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=0812101) 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. :)