I think that they are stuck in a future that has suffered a cataclysmic event, but since this is a prime spot for something that I've suspected for some time, it would not surprise me if this cataclysmic event had affected everyone who had blue animas, but spared those with red "bedeviled" animas. Those with bedeviled animas have become sort of the survivalists of the time period they've arrived in, and the gang is going to have to side with and take a look from their point of view to begin to question their own perception of how things were.

After today, I think all the people and their anime are stuck inside a vast computer.

Or, at least their anime.

I'm worried it's going to suck Riff and Torg's anima away....

Well, not having their anime might let them get back home.

The current banner with all of the anima is intriguing.

The very top layer gives me the impression that they are more than just anima. It feels like they are a fusion of people and anima. As if the people evolved/subsumed into becoming pure animas.

Which could explain the empty houses. They appear to fulfill all of their needs. No conflict. Complacent.

It's giving me a 4UCity vibe, but instead of being controlled, everybody willingly and happily let it happen.

Although.

The bedevileds are the wild card that will probably twist what is really going on. Pete introduced them for a reason, and so far all that we know is that they are disruptive to society since they do not follow the norm. But subvert it from the shadows...

Indeed:



But yes, the bedeviled are what will have made things go wrong. Since Maya has now said that something bad happened. If machines can enhance anima, who knows what the bedeviled could have done with them.

I'll be very sad if Torg and Riff lose their anima as a result of this.

Ohh. Perhaps their animas are sucked away and they become like drones. Remembering the cow lady....

But that should be only temporary. I have always thought of the animas as a manifestation of the self that can't be removed.

But they could be cut and changed, as we saw. So who knows.

Head sucker things and voice commands.

Maybe they're just in a near world of immersive technologies, and everyone is at work. Or some.big fair. And before long....ZAPPO! everyone returns home.

That would be a classic Sluggy Freelance moment right there.

Who is there? Again, since for you City is on my mind, my first thought was Maddie.
But don't think it's outside of the realm of possibility to have anima now be physicalicality (sp?) And instilled evolutionarily or through millennia of editing, they have a desire to influence, rather than reflect, the emotion of their host. Or, alternatively, they make their animal work because it makes them happy.

Perhaps as a.i. and robots took over more and more tasks, humans (and other species) became more and more boring. The anima-vr appears to be a way to communicate without even moving your mouth, waving your arms, etc. Eventually, the humans evolved to more and more featureless boring anima, and less and less physical reality - perhaps even dying physically while allowing what was left of their anima to exist in the anima-vr. The dots apparently associated with Gwynn are what are left of the people that inhabited this house, and the dots that accompanied Frog and Gorf are what are left of the people that inhabited the other house?

I am usually spectacularly wrong when I spec in sluggyverse, so this interpretation is probably incorrect - and yet, certain parts of it make an abundant amount of sense (to me)...

honestly, the concept reminds me a little of player piano by kurt vonnegut. increasing tech increased everyone's free time and they ended up really bored.

See, hopelessly wrong... I believe Thom Solo is right and the dots are merely counters.

So more hopelessly wrong spec: Now that Riff has uploaded the DFA controller, he's done what they were trying to avoid with the last time jump - give this world the DFA technology...

If I am right, then two questions: (1) is there anyone left to care or use it?
(2) how would the technology be used here? Especially considering that Pete (apparently) intends to wrap up this storyline "soon" (by Pete standards, I'm sure).

Pete wrapping things up usually means unleashing something on the world. To be addressed 2-20 years later.