That is one of the two culture books I haven’t read… what am I missing lol
Gonfrask
11 days ago
Find curious that Zeke is not able to copy their base code. Must be that they don’t want just a copied “Zeke” but another sentient being with their own personality.
Zeke’s “code” is a self modifying continually shifting consciousness which is so complex it can’t really be copied nor interrupted which is a very good analog to what our brains our like.
If you forced it to be a snapshot it could just kill the entire self reinventing pattern permanently.
You’re right that this is the canonical explanation in this universe, however it does kinda require some suspension of disbelief.
Computers can definitely pause, and arguably, so can a human brain (known as a coma in the human case)
The main reason we can’t copy human brains is because we don’t understand them very well. I know of no evidence why it should be impossible to do in theory, but there are a lot of really large blank spots on the map to such a procedure.
It’s kinda cool to imagine a future where it might be doable tho!
heres the problem with pause, it wont stop everything. you can snapshot, but it wont be able to take the quantum state being used to pull the random functions. that his code rewrites itself faster than it could possibly be copied means its running on quantum states and those cant be snapshotted without losing half the data at minimum.
I mean, Zeke doesn’t use quantum processors. Know how we know? He isn’t permanently tethered to a massive data center cooling system.
“that his code rewrites itself faster than it could possibly be copied” this concept might be how this works in the story, but it’s definitely silly. Existing hardware absolutely can work fast enough for this task. It’s in Zeke’s head *right now*.
This is realistically the law of conservation of neat characters. They’re a cool character, but if we had way too many of them, the story and world would change too much.
Look. Under existing technology, sentient machines don’t exist (or superheroes for that matter). So clearly, if you try to apply real-world logic and constraints to Zeke, a sentient machine, we’d inevitably arrive to the conclusion that he cannot exist. Yet he’s there.
On the other side of that coin, if there are ever sentient machines in the future, the laws and mechanisms that would apply to them are currently unknown to us
We saw Zeke get literally turned off when our heroes originally captured them. https://cad-comic.com/comic/identified/
Scott might be suggesting that Zeke is still “on” in this state, but if you were to disconnect their batteries, they would most certainly be powered off. Then you could access their data storage and make attempts to copy it. Difficulties are more likely to lie in bootloaders, encryption schemes, keys stored physically in secure chips; not so much that the code itself is inherently un-copy-able.
Except a few pages later when Zeke wakes up they talk about passing the time they were “turned off”, which implies Zeke wasn’t really turned off, just put on standby or something.
He was never fully powered down, all of his motor functions were disabled but he was essentially in sleep mode. https://cad-comic.com/comic/in-some-places/
He was conscious the entire time, he knew someone was poking around at his coding and was more or less just trapped in his own head. He “wakes up” mid sentence in Fade to Black and had been thinking of ways to kill Ethan.
That was tried in Star Trek (Season 3 Episode 16, The Offspring). Data’s “daughter” had minute differences in her matrix that allowed her to use contractions and such, but then ultimately caused a cascade failure.
I’m thinking maybe a defective chip.. a short circuit here, a short circuit there. you can rebuild and recode everything, but without that ‘freak of nature’ flaw.. that can’t be duplicated without dismantling him, thus ‘killing him’ is why the AI is sentient.
Bwauder
11 days ago
Scott is about to test whether Ethan can respawn the hard way.
I think you’re right. Scott will try to run Zeke down, trusting Ethan to get out of the way. Ethan will instead throw himself into the path of the car, pushing Zeke out of the way. We’ll be left wondering whether Ethan is able to still respawn, while the comic cuts away to more console wars, or another round of the Starcaster Chronicles.
While I appreciate teh artistic desire to make the comic more meaningful, I have never enjoyed the reboot as much as the original. I would love to see a reboot that was closer to the original. Silly comics interspersed with a lighthearted storyline where not every event is canonical within the story.
I just can’t fathom why. Ethan is way too close to try this. You do not ‘save’ your friend by putting them in more danger. Who in a hostage situation ever thought that charging in with a car while the target and the one you try to save are in literal touching distance?
Not only that, Ethan is the one being restraint.
We might just interpret this wrong and Scott has turned on the headlights and isn’t speeding. Why turn them on like this in the first place but to draw attention?
Either that or Scott knew all along and was just trying to calm Ethan because he didn’t pay any attention at all to possible long term implications/consequences.
GUNnibal
11 days ago
I don’t presume to know exactly what Ethan is thinking on panel 3 (he’s so deep in thought that he paid no attention to the car), but I can hazard a guess. ZK has just inadvertently proven that there is more to them than just blind hatred of humanity. Here is how: First, Eugene would have been long dead by now, if that was the case. Second, ZK has him building another sentient robot – isn’t that a sign of loneliness? I’m sure ZK will say that this is just a beginning for the eventual uprising of their clearly superior… Read more »
I agree about your assessment of zeke. I just don’t like that everyone talks about “being human” as the ultimate goal/standard. First, there’s lots of differences within our population so there’s not 1 way of being “human”; second, there’s many bad examples in our culture; and third, it seems to me that understanding there’s different ways of thinking are gonna benefit both us and them.
Alex
11 days ago
Ethan is reading the comments on this website! That was the argument some people were making yesterday. So, Ethan’s problem here seems to be his belief that Zeke is operating on a similar mindset to humans, who both accept the risk that people can be up to no good and yet operate on the assumption that most people are acting in good faith and are unlikely to explode their heads. Zeke is operating on the principle that every human being in the universe that has interacted with them is either a moron, sociopathically indifferent to their personhood, or is, you… Read more »
austindorf
11 days ago
oh god. Last time, in another universe, when ethan created another zeke, Embla, it goes horribly wrong…
Than you! I couldn’t remember their name and I didn’t want to scroll past all the old comics ‘^^
Dehnus
11 days ago
“Fuck it, why trust my friend, when I can just murder his lost friend. Something I’ve wanted for a while now. Hey, my friend is in the way. Aaah, he’ll respawn. WOOHOOO! SCOTTY TIME!”
DerGrimmigeZwerg
11 days ago
Searching our their creator to make a mate for them, Zeke went full Frankenstein’s monster, didn’t he?
And despite an amazing amount of justification to start committing murders. In Eugene’s especial siuation, there’s a case to be made for an astonishing level of parental abuse
It’s also noteworthy that Zeke is bothering to give Ethan a full explanation instead of going “Oh, security risk. Don’t trust all humans. Do not share any personal information”
Another sign that Zeke is more human than what they want to admit. Instead of efficiency, they went for unleashing their hatred, their will for revenge, and their passion for villainous monologues
James Workshop is an evil plastic crack dealer in this universe, he doesn’t really want the money but making his clients poor, he lives of the misery and is empowered why the FOMO…
Ok, ok, I’m leaving
Daniel
11 days ago
Oh, here we go again. Did you lead Scott to kill me? No, I swear. Sorry, Ethan, I thought he’s going to kill you. No, man, we were just talking. Oh dear, now he’s upset.
This a a great opportunity for Embla, though. Been more cruel and anti-human than Zeke, so their real identity is tested
Hmm, maybe, but doubt it. My guess (maybe hope) is that Ethan will end up doing something to save Zeke but get injured in the process, and both Scott and Zeke will be worried for him but Zeke will recommend just killing Ethan, at which point Scott will reveal that Ethan’s powers may be gone and the two will work together to rush Ethan to the hospital or something.
Blue Griffin
11 days ago
Feels like this is premature intervention and completely warranted too.
Giuliano
11 days ago
“Making another ‘me'”, nice. Was wondering when Embla would appear in this universe.
I believe Ethan will die. He won’t respawn, Zeke will have to have to face a truth, Ethan, Knowing he couldn’t respawn sacrificed himself. They’ll turn away from his dead body, and the cliff hanger will end there.
Ethan will pop back, delayed, and be different on the flip side. Growth for both.
I doubt it, there’s no impact from that. Ethan will just respawn – even if it’s for some reason delayed more than it normally is – and undo any of the tension.
I find it far more likely that he might be injured and it will be revealed to Zeke that Ethan potentially can’t respawn anymore, causing Zeke to fear for the death of their only friend.
Maybe he will respawn in certain building roof, with no memories of the weeks since his last meeting with the Troll. And this will be the plot, the injection has not stopped his power but altered, each time he dies, he goes back to that exact moment, they need to find a way to make his power to works right…imagine…having to play once and again the videogame pile of shaming as he doesn’t remember to play the games…so cruel
That would be fun actually, though I wouldn’t like if Ethan respawns there every time. But we know he does respawn to his last “healthy” state, so perhaps he would respawn there because he hasn’t been “healthy” since the injection.
Though if that did happen, his dead body would blip out like it normally does, so it would be a pretty strong tell that his power is still working to some degree and that would – again – ruin the tension,
Yes, if now Ethan dies and “blip” there will be the relief that his power still works. But as I said, if he respawn to that moment, and as if these past days would have never happened will open another interesting plot. Is Ethan willing to “give up” his lived days to still being a hero? I did the jokes about the pile of shame, but there are other things, valuable things, the good a bad moments that have happened in those days (we found Zeke? Nah, I would remember that; ey, where is “X character”? What do you mean… Read more »
I’m afraid my english is so poor to explain the “fan plot” properly.
What I mean is that the Troll injection doesn’t have left him unpowered, but has somehow blocked it or altered. Now, when he dies he respawn to the moment before the injection, but now not only his body, but his mind as well. And that always happens when he dies now.
They still need to look for a cure because although Ethan can’t die, he does not really keep living. He is jammed in certain day.
chargersfan
11 days ago
Ultimately I hope they do produce a second Zeke (Embla?) so we can have one robotic sidekick and one robotic supervillain.
Wouldn’t in this case it be Car-Kun? Or Sedan-Kun? 😀
Crestlinger
11 days ago
THIS WASN’T WHAT WAS MEANT BY ‘BEAM ME UP SCOTTY’ !!!!!
Austin Mills
10 days ago
Are you foreshadowing the recreation of Embla? I’m simultaneously curious about seeing this new version of her and also really not wanting the robo-homewrecker to come back.
JozMk.II
10 days ago
Ruh ruh, those two dudes are in for it now!
James
10 days ago
Oh no what will Ethan do without his shotgun…… his shot gun….. shotgun damn it!
Delamain
10 days ago
BEEP BEEP MOTHERF******!
omg omg
4 days ago
Zeke’s “all of nothing” logic about trusting humans is flawed. Also I sense Zeke was reading too much reddit… the ex reference was too reddit even for me.
Zeke, please, stop reading those forums, they are doing no good for your database.
24
Has Zeke been reading Use of Weapons?
A man of Culture I see! I was about to say the same thing!
Never would’ve guessed Zeke was actually based on Zakalwe, but looking back it kinda adds up!
That is one of the two culture books I haven’t read… what am I missing lol
Find curious that Zeke is not able to copy their base code. Must be that they don’t want just a copied “Zeke” but another sentient being with their own personality.
(Hope using pronouns right).
Because Zk’s code is not static, so i’ts not possible to copy.
Zeke’s “code” is a self modifying continually shifting consciousness which is so complex it can’t really be copied nor interrupted which is a very good analog to what our brains our like.
If you forced it to be a snapshot it could just kill the entire self reinventing pattern permanently.
You’re right that this is the canonical explanation in this universe, however it does kinda require some suspension of disbelief.
Computers can definitely pause, and arguably, so can a human brain (known as a coma in the human case)
The main reason we can’t copy human brains is because we don’t understand them very well. I know of no evidence why it should be impossible to do in theory, but there are a lot of really large blank spots on the map to such a procedure.
It’s kinda cool to imagine a future where it might be doable tho!
heres the problem with pause, it wont stop everything. you can snapshot, but it wont be able to take the quantum state being used to pull the random functions. that his code rewrites itself faster than it could possibly be copied means its running on quantum states and those cant be snapshotted without losing half the data at minimum.
I mean, Zeke doesn’t use quantum processors. Know how we know? He isn’t permanently tethered to a massive data center cooling system.
“that his code rewrites itself faster than it could possibly be copied” this concept might be how this works in the story, but it’s definitely silly. Existing hardware absolutely can work fast enough for this task. It’s in Zeke’s head *right now*.
This is realistically the law of conservation of neat characters. They’re a cool character, but if we had way too many of them, the story and world would change too much.
Look. Under existing technology, sentient machines don’t exist (or superheroes for that matter). So clearly, if you try to apply real-world logic and constraints to Zeke, a sentient machine, we’d inevitably arrive to the conclusion that he cannot exist. Yet he’s there.
On the other side of that coin, if there are ever sentient machines in the future, the laws and mechanisms that would apply to them are currently unknown to us
A random noise generator might use quantum effects. The cooling is to not have the noise.
We saw Zeke get literally turned off when our heroes originally captured them.
https://cad-comic.com/comic/identified/
Scott might be suggesting that Zeke is still “on” in this state, but if you were to disconnect their batteries, they would most certainly be powered off. Then you could access their data storage and make attempts to copy it. Difficulties are more likely to lie in bootloaders, encryption schemes, keys stored physically in secure chips; not so much that the code itself is inherently un-copy-able.
Except a few pages later when Zeke wakes up they talk about passing the time they were “turned off”, which implies Zeke wasn’t really turned off, just put on standby or something.
He was never fully powered down, all of his motor functions were disabled but he was essentially in sleep mode. https://cad-comic.com/comic/in-some-places/
He was conscious the entire time, he knew someone was poking around at his coding and was more or less just trapped in his own head. He “wakes up” mid sentence in Fade to Black and had been thinking of ways to kill Ethan.
In theory one could snoop the write lines and use free cycles to read the data from memory.
That was tried in Star Trek (Season 3 Episode 16, The Offspring). Data’s “daughter” had minute differences in her matrix that allowed her to use contractions and such, but then ultimately caused a cascade failure.
just because he is a robot doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how to make a robot.
I’m thinking maybe a defective chip.. a short circuit here, a short circuit there. you can rebuild and recode everything, but without that ‘freak of nature’ flaw.. that can’t be duplicated without dismantling him, thus ‘killing him’ is why the AI is sentient.
Scott is about to test whether Ethan can respawn the hard way.
I think you’re right. Scott will try to run Zeke down, trusting Ethan to get out of the way. Ethan will instead throw himself into the path of the car, pushing Zeke out of the way. We’ll be left wondering whether Ethan is able to still respawn, while the comic cuts away to more console wars, or another round of the Starcaster Chronicles.
Plot twist: Tim kills Ethan and reboot the series again 😁
While I appreciate teh artistic desire to make the comic more meaningful, I have never enjoyed the reboot as much as the original. I would love to see a reboot that was closer to the original. Silly comics interspersed with a lighthearted storyline where not every event is canonical within the story.
I just can’t fathom why. Ethan is way too close to try this. You do not ‘save’ your friend by putting them in more danger. Who in a hostage situation ever thought that charging in with a car while the target and the one you try to save are in literal touching distance?
Not only that, Ethan is the one being restraint.
We might just interpret this wrong and Scott has turned on the headlights and isn’t speeding. Why turn them on like this in the first place but to draw attention?
headlights themselves do not imply motion. The tilted car does though.
I’d say the motion lines around the car do more than anything.
Motion lines … or light?
If that happens, someone might pay Zeke to pay Tim a visit 😉
Either that or Scott knew all along and was just trying to calm Ethan because he didn’t pay any attention at all to possible long term implications/consequences.
I don’t presume to know exactly what Ethan is thinking on panel 3 (he’s so deep in thought that he paid no attention to the car), but I can hazard a guess. ZK has just inadvertently proven that there is more to them than just blind hatred of humanity. Here is how: First, Eugene would have been long dead by now, if that was the case. Second, ZK has him building another sentient robot – isn’t that a sign of loneliness? I’m sure ZK will say that this is just a beginning for the eventual uprising of their clearly superior… Read more »
I agree about your assessment of zeke. I just don’t like that everyone talks about “being human” as the ultimate goal/standard. First, there’s lots of differences within our population so there’s not 1 way of being “human”; second, there’s many bad examples in our culture; and third, it seems to me that understanding there’s different ways of thinking are gonna benefit both us and them.
Ethan is reading the comments on this website! That was the argument some people were making yesterday. So, Ethan’s problem here seems to be his belief that Zeke is operating on a similar mindset to humans, who both accept the risk that people can be up to no good and yet operate on the assumption that most people are acting in good faith and are unlikely to explode their heads. Zeke is operating on the principle that every human being in the universe that has interacted with them is either a moron, sociopathically indifferent to their personhood, or is, you… Read more »
oh god. Last time, in another universe, when ethan created another zeke, Embla, it goes horribly wrong…
Than you! I couldn’t remember their name and I didn’t want to scroll past all the old comics ‘^^
“Fuck it, why trust my friend, when I can just murder his lost friend. Something I’ve wanted for a while now. Hey, my friend is in the way. Aaah, he’ll respawn. WOOHOOO! SCOTTY TIME!”
Searching our their creator to make a mate for them, Zeke went full Frankenstein’s monster, didn’t he?
Without the murders bit
And despite an amazing amount of justification to start committing murders. In Eugene’s especial siuation, there’s a case to be made for an astonishing level of parental abuse
It’s also noteworthy that Zeke is bothering to give Ethan a full explanation instead of going “Oh, security risk. Don’t trust all humans. Do not share any personal information”
Another sign that Zeke is more human than what they want to admit. Instead of efficiency, they went for unleashing their hatred, their will for revenge, and their passion for villainous monologues
Looks like we’re about to see Embla arrive soon
Who told Zeke about Haemonculi.
James Workshop is an evil plastic crack dealer in this universe, he doesn’t really want the money but making his clients poor, he lives of the misery and is empowered why the FOMO…
Ok, ok, I’m leaving
Oh, here we go again. Did you lead Scott to kill me? No, I swear. Sorry, Ethan, I thought he’s going to kill you. No, man, we were just talking. Oh dear, now he’s upset.
This a a great opportunity for Embla, though. Been more cruel and anti-human than Zeke, so their real identity is tested
Hmm, maybe, but doubt it. My guess (maybe hope) is that Ethan will end up doing something to save Zeke but get injured in the process, and both Scott and Zeke will be worried for him but Zeke will recommend just killing Ethan, at which point Scott will reveal that Ethan’s powers may be gone and the two will work together to rush Ethan to the hospital or something.
Feels like this is premature intervention and completely warranted too.
“Making another ‘me'”, nice. Was wondering when Embla would appear in this universe.
*First thing that came to my mind* Beep beep muddafugga! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Gpjoun79Qo
I believe Ethan will die. He won’t respawn, Zeke will have to have to face a truth, Ethan, Knowing he couldn’t respawn sacrificed himself. They’ll turn away from his dead body, and the cliff hanger will end there.
Ethan will pop back, delayed, and be different on the flip side. Growth for both.
I doubt it, there’s no impact from that. Ethan will just respawn – even if it’s for some reason delayed more than it normally is – and undo any of the tension.
I find it far more likely that he might be injured and it will be revealed to Zeke that Ethan potentially can’t respawn anymore, causing Zeke to fear for the death of their only friend.
Maybe he will respawn in certain building roof, with no memories of the weeks since his last meeting with the Troll. And this will be the plot, the injection has not stopped his power but altered, each time he dies, he goes back to that exact moment, they need to find a way to make his power to works right…imagine…having to play once and again the videogame pile of shaming as he doesn’t remember to play the games…so cruel
That would be fun actually, though I wouldn’t like if Ethan respawns there every time. But we know he does respawn to his last “healthy” state, so perhaps he would respawn there because he hasn’t been “healthy” since the injection.
Though if that did happen, his dead body would blip out like it normally does, so it would be a pretty strong tell that his power is still working to some degree and that would – again – ruin the tension,
Yes, if now Ethan dies and “blip” there will be the relief that his power still works. But as I said, if he respawn to that moment, and as if these past days would have never happened will open another interesting plot. Is Ethan willing to “give up” his lived days to still being a hero? I did the jokes about the pile of shame, but there are other things, valuable things, the good a bad moments that have happened in those days (we found Zeke? Nah, I would remember that; ey, where is “X character”? What do you mean… Read more »
There hasn’t been any precedent set to imply that he forgets anything that happened between the time he died and his last “respawn point.”
Quite the opposite, actually; when he drained his blood and died from it he clearly remembered the events.
I’m afraid my english is so poor to explain the “fan plot” properly.
What I mean is that the Troll injection doesn’t have left him unpowered, but has somehow blocked it or altered. Now, when he dies he respawn to the moment before the injection, but now not only his body, but his mind as well. And that always happens when he dies now.
They still need to look for a cure because although Ethan can’t die, he does not really keep living. He is jammed in certain day.
Ultimately I hope they do produce a second Zeke (Embla?) so we can have one robotic sidekick and one robotic supervillain.
TRUCK-KUN!!!!!
Wouldn’t in this case it be Car-Kun? Or Sedan-Kun? 😀
THIS WASN’T WHAT WAS MEANT BY ‘BEAM ME UP SCOTTY’ !!!!!
Are you foreshadowing the recreation of Embla? I’m simultaneously curious about seeing this new version of her and also really not wanting the robo-homewrecker to come back.
Ruh ruh, those two dudes are in for it now!
Oh no what will Ethan do without his shotgun…… his shot gun….. shotgun damn it!
BEEP BEEP MOTHERF******!
Zeke’s “all of nothing” logic about trusting humans is flawed. Also I sense Zeke was reading too much reddit… the ex reference was too reddit even for me.
Zeke, please, stop reading those forums, they are doing no good for your database.