Dammit! I hate seeing him yell at him, but it is so human in these kinds of situations (even without trying to copy someone’s brain patterns). So if this isn’t a complete copy (which totally explains why Sulla is different—aside from how she was raised), I wonder if Al’s brain was copied by someone else before he died? Perhaps he had done it himself and somehow one of the early robots hung onto it—or a party we’ve yet to meet.
Oh man. We’re seeing what ‘It was IMPERFECT’ from Chapter 1 looks like.
Okay, so Brendan found early Sterling technology inside Al’s android body, and the people who dropped him off at Brendan’s came out of Al’s memories. Which suggests that there might be another Al-copy orchestrating the whole thing. Or a sequence of them, given that at least one or two got turned away at Brendan’s door.
The interesting thing is that Android-Al appears to remember the fight with Brendan (unless Chapter 1, Page 19 is deliberately ambiguous). And when Al came home, the blood-trail suggests that he went directly to the bedroom and collapsed, so when could Al have copied himself AND have those memories?
And I still can’t shake the idea that there’s a Brendan-copy running around somewhere. How else would someone other than Actual-Brendan have gotten to the multitool?
And who the heck is Menacing Black Square, anyway? Heh!
I love this story so much and the suspense is exquisite. There are already so many details that a ton of forethought went into; I’m feeling confident that the solution is clever, unexpected, and yet logical and completely consistent with everything that we’ve seen. I’m feeling really fortunate to be watching this unfold.
Brendan’s been angry at Al a lot lately, but right now I think it’s one of those things where Brendan’s not angry at AL. He’s just angry. Angry at the world, at the circumstances. Angry that t his is happening at all, and that the only way he can think of to deal with it is failing him.
I relate to Brendan a lot on the front that he sees a problem and immediately starts jumping towards action, to what can we DO about this. Even when that’s probably not the appropriate response.
Yes and no. Brendan is definitely angry at the world making things more difficult for him and Al, but he’s also angry at Al for letting those outside forces get to him so much.
Al didn’t want to have their relationship be visible to the outside world, and ok, that makes sense, but he was so scared or homo-hating internally, that he even went so far as to allow Brendan’s own hard work to be ignored, as if he had nothing to do with their success.
He very much so misstepped their, and earned Brendan’s anger.
I could see Al making a copy of himself earlier on. Maybe because he knew he was going to die or because he thought “maybe I can fix my broken thought processes if they’re actually a computer system”.
I guess that doesn’t explain why he doesn’t remember, but hey! He doesn’t remember anyone making brain copies of him, yet it clearly happened twice!
“If you can’t hold on for ME, hold on for the copy.”
So. Squicktastic.
I’m just going to come out and say it: this is nonconsensual AF. Brendan’s making this decision for Al. There’s no directive FROM Al telling Brendan to do this. It’s–urgh.
It leaves a very dark roiling mass in my gut, seeing this. And whoever else did the same thing is using poor Al against Brendan. Whomever Al was before this, he didn’t deserve to be consigned to this.
Because let’s be clear: Al died in this room. The copies, however close to perfect that they are–are NOT Al. Brendan just admitted this himself — “Hold on for the COPY.” And maybe that’s all android Al ever will be for him.
But didn’t Al and Brenden agree beforehand that they’d make a copy of whoever died first? or something like that. And andriod!Al didn’t seem to outraged that he’d been “copied”, like you’d imagine he’d be if it were without his consent…
I suppose, on the other hand, you could chalk this lack of anger up to possible tinkering or the difference in nature of the “copy” and original Al. (this seems unlikely, I could see him not getting angry out of inability to change the situation though)
Man, this goes back to that page where Brenden and Al geek out over how the copies begin to diverge from their templates. http://ohumanstar.com/comic/chapter-2-page-32/
You would hope this means Brenden would consider how different andriod!Al can be from Al, but also how nuanced android!Al’s understanding of his own personhood his.
And it’s interesting to think that maybe Brenden thought the copy would be an improved version of Al, perhaps, and this thought along with the shock is driving him to preferentially pursue the welfare of the “copy” over Al’s.
Geez, umami, you made me go back and reread, like, a *jillion* pages. I’m not sure about the agreement, but you’re right: android!Al is. Surprisingly calm about being resurrected in a robot body. Whew.
I think it’s also very worth noting that earlier in this sequence, Doctor Vue stated that Al gave visitation and decision making rights ‘some time ago’.
That is, Al effectively pre-consented for Brenden to make such choices in the event that Al was unable to do so himself (which certainly seems to be the case here). It’s harder to say whether or not he specifically thought of being copied, but given the centrality of the technology to their work he had to have been aware on /some/ level that it was on the table once they had a working model.
Whatever dysfunctions their relationship had (and there are plenty), I don’t think this is really a breach of trust, though it may have been a breach of expectation.
Neo-Al may not be perfectly happy with his own resurrection (and we must here recall that Neo-Al /appears/ to be based on a copy /neither/ of them made), but he’s inherited a lot of unresolved internal conflict and social trauma from Original Flavor Al, so that’s hard to get a real read on. Brenden and Al are both doing the best they can with what information they have, which is far from comprehensive.
Neither Al has a history of being immensely honest with himself, or with Brenden (Brenden, you will note, had no idea this was on the table…he didn’t even know or expect that Al would trust him to make choices for him in the event he could not, didn’t know Al was dying until /just now/, etc.)…they have reasons for that, to be sure, but it does make the situation difficult to paint a clear picture of or for those involved, especially Brenden, to make entirely coherent and well-informed choices when dealing with them.
Brenden’s choice here is very complex. There is certainly a selfish element: Brenden doesn’t want to lose Al, and he has a chance to save /some/ element of someone he cares about and relies on. But there’s also something inescapably self-less, which I feel must have been in play for Sula to have been able to grow out of this. A chance for /some/ kind of closure for both Brenden and the tortured and hurting memes that comprised Al Sterling. A chance not to let those hopes, dreams and drives die because they were too hurt to reach out for help. Brenden is choosing, among other things, to take care and responsibility for them on Al’s behalf…care and responsibility for what will, in effect, literally become their child. Whether or not Brenden yet wholly understands that, it is something he is choosing. Whether or not he anticipated it, it was something Original Flavor Al gave Brenden the right /to/ choose when he could not.
Consent is not a trivially reducible thing. Like most emergent functions of the human psyche, it does not work on a binary. It is almost never really as simple as saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or never commenting on a thing that you may or may not consent to or even expect. There’s simply too many moving parts in almost every aspect of human interaction. Too many things we often seem only able to guess at in our own thoughts, let alone read in the expressions of others. Too many consequences to every little choice to anticipate with perfect accuracy when you make the choice that spawns them.
Most of the time, the best one can do is to approximate and hope for the best.
Weeeeelp.
Oh no. Ohhhh no. The denial/anger in Brendan, oh nooooo.
This is already crushing but it’s gonna get a lot more crushing in a second :/
Dammit! I hate seeing him yell at him, but it is so human in these kinds of situations (even without trying to copy someone’s brain patterns). So if this isn’t a complete copy (which totally explains why Sulla is different—aside from how she was raised), I wonder if Al’s brain was copied by someone else before he died? Perhaps he had done it himself and somehow one of the early robots hung onto it—or a party we’ve yet to meet.
Oh man. We’re seeing what ‘It was IMPERFECT’ from Chapter 1 looks like.
Okay, so Brendan found early Sterling technology inside Al’s android body, and the people who dropped him off at Brendan’s came out of Al’s memories. Which suggests that there might be another Al-copy orchestrating the whole thing. Or a sequence of them, given that at least one or two got turned away at Brendan’s door.
The interesting thing is that Android-Al appears to remember the fight with Brendan (unless Chapter 1, Page 19 is deliberately ambiguous). And when Al came home, the blood-trail suggests that he went directly to the bedroom and collapsed, so when could Al have copied himself AND have those memories?
And I still can’t shake the idea that there’s a Brendan-copy running around somewhere. How else would someone other than Actual-Brendan have gotten to the multitool?
And who the heck is Menacing Black Square, anyway? Heh!
I love this story so much and the suspense is exquisite. There are already so many details that a ton of forethought went into; I’m feeling confident that the solution is clever, unexpected, and yet logical and completely consistent with everything that we’ve seen. I’m feeling really fortunate to be watching this unfold.
Maybe the robots copied his brain before Brendan even got home…?
Brendan’s been angry at Al a lot lately, but right now I think it’s one of those things where Brendan’s not angry at AL. He’s just angry. Angry at the world, at the circumstances. Angry that t his is happening at all, and that the only way he can think of to deal with it is failing him.
I relate to Brendan a lot on the front that he sees a problem and immediately starts jumping towards action, to what can we DO about this. Even when that’s probably not the appropriate response.
Yes and no. Brendan is definitely angry at the world making things more difficult for him and Al, but he’s also angry at Al for letting those outside forces get to him so much.
Al didn’t want to have their relationship be visible to the outside world, and ok, that makes sense, but he was so scared or homo-hating internally, that he even went so far as to allow Brendan’s own hard work to be ignored, as if he had nothing to do with their success.
He very much so misstepped their, and earned Brendan’s anger.
I could see Al making a copy of himself earlier on. Maybe because he knew he was going to die or because he thought “maybe I can fix my broken thought processes if they’re actually a computer system”.
I guess that doesn’t explain why he doesn’t remember, but hey! He doesn’t remember anyone making brain copies of him, yet it clearly happened twice!
This is beautifully done and painful but also makes me wonder…. What if the others didn’t copy Al now?
We know Sulla has at least part of Al’s memories due to her dreams. What if she has all of Al’s “data” and the others got it from her, not Al?
so this copy’s sulla, the good one though.. must have been the hotnflirty military daddy that made it happen I bet my femur bone on it :p
“If you can’t hold on for ME, hold on for the copy.”
So. Squicktastic.
I’m just going to come out and say it: this is nonconsensual AF. Brendan’s making this decision for Al. There’s no directive FROM Al telling Brendan to do this. It’s–urgh.
It leaves a very dark roiling mass in my gut, seeing this. And whoever else did the same thing is using poor Al against Brendan. Whomever Al was before this, he didn’t deserve to be consigned to this.
Because let’s be clear: Al died in this room. The copies, however close to perfect that they are–are NOT Al. Brendan just admitted this himself — “Hold on for the COPY.” And maybe that’s all android Al ever will be for him.
But didn’t Al and Brenden agree beforehand that they’d make a copy of whoever died first? or something like that. And andriod!Al didn’t seem to outraged that he’d been “copied”, like you’d imagine he’d be if it were without his consent…
I suppose, on the other hand, you could chalk this lack of anger up to possible tinkering or the difference in nature of the “copy” and original Al. (this seems unlikely, I could see him not getting angry out of inability to change the situation though)
Man, this goes back to that page where Brenden and Al geek out over how the copies begin to diverge from their templates.
http://ohumanstar.com/comic/chapter-2-page-32/
You would hope this means Brenden would consider how different andriod!Al can be from Al, but also how nuanced android!Al’s understanding of his own personhood his.
And it’s interesting to think that maybe Brenden thought the copy would be an improved version of Al, perhaps, and this thought along with the shock is driving him to preferentially pursue the welfare of the “copy” over Al’s.
Geez, umami, you made me go back and reread, like, a *jillion* pages. I’m not sure about the agreement, but you’re right: android!Al is. Surprisingly calm about being resurrected in a robot body. Whew.
I think it’s also very worth noting that earlier in this sequence, Doctor Vue stated that Al gave visitation and decision making rights ‘some time ago’.
That is, Al effectively pre-consented for Brenden to make such choices in the event that Al was unable to do so himself (which certainly seems to be the case here). It’s harder to say whether or not he specifically thought of being copied, but given the centrality of the technology to their work he had to have been aware on /some/ level that it was on the table once they had a working model.
Whatever dysfunctions their relationship had (and there are plenty), I don’t think this is really a breach of trust, though it may have been a breach of expectation.
Neo-Al may not be perfectly happy with his own resurrection (and we must here recall that Neo-Al /appears/ to be based on a copy /neither/ of them made), but he’s inherited a lot of unresolved internal conflict and social trauma from Original Flavor Al, so that’s hard to get a real read on. Brenden and Al are both doing the best they can with what information they have, which is far from comprehensive.
Neither Al has a history of being immensely honest with himself, or with Brenden (Brenden, you will note, had no idea this was on the table…he didn’t even know or expect that Al would trust him to make choices for him in the event he could not, didn’t know Al was dying until /just now/, etc.)…they have reasons for that, to be sure, but it does make the situation difficult to paint a clear picture of or for those involved, especially Brenden, to make entirely coherent and well-informed choices when dealing with them.
Brenden’s choice here is very complex. There is certainly a selfish element: Brenden doesn’t want to lose Al, and he has a chance to save /some/ element of someone he cares about and relies on. But there’s also something inescapably self-less, which I feel must have been in play for Sula to have been able to grow out of this. A chance for /some/ kind of closure for both Brenden and the tortured and hurting memes that comprised Al Sterling. A chance not to let those hopes, dreams and drives die because they were too hurt to reach out for help. Brenden is choosing, among other things, to take care and responsibility for them on Al’s behalf…care and responsibility for what will, in effect, literally become their child. Whether or not Brenden yet wholly understands that, it is something he is choosing. Whether or not he anticipated it, it was something Original Flavor Al gave Brenden the right /to/ choose when he could not.
Consent is not a trivially reducible thing. Like most emergent functions of the human psyche, it does not work on a binary. It is almost never really as simple as saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ or never commenting on a thing that you may or may not consent to or even expect. There’s simply too many moving parts in almost every aspect of human interaction. Too many things we often seem only able to guess at in our own thoughts, let alone read in the expressions of others. Too many consequences to every little choice to anticipate with perfect accuracy when you make the choice that spawns them.
Most of the time, the best one can do is to approximate and hope for the best.