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 Post Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 6:48 am 
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I'm going to try to put this down without it getting too huge and complicated, but I've had a number of recent ideas about Oasis' true nature, what Schlock is up to, and what's Really Going On.

First, to start with, I think that Oasis' immortality happens in this fashion: In Sluggy, when anyone dies, their soul immediately flies out from their body. Dr. Steve had three pieces of technology - the ability to capture that soul, the ability to create (perhaps through cloning) a replacement body, and the ability to "download" the captured soul into the body. This basic part here is irrespective of Oasis' other qualities (i.e., this works if she's actually the Sun Twin merged with a little girl's body, or whatever). She also has other attributes (Dr. Steve's control of her; pyrokinesis) that are separate from this ability. When she dies, her soul is "broadcast" from her body, but I don't believe that in Sluggyverse, this is unique to her. I think this broadcast happens with *anyone*; what's unique is that Dr. Steve set up some technology (still functioning) near Podunkton that spits out a new Oasis with Oasis redownloaded into it.

I have a weaker theory about Kusari, which is that HeritiCorp has the technology to clone bodies, and the technology to download personalities to those bodies, but it does *not* have the technology to capture a soul (as opposed to a personality template) and download it. They have Kusari's personality stored; when Kusari dies, they download a new one to her body. Thus, she is "made in Oasis' image", but doesn't have the problem of remembering her own death from last time. I will readily admit that Kusari is the weakest part of my theory.

Now, with that prefaced, let's look at the Schlock triangle, and pretend it's early 2008. I believe Dr. Schlock actually wants Oasis for more than just this technology. I think in part he wants to get her out of the way (hard for HC to dominate the world when she keeps showing up and killing everybody). I also think there may be more to her we don't yet know that he wants. Regardless, to *really* get her, he needs her alive, for now, and then he needs to find her soul-catcher/replicator. What he plans to do with that involves technology that is currently illegal, so he also needs defense contracts to provide legal cover for the (arms?) he's going to be making as part of this whole project. He doesn't have time to invent something new (running up against a K'Z'K timeline?), so he's going to steal something Riff's already been working on. So, to recap, Schlock needs three things as of http://www.sluggy.com/daily.php?date=081210

1) Oasis, alive
2) The location of Dr. Steve's secret base - known only to Torg
3) Big defense contracts with Riff's stolen tech

Kusari points out (incorrectly, I think) that Riff would kill Schlock if he found out about number 3. Schlock says, in deep thought, "But if Riff were to die at the hands of Oasis, Torg would...I don't know whether to laugh or cry."

I believe what comes next in Schlock's conjecture is "Torg would...find Dr. Steve's lab to try to use the resurrection technology on Riff."

Dr. Schlock (who is note *quite* as evil as he appears, though pretty darn evil) then formulated the following plan: Flush Oasis out of hiding, and blackmail her into killing Riff. This gets Riff out of the way for #3, and launches Torg on finding Dr. Steve's lab for #2, and, if all goes well, allows him to capture Oasis for #1. But! While he's willing to risk Riff's life on a gamble on tech he doesn't understand, he isn't just setting out to kill him cold. While Schlock doesn't understand the soul download stuff (yet, that's why he needs Dr. Steve's lab), he thinks *maybe* he understands soul-scanning enough to have Riff "die", scan his soul, and reincarnate him later, after Torg recovers the clone-and-download tech.

Now, if you buy *all that*, the next leaps are as follows:

1) Zoë actually died in Sluggy Prime. Actually for-real died. However, Schlock was scanning for *Riff's* soul ("I got it! I think I got it! IT WORKED!"), and unknowingly grabbed Zoë's. Note he's not scanning for anything from Oasis, because he's trying to grab her alive.
2) Riff, just as this happened, DFAd himself and Zoë's corpse to Paradise.

There are a lot more leaps I can make from here (about reincarnation tech being prevalent in Paradise, about them therefore actually killing Riff simply to get him reincarnated into a "biochipped" body...) One interesting thing to think about is that Schlock is clearly puzzled by what he got on the scan. Perhaps because he has only one soul, but he knew there were two people in the Mark 19? He also thinks Torg thinks Riff is dead, and is dropping out of sight to sneak off and find Dr. Steve's base on his own, when Torg is really about to "waste" a whole lot of time rescuing just Riff from Paradise. Interestingly, if he accomplishes that, regardless of whether he sets out for Dr. Steve's lab, you'd expect Riff to show up at Schlock's place with a Very Big Gun and get Schlock to spill the beans - which would presumably actually get Torg to really find the lab to reincarnate Zoë.

ANYWAY! That's my spec. :)

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 Post Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 8:28 am 
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OK, I don't think Kusari is the weakest part of your theory. I think Chen referred to Kusari's rebirth as "another Kusari", implying that they are different people, but Kusari always refers to Oasis as her sister, implying that they are using related technology.

But also: oh my goodness, you've got such a good idea there.
If Torg finds the revival ability, then this would have allowed Zoe and Riff to have "died" yesterday yet still come back. It would seem weird for them to escape to another dimension yet die anyway...

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 Post Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 12:27 pm 
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How about if Oasis is actually Schlock's daughter? :D Wild wild spec, clearly.

But consider that the current Spock is from an Alternate universe/timeline. And that he's somehow from a future version of the universe where K'z'k didn't lose. The inflatable technology is apparently future tech. And his appearance is explained by his being a future version of Schlock. Plus, Time Travel exists in the universe

So, what if Schlock was thinking along the lines of Jor-El of Krypton and placed his baby, Oasis, born in a world full of paranormal things and had pyrokinetic powers (and possibly a target for the cultists) in an inflatable time ship, which jumped backwards but got lost in the time stream (due to the Ovum resets, the messing with the timeless space, Fate spider meddling, etc) and ended up in a present where K'z'k lost. Exactly as Irving planned.

Irving would have followed sooner except he was delayed for some reason or other. Oasis, a pyrokinetic orphan from the future is found by Orsintos and then Heretic-Corp and is experimented upon. They then create Kusari from these experiments, making Kusari consider her a sister. They merged paranormal studies with tech resulting in whatever cloning-soul-reinserting contraption.

Irving Schlock finally traces her daughter but he arrives in the present way too late in the timeline. He finds Hereti-corp and Riff and the gang because he decides they're the best chance he has of either capturing his daughter to try fix her somehow, or to give her peace, finally. Hereticorp because it's hereti-corp. Riff, because he invented a bunch of important things. Torg because of his connection to Oasis. And the rest of the gang because, aside from being part of the package, the magic connection to K'z'k's prison in Gwynn and possibly Bun-bun's connection to Time and the holidays. His interest in Aylee and experiments in cloning her could even be because she's adaptive. Perhaps if he could clone a new body for Oasis that was adaptive, Oasis would somehow adapt a defense to the brainwashing/programming/personality breaks, and perhaps even control the pyrokinesis. At the time, the real Aylee's form ended up being a fire-breathing dragon, if I recall correctly. That may have been coincidental, but still.

Ok, so this was random spec, and I was just typing it to type it, but I guess it should be in consideration, now that it's out there. So yeah, there it is.



Additionally: Oasis is a fertile tract of land in a desert, usually depicted by water. And apparently, the name "Irving" can mean "green water."

Feng did call Schlock "friend." and then they both commented on each other's hair. Perhaps Schlock had already asked Feng for help, knowing that Oasis generally resurfaced near where Feng was. Perhaps Feng even decided to style his hair and facial hair and wear glasses as a subconscious reminder for Oasis. Either it will remind her of her father (Irving) somehow and help Oasis trust Feng, or reinforce that people with similar appearances might be father figures and help Oasis trust Irving later.

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 Post Posted: Sat Aug 22, 2009 11:45 pm 
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"1) Zoë actually died in Sluggy Prime. Actually for-real died. However, Schlock was scanning for *Riff's* soul ("I got it! I think I got it! IT WORKED!"), and unknowingly grabbed Zoë's. Note he's not scanning for anything from Oasis, because he's trying to grab her alive.
2) Riff, just as this happened, DFAd himself and Zoë's corpse to Paradise."

Whoa.
If this is true, you are SO getting a cookie.

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 Post Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 12:46 am 
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wow. just wow. you are brilliant. if i could add you as a friend, i so would, if only so i would be notified next time you post something, because it is so worth reading. great going. i like this theory. it gives me hope that i will see Zoe again. :zoe:

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 Post Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 1:59 am 
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It's a great idea - and frankly I dotn think the Kurasi bit is the weakest part. If anything, you may well have it spot on. Cloning IS a frequent topic in Sluggy and frankly Kurasi being a clone of Oasis IS very likely.

I was going to knick your idea on the cloning thng but then I re-read and you didnt say it had to be cloning. You left it as "technology"... and obviously this technology IS somethign big and signifigant that hC and Schlock become obsessed with it. Like him or not Schlock is probaby the best scientist in Sluggy and if anyone can understand this tech, it's him. So I think you are very much on the right track

One VERY good bit of spec.

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 Post Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 7:59 am 
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Great post by quark. I agree except for the motivations of Schlock. He keeps hunting Oasis because he wants to become unkillable as well. He is a total coward. Think what the ability to survive anything must mean to such a guy.

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 Post Posted: Sun Aug 23, 2009 11:43 am 
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lord jojo wrote:
I agree except for the motivations of Schlock. He keeps hunting Oasis because he wants to become unkillable as well. He is a total coward. Think what the ability to survive anything must mean to such a guy.


Never ending pain and suffering?

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 Post Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:11 am 
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Hmm, that soul-capture->clone-or-new-body thing is kinda like what [spoiler]one guy[/spoiler] does in [spoiler] one of Zelazny's books [/spoiler]. Also, I need to figure out these spoiler tags.

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 Post Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:58 am 
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Well, actually, you see, we don't have spoiler tags, per se. What you can do is type your spoiler text, then set its color to white. After that, put it between quote tags. The white background of the quote block will keep the text from being visible.

Lurkie's example spoiler wrote:
Like this.

To see the text, someone would have to select it.

--tll

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 Post Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:22 pm 
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Well, except that doesn't work anymore. The quote background isn't white now, and this old lady can read your white text without straining at all...

With the current configuration of the forums, and given the color pallete provided, the closest we can get to 'invisible' right now is either

(1) No quotes, and the blue color just above the white (#BFFFFF):
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]

(2) Or, if you want to use the quote thing, then the color diagonal to the white is the most invisible (#BFFFBF)
Quote:
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]


(3) Use itty, bitty text (Select "tiny", but change the number to something smaller than 50)
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]

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 Post Posted: Mon Aug 24, 2009 2:52 pm 
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swmartian wrote:
Well, except that doesn't work anymore. The quote background isn't white now, and this old lady can read your white text without straining at all...

Arrgh. I forgot about the new "look" to the forum. I use the older one, "subsilver" I think it's called. The two colors that you used work well with subsilver, btw. I can see there's something there, but I can't read it. Then again, I am an old man with failing eyesight. :-)

swmartian wrote:
(3) Use itty, bitty text (Select "tiny", but change the number to something smaller than 50)
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]

Um, well, yeah, pretty easily, actually. It would have to be a lot smaller than that. I think the colors you suggested are the best idea.

--tll

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 Post Posted: Tue Aug 25, 2009 2:16 pm 
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The Lost, Lurking wrote:
Then again, I am an old man with failing eyesight. :-)

swmartian wrote:
(3) Use itty, bitty text (Select "tiny", but change the number to something smaller than 50)
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]

Um, well, yeah, pretty easily, actually. It would have to be a lot smaller than that. I think the colors you suggested are the best idea.

--tll

Well, either you're eyes aren't quite as old as mine, or you have better reading glasses. Heh, heh. I used size=30 there; you can go much smaller. I seem to recall someone setting size at 1 once.

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 Post Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 4:18 am 
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swmartian wrote:
Well, except that doesn't work anymore. The quote background isn't white now, and this old lady can read your white text without straining at all...

With the current configuration of the forums, and given the color pallete provided, the closest we can get to 'invisible' right now is either

(1) No quotes, and the blue color just above the white (#BFFFFF):
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]

(2) Or, if you want to use the quote thing, then the color diagonal to the white is the most invisible (#BFFFBF)
Quote:
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]


(3) Use itty, bitty text (Select "tiny", but change the number to something smaller than 50)
[spoiler]Can you see me now?[/spoiler]

I can see both of those in SubSilver pretty well.

swmartian wrote:
Well, either you're eyes aren't quite as old as mine, or you have better reading glasses. Heh, heh. I used size=30 there; you can go much smaller. I seem to recall someone setting size at 1 once.
In PHPBB2, you could set the font size to 0 which would be small enough to look like ellipsis points... you have to quote or copy/paste to see what it says.
Except in Opera... in the Opera browser, there seems to be a minimum text size threshhold and any text below a certain size is scaled up to perfect readability.

The only solution? Bother Rit for spoiler tags. Bother bother bother bother.... :kzk:

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 Post Posted: Wed Aug 26, 2009 8:27 am 
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Back on Topic... That is some EXCELLENT spec!

(and if you want to request spoiler tags, you can ask for a feature here: http://sluggy.lighthouseapp.com/project ... ickets/new )

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