Have people brought up the possibility of Kusari being the original Oasis clone or perhaps the real daughter of Sin'thea (considering Chen mentioned he worked with her)? I'll be fine with the Sasha thing, but it seems too predictable without some sort of major twist attached.

Love it.

It makes sense with the whole "sister" thing.
Part of me hopes Kusari's unmasking is like when you "see" Judge Dredd without his helmet.

"Lalalalala! I'm not listening! Lalalalala! And Oasis isn't really pyrokinetic - it's just natural temperature variation!"

So I've been thinking of this: Sasha ran to her death without any hesitation in order to further Hereti Corp's goals.

When she saw Riff, her goals changed without any hesitation. She didn't even think about it. She saw him, had ONE panel to look surprised, and pulled the trigger.

Every time we learn that she's completely and 100% loyal to Hereti Corp, it feels like a shock because it's hard to imagine someone putting that kind of loyalty over their own life. Sasha has no goals of her own, no life outside HC, and her personal motivations often seem at odds.

Maybe Kusari isn't Sasha, but I'm heavily leaning toward it.

But Sasha and Kusari are both part of the same project, the same thing. and I'll continue believing that until Pete proves me wrong. But I feel confident Sasha is going to turn back up here, alive, in a brand new body. When Kusari and Schlock are discussing her death, and Schlock appears to be feeling a little guilty about her death, Kusari says "Besides, it will matter little in the near future." From the reader's perspective it looks like that's because Schlock's plan is about to come to fruition. But what if Kusari refers to something else? i.e, the fact that Agent Sasha will return?

The current comic is a direct visual representation of this thread's title haha

I'm sitting here staring at Riff's facial expression. - Obviously shocked. Maybe horrified? Is that oh my god it's you Sasha? Or, ew sasha corpse what the heck!?, or something else? His eyebrows are making sad upside down V's. It seems whatever he thought was impossible, was true, BUT WHAT IS IT. WHO IS KUSARI!? ARGH the suspense is killing me! Why the mask? She either looks like Sasha or Gwynn. I'll put my money on Sasha.

Hey out of curiosity, Kusari has no overrides does she, like Oasis's B1? Just that she seems to have to follow whatever the CEO says with one hundred percent loyalty.

Well given Riff's horrified reaction, Kurasi looks like Sasha I bet. How and why.... well that's also about to be answered.

Cross posted from WWHN:

Aithiopika wrote:
Nonsense. She's clearly Dr. Lorna!


And I wrote:
I've actually wondered about this.

We haven't seen her in forever.
Last mention was about her being at Riffs funeral.
We think Riffs dad was involved with Sinthea La'mort, who is almost definitely involved in the Oasis project (possible lying Chen stuff being the only way she's not).
Maybe the reason she's (Dr. Lorna) so bitter is because she got talked into being cloned, and her clone (Kusari) chose to work for HC to stay alive.

In this theory, the 'limited resource' is probably a technical issue.

There's lots of overlap, and lots of holes, but I don't think there's more holes in this theory than in any other.

Interesting to wonder about at least; for the next however long Pete decides to torture us.

And I wrote some more:
(Now with minor edits for clarity)
As I think about this more, there's other things that could fit into this;

Her relationship with Riff has always bothered me;
Maybe she's also bitter because Riff isn't really hers, in a John Snow kind of way, and she's been forced (bought/bribed/threatened/blackmailed) into at least playing the part. Maybe she doesn't know she was cloned, and is only bitter about Riff, or maybe she does know and she's got lots of stuff to be bitter about.

In this case, Riff might be La'mort's son. If Sasha is a La'morte kid or clone as well, that makes Riff even more of a John Snow character (and makes me cringe a good bit as well). I hope not, but I'll put nothing past Pete at this point.

Roberts chose Riff's screen name as Sluggy, and Roberts is a Steve clone, and possibly aware of / working with La'morte. Maybe momma La'morte picked her son's screen name.

Maybe Sasha is Dr. Lorna's daughter, and Kusari is Dr Lorna's clone and Riff is his dad's and La'morte's son and La'morte had Mr. Riff's dad plant him with his wife (because fate), and Dr Lorna has had to play along with being Riff's mom because HC has been holding Sasha hostage, and raised her as an agent.

And Kusari should feel bad about Sasha because she's a clone of her(Sasha's) mother, and she (Kusari)got roped into the HC mess because of Riff's dad so Schlock feels sorry for her, but she (Kusari) chose to work for HC, so she should feel guilty, but doesn't because of how she was raised and / or programmed.

That holds together better than I thought.

Hrmmm...

Probably totally wrong, but it's interesting, and it explains Dr. Lorna's attitude and bitterness, which has bugged me for a long time.

It's not Lorna. That would be ridiculously out of nowhere.

And I really hope it's not Sasha because that would just be... I don't know. Predictable?

I don't know; who else calls Riff 'Riffington'?

And that's what bun bun called him in the last pannel.

Cloned, younger, not the same person, but I'm going with Dr. Lorna clone.

I think it's only predictable to folks who've been following these threads anxiously. The idea had never occurred to me until I read it here.

I don't know about predictable.

And even though I'm talking big game over on the 'what will happen next' thread, we _are_ talking about Pete; the the Master of Misdirection, the Lord of Buried Leads, the Chieftan of Cliffhangers, and the Penultimate Purveyor of pure palative palaver for the Parietal Lobe.

It's entirely possible I'm exactly wrong.

(and I only had to look up one of those 'p' words!)


But I do think I'm right; at least about the:
Kusari body = Dr. Lorna clone.

And the more I think about it, the more the rest of my spec makes me think I'm really close.

But Pete has had me down that road before, so we'll see whenever Pete decides to stop torturing us.

This.

Just reading everything else in this thread, I would have written it off as idle spec. However, when I read your similar comment in "Reactions", my immediate reaction was "O. M. G."

I have been rereading some of the archives lately, and I've started to notice just how much foretelling Pete hides in the snark of the Bunny... So my vote is with you.

It most definitely is not Sasha. I've been leaning towards the spec of Riff and Sasha being siblings of a sort; but aside from that being waaaay too close to Star Wars, they did date for quite a while and I don't see Pete being that.... ...perverted. I am also convinced that Sasha is part of the La'Mort family - more towards the Monicruel side than the Oasis/Teresa side - and I will not be surprised to see both again. After the Monicruel / Sasha fight, Sasha makes a strange comment about Crushestro that insinuates that she had met him before Shankraft's island...? But perhaps not.

There is also a part of me that wants Dr. Steve (and Marcus) to end up being a good guy here... I think that once Marcus confirms that he has control of Oasis - probably through Roberts - Schlock is suddenly going to find out that space is not as safe as he thought it was... And that he's been played.

The real issue I have with Kusari being Dr Lorna is that she doesn't qualify as one of "those kids".