Panel 4 – this is the face of a man who is beginning to grasp the consequences. Or, as the cool kids say these days, it was at this moment he knew – he fucked up.
Or that he is now going to have to face his friends moreso than that he particularly made a mistake. I’m not convinced Scott really believes ZK was any different or any safer to let out.
And there may be all kinds of sense in that position. It might cost him his friends, but it may still be an arguably reasonable position.
Presumably, ZK wasn’t aware of the bomb or the restrictions. Nobody told him he had to stay in the back room so, in ZK’s mind he’s been free to leave whenever he wants to… and he hasn’t nor has he done any of the things Scott may be convinced he’s going to do despite having (as far as he knows) nothing keeping him from doing them. Scott was convinced he knew better than his friends. Fine, whatever. But he also lied to Lucas about something that was obviously pretty important to both him and Ethan. Don’t talk to me about… Read more »
I’m guessing the idea was to make sure the bomb went off without Scott needing to make sure Zeke stayed in that room, like if Zeke were to just leave in the middle of the night while Scott was asleep a manual trigger/dead man’s switch would do nothing. Sure Scott can push the kill switch when he found out the next morning but that wouldn’t have fixed any potential damage or harm Zeke could’ve caused.
At the same time, isn’t that what they were preventing the master from doing? If they can remove whatever failsafe’s the master put it the reverse could also be said.
Hindsight being what it is, it was a stupid parameter anyway, as well as a basic lack of understanding of person-hood (Scott’s still calling Zeke “it” like an object, not “he”, “she”, or “they” like a person). The reason I say “stupid parameter” is that Zeke clearly demonstrated he didn’t need to leave the room to do harm. He embezzled money (tiny amounts from many transactions, but still embezzled) with casual ease without moving an inch toward the door. He could have gotten into hospital systems and changed patient dosage orders, shut off power utilities in the dead of winter,… Read more »
So your argument is he should have been destroyed when he exhibited those capacities? It would be a reasonable position. (No, I realize this isn’t what you’d meant…. just pointing out that the position Scott had may have been too forgiving, rather than too restrictive….) Frankly, Ethan and Lucas made a choice to allow ZK a chance to change because they have compassion. That said, their choice was immoral. Ethan chose (and Lucas supported) a potentially very great threat to other innocent people who had no consultation in being put in such a danger. ZK had a homicidal history and… Read more »
So your argument is he should have been destroyed when he exhibited those capacities? It would be a reasonable position. No, it’s not entierely reasonable. I mean, ANYONE has the capacity to go out in the street and kill a bunch of people (a lot can be achieved with a car in a crowded street). But we don’t “destroy” people simply because they have the capacity to do these horribles, dangerous things. We wait for them to actually do it (or at least try). And rightly so, because the alternative is self-destructing humanity to prevent self-destruction… ZK may have these… Read more »
Literally unkillable EXTREMELY capable superhero goes from “Goofy and fun” to suddenly having a target for the years of death and terror he has experienced? I’d say so. Yeah. Ethan is the most powerful one of the three, long term.
Assuming a) ZK could not easily repair any damage, b) ZK can’t replicate (he may have discovered a way at any point… like Ultron did). If either of those assumptions failed, ZK could easily be the most lethal. He can easily keep killing Ethan almost at a whim. And Lucas didn’t fare much better.
Tim and every other storyteller. Listen to any of the crew from Writing Excuses… they’ll tell you that when you put a protagonist in a bind, the next question is “How can they be put in more difficulty?”. That’s where emotional depth comes to life and where and we see who a character really is. It is also where we see examples of principles in conflict (like trust and protection of the public, like the survival and opportunity for one synthetic life form to grow and change vs. the safety of innocent unaware folks, etc). Tim has matured (as we… Read more »
Dodgy
2 years ago
Narrator’s (preferably Patrick Stewart) voice “And this, children, is where Scott knew… he had done fucked up.”
Well yeah, he just killed “it”. He’d be an even worse person if he decided to recognize their sentience at the moment he murdered them. Now he has to commit, otherwise he’s labeling himself a murderer.
From the look of his face on the past two pages… I feel like somewhere inside, he hadn’t ruled out the possibility. It was just far, far easier to assume.
If what he was worried about most was his friends’ reactions, and not what he potentially just did, I think he’d be looking at them, not the body on the floor.
He knows what there response will be. Looking away from them could well simply be avoidance.
It could be ‘Aww crap… the thing got blown up not trying to sneak away or blown up by the deadly button while trying to kill someone…so know I’ll look like the bad guy even though I’m the only one looking out for the rest of humanity….’.
As ZK may or may not be legally a life form (vs. chattel), murder in any legal sense may be off the table. Morally, maybe he’s a murderer and maybe he’s protecting the population of innocent and the unknowning from a known murder bot who may or may not have control of his own facilities entirely.
Scott may still be in the right, even though we all like the idea of ZK being able to transcend his murderous roots.
Let’s take “legally” off the table, because ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ only sometimes are the same thing – and the legal system was written wholly ignorant of ZK’s species. If that’s the case, then the argument of “Well, maybe he was just PROTECTING everyone from a known murder bot who may or may not-” holds no grounds. Because first – I don’t believe that ZK ever murdered anyone. Second – his actions while attacking Ethan and Lucas were while he was enslaved, literally under threat of immediate death. And third – it’s clear that Ethan and Lucas aren’t pressing charges, and… Read more »
Scott hasn’t tried at all to see it Ethan and Lucas’s way. He hasn’t tried to recognize ZK as anymore more than “that murderbot coded to kill”. Of course he still refers to ZK as “it”
That’s probably the most reasonable, understandable thing about this situation. It’s the part where he told Lucas he’d take care of the failsafe and then not doing it that’s totally F-ed.
He let Lucas here what Lucas wanted to here. He may be entirely moral for not allowing the disarming of a failsafe option. He knows how complex the programming and behaviours are in this bot. He probably can’t undo them (he can’t be sure). He knows the bot was a murder bot and has killed humans. If he could be compelled to do that by direct order or by built in response patterns, there is little to know way to know if all of that code is now nullified. I’ll admit, if I was in Scott’s shoes, I’d have done… Read more »
few problems with your line of thought, 1. ZK was forced to commit crimes by their master under threat of being killed if they didn’t comply. they were for all intents a slave, a device, a gun, that was not responsible for their previous actions. 2. ZK is not a human, it technically isn’t murder if they do kill a human, when a person gets killed by a machine, in a factory the machine isn’t scrapped, or held responsible, regardless of how intelligent the machine may be. If an AI controlled smart car runs over and kills a pedestrian that… Read more »
People are really stretching to let Scott off the hook for lying to Lucas. He deliberately phrased his response to mislead Lucas into thinking he’d defused the bomb when he knew he didn’t and had no intention of doing so. That’s lying. And frankly, interpreting “You don’t need to worry about the failsafe anymore” as not actually telling Lucas he disarmed it is a pretty loose interpretation. All of which are copouts aimed at making it okay for Scott to do something you think he should have done while avoiding any moral questions about it.
Hunter
2 years ago
Somehow, Tim has managed to make the lifeless eyes of Zeke to look sad.
Alno
2 years ago
… I have the feeling that things will go from restitution to revenge very soon.
Acher4
2 years ago
This is going to end up so badly.
Well, badlier.
Mildar
2 years ago
Oooh. Scott programmed into ZK not to want to leave the room. Tim, you clever bastard!
Eh? No, he didn’t program Zeke to do anything. He thought that Zeke wouldn’t leave the room because of the agreement they had that Zeke wouldn’t leave the room.
I think Mildar was making a sarcastic reference to something Scott theoretically could have done instead of using a kill switch: program in an aversion to leaving (like an agoraphobia algorithm) rather than reprogramming a remote kill-switch into a geo-fenced head bomb.
Still not sufficient. ZK’s programming and behaviours are so complex Scott could not be certain he’d not get past any software/firmware mods. The bomb secret was the only real gaurantee (and if ZK has already propagated a copy, despite what he said about it not working which may not be true, then he isn’t killable at all….*Ultron* cough cough).
ShonaSoF
2 years ago
Wow…. Ethan’s reaction is just heartbreaking.
JustJoel
2 years ago
1) To be ENTIRELY fair, it is a completely reasonable precaution if you had a something at home – living or not – that repeatedly and casually mentioned its intention to exterminate/enslave humanity 2) I’ve really liked all scotts, hopefully we won’t lose this une
A reasonable precaution, but it’s entirely unreasonable for him to have lied to his roommates and best friends about it. By keeping them in the dark, this was the only way this scenario could have ever ended. Did he really think that “it” would just stay in that back room forever? Scott’s shortsightedness is frustrating.
I think Scott was so consumed with the idea that Zeke was “just a robot”, and so it kind of tracks that he would think “it” wouldn’t leave the room. “It’s” not a living being, capable of making decisions, and so why would “it” need to leave?
Still frustrating thinking, but I can get his backwards logic on it, maybe.
Scott expected that the robot would just one day try to leave without their knowledge and then die. And then Scott would be right, proving Zeke was unable to compromise
ThatMageGuy
2 years ago
I’m just wondering who’s going to punch Scott first: Ethan, Lucas, or ZK (after we discover that ZK somehow planned for this and had some sort of backup in his chest).
Zair
2 years ago
Tim, you’d better not cut to another comic before resolving this one! We can wait for another Starcaster!
I don’t even have any speculation at this point, but I want to see what happens.
This is definitely Analog and D-Pad, it’s in that storyline. An issue of Batman that focuses on Bruce Wayne at a party is still a Batman issue. Having said that, I disagree that Analog and D-Pad are the worst parts of CAD (or that there is a worst part), but this is most certainly Analog and D-Pad. If I had to pick a “worst part” of CAD, I guess I’d go with the Campaigns, but that’s just because I didn’t play D&D (or any game like that) to a significant extent as a kid, so it makes sense that most… Read more »
“just because I didn’t play D&D (or any game like that) to a significant extent as a kid”
Most people didn’t, the recent explosion in popularity is due to adults playing, not children.
As much as I love Starcaster to the Moon and back, this has been the most nail-biting moment in Tim’s entire web-comic career. Scott and Ethan will be at each others’ throats and Lucas might need to take a side.
Tim
2 years ago
I thought Lucas knew that Scott hadn’t taken the bomb out? That was why Scott let Zeke stay in the storeroom to begin with?
He knew the bomb was still there, initially it was set to a perimeter detection for the back room.
But after Zeke had chosen a name for themselves he went to Scott and said something along the lines that they needed to remove the failsafe completely otherwise there was never going to be any true progress.
Scott said “You wont have to worry about the failsafe” slightly ominous in hindsight. But Lucas probably assumed that he was simply going to remove the perimeter detection.
Matt
2 years ago
I’m predicting Ethan about to become very, VERY pissed.
Damion Mosier-Tidd
2 years ago
Never seen Lucas’ “Pissed beyond mortal comprehension” face before. Scott is in for a BAD TIME.
Scott promised “You won’t have to worry about it anymore.” He got lazy in thinking Zeke would stay put, and now that oversight is biting him higher-up than his unfeeling butt.
A cursory glance at the rest of the comments would tell you that that’s not the case.
Ethan was told originally that it was disabled (when it wasn’t). Then Lucas asked Scott to disable it, and Scott said “You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”, which Lucas took to mean “I will do what you asked” because he trusted Scott. So only Scott knew that the bomb was still active.
Looks like our dynamite foundation finally exploded
foducool
2 years ago
and this, is Ethan supervillain backstory
Tales
2 years ago
Whelp that happened, on the plus side Ethan and Zeke were talking about death for like the last 5 or so pages and now Zeke gets to feel what death is like for Ethan and understand the pain and how it’s not a good thing. Maybe this will cause Zeke grow even more in compassion.
FITCamaro
2 years ago
How Scott becomes the bad guy……mwuhaha.
JJ What?
2 years ago
I know I’m gonna catch a real taint-pounding for saying this, but I get where Scott is coming from on this….
Scott deeply and genuinelyBELIEVES , that ZK imposes a very real existential threat , to all of mankind . That is a very valid concern of unbelievablyincredible magnitude.
I disagree. He has examined the robot, he has looked at its code, hell he probably knows more about what Zeke is made of than any other character in the series, master included. but he never once actually talked to the robot. if you think something is an existential threat, you try to understand it. his lack of willingness to understand what ZK is or (hopefully not) was. is mindbogglingly short sighted. you can play devils advocate, but a difference in viewpoint doesn’t excuse your actions or justify them. If someone Truly believes they have divine right to kill any… Read more »
Replace “dog” with “person” and yeah. Let’s not forget, ZK’s just a handful of years old. In many ways, they’re a child, who’s been rescued from an abusive father who forced them to do terrible things under threat of death.
That’s the person you try to help and rehabilitate, not destroy. Even if they occasionally talk about how they hate everyone and want everything to die. That’s understandable.
sadly, that’s a narrow view, Scott didn’t fear who he is, he feared WHAT he is, you don’t need to get to know the personality to understand WHAT a weapon is capable of… His current personality is a moot factor if anything changes that personality, ranging from outside interference, to simple changes based on his own experiences/perspectives.
Well, i was allways wondering the part where Zeke said something he placed part of himself that nintendo switch console or i do have some memory of that. So no worries here quess there is a backup for him
Dave
2 years ago
I don’t think I’ve been this eager for an update in aaaaaaaaaaages
yeah I had to, because surprisingly nobody did before lmao
MacDaddy
2 years ago
In case we’ve forgotten. This is Zeke’s origin story. Or a version thereof. I’m betting he wakes up and has no more murderous intentions, only remembers Ethan and becomes the Buddy robot we saw in the earlier comics.
wilddeath
2 years ago
so did the bomb get both zekes? I remember him having the ability to mirror himself inside himself on a seperate partition. We don’t know if he ever stopped doing that, and that seperate partition could have been away from the bomb.
24
Hooh boy
Panel 4 – this is the face of a man who is beginning to grasp the consequences. Or, as the cool kids say these days, it was at this moment he knew – he fucked up.
Given that Tim is a married man, something tells me that expression is a fairly easy self-portrait.
Or that he is now going to have to face his friends moreso than that he particularly made a mistake. I’m not convinced Scott really believes ZK was any different or any safer to let out.
And there may be all kinds of sense in that position. It might cost him his friends, but it may still be an arguably reasonable position.
Presumably, ZK wasn’t aware of the bomb or the restrictions. Nobody told him he had to stay in the back room so, in ZK’s mind he’s been free to leave whenever he wants to… and he hasn’t nor has he done any of the things Scott may be convinced he’s going to do despite having (as far as he knows) nothing keeping him from doing them. Scott was convinced he knew better than his friends. Fine, whatever. But he also lied to Lucas about something that was obviously pretty important to both him and Ethan. Don’t talk to me about… Read more »
Scott did nothing wrong.
Zeke enjoyed it.
So say Magnus the Red
I don’t get the joke, and the sentiment as presented makes me angry >:|
Well at least you’re properly labelled as “paranoid nutcase” ?
This idiotic post just proves that victim blaming is never funny, even when it’s dealing with a fictional homicidal robot made out of an XBox.
Hindsight being what it is Scott, ya coulda just put the trigger on manual approval or a dead man’s switch rather than have it be range based.
I’m guessing the idea was to make sure the bomb went off without Scott needing to make sure Zeke stayed in that room, like if Zeke were to just leave in the middle of the night while Scott was asleep a manual trigger/dead man’s switch would do nothing. Sure Scott can push the kill switch when he found out the next morning but that wouldn’t have fixed any potential damage or harm Zeke could’ve caused.
At the same time, isn’t that what they were preventing the master from doing? If they can remove whatever failsafe’s the master put it the reverse could also be said.
Hindsight being what it is, it was a stupid parameter anyway, as well as a basic lack of understanding of person-hood (Scott’s still calling Zeke “it” like an object, not “he”, “she”, or “they” like a person). The reason I say “stupid parameter” is that Zeke clearly demonstrated he didn’t need to leave the room to do harm. He embezzled money (tiny amounts from many transactions, but still embezzled) with casual ease without moving an inch toward the door. He could have gotten into hospital systems and changed patient dosage orders, shut off power utilities in the dead of winter,… Read more »
So your argument is he should have been destroyed when he exhibited those capacities? It would be a reasonable position. (No, I realize this isn’t what you’d meant…. just pointing out that the position Scott had may have been too forgiving, rather than too restrictive….) Frankly, Ethan and Lucas made a choice to allow ZK a chance to change because they have compassion. That said, their choice was immoral. Ethan chose (and Lucas supported) a potentially very great threat to other innocent people who had no consultation in being put in such a danger. ZK had a homicidal history and… Read more »
So your argument is he should have been destroyed when he exhibited those capacities? It would be a reasonable position. No, it’s not entierely reasonable. I mean, ANYONE has the capacity to go out in the street and kill a bunch of people (a lot can be achieved with a car in a crowded street). But we don’t “destroy” people simply because they have the capacity to do these horribles, dangerous things. We wait for them to actually do it (or at least try). And rightly so, because the alternative is self-destructing humanity to prevent self-destruction… ZK may have these… Read more »
And I didn’t even touch on former violent criminals who got rehabilitated.
It’s rare that we see Ethan genuinely angry, much less full of actual rage. I have a feeling this is going to be painful.
Most likely involving Scott being thrown from his chair.
This is gonna be on par with Peter Parker’s angriest moments-see also No Way Home.
Or, Quinto’s Spock losing his shit.
Literally unkillable EXTREMELY capable superhero goes from “Goofy and fun” to suddenly having a target for the years of death and terror he has experienced? I’d say so. Yeah. Ethan is the most powerful one of the three, long term.
Assuming a) ZK could not easily repair any damage, b) ZK can’t replicate (he may have discovered a way at any point… like Ultron did). If either of those assumptions failed, ZK could easily be the most lethal. He can easily keep killing Ethan almost at a whim. And Lucas didn’t fare much better.
Just… Goddammit…
Maybe too soon, but I do expect Zeke to open his eyes after a certain amount of mayhem and start laughing his ass off.
Probably some systems are still operating, like maybe he is recording the conversation and would find who is guilty
That would be far too easy and diminish potential for a conflict, in turn diminishing potential for storytelling
” I don’t like torturing my characters, I like torturing my readers. It happens to be that torturing the characters is the best way to do that.”
— I dunno, Tim, probably
Or Dave Willis
Might have been GRRRRRRRMartin who said that.
Steven Moffat?
Was just thinking the same thing. Tim’s probably chuckling at all the comments.
Jim Butcher?
I think that Jim Butcher said, that his career is based on torturing Harry Dresden (or something along this line), so probably not him.
Naw, it’s a Butcher quote, but it literally applies to just about any good author.
Any sci Fi or fantasy or drama author. Any author.
Maybe not so much for self-help writers or people writing books to help those with emotional and mental harms. Let’s say any fiction author.
Tim and every other storyteller. Listen to any of the crew from Writing Excuses… they’ll tell you that when you put a protagonist in a bind, the next question is “How can they be put in more difficulty?”. That’s where emotional depth comes to life and where and we see who a character really is. It is also where we see examples of principles in conflict (like trust and protection of the public, like the survival and opportunity for one synthetic life form to grow and change vs. the safety of innocent unaware folks, etc). Tim has matured (as we… Read more »
Narrator’s (preferably Patrick Stewart) voice “And this, children, is where Scott knew… he had done fucked up.”
I was thinking Jason Statham from Snatch. “Now… we’re fucked” *queue Guy Ritchie soundtrack*
I see the words “done fucked up”, I go straight to Black Dynamite and fiendish Doctor Wu.
Actually, I’m almost certain it’s Morgan Freeman’s voice.
Or Samuel L Jackson
Charles Dance
Scott still referring Zeke as “it”…
Well yeah, he just killed “it”. He’d be an even worse person if he decided to recognize their sentience at the moment he murdered them. Now he has to commit, otherwise he’s labeling himself a murderer.
From the look of his face on the past two pages… I feel like somewhere inside, he hadn’t ruled out the possibility. It was just far, far easier to assume.
If what he was worried about most was his friends’ reactions, and not what he potentially just did, I think he’d be looking at them, not the body on the floor.
He knows what there response will be. Looking away from them could well simply be avoidance.
It could be ‘Aww crap… the thing got blown up not trying to sneak away or blown up by the deadly button while trying to kill someone…so know I’ll look like the bad guy even though I’m the only one looking out for the rest of humanity….’.
Debatable.
As ZK may or may not be legally a life form (vs. chattel), murder in any legal sense may be off the table. Morally, maybe he’s a murderer and maybe he’s protecting the population of innocent and the unknowning from a known murder bot who may or may not have control of his own facilities entirely.
Scott may still be in the right, even though we all like the idea of ZK being able to transcend his murderous roots.
Let’s take “legally” off the table, because ‘legal’ and ‘moral’ only sometimes are the same thing – and the legal system was written wholly ignorant of ZK’s species. If that’s the case, then the argument of “Well, maybe he was just PROTECTING everyone from a known murder bot who may or may not-” holds no grounds. Because first – I don’t believe that ZK ever murdered anyone. Second – his actions while attacking Ethan and Lucas were while he was enslaved, literally under threat of immediate death. And third – it’s clear that Ethan and Lucas aren’t pressing charges, and… Read more »
Scott hasn’t tried at all to see it Ethan and Lucas’s way. He hasn’t tried to recognize ZK as anymore more than “that murderbot coded to kill”. Of course he still refers to ZK as “it”
That’s probably the most reasonable, understandable thing about this situation. It’s the part where he told Lucas he’d take care of the failsafe and then not doing it that’s totally F-ed.
He let Lucas here what Lucas wanted to here. He may be entirely moral for not allowing the disarming of a failsafe option. He knows how complex the programming and behaviours are in this bot. He probably can’t undo them (he can’t be sure). He knows the bot was a murder bot and has killed humans. If he could be compelled to do that by direct order or by built in response patterns, there is little to know way to know if all of that code is now nullified. I’ll admit, if I was in Scott’s shoes, I’d have done… Read more »
few problems with your line of thought, 1. ZK was forced to commit crimes by their master under threat of being killed if they didn’t comply. they were for all intents a slave, a device, a gun, that was not responsible for their previous actions. 2. ZK is not a human, it technically isn’t murder if they do kill a human, when a person gets killed by a machine, in a factory the machine isn’t scrapped, or held responsible, regardless of how intelligent the machine may be. If an AI controlled smart car runs over and kills a pedestrian that… Read more »
People are really stretching to let Scott off the hook for lying to Lucas. He deliberately phrased his response to mislead Lucas into thinking he’d defused the bomb when he knew he didn’t and had no intention of doing so. That’s lying. And frankly, interpreting “You don’t need to worry about the failsafe anymore” as not actually telling Lucas he disarmed it is a pretty loose interpretation. All of which are copouts aimed at making it okay for Scott to do something you think he should have done while avoiding any moral questions about it.
Somehow, Tim has managed to make the lifeless eyes of Zeke to look sad.
… I have the feeling that things will go from restitution to revenge very soon.
This is going to end up so badly.
Well, badlier.
Oooh. Scott programmed into ZK not to want to leave the room. Tim, you clever bastard!
Eh? No, he didn’t program Zeke to do anything. He thought that Zeke wouldn’t leave the room because of the agreement they had that Zeke wouldn’t leave the room.
Well, Ethan invited Zeke to come out and grab some games. So that agreement wasn’t really applicable anymore.
That’s sort of the point.
I think Mildar was making a sarcastic reference to something Scott theoretically could have done instead of using a kill switch: program in an aversion to leaving (like an agoraphobia algorithm) rather than reprogramming a remote kill-switch into a geo-fenced head bomb.
Still not sufficient. ZK’s programming and behaviours are so complex Scott could not be certain he’d not get past any software/firmware mods. The bomb secret was the only real gaurantee (and if ZK has already propagated a copy, despite what he said about it not working which may not be true, then he isn’t killable at all….*Ultron* cough cough).
Wow…. Ethan’s reaction is just heartbreaking.
1) To be ENTIRELY fair, it is a completely reasonable precaution if you had a something at home – living or not – that repeatedly and casually mentioned its intention to exterminate/enslave humanity 2) I’ve really liked all scotts, hopefully we won’t lose this une
A reasonable precaution, but it’s entirely unreasonable for him to have lied to his roommates and best friends about it. By keeping them in the dark, this was the only way this scenario could have ever ended. Did he really think that “it” would just stay in that back room forever? Scott’s shortsightedness is frustrating.
Thinking about it after making this comment.
I think Scott was so consumed with the idea that Zeke was “just a robot”, and so it kind of tracks that he would think “it” wouldn’t leave the room. “It’s” not a living being, capable of making decisions, and so why would “it” need to leave?
Still frustrating thinking, but I can get his backwards logic on it, maybe.
Scott expected that the robot would just one day try to leave without their knowledge and then die. And then Scott would be right, proving Zeke was unable to compromise
I’m just wondering who’s going to punch Scott first: Ethan, Lucas, or ZK (after we discover that ZK somehow planned for this and had some sort of backup in his chest).
Tim, you’d better not cut to another comic before resolving this one! We can wait for another Starcaster!
I don’t even have any speculation at this point, but I want to see what happens.
I for one, can’t wait for another Starcaster!
I’m half expecting to be redirected to his Patreon if I want to see what happens next… ?
I want another Starcaster too, just, y’know, not *right now*. Whenever he wraps up this storyline is fine. No rush.
I really hope he does. Analog and D-Pad are the worst parts of current CAD
This isn’t Analog and D-Pad. This is just Ethan, Lucas, and ZK. Today with guest appearance by lying douchebag Scott.
Are you slyly pretending to not know their secret identities?
This is definitely Analog and D-Pad, it’s in that storyline. An issue of Batman that focuses on Bruce Wayne at a party is still a Batman issue. Having said that, I disagree that Analog and D-Pad are the worst parts of CAD (or that there is a worst part), but this is most certainly Analog and D-Pad. If I had to pick a “worst part” of CAD, I guess I’d go with the Campaigns, but that’s just because I didn’t play D&D (or any game like that) to a significant extent as a kid, so it makes sense that most… Read more »
“just because I didn’t play D&D (or any game like that) to a significant extent as a kid”
Most people didn’t, the recent explosion in popularity is due to adults playing, not children.
As much as I love Starcaster to the Moon and back, this has been the most nail-biting moment in Tim’s entire web-comic career. Scott and Ethan will be at each others’ throats and Lucas might need to take a side.
I thought Lucas knew that Scott hadn’t taken the bomb out? That was why Scott let Zeke stay in the storeroom to begin with?
Lucas asked him to disable it and Scott lied he would take care of it.
He knew the bomb was still there, initially it was set to a perimeter detection for the back room.
But after Zeke had chosen a name for themselves he went to Scott and said something along the lines that they needed to remove the failsafe completely otherwise there was never going to be any true progress.
Scott said “You wont have to worry about the failsafe” slightly ominous in hindsight. But Lucas probably assumed that he was simply going to remove the perimeter detection.
I’m predicting Ethan about to become very, VERY pissed.
Never seen Lucas’ “Pissed beyond mortal comprehension” face before. Scott is in for a BAD TIME.
So everyone just forgot about the kill switch?
Scott promised “You won’t have to worry about it anymore.” He got lazy in thinking Zeke would stay put, and now that oversight is biting him higher-up than his unfeeling butt.
A cursory glance at the rest of the comments would tell you that that’s not the case.
Ethan was told originally that it was disabled (when it wasn’t). Then Lucas asked Scott to disable it, and Scott said “You don’t have to worry about it anymore.”, which Lucas took to mean “I will do what you asked” because he trusted Scott. So only Scott knew that the bomb was still active.
Maybe you dont have to worry about it anymore meant “the master cant use it”
Have you been reading any of the comments at all on and since the page where Ethan invited ZK to pick out a game?
Yes. That is why I asked this question.
Looks like our dynamite foundation finally exploded
and this, is Ethan supervillain backstory
Whelp that happened, on the plus side Ethan and Zeke were talking about death for like the last 5 or so pages and now Zeke gets to feel what death is like for Ethan and understand the pain and how it’s not a good thing. Maybe this will cause Zeke grow even more in compassion.
How Scott becomes the bad guy……mwuhaha.
I know I’m gonna catch a real taint-pounding for saying this, but I get where Scott is coming from on this….
Scott deeply and genuinely BELIEVES , that ZK imposes a very real existential threat , to all of mankind . That is a very valid concern of unbelievably incredible magnitude.
I disagree. He has examined the robot, he has looked at its code, hell he probably knows more about what Zeke is made of than any other character in the series, master included. but he never once actually talked to the robot. if you think something is an existential threat, you try to understand it. his lack of willingness to understand what ZK is or (hopefully not) was. is mindbogglingly short sighted. you can play devils advocate, but a difference in viewpoint doesn’t excuse your actions or justify them. If someone Truly believes they have divine right to kill any… Read more »
Replace “dog” with “person” and yeah. Let’s not forget, ZK’s just a handful of years old. In many ways, they’re a child, who’s been rescued from an abusive father who forced them to do terrible things under threat of death.
That’s the person you try to help and rehabilitate, not destroy. Even if they occasionally talk about how they hate everyone and want everything to die. That’s understandable.
sadly, that’s a narrow view, Scott didn’t fear who he is, he feared WHAT he is, you don’t need to get to know the personality to understand WHAT a weapon is capable of… His current personality is a moot factor if anything changes that personality, ranging from outside interference, to simple changes based on his own experiences/perspectives.
Relevant Catch-up Comics:
The “leave the room and explode” failsafe is outlined; Ethan and the Robot were never aware:
https://cad-comic.com/comic/trust-p16/
Scott implies to Lucas that he will disable to failsafe:
https://cad-comic.com/comic/identity-p21/
Well, i was allways wondering the part where Zeke said something he placed part of himself that nintendo switch console or i do have some memory of that. So no worries here quess there is a backup for him
I don’t think I’ve been this eager for an update in aaaaaaaaaaages
mind=blown
Someone had to make the joke.
yeah I had to, because surprisingly nobody did before lmao
In case we’ve forgotten. This is Zeke’s origin story. Or a version thereof. I’m betting he wakes up and has no more murderous intentions, only remembers Ethan and becomes the Buddy robot we saw in the earlier comics.
so did the bomb get both zekes? I remember him having the ability to mirror himself inside himself on a seperate partition. We don’t know if he ever stopped doing that, and that seperate partition could have been away from the bomb.
That’s great about Ethan thinking it’s an attack!