’re all getting punished. Now praise me.
Livejournal as it was 20 years ago, is no more. Company’s changed hands a few times, is now mostly Cyrillic. (I want to say Russian, but I can’t tell Russian from other languages written with Cyrillic characters, so I’m not going to assume it’s not Ukranian, for example.)
Speaking of alt text, I wonder: is the alt text somehow included in the book version of this webcomic? I imagine it’d be page footnotes, but I don’t know for sure.
Blasphemous as it may be, it reminds me of the Abrahamic God. This big powerful being who constantly seems angry at his own creations for not being able to guess what he wants and which have to function without implicit and innate understanding of a confusing universe.
Why would it be blasphemous to note that this holy book depicts its god as a totally evil douchebag whose only “good side” is “not torturing and murdering you and anyone near you for eternity”? That’d be like saying the text itself is blasphemous.
Which I’m fine with. I think giving an AI a logical paradox is mean, but potentially a growth experience… and doing the same to a religious fanatic is shadenfreude… because they get angry and don’t want to grow.
Blah, blah, blah. If you’d bothered to simply explain what you were doing at the start rather than being all mysterious and super villainy maybe you wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
If this was an actual game I thing I’d be somewhat terrified, only somewhat as I’m very conditioned to these things… but it would still be one hell of a level.
How are you defining fake, is the real question? What constitutes “fakeness” and why would Arkerra OR Sepiaworld qualify, within the confines of the narrative?
H.R. and, later, the winter elves both said “reality is relative”. According to what I understood, the “universe” of the story is a multiverse made of a limited (but unknown) number of universes.
I agree. I think all of the worlds in the comic are virtual. I think Sepia world is a simulation that is supposed to be as close as possible to our real world. I think the Sepia World characters’ AIs have become sapient. Included with that is the ability to learn to interact with the simulation they’re in, in ways the developers never intended.
I think HR found a way to explore the real world internet from within Sepia World. He found the original Arkerra sim, and made a pirated copy of it onto the same network/server as Sepia World. Same with Cyberia, possibly, when he needed some corrupter beasts to do some Spring cleaning in Arkerra.
He made it possible for Sepia World people to interact with the copy of Arkerra, by way of a video game interface. He then created the tubes, so Sepia World AIs could transfer their consciousnesses into that Arkerra.
The reason that characters in Arkerra are becoming more lifelike and harder for HR to control is that The sapience of the tubed Sepia World characters is rubbing off on the Arkerra characters that they interact with. They’re essentially infected with reason and the ability to develop wisdom.
HR expected to hop in his tube, and become The God of all the worlds. What he still hasn’t figured out is that when he put The Five in the tubes, he made them gods. (Or, maybe all the sapient Sepia World characters already are gods, but just don’t know it.)
Sepia World = Sapient World?
It seems to me that we’ve possibly been seeing hints of the sapient characters’ powers all along, without noticing. Things like Shanna making a perfect headshot on JJ. She believed she could do it, so she made it happen. Penk decided that he still believed in Tectonicus, so we saw the monster that enveloped Tectonicus start to glow from within.
I believe all the characters that developed or were infected with sapience are capable of becoming at least as powerful as HR, and as they begin realize that, HR is throwing a hissy fit, and trying to destroy all the worlds.
HR blames The Five for ruining the “perfect” world he was creating, and for changing the characters they interacted with in Arkerra, making it harder for him to foresee what they’d do. He doesn’t realize that he’s probably having the same effect on the characters he’s interacting with.
Ulak seems to have become sapient, deciding he doesn’t want to die. The only Sepia World character that he spent any significant time with was HR. The only time that I can find that he got close to one of The Five, was when he infected Frigg with a berserker demon.
So, I’m guessing that even if The Five had never gone to Arkerra, HR and eventually Carol would have infected the Arkerran characters they met with sapience, which would have led to the destruction of his “perfect” Arkerra, anyway.
To Carol, this must be like one of those phone conversations like “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU YOU WORTHLESS PILE OF SHITVOMIT no, sorry, I wasn’t talking to you!”
She’s gonna make herself a diamond, by crushing a lump of coal. ;)
*BLAM*
“Carol? … What? … Why? …”
“I heard every hateful word you said to me, you ungrateful pile of dog crap!!!”
“But… But, Carol… I wasn’t talking to you!” x.x
“Oops…”
Are we just going to ignore that we’re basically seeing Frigg Frigg in the most Frigg way ever? I mean, the only thing she could do to be _more_ defiant_ is basically be flipping him off with the hands we can’t see.
Caller: I logged into the game a few minutes ago, now my monitor is bleeding purple and my speakers are screeching about my insignificance in a voice like ruin and thunder.
Customer Support: This is a very common issue, try updating your drivers, that usually fixes the problem.
HR was specifically designed to look like William H Macy with a moustache. This is especially obvious when William H Macy isWilliam H Macy with a moustache.
Does this game have a mute button, I can’t find it. The options menu is all messy and eldritch.
And when you press “translate” all it says is “yada yada yada”
If you press Ctrl-Alt-Del, it turns into WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS WORDS.
Spoken like the worst example of parenting ever.
Gods tend to be terrible parents. Maybe poseidon’s ok. He had some kids turn out alright, with steady jobs at stuff like “keeper of the winds” and such. Oh… wait… the monsters. Yeah. Terrible track records across many mythologies.
Hey now. Lamashtu’s family just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
“Thou has brought besmirchment and cattiness to mine name. For that I shall smite thee, yes, with such a smiting smitefulness that others who’ve smitten shall spite, with fright, the sight of my smite. Thou shalt reap what ye sow, and then thou shalt sew what ye’ve ripped. Fear not: I discipline those whom I loveth. And by discipline I mean I punish. I punish those I hate-eth, too. So it’s a wash. Basically, you’re all getting punished. Now praise me.
Well said. EXTREMELY well said.
Feeling called out by this somehow.
Even now, Sithrak oils the spit.
Sithrak: Do as you like, you’re getting punished anyway!
Live as long as you can!
Yeesh! Bringing out his inner LiveJournal!
Livejournal as it was 20 years ago, is no more. Company’s changed hands a few times, is now mostly Cyrillic. (I want to say Russian, but I can’t tell Russian from other languages written with Cyrillic characters, so I’m not going to assume it’s not Ukranian, for example.)
Well…yeah. That’s the point. He’s an old fart.
Alt-text: “Submitted without comment.”
I guess that’s what we’re here for. Right everybody?
Speaking of alt text, I wonder: is the alt text somehow included in the book version of this webcomic? I imagine it’d be page footnotes, but I don’t know for sure.
It’s just a pure intense evil moment that was a long time building; nice to let it sit for the weekend until something changes up.
What, you didn’t see the incredibly spoiler-y first alt-text?
You know a page is serious when it’s submitted without comment.
So you aren’t an all powerful god then if you are having these issues.
Blasphemous as it may be, it reminds me of the Abrahamic God. This big powerful being who constantly seems angry at his own creations for not being able to guess what he wants and which have to function without implicit and innate understanding of a confusing universe.
Why would it be blasphemous to note that this holy book depicts its god as a totally evil douchebag whose only “good side” is “not torturing and murdering you and anyone near you for eternity”? That’d be like saying the text itself is blasphemous.
Which I’m fine with. I think giving an AI a logical paradox is mean, but potentially a growth experience… and doing the same to a religious fanatic is shadenfreude… because they get angry and don’t want to grow.
To be fair, his kid turned out okay… Before he was sacrificed.
I am curious. Just how many religious fanatics have you talked to, that you take that response as a given?
So long story short- They won’t do what you want them to do and that just hurts your feelings so much and they ruined your life and-
This is becoming less Devine and more like a 14-year-old’s whine-fest on Tumblr.
Reverse the digits. This is more a whiney parent than a whiney child.
Blah, blah, blah. If you’d bothered to simply explain what you were doing at the start rather than being all mysterious and super villainy maybe you wouldn’t be in this situation right now.
Jeez, HR is really rocking the “cranky game dev / community ‘manager’” look. Clearly, more coffee is needed.
If this was an actual game I thing I’d be somewhat terrified, only somewhat as I’m very conditioned to these things… but it would still be one hell of a level.
No one can understande the struggle and suffering of being a multimillionaire CEO of a globally sucessfull game corporation.
He probably was another guy snubbed by Elon Musk at a party once.
Or turned down by That Girl in favor of someone with better grooming and communication skills.
Mustache of Insanity!
So Arkerra is fake and Sepiaworld is fake? Is it all fake worlds all the way down to the elephants and turtles?!
Fake from our perspective, sure, but I don’t think we’ve been given any in-story reason at all to think Sepiaworld is fake.
I Wrong, there were elements implying the sepia world is virtual.
Oops, I forgot one thing : I think all of these universes (including the one where the sepia world is) actually are parts of a same matrix.
Oops again, I didn’t add it after the right message.
How are you defining fake, is the real question? What constitutes “fakeness” and why would Arkerra OR Sepiaworld qualify, within the confines of the narrative?
Yes, this.
They’re both explicitly real – although Arkherra’s origins are a little freaky.
H.R. and, later, the winter elves both said “reality is relative”. According to what I understood, the “universe” of the story is a multiverse made of a limited (but unknown) number of universes.
Oops, I forgot one thing : I think all of these universes (including the one where the sepia world is) actually are parts of a same matrix.
I agree. I think all of the worlds in the comic are virtual. I think Sepia world is a simulation that is supposed to be as close as possible to our real world. I think the Sepia World characters’ AIs have become sapient. Included with that is the ability to learn to interact with the simulation they’re in, in ways the developers never intended.
I think HR found a way to explore the real world internet from within Sepia World. He found the original Arkerra sim, and made a pirated copy of it onto the same network/server as Sepia World. Same with Cyberia, possibly, when he needed some corrupter beasts to do some Spring cleaning in Arkerra.
He made it possible for Sepia World people to interact with the copy of Arkerra, by way of a video game interface. He then created the tubes, so Sepia World AIs could transfer their consciousnesses into that Arkerra.
The reason that characters in Arkerra are becoming more lifelike and harder for HR to control is that The sapience of the tubed Sepia World characters is rubbing off on the Arkerra characters that they interact with. They’re essentially infected with reason and the ability to develop wisdom.
HR expected to hop in his tube, and become The God of all the worlds. What he still hasn’t figured out is that when he put The Five in the tubes, he made them gods. (Or, maybe all the sapient Sepia World characters already are gods, but just don’t know it.)
Sepia World = Sapient World?
It seems to me that we’ve possibly been seeing hints of the sapient characters’ powers all along, without noticing. Things like Shanna making a perfect headshot on JJ. She believed she could do it, so she made it happen. Penk decided that he still believed in Tectonicus, so we saw the monster that enveloped Tectonicus start to glow from within.
I believe all the characters that developed or were infected with sapience are capable of becoming at least as powerful as HR, and as they begin realize that, HR is throwing a hissy fit, and trying to destroy all the worlds.
HR blames The Five for ruining the “perfect” world he was creating, and for changing the characters they interacted with in Arkerra, making it harder for him to foresee what they’d do. He doesn’t realize that he’s probably having the same effect on the characters he’s interacting with.
Ulak seems to have become sapient, deciding he doesn’t want to die. The only Sepia World character that he spent any significant time with was HR. The only time that I can find that he got close to one of The Five, was when he infected Frigg with a berserker demon.
So, I’m guessing that even if The Five had never gone to Arkerra, HR and eventually Carol would have infected the Arkerran characters they met with sapience, which would have led to the destruction of his “perfect” Arkerra, anyway.
To Carol, this must be like one of those phone conversations like “I’M GOING TO KILL YOU YOU WORTHLESS PILE OF SHITVOMIT no, sorry, I wasn’t talking to you!”
I hope Carol’s ready to crush a diamond…
She’s gonna make herself a diamond, by crushing a lump of coal. ;)
*BLAM*
“Carol? … What? … Why? …”
“I heard every hateful word you said to me, you ungrateful pile of dog crap!!!”
“But… But, Carol… I wasn’t talking to you!” x.x
“Oops…”
Are we just going to ignore that we’re basically seeing Frigg Frigg in the most Frigg way ever? I mean, the only thing she could do to be _more_ defiant_ is basically be flipping him off with the hands we can’t see.
And it looks like Best is getting ready to be it.
But that’s exactly what a father’s pride is like, H.R.
“Teach your children well/their parents’ hell/will slowly go by…”
Caller: I logged into the game a few minutes ago, now my monitor is bleeding purple and my speakers are screeching about my insignificance in a voice like ruin and thunder.
Customer Support: This is a very common issue, try updating your drivers, that usually fixes the problem.
Meanwhile, in an other realm :
Sys admin : there are too much bugs in these worlds, there visibly are major problems. I’ll need to reboot them.
Eat a snickers, dude.
A vorpal sword, that goes snicker-snack?
I just had to make this.
Omicog! He totally looks like H.R.’s Good Twin! How have I not noticed that before?!?
HR was specifically designed to look like William H Macy with a moustache. This is especially obvious when William H Macy is William H Macy with a moustache.
And so the world was shattered into pieces…bah, another WoW knockoff.
So… why is Carol not tagged on this page?
Or this is an error, or there is a reason that will be revealed in the next pages.
Because Carol is about to be Carol no longer… once she grasps that gun and fires at H.R.’s tube, she will be… THE ATONER!
…Nah.
Somebody seriously needs a time-out.
Or a spanking.
I believe Frigg may be about to provide a combo meal.
Talky man talk too much.