Endtown by Aaron Neathery for September 23, 2016

welp, i think lyn isnt totally gone after all

Oh NO! He is turning into Lyn again.

Why is he doing That? Is this a computer hit with the mutation thing, that it doesn’t believe in?

The computer has crashed, letting in Lyn, maybe.

Maybe he caught a mutagenic computer virus.

Heee’s BAAAaaaack.Wally thought he was in a science fiction drama, but it’s turning out to be a ghost story. Apparently the dead can control dittos just as well as the living or cybernetic.

Wallys dittos vs computer dittos coming up?

I would say the “computer” is being prevented from saying much by some force! It’s up to all of us to guess, I guess! ☺

Since this ship seems to be powered by psychic energy, perhaps this Lyn is a manifestation of Wally’s guilt of “taking” Lyn’s wife, or maybe even guilt of his kiss and emotional and romantic connection to Kirby.

No, the computer is just running low on power, and needs emotional energy, which he’s trying to get from Wally.

Headed back down the rabbit hole… ;-)

Incoming HollyGram.

Ship power is low. Time to recharge.

Remember, what we saw before was a ditto replay of what we believed to be the actual events of Lyn and Holly’s last days together. We have had no way to confirm that what we were shown was really what happened. We know the Lyn character acknowledged Wally on multiple occasions, so that much at least is less than historical. What if what we saw was NOT what actually happened to Lyn? We know “Sandy” retained some aspect of her human memories given her fierce attachment to the teddy bear. Perhaps Lyn did mutate, but wasn’t done in by buddybombs. What if these emotion starved dittos made contact with whatever Lyn became and we are actually witnessing a ditto enhanced version of Sandy and her bear, only now it’s Lyn and his wife? Hmmmm… ;-)

Oh dear. One possible destination for this loco train ride just occurred to me. Star Trek TOS – “The Menagerie”. Lyn and Holly were happy together before TEOCAWKI. They suffered the tragic loss of their child and were immediately thereafter torn apart from each other, seemingly forever. Chick, born in Unity, knew nothing but scorn and servitude; certainly nothing resembling a childhood to be fondly remembered. What if the three could be brought together as a family in a much more desirable setting? Physically scarred Lyn, emotionally damaged Holly, and the unloved orphan Chick; living together as a family in an admittedly unreal world, though in many ways superior to the alternative. Wally loses Holly (though to a “better” place) and gains Kirbee. Not saying I think that’s what’s ahead, but the pieces could fit. Only time (and Aaron) will tell. ;-)

It looks like we may finally be getting to the sole (soul?) point of the story.

In panel 4, Wally and his ditto-shadow find themselves in a disco.

I figure since the computer needs recharging and it feeds off human emotions, it somehow manages to find as well as keep Lyn ‘alive’ to provide the power it needs. However, it appears that with Wally (along with Holly, Kirbee, & Chick) has awakened Lyn…and Lyn wants Holly back.

Cliffhanger! I say if Lyn wants his wife back, he can have her! Lyn and Holly basket-case family, reunited!

Yea, probably trying to get more energy from Wally. Unless…Lyn’s emotional energy has sentience or something…

Oh goodie, another twist :D

Well, the setup for a happy ending. Lyn and Holly reunited, leaving Wally to explore the nooks and crannies of lizard love.

Well… okay then. I’m going to suggest the McCreedy method of fixing the issue: FLAMETHROWERS!

Cat has a name, computer.

If we assume that the computer was being truthful about runing on emotional energy, it has ample reason for wanting Holly. It could play the part of Lyn and probably has enough food to keep a small mouse woman going for a long time. She could provide it with the energy it needs to stay charged and keep it from being lonely.Alternatively, the ship’s AI may have developed feelings from Holly (possibly while following her backstory) and wants to become Lyn and be with her. The problem is that it only knows the things Holly remembers. Thus the blank, ill defined face when it faced off with Wally.Either way, it would consider Wally to be a rival, to be gotten rid of.

IT Admin: “Sir, the Lyn virus is back and it’s present on all systems. The only way to get rid of it is to shut everything down and do a full disk scrub.”Supervisor: “Eh, let it go. I’s mostly harmless.”

The ship may have simply bitten off more than it can chew, and has electronic indigestion. Wally seems to have gathered a large number of the dhip’s dittos, which could also be affecting the computer’s functions. The Lyn personality seems to have the greatest chance of eliciting emotional responses from the other characters. Maybe?

I suppose Lyn and Holly married in one of those “till death do you part” marriages. Would’a thought, after Lyn turned into a mutated monster and was blown to bits by the Buddibombs, that that would’ve been “death.”But with these mutations, who knows?

our forecast for Endtown: moments of clarity followed by cloudy uncertainty but always with the creator’s’ masterful technique

The trouble with harvesting emotional energy waves for repurposing are the poltergeist consciousness glue that gives the waves their coherence, such as it is. The computer is losing that function. What is the nature of that consciousness? is it what is left of Lyn, the consciousness that inhabited his brain, just decaying more slowly than the digesting function of the computer?

When Alan Moore took over Swamp Thing Swampy thought he was Alec Holland. Because of machinations by third parties, he cam to realize that he had merely absorbed Alec’s memories and personality, but had his own life force plant based, not human. He then flipped out and went on a rampage against those who were responsible for Alec’s death and his creation.

Its possible that in absorbing Holly’s emotional energy, the ship also absorbed Holly’s memory of Lyn’s personality. Given Holly’s mental instability, Lyn’s “personality” may be stronger than the computer expected and it could be taking over the system.Of course, it all could be a game of the computer’s to elicit more emotional energy.

The dittos went restless again, so they took over.

Maybe the computer is suffering from a bad case of stomach-ache? Over-eating, perhaps? Or just that it ate something which disagreed with it.

A husband’s jealousy is a force to be reckoned with. Could it be that a shred of Lyn survived or that Holly’s memories were so vivid of those days of destruction and mayhem that in feeding off them the computer inadvertently brought Lyn back?

Good one ;^)>.

When Jim the raccoon went into schism syndrome, his mind was vulnerable to invasion by something else (referred to as “I”); and it entered Jim (the glowing eyes, spinning around head, etc.) Would a weakened Artificial Intelligence like the ship’s controller be vulnerable to the same kind of intrusion? Could this “I” infect it? Is the AI alive enough for this kind of thing?

Assuming the recall of Holly’s story is accurate and the ship was truthful regarding its existence, the dittos could not have saved Lyn from destruction, as they would not come on the scene until hours if not days after Lyn was blown up. (They came with the ship, which arrived to scavange what they thought was a dead planet. They escaped when the ship crashed after the captain realized the planet wasn’t dead, some days later.) If Lyn survived, it was through some other mechanism. The dittos may have run into him after in hopes of using his emotions for food and brought him back to the ship.Does anyone think it odd that the Lyn monster was all eyes and mouth, but the Lyn manifestation of the ship had neither?