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Grrl Power #1020 - I dream of genealogy

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Don't worry, this isn't another ten page tangent on Dabbler's genealogy. (It's two, I promise.)

I bet a lot of doppelgangers are like "I bet it's awesome being king." but about three weeks after replacing one, they're bummed out by the amount of administrative stuff they have to do. And then the king gets mysteriously ill, and one morning he's laying in his bed, looking like he died three weeks ago. Then the doppelganger is like "I bet it's awesome being a moderately successful merchant." but then he realizes how much work that guy has to do, so he wanders off and becomes a peasant farmer, and even though that guy works all day as well, he's not spending all day politicking or wheeling and dealing, but then a noble comes along and disrespects him, so he replaces that guy only to learn that Viscounts do more work than the king, and he's like, "Shit! How about a dowager, huh? They can just sit on their wealth and read all day, right?"

If a dark elf's wealthy husband dies, does that make the widow a drowager?

I'm assuming most doppelgangers are just looking to inherit someone else's wealth and then just... hang out all day. But, maybe some of them have political aspirations, or want to work hard at becoming a mage or something. I don't want to stereotype them.

I haven't actually decided if Dabbler knows what T&A means. I'm leaning toward no, but she has a keen ear for double entendres. She can also get into the internet on her cybernetics, so she'll probably have figured it out by the end of the elevator ride.

Grrl Power #1020 - I dream of genealogy

Comments

Towelie, you're the worst character ever.

Evil Midnight Lurker

"T & A you can ride all night?" Well, Sidney, there's one sure way for you to test that out.

Tristan N Milner

May I offer you some mental floss to scrub the images out of your brain?

eddi_TBH

Kenya Cassidy aka Anvil. Kinetic Brick. Absorbs energy from physical attacks and returns them with interest.

eddi_TBH

I always assumed doppels wouldn't have their own nation, but live as opportunistic individuals looking for safety and security. I do like the idea of them sharing copied lives among themselves as some sort of entertainment.

Dave Barrack

So, here's a thought for your dopplegangers. Dopplegangers get a bad rap. Most of them aren't murderous sociopaths; on their homeworld they were just a physically adaptive species with a bifurcated brain. Their Soul Brain houses their individuality and personality, while their Race Brain acts as a node in their Race Mind. But they're not full telepaths--they "upload" their experiences into the Race Mind by sharing through their ear-things (you really need to give it a name). Doppleganger's core personalities/memories always remain intact, unless they suffer from a mental illness where they lose the ability to distinguish between their personal memories and shared memories. In their natural society, Dopplegangers are constantly sharing memories as a way of expanding the knowledge base and as entertainment. Imagine a "concert" where the "performing" doppleganger links their ear-tentacles to dops on their right and left, each linked dop linking to another dop, creating a huge daisy chain. One-ear links don't allow for "full download" but rather memory-replays kind of like full-sensory movies. Obviously their limits mean that doppleganger's don't have a literal Race Mind; instead each doppleganger community shares a Community Mind of pooled experience/memory. Wandering dopplegangers link up the communities by physically delivering "updates." Naturally when they encountered other races . . . the Others freaked the shit out. Creatures that can copy you physically and mentally? Completely replace you with nobody knowing? Maybe there were a few bad dopplegangers who made a splash as serial killers or got caught doing the whole kill-and-replace-the-monarch thing, and next thing you know it's genocide time. Today there is no doppleganger homeland. Rather, doppleganger communities hide in plain sight, masquerading as tight-nit communities of other species. Gypsy caravans. Monasteries/nunneries. Small rural towns. In space, merchant freighter crews. Etc.

MGH

"You wouldn't download a brain...."

Stephen Gilberg

Tits'n'ass

RobedFrog

Yeah, but the linky ladder rung thingies (which I didn't draw, admittedly) are 3-pronged and fancy, and possibly a little bit magic, so it's... fine? BTW, I knew "haploid strand" was probably not a scientifically accurate term, but it's hard to find the actual name of fictional things. To my knowledge, there isn't any naturally occurring triple helix DNA, and certainly not like this where it's a normal di-helix with one "foreign" helix used for parts.

Dave Barrack

This is, I think, the ideal scenario for the prospective shapechanger. You find an administratively competent advisor/duke/random noble with aspirations towards greater power, and offer then a convenient puppet king situation. The noble gets to maneuver national policy to their advantage, the shapeshifter gets to enjoy wealth and luxury, and as long as both parties are clever about things there won't even be anything illegal going on (aside from initial regicide obviously) Just a very trusted advisor and the king leaving matters in their hands (also reminds me of https://www.oglaf.com/kingshaped )

Non-native english there. Had to google what T&A is ;(

Evgeny Sandu

"T&A" stands for "Tits and @$$", and is pronounced the same as "TNA" would be.

Here comes the point where being a non-native English speaker (or maybe just not living in the US of A) is a pain in the ***: the T&A/TNA joke is obvious but I have zero chance to understand it. Can somebody please explain to me? :) (I know I could look it up on Google, but I find better if someone who actually knows it sums it up. Human interaction FTW!)

strfan

Slightly frustrated mad genome scientist here. Just for ref, you're mixing up chromosomes and strands. Haploid still means a double stranded piece of DNA but a single chromosomal copy of it (sperm and eggs). When something just has one strand we just call it single stranded (most RNA is this). A haploid copy of paternal DNA held captive in a secondary nucleus would be a plausible way for this to work btw. More plausible than the horrible chemistry abomination that 3 stranded DNA would make anyway.

Martin Pollard

At least Maxima and whatshername can bond over how deeply they wish they were not part and witness of this conversation.

Rens

I'm reading this on mobile, so I can only see about one frame at a time. The moment Dabbler said TNA, I immediately knew that this would derail the rest of the page. Glad to see I wasn't disappointed!!

Ian Brown

Has anyone ever called Dabbler a towel (oh, Wait, Towelie's TNA stands for something different :) )

Michael Obert

If there's a bunch trying to look tough are they doppelgangbangers?

Nutjob

I bet she’s working extra hard now to distract from that little slip up.

Andrew

To be fair, being the king is only hard work if you have to worry about Continuing to be a king of a country or care about whatever legacy you leave behind. If all you want to do is party it up and chill it should not be hard for a dopple-come-king to set himself up as a puppet for ambitious viziers and nobility so they can run things while the dopple-king lives the sweet life for a good long time. And then you can just bugger off and replace someone else when someone or something inevitably pulls the plug on the party time.

Aclys

I thought that someone would ask how Sidney know what languages they spoke.

Wyrmhand

Giggity, lol

Michael Obert


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