Endtown by Aaron Neathery for September 12, 2016

A-ha!! Feral dittos = bad. Al and Gustine weren’t just being led astray. Theye were being fed upon. Sparkplug, too.

Geez, and I thought the dittoes were just mad at Sparkplug for his role in the apocalypse.

So we finally have a big piece of the “ditto” puzzle. Thanks, Aaron!

Useful at times, but definitely a mixed blessing.

Wally better yell hey little guy, come back to me! That’s right turn around and I’ll give you a big happy hug, Love is a big emotion too.Maybe, they emotion that they can feel things bad and haven’t learned to thrive on love.

Empathic signals causes me to think if they can learn to thrive on empathy, which the way we use the word is to know and seem to care about how another person feels and to care about them.

The crash? Would that be the crash of the Fitzgerald or something else?

SO can you kill a Ditto?

Wally: “Ok, little ditto guy, here’s my deal. You help me beat the ship computer and I’ll give you a field day. You stay with the ship, and it drains you dry in an hour. Plus, I know where you can find a LOT more drama queens. Take it or leave it. Offer expires in 3… 2…”

Well, that explains a lot!

Well! That explains a whole bunch of stuff, don’t it. ;-)

It makes sense that the dittos would like hangin’ with Wally. He’s a very emotional guy and his emotions are never far from the surface. Like a bunch of kids living in a candy store. ;-)

A QUEST!

Yup. Psychic vampires- or perhaps just psychic parasites… had a feeling about that back with Sparkplug. Now what??

Interesting I would also surmise they were used for torture devices and psychiatric aids.

dittos aka “vermin”

We may have been shown how the final war was brought about. A ration human would not strive to wipe life from the planet.

is he losing control of the dittos because he knows what they are now ?

Anyone can please help me get to the Sarkplug arc? I have no idea what you all are talking about? 2012?@notus – good question!

Uh oh! Looks like Wally’s time may be cut short by some feral Dittoes.

time for POWER OF FRIENDSHIP

Those ditto’s stole Wally’s life

If the captain can only be replaced by dying, who’s the current captain?

“Aw, come on, Wally… Don’t look at us like that…”

Ahh, finally an explanation of how and why the Dittos operate!

Aaron says the Lucranians aren’t aliens, so there wouldn’t be any space alien motherships. They’re from Earth, but I don’t know if they’re from this Earth. They might be interdimensional aliens and Aaron’s definition of alien may be semantic.If Lucranian ships were flying around at the time of the End, they could have crashed from EMPs and other exotic energies. The Opabinia Queen could have survived because it’s made mostly of wood and not as conductive to the energies as metal hulls would be.I wonder if the Flying Dutchman was Lucranian.

Maybe this guy is lying, trying to scare Wally, trick him into doing the wrong thing out of fear.Don’t know why it would have any reason to do it.maybe there are going to try to get Wallys band of dittos.

The pixels seem to me to be nanocomputers with of the neurotechnical sort, like some AI experiments designed to mimic human neurons and form an artificial human brain. Unlike pixels which are permanently fixed to a screen to provide the physical portion of a graphics user interface, these individual units are free to move and assemble as directed or needed in ordinary time/space. They need the emotional waves to direct their processes, but have a basic survival program to serve as a foundation. In that state, they are feral. Any being that has a strong self-identity and is strongly and effectively living can control them with their conscious mind. The ship’s computer is the local controlling processor. If it communicates with others of its sort by thought waves, then it must capture and re-craft the sensibilities of the emotions of autonomous beings like Wally to its own purpose. These are all issues of autonomy and control. Are the controlling Lucranians a hive of higher order computers with at least group autonomy, like a collection of linked human brains in a nourishing matrix?

Dittos wouldn’t be this way before the Last World War when there were plenty of people. Now with so few and vast deserts it is hard to find. So they are starving.

Wow! I called it. I actually called it! Good work, me. Although I admit that I didn’t call the idea of the origin of the dittos being the ship.

It might explain why Petey considered the dittoes vermin…maybe the Topsiders know this about them.I suppose the dittoes of Aaron Marx need to feed, too—-they did that number on Wally’s past life. But do they need the invoked emotional trauma to the extremes that we’ve seen of late?

The ship is trying to recharge fast. High emotions = more fuel. As for Captains, if the old captain dies, the new captain is the first person on the bridge after that death. (See the OQ interactions.)

The thing to remember is that the AI didn’t say he dittos were evil, just dangerous. With many tools, their usefulness is related to how dangerous they are. If Wally is half as wise as he is intelligent, he will find a way to work with the dittos, provide them with the sustenance they need and have access to their abilities. This could be a win/win if he plays his cards right.

rickD GoComics PRO Member said, 2 days ago

@Coffee-Turtle

This link" will bring you to just before we first meet the “living pixels”. Al meets them here. Then he and Gustine meet Sparkplug about 50 strips later.-———————————————-Thank you!

I never did trust the dittos.