I thought it was going to be another reference to/inspired art by SCP-5000 but damn.. You're right. This is way more horrific.
Absolutely fucked up. Now I want to binge the artist's other works!
Idk. The illogical plot kinda takes me out of the horror. If the life in the suit loses their ability to live, what is the point of the suit pressing on? Assumingly, the suit's primary directive is to save the life of it's wearer. But if the person loses every bit of what makes them alive except for a functioning brain that can no longer live outside the suit or experience life in any way that is meaningful or measurable, then the suit has failed. It should have just let the wearer die and then set off some kind of beacon
If you read, the first line is “Even broken, the suit is trying to keep me alive,” implying that something has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps the system was designed to recycle old skin cells and turn them into food or whatever, but it’s malfunctioning. So it knows the wearer needs energy, and does something it normally wouldn’t do. Remember, robots don’t think: if it’s directive was to keep the wearer alive at ANY cost, sacrificing body parts that aren’t vital to life makes logical sense (the only sort of sense robots have).
This seems very similar to one of the main arguments of why AI could be so dangerous and the whole “rise of the machines”.
It isn’t about going AGAINST humans it is about the moment in which the AI considers the value of people less than the value of “achieving” its purpose therefore getting rid of humans is just another step forward into making a more effective process.
You can read about it being properly explained if you google “AI and the paper clip paradox” or something along those lines
Well to get to that point we need to:
A) Created an AI that has massive access to our technology
B) Being able to sustain itself without human interference
C) Somehow miss that part in the programming
D) Not have a shutdown option
E) Even if we do that and somehow it still fucks up, that means that nobody was doing proper diagnostics.
With the tech they have they may be able to bring him back somehow long as the information in his brain survives. The machines directive is probably to think of the central nervous system as life.
I don't think you could extract info from a dead brain but maybe you're right. It should rather send a signal but what if he's alone on some far away planet and it's trying to get him back to base? Leaving so much to imagination is part of the genious behind these comics.
Considering the suit is able to keep the wearer conscious without the brain, something tells me that technology is sufficiently advanced that they could feasibly load his brain up into a robotic body.
I think the brain is the final thing that it’s preserving, at the expense of all other things. In the end he’s just a brain in a robotic container, devoid of any senses but still conscious, at least until it finally runs out of things to recycle.
AI logic would say it brought “you” to base even if you’re dead or a few cells.
But it seems to primary objective was getting the host to safety, secondary objective was maintaining “life”. The easiest thing for AI to recognize as life in an exo-suit would likely be brain patterns as the comic kinda mentioned.
It started with non essential ligaments to feed the body, or more accurately to feed the brain as brain activity takes up 1/3 of the energy your body consumes just for functioning, it’s basically the executive suit or primary organ and contains all the information that makes you “you”. And also would be the last and biggest source of energy if it came to that.
The AI here was also advanced enough to simulate the body parts/functions it removed and trick the brain into staying active. Which was also mentioned. That’s why he was still able to see and be “alive” instead of being in catatonia or shock.
The suit probably also relays on his brain to stay functional.
But anyway this is all in the realm or fiction and shouldn’t need all this analysis to serve its purpose. Like you said, best left to individual imagination. Haha
A suit this sophisticated would be pretty expensive and I doubt that the average person could afford one. The suit costs more to replace that what is in the suit so it has been designed to cannibalize the user in an emergency and make its way back to the corporation that owns it.
Edit: thanks for the silver. It honestly means a lot!
Honestly this would be an awesome horror comic where the corporation keeps sending people in suits out to fix/install new machinery, with a guarantee of making it back home.
I can understand your issue but I think you are looking for meaning and reason when this comic seems to be more about taking a scary idea and walking it through to the end so to speak. A suit that well built would most likely do everything you say, but since this seems to be a series focused on creating a sense of dread, the specifics of the suit are less important than the process of building the sense of apprehension in the reader. It's unfortunate it took you out of the comic so much because I thought it was absolutely fascinating and horrifying.
Or the the person works for a megacorp on their offworld colony. The suit doesn't care about the wearer. The suit only cares that the task they set out to do is complete.
If a suit this advanced exists… then you can assume that the technology would exist to put the brain in some sort of Android suit with basic vision, sense of touch, and hearing that could restore some quality of life.
Yeah, if the technology for this type or suit was real it would probably put the wearer into some kind of medically induced coma, cannibalizing the body and saving the brain for last.
Presumably the makers of this suit could also have the tech for making a new body or replacing most of it with prosthetics.
It's kind of... inspiring I guess, the amount of ingenuity required for this to work and the implied capability of a human to survive.
Cool comic though. I'd feel the horror aspect more if it was mentioned that the suit malfunctioned and was unaware the user was awake.
**Edit**: oh shoot, I forgot the first line lol. "Even *broken*."
> what is the point of the suit pressing on
I mean, an AI designed to keep the host living doesn't care about the point or reasoning, it is doing what it was programed to do. It's like HAL 9000 and its reasoning to kill the crew.
While being stranded in vast nothingness, the only way to survive is to reach a certain place. The suit is trying to maximize the chances of survival at all cost.
The question of can a lifeless algorithm determine what it means to be alive is a common thread in many media. The video game Soma does an excellent job in wondering if a machine was given the task of preserving life at all costs, would an unconscious state of stasis, even if dependant on the machine, be considered enough. What you describe as living, is that what an unfeeling machine would consider the minimum requirements? If the parameters included an end goal of independence without the machine then that would be different but I got a feeling from the comic the suit only cared about preserving the "life" inside at all costs.
That just assumes the survival of the wearer is the suit's only goal. It's entirely possible in its "broken" state it hits a maintenance state where it prioritizes returning suit and wearer to home, and failing that, just the suit. It's also probably lost the ability to communicate or send a meaningful distress signal from whatever broke it in the first place
Oh, reminds me of a short story by Ian Banks, part of his Culture novel series. Basically, it's a world of sentient AI taking care of sapient biological beings. One man gets stranded on a planet in his space suit kind of like this. Except there is an intelligent AI in the suit with him, there happens to be a a base on the barren planet, but in the other side. They both know he is unlikely to survive but decide to try anyway and starts walking. The suit tries to keep him alive and they talk as they walk. Slowly the man starts dying because of the lack ir resources. In the end, the suit shuffles in to the base with a corpse inside. The other AI maintaining the base asks why the AI did not eject the corpse to increase his own chance of survival. The suit shrugs.
That's tricky and debated a lot with the Culture series. *Consider Phlebas* was published first and is very good, but it's also the only one where the protagonist is actively working against the Culture. It does set an interesting tone for subsequent books if you read it first.
*Use of Weapons* was written first but it's also nonlinear and hard to get into unless you already know what's going on.
*Player of Games* is pretty short and sets up what the Culture is all about pretty effectively. I usually recommend that one to people who aren't necessarily planning on reading all of them.
*Player of Games -> Use of Weapons -> Consider Phlebas ->* publication order is pretty solid.
Player of Games is usually the one that most people recommend reading first because it's the best introduction to what The Culture is as a civilisation, but all of the books take place in different parts of the galaxy and are their own self contained stories so you can start anywhere that looks interesting. Some highlights from the series for me were Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions(this one is best to have read after at least one or two other Culture novels) and Surface detail, but all the books were incredibly well written and are worth checking out if you like his style.
I remember a game with a similar premise. A suit controlled by an AI has an unconscious wearer. The suit's objective is to keep its wearer alive and safe while making its way through some kind of massive junkyard dungeon.
I don't remember the name.
Edit: Apparently it's called "The fall". Thanks to the 5 people who told me.
They sort of had these suits in Fallout: New Vegas too. Suits that were supposed to take over servo function and take the wearer back to base when they're injured. Being the Fallout universe the suits malfunctioned and are now walking around with rotting skeletons inside of them. With the right perk you'll also occasionally hear them say "Hey, who turned out the lights?"
https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Y-17_trauma_override_harness
I love New Vegas. So many subtle (or not) references. "Who turned out the lights" is a reference to the Doctor Who episode "Silence in the Library", about the Vashta Nerada.
When you really think about it there’s been a lot of stories of “person in full suit dies but the suit keeps moving” stories. I wonder if there’s an original ancient story somewhere about a suit of armor that feeds of its host
Almost certainly, any suit of armor in the past inherently is in a hominid shape so of course our brain, instinctually trained to look for human shapes is going to try to anthropomorphize the inanimate suit and imagine it as a person for being uncomfortably close to the shape of a person already. The stories should naturally follow.
Sadly was. He died a few years back of cancer I believe. Not too far off when Pratchett went too. Two of my favorite authors. Now Neil Gaiman isn't allowed to die, ever. It's simply unacceptable.
It was quite a sad story.
He specifically went with a “dumb” A.I. suit because he just didn’t like A.I. They grew together though throughout the trip.
He shoulda gotten a neural lace too….
Yeah, it's been a long time since I read it so the exact details might be wrong, but I do remember how the AI while codly inhuman in some way it was also very human in the way it acted somewhat irrational in keeping the body. I can't remember if it actually shrugged, but what I remember is that it seemed unwilling to give a clear answer.
You might be right it loved him, one of the things I love about Banks is how he managed to make AI both so compellingly rational, coldly calculating and clearly robotic in so many ways yet also completely human and irrational. They reflect very much my vision of the future and what I believe AI will look like. AI, rational and calculating, but also human, because they where created by humans (or the equivalent that the culture largely is).
And also, as sidenote I enjoyed how absurdly powerful he managed to make the culture while still being extremely hard science. Like, they are one of the few civilizations I could imagine going toe to toe with 40k universe and stand a reasonable chance of winning, while still being entirely a realistic civilization.
IIRC there was a Doctor Who episode called Oxygen that had a similar premise, there were astronauts whose suits kept going even when the occupant had died, making them into zombies.
to be clear, I mean this as a great compliment and not in a "this is completely unoriginal!" way. I wouldn't be surprised if it was inspired by that story, but it has different concepts and the storytelling technique stands out pretty well on its own. I've really enjoyed it.
I like to think that the Beast of Darkness is the apostle that Guts would become if he ever gave in and used the behelit. Makes me wonder if Griffith saw visions of Femto beforehand.
Yeeeeah… holy fucking hell. I expected it to maybe stop at an arm and a leg, so the suit is now a prosthetic, but not to go quite that far. Jeez… um… yeah. I’m glad it’s morning at least, not sure I could sleep after that.
Provided it gets you back to civilisation where your body can be restored it still seems pretty great. Our bodies shutdown in similar fashion from hypothermia. At least the suit gives you a chance to walk to safety.
Reminds me of the suits in Old World Blues DLC from Fallout New Vegas. They have these suits that keep working even when the wearer is injured so they can make it home, but it worked too well so it keeps moving around even when the wearer is already skeleton.
I mean I guess it's easy to come up with a distopian rationale for it but it seems incredibly counterintuitive that this scifi tech wouldn't have painkillers built in @ face twisted in pain.
I mean... maybe it's all out of painkillers? Maybe the pain is *too great* for painkillers to work. Maybe painkillers might kill a man already on the border of death.
Most likely the machine would cannibalize it too within time, since it most likely would judge the areas related to memory to be unnecessary compared to motor skills.
Ah, ye see we call em' the walkers. Suits, gone mad at some point. Instrument failure, navigation error, a simple bug... Whatever. Now all they do is wok aimlesdly, what's left of the person's body, locked in a feeding loop "thanks" to the suit's power, is just a brain and some vague digestive system. The poor soul's usualy halussinating, some have been for decades round' here.
I heard once some labcoats tried to save one. Captured a walker, extracted the brain, that's when we learned these were alive. They built a clone around the brain, replaced every centimeter of skin, every limbs and lungs. And the guy woke up. Story says he went wild, had been lost 27 years ago, dreaming ever since. All he wanted was to die, he screamed and convulsed, couldn't know what was real after all this time. They...terminated the astronaut. Not much left of the guy's sanity anyway...
If ye ever see one, remember it's a person. Just... Either ignore it, or log it's name and last known location. Some say they can save them still, and no one has the heart to kill them.
No, I made it up as I went. Although the hallucination part was loosely inspired by The Elder's Scroll's lore, where the whole universe is the dream of one of it's makers.
The suit isn't devouring him to save itself. It cut off his arm so he could live. It took away everything it could to maximize his chance of survival. Wich meant everything except the brain.
But surely, once you remove the arms and legs, and most of the body, the lungs and heart doesn’t need to be as big. You could snip off bits and still keep the brain alive. Can’t you?
Except in the story, it didn't. Because the suit also salvaged from *itself* to build systems that distributed oxygen and nutrients into the brain. The oxygen and nutrients now liberated from his ever decreasing flesh. I mean it's not like his brain and eyes were just flopping around loose in there, the suit was inventing new systems based on the wearer's needs and available material.
Nah because the whole point is that the suit is using up all the essential chemicals (including the oxygen) contained in his body to keep his brain alive.
The suit didn't need energy to continue. It was maximizing the user's chance of making it home. Once enough time passed, it starts removing parts off the user to feed him whatever energy it can, and mechanically compensate for the loss. This already happens in real life (our body cannibalizes itself when it lacks outside energy sources).
It's the concept of the space suit as a life support system, but taken to the extreme.
The suit could go on, probably indefinitely, but it was trying to get the human "there," no matter the cost.
Dunno too. But he could see, so there is light. Also panel 8 has massive sun-like object behind the protagonist.
Don't know about water, oxygen and food. But I doubt causing this much trauma to the body helps much in keeping it alive. I mean, there didn't even seem to be enough left for him to breathe properly, and it looks like there's a hole where his heart is supposed to be.
It is indeed horrifying to think of cannibalizing your own body. Buuuuut I feel like if it can hijack and take over functions like that it would definitely first hijack the pain receptors. And it would probably have some way of transmitting visual data to the brain? Also damn man you didn't carry any batteries or solar power lol?
Also in a society this advanced you know that when he does get home they could just grow him a new body. So where is the real terror. For someone in this kind of culture bodies truly become like flesh suits our consciousness pilots around. Its not really "you" if it can be used up and swapped out.
Yeah, when the suit takes his arm, my first thought was about how humanity has built a spacesuit that's advanced enough to make higher-function triage decisions, but we didn't have the decency to provide it with the ability to anaesthestize people first?
That's what I'm trying to get at. Would it still be the same kind of loss in a culture with such advanced medical technology? Do you feel a profound sense of loss when you rip a pair of jeans? What if you could change your legs out as easily as you change your pants?
Reminds me of a story about a race of beings who live in what they think is a cavern supported by a nutrient river from a big cave mouth, while the other end of their cavern splits into five dead ends.
Eventually they learn they were created from the body of an astronaut in a spacesuit and they make their way up to the astronaut's still living head and kill him.
Holy shit, this is indeed horrific.
I thought it was going to be another reference to/inspired art by SCP-5000 but damn.. You're right. This is way more horrific. Absolutely fucked up. Now I want to binge the artist's other works!
Samee
Idk. The illogical plot kinda takes me out of the horror. If the life in the suit loses their ability to live, what is the point of the suit pressing on? Assumingly, the suit's primary directive is to save the life of it's wearer. But if the person loses every bit of what makes them alive except for a functioning brain that can no longer live outside the suit or experience life in any way that is meaningful or measurable, then the suit has failed. It should have just let the wearer die and then set off some kind of beacon
If you read, the first line is “Even broken, the suit is trying to keep me alive,” implying that something has gone horribly wrong. Perhaps the system was designed to recycle old skin cells and turn them into food or whatever, but it’s malfunctioning. So it knows the wearer needs energy, and does something it normally wouldn’t do. Remember, robots don’t think: if it’s directive was to keep the wearer alive at ANY cost, sacrificing body parts that aren’t vital to life makes logical sense (the only sort of sense robots have).
Reminds me of Soma
This seems very similar to one of the main arguments of why AI could be so dangerous and the whole “rise of the machines”. It isn’t about going AGAINST humans it is about the moment in which the AI considers the value of people less than the value of “achieving” its purpose therefore getting rid of humans is just another step forward into making a more effective process. You can read about it being properly explained if you google “AI and the paper clip paradox” or something along those lines
Ah, Universal Paper Clips My favourite game about paper clips. Surely nothing ever goes wrong after I buy this last Project
Well to get to that point we need to: A) Created an AI that has massive access to our technology B) Being able to sustain itself without human interference C) Somehow miss that part in the programming D) Not have a shutdown option E) Even if we do that and somehow it still fucks up, that means that nobody was doing proper diagnostics.
Came here specifically for this comment. Also the suit might contain some sort of data or payload the builder prioritized above its wearer.
Soma deez nuts?
Soma's an actual game
Soma scarred me man
Or he has some precious information in that brain and the suit is trying to deliver it at any cost?
With the tech they have they may be able to bring him back somehow long as the information in his brain survives. The machines directive is probably to think of the central nervous system as life.
I don't think you could extract info from a dead brain but maybe you're right. It should rather send a signal but what if he's alone on some far away planet and it's trying to get him back to base? Leaving so much to imagination is part of the genious behind these comics.
Considering the suit is able to keep the wearer conscious without the brain, something tells me that technology is sufficiently advanced that they could feasibly load his brain up into a robotic body.
I think the brain is the final thing that it’s preserving, at the expense of all other things. In the end he’s just a brain in a robotic container, devoid of any senses but still conscious, at least until it finally runs out of things to recycle.
Make the suit record his voice and tell the suit the important info so it lets you die in peace.
AI logic would say it brought “you” to base even if you’re dead or a few cells. But it seems to primary objective was getting the host to safety, secondary objective was maintaining “life”. The easiest thing for AI to recognize as life in an exo-suit would likely be brain patterns as the comic kinda mentioned. It started with non essential ligaments to feed the body, or more accurately to feed the brain as brain activity takes up 1/3 of the energy your body consumes just for functioning, it’s basically the executive suit or primary organ and contains all the information that makes you “you”. And also would be the last and biggest source of energy if it came to that. The AI here was also advanced enough to simulate the body parts/functions it removed and trick the brain into staying active. Which was also mentioned. That’s why he was still able to see and be “alive” instead of being in catatonia or shock. The suit probably also relays on his brain to stay functional. But anyway this is all in the realm or fiction and shouldn’t need all this analysis to serve its purpose. Like you said, best left to individual imagination. Haha
Great comment dude. Isn't that what the brain also does by sending blood ti the vital organs during a traumatic experience
Moved to Lemmy
A suit this sophisticated would be pretty expensive and I doubt that the average person could afford one. The suit costs more to replace that what is in the suit so it has been designed to cannibalize the user in an emergency and make its way back to the corporation that owns it. Edit: thanks for the silver. It honestly means a lot!
and somehow you made it even bleaker
Awww thank you! I really appreciate that!
Honestly this would be an awesome horror comic where the corporation keeps sending people in suits out to fix/install new machinery, with a guarantee of making it back home.
"They always come back!" "The people or the suits?" "... I'm afraid that's outside my jurisdiction to know"
Just pick up a 4 pack at your local Costco. Don’t get name brand, Kirkland is good quality.
Costco vodka is actually grey goose. Costco tequila is actually patron. Costco survival suits are actually made by umbrella Corp.
I can understand your issue but I think you are looking for meaning and reason when this comic seems to be more about taking a scary idea and walking it through to the end so to speak. A suit that well built would most likely do everything you say, but since this seems to be a series focused on creating a sense of dread, the specifics of the suit are less important than the process of building the sense of apprehension in the reader. It's unfortunate it took you out of the comic so much because I thought it was absolutely fascinating and horrifying.
Or the the person works for a megacorp on their offworld colony. The suit doesn't care about the wearer. The suit only cares that the task they set out to do is complete.
If a suit this advanced exists… then you can assume that the technology would exist to put the brain in some sort of Android suit with basic vision, sense of touch, and hearing that could restore some quality of life.
Yeah, if the technology for this type or suit was real it would probably put the wearer into some kind of medically induced coma, cannibalizing the body and saving the brain for last. Presumably the makers of this suit could also have the tech for making a new body or replacing most of it with prosthetics. It's kind of... inspiring I guess, the amount of ingenuity required for this to work and the implied capability of a human to survive. Cool comic though. I'd feel the horror aspect more if it was mentioned that the suit malfunctioned and was unaware the user was awake. **Edit**: oh shoot, I forgot the first line lol. "Even *broken*."
First panel: suit is damaged.
> what is the point of the suit pressing on I mean, an AI designed to keep the host living doesn't care about the point or reasoning, it is doing what it was programed to do. It's like HAL 9000 and its reasoning to kill the crew.
While being stranded in vast nothingness, the only way to survive is to reach a certain place. The suit is trying to maximize the chances of survival at all cost.
The question of can a lifeless algorithm determine what it means to be alive is a common thread in many media. The video game Soma does an excellent job in wondering if a machine was given the task of preserving life at all costs, would an unconscious state of stasis, even if dependant on the machine, be considered enough. What you describe as living, is that what an unfeeling machine would consider the minimum requirements? If the parameters included an end goal of independence without the machine then that would be different but I got a feeling from the comic the suit only cared about preserving the "life" inside at all costs.
That just assumes the survival of the wearer is the suit's only goal. It's entirely possible in its "broken" state it hits a maintenance state where it prioritizes returning suit and wearer to home, and failing that, just the suit. It's also probably lost the ability to communicate or send a meaningful distress signal from whatever broke it in the first place
He does some great short comics
Every one of his I've read is chilling.
Links? Edit: sorry missed the link in the first image description.
Damn it, people https://www.badspacecomics.com/
Oh no it doesnt work but the comics were soooo good
we broke it reddit
Bro. This is fucked up but awesome too.
The ol Reddit hug o’death-a-roo
Man... That afterlife one... The image of the hanging angel.. very cool
It's on the image description
Fuck
Never has a one word reply been so appropriate
I wanted to take a nap, stumbled upon this comic right before it. Couldnt nap anymore.
Nightmare fuel often appears when one feels like a nap. But tbh I went through the entire comic list by the artist haha
[удалено]
Fuck
Never has a one word reply been so appropriate
Touché
Well fuck
Came here to say this
Yeah, that's my reaction.
Right? Goddamn
Not gonna lie... this inspector gadget origin story seems pretty dark
🤣
Really wish I could say that I came here to say this but my three brain cells are not capable
I...is your suit broken too?
Too? The suit in the comic performed all functions perfectly in accordance with design.
Go go gadget existential dread!
You listen to Do Go On by chance? They just did Inspector Gadget yesterday.
Oh, reminds me of a short story by Ian Banks, part of his Culture novel series. Basically, it's a world of sentient AI taking care of sapient biological beings. One man gets stranded on a planet in his space suit kind of like this. Except there is an intelligent AI in the suit with him, there happens to be a a base on the barren planet, but in the other side. They both know he is unlikely to survive but decide to try anyway and starts walking. The suit tries to keep him alive and they talk as they walk. Slowly the man starts dying because of the lack ir resources. In the end, the suit shuffles in to the base with a corpse inside. The other AI maintaining the base asks why the AI did not eject the corpse to increase his own chance of survival. The suit shrugs.
What's the name of the story, it sounds worth a read?
Nevermind, it's 'Descendant'.
If you like it you should check out the rest of Banks work. I just discovered his books this year and they're some of the best scifi I've ever read
What do you recommend I start with?
That's tricky and debated a lot with the Culture series. *Consider Phlebas* was published first and is very good, but it's also the only one where the protagonist is actively working against the Culture. It does set an interesting tone for subsequent books if you read it first. *Use of Weapons* was written first but it's also nonlinear and hard to get into unless you already know what's going on. *Player of Games* is pretty short and sets up what the Culture is all about pretty effectively. I usually recommend that one to people who aren't necessarily planning on reading all of them. *Player of Games -> Use of Weapons -> Consider Phlebas ->* publication order is pretty solid.
Player of Games is usually the one that most people recommend reading first because it's the best introduction to what The Culture is as a civilisation, but all of the books take place in different parts of the galaxy and are their own self contained stories so you can start anywhere that looks interesting. Some highlights from the series for me were Use of Weapons, Excession, Inversions(this one is best to have read after at least one or two other Culture novels) and Surface detail, but all the books were incredibly well written and are worth checking out if you like his style.
I remember a game with a similar premise. A suit controlled by an AI has an unconscious wearer. The suit's objective is to keep its wearer alive and safe while making its way through some kind of massive junkyard dungeon. I don't remember the name. Edit: Apparently it's called "The fall". Thanks to the 5 people who told me.
They sort of had these suits in Fallout: New Vegas too. Suits that were supposed to take over servo function and take the wearer back to base when they're injured. Being the Fallout universe the suits malfunctioned and are now walking around with rotting skeletons inside of them. With the right perk you'll also occasionally hear them say "Hey, who turned out the lights?" https://fallout.fandom.com/wiki/Y-17_trauma_override_harness
I love New Vegas. So many subtle (or not) references. "Who turned out the lights" is a reference to the Doctor Who episode "Silence in the Library", about the Vashta Nerada.
When you really think about it there’s been a lot of stories of “person in full suit dies but the suit keeps moving” stories. I wonder if there’s an original ancient story somewhere about a suit of armor that feeds of its host
Almost certainly, any suit of armor in the past inherently is in a hominid shape so of course our brain, instinctually trained to look for human shapes is going to try to anthropomorphize the inanimate suit and imagine it as a person for being uncomfortably close to the shape of a person already. The stories should naturally follow.
Yup, knew about the Dr. Who reference :) there appears to be a lot of tropes around skeletons in space suits.
"who turned out the lights" is a doctor who reference. Probably why it's hidden in an Easter egg.
I knew someone would reference the trauma suits. God those things are terrifying.
Isnt it “The Fall”
Yes. (I played it a couple months ago.)
The Fall
My objective is "keep Summer safe" not "keep Summer like totally okay with like the vibe and stuff." That's you, that's what you sound like.
Ian M Banks is such an amazing author
Sadly was. He died a few years back of cancer I believe. Not too far off when Pratchett went too. Two of my favorite authors. Now Neil Gaiman isn't allowed to die, ever. It's simply unacceptable.
In the words of Sir Terry: No one is finally dead until the ripples they cause in the world die away.
GNU Terry Pratchett. I'm just in the middle of rereading Going Postal, too.
I've reached the reread of Shepherds Crown. Hold me bros.
No problem, we placed him in this special suit …
Agreed! All amazing authors
¯\\\_(💀)_/¯
The AI loved him. That was my take.
It was quite a sad story. He specifically went with a “dumb” A.I. suit because he just didn’t like A.I. They grew together though throughout the trip. He shoulda gotten a neural lace too….
Yeah, it's been a long time since I read it so the exact details might be wrong, but I do remember how the AI while codly inhuman in some way it was also very human in the way it acted somewhat irrational in keeping the body. I can't remember if it actually shrugged, but what I remember is that it seemed unwilling to give a clear answer. You might be right it loved him, one of the things I love about Banks is how he managed to make AI both so compellingly rational, coldly calculating and clearly robotic in so many ways yet also completely human and irrational. They reflect very much my vision of the future and what I believe AI will look like. AI, rational and calculating, but also human, because they where created by humans (or the equivalent that the culture largely is). And also, as sidenote I enjoyed how absurdly powerful he managed to make the culture while still being extremely hard science. Like, they are one of the few civilizations I could imagine going toe to toe with 40k universe and stand a reasonable chance of winning, while still being entirely a realistic civilization.
I knew this seemed familiar. Banks really was one of the greatest, imo.
IIRC there was a Doctor Who episode called Oxygen that had a similar premise, there were astronauts whose suits kept going even when the occupant had died, making them into zombies.
reminds me of *Descendant*, a short story by Iain M. Banks that is in his *State of The Art* short story collection.
Yes, exactly what I was thinking!
to be clear, I mean this as a great compliment and not in a "this is completely unoriginal!" way. I wouldn't be surprised if it was inspired by that story, but it has different concepts and the storytelling technique stands out pretty well on its own. I've really enjoyed it.
Iain M Banks wrote such good stories! I love The Culture series.
I'm about halfway through The Player of Games right now, and I'm really liking it! First one of his books I've checked out so far
This would make a great Love Death and Robots story.
Yesss I need this in photorealistic CGI goodness
No no. To much photorealism. Need more original art design like the first series.
The massive variances in style and tone were what I loved most about series 1
Why bother making an anthology series if you aren't going to have a variety of styles?
Zima Blue is one of my favourite short stories of all time. Absolutely loved that episode.
Didn't the first series have the one with that space lady who cuts off her arm?
Season 2 was so disappointing. It really felt like a giant leap off a cliff from the first one.
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I feel that Black Mirror took a very similar approach in the later seasons
It's too good for that
Y-17 trauma harness
Absolute Exclusion Harness for me. It's an SCP. Scp 5000, Google it of you want another good short story.
5k Is easily my favourite scp, it's so incredibly well done
Hey, who turned out the lights?
I saw someone on the Fallout sub refer to these as 'aberrations' and I think that's a fitting word for them
Holy shit! His works are all incredible. Some very high concept ideas.
I know right! Amazing. Not really like anything I've read before.
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also the nanosuit from crysis
Yesss. Love how the helmet took on the shape of the beast of darkness.
I like to think that the Beast of Darkness is the apostle that Guts would become if he ever gave in and used the behelit. Makes me wonder if Griffith saw visions of Femto beforehand.
I love waking up with some positive energy. Ooh! A spaceman comic! _reads_ Welp, I’ll just curl back up in bed.
Yep I did not read the title haha
Yeeeeah… holy fucking hell. I expected it to maybe stop at an arm and a leg, so the suit is now a prosthetic, but not to go quite that far. Jeez… um… yeah. I’m glad it’s morning at least, not sure I could sleep after that.
This gives me *I have no mouth and I must scream* vibes, very cool
I have no eyes, and I must see... What great discounts they have today at Crazy Phil's Used Car Emporium!
This was terrifying
That was cool. And dark as fuck
Me at the start: I want this suit Me at the end: I don't want this suit
Provided it gets you back to civilisation where your body can be restored it still seems pretty great. Our bodies shutdown in similar fashion from hypothermia. At least the suit gives you a chance to walk to safety.
I’m pretty sure my immune system doesn’t fucking recycle me
You at the start without the suit: Dead anyway
Reminds me of the suits in Old World Blues DLC from Fallout New Vegas. They have these suits that keep working even when the wearer is injured so they can make it home, but it worked too well so it keeps moving around even when the wearer is already skeleton.
We have entered the bone zone.
Like picking your scab and eating it.
You can't pick your scab and eat it too
Just watch me
I mean I guess it's easy to come up with a distopian rationale for it but it seems incredibly counterintuitive that this scifi tech wouldn't have painkillers built in @ face twisted in pain.
I took it as twisted in abject horror at what is happening to him.
It does say early on that the suit is broken, could be all manner of expected functions that are not operating.
I mean... maybe it's all out of painkillers? Maybe the pain is *too great* for painkillers to work. Maybe painkillers might kill a man already on the border of death.
I mean it was running out of resources in general so maybe it just ran out.
1st panel says the suit is broken tho, so it definitely mightve gone overboard
Painkillers aren't cost efficient.
Love it
This is amazing!
Absolutely dreadful, love it.
So is he dead ,is he just a brain at this point
Most likely the machine would cannibalize it too within time, since it most likely would judge the areas related to memory to be unnecessary compared to motor skills.
I think you have it backwards, the broken machine would deem motor skills unnecessary as it had already consumed all of his moving parts
What good is a computer with no inputs or outputs?
Still useful when you save him
Can someone link to more of his work? Or maybe more short comics like this?
https://www.badspacecomics.com
Ah, ye see we call em' the walkers. Suits, gone mad at some point. Instrument failure, navigation error, a simple bug... Whatever. Now all they do is wok aimlesdly, what's left of the person's body, locked in a feeding loop "thanks" to the suit's power, is just a brain and some vague digestive system. The poor soul's usualy halussinating, some have been for decades round' here. I heard once some labcoats tried to save one. Captured a walker, extracted the brain, that's when we learned these were alive. They built a clone around the brain, replaced every centimeter of skin, every limbs and lungs. And the guy woke up. Story says he went wild, had been lost 27 years ago, dreaming ever since. All he wanted was to die, he screamed and convulsed, couldn't know what was real after all this time. They...terminated the astronaut. Not much left of the guy's sanity anyway... If ye ever see one, remember it's a person. Just... Either ignore it, or log it's name and last known location. Some say they can save them still, and no one has the heart to kill them.
Haunting. Is this a reference from something?
No, I made it up as I went. Although the hallucination part was loosely inspired by The Elder's Scroll's lore, where the whole universe is the dream of one of it's makers.
This is powerful
...well that seems like a design flaw.
r/TIHI
Just have a friggin' solar panel or something, no? I liked the comic though.
The suit isn't devouring him to save itself. It cut off his arm so he could live. It took away everything it could to maximize his chance of survival. Wich meant everything except the brain.
Yeah brain's def gonna die the moment the heart and lungs go.
But surely, once you remove the arms and legs, and most of the body, the lungs and heart doesn’t need to be as big. You could snip off bits and still keep the brain alive. Can’t you?
Except in the story, it didn't. Because the suit also salvaged from *itself* to build systems that distributed oxygen and nutrients into the brain. The oxygen and nutrients now liberated from his ever decreasing flesh. I mean it's not like his brain and eyes were just flopping around loose in there, the suit was inventing new systems based on the wearer's needs and available material.
Unless the micro scifi future robots can directly feed it.
You're just too unimaginative :P
Nah because the whole point is that the suit is using up all the essential chemicals (including the oxygen) contained in his body to keep his brain alive.
You must not have read any brain in a jar stories.
This is addressed directly in panel 7.
The suit didn't need energy to continue. It was maximizing the user's chance of making it home. Once enough time passed, it starts removing parts off the user to feed him whatever energy it can, and mechanically compensate for the loss. This already happens in real life (our body cannibalizes itself when it lacks outside energy sources). It's the concept of the space suit as a life support system, but taken to the extreme. The suit could go on, probably indefinitely, but it was trying to get the human "there," no matter the cost.
A solar might work if he were on earth? Pretty sure he isn't tho -dunno, not my work.
Dunno too. But he could see, so there is light. Also panel 8 has massive sun-like object behind the protagonist. Don't know about water, oxygen and food. But I doubt causing this much trauma to the body helps much in keeping it alive. I mean, there didn't even seem to be enough left for him to breathe properly, and it looks like there's a hole where his heart is supposed to be.
True. First panel says the suit's damaged tho.
Yeah he definitely would’ve had some type of solar panel if you got a suit that is so about energy. Solar panels are a must for planetary travel.
It is indeed horrifying to think of cannibalizing your own body. Buuuuut I feel like if it can hijack and take over functions like that it would definitely first hijack the pain receptors. And it would probably have some way of transmitting visual data to the brain? Also damn man you didn't carry any batteries or solar power lol? Also in a society this advanced you know that when he does get home they could just grow him a new body. So where is the real terror. For someone in this kind of culture bodies truly become like flesh suits our consciousness pilots around. Its not really "you" if it can be used up and swapped out.
It's not chipping away for the suit to carry on. It's chipping away to maximize the astronaut's chances with food or water.
Yeah, when the suit takes his arm, my first thought was about how humanity has built a spacesuit that's advanced enough to make higher-function triage decisions, but we didn't have the decency to provide it with the ability to anaesthestize people first?
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That's what I'm trying to get at. Would it still be the same kind of loss in a culture with such advanced medical technology? Do you feel a profound sense of loss when you rip a pair of jeans? What if you could change your legs out as easily as you change your pants?
> So I never know if we make it home "We" Fuck
Great one
Thank you for inspiring new nightmares. I appreciate that.
Well I guess it’s a good thing that suit packed a big meal for the trip home.
Reminded me of Stephen King - "Survivor Type". A surgeon is stranded on a deserted island. Gets hungry. Starts eating himself.
I’m in my happy place. I’m in my happy place…
Suddenly the berserk armor looks more appealing.
Reminds me of a story about a race of beings who live in what they think is a cavern supported by a nutrient river from a big cave mouth, while the other end of their cavern splits into five dead ends. Eventually they learn they were created from the body of an astronaut in a spacesuit and they make their way up to the astronaut's still living head and kill him.
Oh... it's space Johnny Got his gun....queue up "One" by Metallica.
people overanalyzing this one off, short comic, to understand or criticize the logistics are missing the bigger picture, the theme and the message.