page 1267: start blinking more
Okay, I’ll usually rejoice at any opportunity to inflict adversity upon Avi, but even I think that eye turned out pretty gnarly.
Also, hey look! A joke I made in the comments got promoted up to actual canon status! See? Every so often, one of those “I should totally use that” things really DOES make it into an actual comic!
And now, housekeeping. I tacked this onto the end of the commentary for page 1266, but I’m wrapping up the whole “random drawing inspired by a random song” series in the TWC incentives in favor of something entirely different. Actually, TWO different things, one that will start this week to kind of buy myself some time, and another that’ll start up once that short one is finished. So be sure to keep an eye on that TWC button to make sure you don’t miss out on anything! Also, be sure to ALSO drop by Patreon, because something especially neat just dropped over there: the next chapter in that Far Out There prose story! What, you forgot that I was writing a totally non-comic-based Far Out There tale on Patreon? I wouldn’t blame you, the first chapter dropped all the way back in December. But just because things happen veeeeeeery sloooooooowly in Far Out There land doesn’t mean they don’t happen eventually! So go become at least a $2 patron and get yourself an entirely different sort of Far Out There fix!
EDIT: Okay, new TWC Voting Incentive is up!
Yet again wee see that in the distant future, ALL food is dangerous. Only the level of danger varies. Fugu fish is probably below average.
Also, Layla is not going to pay attention to you, she is preoccupied trying to figure out if a Pruitt Sky Spider is actually Meat.
“If you wanna be on the top of the food chain, you gotta EARN it!”
Would that be Layla’s food philosophy or her personal entire life philosophy as the former boss-in-waiting of a nefarious crime syndicate? 😉
Also re vote incentive: Internet sez you can’t tell me what to do! you’re not the boss of me!
Really? Because I thought that Internet was just trying to provide the midpoint between the art provided and the art requested.
That just what it wants you to think it’s doing!
That’s just the thing, though. I generated a BUNCH of Tabitha pictures, and this ones before and after this one were nothing like it stylistically. I’ll never understand people with the patience to figure out how to make this stuff work.
As someone who started out programming BASIC on a TRS-80 CoCo 40 years ago it just blows my mind that it’s even possible for a computer at all to take a checklist or text description and even create a simulation of art. Mindboggling and just a little bit scary, really, even more so than computers driving cars, which is already bizarre. To be fair, even human artists learn art from other art they’ve seen or been taught in the past, the internet is just doing it in a more structured way. I just want to stay on Mr. Internet’s good side and not get it ticked off at me or it may draw me out of the picture entirely…. 🙁
For that matter, why doesn’t the Exposition have an AI? You know it would! I’m betting the Cap’n turned it off because he didn’t want anyone else running HIS ship. Maybe that’s what’s in the Mystery Room?
The Exposition doesn’t have an AI for several reasons.
– First, they try to impose pesky “safety limits”, even on short-term occupants.
– Second, they have a habit of going crazy and trying to kill people.
– Third, the one he trailed had an issue with Avatar.
– Fourth, the one he trailed had problems with both him and Blip.
– Fifth, the one he trailed was scared of Vengeance.
– Sixth, Ichabod brought something on board for five minutes that infected the AI and effectively made it incapable of doing anything but assist piloting the ship for short periods of time.
– Seventh, the one he trailed didn’t collect money properly, while also trying to pay “taxes” to places they were nowhere near.
The Cap’n does prefer the AI after the sixth point, though.
Technically, Blip IS an AI on board the Exposition …which explains a lot right there.
But yeah, The Cap’n definitely doesn’t like anything happening on his ship that’s outside his control, for better OR for worse.
Well, yeah, Blip is an AI, but he’s not the ship’s AI, is he? He’s just a $15 bought on sale mascot – basically the Cap’n’s shoulder parrot. I would expect every ship to come with an AI that controls most of its functions, and 99%+ of regular normal ship owners use them. (That being how 4 children could successfully operate/steal a ship the size of a large city) Cap’n’s just an oddball on a ship full of ’em 🙂
The Exposition is one of those ships purposefully designed and marketed towards those commonly referred to as “Control Freaks”, who want to have control over the things around them, and have as little AI in them as legally permissible by the industry standards. Basically, just enough to forcefully prevent him from cashing his ship into a planet or star at notable relativistic speeds.
I’m sure it’s an adjustable option, like with a car, and the Cap’n just opted for the minimum…which was still too much AI for him so he disabled most of the rest of it with aftermarket kits which skirt the edges of the law, like a lot of people do with their cars. It’s just that the edges of the law are a lot more fuzzy in deep space where there’s a 1000 different conflicting jurisdictions and the Interstellar Space Police spend most of their time hiding from Stilez. (Which, considering her current location, means right now he could pretty much get away with anything)
Or, perhaps he just did a bit of ancient history reading when he purchased from the “Discovery” line of ships on the original #1 model in the series – you can still see the visual resemblence even after millenia – and noted that it may have ad a wee bit of an AI issue, and acted out of a reasonable sense of caution!
Oh my gosh, how have I never explicitly tried to slip in a HAL 9000 reference anyplace?
Nope, impossible, it is inconceivable that any intelligence, artificial or natural, could have a problem with Avatar!
Now, I will accept as entirely plausible the idea that it shut itself down spontaneously and refused to restart as soon as Vengeance came aboard. As unbearably creepy as he is just walking down the hall past you for a couple seconds, imagine if you were a ship and the was LIVING INSIDE OF YOU?!?!?! :O