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- I like this theory. Also interesting to note that the Geisterdamen and the slaver wasps do not even remotely look like they were made by the same people, despite sparks, including Lucrezia, having enough of a "style" that the Baron could link the engines to Lucrezia. Only problem: If this were the case, the Geisterdamen should already have had to build a device for downloading the Other, and have it work. So why did their second involve so much failure, and why did they at first think they'd failed? Perhaps they had the help of a powerful spark (perhaps the Heterodynes or Lucrezia herself; after all, they could've lied about what it would do) the first time but didn't have his notes when they went to Strumvoras for the second.
- A) The Geisterdamen were NOT made by Lucrezia and B) Von Pinn doesn't look much like a glowing butterfly or a slaver wasp, now, does she?
- Agatha herself appears to suspect this, based on her reaction when she's informed of the death of her brother. It would also set up a Luke/Vader/Emperor moment at the climax of the story
- One problem with this theory is that Lucrezia indicates that she designed the overwrite-machine that stuffed her into Agatha's cranium. Also, the statement that the Geister-Goddess always came 'in the same lovely aspect', when the transfer machine clearly doesn't change what whoever gets turned into The Other looks like tends to throw doubt on the statement.
- Ah, but was that 'Lucrezia' (who was possessing Agatha at the time) really Lucrezia or the Other maintaining her disguise? And Vrin clearly states that the Other always wore the same lovely aspect when she was a novice, which clearly implies that 1. She has visited the Geisterdamen in other aspects and 2. She wore Lucrezia's aspect for a specific period of time.
- On the other hand, we have no idea what the normal lifespan of the Geisterdamen is supposed to be, or how old Lady Vrin is, so....
- One problem with this theory is that Lucrezia indicates that she designed the overwrite-machine that stuffed her into Agatha's cranium. Also, the statement that the Geister-Goddess always came 'in the same lovely aspect', when the transfer machine clearly doesn't change what whoever gets turned into The Other looks like tends to throw doubt on the statement.
- Two things to point out: Von Pinn, and Agatha's locket.
- When Von Pinn realizes that Agatha is Lucrezia's daughter, she does not rest in trying to kill her. Why would she do that do the daughter of her creator? Because Lucrezia informed Von Pinn about the possible transference of the Other's consciousness to Lucrezia's daughter. Lucrezia, for a variety of reasons, has given Von Pinn standing orders to kill her and anyone else who may be embodying The Other.
- Well, maybe not. She says that Agatha is "MINE" but that does not mean she wants to kill her. After all Von Pinn is a children's nurse and Agatha is one of her charges.
- It comes out later that Von Pinn was specifically created by Lucrezia to be her childrens' governess. Von Pinn was merely informing Klaus that Agatha literally belonged to her.
- On the other hand, Von Pinn tried to attack Agatha before, but that was probably more to do with the "threat" she posed to the students rather than because she is Lucrezia's daughter.
- That was well before Agatha was outed as the missing Heterodyne.
- Agreed to the counter-arguments. Von Pinn wants to protect Agatha now that she knows. Her 'programming conflict' between protecting Gil's virtue and Agatha's... well, self... that should be a Funny Moment.
- Speaking of von Pinn, when we first saw her she was a monoped. Now that she returns to the castle, she is a biped, and the drawing makes this very, very clear. It was apparently her monepedalism that kept her from leaping after Agatha or climbing once Lilith had thrown Agatha up out of reach. Given the amount of planning that has gone into this story's visuals, I do not believe that this was an accident or 'oops'. There must be a reason. Maybe it is the removal of a restraint applied by Klaus. Maybe it is removal of a self-imposed restraint.
And whose side is von Pinn on now? Can you say wild card?- Von Pinn was never a monoped, she just wore a very tight skirt (with heavy strapping keeping it tight). See here - the one page in her first scene where one can just about make out her feet. The unbinding of her legs, that might be a removal of restraint, but she has always been bipedal.
- Agatha's locket belonged to Lucrezia before her, and Uncle Barry Heterodyne gave it to Agatha to prevent her Spark from acting up. But the locket has the convenient side-effect of also nullifying the Other's consciousness within Agatha. We presume that Uncle Barry endowed the locket with that capability. But wouldn't it make more sense for Lucrezia to have designed some way to oppose the Other for herself, knowing, as she probably does, the exact mechanics that make the Other's possession possible?
- This may have been Jossed already by the fact that The Other, who responds to the name Lucrezia, had no idea what the locket does. But, it could be that the copy of Lucrezia's or The Other's mind was made before the locket was made. Discuss.
- It may also be a different locket. Other-Agatha found this locket on Klaus in a case with the Heterodyne signal. Assuming that Klaus did get his hands on the broken locket and assuming that he would repair it, why would he create such a case for it and carry it around? I am leaning toward the idea that this is some kind of Heterodyne "Crown of The King" (see the Trelawney Thorpe story).
- Von Pinn was constructed by Lucrezia Mongfish-Heterodyne as a nursemaid. But for that purpose she is incredibly overbuilt. This makes sense only if she was originally designed for another purpose OR if she was designed to defend her charge(s) as well as rear them.
- Confirmed. Von Pinn's mind is the transferred mind of Otilla, the Muse of Protection, so it definitely fits to build the body as a protector as well as a nursemaid.
- Von Pinn is a biological construct. When we first meet her, the popular rumour going round is that she's Lucrezia Mongfish. Maybe that's not wrong. Lucrezia was, we know, experimenting in intelligence transfer. She put the mind of Otilla in that construct body, and did something to her own mind. We still don't know what, other than her apparent ability to function like a hive organism, and that now she's considered- accurately or otherwise- to be synonymous with the Other- but, suppose Otilla's mind wasn't just placed into an anonymous lash-up- but specifically into a construct built from Lucrezia's own discarded physical form- so when she- as she saw it- acended to a higher form, she left behind her body, paired with the mind of a creature designed to protect the innocent- as the guardian of her child.
- When Von Pinn realizes that Agatha is Lucrezia's daughter, she does not rest in trying to kill her. Why would she do that do the daughter of her creator? Because Lucrezia informed Von Pinn about the possible transference of the Other's consciousness to Lucrezia's daughter. Lucrezia, for a variety of reasons, has given Von Pinn standing orders to kill her and anyone else who may be embodying The Other.
- On the other hand, there's the possibility that Lucrezia might simply have been hiding how powerful she was to give Klaus et all the impression that she wasn't capable of that kind of thing, so when the Other began striking against other Sparks, she wouldn't be suspected.
- Since there is time travel, it's possible that Lucrezia is fighting HERSELF as The Other, as in: Lucrezia's Spark causes her to develop greater and greater megalomania to the point where she becomes the other; however, earlier Lucrezia is visited by The Other, and seeing what she will become, develops fail-safe plans that she gives to Barry and Von Pinn(ie plans for the locket, instructions to kill Agatha).
- For that matter, forked timelines haven't been ruled out yet.
- Klaus himself did describe her as "ruthless, manipulative, and a consummate actress." You'd think he would have considered that maybe, I don't know, she was ACTING. Heck, maybe Lucrezia knew that, as the Mad Scientist's Beautiful Daughter, it was pretty much just a matter of time before she shacked up with either Bill or Barry (or maybe even Klaus, hence her sexual relationship with him). Therefore, in the fulfillment of her role as "Femme Fatale with a heart of gold who's ultimately harmless and doesn't REALLY want to hurt anyone", she pretended to lack her phenomenal talents as a Spark and just created glowing butterflies (see the page where Klaus mentioned that she never displayed the level of talent the Other possessed), as opposed to the slaver wasps that take over people's minds and would probably put her over the Moral Event Horizon for the only two Heterodynes with anything resembling a moral compass since the dawn of time.
- Suppose the very first theory w
- Since there is time travel, it's possible that Lucrezia is fighting HERSELF as The Other, as in: Lucrezia's Spark causes her to develop greater and greater megalomania to the point where she becomes the other; however, earlier Lucrezia is visited by The Other, and seeing what she will become, develops fail-safe plans that she gives to Barry and Von Pinn(ie plans for the locket, instructions to kill Agatha).
- I'm still holding out for the "Lucrezia possessed" theory, because it promises the most heart-wrenching tragedy at the denouement. But then again I've always been a romantic about such things.
- I am holding out for the "Possessed Lucrezia" theory because I suspect that the slaver wasps were re-tasked by the Other, and were originally a means of protecting people against mind control.
- Alright, WMG, riddle me this: As stated above, the Other responds to the name Lucrezia almost reflexively and has the same speech patterns/facial expression/body stance/gloating style as the Lucrezia Klaus was ''very'' intimate with. This could conceivably be the proposed 'actual' Other 'pretending' to be Lucrezia, despite the fact that most of this is subconscious and the fact that the Other has no access to any of Agatha's body language/memories, hence the Other would not have access to Lucrezia's; the fact that she seems genuinely surprised when Klaus guesses her identity; and the fact that if the Other could fake such cues, wouldn't it make more sense to turn them off in the presence of an adversary familiar with such things who could blow your cover completely?!? Ahem. In any case, why does the Other refer to Agatha explicitly as her daughter in a private and whispered conversation with herself??? Who is she pretending to be Lucrezia for there, the readers??!
- Okay, I like a challenge. As noted above, Lucrezia is described as a "consummate actress," from which we can infer that she is capable of expressing a wide range of personalities and characteristics. Perhaps, this is merely a misinterpretation of an internal battle between "actual" Lucrezia and "the Other" Lucrezia. In infiltrating the Heterodyne family, the Other learned to respond to her name, and all the speech patterns/facial expressions/body stance/gloating style that everyone thinks belong to the "actual" Lucrezia are really indicative of the Other's personality. Ergo, her hatred of old rivals, her issues with Klaus, and even the decision to 'have' a daughter in the first place come from the Other, not Lucrezia. It would therefore make perfect sense for the Other to refer to Agatha as her own daughter. All of this points to an entity which is not in perfect control of its actions and responses, but is in fact very human-like in nature, which is consistent with what we've seen of the Other.
- How about this: The Other is an alien entity from another reality/planet/etc that passes it's memories and goals down each generation. The host keeps their own personality, however, which is why the geisterdamen and the hive engines look so different—the geisters were created by a previous incarnation of the Other, but the hive engines were created by Lucrezia, after the Other got downloaded into her brain. However, Lucrezia didn't like the whole "give up this incarnation's personality" thing, and decided to design/redesign a summoning engine to copy her entire mind, rather than just the portion designated as the "Other."
- This comic seems to confirm that theory. Maybe when the Other (in this case downloaded into Lucrezia) chose to 'return' to wherever she and the Geisterdamen came from, she took Lucrezia's memories and personality. If she was downloaded onto Lucrezia, say, on the day of the Other's attack upon Mechanicsburg, she wouldn't be the Other so much as the Other would be her. The Other now has Lucrezia's personality and memories, loaded into Agatha, Anevka, and Zola. If she dies, she loses the memories she gained access to. If she 'returns', she keeps them, and if she chooses, their personality.
- Counterpoint: the "new/this calling" stuff she mentions just means "this/new copy from the Summoning Engine".
- Recently "glorified slaver wasp" theory got a few more points. "The Other @ Agatha" considers the self-destruction as a perfectly normal act as long as other copies will go on. If she was a former human and served herself rather than a "higher purpose", one could think the possessing entity have at least modicum of self-preservation.
- This comic seems to confirm that theory. Maybe when the Other (in this case downloaded into Lucrezia) chose to 'return' to wherever she and the Geisterdamen came from, she took Lucrezia's memories and personality. If she was downloaded onto Lucrezia, say, on the day of the Other's attack upon Mechanicsburg, she wouldn't be the Other so much as the Other would be her. The Other now has Lucrezia's personality and memories, loaded into Agatha, Anevka, and Zola. If she dies, she loses the memories she gained access to. If she 'returns', she keeps them, and if she chooses, their personality.
- This comic shows one version of the Other addressing another as "Lucrezia, darling". She could still be acting for Zola's benefit, but given that Zola can now see all of her secrets that's becoming unlikely.
- When Lucrezia locks up Zola, Zola claims that the rogue geisters learned to see Lucrezia "for the fraud you are." Here's my theory: The original Other created the geisters hundreds of years ago and repeatedly imprinted itself on members of the Mongfish line throughout the generations. But when it got to Lucrezia, she managed to destroy it instead. But then she crossed the moral event horizon when she proceeded to steal all its secrets, pretend to be the Other, and invent the slaver wasps.
- The time travel aspect provides a plausible, if convoluted, solution to the "The Other being Lucrezia but Lucrezia not being The Other" conundrum. Let me break this into 3ish parts:
- Another troper mentioned above the possibility that Lucrezia really *is* The Other... but only if given time to develop megalomania far beyond that of a normal spark. In my theory the Lucrezia that was there on the night castle Heterodyne was attacked wasn't The Other. But if those events had not happened Klaus would have returned to Europa at about the same time he did but found the Heterodyne Boys still in residence in at Mechanicsburg and Bill and Lucrezia still married with at least two children and all things fine. Combine that with Klaus' interest in studying the fundamental nature of the spark with spark experiments' tendency to go awry and the likely hood of strife between him and Bill over Lucrezia... and you have a pretty plausible scenario for Lucrezia's spark being drastically amplified. Obvious problem: this puts her becoming The Other *after* "The Other Wars."
- Solution: time travel. We already know that time travel is something that will happen in the Girl Genius story. It has been demonstrated for certain at least once... and possibly a another time as well. We know that Dr Mongfish, Lucrezia's father, was known for researching portal technology (the fact that this is in a heterodyne story is inconsequential... such stories change events, not core traits of people and their disciplines) and both demonstrations of time travel appear to utilize portals of some kind. Finally it must be observed that The Other shows no attachment to her children beyond their usefulness to her... even ordering Agatha's death, should she become inconvenient. Finally we do not know that the summoning engine is actually needed for The Other to engage in possession. Perhaps her future self had a modified body that would allow her to do the same at will.
- Hypothetical Timeline of Events: On that night Lucrezia was tinkering with one of her fathers inventions and activates it. Unknown to Lucrezia another such device (or even the same device is activated) in the not-to-distant future where The Other awaits. Somehow the portals link and The Other travels back to that moment. Lucrezia's assistants interfere with The Other and are killed as Lucrezia escapes... her unborn daughter with her. At this point the castle takes note and, identifying the threat, attempts to kill The Other. The Other fights back laying the castle to waste and killing Klaus Barry in the process. This is the fuzzy part... some how Lucrezia knows about the link between The Other, Herself, and the Geisterdamen... or perhaps she really is their original masters and The Other commandeered them from her... ether way she seeks to use the Geisters to protect her unborn child. After giving birth she runs... knowing The Other will follow. The very fact that Lucrezia came to the Geisters "in high distress" indicates that she was *not* The Other at that time. From a literary stand point, the big bad is never "in high distress" until the final chapter. Also... The Other is shown repeatedly to have no interest in her progeny beyond basic utility and is quick to order Agatha's death if she poses even the smallest threat. There is no reason The Other would be distressed by Agatha being in danger... and it is unlikely The Other would task the Geisterdamen with protecting her. Then Barry (presumably) steals baby Agatha away. Finally, The Other (now embroiled in a war with The Heterodyne Boys) shows up and hears the story from the Lady Vrin (panel 6 and 7). She correctly deduces that Agatha would make a tremendous bargaining chip and orders the Geisters into the shadow world (Europa) to find her. By the time they succeed... The Other has been defeated, The Heterodyne boys are missing, and Klaus has taken control of Europa.
- Final Thoughts: I believe that, from The Other's perspective, she has not yet developed time travel. She will do so *after* her resurrection at Castle Sturmhalten, which will lead to her traveling to the distant past where the "Eternal Lady" mythos will be developed by the geisters for reasons as yet unknown. If my theory is right she probably spent most of her time during The Other Wars studying the event that let her travel back in time in an attempt to reproduce it. And the best part of all? How would Bill and Barry refer to a second Lucrezia running around? That right: *the other* Lucrezia, *the other* one, and after years of fighting her... just The Other.
- Semi-Confirmed. There is a Time Traveling Lucreazia.
- It is possible, though unlike that the Anevka clank body is the Muse of Time body that Van Rijn captured, though heavily modified. In the March 23, 2022 comic, the Anevka body is thrown in the effluvia. Lucrezia states that the clank body would not be able to handle the power so maybe it partially melts and she burns off the energy by going back to Van Rijn's time just to get captured. I say it's unlikely as the similar calling in Agatha seemed to know that she had to free the Muse of Time version trapped in Van Rijn's lab, so presumably from the prospective of the calling in Agatha and Anevka, they had already been freed from Van Rijn's device.
- As for the theory that the Lucrezia that existed during the attack on Mechanicsberg wasn't the Other, I feel I understand the timeline. The Other attacks the Castle and Lucrezia flees to the Geisters who are stated as having served Lucrezia's family for generations. In high distress, Lucrezia than jumps in the mirror by ends up in a different time period like what happened to Agatha. From there, Lucrezia goes through a series of events to return to her own time. She uses her skill to make a clank body, learn to become a queen, steals another woman's body, and hundreds of other such events to return to Agatha. During that period, she knows of her future interference in time and slowly loses her mind until she suffers full on Motive Decay. She finally makes it back to as close to her own timeline as she can get, just to learn Barry had already stolen away Agatha. In a rage, she kills many of her Geisters and send them away. At some point, having completely forgotten that she wanted to protect her daughter, she attacks Castle Heterodyne to claim the unborn version in an attempt to change history. If this was a Clank version of her, maybe the mechanisms were damaged or poorly made, driving her fully insane and leading to the Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Later, she gets transferred to a more suitable body and then decides she's in too deep and falls into a Sunk Cost Fallacy. From there, she spends further centuries just dedicated to her studies, killing Queens, messing with Van Rijn, maybe messes with some ancient Greeks and Euphrosynia Heterodyne, and, more or less, causes a lot of the events that she read in history books, journals, and autobiographies. She realizes how essential her time travel was to creating her world that she develops full on god complex megalomania. It is even possible that instead of going insane, she feels like she has to go through time visiting Van Rijn, attacking the Castle, etc in order to perserve history. Her history. As for why Barry is missing, maybe he was sent to another time or just stuck in another dimension like Snackleford and will reappear as the same age he was when he disappeared or in another form similar to the Muse of Time aspect of Lucrezia.
- Going from there, it is also possible that Barry did do some time traveling and saw that Klaus was destined to be wasped which is why he concludes that he is a servant of the Other because he will be. Though, it is also possible that Barry just assume that Klaus was involved based on his history with Lucrezia. It is very convenient that Klaus disappeared just as the Other became active. Maybe something indicated to Barry that Klaus was involved with the Other because of something Lucrezia stole from him (perhaps via time travel) and used in the Other Wars that Barry recognized as being definitely Klaus's invention. Essentially, this could be a time traveling frame job. With Silas Merlot dead, there's no one (besides maybe Punch and Judy) who have read Barry's notes in their entirety. So unless they have some light to shed, Agatha who have to find Barry or his notes or his corpse to get the answers about what happened with the Other during the war.
- How about she isn't the Other, but she will become the Other. After all, time travel exists. Some sort of stable timeloop effect I'm thinking
- A slightly alternate theory: rather than separating out the evil part, a reformed Lucrezia, intentionally or otherwise, initiated a process whereby her Sparky abilities were enhanced. It worked, but unfortunately, it "enhanced" other parts of her brain as well, cranking all of her worst traits (vanity, pride, hunger for power) up to eleven and creating the Other.
- One of the items in Lucrezia's pre-gloating checklist is "appease the dark one/god/[something]". The dark ______ was a Sealed Evil in a Can in a can which the trying-to-reform Lucrezia found. Being a Spark she tinkered with it, which resulted in her mind being corrupted. However, it had only escaped its can a little, and needed her help to get all the way out. The now 100% evil Lucrezia kept it and its can in her secret lab, pretending to help it escape in order to pump it for knowledge, and used that knowledge to make leaps and bounds in the sophistication of her work. When she'd wrung the thing dry of information she then destroyed it (or maybe it got destroyed when the castle was attacked).
- The Other is imperfect mind replica of Euphrosinya Hererodyne, like Anevka in Tinka's replica, made after she and van Rijn betrayed Andronicus and botched attempt to capture/replicate powers of Muse of Time, which broke her mind and made her fully embrace "monster" side of her heritage, ignoring whatever "noble" notions Heterodynes cared of. Trying to save her, Andronicus made replica and uploaded it into daughter, which they conceived after (or even before) open betrayal of Andronicus. Oh, and that daughter founded house Mongfish, carrying both ruthlessness of Heterodynes and treachery of van Rijn. Over generations images worn down and suffered motive decay and now just want to rule, though at the beginning they founded cult dedicated to Muse of Time, initial obsession of the duo. When Lucrezia married Bill, previous iteration decided that this is a perfect opportunity and started all that plot. Oh, and since it's actually damaged copy instead of organic mind, Other's sparkiness is gone, and she has to rely on whatever each host invented before being hijacked. Well, at least before Lucrezia came and improved the process - seems like she invented both wasps and current brain uploading machine before all turning into Other, that's why Agatha's Spark is intact.
- Also in that case we can surmise, that Lucrezia sort of hijacked the Other, overwriting most of initial personality with her memory, ditching all that stuff with cult and hijacking it for plain world domination, which broke the base among Geisterdammen.
- In the Corbettite fortress, Lucrezia rants about being trapped somewhere for a long time, waiting for a rescue that never came. When Agatha opens up Van Rijn's long-lost lab she discovers that his last act was to trap The Muse of Time in a glass prison. The Muse is actually Lucrezia's consciousness in a clank body - when she is downloaded into Agatha she mentions not being used to "being human" anymore. Being stuck in that lab for centuries with only a rotting corpse for company has completely driven her bonkers! She escapes into the timestream and presumably a "later" version of her consciousness is what the Geisterdamen implant into Agatha. It also explains how Agatha was able to break the Muse free - Lucrezia had a loooong time to come up with a solution.
- Jossed: while she indeed spent 200 years in that lightbulb, that wasn't nearly enough for her - in one of her clank bodies she spent 500 years doing nothing but staring immovably at one of the Gates and her monitoring devices, keeping track of barely perceptible arrow oscillations, and the wording implies that's not the most boring thing she had to endure.
- All by herself. At some point she was stranded in the ancient past of the Geisters' homeworld in one (or more) of her clank bodies, before the appearance of Geisters and creation of Mirrors. So, first she took a species of local wildlife and developed it into a servant race, with built-in obedience, later branched into wasps, and then finally cracked the mystery of teleportation, making first Gates. From this she conquered then-prehistoric Earth, but later her project went belly-up for some reason. Oh, and she had to do it the old-fashioned way, how the ordinary people do science, because clanks cannot have Spark, but also cannot expire from old age. That would take indeed a lo-ong amount of time, enough to justify her speech about being abandoned and trapped.
- Jossed: even with time travel she haven't got to their epoch, and their workings are only slightly less of enigma to her than to everyone else, and only because she spent millenia studying them.
- Except the Other is running around underground at the moment, and Othar's quite alive (some more).
- First: the Meaningful Name. Heterodyne is really just some gratuitous Greek that means "other power". Now, Greek being Greek, depending on the story this could stretch as far in one direction as "powered by the other" or in the other to "power over the other" - but whatever, there's clearly a plot-important connection to the Other.
- It seems much more likely that the name refers to heterodyning as the signal processing technique, which sounds rather a lot like the characteristic Heterodyne talent.
- Second: the revenants - at least one of them - recognize Agatha as the Other, well before possession by Lucrezia (if that really is the Other). Probably the Heterodyne bloodline being the key.
- Also the Mechanicsburg citizens seem suspiciously loyal to even the idea of a real Heterodyne, almost as fanatical as the "normal" revenants in Sturmhalten.
- Oh, and the Jaegers have been around for how long, still loyal to the Heterodynes? Probably revenant prototypes, they're clearly not your "normal" constructs. They also recognize Agatha instantly.
- Third: Heterodyne history. The "Heterodyne Boys" are popular heroes, the older ones... not so much liked at all. If they developed these machines, would it even have been noticed in the general chaos they caused?
- Fourth: Claus predicted Lucrezia would end up trying something. Messing with ancient Heterodyne toys because she got bored seems like just the sort of something she would try.
- The Geisterdammen clearly have to fit in here somehow, that's the biggest problem.
- Possibly related: the hive queen sings. See: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040607
- The Geisterdammen clearly have to fit in here somehow, that's the biggest problem.
- Seems to be Jossed at least in regards to the loyalty of the Jaegers, who wouldn't be loyal to the people who treat you like you're a person instead of a tool to be thrown away.
- Well, Lucrezia never turned evil because she was never good to begin with, she was just faking it to marry Bill, but otherwise this sounds interesting.
- Explain the naughty flashback scene.
- Lucrezia Mongfish was good by the standards of the Mongfish family, not by the standards of the Heterodyne Boys.
- Lucrezia is confirmed by multiple parties to be the Other, and the difference in skill is due to Time Travel - she spent unknown amount of time perfecting her inventions.
- I hope this is the right section of the page for this WMG... if not feel free to move it.
- Euphrosynia vanished mysteriously while snooping around Van Rijn's laboratory, the place where time windows keep popping up. It seems likely that she ran into the Muse of Time (who I'm 90% certain is the Other/Lucrezia) or the extradimensional entities, who kidnapped her and either overwrote her mind or absorbed her knowledge into their own gestalt personality. This also gave them knowledge of Castle Heterodyne secrets that made it easier for the Other to stage an attack. Remember, Barry and Bill did not grow up in the castle and tried to stay away from home as much as possible so there's probably tons of stuff they didn't know about that hellhole.
- Othar's twitter Bad Future shows Europa after Other's victory - it's completely devoid of human life (except Tarvek and Othar himself) and dotted with strange hive-like crystalline constructions. So, more like Omnicidal Maniac.
- It could just be the result of a Mutual Kill between The Other and everyone else. That's why people like Tarvek would still be alive in bunkers. Or The Other could have just moved the enslaved survivors to worship she/they/it in the Geister headquarters. Plus, whenever The Other has shown up on-screen, she/they/it seemed to be all about controlling people but not so much wiping out humanity.
- Slight problem with this. Zola's already proven herself to be far better than Agatha at suppressing the Other's consciousness, right in this url: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100712 so...
- Also, this would not be a sadistic choice, since Lucrezia and Zola eagerly agree on killing Agatha.
- Gil notices that for some reason, the Other hasn't revealed any new devices in its war against him. Even the spark wasp was the creation of the Knights of Jove. The most logical explanation for this is that the Other doesn't have the Spark, leading to one of two possible sub-explanations depending on whether the Other is Lucrezia, or is possessing her. Either the Other is Lucrezia, in which case she lost her spark when she transformed into the Other (or possibly when her body died) and is trying to get it back by copying herself into a body with it, or else the Other is some alien force possessing Lucrezia, in which case it probably possessed Lucrezia to get her spark, accidentally destroyed it in the process, and now thinks that it's worked out how to possess Agatha without extinguishing her spark.
- Alternatively, the Spark is at least partially biological. Two of the three known Other copies (Zola, Anveka) are bodies that were not Sparks to begin with, and as such, those Others are non-Sparks who remember being Sparks but can no longer enter the Madness Place. This means she's essentially crippled until she can find a female Spark body to possess - and there's a decided shortage of those thanks to the Geisterdamen's efforts.
- During her tenure as Other at some point later in her own timeline Lucrezia switched to clank bodies, and the Spark is indeed biological in nature. So far her only known Sparky bodies are her original one (which, apparently, didn't last very long) and Agatha's, from which she was already exorcised.
- After all, Sparks have enough of a personal style that you can see who designed a particular invention. So, if the Other is trying to hide her real identity as Lucrezia, it only makes sense that she wouldn't use her own inventions as 'The Other'. That's also why The Other hasn't produced any new inventions since her return: Because the people who did the Other's actual innovating are still gone. One of them was likely killed or captured by the Vespiary Squad, considering the presence of a mobile (aka, an improved) hive mother on board their zeppelin.
- She didn't hide her style, partly because the few people capable of analyzing it were either unavailable (Baron) or figured it out anyway (the Boys). Later Baron actually deduces Other's identity from the style. But she herself indeed didn't invent anything after the initial conqueror kit, because she used clank bodies during her tenure as the Other, and they cannot have spark. So all adjustments had to be done by other sparks, like Snarlantz, though she could perfectly reproduce everything already invented.
- Define 'true'.
- We can see that these 'windows' occur in reverse order, and Klaus has guessed that they are windows into/from the future. But his conclusions surrounding Agatha are not as reliable as his others have been. Is it possible that they are windows into/from the past? (Once you have time windows, the question of past and future starts to become fuzzy anyway.)
- Maybe not. Here you can see in the forth panel that the Muse of Time has a hand very similar to that of the woman in the very first time window and matching hair.
- Except that Albia confirms Lucrezia is the true identity of the Muse of Time.
- More-or-less jossed. There is the fact that the Other disappeared before Klaus returned - IE, as far as is known he didn't fight it to a standstill, but there is also the question of why the Other would scheme to infect Klaus with a special and unique Spark-infecting slaver wasp and then rule Europa through him if the Other had already succeded with that exact scheme
- Okay, maybe it's not really reasonable to suspect that the Other managed to beat Klaus via infection, but it's entirely reasonable that Klaus didn't just fight the Other to a standstill, but actually managed to push her out completely, leaving a huge gap in time in which there was no Other. However, that doesn't get rid of the wasps. Which means the Baron could still have been infected even while the Other wasn't around. Now, maybe this isn't him doing the Other's work for her, exactly, but it is him unconsciously making decisions that help the Other. Or even consciously doing so.
- Again: Klaus returned AFTER Other's disappearance and complete ceasing of attacks. And was infected ON SCREEN during the Sturmhalten arc. He never fought the Other, he "merely" mopped up it's followers, disorganised by disappearance of the commander, and the royal houses that restarted the Long War.
- Okay, maybe it's not really reasonable to suspect that the Other managed to beat Klaus via infection, but it's entirely reasonable that Klaus didn't just fight the Other to a standstill, but actually managed to push her out completely, leaving a huge gap in time in which there was no Other. However, that doesn't get rid of the wasps. Which means the Baron could still have been infected even while the Other wasn't around. Now, maybe this isn't him doing the Other's work for her, exactly, but it is him unconsciously making decisions that help the Other. Or even consciously doing so.
MASSIVE SPOILER! This page reveals that the early revenants were the exception, not the rule, and that there are many more normal-appearing people who are under control. It's possible there are enough that The Other didn't need to continue the fight. Total direct control isn't needed if no one has a meaningful way to combat or contradict its wishes.
- Jossed: while indeed the sizeable chunk of population is infected, the Other did vanish just as mysteriously as it appeared, throwing the whole revenant army into disarray, and later had to be uploaded into Agatha from the backup copy. And said copy makes it clear she hasn't won yet.
The Heterodyne boys learned about the events of the present comic (and future ones) some time ago, at the very least at the time the Castle was attacked. Klaus briefly mentions that Barry told Dr. Beetle something that convinced him not to trust Klaus with the information about slaver wasps and Agatha, which would make sense if he learned that Klaus was going to become a revenant at some point. We've seen several points where Agatha (or possibly Lucrezia in her) used some form of time travel technology to view events in Moloch's past. In Othar's twitter account he mentions that Tarvek was able to use Lucrezia's technology to send him back in time to prevent a bad future. The Jagers are noted to really like to eat bugs and have a loathing of the Other. All of the Other's plans and the Heterodyne responses have been made by imperfect understanding of future events, trying to stack the deck in the favor (and probably manipulating the past to get the best tools).
- Alternatively, the Heterodyne that first made the Jägerkin had some sort of strange hat fetish, which he passed on to his creations. Given the other strange things that Sparks do, this isn't that far fetched.
- It also conveniently gives the artist license to the full range of historical European regimental headwear in all of it's wild and wacky glory. Many of those hats are even goofier than the jaeger hats depicted, so anyone seeing you wearing one in public would know "There goes a brave man."
- Interesting to note, either one or two (depends how you count Goomblast's skullcap) of the Jäger generals are hatless.
- Krizhan's hat could be the one that Gilgamesh 'inherited' along with the rest of his outfit in Mamma Gkika's. The Jägers probably changed it slightly. This leads to an interesting conflict of interest if Krizhan seens Gil wearing his hat.
- If anything, Gkika's knife/hairpin thing could be considered her hat.
- Mama Gkika doesn't wear a hat in her "human" guise because she is specifically NOT dressed as a Jager. The hairpin/knife is just part of her generally outlandish dress sense.
- However, Maxim gives up his hat to bury with Lars and still seems to function with no problem.
- Quod erat demonstratum. Amusing thought, but it's more military vanity than anything metaphysical.
- What if it's a sort of fail-safe? The jaegers were designed as soldiers by a line of bloodthirsty geniuses—presumably, there's not an easy way to limit their destructive impulses. Therefore, it could be that the jaegers are given hats, and the masters say to them "Any time you cause enough chaos to lose your hat, you've done a bad thing." Easy method of control. It also explains why they gave Lars a hat: He did something "worthy of jaeger," and he didn't have a hat, so they didn't want it to look like he had messed up.
- The jaegers could work on similar principles to warhammers orcs, hats DO increase their power the same way that painting things red makes them go faster.
- With new info from recent pages the Hetrodynes made the hat fetish exist to keep their army from killing each other for fun. Take hats, not heads.
- It's heavily implied that they are required to take the hat from their enemy's still cooling corpse.
- In the above linked comic filler arc, it's stated that it's possible to steal it or trick him out of it, which (for a Jaeger would be more impressive), but the normal way is to make sure the original owner no longer needs it.
- Maxim makes considerable efforts to obtain Old Man Death's hat, which seems to be quite sufficient for the purpose despite OMD being human, not Jager
- Jaeger hats have to be won in combat - therefore, each hat represents a defeated enemy. And the historically accurate hats — and yes, most of them are historically accurate — represent a panoply of the elite regiments of Europe. The underlying message is the Jaegers can beat anybody.
Both Sparks and Jäger are pretty durable, Jägers more so. Their speech bubbles are similar to a Sparks when they are in the madness place, AND both are immune to Slaver Wasps.
- The Von Mekkhans are in charge of of Mechanicsburg, and could presumably give orders to the Jaegers. And their hat connects them to the Castle, making it the size of the entire town. Even better, it was built for them by the Heterodynes. No wonder everybody listens to them.
- Also, Vole may be a result of a Heterodyne seeing what would happen if the 'Perfect' physical specimen were given Jaegerbrau, the result being a tall adonis-like Jaeger with few extranious monster-y features.. and precious little use for the Jaegertroth.
- There certainly doesn't seem to be any "physical compulsion" aspect to any oaths they've taken, what with Oggie, Maxim, and Dimo sneaking into Mechanicsburg. On the other hand, we know Vole was a proper Jaeger once ("Hyu is no longer a Jaeger!"), and Maxim and Jenka are also not terribly monstrous.
- Well he was probably too scared to act out while Heterodynes were still running around. Especially the older ones. I mean would you betray them? Once they disappeared and Wulfenbach came to power Vole took his chance. Maxim and Jenka might just be both loyal to the Heterodynes and lucky enough to not get too monstrous from Jaegerisation. It's not like loyalty and compatibility would be mutually exclusive.
- It's said at some point that Vole turned against the Jaegertroth due to a personal grudge against the Heterodynes and not because of any biological characteristic. From what I can remember he was thrown out of the Heterodynes' service (presumably as a punishment for something) and he subsequently abandoned his oath and swore vengeance on the family.
- According to Tarvek, Vole tried to kill Barry and Bill for being weak - i.e. not enough like the old Heterodynes. This would indicate that Vole approved of his former masters because of what they let him do, rather than because of who they were - more or less what I would expect from someone with all of the typical Jaeger aggression and none of the typical Jaeger loyalty.
- The "bad side effects" of Jaeger Battledraught on humans hasn't been described in any detail, and the only clues we have are a few pages of Gil acting uncharacteristically irrational. His voice bubble also gets all spikey, though not quite like it does when his Spark is showing. Though it could merely be a sight-gag, his teeth look peculiarly sharp. Mamma Gkika warns him to avoid losing his cool, saying "his face might stick like that". It is thus a distinct possibility that a spike in adrenaline (or pineal whatsists, or who knows what...) could trigger a reaction resulting in his transformation into a Jaeger. Given the sheer saturation of the universe with mad super-science, the supposition that Jaegers were created from humans through some kind of Super Serum isn't improbable. It would also serve to explain how Oggie's great-great-grandson (aka, Phil Foglio) is somehow human.
- Word of God has confirmed that Jagers are transformed humans, and that a very important, but not the only step of the procedure is the ingestion of Jagerdraught. Whether this is the same as Jager Battledraught is unclear.
- No offense, but Gil's been drinking lots of weird stuff lately. There's got to be more to it than just drinking a single bout of whatever the magic potion is, or else the adventurous half of Mechanicsburg would ALL be Jagers.
- Which is not out of the question entirely. New Jagars have to come from somewhere, and making them out of Mechanisburegians ensures pre-existing loyalty to the Hetrodynes.
- Klaus would not risk his only son and heir on the unpredictability of Jägerbrau, even if he had the formula. Aside from what, does Gil look the least bit Jägerish in the time window? G'wan, look again, I'll wait for you to get back.
- Gil's strength seems to have increased somewhat, I think. But then Mama Gkika says that Klaus may have more of the Jaegers' secrets than he lets on.
- Can this troper point out that, recently, Gil has (to quote Agatha), "got shot, and then threw a clank across the room. And now you're insisting that you're fine." Does this sound like a Jager to anyone else?
- As of 19/11/09, His evil grin is even more Jaegerish than the usual evil grins given by the non-Jaeger cast. I'd say plausable. It would certainly make it seem like Gil was dead, as per Othar's twitter. The Time windows where he's fine? Agatha made an anti-Jaegerbraw somewhere between him becoming a Jaeger (Likely of whatever color he is when the Si Vales is done) and when he ends up in drag (ish).
- As an extension of the above idea, it is possible that there has been a slight but noticeable improvement in the odds over the centuries since a)there's been at least six hundred years, or an average of twenty-four generations for natural selection to work it's magic, and b) given the number of Jägers, the size of Mechanicsburg, and the fact that it was historically a rather insular place apart from terrorising Europa, odds are that at least half the town has at least one of two Jägers in their family tree.
- And Jägerkin are immune to slaver wasps. Noize!
The exception is Jaegers with tusks (like the General). Those are unusual but not extraordinary side effects, like Oggie's horn.
- Confirmed by Mamma Gkika: Jägers get variable properties and "nize" teeth apparently are part of those variables.
- Jenka has been seen briefly with less layers
- And later seen in an entirely different outfit, showing that she looks remarkably human.
- Except Mamma IS a General (it's canon) and does have a hat with her uniform when she comes to meet the new Heterodyne.
- That page was released after the guess was submitted. It Josses the hat-stuff and the extrapolation that she doesn't have a hat because she wasn't a soldier, and confirms the authority (and probably but not necessarily the seniority), but doesn't say anything about when she was created in the scheme of things.
- All nigh-on superhuman combat ability so far has been shown by people either highly trained (Zeetha as a Warrior Princess, Violetta, Zola and Tarvek by the Smoke Knights, Gilgamesh as a badass put through a Training from Hell by his father) or drugged with a super-powered stimulant (Moveit). Sparks do tend to be physically powerful and have fast reflexes, but these abilities aren't necessarily beyond human capacity.
- Well, first off, the spark has been shown to be able to cause "mad" fits such as what Gil used to defeat Vole and to intimidate Wooster. And we already know that the spark grants unearthly charisma (especially the Heterodyne spark, though we've also seen Gil draw upon it for such and most sparks we've seen are ruling something and visa-versa). But don't rule out that Klaus is probably decked out with physical enhancements (that scar across his chest in the flashback with Lucrezia looks amazingly similar to that on, say, Punch), Gil may be slightly as well, and both have extreme training. But even as I type that my words ring hollow, as in all other cases the Jagermonsters seem nigh-invincible and the cast page even describes them as "possibly immortal", yet the Wulfenbachs have both beaten them up bare-handed. Perhaps the spark gives some recipients more of one gift than another; the Heterodynes got charisma out to wazoo while the wulfenbachs are superhuman in a way that surpasses even the best living war-machines. We already know that some get a longer or shorter stick overall.
- In Klaus' case, The Secret Blueprints hint (confirmed by Word of God) that he is a construct like Punch, in his case built from the three sons (all Sparks) of the Wulfenbach family, who were blown up in a lab accident; also recent comics hint that Klaus has somehow used certain of the "Jagermonster secrets" to enhance Gil. Thus we can't use either of them as the baseline as to how a Jager compares against a "typical" Spark.
- If Klaus is a construct, it adds a chilling context to the seemingly offhand joke made by a Jager at the University (about the time Dr. Beetle was killed): "If Gil fails his father's tests, he'll be broken down for parts!".
- Oh, Klaus is definitely a construct, and yeah - he knows how it works from the inside. The Word of God though didn't say he was made up from his brothers; that was a suggestion in the Secret Blueprints that's been latched onto as a Plausible Theory.
- It would be simpler to assume that he, as a friend of the Heterodyne Boys, would have been rebuilt by the boys when he got too badly hurt during one of their adventures. This would especially fit the "construct like Punch" description, as Punch was also made by the Heterodyne Boys.
- Mama Gkika did comment that the Jaeger healing potion she gave to Gil did work unusually well on him.
- I think Gil and Agatha have both demonstrated that a Spark's physical powers are also due to the force of their personalities. Even Vole hesitated to face Gil when he was 'in his madness place' and Agatha's powers didn't fully manifest until she got really, really mad. It's pretty hard to prevail physically over people who can actually bend reality itself by sheer force of will.
- Part of it's just plain berserker strength.
- I think it's mostly berserker strength, backed up with mad science steroids and exercise routines. Imagine if all those crazy adds actually worked...
- In Klaus' case, The Secret Blueprints hint (confirmed by Word of God) that he is a construct like Punch, in his case built from the three sons (all Sparks) of the Wulfenbach family, who were blown up in a lab accident; also recent comics hint that Klaus has somehow used certain of the "Jagermonster secrets" to enhance Gil. Thus we can't use either of them as the baseline as to how a Jager compares against a "typical" Spark.
- Ordinary people who spend a lot of time around sparks (like the citizens of Mechenburg) can develop sparkish tendencies.
- We are given the impression by Master Payne that rural sparks tend to be less powerful.
- Many of the most powerful sparks have university educations and many seem to hold university posts.
- Merlot's current speech bubbles are the ones used for sparks, yet he is not supposed to be one.
- Strong emotion can trigger a breakthrough.
- Interesting concept, but:
- 1.) Mechanicsburg has been ruled by probably the strongest Spark family in existence for hundreds of years. There's a good chance a large portion of its commonfolk have a sliver of Spark blood in them, whether Heterodyne or otherwise.
- 2.) The way I see it, rural Sparks are not less powerful per sé, they just don't have access to the knowledge and equipment that cities and especially universities provide. Similarly why Leonardo da Vinci, undoubtedly an amazing genius, never built a functioning space-ship.
- 3.) Universities are institutes of higher learning and science. Sparks are amazingly skilled scientists. Where else would you find them?
- 4.) He may or may not be a (minor) Spark, but he's definitely absolutely insane. That does things to a man's voice.
- 5.) No comment here.
- In fact, Sparks need not be scientists. It seems more like they apply the Spark to the skills they already possess. It is implied that witches were Sparks who used the Spark to make their love potions and whatnots work. Also, the Chef from Master Payne's Travelling Heterodyne Show is a Spark who works solely in the medium of pies. No real dent in your argument, but I thought I should bring it up.
- On the other hand, she did once design a merry-go-round capable of levelling a small town, and for every dingbot or coffee engine there's a death ray, each one bigger than the last.
- Sparks are chaotic and this prevents them from building anything that requires significant calculations, precision, or repeated experimentation. This is a world of mad science, not the scientific method. Discoveries are made almost solely by accident. Crazy things are built, yes, but there is a lot of stagnation. The nature of a Spark precludes proper science, in favour of SCIENCE!, which is not very effective at determining underlying causes or doing any sort of directed research. The nature of a Spark also prevents them from building anything particularly precise or requiring tight tolerance. Not a very good explanation, but I think you can get the gist of it.
- This is likely why Wulfenbach is so powerful. Remember, his specialization is in analyzing other Sparks' inventions, determining how they work, and then implementing that tech across his empire. Sparks make inventions, Wulfenbach takes said inventions and turns them into technology.
- One of the novelisations says that non-sparks have trouble working with and duplicating spark tech (either it drives them mad, or doesn't work at all), and few-to-no sparks want to be production-line engineers. So there may well be incredibly delicate prototypes in circulation, but no-one to set up commercial production. Imagine trying to build a modern computer while having to make every single diode by hand. It's worsened, too, because there's only erratic cooperation between sparks. The existence of universities suggests there's some flow of information, but the world often feels like the plural of spark is war
- ...there was but one spark and no humans (though other forms of life could have), the humans are the first spark's constructs (hence why the sparks are naturally charismatic) and the sparks are his descendants (its hinted that the spark tends to be inherited). It poses, however, the question about the origin of the first spark?
- Instead of building impossible things, Warriors channel their power through their bodies to accomplish impossible feats of physicality.
- It would explain why some Sparks (such as Othar, Gil, and the Heterodyne Boys) are so powerful in personal combat: They're redirecting a portion of their Spark into physical boosts.
- It explains why Zeetha has not manifested any conventional Spark abilities despite being the daughter of at least one (and maybe two) powerful Sparks.
- This also explains why the kulee-dok-zumil training is usually passed down from parent to child. Since the Spark is inherited, most Warriors will be the children of other Warriors.
- The Het'rok'din was described as a mighty warrior, much more so than a mad inventor.
- We've now learned that the God-Queens were once normal Sparks who had a second breakthrough, effectively making them to Sparks what a Spark is to a normal human being. This is foreshadowing that Agatha herself will experience a second breakthrough and become the first new God-Queen in ages.
- This way he'll be able to boss other minions around, and particularly - to order three his love interests stop trying to murder each other and form his harem instead. This will happen after Agatha accepts OTT with Gil and Tarvek.
As to the physical facts, he has about the same build as the Bill in the sepia flashback. He and Barry invented Agatha's locket, so it isn't out of the realm of possibility that they could make a stronger version that would supress his Spark. In this theory, he returned at the same time Barry did, and joined up with the Wulfenbach army as a way of quietly taking a look around. Now that he's encountered Agatha, he's trying to protect her without revealing his identity. Presumably, age has changed his face slightly (Possibly with the help of SCIENCE! Plastic Surgery). Combine that with a different hairstyle, attitude, and clothes, and if he stays in the background nobody will pay close attention to him.
- Hmm, I'd be more inclined to believe that the unstoppable Airman Higgs is Klaus Barry Heterodyne, who is not as dead and buried as people think. This also explains why he does not look exactly like Bill AND why he has the same color hair as Agatha.
- If the above "this is happening nowish" WMG is true, that makes Higgs/KBH a 30something (30 exactly in 2002) which seems about right.
- Oooh, I like that idea. What if some test revealed that young Klaus had all the heroic traits of his father, but lacked the spark (he seems a skilled engineer, but the closest we've come to seeing him build something sparky is rigging an autopilot). Since the castle may have been set to kill a non-spark hetrodyne, Bill faked his son's death and sent him away to be trained as a hero.
- Unlikely, given the information provided in-universe. Klaus disappeared for only about 4 years, and KBH was born halfway through his disappearance. Klaus has also being back for less than 20 years. So KBH would be about Gil's age, not in his 30's like Higgs. Of course, time travel, a series of tragic (yet hilarious) accidents, or some period of rapid aging could account for the difference.
- I suspect that he did in fact die, but was revived by Jagerdraught, which brought him back with Jager-like strength and speed (and accent, once his control slips) but burnt away his spark. He has been hanging about Klaus because its the safest place in Europe to be.
- If the above "this is happening nowish" WMG is true, that makes Higgs/KBH a 30something (30 exactly in 2002) which seems about right.
- Jossed.
- Jossed.
- A related theory, Higgs is a construct made by Barry to protect Klaus and potentially Agatha, and to keep an eye out for the Other.
- Given that this strip suggests he's far older than he looks, this sounds the most likely of the current theories.
- Except that Punch and Judy describe themselves as "juvenilia" and say they weren't originally well-made, while Higgs would have to be a superiorly-crafted construct not to have been found out as one by now. If he were their predecessor and still made by Bill and Barry, he'd be even cruder.
- Jossed. He predates Punch and Judy by about 700 years.
- Jossed. Again, he's too old.
- Jossed. Espionage, yes; construct, no.
- Now that Higgs has started talking like a Jaeger, this seems more likely.
- At first, This Troper just assumed he was Central European (you know, serving the Baron Wulfenbach?), but given what he says in this comic, I'm gonna have to go with I Knew It! (Well, not 'knew it' in the sense of having the slightest idea, but I knew there was something I didn't know.)
- He no longer has the accent, but he seems to have retained some of the speech patterns.
- Or he rode with the Jägers back in the day, like Old Man Death.
- Or Higgs is a normal human in the process of going through the Jäger transformation process. He was normal on the airship, got really banged up during the rescue, was taken to Mama Gkika's to be patched up, and was in such bad shape that even the Jäger battledraught wasn't enough, and they had to give him the Jägerbrau to save him. It's implied from the scene with Gil at Mama's that anger causes problems for those who have drunk Jäger potions, and Higgs, who is normally unflappable, does finally lose his cool when Zeetha is stabbed.
- Or Higgs is a fifth Jager General, explaining why he's highly intelligent, human-looking and able to speak without the overdone German accent.
- Now that it's been revealed that there are actually seven Jägergenerals and one is in hiding and that some Jägers can change the colour of their skin, this is becoming more and more likely.
- Or Higgs is Vlad (the Blasphemous) Heterodyne, who first brewed (and tasted) the Jaegerdraught.
- Last panel. "He's a smart guy." Pretty schmott guy, anyone? Also, nice hat.
- He also put Gil's special hat on to convince that crowd.
- If he were Vlad the Blasphemous, he would have had a spark incident by now, directly helped to rebuild the Castle, and would have acted like one of the Old Heterodynes. He's not Vlad.
- I do Hereby note that Higgs ALWAYS has that hat on. We have NEVER seen it off him, even when he gets stabbed, kicked, punched, beat on, etc. by Zola... the hat stays on. When he is at Mama's, bandaged up, covered in hurts, smoking his pipe with his shirt off... the hat is still on his head. The man has some connection to the Jaeger... Maybe he was an attempt to make a Jaeger that had a higher success rate? Instead of the process by which less than 30% survive, they wanted something with a higher success rate so that they could have more Jaegers (they being older Heterodynes) and Higgs was the result?
- Actually, there has been one exception to his always having his hat on, and it carries on over the next several pages.
- It's not just that he's Made of Iron. In the comics pages from 01/28 and 1/31/2011, he refers to Tarvek as a "smart guy" (standard Jaegerspeak for Sparks) and seems overly concerned (given the situation) about being seen as a deserter.
- And Tarvek notes "Oh, yes. So you did [get permission]. From the Lady Heterodyne, too, I noticed." And we know how Jägers feel about Heterodynes.
- Confirmed
- I don't know, people who are really really annoyed tend to look a lot different, though your idea has merit.
- This seems to make some sense, but my theory is that he's one of the originals, but not "the" original. The castle knows him and chats with him, but doesn't mention it after he beats the living tar out of it. Although my other theories are even more far-fetched... I like your thinking.
- Jossed.
- And they've got the same hairflippy thing, like how Zeetha has the same ruffle in her hair that Klaus and Gil do.
- However Higgs also mentions an old Heterodyne performing a similar experiment to Agatha's, suggesting a long lifespan. Of course that could just mean he's an ancestor. Or that time travel was involved which would explain a lot about everyone.
- Jossed. Unless her father and/or mother are 700 years old, there's no way Higgs is directly related to Agatha.
- Jossed.
- Okay, I take it back about Higgs inventing the Jagerdraught. That was apparently Vlad the Blasphemous http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091102 and he looks nothing like Higgs. Still, the theory stands, though it needs an alternative explanation.
- This overlaps with the theory of Higgs being a Jaeger, the most glaring evidence being his little accent slip back when.
- He's also endured massive amounts of damage without flinching multiple times, done things no human character would be capable of, and he's rarely seen without his famous nice hat. Mamma Gkika has also more or less subtly confirmed this theory by mentioning that Higgs has a lot of secrets that he'll only reveal when he's ready to, which is very similar to the Jager Generals' lines about the mystery General.
- Confirmed
- Now explicitly confirmed to be the Jäger Spymaster General
- Jossed. Unless Carson von Mekkham is centuries old, not likely.
- Jossed.
- Jossed. He's old enough to be a general.
We Have Never Seen Tarvek Go Into The Madness Place.
He also takes "No" for an answer rather well. Consider a ruler, a king, a bright and powerful spark, a madboy self absorbed and filled with a natural greed. It's only Klaus's intelligence and will power that keeps Europa in line, that keeps himself in check. Other sparks end up killing themselves as they try to order their giant human eating mutants around.
Imagine a king with all that brilliance, but none of those tenancies. Isn't that the kind of Spark that could bring peace to Europa? And if those madness controlling genes got into the bloodlines of the worst of the worst sparks, like say the Hetrodynes...
- Jan 17 2011: Tarvek seems to be going into the mad place. seems like he's just got a lot of control over his emotions like Baron Wulfenbach does.
- He actually is in the Madness Place when he is introduced.
- No to the "never in the Madness Place" bit. He has been in the Madness Place before.
BUT, you ARE correct on him willing to take "no" for an answer and about some of his other more reserved tendencies.
Also, it's worth noting that for all of those times he IS in the Madness Place, he's never seen doing anything too unreasonable. Even Agatha and Gil have been short-sighted when in the Madness Place at times. Meanwhile, "Mad" Tarvek is basically just super-focused rather than actually insane. So you may have a point there about his Spark being under better control.
- Unlikely, people want to go there, they just can't get there. It's implied that the expeditions all die or disappear.
- Mutants get 'em.
- I agree with the 'missing expedition' part, but I'm pretty sure that America is GROSSLY unlike anything in our timeline. As in, no colonization. Ever. Why? Native American Sparks, natch! There is probably some limited degree of communication, but check this out and think of two things. One, why would the girl in the bottom right be the stereotype people have of the Americas unless the Natives were still running the place? Two, why would they have ANY American stereotype unless there were some communication back and forth to provide a frame of reference?
- It could be the stereotype of just the natives and they have a different stereotype of the colonists.
- She's also saying "Hoka hey". That's a Lakota Sioux phrase, inferring they have at least gotten far enough westward to encounter the Plains tribes.
- It's only a small point, but one of the groups that Tiktoffen mentions as working with is "The Sons of Franklin", hinting that there are still some non-Stone-Aged people of European extraction in the Americas.
- Despite "Franklin" being a rather common name, I'm prone to agree that Benjamin Franklin was probably the intended reference. That said, there's no reason to think Ben Franklin's GGU equivalent can only exist if the Americas were colonized by Europe. Perhaps England also produced an Aberdeen Lincoln who led Cornwall in a war that freed a population of enslaved sentient clanks.
- Mutants get 'em.
- It seems by this comic that the Atlantic ocean is sealed off by some kind of storm based construct/guardian. Early America, despite being expansionist, was also isolationist in regards to European wars. It's possible that the Sons of Franklin set in place some kind of defense mechanism to prevent foreign interference. If the time period is after the 1860s, it may even have been put in place to prevent England from joining in the American Civil War assuming that a similar event did occur in this reality. That, or America wanted to protect itself from The Other. However, at least one Heterdyne Boys story seems to take place before The Other became active which could also put the great barrier as being put in place before the Civil War era (Bill's son was probably born in 1872 and the Civil war started in '61, so this is iffy). Regardless, it would therefore stand to reason that either the Americans can't reverse the effect or don't want to.
- Well, if you're trying to gain independance from a God Queen, having to resort to that level of deterrent makes a lot of sense.
- Datapoint: The third print-novel strongly implies that she was one of the children that Mittelmind kept in a containment tank, leading to the likely possibility that yes, she's a lifelong experimental subject of some sort on his part.
- Unlikely, since Gilgamesh uses the example of the Heterodyne stories to refute his claims. Even if Trelawney Thorpe did exist and was a hero that's no guarantee the stories are actually factual.
- It's now confirmed that Trelawney Thorpe is real, and Wooster knows her exploits really happened because he knows her as a coworker. No word yet on if they're related, but it's probably unlikely.
- Pretty much Jossed, as it's been made clear that he's romantically attracted to her, and the Foglios are vanishingly unlikely to get squicky with relatives having sex.
- Dubious, considering that Bang tells Zeetha Gil is "too much like my brother".
- Confirmed!◊ And judging by what Sleipnir said, they don't seem to be worried about that engagement.
- Would make more sense if the Heterodyne Boys stated they where going after Klaus, rather than an utterly unknown "The Other".
- Unless they believed they could turn him back to their side, and wanted to protect him from the distrust and suspicion he would suffer from the world at large if the truth were known.
- What would make Barry not trust Klaus? The possibility that he is a revenant certainly would. Now he's a revenant.
- Maybe it's because they're going after "The Other" Klaus? The one that's clearly older and insaner and couldn't possibly be their missing friend.
The very first page of Othar's adventures talks about both transdimentional harmonics AND time travel. What if the incredible effectiveness of Bill and Barry Heterodyne in battling evil came from access to these things? This would be another familiar device (see Blish's The Quincunx of Time, for instance). And it would agree, in a way, with the Dragon from Mars story.
What secrets still lie in the Heterodyne library?
- Keep in mind, though, that the lab and assistants were wiped out by the Geisterdamen traitors. Compare Von Mekkhan's account with Vrin's, you'll see.
- This all ties into why some consider Klaus to be a Consummate Liar: Apparently Barry told Dr. Beetle and Punch and Judy that Klaus wasn't to be trusted, possibly due to some sort of betrayal - such as attacking the castle. Judy, when finally meeting Klaus again, cryptically tells him "Barry came back." and when Klaus is confused and demands answers she accuses him of playing to the crowd. Since Klaus never gives any signs he understands what she's talking about or hints that he has some hidden, sinister motives: either Barry was mistaken for some reason, Klaus is a consummate liar, or that version of him hadn't attacked the castle yet... or they never realized that Lucrezia had gone off the deep end and is lying about Klaus - whatever, the point is that the destruction of Castle Heterodyne is a Driving Question.
- Not necessarily the pairing in itself, but probably the breeding aspect- "I let you live" implies it wouldn't have bothered anyone if Gil hadn't come along. Which raises questions about his mother's part in this....
- Actually the line was "I kept you alive" which has a different connotation all together.
- I agree, remember the rules about being forbidden to teach anyone but your daughters the Skif fighting arts? I bet the baron was taught by his wife and he taught his son, which was against the rules but certainly DID keep him alive.
- Keep in mind that Zeetha specifically tells Agatha on this page "I am allowed to train one other besides my own daughters". Perhaps the Skifander culture is one of warrior-woman, which demands that sons born of their women are killed at birth (and, by extension, only the greatest warriors from the lands around are permitted to mate with them).
- It seems more likely that the Skifandran culture is an expy to the Greek Amazonian legends. They have men, but their men aren't warriors.
- When Gil wakes up with Zeetha looking over him, he tells her that his father said that someone looking like her might be trying to kill him. When she reacts with extreme interest, he tries to escape. What's interesting is that later, when he gets dressed in the Jagergeneral's clothes Zeetha says Ashtara above, it's PERFECT! WEAR IT! WEAR IT! and Gil's reaction is So it's true. You HAVE been sent to kill me. Now this might just be an over-the-top reaction to humiliation. But then again, it might not be. Zeetha gave away her cultural background with "Ashtara" and Gil's extensive library probably has at least one story involving Skifander or a similar, fictitious place.
There's another small point in that last example. Most of the time when we get a closeup of Zeetha, she's expressing something with her eyes: anger, surprise, curiosity. Here the word that seems to fit is mischief, which has the eyes narrowed rather than opened. It's hard to tell, but it looks like her eyes are drawn with the epicanthic fold typical of people from central and east Asia. Compare to Dr. Sun, here.- (I figured Skifander was somewhere around the Middle East, since "Ashtara" sounds so similar to Astart/Ashtoreth/Asherah, a Caananite goddess of fertility.)
- Considering Gil is named after a Sumerian legend, it seems to support the theory.
- Note also that Zeetha goes a long time in her leather underwear but soon after she and Gil guess that they are related, she robs the striped tunic (?) from Zola's pipe-hatted minion. We are distracted by the humor of I can get the clothes off of anyone quickly and by Gil's blushing when she offers to show him her goosebumps. But given the hardiness to which she is training Agatha, it doesn't seem likely goosebumps would be a big concern for her. Parading around in just-barely-modest leather underwear before a long-lost (half?) sibling is something else.
- I don't see the conflict. In context it would mean that the Skif folks wanted to kill him and Klaus stole him away or hid him. He might think Zeetha was sent to track down the half-breed and finish the job. It would certainly explain Gil's fighting ability.
- Klaus mentions once (during the almost-torture scene with Othar) that he hasn't seen his wife in years, so that suggests his Skifander wife is still alive and maybe even that Klaus occasionally slips out to visit her.
- Actually, Gil's fighting ability comes more from having the best possible teachers all his life, and maybe a little Jägerish augmentation on the side.
- Okay, for the nuance of "I kept you alive," perhaps it's something similar to Zulenna's dilemma? I don't mean that the Baron got Gil "zapped back," but perhaps there's some rule about "if a person is so far gone, just let him die" or "if the infant or toddler didn't pass these tests for suitable warriorly hardiness, let him die." So Klaus could have "unnaturally" prolonged Gil's early life (and not "pulled the plug" so to speak) or rescued him from the people who were going to leave him on some mountaintop to die.
- That's not bad, and works in with a possible infanticide reason. It has also been put forth that he misunderstood a ritual or comment as threatening infanticide of some sort, and fled for that reason.
- Actually the line was "I kept you alive" which has a different connotation all together.
- Zeetha is Gil's half-sister!
- Now they have met, you think that she may have mentioned it. After all she would have been told at some point (probably).
- Maybe her memory isn't 100% after her bout of illness.
- Or, more likely, she was just a baby herself when he was born and she simply doesn't know.
- Agreed, in general. This seems likely, and I'd find it a fun twist (as if my opinion counts).
- A point in favor: when Klaus first sees Zeetha, his response is "YOU!", as though he recognized her. Was Klaus mistaking Zeetha for his wife?
In which case, there might be a different reason, in theory, for her to kill Gil. It might be a question of succession to a position of power. (This trope was already used with Zulena, so we know it is valid in the GG universe.)
- Now they have met, you think that she may have mentioned it. After all she would have been told at some point (probably).
- After rereading this comic, I think I might have come up with a way the Baron and Gil's mother could have met. Two Words: Holy Days.
- Klaus was in Skifander for at least three and a half years before the attack on Castle Heterodyne. Plenty of time to father two kids.
- I'm betting they're twins. In the recent AMA on Reddit The Foglios said that the Skinfandir "don't like twins". Taken with the Baron's claim that he "let Gil live" this could suggest that one twin of the twins is killed, and Gil was going to be that twin. From here it's conjecture, but it would make sense that since Klaus is an important and powerful Spark, his Skinfandir wife would probably be important in their society. Like, say a queen like Zeetha's mother, maybe?
- Zeetha's father is named Chump.
- Given that the warrior tradition of Skifander seems to travel in the female line, and that Chump was a great warrior, I suspect that Chump was Zeetha's mother.
- In a vote incentive picture, she specifically uses the pronoun "he," as she insists that "he" is a great warrior.
- Or else Chump was a false name or a mistake in translation. Klaus probably wouldn't have purposely used that as an alias, but it's possible that someone called him a chump, and the Skifandrians only assumed it was his name. (This is the kind of thing that would happen in a Heterodyne story, where Klaus would be the bumbling comic relief.)
- It is entirely possible Klaus was not entirely stable when he encountered Zeetha's people and possibly in his mental state referred to himself as "A chump", and there was confusion on the matter—Lucrezia certainly had just played him for one and he was probably not feeling like the world's smartest person at the time.
- It's the best explanation for Klaus' behavior towards her.
- He's clearly incredibly affected to see her, and knows her on sight.
- In Sturmhalten, Klaus has just killed Lars, tried to kill Lucrezia/Agatha, and ordered his men to kill everyone in their party. And yet, when Zeetha tries to kill him, he doesn't kill her. He holds a knife to her throat and demands she stop fighting - why on earth would he make that exception for her? Then later we find out he thinks there's a very good chance she's here to kill his son - but Klaus still wouldn't kill her? He's certainly killed for less. He'd need a hugely important reason not to kill her - like the fact that she's his daughter.
- It also explains why he doesn't tell Gil why she wants to kill him before he runs off to blow up in a time bomb. Almost any other information would be helpful to Gil - except the knowledge that she's his sister. If she really tries to kill him, that knowledge could make him hesitate at a crucial moment, or make him live with the fact that he killed his sister.
- This Picture is an effective confirmation of this theory. She IS his daughter...
- This leads me to another idea. What if their mothers were different? and that's why Gil had to die... he wasn't born of Chump's (read Klaus's) original mate?
- The print-novels fill in the timeline a bit more; Zeetha says that Chump "ran off" when she was only a month old, which would make the "saving Gil the doomed twin" theory more likely.
- In addition, both Zeetha and Klaus know how to condition themselves to function without sleep for a few days.
- The way she puts emphasis on the sentence "Hardly ever taught to outsiders," and just the look on her face in the following panel...I think she's figured it out. She seems to be delaying Gil's revelation just so she can learn more about him.
- Gil's probably on the verge, too. He was about to ask who had taught the Skifandrian technique to his father before Zeetha cut him off.
- She is so stringing him out.
- The way she puts emphasis on the sentence "Hardly ever taught to outsiders," and just the look on her face in the following panel...I think she's figured it out. She seems to be delaying Gil's revelation just so she can learn more about him.
- If bookplates drawn at fan requests count, then Word of God is Chump is Klaus and therefore Zeetha's at least Gil's half-sister.
- I would love this theory, except for one little hitch: Tarvek's analysis if Gil's heritage here. I highly doubt Tarvek was lying, since a few pages before he asked "He's Gilgamesh Wulfenbach, isn't he?" —anyone have an explanation for this?
- Misdirection. Layers within layers. Search and find a reasonable reason for the secrecy, you stop searching. He DID find that information... but it'd been planted.
- It isn't totally impossible that Gil could have been adopted but what we've seen so far (and the fact that Klaus warns Gil about Zeetha) suggests otherwise.
- In the next page, Tarvek concludes with " Arrgh! It's so obvious now! He's the Baron's son! Of course that's what he was hiding!", so the adoption is not the case and Gil is really the son of Klaus.
- The Baron is seen with infant Gil on his back when he returned from Skifander. Meaning that A: Gil is the Baron's biological son, and B: He was born in Skifander.
- Misdirection. Layers within layers. Search and find a reasonable reason for the secrecy, you stop searching. He DID find that information... but it'd been planted.
- It's entirely possible that Gil and Zeetha are FULL siblings. Gil doesn't want to take on his father's title right away. But apparently he has another title: your highness. Zeetha is a princess. Her mother is a queen. If Zeetha's mother is also Gil's mother, then Gil is a prince. Why else call him "your highness"?
- Thus, when the Queen had fraternal twins (which the Skifandrians don't like), one of them had to be killed, and for the good of the succession, it had to be the male one (Gil), so Klaus took Gill and left Zeetha.
- Alternatively, he's her half-brother. We don't know who Gil's mother was, but we do know that Lucrezia was having an affair with Baron Wulfenbach...
- Word of God says Nooooo!!!
- Absolutely NO Leia/Luke. Aside from which, the male heir was Agatha's older brother, killed as a toddler, Klaus Barry. C'mon, the Foglios are both twistier than that, and subverting most of the tropes anyway.
- In any case for this to work he would to have had the affair with Lucrezia whilst Lucrezia was in her full blown "The Other" phase. Klaus clearly has no idea the two are related at the start of the comic.
- He had a glimmer.
- He had far more than a glimmer. He says that he had been "forced to conclude that it was her."
- Word of God says Nooooo!!!
- Jägers can tell a Heterodyne by his/her smell, so very hard according to Krosp.
- Yeah, that's less WMG and more Really Blatant Obviousness.
- Likely wrong. Word of God is that they lived near the Mongfish summer house, and the family were always puzzled by the worship. If Lucrezia created them, they wouldn't have been puzzled.
- Time travel. Meaning: they were created by Lucrezia after she learned time travel and turned into Other, and then tagged around Mongfish family on her orders to assist the young Lucrezia.
- Likely wrong. Word of God is that they lived near the Mongfish summer house, and the family were always puzzled by the worship. If Lucrezia created them, they wouldn't have been puzzled.
- The wasp sniffing ferret thingie identified Vrin as a revenant. If they were constructs, she would have no need to waste her slavers on them.
- Easy enough to explain away. She was around hive engines, so she might still smell like one, or the Geisterdamen and the wasps are made of the same 'stuff'
- It's unclear what exactly the wasp-eaters can sniff, but Geisters are clearly subject to her command voice. It may be that the wasps are are derived from the technology used to ensure their loyalty to begin with, and there's enough biochemical overlap for ferrets to smell it.
- No, not Really Blatant Obviousness. The sheer number of Geisterdamen is a huge amount to create in one lifetime - even factoring in the Alternate Dimension WMG below. We've seen what a race of constructs looks like - the Jagers - and no two of them are identical, being made as they are from individual humans. Finally, we have an example of what a Lucrezia Mongfish-style construct looks like - Von Pinn. Certainly less attractive and less well-hinged than your standard Geisterdame.
- Not to mention Vrin says something about being "trapped in this shadow world" since Lucrezia disappeared. She and her father were experimenting with time travel, so who's not to say they haven't been to Alternate Dimensions as well?
- You don't know they were experimenting with time travel. They're more bio-Sparks than hardware.
- Her father is said to experiment with "blasphemous energies". Also, Lucrezia's time-travelling is canon.
- Time travel would allow Lucrezia to create a whole artificial race, starting with several good specimen. Or maybe an entire ecosystem, since there's many thousands of years to this history.
- Not to mention Vrin says something about being "trapped in this shadow world" since Lucrezia disappeared. She and her father were experimenting with time travel, so who's not to say they haven't been to Alternate Dimensions as well?
- This makes more sense if the "The Other was dowloaded into Lucrezia" theory is true as it give much more time. Also they may have the appropriate bit of the reverent in them to make them loyal, thus setting off the weasels.
- I always figured that they were made from the all the female sparks that went missing as young girls. Can't remember the page, but Lillith says this is one of the reasons they suppressed Agatha's spark when she was a kid. All those girls had to go somewhere.
- But they're all infected by slaver wasps. No spark can be infected by your basic slaver wasp.
- They stole female sparks to stuff them into the engine.
- Perhaps they're meant to be her equivalent of the Jagers... which may mean they're altered humans.
- In other words, Girl Genius is our world.
- The story will end with a message from Phil and Kaja, telling everyone who's ever performed impossible feats of science to do better this time. They will then clamber through a time window to return to the end of the First Age of Sparks.
- But there were apparently Heterodynes and their Jaegerkin around at the time of the Storm King (in the opera synopsis), which I believe was mentioned as being in the 13th century. I have always just assumed that the story was actually set in the Germanosphere. Mechanicsburg is in Germany. Passholdt and Sturmhalten are in the Austrian alps. Beetleburg is in Germanophone Transylvania (look up Transylvanian Saxons). German crops up elsewhere because Germany is still the most populous counntry in Europe today, so imagine how important it is culturally in a world where America is apparently almost unsettled by Europe, Britain is shut out of continental affairs, and presumably Germans were never ethnicly cleansed from east of the Oder. If you assume Agatha left Castle Wulfenbach somewhere over Hungary, references to the Danube, the Carpathians, and Bucharest all seem to fit in. As to language, I think almost everything, spoken or written, is actually in German but comes under a Translation Convention. Look closely, and German appears on unimportant notices. Things like "Jaegerkin" are for effect, and their accent is meant to have on the reader the effect their dialect has on the characters: make them hard to understand and not very sophisticated-sounding.
- What are you talking about, Mechanicsburg is in Germany?? Look at the Map, it's in Wallachia if it's anywhere. Passholdt and Sturmhalten are probably southern Carpathian passes. You're too far west.
- The opera synopsis does not mention the 13th century. And it's very unlikely that date is accurate, because the Storm King was 200 years prior to the events of the comic (Van Rijn, who lived around 200 years before "now," built the Muses for the Storm King), and the comic takes place at least long enough ago for "1677" to be ancient history.
- Actually, the Storm King is 200 years prior to the Synoposis, which may not be contemporary with the main story at all. In fact, it's quite unlikely, since the character presenting the synopsis is also one of the history professors (Kaja Foglio) who is presenting the story of Agathe Heterodyne to us. All of which means the opera could be an allegory about Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek set in the era of the storm king, much as Shakespeare used historical settings for his contemporary allegories (Hamlet, Macbeth, and Julius Ceasar being the most notable).
- Of course, it could also mean the Foglios like to play silly games with the timeline, shmott guy.
- I'm saying from in-canon comments and one rash assumption based on a gravestone that the Storm King, being he's also a parallel of the Sun King's, is late Ren - 1600s. Add in Van Rijn, and 1300 is way too early.
- All that said, you're right about one thing: the Translation Convention. According to Word of God, which I'm not going to track down, yes; the language is something Germanic, translated for our sympathies. Given that America is apparently "sealed off" somehow, I suspect that
EuropeEuropa simply turned inward.- As to the lingua europa, agreed - Word of God that it's German, but it probably has a tonne of Roumanian loanwords, considering the effect the Heterodynes had on their western neighbours for centuries. Check the GG Wikia for the actual reference, it's easier to find there.
- Whoops, that 13th century thing was me becoming muddled about the Storm King and the building of the castle. Anyway, 1677 doesn't have to be ancient ancient. All the Heterodynes up to Bill and Barry (who is far from dying of old age) were mad, bad, dead, and presumably buried in the family crypt. Also: in a sketch, Klaus fills in his journal for 1882, is I could only find it. In any case, 1677 actually Josses the original point: sparks well before WW1. And it's an unnecesary point, too. German really was the influential as a business language in much of Europe, once, but assuming German would suddenly overspread Europe because of a German military victory in France is a bit far-fetched.
- No... Germany overspread all of Europe because Klaus conquered it. In a matter of years. Alone. While carrying a lollipop-eating baby on his back. Uphill, both ways, through the snow, in a burlap sack, curing cancer on the way. Because he's Klaus.
- Nonono, Transylvania overspread all of eastern Europa. The empire stops roughly at the Rhone/Saone valley.
- The sketches are Word of God uncanonical. We are not allowed to snatch at crumbs that might interfere with The Funny. :grin:
- The second novel talks about languages. As I recall, Romanian is the official language of the Empire (although Klaus is either a native German speaker or of German descent - there was a substantial ethnic German population in W. Romania). German is widespread as a second language, especially in trade and banking, and in the sciences; also, as mentioned above, it was more widely spoken before the Soviet era. Latin and Greek are scholarly, Arabic's used for some academic correspondance, French for formal diplomacy, English for international trade. I think we're told Agatha also has Russian. Almost any kind of well-educated person will be polyglot.
- How would she know she was carrying a girl? Steam-powered ultrasound machine?
- Mad science!
- If alchemy can un-rot a corpse, Mad Science can create a conveniently portable womb for either a test tube baby or a premature delivery (deliberately, at a time the gender was calculated to be differentiated). I need to stop before this line of thinking gains Squick.
- The Mongfish family can apparently manipulate biology well enough to ensure the creation of a proper heir for the Storm King, and if they can ensure that the next Storm King is male, they can certainly ensure that the next Heterodyne is female. For that matter, if they can eliminate alcolism, unintelligence, and lycanthropy, what other genetic legacies might Lucrezia have given Agatha in the
wombtest tube? - The Geisterdamen trashed Lucrezia's lab - compare Von Mekkhan's account to Vrin's. Who attacked the rest of the castle is another question.
- Bzuh? The last substantial insurrection was 'dot Magnetic Prince guy' three years before the story-as-current. The empire has more than enough resources to handle the 'vassal' states if they get frisky, but they're hardly micromananged. And what Russian people?
- The clothing and hair are NOT early 19th century. They're a kind of wishy-washy ahistorical typical steampunk kind of late Victorian. The only thing remotely close to the early 19th century is Anevka's high-waisted festival dress, and that's a costume.
- I'd say the historical parallels are with the Austro-Hungarians in terms of general area and willingness to be ruled, and maybe a bit of Bismark for style. But it's not a close analogy to either by any means, not least because the Long War equivalent never really happened (mercifully).
- Uh, guys? I think you'd better take another look at the astrolabe in this frescoe.
- Zeetha didn't have the headband when she was captured by pirates. She picked it up in Europa.
- But she had the headband in Skifander. It's possible that the pirates stole it and she picked it back up before she left, or that she had it somewhere else on her person when she was kidnapped.
- From that image, it's likely her possessions were taken from, and later found by, Zeetha, since her (very large and unique) swords were also not present when she was captured, yet she has them as she ransacks the pirate base.
- Well, assuming it's not just a little fun with the visuals and the headband is actually doing that, it's still quite possible that the headband does do other stuff that Zeetha forgot about, making it a sort of concealed-carry Chekhov's Gun. This is minor enough that I wouldn't even bother adding this, but I really wanted to use the phrase "concealed-carry Chekhov's Gun."
- The Queen of Skifander's hat is also tricked out with what looks like fans... Very sparky.
- We know she's a powerful Spark because we've been told she's a powerful Spark. She has a card in The Works.
- That is, it shows the wearer's mood? Indicating where it's the good time to start running if the wearer happens to be a well-trained warrior? Hmm...
- It doesn't just seem to match the wearer's mood, it looks like it is almost completely replicating Zeetha's facial expression, albeit in a simpler form.
- I don't really follow. You present all the best arguments for 1872 (you left out the sketch showing Klaus with his 1882 journal)... and then an argument for 1972 that I can't make head or tail of. I don't see how shifting that death of Klaus-Barry a century down the line adds in a century between it and the Wulfenbach restoration of order.
- Sketches don't count.
- I think our friend made a typo. 8 and 9 are right next to each other on the keyboard.
- I don't really follow. You present all the best arguments for 1872 (you left out the sketch showing Klaus with his 1882 journal)... and then an argument for 1972 that I can't make head or tail of. I don't see how shifting that death of Klaus-Barry a century down the line adds in a century between it and the Wulfenbach restoration of order.
- I think it's late twentieth century too, but for completely different (and, I hope, slightly more sensible—or at least, better expressed) reasons. The Queen of England (presumably Victoria) is referred to as "The Undying Queen". Now, in my book, you don't get to be called "The Undying" until you're much older than it's possible for a human to be. In our continuum, Vicky died in 1901, and, given that we didn't have life-extension technologies back then, she presumably wasn't older than a human could possibly be. So, whatever the date, it's got to be long after 1901. Beyond that, I think the technology suggests a near-contemporary setting. Some of it is older than what we have today, and some of it is advanced far beyond our present capabilities. Now, in a world where mad scientists rule, they're going to horde that technology, and the technology available to your average peasant- or minion-in-the-street is going to be rather behind what we have today. So, to me, the gaslamp technology available to the "normals" suggests late twentieth century.
- History has been mucked up enough that we have no reason to believe that the British royal family went the same way as ours did, and to my knowledge the Undying Queen has not been named in-comic. She's probably an ahistorical monarch. Or maybe the Undying Queen Elizabeth.
- No, she has been named. It's Albia.
- Queen Elizabeth, Queen Mary and Queen Victoria have all been referred to as "Albia" in the more overblown propaganda about them. So it could be any one of them, or even someone like Empress Maude!
- History has been mucked up enough that we have no reason to believe that the British royal family went the same way as ours did, and to my knowledge the Undying Queen has not been named in-comic. She's probably an ahistorical monarch. Or maybe the Undying Queen Elizabeth.
- Why are people so obsessed with making the timeline have similarities to our history? The experiences that shaped this world are so radically different from ours - the Storm King, the Heterodynes, Europa torn apart by generations of wars between Sparks, the Other, an ineffectual Church split seven ways - that any correspondence rationally ought to be no more than a curiosity.
- What evidence is there to really support the timeline being 1872? First and siliest of all, Klaus Barry Heterodyne was born in '72 the current year should be at the least '92 and '95 at the latest in order for the cast to be early-twenties. Sparks and their Clanks and Constructs have been around for a very long time, but important events that should have happened by 1892 clearly haven't, England isn't ruling the British Empire, its just a minor kingdom, Europa lacks any of the recognisable nation-states, governance seems to be various city-states spread across wide barren areas that are united by the Pax-Transylvania enforced by the Baron. America is a barely known landmass, so that means any of expeditions either haven't left, haven't returned or their news was overshadowed by something more important. Haiti gets a mention so we know that some Spark settled there and that a Spark who was Native to America toured Europe with the Heterodyne Boys and had a pair of Six-shooters. Africa seems to be quite unknown.
- The entirety of the story has so far been set in Europe (apart from a third-party related flashback set in Skifander, but that could be anywhere). The British Empire was not in Europe, and its' influence in Europe was minimal. The British Empire had colonies in Africa, Asia, India, the Pacific and the Americas, and barely bothered with European affairs, unless it looked like one power was going to get too strong compared to the others around it, or threaten an access route to parts of the Empire. In such cases, the solution would either be throwing vast amounts of money at the problem (which it could afford due to the fact that it was, y'know, an Empire, or to send in the Navy (as the senior service and most effective naval combat force in the world for over 300 years) or the Army if there wasn't any handy coastline. The British Army was fairly large, but most troops were needed for garrison duties, so any involvement in Europe would usually be in concert with an Ally (with France and Turkey vs Russia in the Crimea; with Portugal and Spain, then Belgium, Netherlands and Germany vs France in the Napoleonic era), and the number of troops sent would be comparatively small. However, they were the best trained at rapid firing, so much so that in World War I, German officers thought they were facing massed machine guns when they only up against a rifle regiment. In the last two panels of this comic, Wooster's actions and words are in accordance with the general modus operandi of the British Empire, and Boris' reaction makes it clear that "Her Majesty will take an interest" is a credible threat. In other words, it is totally unsurprising and expected that we have not seen anything of the British Empire, America, Africa, or anywhere else.
- Another interesting point is that the Sparks aren't a case of Reed Richards Is Useless, so maybe what we're seeing here is 19th Century schizo-tech in the closing days of 14th Century Central Europe, which puts the year at 1392 if we assume the Seven Popes are the Avignon Papacy, the Antipopes, and the Rome, as the numbers fit and the dates match if we assume "How To Communicate In The Work Place" is published between 1352 which is roughly when Klaus started adventuring. If we assume it was something he published in the year 1352, then it is not implausible he was able to get at least 4 of the Avignon Popes and 1 of the Avignon based Antipopes to ban it, making 5 Popes. If the present year is 1394 then it is likely that Benedict XIII was able to issue a papal decree against the book, bumping the number to 6 Popes. The one remaining Pope is likely Urban VI, if we're going to assume a loose interpretation of the Pope that gets us 7 Holy See's that disapprove of the Baron's book. However the whole argument I just laid out above is probably meaningless due to the fact that odds of them explicitly choosing this obscure time-period for an off-hand joke are far less then them throwing in a random number of Popes as a way to shake up the alternate history and make us think that this version of Europe that the authors are creating is even more screwed up then we thought. Other points of interest: No Holy Land and no mention of conflicts between the Eastern European states and Asia Minor which is interesting if we're led to believe that Transylvania is the centre of Wulfenbach Europa.
- Stockholm is mentioned though, and seems to be a rather large industrial city (Zola's airship was built there) and by 1394 is doubtful that Stockholm would be more than a minor northern fishing town, even with all the sparks running around.
- We wouldn't expect modern nation-states: sparks fight like rabid cats in a sack, and there's been two centuries of constant, widespread warfare. Also, a lot of the hinterland (and thus the agricultural base to support large urban populations) is trashed. England is stable because Albia has implemented widespread mind-control.
- What evidence is there to really support the timeline being 1872? First and siliest of all, Klaus Barry Heterodyne was born in '72 the current year should be at the least '92 and '95 at the latest in order for the cast to be early-twenties. Sparks and their Clanks and Constructs have been around for a very long time, but important events that should have happened by 1892 clearly haven't, England isn't ruling the British Empire, its just a minor kingdom, Europa lacks any of the recognisable nation-states, governance seems to be various city-states spread across wide barren areas that are united by the Pax-Transylvania enforced by the Baron. America is a barely known landmass, so that means any of expeditions either haven't left, haven't returned or their news was overshadowed by something more important. Haiti gets a mention so we know that some Spark settled there and that a Spark who was Native to America toured Europe with the Heterodyne Boys and had a pair of Six-shooters. Africa seems to be quite unknown.
- That'd be amusing. It's hardly implausible.
- It's closer to a stereotypical German accent. It could be meant to convey a cruder or more archaic version of German, or perhaps they're from Germany and everyone else is speaking Romanian, Austrian, Hungarian no, that's way too difficult to be a lingua franca, but you get the point.
- It would make sense given their names: Maxim is a Russian name, and Dimo is apparently a nickname for Dimitri. "Ognian" is Bulgarian, though, so I don't know where they were going with that.
- Or perhaps the Jagers' speech is affected by their large fangs. Say 'water' and now say it again with your lower teeth touching your lips. Say 'this' but don't let your tongue go past your teeth. The rest of it is a sort of a Pidgin English, only Slavic routes instead of Hawaiian/Filipino (though Jagers wishing each other aloha is an amusing image).
- Response to the above: The fangs, I think, are certainly part of it, as are the fact that they probably have lower class backgrounds than many class characters, the fact that German is likely not the native language of all of them ("Vole", if you say it "Voh-luh", is a Germanish sort on name, and the Captain speaks with a thinner accent and better vocabulary, backing up my theory), the fact that they're centuries old, and the fact that they probably speak a differant dialect: "Wir können alles... Ausser Standarddeutsch!". These are all rendered by a German accent in the English dub that made it to our world. Why pidgin English? Britain is a foe of the ruler of Europe, and highly isolated. German as a lingua franca in central Europe, where it historically was, under the rule of a dude named Wulfenbach... that makes more sense.
- The bit about the class background of the Jaegers is backed up by this strip, in which one of the lower class crowd Gil and Zeetha draw to Castle Heterodyne speaks with a suspiciously similar accent, making the Jaeger accent most likely a lower class Mechanicsburg accent spoken around fangs.
- To the guy above him: True, but none of this, however, makes the Heterodynes Russian: the Jägers all come from diverse ethnic backgrounds (Russian, Bulgar, whatever Andre is, German if that's what Vole is...), whereas the Heterodynes are definitely Transylvanians descended from a steppe warlord, which would make them Szecklers (Transylvanian Hungarians).
- I think the Ht'rok-din predates the Szkely; I also think they came from further east, preceding the Mongols by a century or so.
- To the guy still further up: Given that Graf Klaus von Wulfenbach, ruler of Europe is, going by the name, a Transylvanian Saxon, German is seen in the background a few times and in names (Lars, Snarlantz, von Zinzer, various Wilhelms, Passholdt, Sturmhalten, various Burgs...), and the real historical language-of-business status it had, German is probably being spoken for most of the comic. Romanian, I think, is used in the earlier part of the comic, where native Transylvanians are conversing. Austrian isn't a language, it's a type of Hochdeutsch (mountain/hill German, spoken by the Austrians, Swiss, and Germans south of the Main). Hungarian, though likely the Heterodyne native tongue, is, as you say, unlikely to be a standard language.
- He doesn't use the 'von', and he's not a Graf.
- To the orginal poster: One question: what's "German or Romanian or something similar"? They have as much in common as Catalan and Norwegian! Anyways, I can fake a German or Russian accent enough to fool the gullible, or at least impress them, and I'd say that Jägers are German. Besides being biased by the fact that they're called Jägers, turning a "th" to "d" is more German, in Russian accents you get a "z" sound. That-Det/Dot-Zet, among other things.
- The obvious similarity would be that they're both consonant-stacking languages... although I might be inaccurately perceiving German this way due to the number of consonant letters put together (given that a common German grapheme can be three letters (sch, for example)). German does allow a few consonant stacks not generally accepted in English (pflanze?); Russian goes all-out crazy with the number of consonants it stacks around a poor defenseless vowel, and even has words without any vowels at all. This puts both languages on the opposite side of the fence from "vowel languages" that stick to the CVCV model (like Hawaiian: pikapika) or allow vowels to touch but not (many) consonants (Japanese: tatewaki, shinsen).
- WMG:I write way too much!
- Consider that they're mostly Mechanicsburg natives from a couple hundred to several hundred years ago, with some adventurous boys from out of town, and you have them speaking a German trade-tongue with archaic Romanian accents filtered through tromping all over Europe killing t'ings. Through fangs.
- Music, specifically musical instruments
- Astronomy (as evidenced by the astrolabe in her hands)
- Literature, probably oral and written storytelling
- Comedy (the dark hair)
- Hymns, or music for worship (the one with wings)
- This one has actually been revealed as Otilia, Muse of Protection (currently housing the conciousness of Castle Heterodyne, while its' own consciousness resides in Von Pinn)
- Tragedy or drama (silver hair is mature)
- Mathematics (it's an art form for the Greeks!)
- Did you know that the original Muses for the Greeks numbered one, three or four (before Hesiod settled on nine), and were named after such things as musical notes, or Memory, Practice, Song, Heart-delighting, Beginning and Meditation?
- Not Important - But Interesting! :D
- Wait, you're saying they're thinking they (the Council) will be able to play Tarvek once he's enthroned?
- If they've monitored his breeding/creation and upbringing as closely as Zola implies, it's very likely they've overestimated their ability to continue micromanaging him, especially once Anevka threw a spanner in the works by killing Papa Sturmvoraus.
- She consistently keeps her mouth covered, possibly to hide an important marking or a scar.
- For what it's worth, it appears she did this because she's embarrassed by her non-Jagerish teeth.
- Her hair resembles that of a Geisterdame.
- Vrin says that while the Loremistress Milvistle was killed, we haven't seen a body, and Vrin even admits there may have possibly been other traitors in the ranks. It wouldn't be completely inconceivable that either Milvistle was found by the Jagers and changed, or one of the traitor Geisterdamen went to them willingly.
- This only really works if the Geisterdamen predate Lucrezia, rather than being made by her - turning someone into a Jaeger is a complex and difficult process, and I somehow doubt that Bill and Barry made any. Painfully mutating people into shock troops wasn't really their style. So it's unlikely that there have been any new Jaegers in, say, the last forty years.
- The Geisterdamen do predate Lucrezia. Her family was always perplexed by the fact that these strange creatures worship them. It wouldn't be very perplexing if Lucrezia had simply made them that way.
- Dude, this story has time travel. (Unless of course you say "They can look in the past but not physically affect it," which is still a possible method of working out the details so far.) It's entirely possible for Lucrezia to have gone into the past to make the Geisterdamen, or to have sent some to the past, or to have visited the past just long enough to make a few of them... or it might be that the traitor went into the past to escape, and ended up being made into a Jager.
- Anyway, a lot of Jagers have eclectic colouration. Unless Maxim and Dimo both had pink hair as humans.
- Jenka has pupils. She can't be a Geisterdame.
- This is a world where people can make giant lightning guns, brainwashing bugs, four-armed people. I'm sure someone has invented colored contacts, or something similar.
- Don't be ridiculous, that's so implausible as to be nonsense. Now, a device of some sort to remove people's eyes and modify them or replace them with ones of different design...
- This only really works if the Geisterdamen predate Lucrezia, rather than being made by her - turning someone into a Jaeger is a complex and difficult process, and I somehow doubt that Bill and Barry made any. Painfully mutating people into shock troops wasn't really their style. So it's unlikely that there have been any new Jaegers in, say, the last forty years.
- Well, even if that was the only reason, it'll probably be quite a while before we see any effects, probably years in-universe. Also note that I'm fairly sure there was at least two female sparks in the circus (Dame Aedith and Professor Moonstock), so it's not "female sparks are unheard of", just "female sparks have an even lower survivability rate than male sparks".
- According to the Cast List, Dame Aedith is not known to be a spark. She's just an insane knife-thrower who hates (probably fictional) vampires.
- She certainly seems to be toting a stake gun during the Monster Horse Incident; either she had one of the actual Sparks whip it up for her (which, considering one of them was discussing the use of steam-powered feet and another is designing emotion control pies, seems rather...well..the phrase "foolhardy" doesn't cover it quite as well as "suicidally insane" does) or she built it herself, which implies at least mild sparkiness.
- This troper personally doubts that the Sturmvoraus family and the Geisters would have bothered with every girl spark they ran across. Minor sparks probably went beneath their notice, while they focused on the ones that had a strong gift or came from a noble family, and would thus probably have a higher probability of being tied to Lucrezia and being a suitable subject. Which does raise some interesting questions about Anevka, now that this troper thinks about it. Had the prince merely gone insane from frustration and devotion by the time she was used as a subject, or did he have some reason to think that his daughter might have a genetic link to the woman's consciousness he was trying to bring back?
- My impression was that all of those myriad tests led to the conclusion that it had to be her daughter for the machine to work, but that at first they were hoping to get it to work on any female, then any female spark, then any strong female spark, then any noble female spark, and so on, whittling down the options until Lucrezia's own daughter was the only one it could possibly work on.
- Are all of you people entirely forgetting Countess Marie? (Master Payne's wife, sparky chemist)
- According to the Cast List, Dame Aedith is not known to be a spark. She's just an insane knife-thrower who hates (probably fictional) vampires.
- Is it possible that Othar got to the rest?
- Is it possible that Geisterdamen are created * from* female sparks? There's hints that Jagermonsters are made from normal humans (something about a jagerdraught), and it would explain how the Geisterdamen keep up their numbers without a spark to create new ones.
- It's not all that hard to figure out once you realize that Girl Sparks are a) valuable and b)vulnerable. The instant one shows any talent at all she's going to get targeted by every lecherous male spark in the vicinity hoping to make her his own. How much chance would a teenage girl stand against someone like Dr. Beetle, for instance?
- There's also the children on castle wulfenbach. Children, male AND female, of sparky royal lines.
- At one point, Agatha was told that, while minor sparks living in the countryside never really managed to amount to much, FEMALE Sparks would've burned as witches. (I have no idea when this page ran. The minor sparks thing was during the circus arc, after the monster horse attack, but I can't recall when the other part was explained.)
- Judy explained this when she and Punch came to rescue Agatha.
- If you pay close attention to the phrasing, countryside sparks are burned as witches and female sparks disappear.
- Judy explained this when she and Punch came to rescue Agatha.
- Tarvek eventually clarifies that the Geisters got most of them.
- IIRC, this is implicitly confirmed in the comic. Compare the design of DuPree's fortress as seen in her flashback to the design of the unnamed pirate fortress in Zeetha's flashback.
- Rule of Funny makes it nearly inevitable.
- Confirmed. Bang finally learns it was Zeetha while they are both in England.
(Given, some of these points are tenuous, but they add up, yes?)
- One of its official titles is The Warrior Queen's Hidden Jewel - Mars is named after the War God.
- Skifander is really hard to find, and in Zeetha's fever dreams of her journey from there, she 'hallucinated' objects floating on the ceiling, which sounds a lot like the freefall from an interplanetary journey. Also would explain why Lucrezia was so gobsmacked hearing that Klaus was able to get back from his exile there.
- The pencil sketch of Klaus as 'Chump' (Zeetha's father's Skifandrian name) shows him in a harness reminiscent of John Carter of Mars' classic rig. Also, Tars Tarsus regularly called John Carter "Virginia" due to Accidental Misnaming; "John Carter of the Army of Virginia". Word of God is that when Klaus arrived at Skifander after Lucrezia drugged him, his first words upon being asked his name were; Just call me "Chump."
- When Tarvek talks about his friendship with Gil when they were kids, he says that Gil didn't know his parents and wondered if he was a Lost Heterodyne, or the Storm King, "Or a... a Martian Prince or something." Since the Lost Heterodyne and Storm King positions have already been filled by Agatha and Tarvek, dramatic inertia suggests that Gil will be the third.(And as discussed elsewhere here on this page, it's been pretty broadly hinted that Gil is indeed a Prince, even if he'll never be allowed to take the throne.) Also, much later on, Tarvek notes that Gil walked into a certain situation "like a chump," a bit of foreshadowing for the inevitable in-strip reveal of Chump's identity. That's one confirmed unintentional prophecy on Tarvek's part.
- Zeetha (and evidently all Skifanderians) have green hair.
- The original Skifanderians (ie, Zeetha's ancestors) emigrated there via a portal.
- In the second print-novel, Agatha mentions another title for the place that Barry told her: Guardian of the Red Mountain.
- The city shows hints of being mostly domed or underground.
(I know in my heart it is true.)
- By that logic Australia or New Zealand would be a better location:
- A) Despite most likely being set in the late 1880s-early 1890s, geographical knowledge is far under-developed compared to our world, The Americas are barely known, but Haiti gets a mention so it seems people are aware of at least one landmass across the Atlantic, it may simple be a case that with an alternate history the sea powers responsible for global exploration like Britain, Spain, Portugal, France and the Dutch are not in the position to make those discoveries, the Conquistadors like Cortes and Pizarro never set sail because there was no one to fund the expeditions of Columbus, of the five countries that crossed the seas only England gets mentioned as an actual nation, not as the British Empire either so one could say that because of the presence of Sparks the pivotal events of history never happened because the Sparks caused ongoing wars that demanded funding from the governments over the expeditions for new colonies, were eclipsed by the importance of the wars between the various mad scientists or that no major nation-states really seem exist to provide the impetus to spread and colonise. Africa is barely touched upon, East Asia gets a reference with Doctor Sun Jen-djieh and his family, but things such as the Mongols reaching Hungary, The Silk Road and Imperial China were very widely known by the 1500s in Europe. That is unless the presence of Sparks caused faster technology development and we're actually dealing with an alternate history of 1290-ish Europe...
- B) Bill and Barry loved to explore, seeing what's beyond the American Continents is certainly something they'd do, Flat-Earth/Counter-Weight beliefs aside, going back to North or South America (its never mentioned which, but Thundering Engine Woman doesn't sound like she's from any of the South American cultures) sounds a little predictable for them and other groups trying to make the voyage across might blab their whereabouts in order to gain public support in Europa.
- C) Being so isolated from Europe it seems no one would find them at all if they layed low in the Antipodes. Also Australia isn't exactly the easiest country to explore, considering that Europe is a Crapsack World, imagine the horrors of Downunder?
- Word of God is that America will not be represented. The next stops after England are Africa, Skifander and Geisters' home.
- They do seem to be mining all of the old Universal monster movie cliches, don't they?
- I suddenly have this vision of a great Sparky battle accidentally interrupting rehearsals for "The French Mistake"...
- This troper notes the following:
- Giant biomechanical wasp-controlling monsters: here, of course. There's also one in Castle Heterodyne's basement.
- Lucrezia possessed by the Other: Still a candidate for WMG.
- Giant mechanical fish: Could be fantasy, could be these things.
- Could also be the giant spiders the Geisterdamen ride.
- My guess is it is the Giant Mechanical Squid many retellings of the stories.
- Aperture science technology: Ta-daa! Also here.
- Power glove: Well, Maxim has one, as does this mysterious character, but more importantly take a close look at the only view we have so far that we can be sure is the Other (central column, bottom half). (The two views of Lucrezia in the upper row do not resemble each other, though the first one looks like Lucrezia does at the other times we've seen her; conceivably the Geisterdamen are Lucrezia's invention that the Other took advantage of. This image is the only time we're sure we've seen "Lucrezia" between the attack on Castle Heterodyne and the present.)
- Author Appeal
- or Back Story
- Actually, sort of post-Back Story. The opera explains the plan the Knights of Jove had, which Gil and Klaus discuss here. The opera's prophecy is what Klaus calls "practically a fairy tale."
- Not to mention propaganda
- or Back Story
- When Agatha is first brought to Gil's lab, she looks over the books he has and begins reading "Trelawney Thorpe in the Seraglio of The Iron Sheik" Gil instantly tries to distract her from it, and keeps doing so when she tries to go back to it. In that book, then, is an account of a night he spent in said Seraglio, and had a steamy encounter with Trelawney, which may have ended badly (or even more embarrassingly, with Trelawney actually having slept with him to gain information about the Wulfenbachs). He didn't want Agatha to a) think he was a sort of female-spark-player or b) he was too embarrassed by the outcome of the encounter to tell Agatha when he was trying to impress her. He even says that the stories are great, but total British propaganda - perhaps the Trelawney of the books (whom Gil, say, developed a celebrity crush on) was different enough in reality for Gil to be highly disappointed. Of course the book makes Gil out to be a sort of bumbling idiot prince who falls hopelessly in love with Trelawney. He keeps it around as a sort of schadenfreude to remind him of his own failures and not to repeat them.
- Unlikely. Wooster and Othar have both alluded to Gil's history as a ladies man in Paris, but Gil complaints to Wooster that none of the girls he met really understand him. If he'd dated a Spark, he wouldn't have that problem. The Seraglio of the Iron Sheik is probably just pornographic, and he doesn't want Agatha seeing it/knowing that he reads that sort of thing.
- Considering they're only just meeting after the timeskip◊... the romantic tryst theory seems be holding less and less water. At least in the sense of it happening previously.
- Alternatively she could have heard it from one of the Jager Generals who seemed to be trying to set Gil and Agatha up.
- Alternatively alternatively, she's spent five minutes with Agatha and has functioning eyes.
- Functioning nose.
- Jenka never has spent five minutes with Agatha, and certainly not in any situation which would make Agatha's feelings for Gil evident to eyes or nose.
- Considering that Jenka left to go get "clarification" on their mission, I'd say the Jaeger Generals are her "highest" authority. They were certainly trying to matchmake, and Agatha had a pretty obvious crush on Gil (the little kid "kick you in the shins and run away" kind of crush, or "the lady doth protest too much" crush, at that point.)
- Supported by a line in the novelization narrative, showing that General Zog smelled something he evidently found promising after he asked Agatha what she thought of Gil.
- In this case, the highest authority is Higgs as he is the only "real" general not trapped in Mechanicsburg (who isn't missing or dead) as Dimo doesn't count.
- Alternatively alternatively, she's spent five minutes with Agatha and has functioning eyes.
- Tenuous, but perhaps:
- Years pass, and Lucrezia/The Other uses time travel to supplant the local Goddess, assuming control of Skifander and occasionally pulling the Geisterdamen back in time to the "shadow world".
- But Queen Zantabraxus is a spark. If Geisterdamen were sparky Skifandrians, certainly Klaus would have noticed something was up after he returned to Europa.
- Remember, Gil has that ring he once gave Agatha on a chain around his neck ... and it has the Wulfenbach insignia on it.
- Unless Zola is a very good actress, Jossed. Zola seems flabbergasted to learn Gil's surname.
- But Zola is a good actress. How much she's acting around Gil is still up in the air, however.
- I don't see this as likely, even without recent events.
- This appears to be confirmed as of June 2010.
- But Zola is a good actress. How much she's acting around Gil is still up in the air, however.
- Oh please. That was just Rule of Funny. Everybody's reading way too much into a stylistic thing.
- Or it's a Mongfish thing since Zola's mother and Lucrezia (Agatha's mother) are sisters.
- Wow, so the count of people who are, were, or will be the Other totals...about 714 by now.
- Where did it say Sleipnir was Scottish? 'Cause last time I checked, O'Hara was an Irish name (in fact, pretty much the archetypal Irish name).
- Sleipnir's the daughter of the king of Little Ireland, which is under Wulfenbach control currently.
- Not only is it an Irish name, but in case ya'll hadn't noticed the Union Jacks in various background images, England and Scotland are one country. Which is not called England. Just because Germans and Englishmen make the mistake all the time doesn't mean you have to! [/Scotsman]
- Albia is referred to as 'Her Brittanic Majesty' at one point, but 'England' seems to be used as a synonym. :/ [/fakeWelsh]
- Oh, and another thing. Basing mind-control on an "English accent" doesn't work because they have about a thousand of 'em. Yorkshire mind control, anyone? Cockney mind control? Presumably you mean one accent, probably the literal Queen's English. While the idea that the classis BBC announcers sound so trustworthy and authoritative because of their sinister powers is amusing, I don't see it. While sinister vocal powers could plausibly be inherited, Agatha has been raised in German/Romanian/Hungarian/Whatever from day one and accents are not.
- Please note that a) Ireland was under british occupation/protection/controll/... untill IWW. IT IS EVEN REFLECTED IN UNION JACK by having St. Patric's cross c) Both England and Scotland are two separated countries which are part of United Kingdom
- This whole discussion is actually moot, since if I'm not mistaken Sleipnir's comment was about Agatha's "relaxed dressing habits". Taking the speech bubbles together "We're not all as relaxed about running around half-naked as you are. Where are you from, England?" This was a real stereotype around the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when the blockade had cut Britain off from over a decade of every other country in Europe becoming less scandalous, and something similar might happen given the apparent cold war between Britain and Wulfenbach.
- Whuh? The blockade of the Napoleonic Wars was enforced by Britain, not against Britain. The reason for the stereotype of scantily-clad English women is because during the Napoleonic wars, the guy in charge was Prince George (later George IV), who was a noted womaniser and libertine, and so fashions for the upper echelons of British society became daringly low cut at the bodice, easy to hold onto at the waist, and easy to slip out of.
- I believe that stereotype was about women's clothing in general, not specifically English women. French portraiture shows much more revealing dress; English (and American) clothing was always more modest. Women of all countries wore very low necklines because that was fashionable, not because it made the dresses easier to take off.
- Not only that, but a country that's mostly submerged is going to involve a lot of swimming, and therefore fashions suited to quick changes, drip-dry and NOT DROWNING.
- Not to mention, think about what the climate must be like in what's basically an underwater greenhouse—it's either the ambient water temperature (unlikely as that's 'freakin' cold') or warmer than what real-world Great Britain is with no need to climate changes—no seasons, no winters, and a LOT of exhaled CO2 to deal with in a closed-air system, even if you are close enough to the surface for direct ventilation. You wouldn't want to be wearing three or four layers or wool.
- Whuh? The blockade of the Napoleonic Wars was enforced by Britain, not against Britain. The reason for the stereotype of scantily-clad English women is because during the Napoleonic wars, the guy in charge was Prince George (later George IV), who was a noted womaniser and libertine, and so fashions for the upper echelons of British society became daringly low cut at the bodice, easy to hold onto at the waist, and easy to slip out of.
- At the same time... The idea that there's some link between Albia and Lucrezia may not be out the window. Lucrezia jumped at Wooster's offer to be shipped over to England, if I remember correctly. Her reasoning was that she'd be protected from Klaus, but there may be something more to it.
- Specifically, she said "Klaus will never be allowed into England while Albia rules." The use of her first name definitely insinuates some familiarity.
- How else would she be called? Lucrezia's not the type to say "Her Majesty", in the real world the Queen is called "Elizabeth II" by people in casual conversation all the time, and as far as we know Albia has no last name. It seems most likely that Lulu just wants away from Klaus, and Gil's threats to Wooster notwithstanding she's confident Albia can keep Klaus out. And there's the old "enemy of my enemy" thing. Britain didn't put an undercover agent practically in Klaus's back pocket because they're on cordial terms.
- Specifically, she said "Klaus will never be allowed into England while Albia rules." The use of her first name definitely insinuates some familiarity.
- Tarvek is the True Heir by descent but Gil is shaping up to steal his thunder. Paralels both the political animosity between them (Tarvek hates the Wulfenbachs as (extremely competent) usurpers to the real royal families) and the Love Triangle with Agatha. And there's a fairy tale about the Storm King and a female Heterodyne...
- Don't forget, Tarvek is probably responsible for that propaganda-laden production of the Storm King opera, and is milking his current incumbent state for as many Agatha-sympathy points as possible. The difference is, Tarvek is making an effort to convince the public of his sovereignty, and Gil isn't. How that's going to end up, who knows.
- While the latest production might have something to do with the conspiracy, staged by members who are still in Vienna, the opera itself is likely older than Tarvek.
- "Might"? The Storm King looks like Tarvek, the Heterodyne Princess like Agatha, and Ogglespoon like Gil. Subtle as a brick to the forehead.
- As above, total propaganda move.
- This could be the Foglios just making sure everyone knows who's who. If the production is taking place during the same time as the Castle Heterodyne plot, Gil's face was not well-known to the public, or even most of the Knights of Jove, and even though Agatha's giant image had been seen at Sturmhalten, descriptions of her had been distorted enough by the rumor mill that Pinky was able to fake being her without anyone questioning her physical features. If the casting was actual propoganda, the actress in the opera would have looked like her, not Agatha.
- While the latest production might have something to do with the conspiracy, staged by members who are still in Vienna, the opera itself is likely older than Tarvek.
- Maybe Tarvek and Gil were Switched at Birth somehow.
- Gil's mother is unknown, so she could be a descendant of the Storm King. Trouble is, if Baron Wulfenbach knew that, he shouldn't have been surprised when Gil brought up the Heterodyne/Storm King prophecy.
- Volume 9—which focuses mostly on Tarvek and Gil—is called "Agatha Heterodyne and the Heirs of Storm." That's basically confirmation.
- No, THAT'S basically confirmation.
- And THIS is maximum confirmation.
- There was talk about him being made by his father from 3 of his sons somewhere in first chapters.
- And apparently Word of God has confirmed it. DAMMIT! And I thought I was being clever...
- Sorry Charlie. You forgot the Naughty Flashback scene, too. Very very visible stitchwork. The theory about his origin comes from a subtle comment in the Secret Blueprints. There were three Wulfenbach sons at one point, but nobody's heard about or from two of them in a very long time. Fan theory is a massive lab accident, and his poor parents had to save who and what they could from the remains they found. Hey, at least it keeps the Fifty Families scared about him never dying (not with good maintenance!), although Gil seems to have them just about as twitchy.
- Oh, and no 'von'. Why does everyone keep putting in a 'von'?
- It's just von of those things.
- Because "von" signifies nobility in German. My guess is that the Foglios aren't (or at least, weren't) aware of this, explaining why the ruler of all of Europe has a commoner's name, while a lowly soldier (Moloch von Zinzer) is apparently of noble descent.
- Von does not signify "nobility" but rather "very old nobility". "Von" means something along the lines of "of" or "from", the last name being a place. All Von Somewheres are noble, but not all nobles are Von Somewheres. Besides, it's not at all unlikely that many old noble families lost everything except the name when the Sparks became a force to be reckoned with, or when society shifted from agrarian to industrial, or that strong Sparks could rise to, or for that matter, claim nobility without anyone daring to argue.
- In our world, 'von' signifies merely 'nobility'. Von something, on the other hand, signifies old nobility (old nobility: von [hometown/castle name], newer nobility: von [previous surname]). That said, considering Dutch took exactly the opposite route (dropping the nobility angle but keeping the origin one), and that Girl Genius' history diverged from ours quite a bit into the past, nothing says it has to work like that in the Empire.
- They could simply not take it just to humiliate the rest of the royalty... "You got stomped by somebody who isn't even royal, nya nya nya..."
- Clearing up this "von" confusion, I quote the other wiki's Page on the word, "...it can be said that almost all German nobles use von, but not all users of von are noble." It could just be where they're from/ the name of their father.
- One more interesting thing... Baron is the second-lowest noble title in Germany, above Knight. Klaus humiliating the rest of the royalty cannot be ruled out.
- And apparently Word of God has confirmed it. DAMMIT! And I thought I was being clever...
- Dear God, I hope not.
- However, Moloch and Violetta have been getting pretty chummy...
- Although Moloch was clearly mooning over Wilhelm when Agatha came in.
- That could have more to do with Violetta and Moloch both being top-grade minions.
- However, Moloch and Violetta have been getting pretty chummy...
- I am NOT a small dog. I'm merely short.
- Interesting... amusingly, that would be the exact opposite of Ribbentrop's fake "von". And of course there could be a legalistic aspect. Klaus is on top because he knocked heads, and Gil will be on top because he's the one Klaus taught to knock heads. Heriditary doesn't enter into it (I'd imagine that if for whatever reason Klaus couldn't produce a satisfactory heir, he'd just find one). Being "von Wulfenbach" would imply that his title, like those of the 50 families, is what gives him the right to rule. He doesn't hold for a second with their ideas of "legitimacy", so he's deliberatly abandoned any "legitimacy" that he had.
- Or maybe the Wulfenbachs were just a minor house and never used "von".
- Something happened. Bill went Othar, Zen Survivor and Knight Templar, but Barry became jaded.
- Look at Othar's love of Heterodyne shows.
- It would also explain the treatment of Othar by the Wulfenbachs. They don't really treat him as a major threat considering his abilities and endurance. More of an annoying uncle who can take a great deal of punishment. Even the attempted lobotomy comes off as the Baron didn't have his whole heart in it, or else he would have sealed the door.
- I.e. they kind of treat Othar as a living version of Gilgamesh's fencing clank. An acceptable rival. The Baron even left that thing besides Othar hoping he'd escape. It was just another test to see how Othar could/would escape, and if anyone could it would be him.
- If not Bill, then some old sidekick to the Heterodynes.
- Pretty much Jossed by Othar's twitter.
- he has Twitter?
- anyways, it could actually make a certain sense, if bill bascially went insane. which seems to be entirely possible. somebody was killing sparks after the attack on castle Heterodyne, they killed a lot of them. it is implied it was the other, but Othar claims to be killing sparks (not that we've ever seen him succeed once, and he let Dumed go... how could he NOT realize the cousin to the heterodyne was a Spark?) but if he really has killed sparks for being sparks, it might have been Bill way back when, steadily losing it.
- "not that we've ever seen him succeed once"... Er, Twitter!Othar killed at least on Spark and her (possibly non-Spark) father (in his first outing IIRC); to paraphrase: "Her father pleaded with me to spare his daughter, saying that a parent's greatest nightmare was to see their child die. I couldn't put him through that. So I shot him first."
- In one comic, it said that after the attack on the Castle, "Master Bill was nearly insane." Hmm...I don't suppose, in 18 years, he crossed into full madness?
- Also pretty much jossed by Sanaa knowing him as the brother she grew up with. Bill and Barry did not have a sister, so far as we know, and Sanaa's too young to be their sibling.
- One wrinkle in this theory is that Uncle Barry was scared by child!Agatha's heterodyning— it's her humming, a manisfestation of the Heterodyne spark, that prompts him to give her the locket. Also, it's been said that Agatha's breakthrough went so smoothly because she'd been eased into it. She'd started designing dingbots back at the university, and the sleepbuilding came shortly after she'd lost her locket. It wasn't until the locket's affects had worn off completely that she was able to use her full Spark abilities. The gradual growing of abilities meant she didn't go insane like most.
- It's far, far more likely that Dr. Beetle was afraid that Agatha would give herself away if her spark was exposed and reveal his treachery.
- However, if you look carefully Tarvek's wings and the Wulfenbach wings are different designs, and the wings on the wallpaper are Wulfenbach's.
- Or the wings indicate not a marriage alliance but adherence to the Baron's Peace, which is why some of the Sturmvoraus insignia don't have it (presumably predating that).
- It could be that Agatha has gained a mobile floating castle like Castle Wulfenbach (remember that Wulfenbach's crest was originally wingless), either by getting a new airship or turning Castle Hetrodyne or Mechanicsburg into a floating island. Remember how the Castle want to go exploring the world as a yurt? Well, after Agatha revives it, maybe it can.
- I always assumed the Non Sequitur was due to Gil poking around in the Castle's innards.
- I'll give you the "created by/for the Storm King" thing, but I think it's pretty obvious she's a construct, not a clank. Unless you mean there are nine other muses, only constructs instead of clanks?
- von Pinn is almost certainly a construct; we have seen her bleed and experience pain. The Jaegers seem smitten with her, too. On the other hand, the non-canonical Cinderella story has an impossibly realistic clank ... so who can be sure?
- Alternately, the modifications that Lucrezia added to her made her look more of a construct than a clank. This is why she looks like Lucrezia; Lucrezia is a narcissist.
- Alternately Alternately, Von Pinn is Otilia's mind transferred into a construct body. Lucrezia wanted to create the ultimate bodyguard/nanny for her babies, and while she was quite confident in her ability to create a construct who could take and dish out massive amounts of damage, she wasn't so sure of her ability to give it the right personality - she'd spent most of her life being Daddy's Little Villain, so she didn't have a lot of experience building things to protect and nurture the defenseless. But what's this? The Castle says the legendary Muse of Protection is tucked away in an old storage room (probably sent by the Storm King and Rembrandt Van Rijn to keep Euphrosynia and any future female Heterodynes "safe")? Why, that'd be the perfect personality! Let's just look at old Faustus's notes on personality transfer ... Then, after transferring Otilia into a body hardwired to interpret "keeping <female Heterodyne> safe" the way Lucrezia wanted, she thanked the Castle by transferring a backup copy of its mind into Otilia's old (and possibly now vacant) body. Of course, as a side effect of all this, Lucrezia then had experience with copying and transferring minds - and the Castle had a spare mind running on different hardware, hardware that could move around and wouldn't be affected by a device designed to shut down the Castle, which Lucrezia would have to lock away should she ever need the Castle fragmented and unable to stop her. Thus, Von Pinn is both a construct of Lucrezia's and a centuries-old guardian sent by a certain "beloved king" and instructed by her not-Lucrezia creator to keep the next female Heterodyne "safe"; and what appears to be Otilia doesn't answer to the Storm King's heir, wants to kill traitors to the Heterodynes, is ticklish, and, in at least one case, talks in a way that'd be quite in-character for the castle ("Heh heh heh. I'll get you loose. OOOH YEEEES..."). How did Lucrezia manage to lock it away? Well, it's a male personality in a female body - she may have surprised it while it was occupied with self-discovery (yet another reason for Von Pinn/Otilia to wish that Lucrezia's bones burn green).
- Well, we now have confirmation of Der Kestle's mind being in control of Otilia's body. Otilia's mind being Von Pinn's (and both being thus due to Lucrezia) is still a WMG, though.
- This makes the Otilia-transferred-into-Von-Pinn theory look a lot more likely - Von Pinn fell down the hole to that pit a while ago and the result of an mechanical-to-biological transfer has now been noted as being down there.
- And now it's all but confirmed.
- So, Von Pinn we know and Jagers love is in fact Otilia, stuck in this construct body after a mind transference (by Lucrezia). If she yells at the castle for bad handling of the Muse body—which appears to be the case, because the party mishandling her current body is on the other side. That explains a lot.
- And makes a special point of opposing himself and his son... why?
- Haven't we all had one of those days where we could just go back in time and stop ourselves from doing such *** ing stupid things? Othar could be trying that with about thirty years of moves that seemed like a good idea at the time.
- Why can't it be the other way around? Klaus looks a good deal older than Othar, not to mention all the surgical scars he has. Plus, it might explain, in a completely insane way, how Othar keeps surviving. Othar MUST go back in time, because Klaus is already there, and has even had at least one son. The universe simply won't allow Othar to die until the time-loop has been satisfied.
Now the speculation. We know from Klaus that it's at least possible to make a slaver wasp that'll work on constructs, whether they all do or not (the only thing special about that one was that it'd work on a spark, so it's likely that they actually all would've worked on a construct). She's compelled to obey Agatha's voice until she realizes what's going on and makes a conscious effort to resist it; the same was true of Vrin, so at the time it seemed like this just meant this was a feature installed on all of Lucrezia's creations and Von Pinn was one of them. It was never explained why Von Pinn declared that commanding her "wouldn't work again", but it seemed up until recently that it was just like Vrin—the command voice carries a lot of weight, but if a sufficiently strong-willed creation knows that it's not really Lucrezia speaking they can resist. But then we learned that Lucrezia wasn't VP's original creator or the first to give her orders (though she's the only one whose orders she openly would like to be able to disobey). It would make a lot of sense if Von Pinn were a revenant; perhaps Lucrezia realized she'd figured out a workaround to her original orders and took matters into her own hands. However, this requires that:
- Confirmed: The shambling revenants were the exception, not the rule.
- It's worth noting that when Agatha tells her parents the locket was taken, they look in the thieves' market instead of the local hospitals, which means that they at least weren't expecting it to cause illness. Now, since it's presumably a unique piece of technology, it's possible they didn't know what kind of effect it would have on a non-Spark, but it's still suggestive.
- It also had a label on the back, "return to Agatha Clay" and her address. Again, not something you put on what is basically a time bomb.
- In addition! Moloch suffered NONE of the effects his brother did, even though he held onto the locket for quite a while. If it was the locket that did it, shouldn't he have dies as well, or at least gotten weak and ill?
- Moloch broke the locket by throwing it in frustration, almost as soon as he took it from Omar's corpse. The other points still stand, though.
- She's ranting at both of them, not just Omar. If he was wasped, it didn't happen to his brother.
- It has been confirmed that Othar did go back in time (via mental time travel) and thus was in Mechanicsburg due to Tarvek's urging in a doomed future, and Gil surviving could easily dispel that future; he may even have saved him indirectly by bringing the Baron Tarvek (through shenanigans). It was confirmed in Othar's Twitter, but this troper doesn't want to dig up a specific tweet.
And she likes pink a little too much. Even when she ditched the very Glinda-ish dress, she still has a lot of pink. Just who does she think she needs to fool into believing that she's a Heterodyne in the castle?
- Thoroughly disproven by this point, I would think. Turns out, ALL of the above is merely an act. The real Zola is evil, evil, EVIL.
- Disproven by Word of God. Agatha is absolutely, positively Bill's daughter.
- Lucrezia!Agatha just bit him. Earlier, she got it from Tarvek by kissing him. Therefore, Moloch has it now, too. This does not bode well.
- Almost certainly Jossed.
- Okay, I'm an idiot: Tarvek was capable of sending Twitter!Othar's consciousness back in time.
- A point in favor: in the novel Agatha H and the Clockwork Princess there is a footnote discussing van Rijn which says that 1. He was elderly when he made the Muses 2. He had a mysterious background and 3. He evidently went out of his way to avoid having his image depicted, and no such image exists.
- Possibly Jossed, we've finally seen a flashback-image of van Rijn, and he doesn't look like Tarvek particularly.
- Again, probably Jossed.
- Due to the Rule of Cool, this theory is now part of this troper's head canon until Word of God says otherwise. They would also like to think that Tesla won.
- Someone on the Girl Genius Yahoo group suggested that "maybe the fight between Tesla and Edison ended a while back, with Tesla victorious, and Tesla's benevolent takeover of the Americas (working with Thundering Engine Woman) left the place a utopia; the reason we never hear back from overseas is that no one ever wants to leave."
- What, and Steinmetz wouldn't be the clear victor? Dude was a hunchbacked scientist who built a small city and then destroyed it with artificial lightning, lived with crocodiles, gila monsters and vultures, and was every bit the genius Tesla was. In real life. Adding the spark would largely be a formality.
- Which probably makes the Dyne the Spice good thing it's secret or whole continents could erupt in a war that spanned the globe. As opposed to the troubles Klaus settled, which were limited to less than 3 continents.
- I think that she was like the muses that she was based on: a fully sentient construct. The difference is that she thought she was human.
- there is not enough jagerdraught in the world to re-grow an amputated arm. Though minor injuries are obviously treated easily.
- Slight problem with this theory, the Americas are completely cut off in Girl Genius canon so anyone from Europe wouldn't be able to get there. On the other hand, we don't know what the year is in the comic so the events of Wild Wild West could have happened before America was isolated or after comtact was re-established.
- Another possibility: Pirate versus Spy, as Wooster's first Momentof Awesome involved delivering an Offhand Backhand to Bangladesh. Of course, he's also managed to earn the muderous rage of ANOTHER of Klaus's minions, so Bang may have to take a number behind Dolokov...in any case, it's pretty clear all the Badass Normal characters will at some point have to have an internet cliche melee.
- Well, maybe not a Jager, since water from the Dyne is only an ingredient in Jagerdraught, and she doesn't know the recipe. But, given that Knife Heterodyne survived drinking the water, she has a very good shot.
- It certainly makes SO MANY THINGS BECOME CLEAR!
- Recent revelations suggest that she could end up ascending herself to be like Albia.
Originally, Lucrezia was exactly what she seemed to be, a fully human spark, who married Bill, joined the Heterodyne family doing a heel face turn, and is Agatha’s mother. Her experiments into the nature of the mind, and the control or transfer thereof, eventually produced/found The Other. They fused, and the Other orchestrated an attack on Castle Heterodyne, for some as-yet uncertain reason. It then left, met up with the Geisterdamen to pose as their goddess so it could take control, located the Knights of Jove, whipped them into shape, and then started bludgeoning Europe.
The Geisterdamen worship some mother/fertility goddess, much like the Skifanderans, and may even be an offshoot cult/culture. For some reason (which will make sense and be very interesting when we eventually learn it) they worship a maternal lineage which Lucrezia and Agatha belong to. After The Other possessed Lucrezia, it decided to use the fact that the Geisterdamen are fanatically loyal to their goddess, and just such an army is a very convenient thing to have around. Vrin stated that when she was a novice, they were visited by Lucrezia, and that this was accepted by everyone as the true incarnation. When she came back much later, Lucrezia was now fused with The Other. Note that senior, more experienced priestesses were not fooled, and although the body was the same, they could tell something was different.
- Once she discovers who The Other really is, she decides to kill It by going back to the attack on Castle Heterodyne and using the attack as cover for a more covert assassination mission. Turns out she has to cause the attack first, though. She's already been shown travelling through time and being seen by DuPree.
- To add to this, said Heterodyne also shut down the castle before being recognized.
- This was already guessed, about a third of the way from the bottom of the page. Look for "Von Pinn is a muse."
- In that panel he's is physically restraining her so that he can use the weasel on her. (Wow, there's something I'd say again.) There's nothing sexual about it at all.
- Also, Klaus is married, and given how much importance he puts on order and control, he doesn't seem like the kind of person to have affairs.
- The hebrew writing on the schlognwurst.
- "Always you gotta find problems!"
- "An dot's ven dey schtarted all dot krezy sekrifice schtuff during de High Holy Dayz..."
- Oh, come on, now. Everyone is Jewish because Mechanicsburg has a proper Delicatessen? By that logic everyone in NY City must be Jewish too!
- I'm going to go out on a limb here, and guess that Mechanicsburg is not predominantly Jewish, but has a large Jewish minority population. Jews have been persecuted throughout the history of Europe, and they might want to side with the dangerous psychopaths to be on the winning side for once. Or maybe Jews migrated to Mechanicsburg to be under the protection of said dangerous psychopaths. Or maybe the Heterodynes of old were equal opportunity employers.
- Or maybe ALL THE SPARKS ARE JEWS! (Which certainly gives Othar's mission some Unfortunate Implications)
- Never mind Othar—that's Unfortunate Implications for the whole damn comic. 99.9% of Sparks are evil geniuses who end up destroying everything around them in spectacular ways.
- Without a dominant Christianity in Europe, why would Jews be particularly persecuted (once Judea was no longer there to destabilise the Levant - we might still have had the revolt and its suppression)?
- Oh, come on, now. Everyone is Jewish because Mechanicsburg has a proper Delicatessen? By that logic everyone in NY City must be Jewish too!
- Oggie and Maxim seem to listen carefully to what he says. He is much less goofy than the other two. His gruff-but-caring attitude and low-key hardness fit the bill perfectly. He has been stated to be a fair bit older than the others. Even Maxim, who was apparently an officer, usually defers to Dimo's judgement. Everything about him practically screams Old Soldier and Sergeant Rock.
We know that the slaver wasp he swallowed is specially engineered to work on sparks, but is it engineered to work on constructs? Klaus does obey the Other in the scene following his infection, but he is definitely intelligent and quick-thinking enough to let the Other think he is infected, and there is a clear advantage to that. Then again, the Other may have known Klaus was a construct, and taken steps accordingly.
- The Other would *HAVE* to know Klaus is a construct. Recall the Naughty Scene with Klaus and Lucrezia. She's seen the scars (ALL the scars, nudge nudge wink wink). It's more possible that his "Spark-induced fugue state" (whatever that means) that his four-armed assistant states he has is what gives him some means to abuse the loopholes in the orders any copy of The Other gives him.
- I interpreted it as it being more along the lines of 'brother in arms'. Plus, the Jaegers are a pretty close knit group so it seems fairly reasonable that to their mind they're all brothers (and the occasional sister).
The Americas are isolated, and most of Great Britain is under water. This isn't a coincidence. The American Revolution happened in the GG universe, with a result similar to that in ours. At some later point, Britain tried reconquering America or interfering in her affairs one too many times, so American sparks sank huge portions of Great Britain into the sea. Their version of President Monroe then implemented their form of the Monroe Doctrine by literally sealing the Americas off from Europe.
The fact that popular perception of American culture in Europe seems to show heavy Native American influences is easily explained by that fact that American frontier culture did have heavy Native American influences and were perceived as such. When the US sent troops to Britain(for training, prior to being sent to the Western Front) during the First World War, many British were surprised that the American soldiers weren't wearing buckskin jackets and ten-gallon hats, for example.
- Or maybe it was done as a way of resisting the European conquest/settlement in the first place.
- Probably Jossed; it's been stated the guy who caused England to start sinking was a rebellious British noble.
- Tiktoffen mentioned working for the "Sons of Franklin" and this comic shows that some lightning storm powered monster brings down everything that tries to go to America. Benjamin Franklin was known for an experiment he did with a lightning storm and a kite. The Sons of Franklin probably set up this defense system as an homage to their (presumably) founder.
- If she does die, she'll get better. She appears in several short stories, all set long after the current events, including Personal Trainer, which appears to be canon, and, even though the radio plays are apocrypha (at best), the fact that she appears in those suggests that she is known as one of Agatha's companions in her days of knight-errantry, which she wouldn't be if she dies permanently before Agatha comes into her own.
- I was under the impression that Personal Trainer took place at the circus.
- Personal Trainer takes place in a setting where Agatha sleeps in a giant bed with a large Heterodyne sigil on it. Not typical accommodations for circus performers. It's probably a fully-repaired and renovated Castle Heterodyne, which would mean that it takes place sometime into the future.
- Big problem: that rule was made up by the 12 (?) royal families of Europa so Great great great grandpa wouldn't be on the throne forever and his desendants could actually inherit. It's not a universal thing.
- Not a big problem. Just because that PARTICULAR law was made up by the European families doesn't mean Skifander doesn't have a similar rule. Without a law like that governing succession, there's nothing to prevent every country ending up with Albia—once you have an undying ruler, it's hard to get rid of them. Not to mention, she might NOT be bring-back-able, or even WORSE, Gil is older and the legitimate heir either way.
- Big problem: that rule was made up by the 12 (?) royal families of Europa so Great great great grandpa wouldn't be on the throne forever and his desendants could actually inherit. It's not a universal thing.
- At the barfight, it is implied that Higgs was healed in the same way that Gil was, and was healed with a Jäger potion. He may be showing some side effects from that.
- Probably Jossed, she appears to be a separate (but still powerful and near-immortal) entity.
Of course he won't succeed since we've seen Moloch in the time portal, but he might take down Mittelmind and Mezzasalma in the process so Agatha won't be stuck in the position of either keeping two obviously evil sparks as allies once she's done needing every bit of help she can get to fix up the castle, leaving two obviously evil sparks to their own devices, or becoming the type of person who betrays her own allies when they haven't given her cause to (yet, being obviously evil sparks)
- No particular reason; but she is a 'pirate queen', and one of the pirates in that flashback sequence looks vaguely like her.
- Since The Book of the Comic and the Secret Blueprints both mention that Bang's mother was a pirate queen whose fortress was destroyed and everyone killed, and Bang has yet to find whoever did it, this seems less like a WMG than a reasonable extrapolation.
- More than likely, I'd say it's pretty near certain. Have you checked the device (symbol or seal) on the airships that attacked Zeetha's lately? Now look at Bang's forehead (extra-big view at the bottom). Look familiar?
- Somewhat confirmed, it was definitely Bang's pirates who Zeetha wiped out, though it's still unknown if DuPree knows anything about Skiff.
Lucifer Mongfish, Seriously miffed by his favorite daughter's heel face turn decided to get back at her. When Lucretia announces her second pregnancy, Lucifer takes his dim-but-devoted daughter Demonica and gets her to become pregnant (Most likely using Barry as the father, so the child will still register with the castle as an official Heterodyne heir) And then groomed this granddaughter to take over and destroy Castle Heterodyne when she was of age, effectively ruining Lucretia's new family. However, the Other attacked. Lucifer still used this to his advantage, by making Zola the "long-lost" Heterodyne Heir. He died before she became of age.
The first time window we see scares Agatha into Moloch and Omar von Zinzer, who take her locket, thereby giving us a plot. Taking into account the facts that, we know Agatha has made time windows herself (without the arcing metal), and that she (in the window) was saying "Like THIS??" we can conclude that she was a rival spark who heard that Agatha had time windows and sought to do it herself, but... badly. The arcing metal and speech distortion were from the bad quality of the time window.
So, Agatha would not have become a spark without the effects of her having become a spark... That way lieth the headache.
It seems to intensify one's mental abilities in a certain area, at the expense of your social awareness. With proper training it can be molded into a useful trait, but if not recognized early, the spark can be devastating.
- If anything, it's more like the hyperfocus that comes with ADHD, but of course that doesn't come with the urge to build giant death rays.
There are a lot of ways that Zola's path paralells Agatha's. Originally with the locket on Agatha got no respect. Zola with a reputation as a Parisian tart, still gets no respect. Both are pursuasive actresses. Both have hidden compentence, Agatha as a spark, Zola as a smoke knight/adventuress. They have both been on adventures with Gil. They both have saved/rescued him as well. Finally, they can't stand each other. Working with family is so hard.
- Since She's been proven a member of the mongfish family, this would make Zola and Agatha Double first cousins.
- Slaver wasps are small machines programmed with loyalty to the Other. Voice control and the like are included. When a wasp attacks it gets as close to the brain as possible, then copies over its programming. Each individual step in this process is something we know the Other could do.
Lucrezia created The Other by duplicating herself, but then got caught by it, so she then had a copy of herself attempting to take over her mind and body, which the original wanted to stop. From her research she knew that death and revivification wouldn't save her, but that Jägers were immune (a flaw in her methods that she hadn't managed to fix before her creation turned on her). She went to Bill for help, and he agreed to put her through the process despite the chance she would die. Meanwhile, Barry set to work, studying Lucrezia's notes and equipment in order to see if there was something she missed, in case she was wrong and more had to be done.
As it turned out, Lucrezia was right and she was freed from The Other. However, by the time "Jenka" was finished, The Other had already secretly spread to members of the castle's staff, and it didn't like the idea of Barry — or anyone else — finding a way to stop it.
Castle Heterodyne was soon attacked from within by the infected staff, causing incredible damage to the castle itself, and forcing anyone who had avoided infection to flee. When Klaus returned, he had to fight off The Other and then regain order. Barry managed to get away and was working on a means to stop The Other, when Agatha (who was born before her mother became a Jäger, and was still a baby when the shit hit the fan), started to show early signs of The Spark. To hide her, he adopted a device he had been working on, which stupefied her just enough to do the trick, and made sure Punch & Judy understood that she had to keep it on (it would later kill Moloch's brother by accident, and prove useful for it's original purpose when Agatha became infected).
Jenka, although a Jäger, is also still a spark, and is avoiding detection by approaching them selectively (she ran into Da Boyz and gained their trust, but hasn't joined the Jäger forces and doesn't actually report to them — although it's unclear, it wouldn't be surprising to find the Jäger Generals know of her, even if they aren't sure who she is). However, most of the Jägers have had to tolerate Lucrezia before the attack and would know her on sight, even after the transformation, so she wears the scarf over her face. She smells different, and as long as she continues to speak and dress like a Jäger that is all she needs.
- Unlikely — she's seen working with Dimo at the Arguron King's pre-wedding party for Hoffman & Larana , without her scarf. It's unlikely that Dimo would willingly work with Lucrezia at that point. Then Andronicus recognizes Jenka when they fight in Paris, and reveals that Jenka was assigned to work under Euphrosynia in some capacity. Jenka's at least 200 years old, probably older.
- The radio dramas are a bit of half-canon, and there are other weird things about those, such as where Gil and Tarvek are (and why the hell they're adventuring with Othar). Maybe Sanaa becomes Gil's bodyguard.
- If she'd transitioned that young, her hormonal development would have given her a normal female skeleton. Kids' skeletons don't differentiate at all until the onset of puberty, and shoulder width is one of the last things to finish growing, in your mid-twenties.
- And the magic sword caused both the witch and the wolf to vanish forever, leaving the prince to rule as king. And then Klaus trapped himself and Agatha/Lucrezia (and Zola, and maybe Lunevka) in the Mechanicsburg time bubble. At least he intended to.
- Clemethious Heterodyne and his army of monsters is Lucifer Mongfish and his daughters, as well as the Other's creations.
- The good and noble king who defeated the Heterodynes is Klaus himself, cleaning up after the Other and ending the Long War.
- The eldest daughter of Clemethious is Lucifer's eldest daughter Lucrezia, who is also the Other.
- The curse that turned the good king into a madwolf is Lucrezia infecting Klaus with a slaver wasp.
- The king's son and his nurse are Gil and Von Pinn, respectively.
- The witch's inability to remove the crown from the madwolf is representative of the fact that Lucrezia will only be able control the empire through Klaus.
- "For neither the witch nor the wolf was ever seen again. The prince took the throne, and ruled the kingdom wisely and well, for the rest of his days." This is Klaus telling his son to just kill him and Lucrezia, and that he will make a good emperor.
- If its true, it would also be his crowning moment of awesome - starting a plan to die with his enemy while already mind controlled. Well have to wait and see.
- With his enemy standing right next not him not even noticing.
- And furthermore, note how the message will get to its intended recipient, by all-but-directing the storyteller to inquire about it to Gilgamesh! Brilliant scheming on the part of the Baron!
- If its true, it would also be his crowning moment of awesome - starting a plan to die with his enemy while already mind controlled. Well have to wait and see.
- Semi-confirmed: That's certainly how Tarvek interprets it.
Bangladesh checklist:Crazy? Check.Pirate? Check.Girl? Check.
That's not all. Check out panel 10 on this page. That girl smoking the hookah looks familiar. Especially the skull on her forehead ...
Of note is that she's in panel five of the following page as well.
- Not evidence but this at least suggests some intimacy between them.
- Alternatively, she pretended to be his lover, either as a cover or just because it's fun to embarrass him.
- The novels stated that Klaus sent Bang to Paris to work with Gil, mainly so that Gil would learn how to deal with and if necessary fight against crazy people (Not that he let Bang know the real reason). They also mention rumors that they became romantically involved, but the author doubted their veracity, as both of them were still alive.
- Anyone remember "Auntie Mehitabel's Natural Causes"? I don't recall that she ever received an antidote.
- Violetta gave her the antidote, check the couple of pages after she IDs the poison.
- Headdesk. Don't know how I missed that.
- Violetta gave her the antidote, check the couple of pages after she IDs the poison.
- think about it, there are three boys, always together, and a single girl (one of only two female jaegers) usually apart from them. they are smarter than most jaegers, due to their long time separated from the rest, making them good candidates.
- Confirmed, as of the storyline "Jaegermonsters To The Rescue".
If the Jaegers are referring to Gil as Agatha's consort because he wasn't affected by the bell, then something he and Agatha did made him immune to the bell and is considered part of a traditional Heterodyne wedding. The most obvious candidate would be Agatha transferring energy she got from drinking Dyne water into Gil. If that is the source, then this would incidentally also make her married to Tarvek, but as he doesn't appear in any of the scenes when the Doom Bell is ringing, the possibility can't be eliminated.
- Val Si Valeo (or whatever it's called) perhaps?
- Why didn't the castle warn them about this? Because it wants Agatha to start churning out more Heterodynes.
In this world, there are more possibilities than in ours. Remember, the setting is based on the premise of a heritable subtype of humanity, including the protagonist, with increased mental capabilities, hyperfocus as a superpower and a particular view on experimental ethics, so it might be possible for there to be some genotypes that leads to increased physical prowess (for example Ol' Man Death, maybe very common in the female population of Skifander)-especially considering that Sparks (especially Gil) have performed feats of extraordinary strenght and endurance.
- Don't forget Moloch's ability to drink (and possibly eat) anything.
- Why would she care about Tarvek? She forgot about him the second Vole showed up and started ranting about oceans of blood and the empire going down in flames.
- 1. From Zeetha's experience we know there is a market for human trafficking. The mark on Bang's forehead isn't a mark of position or lineage. It's a mark of ownership, from possibly Petrus Teufel of the Black Mist Raiders. A mark showing something was handpicked by him perhaps, and Klaus rescued her from this fate. Saw she was highly motivated for revenge and he became a father like figure to her and earned her loyalty. She later received the best training possible and was unleashed on the world as a rogue agent for Klaus.
- 2. She's a privateer since she isn't an outlaw in Wulfenbauch territory. Klaus destroys what he cannot control if it is in his territory. One pirate would not be a problem, so she is a privateer raiding OTHER pirates and territories and bringing Klaus the tech and sparks gained from the attacks with the added bonus of gaining the additional crew members when she breaks up slaving rings. When she went on her solitary excursion, her crew at her home base decided to mutiny and go pirate, leading Zeetha to do an unintentional favor by cleaning house. It's highly unlikely she would have had the most loyal crew when she earned her title as a pirate queen in territories besides Wulfenbauch's.
- 3. Her relationship with Gil reminds me of my own with my older sister. in the "Bang Finds Her Favorite Toy" chapter she gets a Cry Cute and Gil hugs her. Her face is quite angry and had anyone besides Gil hugged her, she more than likely would have torn into them. She kept an eye on him when he was in Paris and kept Tarvek from digging too close, to protect him. And in the same chapter previously mentioned Gil brings up they have fought before and it is occasionally fun. Very similar to how my sister and i treat each other. The worst fights I've ever been in have been scraps with my own sister, but should you harm one of us in front of the other, not even God can help you. It's just a given, knowing her loyalty to Klaus, should you harm Gil, you're a dead man in her eyes. She will make sure of it. When he mentions he doesn't want her to get wasped, his face isn't one of worry about having to fight her. It's sly, like he made a joke, leading me to believe he cares about her more than he would a hired gun.
- 4. Every important person has a bodyguard. Tarvek has The Smoke Knights(his cousin), Agatha has a RACE of bodyguards in the Jager, Gil HAD Wooster, Klaus' is DuPree atm, but the point is every major political figure has one. When it was revealed Klaus set it up so that Gil would be known as "your highness", DuPree was not surprised at the title. Just surprised he decided to pull his trick at that point in time, meaning she possibly knows much more than she's letting on about his familial situation and Klaus' future plans for the Wulfenbauch dynasty, concerning Gil.
- The novels give Bang's backstory. She was the only daughter of the queen of a minor nation (Of pirates) who was overthrown. Her mother raised her with the intent of her being able to retake her kingdom. But just as she was starting to get a sizable fleet built up, some unidentified group ( Which has been confirmed to be Zeetha acting alone) destroyed her base and most of her forces. Part of her employment terms with Klaus is that he has agents trying to figure out who trashed her base.
- We've already seen that Klaus got wasped. This happened on-panel, just before "SHOWTIME!"
- Seems to be confirmed, she turns up after the timeskip looking fine.
- Unless Lucrezia also sent Klaus' mother to Skifander, which is unlikely, Zeetha was talking about her maternal grandmother.
- Since Agatha's Seneschal is willing to accept bets on this nature in the book he's keeping on who she'll end up with (Odds currently 5:1), it's at least plausible.
- Given that we know that the person holding the Wasp Ferret in front of Gil was a revenant himself, it's entirely possible that it was reacting to its handler.
- All but ___confirmed___ given Gil's and Agatha's interactions in the last few (as of 12/18/2012) comics.
- Jossed, at least in the sense he wasn't a General before. Now he may have matured enough to qualify.
- Alternatively, his body fought off the wasp(remember: when dealing with the Baron, almost none of the conventional rules apply), and he's obeying the Other's commands to lure her into a false sense of security.
- Something Klaus said when Dr. Sun smashed up the Medical Transport Clank is contrary to this: "I have to save everything before she gets to me..."
- Which was before Bang escaped with the anti-wasp mixture. Not that it matters currently because the wasp is frozen in time and some form of Klaus' mind is not.
A very, very, embarrassing brother. He looks similar and shares a few of the Baron's personality traits. He apparently knows the Baron, and mentions speaking with him. He's also pretty unhinged, so the Baron gave him a fake name and shoved him into Castle Heterodyne at the earliest opportunity.
- Considering how much he enjoys himself while in Castle Heterodyne, maybe he asked his brother if he could be sent there. The Baron then realized he could kill two birds with one stone.
- Or maybe all of these things, plus him having his memory edited to guarantee he wouldn't reveal himself.
- This would explain why Barry having children would be such a complete surprise to the Baron. It would also explain why Lucrezia is so afraid of him. Barry would be a person whom both Klaus and Bill trusted implicitly, and who is completely immune to her preferred social tools, seduction and sexual manipulation.
- The fact that the Baron would suspect that Barry had an illegitimate child in the first place and that he was always depicted as getting the high priestess in the stories points to him being a womanizer.
- OP here. The baron uses the words "a surprise on Barry's part" to describe the possibility of Agatha being Barry's daughter, indicating Barry having children was unlikely. Seeing as he travelled with the Heterodyne Boys for so long, he'd know. Also, the Heterodyne stories aren't exactly the most trustworthy sources. The only thing from the Heterodyne stories confirmed to be true is that the Iron Sheik exists, and built the Mechanical Camel. Stories!Barry's womanizing is quite easily explained as Tropology in action. Bill and Barry are the heroes. The hero always ends up with the girl. Bill is married to Lucrezia and heroes don't sleep around. Hence, the only hero available to get the girl is Barry. Klaus can't end up with the girl, the sidekick getting the girl is just silly.
- A surprise on Barry's part could perfectly well describe a hitherto unknown or unacknowledged bastard, though. If he's not married, doesn't have a regular mistress or girlfriend, and contraceptive use is commonplace, a child from a temporary relationship would be a surprise. It doesn't rule out gay (or bi), of course, but it doesn't necessitate it.
- The fact that the Baron would suspect that Barry had an illegitimate child in the first place and that he was always depicted as getting the high priestess in the stories points to him being a womanizer.
- Jossed. Mechanicsburg has been frozen in time, so from their perspective no time has passed. And in the absence of the Heterodyne, the Seneschal would be in charge. Chief Minion would be one of the Seneschal's key subordinates, however.
- Seems to be confirmed as of October, 14, 2013
- Another fact in support of this: The spark-enslaving wasp. The one that got Klaus was the first and so far only one (that we know of). We haven't seen Gil get wasped, and the spark-enslaving wasp obviously didn't exist in a usable state during his college days in Paris...
- Pretty much confirmed; he has to get to his father and shut off the time-bomb before the Cosmic Horror gets there.
- As an extension Othar is now a Jäger, specifically this one
- Not exactly. He got caught in it, but was inexplicably able to be extracted without any side effects, and is probably going to start causing problems again.
- JOSSED. He has been extracted byWulfenbach time tunneler scientists, however.
- John Dee was an expert in a wide range of fields (as well as the original 007. No, really) and may have created her immortal form.
- William Shakespeare was an genius with the english language. He may have developed the field of phycholinguistics to the point were whatever her majesty says, particularly after the right pre-condidtioning, just seems so reasonable that you can't go against it.
- We know that, even leaving aside Sparky things, there are a lot of weird bits and pieces in this world. My theory is that Old Man Death's hat has been blessed by some kind of battle deity (possibly the one to whom the Dyne was dedicated) and as a result, its owner can only be defeated by wits, never by force.
- He ate all of something, and it's implied that it's the reason Klaus is not at all fond of Oggie. And Gil does confirm that the rumors about Klaus and waffles are true. Klaus has shown himself quite level-headed about experiments interrupted... but we've never seen the desperation he could reach when out of waffles.
It has been shown that Castle Heterodyne can talk with anyone in town it pleases, at any time, but with Mechanicsburg under some kind of time-freeze the Castle and everything in it would also be frozen. Yet, it's been revealed that the Castle can still talk to unfrozen visitors (even if with a little help, to add clarity)!
The Castle is using the time machine to free itself enough to communicate. Now, the real question isn't where it is nor who controls it, but where (or when) did the time machine come from?
- Half-confirmed. Klaus did copy a version of himself over to Gil (http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20140811), but that it was on The Other's order is as yet unconfirmed.
Of course, since Agatha was raised in Beetleburg, she might not know about this tradition when she gets her new sleepgear.
From what we see of Beetleburg, it would be a good match for Sibiu. Large, from what we see, on plains.
Sturmhalten's equivalent would be Brașov / Kronstadt, which lies a bit over 100km from Sighișoara on a pass.
However, Wulfenbach had a central castle hill, too, and might also have been based on Sighișoara.
- Drusus isn't the Master, but he is working for him. (At least officially, he's also serving as a spy/saboteur for someone else.)
Klaus really likes his waffles.
- It's implied that whatever Klaus did to copy himself into Gil was based on what Lucrezia/The Other did to copy herself into Agatha. Which means that it probably has the same counters. And since Gil has broken all the way through, a neural Heterodyner won't be able to block his own brainwaves, instead merely suppressing the Klaus personality.
Crossover WMGs
- Is Higgs Irish?
- * Backhands above statement with Wrench* That doesn't even qualify as a question in this troper's opinion. Even if he Isn't Irish, they can still be related. This IS An Alternate reality to our own... even if this was our own (see above theory) it could STILL happen.
- Chuck Norris once read one episode of Girl Genius. The result was Airman Higgs.
- Well YEAH...
- Explain the notable shortage of roundhouse kicks.
- Apparently confirmed. 'Poppa' did create the army of bears, and Krosp was pointed out as the bear's master by König, the lead bear ("This bear, and the bears this bear commands, are now under your command.")
So, yeah, the Dyne is full of Phazon, and I think I'll go as far as saying that Mechanicsburg is sitting on top of a Phazon Seed, with the Heterodynes as its guardians. The only reason it doesn't spread is because the Castle uses up all the Phazon it produces.
- Thanks for the idea, now my imagination can come up with all sorts of distracting stuff... Zero Suit Agatha?
- Because every WMG entry needs one. Besides, he has travelled in time, shows up in strange places he could never have gotten to by conventional means, and cannot die. He decided to sample Earth snack food after being given a Jelly Baby by the Doctor, and fell in love with popcorn.
- His twitter confirms that he has other versions of himself... Those who are messing with the time-line.
- The The Mad Scientist Wars roleplay is based on this premise.
- It's possible, but unlikely. Still, one of the recent Dark Heresy splats mentions a (mostly) Feudal World (called Heterodyne) that serves as an Adeptus Mechanicus experimentation base. But remember-not all the Jaegers are green.
JOSSED (disproved) WMGs
- There seem to be all kinds of Jager lineages with different skin tones - the Orks, the vaguely-drow-ones like Jenka with the bear, the purple ones etcetera. Since about the only constants of the Jagers are "speaking vith Funetik Aksent", "being bound by their oath" and "enjoying breaking stuff far too much", assuming that one with pink skin and one horn isn't full Jager blood...well...like Stosh, who was clean-shaven, pretty much humanoid and appeared to be blond. Some of the early ones have distinctly simian appearance, with bow legs and elongated arms, but this seems to have been less conspicuous lately.
- Jagers seem to be pretty much any shape, size or colour that they see fit. Even in their first apperarance in black-and-white, there were obviously different ones. This is probably the reason for the elaborately non-uniform, cod-European "uniforms - ie that there is no single Jager style, although some wear unit-specific uniforms ( such as the laminar leg armour and flat-crowned hats worn by Klaus' bodyguard ) and some, like Da Boyz or Jenka, wear just about anything that takes their fancy
- Again, there are no part-Jagers. See below point.
- His great-great-grandson isn't proof of anything. Word of God has said (somewhere) that Jager children are 100% human.
- Interview with the girl!Maxim at the con. It's in the Wikia.
- Besides, there's no reason to assume that Oggie fathered any children as a Jager. It could be that Oggie had a family before becoming a Jager, and that his great-great-grandson is descended from a child fathered while Oggie was still human. That's how I always understood it.
- No such thing as 'part-Jäger'. The Brau either killed you (90%), drove you mad or feebleminded (9%) or turned you into a super-soldier. Kinda like the Wild Card virus, really....
- I don't recall seeing anything anywhere that says that Jagers can, or can't father children as Jagers. The pseudo-Jager bar girls seem to find Da Boyz attractive, and it seems to be reciprocated. Mama Gkika is VERY feminine in a sort of Wild West, Frenchy-from-Destry-rides-again sort of way.
- Word of God has confirmed that Jagers can conceive, but the resulting offspring is completely human. No part-Jägers.
- It is implied that all Jägers know about the mission. How else would they be able to know that they had not abandoned their masters?
- Then why didn't he say something to her at the Sneaky Gate, hm? Look at her and pause? Anything?? [pulls out the Mythbusters 'Busted' sign]
- Hell, there's more evidence for a prior love interest with Maxim. Let that one sink in...
- Jossed, or at least that wasn't the main reason. Vole apparently tried to murder the Heterodyne boys because he thought they were too soft. Also it seems to be suggested that the mission to find a Heterodyne heir was kept secret from Klaus and the regular world but was a loophole in their code that allowed them to serve Klaus.
- Making it... the steampunk version of Jack from Gears of War?
- Gil's invisiblity device is the Heterodyne "power source", notice how the others keep thinking he vanished when looking through the telescope
- Not quite jossed, but called into severe question in this comic.
- Actually, I think it's quite thoroughly jossed!
- Indeed. That was Theo and/or Sleipnir extricating Gil under cover of the heterodyne stealth orb.
- Actually, I think it's quite thoroughly jossed!
If you think about it doesn't Klaus Barry stick out as a Chekhovian Child? Besides we are in Mechanicsburg. Just because something is impossible doesn't mean it is not true.
- The reason why Agatha can build Sparky Clanks is that she had Van Rijn's notes to work from.
- Agatha was building dingbots when she was on Castle Wulfenbach. She didn't have van Rijn's notes until she was at the circus, the arc after that.
- This Troper is betting that they'll screw up the Si Vales Valeo, and that the Other is going to end up in somebody other than Agatha's head... most likely Tarvek's...
- Jossed. When the process was completed, everyone was in their correct heads, the Other still suppressed by the locket. They just needed to burn off excess energy (and get a few buckets of water dumped on them).
- Because it's mad, I tell you, MAD to tinker thus with the very fabric of the universe!
- Also because Girl Genius Don Quixote has already shown up in the comic! He was a Dragon. His fan name is Pretty Boy.
- Corollary: This is somewhat negated by the fact that you can sometimes see the bridge of her nose, so perhaps she's just missing a chunk of it.
- Compare Gil in the second panel and Agatha in the last panel of this comic. Everyone is drawn with very flat faces in profile.
- One one hand we can clearly see the bridge of Jenka's nose here, however, face to face with Agatha, she doesn't smell her.
- She doesn't smell because her nose is covered.
- Jossed - Jenka appears in Paris with her face uncovered. It's implied that she wears the scarf because she's embarrassed by her non-Jagerish teeth.
Also, theories on the wiki makes a pretty convincing case for it being in the San Fernando Valley.
- Jossed, as according to Word of God, the events of the comic will never go to the Americas, but will go to Skifander at some point.
- Jenka. Da Boyz were detached from the main Jäger army for an important mission, but they reported to her. She's a general.
- Violetta. The Violetta we've been watching isn't the genuine Smoke Knight, but the general in disguise, getting as close to Agatha as possible by originally pretending to guard Tarvek Sturmvoraus (although he did release her to follow Agatha, for which she was honestly happy). Where is the original Violetta? Although she might have run away, I'm guessing her duties probably require her to stay nearby, so she's hiding somewhere in town (maybe at "Mamma" Gkika's, maybe not).
- Both. The two theories are not incompatible, and has Jenka been seen since Violetta appeared?
- "Both" is Jossed. We have seen Jenka and Violetta in two different locations at the same time (Jenka inside with Agatha, Violetta riding for her life outside). Either may still be the Tricky General, however.
- Both of the individual theories above are Jossed, as the England arc confirms that Airman Higgs is the hidden "Tricky" Jäger General.
- Albion was one of the first names for England. Albia is just a feminized version. Also note that on this page Gil mentions "What's left" of the island of England. Not only is Albia an undying anquitarian thinking machine, she's also ENGLAND, full stop.
- He also threatens to "destroy" Albia, which suggest she is an Clank or AI instead of a living organism. Or maybe just that he will destroy her entirely so there is nothing left for resurrection.
- Jossed. She's a single near-immortal.