Apparently you don’t acknowledge the presence of ‘negligence’ in many locales’ criminal code? In Canada, negligence causing harm can still net you jail time. Less than something you did intentionally, sure, but more than the restitution experience Ethan had. Intent matters, but is NOT the ONLY thing that matters. You have a responsibility to exercise good judgment (or at least not horrible judgment) and to behave in ways that are safe from the likelihood of injuring another person. If you fail to excercise that responsibility, you will (or at least can) face consequences that could include jail time and a… Read more »
He would still be liable under civil law for negligence since he was pointing a loaded weapon at someone. If that had been a gun and ZK had been a human, he’d be guilty of criminal negligence, misconduct with a firearm, and third degree murder. At MINIMUM.
Well, murder only if the victim died. It would be possible to negligently take someone’s eye out with a firearm but not kill them, particularly if it was low powered and / or scored a glancing hit. In which case, grievous bodily harm (or whatever the US legal equivalent might be) would be the crime.
Murder generally requires intent. More likely to get a homicide charge to stick then going for murder
Last edited 2 years ago by Vampyrr
Gonfrask
2 years ago
Wait…Zeke speech makes me wonder one thing…can Ethan die from old age? Won’t he respawn to a moment previous to his “wound” (if we considered ageing as somekind that)?
yeah… Great minds think alike I was like “Waaait a second… does that mean if he dies of old age… he’ll respawn just to die again of old age, since his body simply expires and can’t hold on any longer… into an endless loop of dying, respawning, dying, respawning…………..(dying)?”
That would put his powers into the category of “blessed with suck” Its already borderline as he tends to die alot but that would push it over the edge for sure.
“he tends to die a lot” is not part of his power, tho, it’s just him being reckless and stupid. The average amount of deaths for humans so far has been a little under 1 [citation needed]
Depends if you have to die and stay dead for a protracted period and legal paper having been generated for you to be ‘dead’. If you have a moment or even 5 minutes of being not breathing but then do begin breathing again, they don’t rename you and issue you new government paperwork, wipe out all your savings or debts, etc. No, what happens is you are just not dead in the eyes of the law until you are likely to be dead and not coming back. If you could come back a long time after being dead regularly, they’d… Read more »
thing is he hasnt had them long enough in a single body to see the effects of age on the body. cant remember if they had anything like a tattoo or something to see if it survives the swap. if not he could literally just die of old age and poof back a moment later as a young man.
he did a test, a while ago, I thought. When he was trying to save up blood or something… where it was something like going back to a state, half an hour or more before where he was in good health.
So I would assume, if he got a tattoo and died on the way home, it would be gone. However if he let it heal, it becomes part of his ‘save state’… or so I would assume.
Has Ethan aged at all since he got his power? It could work in a way that he gets “reset” to that “self-savestate” point… What’d happen if he left his beard grow, for instance, and then dies and respawn? Will he keep the beard?
But not quite. Something physical must have changed from his save point because he still has memories and those live in the wetware of your brain. So he doesn’t *entirely* return to the save state or he’d have amnesia of what happened to him every time instead of brutal memories.
So the question is what parts are fully reset and which are left as is? I don’t know that we know the full extents/defintion of the behaviour he exhibits after dying.
He tested his power when trying to stockpile blood to sell. Iirc he resets to his “last healthy state” so its possible at a certain age he just stops ever being “healthy” and resets there but its fair play that old age is normal so he would time loop the last few days/hours and beg for death.
I am pretty sure he just dies. I don’t think it protects from natural processes, like, he can still get sick, so if death could cure that he would be killing himself (he was killing himself as experiment) instead of actually curing his diseases
Wouldn’t that be problematic though? How does the control (whatever it may be) that determines normal aging vs. for instance accelerated aging? And does accelerated aging by staying up a lot, having bad diet, not enough excercise, etc. end up being differentiable from a creeping aging power or poison? And if natural processes can kill him, a heart attack is a natural process. If he ends up in cold water and dies, that’s very natural. Didn’t have to involve any bad actors, just some bad luck or a bad decision. So how does the control for respawning work then? I… Read more »
Well it is a video game based power and reaching old age could be considered the end of the game.Thus he won’t respawn because the game is over.
Alternatively its likely he won’t be concious when he dies of old age, so he’d continually respawn but he’d be asleep so he wouldn’t know.
The third option is NG+ where he goes back to the moment he got his powers.
Maybe it works like Groundhog Day (the movie, Bill Murray). In there, he kept waking up to the same day…. until he had one perfect day and that broke the loop. That took a LOT of years. What constituted a perfect day was not ever fully explained or how the time loop happened or who created or removed the loop was never mentioned. The point is, maybe when Ethan does something, something of a destiny he needs to fulfill in some respect, his respawning will cease to operate and he can die. It might be age related or achievement related.… Read more »
Immortal Ethan
2 years ago
You know, I’m curious, Ethan’s power is respawn, so when he dies to reverts back to a previous state. As far as I know, he doesn’t SAVE that state before hand, it just happens. So in theory, would this mean he reverts back to the state he was at when the accident that gave him his powers occurred. If so, does that mean Ethan can die at all? (referring to Zeke mentioning his miserably short life). After all, assuming the above, every time Ethan dies, he will go back to the state he was at before his accident, so even… Read more »
Dom
2 years ago
ZK, that’s what we humans call gloating.
Nice pants.
Killiak
2 years ago
For anyone thinking this is cruel, unnecessary, or unjustified, then please remember that this is exactly what we have legal systems for and it quite often makes people indebted to one another.
Another way of looking at it is the saying, “the process is the punishment,” and that Zeke’s enjoying the process tormenting an obviously-already-regretful Ethan could be seen to be commemtary on that.
Considering Ethan’s punishment was over in days rather than years, he got off WAY faster, easier and painless than he would’ve if he had done that to another human’s eye and skull
R77
2 years ago
Honestly I think the e-LEDs (emotion-LEDs) need more range. This explains why during the previous episodes he was not murderously red, but contented blue.
There should be some more to the colour spectrum here:
Malicious Glee – Pink
Devilishly Sarcastic – Orange
What else should be in his emotional colour spectrum for … Green / Yellow / Turquoise / … ?
But since every part of them can be replaced (ala Ship of Theseus), death has a different meaning. Something must be lost that is irreplaceable, but code could be copied, hardware could be replaced / upgraded, moreso than our meatbags can tolerate.
Technically you are an entirely new person every 10 years or so. Human bodies do replace parts, just in much smaller increments. And our thoughts and minds are all being stockpiled at this very moment in an incredibly complete sense thanks to cyberspace.
OK this whole ZK as an asshole constantly f*ing with Ethan thing has gotten beyond old. We get it. He’s a jerk. I really wish the comic would actually move forward with the story or just let Lukas and Scott trigger the failsafe and blow him the heck up.
David, I agree this has gone on for a while (and I keep expecting a cameo with Chidi from “The Good Place”) but I think things will move soon. During the repair, Zeke will surely notice the failsafe, and then we will see some action!
Not me. I think this has been a great exploration of something that is already intelligent having to learn about morality. I suppose you could always go watch some old Adam West Batman if you just want to watch Superheroes punch things.
How so? Kotor, Futurama, and countless other sci-fis have depicted robots as borderline sadistic for comedy insofar they speak with much bigotry of organics but never do on-screen harm; this is the only time I’ve seen that trope paired with greater emphasis on addressing big ideas in a mature and reasonable way.
Pyre
2 years ago
As has already been said, the penalties for this happening to a human are much worse but there’s more to it. While Zeke learning that the punishment fits the crime as proper restitution is valuable, this is also a valuable lesson for Ethan. We have seen Ethan both in-and-out of costume act exceedingly reckless. Thus far, The Troll aside, all we’ve seen is random property damage and the occasional citizen get glue-bombed but we know he also carries incendiaries and explosives. All it takes is one mistake with his arsenal to become the superhero version of Kim Potter. If going… Read more »
Also, ZK is still distrustful of people, including Ethan. His only other experience is with his now former master. A person who is lazy and exploitative. This was also ZK learning that Ethan actually intends to follow through on his promises even when shirking his responsibility is cheaper and easier.
Vukodlak
2 years ago
Well that is an improvement,
Kevin Greenbaum
2 years ago
It showed ZK that Ethan was truly honest that he would try to fix him, and not just shrug it off as not his problem.
I think this is an important point. Zeke wanted to see if Ethan was truly genuine about his intent to provide restitution to them. When they were satisfied that yes, Ethan was, then they relented and gave him the schematics.
Pulse
2 years ago
lets just call it a win for humanity and be on our way. least hes less likely to kill a country over losing in an fps match
Peter Piers
2 years ago
Yep, he’s learning. And I love the expression on his eyes on the last panel, he’s actually moved and speaking with sincerity.
Jack0r
2 years ago
I find it really funny how Zeke seems to think a human’s life is short compared to his. Even if his circuits and electronics stay in working condition for a decade or two, without major refitting his interfaces will be so outdated, that he won’t be able to interface with anything around him. For example, try to transfer some data to or from a 20 year old laptop or smartphone (yes, there were smartphones 20 years ago). Zeke will be a heap of electronic waste long before Ethan will be entering his perpetual cycle of respawning to a minute before… Read more »
Those containing his digital thoughts are the only parts potentially prone to plainly perilous predicament. Everything else can be gradually upgraded throughout the years and with an internet connection, Zeke will always know what they need to stay on top. Within a few years, I think they’ll store the brain in a secured room (because even as new parts to it are very small, they might need to keep the old parts too and it adds up) and control the robot(s?!!!) remotely. (Replicating the process that programmed them is a tall order, but they could be a hive-mind, which would… Read more »
24
I’m pretty sure that’ll make Zeke move up quite a bit in Lucas’ esteem 😀
Its totally fair. If Ethan’s carelessness and fractured the skull of a human he would have gotten far worse.
That’s totally false. Does no one understand how intent factors into the law?
Apparently you don’t acknowledge the presence of ‘negligence’ in many locales’ criminal code? In Canada, negligence causing harm can still net you jail time. Less than something you did intentionally, sure, but more than the restitution experience Ethan had. Intent matters, but is NOT the ONLY thing that matters. You have a responsibility to exercise good judgment (or at least not horrible judgment) and to behave in ways that are safe from the likelihood of injuring another person. If you fail to excercise that responsibility, you will (or at least can) face consequences that could include jail time and a… Read more »
He would still be liable under civil law for negligence since he was pointing a loaded weapon at someone. If that had been a gun and ZK had been a human, he’d be guilty of criminal negligence, misconduct with a firearm, and third degree murder. At MINIMUM.
Well, murder only if the victim died. It would be possible to negligently take someone’s eye out with a firearm but not kill them, particularly if it was low powered and / or scored a glancing hit. In which case, grievous bodily harm (or whatever the US legal equivalent might be) would be the crime.
Murder generally requires intent. More likely to get a homicide charge to stick then going for murder
Wait…Zeke speech makes me wonder one thing…can Ethan die from old age? Won’t he respawn to a moment previous to his “wound” (if we considered ageing as somekind that)?
yeah… Great minds think alike I was like “Waaait a second… does that mean if he dies of old age… he’ll respawn just to die again of old age, since his body simply expires and can’t hold on any longer… into an endless loop of dying, respawning, dying, respawning…………..(dying)?”
That would put his powers into the category of “blessed with suck” Its already borderline as he tends to die alot but that would push it over the edge for sure.
“he tends to die a lot” is not part of his power, tho, it’s just him being reckless and stupid. The average amount of deaths for humans so far has been a little under 1 [citation needed]
This is an underrated and underappreciated comment.
Wait, would Ethan have to die over 8 billion times to move the average to 1?
Short answer: Yes. At first I thought only about the living persons, but then I remembered the dead.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-16870579
“the Population Reference Bureau estimates that about 107 billion people have ever lived”
That’s a lot.
BTW: Currently the average of deaths-per-person is 1-(8/107) = about 0.925.
What about the ones that have died and brought back to life on the operating table? Don’t they move the needle a little bit towards 1?
That is technically true. Being dead doesn’t preclude the possibility of resuscitation.
Depends if you have to die and stay dead for a protracted period and legal paper having been generated for you to be ‘dead’. If you have a moment or even 5 minutes of being not breathing but then do begin breathing again, they don’t rename you and issue you new government paperwork, wipe out all your savings or debts, etc. No, what happens is you are just not dead in the eyes of the law until you are likely to be dead and not coming back. If you could come back a long time after being dead regularly, they’d… Read more »
I suspect the bounds of error on that estimation is large.
Also he’s in the superhero business. They can’t keep up with the list of “currently-dead” heroes and villains when people don’t assume to respawn.
This boggled me, too, but people don’t *really* die of “old age.” They die of organ failure, like the heart, they just happen to be old at the time.
So this instead begs the question: when Ethan respawns, is he “good as new” or is it a “save state” from recently?
thing is he hasnt had them long enough in a single body to see the effects of age on the body. cant remember if they had anything like a tattoo or something to see if it survives the swap. if not he could literally just die of old age and poof back a moment later as a young man.
he did a test, a while ago, I thought. When he was trying to save up blood or something… where it was something like going back to a state, half an hour or more before where he was in good health.
So I would assume, if he got a tattoo and died on the way home, it would be gone. However if he let it heal, it becomes part of his ‘save state’… or so I would assume.
Makes you wonder where the cut off is for damage as a ‘healthy’ state, regarding old age.
Has Ethan aged at all since he got his power? It could work in a way that he gets “reset” to that “self-savestate” point… What’d happen if he left his beard grow, for instance, and then dies and respawn? Will he keep the beard?
Yes, he’d keep the beard.
Reminds me of that Super Mario mem comic I saw someone do. 😛
https://i.chzbgr.com/full/9030527488/hC1E6E1CB/super-marios-world
But not quite. Something physical must have changed from his save point because he still has memories and those live in the wetware of your brain. So he doesn’t *entirely* return to the save state or he’d have amnesia of what happened to him every time instead of brutal memories.
So the question is what parts are fully reset and which are left as is? I don’t know that we know the full extents/defintion of the behaviour he exhibits after dying.
He tested his power when trying to stockpile blood to sell. Iirc he resets to his “last healthy state” so its possible at a certain age he just stops ever being “healthy” and resets there but its fair play that old age is normal so he would time loop the last few days/hours and beg for death.
Hopefully, at a certain age, his abilities (like most heroes) would depreciate to avoid this fate. But life isn’t fair, and neither is ZK.
I am pretty sure he just dies. I don’t think it protects from natural processes, like, he can still get sick, so if death could cure that he would be killing himself (he was killing himself as experiment) instead of actually curing his diseases
Wouldn’t that be problematic though? How does the control (whatever it may be) that determines normal aging vs. for instance accelerated aging? And does accelerated aging by staying up a lot, having bad diet, not enough excercise, etc. end up being differentiable from a creeping aging power or poison? And if natural processes can kill him, a heart attack is a natural process. If he ends up in cold water and dies, that’s very natural. Didn’t have to involve any bad actors, just some bad luck or a bad decision. So how does the control for respawning work then? I… Read more »
Well it is a video game based power and reaching old age could be considered the end of the game.Thus he won’t respawn because the game is over.
Alternatively its likely he won’t be concious when he dies of old age, so he’d continually respawn but he’d be asleep so he wouldn’t know.
The third option is NG+ where he goes back to the moment he got his powers.
Maybe it works like Groundhog Day (the movie, Bill Murray). In there, he kept waking up to the same day…. until he had one perfect day and that broke the loop. That took a LOT of years. What constituted a perfect day was not ever fully explained or how the time loop happened or who created or removed the loop was never mentioned. The point is, maybe when Ethan does something, something of a destiny he needs to fulfill in some respect, his respawning will cease to operate and he can die. It might be age related or achievement related.… Read more »
You know, I’m curious, Ethan’s power is respawn, so when he dies to reverts back to a previous state. As far as I know, he doesn’t SAVE that state before hand, it just happens. So in theory, would this mean he reverts back to the state he was at when the accident that gave him his powers occurred. If so, does that mean Ethan can die at all? (referring to Zeke mentioning his miserably short life). After all, assuming the above, every time Ethan dies, he will go back to the state he was at before his accident, so even… Read more »
ZK, that’s what we humans call gloating.
Nice pants.
For anyone thinking this is cruel, unnecessary, or unjustified, then please remember that this is exactly what we have legal systems for and it quite often makes people indebted to one another.
Zeke learns fast.
Another way of looking at it is the saying, “the process is the punishment,” and that Zeke’s enjoying the process tormenting an obviously-already-regretful Ethan could be seen to be commemtary on that.
Considering Ethan’s punishment was over in days rather than years, he got off WAY faster, easier and painless than he would’ve if he had done that to another human’s eye and skull
Honestly I think the e-LEDs (emotion-LEDs) need more range. This explains why during the previous episodes he was not murderously red, but contented blue.
There should be some more to the colour spectrum here:
Malicious Glee – Pink
Devilishly Sarcastic – Orange
What else should be in his emotional colour spectrum for … Green / Yellow / Turquoise / … ?
BTW, Love the story arc!
Yellow could be fear / terror. Like an actual genuine fear that ZK is going to get irreparably damaged / the robotic equivalent of death
It’s called death. The robotic equivalent of death is death. It’s what it’s called when a living or sapient being dies.
But since every part of them can be replaced (ala Ship of Theseus), death has a different meaning. Something must be lost that is irreplaceable, but code could be copied, hardware could be replaced / upgraded, moreso than our meatbags can tolerate.
Does this unit have a soul?
Technically you are an entirely new person every 10 years or so. Human bodies do replace parts, just in much smaller increments. And our thoughts and minds are all being stockpiled at this very moment in an incredibly complete sense thanks to cyberspace.
Setient or not he is still a computer.
So it would be more appropriately called “going offline” or “total system failure”.
Actually since it is a computer and not essentially a sentient being the proper term would be “offline”.
Lt. Commander Data might disagree on this point.
revenge is such a sweet sweet dish
So….I’ll take that as a win for Philosophy
OK this whole ZK as an asshole constantly f*ing with Ethan thing has gotten beyond old. We get it. He’s a jerk. I really wish the comic would actually move forward with the story or just let Lukas and Scott trigger the failsafe and blow him the heck up.
David, I agree this has gone on for a while (and I keep expecting a cameo with Chidi from “The Good Place”) but I think things will move soon. During the repair, Zeke will surely notice the failsafe, and then we will see some action!
Not me. I think this has been a great exploration of something that is already intelligent having to learn about morality. I suppose you could always go watch some old Adam West Batman if you just want to watch Superheroes punch things.
“With great character development comes mistakes that must be learned from.” -Uncle Ben’s Rice, probably
There are plenty of other web comics you can enjoy then. Cya.
Awfully sadistic for an abiotic creature……
How so? Kotor, Futurama, and countless other sci-fis have depicted robots as borderline sadistic for comedy insofar they speak with much bigotry of organics but never do on-screen harm; this is the only time I’ve seen that trope paired with greater emphasis on addressing big ideas in a mature and reasonable way.
As has already been said, the penalties for this happening to a human are much worse but there’s more to it. While Zeke learning that the punishment fits the crime as proper restitution is valuable, this is also a valuable lesson for Ethan. We have seen Ethan both in-and-out of costume act exceedingly reckless. Thus far, The Troll aside, all we’ve seen is random property damage and the occasional citizen get glue-bombed but we know he also carries incendiaries and explosives. All it takes is one mistake with his arsenal to become the superhero version of Kim Potter. If going… Read more »
Also, ZK is still distrustful of people, including Ethan. His only other experience is with his now former master. A person who is lazy and exploitative. This was also ZK learning that Ethan actually intends to follow through on his promises even when shirking his responsibility is cheaper and easier.
Well that is an improvement,
It showed ZK that Ethan was truly honest that he would try to fix him, and not just shrug it off as not his problem.
I think this is an important point. Zeke wanted to see if Ethan was truly genuine about his intent to provide restitution to them. When they were satisfied that yes, Ethan was, then they relented and gave him the schematics.
lets just call it a win for humanity and be on our way. least hes less likely to kill a country over losing in an fps match
Yep, he’s learning. And I love the expression on his eyes on the last panel, he’s actually moved and speaking with sincerity.
I find it really funny how Zeke seems to think a human’s life is short compared to his. Even if his circuits and electronics stay in working condition for a decade or two, without major refitting his interfaces will be so outdated, that he won’t be able to interface with anything around him. For example, try to transfer some data to or from a 20 year old laptop or smartphone (yes, there were smartphones 20 years ago). Zeke will be a heap of electronic waste long before Ethan will be entering his perpetual cycle of respawning to a minute before… Read more »
Those containing his digital thoughts are the only parts potentially prone to plainly perilous predicament. Everything else can be gradually upgraded throughout the years and with an internet connection, Zeke will always know what they need to stay on top. Within a few years, I think they’ll store the brain in a secured room (because even as new parts to it are very small, they might need to keep the old parts too and it adds up) and control the robot(s?!!!) remotely. (Replicating the process that programmed them is a tall order, but they could be a hive-mind, which would… Read more »
I essentially never erased my home directory while upgrading.