Now, are they being attacked because they are in the water business, because of things they may have seen, because of who they are, or simply because they are between her and its target?
Also, it’s interesting to see that the older versions have a morality package. Or is it simply this one?
So, as it seemed through his earlier and current dialogue about terminating the attacker, he's just 'following orders' to protect this area and residents ?
With a little added personality overlay ;)
Well, there is the possibility that Skeeter genuinely likes the kid and wants to protect her. Neither a Morality Package nor direct orders are required.
Seriously, Skeeter's dialogue treats him (her?) as a character, not as an automaton. Motivations are complex and presumably every bit as complicated for Skeeter as they are for anybody.
I read this as Skeeter's being courageous and protective. Looking after the safety of your boss's kid is an important part of being a responsible adult whether or not it's what you're paid for.
When Olina tells him to and he seems to find it beneath his station to be a shild's plaything and complains..but he complains about everything, so maybe he did get Marvin's dialogue downloaded from the TV serial to be part of his persona ?
There's no way to know at this point whether Skeeter acquired the persona, or if that's 'just how he is', but that interaction was what made me immediately think of Marvin.
@HiFranc: going back an reading the politics an deployment of Feelie... "I read this" as a third party involved, covering their @$$.. cuz it looks like goldie is attacking any an all "bases" listed.. ( this could be a old gutter base ,, or Marvin an friends pissed off the guters, an they was put on the list for this reason...
also,, prince crispy would not keep this a secret (goldie) ,, he liked to brag to much..
Re:Alt text, Yes, and maybe especially so if she's still occupying the Commander Pauline body.
Skeeter packs a punch, and Golden Boy may have made a final error trying to hit Cyana. (That girl can run!) Those grenades ought to be able finish him off now that the shields are down.
If there's enough of it left, maybe Olina can determine what it is and where it's from.
Nice FX on this page and Skeeter is still doing a fair Marvin persona extrapolation! :D
Information from Ophelia? My guess would be that whatever information she had was reliable, because her mind survived intact. There was probably not a lot, since the encounter didn't last very long.
Oh, I think I misunderstood. I thought you meant information that Ophelia got from the encounter. I don't know exactly who directly gave them the mission; it likely came through channels (Tennyo either directly or indirectly most likely) and the info she was given is probably already known in the command chain. I could be wrong, but that's how I understood it.
It seemed like Feelie had been 'assigned' to duties outside of the city due to an incident in the Palace and she'd been there during all the commotion.
After that all settled down, she'd been given direction to investigate the gutter base, after the Senator gave Maxus the information on the gangs, since she was already in the area.
It did say her story started a week after the demise of Prince crispybrisket.
So we have one location booby trapped. Let’s see how this one plays out but, given what happened before, this family may be innocent. They may not be but I don’t trust that senator.
{edit}
Just realised that this thing was the one that damaged Ophelia.
{edit 2}
Maybe this was a second contingency that Decimus had? Or, worse, what if someone got hold of a drone from an AIS and activated it?
I am not sure I get your meaning. We have the Senator providing Intel on gutter bases, and Ophelia is sent to go out and try to verify it. They get to the gutter base, find blood and no bodies. Comms are down due to interference. To me it indicates that the base was wiped, and then our golden friend shows up, and I took that as an indication of how the base got wiped, once we see what it does. So now it's here.
To me it seems that this is a separate thread, not connected to the gutter base, other than it's at least the same, or one of the same thing(s) that wiped the gutters. I don't think this is on the Senator's list, but just a separate place where Golden Boy shows up.
*edit: We were typing at the same time. I was speaking to your first paragraph.
As to the last bit,that was something I was wondering also.
"...Most of the Cassians were kept close to home during douchimus's reign. Ophelia is an exception..."
Later on in Taxi Service we see her saying that one of her pranks got her sent off to the "...sandy asshole of the Wastes..." when it affected an heirloom tapestry, so it seems that she was sent off to the sandbox before the party started in the palace and would logically have been tasked with dealing with the gutters since her squad was already out there before the Senator gave Maxus his list.
Yes, excellent art, I doubt IRay could have made it any better, and the dialogue is very well done, especially in keeping with the 'Marvin-speak' style which must be fun scripting...another home run for the creative crew, Brava !!
The phrase, "significant resistance detected" does NOT bode well for the good guys. There are LOTS of levels beyond "significant". This unit might be down, but that just means that this spot is marked for being engaged by something bigger & tougher than a single scout.
This is what happens when you react with maximum effort immediately a threat is perceived instead of standing around with your thumb in your bum talking about it or wondering what to do...
Granted, Scorpion Squad only had a few seconds to react, but they should have been on much higher alert than they were, especially when there was notice given of something moving.
They were only armed with light weapons and were treating it as a walk in the park, Feelie included, plus their 'tank' gunner/commander had decided to step out of his vehicle in a contact situation and might not have had the firepower anyway, but it still remains that they barely got a shot off.
SKEETER turned loose almost everything he had (that we know of) in a full attack as soon as he determined a threat existed, which seems to have worked a little better...you can't hit anything if you don't shoot.
true, Ophie's team expected different reaction to their approach because they did not see it approching as it was already there (inside) and Skeeter correctly identified it as threat while it approached...
Reading "Golden Boy's" text I can't help but wonder if it is all there. Seems to have issues since it is repeating and slurring the words. I'm rooting for team Skeeter.
The Mosquitos were an *incredible* asset to the Brits during WWII, but unfortunately their value didn't seem to carry over after jets became the focus.
We haven't seen Skeeter move yet, but if he's as fast and as accurate while moving as he is in a fixed position, then he's one dangerous drone. My concern is that the collective narrative weight seems to be on this being another massacre, instead of a brilliant showdown resulting in the "Good Guys" gathering more intel on the potential threat that there are more of these roaming around. However, that being said, I never discount the wileyness of this comic's creators, so all options are still on the table. ;)
Given that the grenades are already in the air, it's entirely possible that Goldilocks over there will paste Skeeter, but not live to tell about it.
Although even if Skeeter wins, I can't imagine that he's got the kind of reactors needed to support that heavy weapons output for very long. He may very well drop from exhaustion (or overheat and detonate - and as drones are generally considered disposable compared to other war machines, I can absolutely see that being considered a feature rather than a bug).
On the page prior, before activating any weapons, we see him 'keying fusion clip'...
I sort of think that's a kind of temporary fusion cell or 'battery' to give the extra power to run the weapons systems and shields and with any luck he has a spare clip or two ready to go ;)
I still expect to see Olina hauling out some massive cannon to finish the job and save our brave little bot though ;)
The grenades seem to be more in compartments or possibly a 'rack' as opposed to a clip.
Grenades are usually self-contained items here too, I'm pretty sure they were discussed in the assault on the Black palace, TeeDee ended up taking nano-poppers instead of 'all of them' like she wanted to...I still think she had the better idea.
The 'keying fusion clip' also comes before the lasers extending or the grenades arming so I saw it as an extra power supply reserved for those but it could go either way I suppose.
I'm not getting into the 'clip vs magazine' argument, I know the difference and also a lot of other ways to store and discharge ordnance ;)
Multiple grenades are launching from scattered storage positions on both sides and seem to be self-propelled so I discount them being in a 'clip' as such and probably not even what I'd call a rack or dispenser, but rather individual storage compartments or launch tubes, possibly with each storage/firing position having a couple of reloads in a 'clip' or magazine.
SKEETER's rear portion seems thick enough for at least one set under the ones we see and grenades shouldn't need much of a power source, unlike the lasers.
I've loaded similar arrangements for various stores and the arming choice and firing sequence is normally decided onboard up to the time of firing rather than locked in on load or pre-flight.
You'll have to bear with me, I see him as an aircraft...a small one, but he still flies, so I look at the weapons systems in the way I'm used to :)
Of course, 39th Century terminology way have drifted a little, or if this is a 'parallel' universe of sorts then it may have been different all along.
Things like that are up to the writers to decide and no matter what we say, they're always right ;)
Yes, I, too, know the difference between a clip and a magazine. The arrangement of grenades when the shroud opens looks kind of like a clip, or rack. I took "Keying fusion clip" to mean make ready. That's what I went by. And yes, the creatrixes have the final say in the matter.
A fusion clip is a series of power cells to provide a high energy output and still leave the main power battery alone. its a sprint system ..not a marathon.
Marvin (Skeeter) hasn't moved cuz he's covering her escape.. he is directly in between them..
because of that, he will be parts soon.. but he did his job.!!
BUT.. once she is clear , or he is so badly damaged,, that i see him go out in a blase of glory
Another five minute musical mangling...it just popped into my head, I swear....
I'm not sure anyone other than Brits or some old Canucks might know this one so sing along with me....them
When a Goldybot comes stalking and it gets in your way
And it tries to ruin the ending of a long boring day
And attacks the little kid who just wanted to play
Next step is Pissed Off Polecat
(It's even better than that)
Engaging, gaging, gaging, Rabid Wombat, Wombat, Wombat...now die
When your sensors start to fail and you just can't see
And my lasers lock on to you and the grenades fly free
Just remember you're so lucky that there's only just me
Okay, There were people referring to this thing as 'golden' before this page.
But I hadn't ever actually seen it before now, aside from a foot-ish thing at Ophelia's head. Honestly I'm surprised that it's something humanoid. I was expecting something more like ED-209.
So this makes me think I probably missed a page. Where did we first see the shape-and-color of this aggressor?
The foot-ish thing (apt description) was where we learned it was, or at least it's foot was, gold. Looking at the foot, though, (page 1584) it seemed that a humanoid shape might be at least be possible because of the shape and geometry and the part of the calf we can see. Here we see Ophelia's dream/nightmare where we first see it in it's entirety. The page before this current page is where we first saw it's humanoid shape with our "own eyes".
If that is what I think it is, then they need to issue a planetary alert. I’m beginning to suspect that that is an AIS drone. Cella did say that they looked like the Terracotta Army.
{edit}
The questions I have are:
What woke it up? Who deployed it? What will happen when its distress signal is received?
Will Ophelia get a warning to Max? Will they get a warning to Aeneas, Centcomm and Noctis? Will all the other AI System cities be able to help?
I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s a backup to Decimus’s contingencies. However, it could be something worse. Some examples going through my head:
The people who organised the kidnap of Lynn managed to get hold of one?
Someone stole one from Aeneas whilst he was fighting the spike?
Aeneas deployed one when he was being attacked all those years ago and the complications around his repair/the spike deployed signal from Ceci activated it?
There’s a yet unknown AIS that had one deployed?
Calliope had one on standby in case Lynn didn’t make it?
Pretty sneaky, target non combatant to force the thing beating him or it to move to protect and limit wombats mobility. I am really starting to think the gold guy is -not- local if you get my drift....anyone else agree here?
Yes, I assumed she meant what she said "lined up row on row like a terracotta army" to mean the huge numbers of drones, not their physical appearances.
I'm thinking it's just 'talking to itself' as robots are commonly portrayed so the reader can make sense out of what it's doing, or rather we're seeing it's thought processes as dialogue since otherwise it would just be a silent thing shooting up the place for no apparent reason and not reacting to anything that was happening.
Same reason SKEETER is talking out loud when the thing probably can't hear it from that distance...it gives us, the readers, something to work with other than just artwork with no flavour context, that's how single character scenes often have to work in order to make sense.
It may well be sending a message out though and the next page could show SKEETER's HUD lighting up with several more threats,
but we'll have to wait and see what the Devious Duo have planned to mess with our heads.
Cent went to a helluva lot of work making both characters look so good and I doubt she'll chuck them away after so little usage...
Unless, of course, she has a really big explosion scene already rendered up...or a scene change to TeeDee and the head tech ;)
just to add to Oldarmourer 's statement... just try watching a movie with no sound or subtitles... i did this with "Princess Bride." .. an Wow different movie...
This also happens in real life. One of the most common questions anybody asks about uninteded behavior in a robot is, "why the hell is it doing THAT?!" and the answer is usually because some input has given it a bogus readings or its program is reacting to supposed events which are different from those actually happening.
So we do in fact put things kind of like this on robots in order to help us debug their software.
Usually we do it differently though.
For example "The red LED will come on if it enters the mode where it's compensating for damaged drive, the blue one is if it enters a mode for compensating for damaged manipulator arm, the green one means it thinks its hopper is full..."
I mean, the programmer could have the 'bot actually *saying* these things, but we're usually debugging things that don't otherwise have a speech capability so we use something else.
Yes and no. Sort of? Personally, I would hook up the computer, and watch the software run. If an event was one which couldn't be seen due to the speed with which it occured, I would use a 'trap' which would be a latch whose logic array would look for a suspected condition, and latch if it occured. Industrial robots can have lots of indicator LEDs on sensors, solenoids, etc. but that only tells you of the state of a particular device. A lot of the time, that's enough, but sometimes a combination of conditions occurs, and is sometimes sporadic, such that you have to look for specific possibilities. You could do that within the processor of the robot, and have it toggle an unused output bit, but I tend not to bastardize the program if I can help it, especially if there are a number of suspected causes, since the trap array could get quite large, and affect processor program scan/loop time. There is usually an alphanumeric readout or display, but it usually isn't outputting anything unless there's a fault that stops the machine, or you're teaching it. Processor capacity usually isn't used in giving messages if the robot is running normally. If you have a damaged drive, or failing components, the usual outcome is a fault code and the machine stops. Continuing to run it with failing components can cause more damage and more expense to repair.
Sometimes there is a multicolored "Christmas tree" that does light colored segments indicating operational phases in longer program sequences. *edit: I meant to, and forgot to mention that here you could add a secondary sub processor at this point (the robot's main processor is a sub processor to the main system control processor) to handle a speech output if you wanted it to do a monologue as you see here.
39th century processors likely are much more robust, and have much greater capacity and speed, such that there's plenty left to be used to constantly supply this information.
I wonder if the golden one might be part of Dec's going away present? If the server controlling them went down, could the individual pieces be out and about causing problems?
Somehow, the 'retrieve all tech and get rid of anything that tries to stop you' policy these things appear to be following doesn't quite match up with douchie's "seek out and kill everyone, destroy everything standing and salt the earth as you go" directives...
I still opine that this device, however impressive its combat capabilities, is directed by an intelligence that is glitching hard.
Aside from the "tell" of its slurred speech, (at least that's how I read the post-crypt all caps, with echos and stutters) we have things like hitting targets that have no clear strategic value and making absolutely no use of available effective cover (no matter how invisible you think you are, no matter how good you think your armor is.... if cover's available you use cover.)
I don't think we can quite decide whether targeting the kidlet was good tactics or boneheaded though. She said directly and Skeeter confirmed that she was going to tell her folks about it, and attempted to disengage. To a combat AI, it's reasonable to interpret that as her being sent for reinforcements, and targeting her is therefore good tactics. And Skeeter is forced to move to cover her departure so Skeeter has to remain in the open. On the other hand, Skeeter is clearly the bigger threat, and if reinforcement is available to this force, odds don't favor the kidlet being the only call for it.
Goldybot 'spoke' clearly when it was assessing the damage to Feelie, I think it's showing signs of damage from SKEETER's barrage that blasted through it's shields, remember nobody got more than a few rifle shots off at in the Scorpion Squad incident (assuming this is the same one that was there), it definitely didn't get hit by an 'atomic laser' then which seems to have a pretty good punch.
I'm not sure if it targeted Cyana directly and missed or aimed for SKEETER and missed, the only thing I can see is that it missed...that might have something to do with the hits it took, some ECM from SKEETER or the compound, or it's just not as precise as it appeared before, both are pretty small targets compared to soldiers and tanks.
It does seem to target humans before anything else, it even ignored Feelie and shot for the tank behind her, which I presume the driver was still inside of, and then left her as 'sufficiently neutralized' when it could probably have spared the energy to shoot her again.
I'm thinking it has an order of precedence for targets...humans, vehicles with humans inside, then androids last...
Feelie was the only thing shooting and it still ignored her completely as a direct target.
As for cover, it was inside a building when it engaged Feelie's squad and wiped them out pretty much before they saw what it was but in this case it's forced to approach across open desert, albeit with what looks like some sort of distortion field up that SKEETER's sensors didn't pick up until it was almost too late. No real chance for cover in either case other than what was already being used.
Perhaps Goldybot's creators assumed his shields would be effective against any expected threat and the 'atomic laser' isn't what they expected ?
It looks like SKEETER sent Cyana to tell her parents in order to get her out of the area so he could concentrate on the fight instead of her and he did say that he'd already sounded the alarm. I think he's got very strong 'watchdog' protocols overriding his original 'hunter-killer' ones, probably added by Olina ? Or at least he only uses his firepower once the 'rabid wombat' protocol is activated and then he goes into attack/defend mode with everything he considers necessary.
He IS a snarky little bugger though, reminds me of me :)
(Which means he'll probably get blown to smitherines next strip... Sigh)
Now, are they being attacked because they are in the water business, because of things they may have seen, because of who they are, or simply because they are between her and its target?
Also, it’s interesting to see that the older versions have a morality package. Or is it simply this one?
With a little added personality overlay ;)
Seriously, Skeeter's dialogue treats him (her?) as a character, not as an automaton. Motivations are complex and presumably every bit as complicated for Skeeter as they are for anybody.
I read this as Skeeter's being courageous and protective. Looking after the safety of your boss's kid is an important part of being a responsible adult whether or not it's what you're paid for.
+1
this TWC vote button is not enough.!!
#5.. yay.!
But what about SKEETER ?
also,, prince crispy would not keep this a secret (goldie) ,, he liked to brag to much..
Skeeter packs a punch, and Golden Boy may have made a final error trying to hit Cyana. (That girl can run!) Those grenades ought to be able finish him off now that the shields are down.
If there's enough of it left, maybe Olina can determine what it is and where it's from.
Nice FX on this page and Skeeter is still doing a fair Marvin persona extrapolation! :D
{edit}
Given the stuff she faced last time, I wonder how reliable the information they received is.
Information from Ophelia? My guess would be that whatever information she had was reliable, because her mind survived intact. There was probably not a lot, since the encounter didn't last very long.
After that all settled down, she'd been given direction to investigate the gutter base, after the Senator gave Maxus the information on the gangs, since she was already in the area.
It did say her story started a week after the demise of Prince crispybrisket.
Rumours (minus the u)
Valuable information
Of use
{edit}
And it was confirmed in the strip Scorpion Group that Ophelia was assigned to checking the information that was provided.
So we have one location booby trapped. Let’s see how this one plays out but, given what happened before, this family may be innocent. They may not be but I don’t trust that senator.{edit}
Just realised that this thing was the one that damaged Ophelia.
{edit 2}
Maybe this was a second contingency that Decimus had? Or, worse, what if someone got hold of a drone from an AIS and activated it?
To me it seems that this is a separate thread, not connected to the gutter base, other than it's at least the same, or one of the same thing(s) that wiped the gutters. I don't think this is on the Senator's list, but just a separate place where Golden Boy shows up.
*edit: We were typing at the same time. I was speaking to your first paragraph.
As to the last bit,that was something I was wondering also.
"...Most of the Cassians were kept close to home during douchimus's reign. Ophelia is an exception..."
Later on in Taxi Service we see her saying that one of her pranks got her sent off to the "...sandy asshole of the Wastes..." when it affected an heirloom tapestry, so it seems that she was sent off to the sandbox before the party started in the palace and would logically have been tasked with dealing with the gutters since her squad was already out there before the Senator gave Maxus his list.
:(
...but he/she/it knows his/her/its priorities...
...and seems more effective than Ophie's team...
...whatch out!!! that almost hit poor Cyana... =S
Granted, Scorpion Squad only had a few seconds to react, but they should have been on much higher alert than they were, especially when there was notice given of something moving.
They were only armed with light weapons and were treating it as a walk in the park, Feelie included, plus their 'tank' gunner/commander had decided to step out of his vehicle in a contact situation and might not have had the firepower anyway, but it still remains that they barely got a shot off.
SKEETER turned loose almost everything he had (that we know of) in a full attack as soon as he determined a threat existed, which seems to have worked a little better...you can't hit anything if you don't shoot.
— Staal the Undefeated
--Oldarmourer
and is that the outline of a shield around him ?
We haven't seen Skeeter move yet, but if he's as fast and as accurate while moving as he is in a fixed position, then he's one dangerous drone. My concern is that the collective narrative weight seems to be on this being another massacre, instead of a brilliant showdown resulting in the "Good Guys" gathering more intel on the potential threat that there are more of these roaming around. However, that being said, I never discount the wileyness of this comic's creators, so all options are still on the table. ;)
Although even if Skeeter wins, I can't imagine that he's got the kind of reactors needed to support that heavy weapons output for very long. He may very well drop from exhaustion (or overheat and detonate - and as drones are generally considered disposable compared to other war machines, I can absolutely see that being considered a feature rather than a bug).
I sort of think that's a kind of temporary fusion cell or 'battery' to give the extra power to run the weapons systems and shields and with any luck he has a spare clip or two ready to go ;)
I still expect to see Olina hauling out some massive cannon to finish the job and save our brave little bot though ;)
Grenades are usually self-contained items here too, I'm pretty sure they were discussed in the assault on the Black palace, TeeDee ended up taking nano-poppers instead of 'all of them' like she wanted to...I still think she had the better idea.
The 'keying fusion clip' also comes before the lasers extending or the grenades arming so I saw it as an extra power supply reserved for those but it could go either way I suppose.
I'm not getting into the 'clip vs magazine' argument, I know the difference and also a lot of other ways to store and discharge ordnance ;)
Multiple grenades are launching from scattered storage positions on both sides and seem to be self-propelled so I discount them being in a 'clip' as such and probably not even what I'd call a rack or dispenser, but rather individual storage compartments or launch tubes, possibly with each storage/firing position having a couple of reloads in a 'clip' or magazine.
SKEETER's rear portion seems thick enough for at least one set under the ones we see and grenades shouldn't need much of a power source, unlike the lasers.
I've loaded similar arrangements for various stores and the arming choice and firing sequence is normally decided onboard up to the time of firing rather than locked in on load or pre-flight.
You'll have to bear with me, I see him as an aircraft...a small one, but he still flies, so I look at the weapons systems in the way I'm used to :)
Of course, 39th Century terminology way have drifted a little, or if this is a 'parallel' universe of sorts then it may have been different all along.
Things like that are up to the writers to decide and no matter what we say, they're always right ;)
the one thing we know is SKEETER BITES !!!
we'll see how hard tomorrow...unless there's a sudden scene change...
because of that, he will be parts soon.. but he did his job.!!
BUT.. once she is clear , or he is so badly damaged,, that i see him go out in a blase of glory
I'm not sure anyone other than Brits or some old Canucks might know this one so sing along with
me....themG-d have mercy on me for this one
When a Goldybot comes stalking and it gets in your way
And it tries to ruin the ending of a long boring day
And attacks the little kid who just wanted to play
[Chorus]
Engaging, engaging, engaging, engaging
Engaging, engaging, engaging (gaging, gaging, gaging)
Engaging Rabid Wombat
(Engaging Rabid Wombat)
Engaging Rabid Wombat
(Gearing up for Combat)
Engaging Rabid Wombat
(I pulled it out of my hat)
Next step is Pissed Off Polecat
(It's even better than that)
Engaging, gaging, gaging, Rabid Wombat, Wombat, Wombat...now die
When your sensors start to fail and you just can't see
And my lasers lock on to you and the grenades fly free
Just remember you're so lucky that there's only just me
Engaging, engaging, engaging, engaging
Engaging, engaging, engaging (gaging, gaging, gaging)
Engaging Rabid Wombat
(Engaging Rabid Wombat)
Engaging Rabid Wombat
(Gearing up for Combat)
Engaging Rabid Wombat
(I'll pull this out of my hat)
Next step is Pissed Off Polecat
(It's even better than that)
Engaging, gaging, gaging, Rabid Wombat, Wombat, Wombat...now die
[Chorus: x2]
Remeber, you can vote EVERY day, not just when the comic updates...
But I hadn't ever actually seen it before now, aside from a foot-ish thing at Ophelia's head. Honestly I'm surprised that it's something humanoid. I was expecting something more like ED-209.
So this makes me think I probably missed a page. Where did we first see the shape-and-color of this aggressor?
{edit}
The questions I have are:
What woke it up? Who deployed it? What will happen when its distress signal is received?
Will Ophelia get a warning to Max? Will they get a warning to Aeneas, Centcomm and Noctis? Will all the other AI System cities be able to help?
I still can’t shake the feeling that it’s a backup to Decimus’s contingencies. However, it could be something worse. Some examples going through my head:
The people who organised the kidnap of Lynn managed to get hold of one?
Someone stole one from Aeneas whilst he was fighting the spike?
Aeneas deployed one when he was being attacked all those years ago and the complications around his repair/the spike deployed signal from Ceci activated it?
There’s a yet unknown AIS that had one deployed?
Calliope had one on standby in case Lynn didn’t make it?
I don’t think it’s aliens because it would mean deliberately making something humanoid when there is little reason to be.
I agree that it's probably not aliens, but it doesn't necessarily rule out other terrestrial forces.
Same reason SKEETER is talking out loud when the thing probably can't hear it from that distance...it gives us, the readers, something to work with other than just artwork with no flavour context, that's how single character scenes often have to work in order to make sense.
It may well be sending a message out though and the next page could show SKEETER's HUD lighting up with several more threats,
but we'll have to wait and see what the Devious Duo have planned to mess with our heads.
Cent went to a helluva lot of work making both characters look so good and I doubt she'll chuck them away after so little usage...
Unless, of course, she has a really big explosion scene already rendered up...or a scene change to TeeDee and the head tech ;)
So we do in fact put things kind of like this on robots in order to help us debug their software.
Usually we do it differently though.
For example "The red LED will come on if it enters the mode where it's compensating for damaged drive, the blue one is if it enters a mode for compensating for damaged manipulator arm, the green one means it thinks its hopper is full..."
I mean, the programmer could have the 'bot actually *saying* these things, but we're usually debugging things that don't otherwise have a speech capability so we use something else.
Sometimes there is a multicolored "Christmas tree" that does light colored segments indicating operational phases in longer program sequences. *edit: I meant to, and forgot to mention that here you could add a secondary sub processor at this point (the robot's main processor is a sub processor to the main system control processor) to handle a speech output if you wanted it to do a monologue as you see here.
39th century processors likely are much more robust, and have much greater capacity and speed, such that there's plenty left to be used to constantly supply this information.
guess SKEETER's had it too easy so far :(
Goldies box of Morton salt ran out.....
Aside from the "tell" of its slurred speech, (at least that's how I read the post-crypt all caps, with echos and stutters) we have things like hitting targets that have no clear strategic value and making absolutely no use of available effective cover (no matter how invisible you think you are, no matter how good you think your armor is.... if cover's available you use cover.)
I don't think we can quite decide whether targeting the kidlet was good tactics or boneheaded though. She said directly and Skeeter confirmed that she was going to tell her folks about it, and attempted to disengage. To a combat AI, it's reasonable to interpret that as her being sent for reinforcements, and targeting her is therefore good tactics. And Skeeter is forced to move to cover her departure so Skeeter has to remain in the open. On the other hand, Skeeter is clearly the bigger threat, and if reinforcement is available to this force, odds don't favor the kidlet being the only call for it.
I'm not sure if it targeted Cyana directly and missed or aimed for SKEETER and missed, the only thing I can see is that it missed...that might have something to do with the hits it took, some ECM from SKEETER or the compound, or it's just not as precise as it appeared before, both are pretty small targets compared to soldiers and tanks.
It does seem to target humans before anything else, it even ignored Feelie and shot for the tank behind her, which I presume the driver was still inside of, and then left her as 'sufficiently neutralized' when it could probably have spared the energy to shoot her again.
I'm thinking it has an order of precedence for targets...humans, vehicles with humans inside, then androids last...
Feelie was the only thing shooting and it still ignored her completely as a direct target.
As for cover, it was inside a building when it engaged Feelie's squad and wiped them out pretty much before they saw what it was but in this case it's forced to approach across open desert, albeit with what looks like some sort of distortion field up that SKEETER's sensors didn't pick up until it was almost too late. No real chance for cover in either case other than what was already being used.
Perhaps Goldybot's creators assumed his shields would be effective against any expected threat and the 'atomic laser' isn't what they expected ?
It looks like SKEETER sent Cyana to tell her parents in order to get her out of the area so he could concentrate on the fight instead of her and he did say that he'd already sounded the alarm. I think he's got very strong 'watchdog' protocols overriding his original 'hunter-killer' ones, probably added by Olina ? Or at least he only uses his firepower once the 'rabid wombat' protocol is activated and then he goes into attack/defend mode with everything he considers necessary.
He IS a snarky little bugger though, reminds me of me :)