Depends, I can see it going one of 2 ways: ZK had online backups of his code, and Ethan rebuilds him with the specs they now have. ZK decides to spare Ethan, but decides that Scott must die. ZK splits off for a bit to be an Anti-hero / occasional antagonist, Eventually Ethan gets him to return to the party, causing Scott to abandon his friends over the incident. Hook for Scott to becoming a Lex Luthor type of villian, but not as rich and far more personal. ZK survives the explosion and goes full “MURDER MODE 2000 ™” on… Read more »
It was stated explicitly when ZK wanted internet access that it’s impossible to copy their code as it’s actively and organically changing. Obviously, Tim can “plot” whatever he wants to, but I’m kind of upset that it came to an actual explosion. I was hoping that Scott would act quickly enough to stop ZK, having to explain his treachery to ZK, hurting their trust in humanity, and damaging Ethan’s and Lucas’ trust in Scott in the process. Now we’re left with two plot directions- ZK either found a way to make a limited backup and will come back with a… Read more »
Let’s all not forget the fourth option. 4. ZK is dead, and he’s not coming back. This is an actual option. Tim very well might GRR Martin the storyline, for maximum feels. Doing so would essentially drive a sudden wedge between all three that WOULD NOT heal. Scott may have mislead Lucas, but let’s not forget that Lucas and Scott mislead Ethan together. If ZK is truly gone, I expect Lucas to be most angry at Scott (“You promised me!!”), Ethan to be most angry at Lucas (“I would expect this from Scott – but not from you.”), and Scott… Read more »
I mean, I don’t expect it. But, narratively, I think that ZK’s death at this point can achieve just as much as his resurrection. It’s extremely risky as it can lose readership – but more, it can drive hooks in. Like A Game of Thrones, there’s a *really* strong core cast that can carry on the story, and each person is affected. It would change -everything-. And Tim isn’t one for doing what his readers think or expect. I don’t expect it, but you’d be silly to think it’s an impossibility. Tim’s literally been writing ZK’s story, especially this arc,… Read more »
He spent a significant amount of time developing the character. Not all writers are like GRR Martin, I am indeed saying it’s impossible that he would throw away all that work and development for nothing. We will see.
I also agree that it’s impossible that he would throw away all that work and development “for nothing.”
He’s literally set it up so that ZK’s death at this moment would have the most weight possible. The only other ZK death that would be more impactful, story-wise, would MAYBE a heroic self-sacrifice. Which ZK really can’t do, as the only person he’s really close to can’t die.
Plus, this isn’t really a GRR Martin moment. Ned Stark was as close to a main character as you’d get. This is more like a Final Fantasy 7 moment.
Last edited 2 years ago by Eldest Gruff
Khaisz
2 years ago
oh no
Quinn
2 years ago
Uh oh
Tim
2 years ago
Kind of disappointed about the size of the boom…
But really thrilled about were it is going !
Honestly, if I was ‘the Master’ I would have put the failsafe on the power supply to the motherboard, made the power supply use specialised components. and made It as localised to there as I could, easy to fix once he has ‘fixed’ the problems that made it needed. But incapacitating. But then I would also make the fail safe start a GPS beacon too
That’s one route to go, but if you really wanted to be sadistic you could put the device on the connection from the head to the rest of the body essentially preforming an internal decapitation. Then you can still have a viable sentient Consciousness to use for further research and development.
Scott did say it was a pretty small bomb when he set this up. Didn’t expect the story to actually have it go off here tho. Damn. Doubt he will stay dead but, damn. Maybe his data wasnt even stored in the head anymore…
Scott explicitly stated Zeke can’t do that, hence he was allowed Internet access in the first place. And archives would be dreadfully out-of-date by now, he’s made so much progress.
Honestly, if this explains ZK’s sudden need for pants (to hide the fact that they’ve been transferring vital functions to a less obvious place in their body), it would be a massive plot payoff.
Maybe they detected the explosive but core programming wouldn’t let them disable or remove it. So, instead of removing the bomb from their brain, they removed the brain from the bomb.
It may be a small explosion, but the boom is going to be huge. Lucas will be furious with Scott and Ethan will be furious with both of them. I expect they may cut ties with Scott, and he may go bad because of it.
Oh and by the way, for a supposedly smart guy, Scott is a moron.
Disappointing maybe but realistic. You dont need much more explosive power than what is contained in a few bullets to seriously F up delicate electronics if placed on the right points. Heck a blasting cap (normaly used to set off larger explosives) placed right on the CPU would prety much be lights out for zeke.
Remember that thing was never designed to compleatly obliterate him, say to keep someone from being able to examine the tech. It was there to shut him down if he went rogue.
JustJim
2 years ago
Well that’s answered that question.
Humsterr
2 years ago
Scott, you lied to us. You said we wouldn’t need to worry about the failsafe
If I remember well, I think it was rigged to automatically blow if Zeke ever left the warehouse… Ethan, in his ignorance of the failsafe’s existence, spontaneously letting Zeke out didn’t giver Scott a chance to update the failsafe parameters. That secret was going to bite them in the bottom sooner or later…
Considering the time-span since the promise Scott made to Lucas, his reluctance and the reactions here. I think Scott pulled a deception on that and purposefully ignored the request back then.
I remember Scott was acting deceitful to Lucas when saying he would disable it. We figured back then in the comments that it wasnt going to get disabled and that eventually this would happen. Wish it hadn’t tho.
All of this, plus the look of dread on Scott’s face just now, too, which is what communicated to Lucas that there was something going down. Really frustrated in him honestly. I get why he wanted some sort of failsafe but even extending the perimeter to the front door would have prevented what just occured and was a perfectly reasonable compromise that Lucas had already offered him.
It seems pretty apparent that Scott never actually believed that ZK was, or even could be, reformed and have a balanced personality and view of the world. He wouldn’t have expanded the perimeter because he never trusted ZK and still doesn’t. The problem is he lied to his friends instead of continuing to make his opinion known and working through it with them.
He never ACTUALLY lied. He said they didn’t need to worry about it. That does NOT mean that it was disabled, just that they didn’t need to worry. Exact wording.
In Lucas and Ethan’s judgement, they do need to worry about it. But in Scott’s judgement, they don’t. And “You don’t need to worry about it” isn’t an objective statement of fact; it’s subjective to the person saying it.
Scott believes they don’t need to worry, because there are two outcomes – either the robot obeys and stays in, or he leaves because he’s a threat. In either way, Lucas and Ethan don’t need to worry.
Scott didn’t lie; he just mislead Lucas to believe he was saying something else. Probably “for their own good.”
Lying by omission is still titled lying for a reason.
jere
2 years ago
The worst thing about this is that if Zeke somehow survives this, they are going to assume that it was a trap and Ethan was part of it in luring him out to the store 🙁
Also, another interesting thought: If Zeke survives this via a backup or whatever, this is a sort of “memory of dying” just like what Ethan talked about just a couple of pages before.
Just break his arms instead. And a few more bones for the sake of it.
foducool
2 years ago
god dammit scott…
Drakin
2 years ago
IF they can repair Zeke and IF they can get him to listen to them for a few moments, the ONLY form of peace offering I can see is Ethan steps up and martyrs himself for Scotts sake.
Saying something like, “You can kill me as many times as you like. Test out different methods, experiment with elaborate torture. Just put all your blame on me for being stupid and leave my friends alone.”
This makes me wonder: what if the only way to fix ZK is to contact the man who created them? Would our heroes be willing to deal with a known criminal in order to save… a friend?
ooooh that is a nice path. I like this, Ethan (probably Lucas as well, maybe even Scott) doing all they can to rescue Zeke, who then “wakes up” again, trying to figure out what this all means: First they lied to him, which then caused an accident and let the thing happen Zeke was most afraid of. However, then they did all they could to reverse that.
In a way, the storyline with the damaged eye might have been a preparation for this: The same thing, but on a much larger scale.
Depends on what was blown. If it was a servo or something, then thats replacable. but if a ram stick or SSD or something that was part of him.. effective lobotomy.
Okay that’s baller; I don’t think Tim’s going to take in that direction, but well played on calling that out as a very plausible storyline with interesting conflicts.
I like this idea, but wasn’t the Master on an ironically anti-technology crusade? The idea of his tool being treated like a person might disgust him.
Of course the Master is *wrong*, he created a person and I hope they come back from this in some form.
West
2 years ago
Lucas: disable the failsafe
Scott: whatever you say, warchief…
Daniel Sørensen
2 years ago
Yeeees. Not that Zeke is hurt, but that Tim actually acted on that setup. This is going to make some interesting conflicts in the team. I have no idea where it will go from here. Maybe Zeke will retaliate. Have memory loss (literally). Or something else, but I’m looking forward to it.
Mordred
2 years ago
ASSASSINATION!
Eldest Gruff
2 years ago
Oh God. On the panel where the explosion happened. Their eyes are still blue.
Zeke had no clue, even as Lucas shouted.
Well. At least Scott’s there to see what he did firsthand, and face the consequences.
Please let the consequences be dismemberment. ZK had really grown on me these past few comics and this betrayal hit me right in the feels! (Meaning all the more credit for the writer!)
One of the consequences will be psychological fallout on Ethan’s part. He literally led ZK to their death. Unknowingly, of course, and none of us omniscient observers would hold him accountable. But I can see this eating away at Ethan worse than the Troll ever did.
Last edited 2 years ago by Maazak
Snark
2 years ago
Oh.
Thank God there are backups, that’s what they were invented for…
There are backups, right? Right???…
the fact his code evolves faster then any computer could copy is the reason they let him have internet access. he cant back himself up externally. now internally….
Why did some of you expect a much bigger explosion? Scott isn’t stupid. He clearly knew the bomb wasn’t gonna reach beyond ZK themselves, or he wouldn’t have kept it as a reasonable option to begin with.
Either he reduced its potency, or the Master meant for it to be like that.
I was expecting a bigger boom, not a “blow a whole edifice” type, but all the head or maybe a dramatic explosion in the heart zone blowing the chest
Last edited 2 years ago by Gonfrask
TomB
2 years ago
Frankly, it is unclear to me if ZK can yet be trusted to not revert to violence against humans. I think Scott is the only one thinking straight. What they should have said is: “ZK, we trust you but we also have the responsibility to protect all the humans beyond our warehouse. You have progressed in many ways and we are guardedly willing to see where this goes. We have the latitude to trust you, but we do not have the right or the latitude to presume every other human is okay with the risk. For a time yet, you… Read more »
Tim can script this as he wants, but I see no comprehensive evidence of ZK fully grasping that it would not be okay to kill or hurt humans even if they were unkind to him or frustrated him. He’s shown he can hold back with Ethan, but Ethan has been his champion. Do we know if he can hold back from hacking the guy who harmed him? If not, he’s still dangerous. We all figured which way it might go (sometimes we thought it might go the other way… lol). But what we as readers take form situations we’ve been… Read more »
There was the whole lens fixing arc which showed him grasp the possibility that violence isn’t the solution for every problem but he did need help to get to that conclusion. I guess you might be right.
Eh. Sure, ZK is potentially dangerous. But all his previous crimes are justifiably under duress, and just because someone *could* hurt someone, we don’t exactly fit them with explosive collars to blow them up if they break the rules. Scott’s argument is that ZK isn’t actually sapient despite all indicators to the contrary, which is hard to argue against when there’s no level of evidence that can prove ZK *doesn’t* have some secret sleeper agent code buried in there somewhere, so I guess it’s understandable he’s treating ZK like dangerous machinery instead of a person, but it’s still pretty fucked… Read more »
That whole speech to give ZK would go poorly, because one of their very first claims to him was that the failsafe was disabled. “Hey remember that failsafe we said we disabled, just kidding it’s still there” is going to be a conversation that goes poorly no matter how they try to frame it.
That’s the argument though. Is it ethical to do such a thing to a sentient being?
Almost everyone would agree that it’s fundamentally unethical to do that to a human.
Dodgy
2 years ago
Scott!! You GOD DAMNED ASSHOLE! Rot in Hell!
… was my first thought after this comic.
Killiak
2 years ago
Scott, you are in deep trouble, you p.o.s.
smiley
2 years ago
Dammit Scott! At least in the original timeline you had the whole evil penguin excuse
Markus
2 years ago
Um, hate to bring this up, but what if Zeke survives? His eyes are still glowing, the universal sign that he is still “alive”. What if the cortex bomb did not disable him? He will feel betrayed and rightly so. He will discard the little bit of social behavior he acquired during the past months and seek immediate revenge upon the one he views as responsible, which are all right there as it happens.
I was going to say this as well. If he isn’t incapacitated, he might choose to flee. Ethan and Lucas will argue over the situation while they scour the streets looking for him. I doubt he would return to the master, but it is within the realm of possibility, as is the master kidnapping him.
Kaitensatsuma
2 years ago
Oh, right, was it supposed to pop if he left the storeroom?
This fights right in with the occasionally-dark content of CAD. You’ll have to pop over to Questionable Content for purely wholesome AI humanizing and love.
To be honest, QC handles some very dark themes at times too. Alcoholism, suicide, AI memory… I still love it, and I love this comic even if ZK, well, never comes back. Or they don’t come back for a while, so we can sort out the reactions to this. I do really appreciate what Tim has done with ZK though, it means a lot to me too.
Sam
2 years ago
Scott looks genuinely concerned/surprised in that panel. I don’t think he purposefully let this happen.
I think his surprise is with Ethan letting Zeke out of the storeroom without any advanced notice. His concern/surprise was before the boom, so he knew what was about to go down. Lucas sees Scotts reaction and realizes Scott never disabled the bomb.
Of course Ethan would do that. Ethan was never made aware of the “robot goes boom if it leaves the storeroom” plan in the first place. That was just between Lucas and Scott. If Scott never considered that Ethan, not knowing about the bomb at all, might come with ZK out of the storeroom, that was pretty stupid on Scott’s part.
Honestly, I think Scott was always content with this potential outcome, at least as far as Zeke is concerned. He likely considered that Ethan might bring Zeke out and then he no longer has to worry about it. He never really bought into the ‘Zeke is sapient and redeemable’ mindset. He might have self-rationalized that needing to repair the friendships is a small price to pay to *potentially* protect humanity.
May be. He doesn’t shout any warning, so he might just be startled that it’s happening *now*.
In fact I bet he expected ZK to escape on their own, not to be so close to Ethan. He could be worried for his friend being close to the bomb.
Ashi
2 years ago
Mr. Shit, meet my good friend Mr. Fan.
Mars
2 years ago
My day is ruined
Robert
2 years ago
Extremely large amounts of drama incoming over the next few updates.
Matt Moore
2 years ago
So many head puns..
This storyline came to a head..
Now I have to see where this is headed.
Zeke is no long the head of his nation.
etc., etc.
I am suddenly VERY not hopeful for a feel-good outcome to all this…
Timmeh
2 years ago
Can we just recognize the BRILLIANT parallel to Ethan dying to start this off and ZK sympathizing about HOW SCARY this would be to die and come back and not knowing if you could come back and how ZK felt compassion about how TERRIBLE it would be to just have THIS happen??? This is by far the best written arc and I am guessing it isn’t even half way done.
One of my worries is that since they JUST had that convo – what if ZK assumes this was planned the entire time and Ethan was in on it? That entire conversation was part of the setup or something…
Ethan will probably not have beef with Lucas in the first place. Ethan vs. Scott on the other hand will be a much worse fight.
Skull the Troll
2 years ago
Interesting The lights aren’t out. I wonder if the Bomb was dislodged when Ethan was messing with his eye. Maybe Zeke wasn’t fully honest either, and he offloaded some of his brain to the web somehow?
Last edited 2 years ago by Robert
Mr. Casual
2 years ago
Yeah, that’s not good. Nor will it be good going forward.
Eric
2 years ago
Having read this comic all since it first began all these years ago, seeing zeke die for a second time…. it brings back hard memories. I need to see how this ends.
Reso
2 years ago
It’s strange, after all this consideration of how the failsafe might stop zeke from doing all kinds of bad stuff, it’s never considered that he might want to take a walk.
(Yes, I know, the original terms of their agreement was that zeke stays within the stockroom at the game shop).
Eldrik
2 years ago
I think zeke knew about the bomb’s setting to some extent. He had plenty of time to check himself and had access to all kind of software thanks to the laptop and the internet, I’m curious what happens next.
Paula
2 years ago
Oh no, when they resurrect Zeke he will be so angry, I worry he does not trust Ethan anymore.
Scott D Lufkin
2 years ago
Oh. I hated this. 🙂
Snowfae
2 years ago
OH TEH NOES! :O
Critic
2 years ago
Welp time for me to put this on reminder an come back to it in a month or too.
Austin Mills
2 years ago
So…on the plus side Ethan printed spare parts when Zeke got shot in the eye so…maybe we can fix it? Hopefully? Guess we just have to hope Eugene miscalculated how much explosive it would take to fry Zeke’s CPU…and that Zeke opts to run instead of murder so that maybe Ethan can talk them down later.
Migs
2 years ago
Wonder what’ll happen next:
They contact The Master for help
ZK somehow backed up their data online
Ethan somehow uses his power to resurrect ZK but may lose it in the process
noonecareswhoiam
2 years ago
ah man! more. now! where the next button?! where?!
ShonaSoF
2 years ago
Oh….. shit….
AENeuman
2 years ago
Going back and looking at the story up to this point, its very striking how much the color has changed from red, to violet, purple, blue, to teal, as Zeke has mellowed out over time.
T!J!
2 years ago
Oh chit! This may require them to make a deal (a very bad deal) with the Master to bring him back. I suspect Scott has the ability to recreate Zeke, but not rebuild his organic personality. Because he would refuse to. Even more so now. This may even make Scott once again become the bad guy, trying to actively prevent them from recreating an artificial race he strongly disapproved of already.
24
Now they have the specs they can rebuild him, but will ZK ever be the same?
And how vengeful will ZK be if he can recall “the event”?
Depends, I can see it going one of 2 ways: ZK had online backups of his code, and Ethan rebuilds him with the specs they now have. ZK decides to spare Ethan, but decides that Scott must die. ZK splits off for a bit to be an Anti-hero / occasional antagonist, Eventually Ethan gets him to return to the party, causing Scott to abandon his friends over the incident. Hook for Scott to becoming a Lex Luthor type of villian, but not as rich and far more personal. ZK survives the explosion and goes full “MURDER MODE 2000 ™” on… Read more »
It was stated explicitly when ZK wanted internet access that it’s impossible to copy their code as it’s actively and organically changing. Obviously, Tim can “plot” whatever he wants to, but I’m kind of upset that it came to an actual explosion. I was hoping that Scott would act quickly enough to stop ZK, having to explain his treachery to ZK, hurting their trust in humanity, and damaging Ethan’s and Lucas’ trust in Scott in the process. Now we’re left with two plot directions- ZK either found a way to make a limited backup and will come back with a… Read more »
Let’s all not forget the fourth option. 4. ZK is dead, and he’s not coming back. This is an actual option. Tim very well might GRR Martin the storyline, for maximum feels. Doing so would essentially drive a sudden wedge between all three that WOULD NOT heal. Scott may have mislead Lucas, but let’s not forget that Lucas and Scott mislead Ethan together. If ZK is truly gone, I expect Lucas to be most angry at Scott (“You promised me!!”), Ethan to be most angry at Lucas (“I would expect this from Scott – but not from you.”), and Scott… Read more »
I am not ok with this.
It is amazing, and I would die inside. but yes, I would not be emotionally ok with this.
No chance ZK is perma-dead. Way too important a character; no need to fret.
I mean, I don’t expect it. But, narratively, I think that ZK’s death at this point can achieve just as much as his resurrection. It’s extremely risky as it can lose readership – but more, it can drive hooks in. Like A Game of Thrones, there’s a *really* strong core cast that can carry on the story, and each person is affected. It would change -everything-. And Tim isn’t one for doing what his readers think or expect. I don’t expect it, but you’d be silly to think it’s an impossibility. Tim’s literally been writing ZK’s story, especially this arc,… Read more »
He spent a significant amount of time developing the character. Not all writers are like GRR Martin, I am indeed saying it’s impossible that he would throw away all that work and development for nothing. We will see.
I also agree that it’s impossible that he would throw away all that work and development “for nothing.”
He’s literally set it up so that ZK’s death at this moment would have the most weight possible. The only other ZK death that would be more impactful, story-wise, would MAYBE a heroic self-sacrifice. Which ZK really can’t do, as the only person he’s really close to can’t die.
Plus, this isn’t really a GRR Martin moment. Ned Stark was as close to a main character as you’d get. This is more like a Final Fantasy 7 moment.
oh no
Uh oh
Kind of disappointed about the size of the boom…
But really thrilled about were it is going !
Same here, clearly the Master didn’t want to remake his whole creation in case it rebels, just the mother board
Honestly, if I was ‘the Master’ I would have put the failsafe on the power supply to the motherboard, made the power supply use specialised components. and made It as localised to there as I could, easy to fix once he has ‘fixed’ the problems that made it needed. But incapacitating. But then I would also make the fail safe start a GPS beacon too
That’s one route to go, but if you really wanted to be sadistic you could put the device on the connection from the head to the rest of the body essentially preforming an internal decapitation. Then you can still have a viable sentient Consciousness to use for further research and development.
I was expecting it to pretty much level the shop, not just be a little bang in the back of his head. A “BOOOOOM!” rather than a “boom”.
That would just be wasteful in multiple ways.
Scott did say it was a pretty small bomb when he set this up. Didn’t expect the story to actually have it go off here tho. Damn. Doubt he will stay dead but, damn. Maybe his data wasnt even stored in the head anymore…
Most likely, having access to the Internet, Zeke “deposited” their consciousness somewhere, so that they may be respawned the same way Ethan respawns
Either that, or Scott has some archives from the time he tried to research Zeke’s mind
Scott explicitly stated Zeke can’t do that, hence he was allowed Internet access in the first place. And archives would be dreadfully out-of-date by now, he’s made so much progress.
He might have a local backup of something, but it’s unlikely he can just pop himself into a new body easily. See this comic where Scott talks about this.
The data is stored in the balls
Now we know why he was trying to keep the lint out…
Honestly, if this explains ZK’s sudden need for pants (to hide the fact that they’ve been transferring vital functions to a less obvious place in their body), it would be a massive plot payoff.
Maybe they detected the explosive but core programming wouldn’t let them disable or remove it. So, instead of removing the bomb from their brain, they removed the brain from the bomb.
“Where’s the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!”
“No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There’s always a boom tomorrow.”
Too many booms right now in the world, this was the right sized boom.
I got that ?
It may be a small explosion, but the boom is going to be huge. Lucas will be furious with Scott and Ethan will be furious with both of them. I expect they may cut ties with Scott, and he may go bad because of it.
Oh and by the way, for a supposedly smart guy, Scott is a moron.
Disappointing maybe but realistic. You dont need much more explosive power than what is contained in a few bullets to seriously F up delicate electronics if placed on the right points. Heck a blasting cap (normaly used to set off larger explosives) placed right on the CPU would prety much be lights out for zeke.
Remember that thing was never designed to compleatly obliterate him, say to keep someone from being able to examine the tech. It was there to shut him down if he went rogue.
Well that’s answered that question.
Scott, you lied to us. You said we wouldn’t need to worry about the failsafe
Well, I’m very worried now
If I remember well, I think it was rigged to automatically blow if Zeke ever left the warehouse… Ethan, in his ignorance of the failsafe’s existence, spontaneously letting Zeke out didn’t giver Scott a chance to update the failsafe parameters. That secret was going to bite them in the bottom sooner or later…
Considering the time-span since the promise Scott made to Lucas, his reluctance and the reactions here. I think Scott pulled a deception on that and purposefully ignored the request back then.
Likely, but I suppose he could also have just done a bad job of disabling it.
I remember Scott was acting deceitful to Lucas when saying he would disable it. We figured back then in the comments that it wasnt going to get disabled and that eventually this would happen. Wish it hadn’t tho.
All of this, plus the look of dread on Scott’s face just now, too, which is what communicated to Lucas that there was something going down. Really frustrated in him honestly. I get why he wanted some sort of failsafe but even extending the perimeter to the front door would have prevented what just occured and was a perfectly reasonable compromise that Lucas had already offered him.
It seems pretty apparent that Scott never actually believed that ZK was, or even could be, reformed and have a balanced personality and view of the world. He wouldn’t have expanded the perimeter because he never trusted ZK and still doesn’t. The problem is he lied to his friends instead of continuing to make his opinion known and working through it with them.
Scott has had plenty of time, he just made a choice not to do it, and lied to his friends about it.
He never ACTUALLY lied. He said they didn’t need to worry about it. That does NOT mean that it was disabled, just that they didn’t need to worry. Exact wording.
That’s still a lie, especially when it’s to your friends. But obviously they did need to worry about it.
In Lucas and Ethan’s judgement, they do need to worry about it. But in Scott’s judgement, they don’t. And “You don’t need to worry about it” isn’t an objective statement of fact; it’s subjective to the person saying it.
Scott believes they don’t need to worry, because there are two outcomes – either the robot obeys and stays in, or he leaves because he’s a threat. In either way, Lucas and Ethan don’t need to worry.
Scott didn’t lie; he just mislead Lucas to believe he was saying something else. Probably “for their own good.”
Still counts as lying, and I doubt Ethan and/or Lucas will care about that “little difference”.
Lying by omission is still titled lying for a reason.
The worst thing about this is that if Zeke somehow survives this, they are going to assume that it was a trap and Ethan was part of it in luring him out to the store 🙁
Also, another interesting thought: If Zeke survives this via a backup or whatever, this is a sort of “memory of dying” just like what Ethan talked about just a couple of pages before.
if Zeke survives, they’ll do everything in their power to cure Scott’s paraplegy, just so they can break his legs again
Just break his arms instead. And a few more bones for the sake of it.
god dammit scott…
IF they can repair Zeke and IF they can get him to listen to them for a few moments, the ONLY form of peace offering I can see is Ethan steps up and martyrs himself for Scotts sake.
Saying something like, “You can kill me as many times as you like. Test out different methods, experiment with elaborate torture. Just put all your blame on me for being stupid and leave my friends alone.”
This makes me wonder: what if the only way to fix ZK is to contact the man who created them? Would our heroes be willing to deal with a known criminal in order to save… a friend?
ooooh that is a nice path. I like this, Ethan (probably Lucas as well, maybe even Scott) doing all they can to rescue Zeke, who then “wakes up” again, trying to figure out what this all means: First they lied to him, which then caused an accident and let the thing happen Zeke was most afraid of. However, then they did all they could to reverse that.
In a way, the storyline with the damaged eye might have been a preparation for this: The same thing, but on a much larger scale.
Hmm he shared a USB drive with data to remake “all his parts” I think he said? likely it wouldn’t include core electronics like this but it could.
Depends on what was blown. If it was a servo or something, then thats replacable. but if a ram stick or SSD or something that was part of him.. effective lobotomy.
Okay that’s baller; I don’t think Tim’s going to take in that direction, but well played on calling that out as a very plausible storyline with interesting conflicts.
I like this idea, but wasn’t the Master on an ironically anti-technology crusade? The idea of his tool being treated like a person might disgust him.
Of course the Master is *wrong*, he created a person and I hope they come back from this in some form.
Lucas: disable the failsafe
Scott: whatever you say, warchief…
Yeeees. Not that Zeke is hurt, but that Tim actually acted on that setup. This is going to make some interesting conflicts in the team. I have no idea where it will go from here. Maybe Zeke will retaliate. Have memory loss (literally). Or something else, but I’m looking forward to it.
ASSASSINATION!
Oh God. On the panel where the explosion happened. Their eyes are still blue.
Zeke had no clue, even as Lucas shouted.
Well. At least Scott’s there to see what he did firsthand, and face the consequences.
Please let the consequences be dismemberment. ZK had really grown on me these past few comics and this betrayal hit me right in the feels! (Meaning all the more credit for the writer!)
One of the consequences will be psychological fallout on Ethan’s part. He literally led ZK to their death. Unknowingly, of course, and none of us omniscient observers would hold him accountable. But I can see this eating away at Ethan worse than the Troll ever did.
Oh.
Thank God there are backups, that’s what they were invented for…
There are backups, right? Right???…
the fact his code evolves faster then any computer could copy is the reason they let him have internet access. he cant back himself up externally. now internally….
mm, yep, forgot about this one..
no snapshots, no shadowcopies.. crappy programming, if you ask me :-/
That Switch maybe.
Hmm.. perhaps it will buff out? ?
You suck, Scott.
How to undo month of work.
Why did some of you expect a much bigger explosion? Scott isn’t stupid. He clearly knew the bomb wasn’t gonna reach beyond ZK themselves, or he wouldn’t have kept it as a reasonable option to begin with.
Either he reduced its potency, or the Master meant for it to be like that.
I was expecting a bigger boom, not a “blow a whole edifice” type, but all the head or maybe a dramatic explosion in the heart zone blowing the chest
Frankly, it is unclear to me if ZK can yet be trusted to not revert to violence against humans. I think Scott is the only one thinking straight. What they should have said is: “ZK, we trust you but we also have the responsibility to protect all the humans beyond our warehouse. You have progressed in many ways and we are guardedly willing to see where this goes. We have the latitude to trust you, but we do not have the right or the latitude to presume every other human is okay with the risk. For a time yet, you… Read more »
Tim can script this as he wants, but I see no comprehensive evidence of ZK fully grasping that it would not be okay to kill or hurt humans even if they were unkind to him or frustrated him. He’s shown he can hold back with Ethan, but Ethan has been his champion. Do we know if he can hold back from hacking the guy who harmed him? If not, he’s still dangerous. We all figured which way it might go (sometimes we thought it might go the other way… lol). But what we as readers take form situations we’ve been… Read more »
There was the whole lens fixing arc which showed him grasp the possibility that violence isn’t the solution for every problem but he did need help to get to that conclusion. I guess you might be right.
Eh. Sure, ZK is potentially dangerous. But all his previous crimes are justifiably under duress, and just because someone *could* hurt someone, we don’t exactly fit them with explosive collars to blow them up if they break the rules. Scott’s argument is that ZK isn’t actually sapient despite all indicators to the contrary, which is hard to argue against when there’s no level of evidence that can prove ZK *doesn’t* have some secret sleeper agent code buried in there somewhere, so I guess it’s understandable he’s treating ZK like dangerous machinery instead of a person, but it’s still pretty fucked… Read more »
That whole speech to give ZK would go poorly, because one of their very first claims to him was that the failsafe was disabled. “Hey remember that failsafe we said we disabled, just kidding it’s still there” is going to be a conversation that goes poorly no matter how they try to frame it.
That’s the argument though. Is it ethical to do such a thing to a sentient being?
Almost everyone would agree that it’s fundamentally unethical to do that to a human.
Scott!! You GOD DAMNED ASSHOLE! Rot in Hell!
… was my first thought after this comic.
Scott, you are in deep trouble, you p.o.s.
Dammit Scott! At least in the original timeline you had the whole evil penguin excuse
Um, hate to bring this up, but what if Zeke survives? His eyes are still glowing, the universal sign that he is still “alive”. What if the cortex bomb did not disable him? He will feel betrayed and rightly so. He will discard the little bit of social behavior he acquired during the past months and seek immediate revenge upon the one he views as responsible, which are all right there as it happens.
I was going to say this as well. If he isn’t incapacitated, he might choose to flee. Ethan and Lucas will argue over the situation while they scour the streets looking for him. I doubt he would return to the master, but it is within the realm of possibility, as is the master kidnapping him.
Oh, right, was it supposed to pop if he left the storeroom?
It wasn’t supposed to be enabled at all, but Scott betrayed them.
Whoops.
This ruined my morning. With everything going on in the world I was finding respite in the humanizing of this AI. Done with this for awhile.
This fights right in with the occasionally-dark content of CAD. You’ll have to pop over to Questionable Content for purely wholesome AI humanizing and love.
To be honest, QC handles some very dark themes at times too. Alcoholism, suicide, AI memory… I still love it, and I love this comic even if ZK, well, never comes back. Or they don’t come back for a while, so we can sort out the reactions to this. I do really appreciate what Tim has done with ZK though, it means a lot to me too.
Scott looks genuinely concerned/surprised in that panel. I don’t think he purposefully let this happen.
I think his surprise is with Ethan letting Zeke out of the storeroom without any advanced notice. His concern/surprise was before the boom, so he knew what was about to go down. Lucas sees Scotts reaction and realizes Scott never disabled the bomb.
Of course Ethan would do that. Ethan was never made aware of the “robot goes boom if it leaves the storeroom” plan in the first place. That was just between Lucas and Scott. If Scott never considered that Ethan, not knowing about the bomb at all, might come with ZK out of the storeroom, that was pretty stupid on Scott’s part.
Honestly, I think Scott was always content with this potential outcome, at least as far as Zeke is concerned. He likely considered that Ethan might bring Zeke out and then he no longer has to worry about it. He never really bought into the ‘Zeke is sapient and redeemable’ mindset. He might have self-rationalized that needing to repair the friendships is a small price to pay to *potentially* protect humanity.
May be. He doesn’t shout any warning, so he might just be startled that it’s happening *now*.
In fact I bet he expected ZK to escape on their own, not to be so close to Ethan. He could be worried for his friend being close to the bomb.
Mr. Shit, meet my good friend Mr. Fan.
My day is ruined
Extremely large amounts of drama incoming over the next few updates.
So many head puns..
This storyline came to a head..
Now I have to see where this is headed.
Zeke is no long the head of his nation.
etc., etc.
He was ahead of his time…
That’s using your head, Zeke!
Not as big an explosion as I thought……..
I am suddenly VERY not hopeful for a feel-good outcome to all this…
Can we just recognize the BRILLIANT parallel to Ethan dying to start this off and ZK sympathizing about HOW SCARY this would be to die and come back and not knowing if you could come back and how ZK felt compassion about how TERRIBLE it would be to just have THIS happen??? This is by far the best written arc and I am guessing it isn’t even half way done.
One of my worries is that since they JUST had that convo – what if ZK assumes this was planned the entire time and Ethan was in on it? That entire conversation was part of the setup or something…
Ethan vs Lucas won’t be a great fight.
Ethan will probably not have beef with Lucas in the first place. Ethan vs. Scott on the other hand will be a much worse fight.
Interesting The lights aren’t out. I wonder if the Bomb was dislodged when Ethan was messing with his eye. Maybe Zeke wasn’t fully honest either, and he offloaded some of his brain to the web somehow?
Yeah, that’s not good. Nor will it be good going forward.
Having read this comic all since it first began all these years ago, seeing zeke die for a second time…. it brings back hard memories. I need to see how this ends.
It’s strange, after all this consideration of how the failsafe might stop zeke from doing all kinds of bad stuff, it’s never considered that he might want to take a walk.
(Yes, I know, the original terms of their agreement was that zeke stays within the stockroom at the game shop).
I think zeke knew about the bomb’s setting to some extent. He had plenty of time to check himself and had access to all kind of software thanks to the laptop and the internet, I’m curious what happens next.
Oh no, when they resurrect Zeke he will be so angry, I worry he does not trust Ethan anymore.
Oh. I hated this. 🙂
OH TEH NOES! :O
Welp time for me to put this on reminder an come back to it in a month or too.
So…on the plus side Ethan printed spare parts when Zeke got shot in the eye so…maybe we can fix it? Hopefully? Guess we just have to hope Eugene miscalculated how much explosive it would take to fry Zeke’s CPU…and that Zeke opts to run instead of murder so that maybe Ethan can talk them down later.
Wonder what’ll happen next:
ah man! more. now! where the next button?! where?!
Oh….. shit….
Going back and looking at the story up to this point, its very striking how much the color has changed from red, to violet, purple, blue, to teal, as Zeke has mellowed out over time.
Oh chit! This may require them to make a deal (a very bad deal) with the Master to bring him back. I suspect Scott has the ability to recreate Zeke, but not rebuild his organic personality. Because he would refuse to. Even more so now. This may even make Scott once again become the bad guy, trying to actively prevent them from recreating an artificial race he strongly disapproved of already.