July 21, 2013: Checkmate

[RedwoodElf]

Thanks for the references to Chekov's Gun. Had to look it up - seems to be philosophically related to Occam's Razor...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov%27s_gun

Also - does this mean Minmax is left handed? - he did use his left thumb... more like ambidextrous since he uses swords with his right?

Here's a better link to Chekov's Gun - but beware of a Wiki Walk!

[shard19456]

Are... you... SHITTING ME!? Seriously? That's how this fight ends?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining at all. That was fucking awesome. But seriously, what the f***?

[Tama]

Hahahaha! Well played, Thunt. Well, played. I thoroughly enjoyed this page.

[EatsAPeach]

Awesome, and good use of 38ness.
1. The narrative required our MM to kill PM, because PM hurt Kin. "You don't know my MinMax!" No way
2. There is a special place in hell for those who die complaining about the rules. Did PM escape from it by keeping his pie hole shut, or has he said "Impossible!" too often already? That place in hell is just what he wants to obliviate himself to escape.
3. I still half-expect TortureMax to appear; remember he is ALMOST our MinMax; they are the same guy until the fight with Goblinslayer. He is driven to rescue Kins and Forgaths, since his are dead outside the Maze. Lots of possibilities there.
4. My thought is that the Kinfolk now control the Probability Engine, so who needs a key? Everybody wins. They will reassemble the parties, raise the dead, and give everyone a treasure room of their own, then load themselves with loot and exit the Maze, probably together. Maybe they will take TortureMax along?
5. There is an outside possibility that PM rigged his machine to remake him, but that would be unlikely since he wants to die anyway. He may be able to respawn somehow, but I bet he will be late if he does.

[stevedj]

4. My thought is that the Kinfolk now control the Probability Engine, so who needs a key? Everybody wins. They will reassemble the parties, raise the dead, and give everyone a treasure room of their own, then load themselves with loot and exit the Maze, probably together. Maybe they will take TortureMax along?

Oh, better yet -- they trigger that everyone lives, and escapes/returns to their own reality -- including PsiMax's companions -- and effectively 'lock the door' to the maze. BUT -- they leave PsiMax inside the MoM upon the next reset. So, maze resets, and PsiMax is there, the only occupant, free to obliviate himself and the now-empty maze to his heart's content.

[Groo_the_Wanderer]

I would think with PsyMax dead then his psychic engine would die with him.

I kind of hope not because unless they can use it or reset the maze again Kin is pretty much 1/2 kin forever.

I think it will be interesting to see where this arc goes next for sure but I will be a little surprised if they can still have / use the machine.

Also I would like to add my name to the list that thought this was great fun. To have setup the joke so long ago is pretty cool, though it would appear some of us managed to guess it!

Also if you look in the previous strip when the blue arm grabs Oblivious you will see that the thumb there is covered in blood as well. When I saw that it sealed the deal for me.

Well played sir, well played. The hints were all there for those looking for them and I for one think it's awesome.

[Ziprath]

It just occurred to me that Chief was in this page.

I miss Chief

[EatsAPeach]

1. I think PM's machine will persist after his death; it would have to outlast him in order to obliviate him, I think. Like the man said, Kin's going to be terribly crippled unless they can unsplishk her, and the machine is the closest Deus Ex.
2. Has anyone commented yet that PM's arms are gone? That's a good sign. Also weird, because it seems to mean he traded the real ones for something. I think that because the Kins know his number, they will be able to just reset the Maze without him in it, and he'll be gone.
3. PM had to fiddle the gears just because MM & Kin #156 were in love? If you can calculate things like love and hate into it, then 38 and 156 are as real as love and hate, and 38 is real enough to be a weapon. I suspect that any low number would have gotten him killed down there, as it would either be someone's number or someone's weapon or attack. NoirMax from 1930s San Francisco would have used his .38 or his .45, or FootballMax's jersey would have 57 on it or something like that, which is why he set it so high.
4. Chief - that tradition about no statues for adventurers is going to have to change. BIG statue.

[EatsAPeach]

What I mean about PsiMax's Oblivion Engine is that it can't depend on his existence if it's going to obliviate him. He turns it on, and then he never existed, and so he never built the machine, and so he's back, really irritated. It has to contain a paradox (No, MinMax, not a pair of ducks) in order to exist when its creator never built it.
But if they disassemble it and it has a pair of ducks in it, that wouldn't surprise me.

[EatsAPeach]

Oh yeah, the cartoon, which I'm too lazy to go back and quote. MinMax can't rhyme on purpose, but this is just a recitation. "1234, I declare a thumb war" is not HIS rhyme, so I think he could get away with it.

[mnementh]

The gears can redefine math to make 1=0.
Giving physical reality to mere concepts is a FAR lesser feat. Remember we're inside a pocked universe created by godlings to amuse themselves; anything goes in such a niche, even shenanigans.

On a tangent, my formal logic training tells me that from 1=0, you can prove anything ("ex falso quodlibet", the reasoning being along the lines "if my granny were an omnibus, she'd have four wheels" - silly but valid logic). (SNIP)

Ummm... if she were an OmniBus, wouldn't she have ALL the wheels?

*Ducks thrown boot amidst grumbling and groaning*

Nice! What was that in?

Larry Niven's Known Space series.


I am kind of surprised that the thirty-eight years coincidence wasn't emphasized in the comments as it seems the history of Chekhov's Gun is connected to the number Psimax was made vulnerable to. Larry Niven, Breaking Bad, and now Goblins all used that number alongside a Chekhov's Gun, literally a gun in Breaking Bad's case, and it really does seem kind of intentional.

There are 38 *CRACCKLEBUZZZZZ* in BAD WOLF.

I just hope PsiMax can't splishk our Kin from here... THAT would probably be enough to make MM draw oblivious, and without 1/2 a Kin to stop him, well, nothing in the microverse WOULD stop him.

PsiMax just castled and put reality # 156 in check in the same move, guys. Endgame. Lets hope the Kins can pull something ELSE out of their collective patookies.


mnem
GoldMax: Redefining eternity.

I TOTALLY called this... Err, thread.


mnem
No. Alternately, coleslaw.

[OnceUponATime]

There is an outside possibility that PM rigged his machine to remake him, but that would be unlikely since he wants to die anyway. He may be able to respawn somehow, but I bet he will be late if he does.

PsyMax doesn't want to die, he wants to never have been. That's comletely different

[LAYF]

some fun 38 number wiki facts:

-The number 38 was especially prominent in Norse mythology. The number was said to represent unnatural bravery, characteristic of the legendary heroes of Norse sagas. Most legendary sagas were divided into 38 chapters, and the number often recurred throughout stories, with the heroes combating giants or other beasts in groups of 38. The number came to be adopted by the Hardrada clan, and was displayed on their crest in the form of 38 ravens set around 38 outward-facing arrows.

-The number was also significant in Egyptian mythology, as it was the characteristic number of Anubis, the jackal-headed god of death and mummification. Egyptian pharaohs were often buried with 38 statues of cat guardians, and their sarcophagi were adorned with 38 ankhs.

-The number of slots on an American Roulette wheel is 38.

-Bill C-38 legalized same-sex marriage in Canada

-The number of years it took the Israelites to travel from Kadesh Barnea to the Zered valley in Deuteronomy.

-The 38 class is the most famous class of steam locomotive used in New South Wales

-The gate of the sci-fi TV series Stargate SG-1 can stay open a maximum of 38 minutes.

-In Taiwan and some places in southern Chinese mainland, "3, 8", but not "38", is slang for stupid/idiot,especially women.


Hmm.. just fun...

[Master TMO]

AND...!!!

It's *EXACTLY* halfway between 37 and 39!!

O_O

No! Really! You can check it out for yourself! For reals. I know, I had a hard time believing it too.

*snicker*

[EatsAbug]

If using one of 38 ways to kill someone with your thumb is valid, then if the Kins had just set the number to 4, anyone with four limbs could have been immune to PsiMax - using one of four limbs is at least as fundamental to their nature as 38 pieces of knowledge, one of which gets used. Some of the alts wouldn't have been immune, but the more conventional ones and MinMax would have.

[RJJ7]

Shhhh...

[EatsAbug]

Was the machine sustained by PsiMax - or did he alter the pocket universe to make the machine an integral part of it (since then the machine being part of the universe and proving 1==0 would create the contradiction to collapse the universe).

I'm hoping for the latter, as that allows the Kinship to clean up loose ends, including Kin's tail <duck, dodge>, quickly and cleanly.

[MapsGroxily]

If using one of 38 ways to kill someone with your thumb is valid, then if the Kins had just set the number to 4, anyone with four limbs could have been immune to PsiMax - using one of four limbs is at least as fundamental to their nature as 38 pieces of knowledge, one of which gets used. Some of the alts wouldn't have been immune, but the more conventional ones and MinMax would have.

True but we already have an explanation for that: 4 is a very low number, and thus has a very high chance of being used in defining agorithms that run the universe within the maze. In order to use 4 they'd have to rewrite reality, which as they already said would 'take hours', time they didn't have.

[RJJ7]

Actually, they said that '1' was not an option because it was too common and had too many properties, '2' was not an option because it was prime, '156' was not an option because it was being used as a property of basic logic--but there was no reason given for this, so we assume it was chance--and after that they settled on '38'. There was no stated correlation between low numbers and an integral role in reality. Such a correlation may exist, but it would be pure speculation on our part.

[Unlucky-for-Some]

Such a correlation may exist, but it would be pure speculation on our part.

But surely that is what we are all about here

[RJJ7]

Touche

[Tayvin]

Wow... honestly didn't see that coming...

[kurik]

This page was good enough to convince me to enter this strange, foreign part of the forum to express how good I thought it was. Really liked the call back.

*Runs back to the Games section.

[Tofu]

Most pleased with the appearance of the page AFTER the colouring was made more clear. Much clearer, much more 'thumby' and it is utterly awesome. Kudos to those who predicted this connection and it will be awesome to read the thing from beginning to end.

[Wolfie]

but... but 38 was already special

nm, responded to a post that was deleted.. nothing to see here

although, I wonder if THunt used 38 as his special number b/c of the gun .38 special... hmm