8 Comments

Ack, you're such a tease! Make with the exposition, already!

Holland's scene - interesting. The man came dangerously close to some self-reflection there. Maybe there's a seed of hope for him after all.

Although his reflections on the koth remind the audience how formidable they are. One of the few things that could rip up an AI like Justin's shell so effectively.

I suspect Justin's core won't get the report from this fragment.

Sigh. I've said it every time she's popped up for the past few months. Poor Nisha.

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I have three, well actually four (a fourth came into my head as I write this comment) theories as to who beat up Justin, and a koth is probably the least worrying.

I'm assuming a koth could take an AI host; I could be wrong.

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Cor, that’s a very good question.

A well trained and raging koth could definitely be in with a shot, I reckon. Especially on Mid-Earth — I reckon the koth could wear down the AI host until its battery drained, for example. On Max-Earth it would be harder, and the exhaustion would be reversed.

Different koth generate different substances that they can project from their mouths (e.g. fire, plasma, acid equivalents), some of which require a passive background bit of magic wielding to fully work, so that would also be a factor.

In raw terms: can a koth rip the arms off an AI host? I’d say…most probably!

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Oh, I'd forgotten about the fire-breathing!

Well, that covers at least one of my other theories: a wielder on Mid-Earth maybe, although now I think of it they'd be limited to the passive spells. There's the Palinese gods, Paf and all, and/or another AI shell.

Or a kengto maybe...hm. curiouser and curiouser!

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Another note - coming off your recent discussion about authors considering characters facets of themselves vs independent entities with "lives of their own," that here, Holland surprised his author.

It happens.

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Yep - almost as if he was trying to prove a point.

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Lots of little movement in the dialogue make it come to life. Nicely done!

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Thanks, Kathleen!

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