At this rate Idrisah's gonna reach through the tablet screen and throttle them.
Transcript
Bip: Well, if I had to pick…Bip's avatar points up at the wall projection, where they have displayed Talita's diploma from the University of Jovia.
Bip: It would be the woman with unlimited junkyard access and a masters in aerospace.
Her eyes widen and face bristles.
Talita: St— Stop touching my files!
Bip: –But, that’s not what I’m asking for. The only urgent thing is the power connection.
Idrisah: Yeah, suuure. Why shouldn’t we report you right now?
Bip: Because snitching is lame?
Idrisah looks outraged.
42 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 66”
Cain
I’ve been following your art for a while, Jay, and I can’t believe I didn’t know Bip was like this
Hunter
SNITCHES GET STITCHES IS A STUPID CONCEPT THAT NEEDS TO DIE.
Toasty
sounds like something a narc would say /j
Some mushroom guy
In Bip’s defense, snitching IS lame.
Flerovium
I’m starting to like Bip
blythe
commenting bc i wanna see what random profile icon i get
SIGSTKFLT
Oh cool Bip is showing captions for Talita and Idrisah
audible-smiles
Little girl from space…
hal9000
i always thought she was named after the stars Talitha Borealis and Talitha Australis (Ursa Major constellation). the Biblical story (dead little girl resurrected by Christ) doesnt really make much sense for her character, but the astral themes do.
Jay Eaton
Actually she was named for the “tall” pun and anything else is a happy coincidence
Apollo235
Ive always wondered, do you have any Brazilian heritage? Or did you just pick Portuguese names bc you felt like it?
Jay Eaton
I’m not Brazilian, but the choice isn’t arbitrary. Brazil is the largest and most powerful country in the Americas in RttS, so they have a lot of cultural clout.
hal9000
that is so funny. full respect
Hunter
Wait, what happened to the US if Brazil is the most powerful?
Jay Eaton
Eh, they didn’t survive the second American Civil War intact and got Balkanized…
Hunter
Ah, the Ghost in the Shell method.
Wasper
No no, they have a point. Snitching IS lame.
evileeyore
Depends on what you’re snitching on.
Redacted
Oooh Jovian seal
Kira
“Because snitching is lame?” pretty sure that’s ai pirate for “lady you are lucky I can’t access anything sharp right now”
Yay
i would unplug the tablet at this point tbh
Zidane
this is really funny to me bcus it made me realize if an AI is annoying someone couldn’t they just unplug whatever microphone they’re using to speak. vocal apparatus revoked
Kaamos
I mean, you probably could, sure – but if a human is being annoying in a conversation it would not be socially acceptable to leap at them and cover their mouth. So it probably wouldn’t be acceptable to do the equivalent to an AI, either. (Of course, currently Bip is on Talita’s tablet, not on their own hardware, so that probably muddies the situation up somewhat… but also if you were in a video call with someone it would be really rude to just suddenly go “lol bye” and cut it short.)
hirsch
yeah yeah! i also think that would be.. a very temporary solution in this case.. cause you’ll definitely still have to do something about the criminal currently contained in your device! it’s somewhat worse than just an inconvenient yapper
godspeed
…and then?
Will you turn off a ton of quantum phones manually, too?
Especially if BIP can connect to other network machines, it’s kind of useless to get rid of them unless Talita has means to turn off everything at once.
BIP is probably trying to access other networks on Dirtball to prepare a backup plan in case Talia was really unwilling to help, and since Calcery is gone they would probably go undetected if they wanted to.
Ruby
In which Idrisah tries to do a mean.
Also, Bip, stop messing with Talita’s files.
evileeyore
I’m picturing Gillie with a huge grin at the “snitching is lame” remark.
Hi
They’ve got their hands aaaalllll over those files
Liza
Not doing the best job of making first impressions there, Bip
Radpan
They’re so right though
gigi
hehehe feather blush
notanocelot
Even with what seems to be the bare minimum of processing power, Bip still seems to be able to puppeteer a model, go through files, write closed captions, and even create whole new assets in real-time. I cannot fathom what they might be able to accomplish if they ever get back in their regular servers.
Apollo235
Yeah thats absolutely a question to pose them after this chapter.
“Bip you mentioned that you only transferred a portion of yourself to the phones, how does this affect you? is it like being tired?”
evileeyore
“bare minimum of processing power”
Bip is running on the QPhones… which are wildly overpowered for personal computing devices… and I get the feeling even for //home// computing devices.
Teod
I think at least some of the current Bip’s behavior can be explained by them being incomplete and therefore probably… stupid? They’re single-mindedly obsessed with reconnecting for survival and have the best ideas about doing it, but everything else is just… not there. So no social norms, no effort to conceal themselves or their past from authorities, no good negotiation tactics.
I don’t know how AIs work in this universe though.
1d4Nadg
I don’t now, it could be that being out of their brain make them stupider, but I think they are just-like-that™. At the very least they seem to have social norms (downloading a whole new language and addressing Gillie with subtitles as soon as they figure out she is deaf). And they could even be using what they heard of the conversation to manipulate Talita.
Look at them, calling her a “woman”. No “centaur”, no they/theming, they realy picked up on Talita personality and identity (a self conscious alien foster child and engineering expert) and are trying to get on her good side. She is very flustered, which might be seeing Bip looking in her files… or receiving a compliment from a stranger. Probably both.
Bip isn’t hiding their piracy past, but I think it’s because they are trying to get her out of this boring and racist workplace with shiny adventures. Promising a world where Talita wouldn’t be judged.
And then the xenoliguists came back, it was not art of the plan but it’s too late to go back, so they are rolling with it.
Or I could be reading too much into 3 pages worth of pannels, who knows XD
Viashino_wizard
I supposed to could be harder for them to think due to having less processing power to work with.
evileeyore
I’m not sure having Idrisah and Gillie get into the plan so soon was part of the plan… but including them was always in the plan.
And I’m sure Blip has been through every file on the three of them that Blip could access, as well as many other people’s files and info in the last two days. Blip has masterminded this escape plan down to the last detail, I have no doubt.
Zuorai
Oh I like this analysis of Bip
Claire
The face of a woman touched in the files. I’m so sorry, Talita.
eden
yeah bip that will definitely get people on your side
evileeyore
Sometimes boundaries must be crossed so people can establish new territories.
In other words… I’m pretty sure Bip has a good understanding of these three’s personalities and is “playing them like fiddles”. All three are bored and crave a challenge that is within their skillsets.
Gillie is not risk averse, so she’s an easy win over. Idrisah needs a fight, so set her to fighting Bip a little, and then later probably fighting for Bip once her friends are hooked in. Talita needs to be encouraged, so Bip is encouraging.