Mod edit to add this convenience link to Girl Genius. Original OP below:
Last thread vanished with the crash...
So, the Weasel Queen interlude is over. Is this Storm King opera another one?
Edited by wingedcatgirl on Feb 19th 2025 at 1:51:41 PM
AXTE INCAL AXTUCE MUN
He's among the top experts in Other-tech in Europa, though...and a genius at adapting other people's tech to his own purposes. Given a head start from Barry's work (Wonder if he recognized it. I assume he did...)and years of studying the many aspects of Other-tech, I expect he'd have at least a few ideas to try. However I also suspect he'd be unsure enough of the actual worth of the finished locket-tech to make it easy for him to assume it failed entirely.
Mostly Harmless.If Klaus has:
The Missing Clank with the Original Recording AND The Testimony of Punch and Judy (including whatever bits we ourselves don't yet know) AND The Information from Selnikov's Head. AND Gil's own information by way of both Zeetha and (I hope) Agatha regarding the locket, AND He did tamper with the locket and knows what it theoretically could be capable of...
Is THAT enough to get him to stand down if not actually declare a true truce? Or is he so tunneled into his own interpretation and his own legitimate fears that he can't let go of his need to make Agatha the demon, because she's an obtainable target?
Mostly Harmless.Hmm... actually, that looks like wood that he drove the scalpel into, sort of. Because if it's stone, it kind of begs the question of how Othar managed to pull it loose with his teeth >.>
And, y'know, I really don't think that the Othar/Cyclops comparison is a fair one- Othar is a complete and utter certfiable nutjob with heroic tendencies- an Heroic Schizophrenic, if you will, rather than an Heroic Sociopath. Or something to that effect. Whereas Cyclops (Depending on the Writer) is either a bit of an uptight boyscout, but a genuinely good guy, or a screwed-up-in-the-head, self-loathing loser who barely muddles by on the backs of his more competent teammates. Aside from the visor, I'm honestly not seeing a lot of overlap.
Highly Visible Ninja EDIT- and that might be enough for Klaus to call a truce... on his terms (which Agatha might not like, no matter how much better he's gotten at the whole 'quality of life' question).
edited 31st Aug '09 11:41:56 PM by TeChameleon
I think that if/when the Baron is given and watches Agatha's backup message clank, we will be shown it on camera (or shown the last few lines and his immediate reaction, at any rate; the whole speech is a bit too much text to throw in when a few lines will do), but if anybody else sees it, we won't know about it until they mention it at some later date, possibly in the form of telling Agatha that it was the reason they've decided to come to her aid. Someone important may have already seen it, but not the Baron (and I can't really think of anybody else important who could've seen it). Punch and Judy are almost guaranteed to be interviewed offscreen, or if they're onscreen they'll be obstinate and give no information, but I think we can safely continue believing it hasn't happened yet right up to the point where he meantions it afterwards. I'm pretty sure it hasn't happened yet.
As much as it'd be convenient for our heroes for the Baron to be uncertain right now and relent, there isn't really any chance of it. Right now he is convinced that she is the Other, and that's not about to change.
At some point the information is going to have to start coming in to Klaus. The pileup is about as big as is plausible at this point and the dramatic tipping point has to come eventually...even if it comes in installments.
But I'm still working on what happens next. My own guess is that the Castle and Mechanicsberg are repaired and recovered to a point where Agatha and Co can leave them to defend themselves, and they'll then skip on to the next port of call. My bet would be they collect Wooster and head towards Albia, where Klaus presumably will have trouble reaching them. Which (sigh) won't make her any more popular with his Baronic Grumpiness.
Mostly Harmless.Agatha doesn't have any reason to go to England. If anything, she should avoid it because Lucragatha wanted to go there after verifying that it was the same queen in charge that she remembered. England's only good for being protected from the Baron, and she's not leaving Mechanicsburg until it's under good enough control that it also offers protection from the Baron.
No, the next step once Mechanicsburg is secure is for Tarvek to tell her where Mecha-Lucrezia is headed, and go there.
I wouldn't be surprised if Agatha and Gil end up pulling Klaus's bacon out of the fire at some point, perhaps when Otherclankevka shows up with her geisters. Otherclankevka doesn't know that Klaus has been wasped. In fact only Othagatha and Klaus know.
I wonder, if Agatha simply told the wasp to release Klaus and come out, whether it would. If it did, then she might also be able to order it to die, just as Othagatha told Vrin to die.
edited 1st Sep '09 1:47:11 AM by Greybeard Fan
<<Agatha doesn't have any reason to go to England. If anything, she should avoid it because Lucragatha wanted to go there after verifying that it was the same queen in charge that she remembered. England's only good for being protected from the Baron, and she's not leaving Mechanicsburg until it's under good enough control that it also offers protection from the Baron.
No, the next step once Mechanicsburg is secure is for Tarvek to tell her where Mecha-Lucrezia is headed, and go there. >>
She may not go to England. But I think she will within a story loop or two. Too much effort been put into establishing it as a goal Gil wants to aim her at, a place where she has friends in the circus, a place outside the direct control of ANY of the Europa factions and a place where Klaus can't easily follow. Staying in Mechanicsberg is not going to be a good option. Besieged is not good. Not impossible, but not good. Mechanicsberg is actually more likely to be able to defend itself if Agatha is no longer there as a prize, attracting all political factions. Now they know they have a Heterodyne to look forward to even Vanamonde and Conrad and the Town of True Minions is likely to request she go somewhere safe. If only so they can cheerfully become very, very dangerous.
LOL! If this goes like I expect, the Doom Bell rings, the many Jagers return to Mechanicsberg to help defend the walls (complete with many of Klaus' own military secrets in their clever little heads), and Mechanicsberg demonstrates that Old Mongol Spirit with a vengeance. I use the term "vengeance" with forethought and planning.
The group may head through Paris, first. If Othar's Twitter is right then the Master of Paris may be able to offer them some help, and it gets The Two Princes on old, familiar mutual snarling grounds which is good for entertainment. And as Gil says, "Y Ou can buy ANYTHING in Paris."
As for going after the Gheisters? No. Not until she has more allies. Even if Agatha is damnfool enough to try to wade into that snake pit, she's going to have every adviser she can claim practicing Zeetha-esque martial arts leaps and kicks and tackles to prevent her from being a Dumbass Martyr. Rikki-tikki-tavi can go down the cobra hole alone, but it's only one cobra and a few eggs. Agatha is not in any sense at all prepared to take on the Gheisters unless she takes the Jagers, and right now Mechanicsberg simply needs them more.
I'm also not sure Tarvek will know where the Gheisters are, precisely. Just because he was leaving with them doesn't mean they gave him the map and asked him to navigate. And somehow I don't see Lady Vrin giving him the full low-down on their true destination.
In any case it's simply too dangerous until Agatha has a stronger military arm. If nothing else she can't be risked. If she fails one way, L/O takes her over again. If she fails another, she simply dies. If she fails yet another way she gets wasped like Klaus (No, I don't believe in unique wasps no matter what Tarvek says or believes...) and becomes an agent against her own side. Her people will not let her near the Gheisters right now. If she's taken over she's handing the Lady of the Castle over to the ultimate enemy as a tool, a hostage, a potentially subverted slave. No. Dumb. Just tactically and strategically not smart.
(Trying to imagine Gil and Tarvek BOTH sitting on her back agreeing with each other for once while she pounds her fists and Krosp gives her dry lectures in remaining alive. And Zeetha gets in the occasional solid whap with the Kollee-dok-zumil Quarterstaff of Sharply Applied Wisdom. And Dimo,Oggie and Maxim explain that a plan where you lose your hat...I mean life... is a Bad Plan... As for what Moloch and Violetta will find to say? Ha! It is to laugh! Such a leetle joke, non?)
Addendum.
Oh, freaking whooot! I just realized. If Agatha takes the Castle and the City and they're restored, well...
Klaus has been sending "his" Jagers to the removed regions of the Empire, away from Mechanicsberg. And in spite of his efforts to keep them unaware of the implications of what's going down, we know they're actually all quite aware. And not so stupid as to be lacking their own methods of long range communication. They WILL return to Mechanicsberg, and very, very soon.
Which means they surround Klaus' besieging forces.
Klaus will be facing attack from the core and the outer perimeter,and I'll betcha the Jagers will not only be armed and equipped and have transports but they will have originally been KLAUS' arms and equipment and transports.
I think Klaus will have to chalk this one up as a military wash. A really big military wash.
Oops.
edited 1st Sep '09 3:15:15 AM by Hippogrif
Mostly Harmless.Grif's Bet:
Rovainen. Last name of Toivo Rovainen, a game designer at Cheapass Games.
Cheapass Games designed and carries the game Girl Genius, The Works. There are more links between PF and Cheapass/Rovainen, but that one's an easy nail.
And in the process of browsing and free associating, I find that, yes, Phil Foglio is accounted a game designer.
Which clarifies one more thing I've been trying to distill about how this series is written.
Wonder what annotation and organization tools game designers use, and how they keep track of levels of interaction. Wonder how much game theory a good game designer knows. Probably more than me.
In any case I think at the very least there's a good chance we've got the source of Rovainen's name. Seattle native, BTW.
I won't say it's for the win. That would have to wait until I'd interviewed Mr. Foglio and confirmed the guess. But I do think I figured it out. It's another referential hat-tip to a friend or someone PF admires.
Mostly Harmless.Oh, now I've got the mental image of Gil and Tarvek sitting on Agatha while Krosp lectures her. That is too funny. You may be right that she's not in the best position to fight the Geisters yet, but she's got to do something about them—every day she doesn't is a day they get closer to whatever their goal is, and potentially a day they grow more powerful. Ultimately, the next step is to go to whatever places are necessary to get her a few more powerful allies.
I didn't even think of the fact that the Jagermonsters are going to have Klaus surrounded, trapped between themselves and the city's own substantial castle-controlled defenses. And he can't call his Castle for air support or a rescue—Agatha and Der Kestle have made sure he knows that. I think he's going to lose this battle, and have to flee the city on his own somehow. Fortunately for him, none of the forces he's committed to assault the castle are really military forces, so he's only losing a handful of real soldiers. Plus Agatha's nice enough that she'll probably let the firemen and the communications squad and whatnot go.
Just had a thought: the communications array people that're supposed to melt the castle... are they still on? The castle's demonstrated it's fully capable of defending its airspace again so they'd be so ridiculously vulnerable it'd seem foolish to even send them.
One final thought: You know what'd be really cool? If the very last page of this volume was the ringing of the doom bell. Wouldn't that be awesome? Remember, I called it.
Re: The scalpel/Othar's escape.
Not sure if this has been established by others or not, but...
By the way Gil lampshades it, and how the Wulfenbachs don't seem overly concerned about his escape, it's a fair bet Klaus keeps letting him do so, cause he really does seem to be a chew toy or plaything in the mind of Klaus more than a straight out victim, something to keep running the empire from getting boring - something Klaus himself points out during their happy little discussion that almost borders on Foe Yay, in a Sparky kind of way. (The whole strapped to the table theme DOES seem a slightly sexual metaphor in GG, doesn't it ?)
Seriously, if Klaus *really* wanted Othar snuffed, he'd have done it by now wouldn't he ?
Btw Hippogrif, you totally dated yourself with the mongoose reference, although I just did the same by recognizing it, tee hee.
Planescape Hijack
I think the lampshading was more along the lines of the "tests" Klaus kept throwing at Gil (the only one of which we see was the deliberately flawed device); it seems like Klaus was genuinely surprised about Othar's escape.
I also think that Klaus had been intending to perform that procedure on him for some time, but he's a busy man. And he wouldn't let such a valuable specimen be executed any other way (given how many of them he's killed, Othar's spark must be pretty strong). To me that just adds to the humor of all the interruptions :p
Also, Hippogrif outright stated her age some pages back, So Yeah
edited 1st Sep '09 1:17:41 PM by Haven
Productivity is for people without internet connections. -Count DorkuI had to go to some effort to track this down, be grateful
.
Okay, we're getting a terrific Spark Show
◊. Tesla himself would have been proud.
I'm no spring chicken, but I never read Rikki-Tikki-Tavi until it was mentioned as source/clue material for Harry Potter.
Bring on the lightning! We'll build a monster for fun!
Bring on the lightning! We'll turn him loose when we're done!
It's very frightening. See how the villagers run!
Pull that switch and catch the lightning—
Before the storm is done!
Oooh! Did you see it? Gil missed sixtyseventy-four! Is something going to go wrong?
edited 1st Sep '09 9:51:17 PM by Greybeard Fan
He missed SEVENTY-four, not sixty-four, and he was busy hollering in pain when that number came along, so it's understandable.
I think the countdown is just to get the two boys talking in tandem to show that their physical systems are lining up.
This was a triumph. I'm making a note here — "Huge Success!"Whooo-hoooo!
I do love a good lightening storm. So, so...satisfying.
In consideration of the first two panels from this Cinderella page, and given the way this is all going down, blade switches and all, I expect the next page or two to be (cough) climactic.
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081203
No idea if missing a count will be something wrong. But I expect things to be very interesting regardless of whether the Something Goes Very Wrong option actually occurs, or Agatha pulls this off without a single serious bobble.
Mostly Harmless.I think I'm rooting for Agatha pulling it off. Of course there's the option of her pulling it off but not perfectly, leaving both boys alive but in each other's bodies or something like that.
But I'm still rooting for Agatha to pull it off cleanly. I think she could use the victory. And I don't want anything terrible happening to Gil. (Tarvek, on the other hand...well, okay, I don't want anything TOO terrible to happen to him either. Moderately terrible would be okay though.)
edited 1st Sep '09 9:12:59 PM by Leftover Notes
This was a triumph. I'm making a note here — "Huge Success!"Nothing too terrible will happen to either. Not in the long term. (Snip long ramble about the many narrative options. The Fs will do what the Fs will do...)
This is a big plot point, though. This and getting the Castle up and in Agatha's hands are the raison d'etre of the past three books. Gonna be interesting to see what's planned that makes the mighty Si Vales Valeo a crucial plot point.
Mostly Harmless.
