I think this is the first “official” view of Mike’s creamy middle – his Gel Data Core. Even though, in this world, they didn’t split the atom until the mid-1970s, they pushed computer technology well beyond ours by the 1990s, and Mike is the proof. He’s blue on the inside. And yet he speaks in green. Funny, huh?
Man this week was one for the books. Definitely a string of the strangest and most fascinating experiences of my life; I won’t go into detail, to protect the innocent, but suffice it to say, it all went well in the end, but required some fancy footwork on my part to make it all work out in the right order. I guess that’s just the name of the game.
And now, I’m off to bed. If this coming week is half as exciting as the last one was, I may just keel right over. But what can you do but roll with it? All the best, folks!
Oh, and I almost forgot – I put up a new voting incentive! I got commissioned to do some artwork for an upcoming tabletop game called Freejumper, by Sam Mustafa of the well-known and well-respected Honour series! I almost never do commissions, but this one was too much fun to pass up! You can check out, and order, Sam’s awesome games here (and also keep up on news for Freejumper as it approaches completion):
and click this link to cast a TWC vote and see the art I’ve been doing for it here:
Have a great week, everyone!
Congratulations, you are now The Bionic Woman!
…Does it still count as bionic if the computer stuff is organic neural goo?
Hmm…when somebody interfaces with Mike’s computer, do they use use command-lines or does he provide a GOOEY Interface?
You should be PUNched, PUNished, and then sent to a PUNitentiary. 😉
We can rebuild her; we have the technology. 🙂
…but we don’t want to spend a lot of money.
Yeah, let’s just pour some nerve goop in her head. Take two (gallons) and call me in the morning.
MIKE injected her with his juice! xp
*Dur-dur-dur*
Someone had to say it, right?
Oh, Ulrich. You’re what the Spaniards call “El Terriblé!”
Now if really want to bring your double-entendres down to a single, well…check it: http://www.totempole666.com/comic/swallowing-dark-12/
It’d be appreciated if you would put up a warning if a link is to a NSFW website. 🙂
‘Congrats, you will give birth to a healthy baby-tank within the next 9 months’
Hard to go wrong with a Tank Girl reference at this point.
Well played. I might be cruel to my characters, but not that cruel.
I presume the less-than-full middle tank is the obvious hint at what was “transplanted”?
Yes. I got the idea from a tube of “Colgate Mint Gel” toothpaste.
Three billion processes per second, and leaves your breath minty fresh!
The questions still becomes… was it Mike who scared the bejesus out of everyone in the conference room or was it someone/thing else?
Though this transplant probably has made her more susceptible to the same kind of Em Frequency override Mike’s talking about – and not necessarily just him.
And what about the contact he had with the Federates. Or how and *why* he contacted the Federate kill-bots.
😉
Ummm… That’s a lot of goo if the image is to scale.
Has Mike just completely replaced her entire central nervous system?!?!
I guess transplant means yes!
Is that Theseus I see sailing over the horizon?
Not sure about Theseus but the gel is less dense in the tube than when exposed. It’s under positive pressure to keep out impurities that could cause system damage. Outside the tube it would liquefy.
Probably the “Ship of Thesus”, which was repaired so many times that all of the original parts were gone. Is it still the same ship?
Yeah, the “Ship of Thesus Problem” is the classic question in which, if you have a ship in which every single part has been replaced since it was commissioned, is it the same ship?
You might be more familiar with it from the old saying about how “this is my Grandpappy’s axe. The head’s been replaced three times and it’s been through five handles….”
(One resolution is that it’s like a river: different water flows through it, but it’s still the same river.)
One of the classic sci-fi treatments of the issue was explored by Isaac Asimov: is a human who has been cybernetically augmented still human, because they started out human? Why are they different from a robot that was built as a robot using the same cybernetics?
Reading from the English Wikipedia article “Ship of Theseus” and further noted that this had been delved into by, among other, Douglas Hofstadter (of Gödel, Escher, Bach) in his book “The Minds I” (another book I should read I guess), who has subsequently hosted a symposium at Stanford University named “Will Spiritual Robots Replace Humanity by 2100?” at April 1, 2000. Among the panelists was Ray Kurzweil (arguably the originator of the idea of a technological singularity) and Fred Drake (of the Drake equation). (The YouTube videos from it are more things to the Watch list I guess…)
“That’s a lot of goo if the image is to scale. – Acrima
It is. But Sarah’s not the only one who’s been having ‘visitations’ from Mike, if Colonel Talinina’s response to her mysterious visitor is any indication. And the Federate compound was much harder hit than the UNA one in the exchange of warheads.
I wonder if there is an official term for the relationship between otherwise unrelated people who have received a transplant from the same donor?
Wow that is some wicked biotech.
When you choose to devote your resources to computers and biology instead of nuclear weapons and electronics, interesting things happen. Gel computers have been theoretically possible in the real world since the 1980s, but we never worked out the biochemistry, or the control issues with selectively altering chemical enzymes to act as transistors. And they never had a Second World War (until the comic) so they had a huge head start in terms of economic development and human capital.
I wonder how this world’s 2016 will compare to ours, given the little “Atomic Misunderstanding” that took place.
Played the last Fallout? 😉
I didn’t know Mike was able to do blueberry milkshakes
Somebody pick that phone! ‘Cause I called it! I knew Mike had the eye on Sarah from miles away. That Sly-Cyber-dog-tank