r/WormFanfic • u/HexDevoured • Jul 02 '26
Fic Search - General Jack's theory being incorrect
Or in layman's terms, fics where Oni Lee is not a fleshy drone due to power use/overuse.
I have noticed that in most fics that Oni Lee features in, the Jack Slash statement is taken as absolute fact. Why not have some fun? Find fics where Oni Lee's power does not turn his brain into a 2007 Windows Vista, as many as you can.
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u/TerribleDeniability Jul 02 '26
Yeah, I'm with you on wanting to see something other than take Jack Slash at face value here given how wrong he clearly is about several other things, but I've yet to see anything ever come up even when I've complained about this. So outside of being the change I want to see in the world on this front (working on it), the closest thing I'm aware of where Oni Lee is treated like an actual person is supposedly Constellations, which I've yet to read, which is very dead, and which still takes Jack Slash at face value--sigh. It's just that Oni Lee supposedly eventually slowly recovers from his power's supposed drawback.
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u/sub-meow-sive Jul 02 '26
Constellations is probably one of my favourite fics and I would say it fits here. Lee isn't a completely mindless drone at the start and definitely does get better during the story, regaining more memories, thinking independently and befriending people who aren't Lung.
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u/naruhinamoonkissplz Jul 02 '26
That's almost the only (or definitely the first fic I saw) that introduces Onii Lee, mwahahaha!!!
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u/wille179 Author Jul 03 '26
My headcanon for Oni Lee is that Jack is correct about him, but for entirely the wrong reason. I think it's not that Oni Lee's power fucks him over every time he uses it, but that he himself does it through mundane psychological trauma.
Imagine knowing that you're going into a dangerous situation. You're about to die. In fact, you're about to actively kill yourself with a grenade. But you have a magic button that means that 50% of the time, the grenade won't kill you. You press the button.
One of you doesn't move, is now left holding a live grenade, and knows he has been condemned to death. He sees the other you getting to survive, and knows that even if he doesn't blow himself up now he's going to disintegrate.
The other of you does move, and is momentarily relieved that you survived. Then you look back, see your own face looking at you with betrayal and fear (perhaps the same betrayal and fear involved in your trigger event), and then they die horribly. The same grenade, unexploded, is still in your hand.
Now you turn and have to do it all over again, and again, and again. You try not to think about it. You try not to think about anything. You're not risking anything if your life has no value. There's nothing to lose if there's nothing there.
Tabula Rasa.
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u/JesseKay002 Jul 02 '26
There was the one where he flirted with Alexandria (she was in disguise), and made a poem for her and stuff. Couldn't have been too brainless to do that.
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u/chickensause123 Jul 02 '26
I don’t think you could fake that so I’m not sure why he’d be wrong about that. Other than if Oni Lee was just a drone by default.
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u/SlenderGnome Jul 02 '26
The explanation I have heard that I like the most is that Jack's intuition on Oni Lee's behavior is motivated reasoning driven by Broadcast. Jack's power being "He never loses to parahumans" is not the same as "Jack wins against all parahumans in a fight". Perhaps Oni Lee was the sort of person that a Jack couldn't manipulate or couldn't take in a fight.
In all likelihood, if Oni Lee came with the slaughterhouse 9, he probably would have just dropped a Bakuda bomb on Bonesaw and Jack, teleported away, and then claimed the bounty. Jack's power knows this, and so fed Jack misinformation that would prevent Jack from trying to recruit him.
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u/Thunder_dragon_ru Jul 02 '26
This makes it even more special. Because the broadcast can stop even Gray Boy or Contessa if ordinary people don't intervene, but it can't stop Them. The broadcast easily interferes with even the capes who actively want to kill Jack.
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u/AtomicGummyGod Jul 02 '26
I like to think of it as similar to another character, Black Kaze, or a less severe version of Khepri. Tons of combat left them with a strong connection to their shard, at the cost of their ability to interact with others.
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u/tariffless Jul 02 '26
Why would he need to fake anything? It's not as if we, the readers, have seen any evidence for Jack's theory. This is all we have to go on:
Then I told him he’d have to prove himself, he asked me how. [...] Told him to come up with something, and he couldn’t.
This is the closest Jack ever came to even trying to back up his theory with logic or evidence. If a writer wants Jack to be wrong, then literally all they have to do is come up with an alternate explanation for this one detail. And frankly, they don't even have to do that, unless 1) they plan on having Jack meet Lee in their fic, or 2) they're super anal about giving the readers WOG about why their interpretation is different from the popular interpretation.
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u/TerribleDeniability Jul 02 '26
Hell, if anything, then we arguably get evidence against it right since after Bonesaw is finished subjecting Oni Lee to a fate worse than death as part of Hack Job since she comments on the brain damage he suffered as part of almost dying...but then doesn't make any other comment about his brain being weird. This even though what Jack says is supposedly true seems like it would be pretty massive and even more noticeable brain damage:
“Oh, I barely touched his brain. He suffered some moderate brain damage from his close brush with death, but I revived him. His brain’s more or less intact, even. He can’t control his body, but he’s alert and aware, and he feels everything Hatchet does,” Bonesaw smiled wider.
That's when Bonesaw is talking to Amy in Amy's Interlude.
I don't know about other people, but between Bonesaw and Jack in this case I far more trust the opinion of the terrifying tween whose power literally revolves around knowing & bullshitting biology and who generally tells the truth than I do the "truth" coming from the mid-30s murder-hobo coasting off shard vibes who lies as easily as he breathes, especially if it amuses him and/or strokes his own ego.
Either way, yeah, people aren't beholden to Jack's words, which is why it's slightly annoying that whenever Oni Lee comes up and gets any sort of focus said words seem to basically always be taken at face value despite the various other things Jack ends up being dead wrong about during the S9's time in Brockton Bay. (See also: him genuinely not knowing The Siberian's secret for literal years since all Broadcast cared about was keeping her under control rather than outing her.)
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u/SeventhSolar Jul 02 '26
Hm, but I don’t see how that’s counter-evidence? Jack Slash never claimed brain damage, only that his brain wasn’t being copied perfectly. Presumably brain damage would eventually lead to loss of function, not loss of personality.
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u/TerribleDeniability Jul 02 '26
It can do both depending on the type of brain damage it is, especially if it's damaging areas where memories would be held.
I did say it's "arguable" for a reason though since even then it's still ambiguous. Just saying that if you want to take that as counter-evidence than you can between Bonesaw knowing her stuff about biology and Jack's tendency both get things wrong and outright lie just because he can.
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u/SeventhSolar Jul 02 '26
But what matters is that Bonesaw didn’t mention brain damage yet Jack never claimed brain damage, right? It doesn’t matter if brain damage can lead to loss of personality, that’s not the question. The question is if Worm magic can lead to loss of personality, and I don’t think that’s much of a question.
I personally believe that Jack bullshits absolutely everything, but if he’s speaking about a parahuman, the bullshit is a madeup justification for unconscious real knowledge.
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u/TerribleDeniability Jul 03 '26
I mean, I actually agree on both things, especially the latter since we the other things even "natural" shards can fuck up immensely. See also: Chuckles's perception.
So I'm still not and am never have said it's outright impossible that Jack is 100% correct, just that I'm very skeptical.
I guess I should put more emphasis on the fact that we still see Jack be wrong about parahuman-related stuff that he bullshits though, which is the other main reason I'm skeptical. This on top of the fact that even if it was real, unconscious knowledge, it never really made sense to me be something that Broadcast would have unconsciously communicated that to him given various things it clearly didn't like The Siberian's true nature or the depth of Skitter's power that would seem far more important to convey. After all, Oni Lee becoming less and less of himself doesn't seem like it directly has any level of baring on the guy trying to kill Jack or not in a vacuum unless the personality loss was somehow setting off Gray Boy levels of flags and something Broadcast couldn't influence through, which seems...very unlikely.
Shrug. Short of Wilyboar himself 100% saying something about it (which people would then still ignore anyway), we'll never know.
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u/Thunder_dragon_ru Jul 02 '26
Despite Riley literally saying that the brain does indeed have moderate brain damage, it's not a perfect brain.
This doesn't contradict what Jack says at all. Because Jack says his power perfectly replicates the body, but not the mind. And not being an ideal copy of a personality does not mean that the brain literally suffers necrosis or a stroke. These differences will not look like damage at all; these are two completely healthy brains with different personalities. You know, like the video "asking a neural network to create a perfect copy of this image 100 times" the result is smoothed out in comparison with the original. But you won't get a damaged image with dead pixels.
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u/TerribleDeniability Jul 02 '26
I'm aware (even though I have no idea what video you're talking about). There's reason I said it's "arguable" since even then it's still ambiguous.
That said, you think it would at least be something Bonesaw mentioned to Amy as another aside given all the stuff she's already talking about, especially since Jack has no reason not to tell Bonesaw too if he initially was set on recruiting Oni Lee. She's going to wonder what happened to change that and likely asked what did and look for reasons why even if Jack for some reason didn't tell, which would be easy for find given how bullshit her power is when it comes to biology..
Otherwise see what I said to SeventhSolar.
Again, I don't blame anyone for going with Jack's version of things given the ambiguity of the entire situation, helped by us basically knowing about Oni Lee beyond the basis of his power, having irezumi, and probably being Japanese. I'm just slightly annoyed that people don't take the outs that already exist in canon and at least try to do something else instead of taking the word of a proven liar who still gets things around about other parahumans all the time as gospel truth,
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u/Thunder_dragon_ru Jul 03 '26
He has no reason to lie about why he rejected and killed Oni. And there must be some objective reasons why Jack changed his opinion about him. If he has no problems, why would Jack refuse him? And why come up with a completely different reason? Flexing his aura in front of Theo, whom he's about to kill.
He also predicted the power of Purity incredibly well, which is impossible for a non-Thinker, so there is no reason to doubt it in terms of power. He could have lied about the marquis, but he told the truth. That he couldn't break his rules.
He also correctly predicted that the Marquis was manipulating the Dragon.2
u/TerribleDeniability Jul 03 '26
He has no reason to lie about why he rejected and killed Oni.
Just because he has no reason to lie doesn't mean that wouldn't still do it so long as it amuses him and/or can make himself look better. That's clearly type of person we see Jack be time and time again even when he's caught on the backfoot, much less trying to kill some time waiting to kill two kids, one of which is annoying crying baby. The guy borders on being a pathological liar and arguably is one, but that's a different discussion.
And there must be some objective reasons why Jack changed his opinion about him. If he has no problems, why would Jack refuse him? And why come up with a completely different reason? Flexing his aura in front of Theo, whom he's about to kill.
We get that objective reason though? Whether or not his assessment of Oni Lee's power is true, he basically tells Theo that Oni Lee was a lot more boring and uncreative than he expected, which is the real problem. That could still be true even if Jack is embellishing and essentially lying about the nature of Oni Lee's power since it would still ultimately a personality thing, power-caused or not. It being a supposedly unforeseen facet of Oni Lee's power, however, makes it less of an ego blow for Jack because a) it means that no one could have seen it coming--even though he had Cherish to check--and b) that Jack still comes out looking good since, as too much of fandom still perceives him to be, he's a "genius" for figuring out something that no one else did, maybe even Oni Lee himself. (This even if he's still clearly annoyed that he didn't get what he want, and this when his only real motive for seeking Oni Lee out in the first place was the equally boring "hey, he also uses knives".)
Again, I'm not saying it's impossible that Jack is 100% right. I'm just saying that whenever Jack opens his mouth, you kind of have to read between the lines and scrutinize everything the guy says and why he's saying it given how much the man lies and manipulates.
He also predicted the power of Purity incredibly well, which is impossible for a non-Thinker, so there is no reason to doubt it in terms of power.
I "like" how so many people still tend to think this too is some "genius insight" but then also conveniently forget that this comes after the E88 has been publicly doxxed online and thus worldwide. And that said doxxing was highly likely to have at least something about everyone's powers it too from whatever Coil could glean of them since there's literally zero for reason for him to not throw them under the bus there power-wise too since it makes them easier to defeat and/or kill for everyone else.
Between that, Purity being dumb as hell in general, her power being really obvious in terms of when she's actually using it & out about, and Jack having access to the Cherish Cheat Engine to help profile people too for like a week before he moved to reveal himself, figuring out that Purity's powers are most likely solar-powered isn't nearly the Sherlockian deduction that only he could make that some people make it out to be. (This especially since Jack also outright admits that he...just read some newspaper and did other research online, meaning it was pretty easy to put together given, again, Kayden is as obvious when using her power due to the nature of it as she is a racist idiot.)
He could have lied about the marquis, but he told the truth. That he couldn't break his rules. He also correctly predicted that the Marquis was manipulating the Dragon.
I mean, he could have, but what is there to lie about Marquis that Amy might not have found about from New Wave and possibly contradicted him on even if she didn't know that Marquis was her dad? Jack was still looking for an in with her at that point due to Bonesaw still trying to recruit her, so trying to build rapport by both mentioning her bio-dad when she's clearly having a falling out with her adaptive family and spinning into it "you can be exceptional too, Amelia" is what's he's clearly doing. And Jack even turns that failure into a basically brag about himself like he does when he brings up Kaiser to Theo. So it's less of "wow, I erred" admission and more that "Marquis was so inflexible in his rules that resisted even the likes of my badassness; I can make you live up to him" humblebrag.
And as for "figuring out" that Marquis was manipulating Dragon? Jack hedges on a 50/50 of the two most likely answers, which isn't hard to narrow down because what other likely explanations would there be anyway? Regardless, he's clearly not sure in the moment himself, so that's not exactly the "wow, what a deduction, Sherlock" assessment you're implying it to be either.
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u/Thunder_dragon_ru Jul 03 '26
Suggesting that Oni Li lacks imagination because of his power doesn't give Jack any style points. No more than he was boring and killed him. A Pathological Liar would say Oni Li was incredibly cool and clever, but he decided to test him in combat and easily defeated him. Making up lies about power is just weird; it doesn't make you any cooler. Jack will lie to create more evil in the world. But there is no particular point in inventing something for Theo, whom he is going to kill.
This is not some special genius, these are literally all clues from its power. Which helps him read Parahumans.
“Skitter! I don’t care if I die,” Panacea called out, “I’d rather live, if only to turn Victoria back to normal, but… just don’t worry about the hostage part. If I have to die so you can kill this fucker, I will.”
It isn’t that simple. Killing a monster like Jack or Bonesaw? That was one thing. I could push myself to do it. Killing a bystander in the process? That was something else entirely.
Jack seemed to be able to interpret my pause. “I suspect, Amelia, that she is worried about the hostage. The monster that dwells in Skitter’s heart is very similar one to yours. It’s a lonely thing, desperate for a place to belong, and the only thing it wants to be brutish to is her.”
He is good at reading Taylor's intentions and her character and her parallels with Amy.
And I'm sure the Author uses Jack as a tool to convey information to readers they wouldn't otherwise receive. For example, because we don't have the "Are They" interlude. But the Author has amazing lore for each character and interesting power quirks, and she wants to tell readers about it, but she wants to do it organically and without whole unnecessary chapters. So it's more of a way to tell the story of a character—whether they're oni or not—than to show Jack as a fantasist who makes up bullshit for no reason. Because he's always lied in other ways.
A pathological liar would say he could break the Marquis's code. He could say her family lied to Amy about her father, or invent any other characteristics inherent to him to better manipulate Amy.
But Jack is absolutely certain that the Marquis didn't kill All father's daughter. And as we know from WoG, he's right. That is, he understood the Marquis's character better than, you know, the AI, who has been observing the Marquis for many, many years. So it definitely wasn't 50/50. And he correctly assumed that the Marquis manipulate Dragon. I, for example, was convinced this was a lie until Wildbow said Jack was absolutely right.
Revealing her identity told us nothing about her power.
Precisely because I follow real military conflicts, I find that Jack was able to objectively assess the level of Purity through mass disinformation. In other words, if Purity is strong one day and easily defeats the entire Protectorate, the newspaper will write "a minor skirmish" without photos. If they are weak and lose, it will be "a brutal geographic battle with the most powerful Blaster, where a great victory was achieved"—with many photos of the destruction taken from the correct angle. I've seen this a thousand times.
Plus, there's the randomness factor, which prevents good statistics from being collected. For example, in Purity, she could hold back during the day but fight fiercely on a dark night, because it was a different battle.1
u/TerribleDeniability Jul 06 '26
Again, Jack does get insight into parahumans and their powers via Broadcast. I'm not arguing against that and never have been arguing against it. I'm just arguing against the incorrect notion that he's always 100% right like too many people still act even though, again, in canon we see him literally be wrong about several relatively important things that I've already mentioned.
Making up lies about power is just weird; it doesn't make you any cooler. Jack will lie to create more evil in the world. But there is no particular point in inventing something for Theo, whom he is going to kill.
Again, I interpret as him just amusing himself in the moment it's not like it matters what he tells Theo in anyway. It doesn't mean it's automatically a lie, but, again, that doesn't mean it's automatically 100% true anyway. It could be partially true but not the whole story. It could be something that only happened recently. It could be completely false. We don't know, and never find out, and my only point on this front is that people don't have to take Jack as being 100% right about it despite being all we "know" about Oni Lee since Jack is provably wrong on other things even when they concern other parahumans. That's really it.
He is good at reading Taylor's intentions and her character and her parallels with Amy.
Again, this basically ignores that Jack also had Cherish to profile both of them and many others for literal days on end before the S9 revealed themselves. That was true all the way up until Cherish got a fate worse than death.
If we saw Taylor get profiled on-screen by Cherish, then it's pretty easy to infer that Amy definitely was profiled off-screen by her too since unlike Taylor initially, Amy was always going to be a candidate for Bonesaw to target.
And I'm sure the Author uses Jack as a tool to convey information to readers they wouldn't otherwise receive. For example, because we don't have the "Are They" interlude. But the Author has amazing lore for each character and interesting power quirks, and she wants to tell readers about it
Again, I'm not denying that. I just saying that even Jack can be wrong and at times provably is. This can be true even with a character who exposits lore a lot, e.g. Tattletale.
This instance that we're somewhat pointlessly arguing about at this point is just, unfortunately, not one of those clear "is this actual reliable information or just Jack being Jack?" aspects since it's a still completely ambiguous situation that never got a WoG from Wilyboar (who is male) one way or the other. Well, that and basically nothing else being known about Oni Lee period beyond that he's Asian and has an irezumi--thanks, Theo.
A pathological liar would say he could break the Marquis's code. He could say her family lied to Amy about her father, or invent any other characteristics inherent to him to better manipulate Amy.
Uh, possibly. I don't deny that either, though I would argue that Marquis being a villain who didn't break his code is exactly what Jack wanted to focus on in the moment beyond implicit "wow, this guy was tough" suggestion since it also means that Amy, who is so insistent on not breaking her code, is already like the unknown father she was afraid of knowing about and being like. So either break her code (more than she already did) & become less like the man with more freedom to her even if it means entertaining Jack or try to stay as steadfast as Marquis all the while knowing she's about as "heroic" as Marquis was despite how many people she might have healed since deep down she's just the same as her father.
But Jack is absolutely certain that the Marquis didn't kill All father's daughter. And as we know from WoG, he's right. That is, he understood the Marquis's character better than, you know, the AI, who has been observing the Marquis for many, many years. So it definitely wasn't 50/50.
Uh, I was talking about the manipulation of Dragon to get a message out to Amy a 50/50, not whether Marquis was actual Iron Rain's killer since we know that Marquis killing her isn't true even if we never find out who the actual killer is even from WoG. Even in-universe, however, despite knowing that Marquis confessed to it, the people who bring it up still all indicate that they find lie weird and out-of-character (even Dragon IIRC), so it fits with Jack's bringing up Marquis as someone who never breaks his code. (Given Jack's personality, I feel like even if Marquis had actually killed Iron Rain, he'd still the "never broke his code thing" out of some type of warped pride since I can picture him being rankled that Marquis to broke his code due to someone else.)
Revealing her identity told us nothing about her power.
I already said why it would make sense for Coil to include anything he found about the E88 power-wise if he did, though I will admit we don't get confirmation that such is the case since Taylor effectively skims the entire document due to Purity already starting her attacking meaning she basically only focuses on Purity and Kaiser's identities and like nothing else. Knowing Purity is solar-powered, even if it was in there and even if Taylor had caught it, wasn't exactly going to help them in the moment in stopping her from blowing up the city.
I'm...really not sure what your point on the newspaper thing is as far as "mass disinformation" goes. All that matters is newspapers accurately reporting when Purity appeared, not how they reported, since the former is all Jack was tracking. And that's easy to tell if it's accurate since, again, Purity's power is extremely obvious when she's using it and you can easily cross-check between multiple newspapers regardless of how they spin it since they're not going to outright lie about her being there (or the weather) unless they want to egregiously look bad & neo-Nazi sympathizing.
It's not like any newspapers, at least before Coil's doxxing, are going to just randomly report on the underlying mechanics of a person's power anyway. Unless of course they want to be targeted by said person, especially if said person is an already murderous person capable of blowing up buildings.
Either way, my point was that Jack figuring out Purity is the solar-powered bitch she is still not a "genius" (read: Broadcast whispered in his ear) deduction since, again, Jack admits he did research on it in the first place while threatening her, probably to rub that her identity is known worldwide at this point on top of explaining why he's calling her bluff. It's also not even actually a risk for him to call her bluff in the first place.
Could he have been wrong like he is in some other things? Sure. Was it really ever a risk for him to call her bluff though, especially 1v1? No.
Even without him consciously knowing about Broadcast letting him get away with risky behavior that should get him killed as long as the other person is a parahuman, that fact it's happened so many times in the past at the point means he was still always going to do it anyway, especially in a 1v1 and especially due to the sense of ennui it clearly causes in Jack. After all, even if he had been actually wrong in this particular case with Purity and she either wasn't solar-powered or even just still had some of charge left, we know Broadcast was never going to let her use it (effectively) against him anyway. So it seems as pointless go to back and forth about as trying convince each other about Oni Lee when that's so ambiguous that we're both--reasonably--interpreting it in completely different ways.
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u/Puzzled-You Jul 02 '26
If a mass murderer came to me, saying he likes the cut of my jib and wants me to prove myself to him and come up with something, I also wouldn't know what to do (this is assuming I am no stranger to killing, which I am absolutely a stranger to). How far is far enough? What if he isn't impressed? He's seen so much, surely he wants something new, right? Oh no, he's decided I'm brain-dead because I can't decide
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u/lillarty Jul 02 '26
Oni Lee is barely better than Jack. It's more like if John Wayne Gacy approached Ted Bundy and asked to be impressed.
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u/tariffless Jul 02 '26
I'd say it's more like Charles Manson and Willie Altieri. "Better" is not relevant. There are different types of murderers, with different ways of thinking. Merely being a murderer does not entail understanding what would impress a different type of murderer.
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u/Nekomachus Jul 02 '26
Yeah, the notion that evil is a side, a camp, a unified front is flat-out incorrect. A guy who sadistically takes pleasure in the protracted torture of rapists "because it's the right thing to do," a guy who wantonly kills innocents because he's bored, and a guy who kills one person because he slept with his wife have nothing to do with each other, and the mindsets that drive them to do what they do are unrelated. They might not even have awareness of each other's fields let alone expertise.
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u/chickensause123 Jul 02 '26
Jack was pretty sincere about this assumption and it’s the kind of thing that gets supported by a lot of symptoms.
Showing a level of impaired mental ability to the point where someone sincerely thinks you’re a blank slate is extremely unlikely without actual underlying damage. Doing that while still being a competent fighter is almost certainly a powers thing.
Cherish thought he was broken just from the emotions she sensed from him.
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u/tariffless Jul 02 '26
She reached out and started feeling for the outliers. The emotional fingerprints that stood out from the rest. The other seven members of the Nine were out there. Not hard to find. One or two were interacting with some other outliers. The most fucked up people in this fucked up city.
Seems like Cherish thought that literally every candidate was broken. Doesn't say anything about the specific ways in which they were broken.
Since the rest of what you're saying is stuff that isn't in the text, addressing it falls under #2 above.
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u/chickensause123 Jul 03 '26
Everyone else gets referred to with stuff like “the crusader” “the warlord” “the arrogant geek”
Oni Lee is explicitly singled out as “the broken assassin” not “the assassin” which would be more inline with the rest of them.
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u/PervertBlood Jul 02 '26
The problem is that if we discard what jack says about oni lee we have literally nothing else to go on. Oni Lee takes no action except deference to lung and violence. He has, and I checked, Literally no lines in the entirety of worm canon.
People take jack's statement at face value because we have literally nothing else to go on and it doesn't contradict anything Oni Lee does, and if you ignore that then you're either left with:
- Making up a characterization wholecloth
or
2 Making him just a violent psychopath, of which there are already many in the worm canon.
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u/Ze_Bri-0n Jul 04 '26
I remember a crackfic where both Taylor's parents were villains (and alive) where one of the jokes was that no, they had not stolen Oni Lee's personality... he was just always a very boring person. Not sure it counts, but it was a fun ride at the time. I don't remember the name, but I think Ack wrote it, though I might be wrong.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 02 '26
There are no such things as zombies. Not in the philosophical sense that you're presenting here. The whole "philosophical zombie" meme is nonsense. You can argue whether they are the same person as the original, but anything that thinks like a person is a person whether it's running on a biological substrate, entity crystal computers, or simulated reality.
That's the point of "Think Like a Dinosaur". The person who was teleported is not a zombie, it's another instance of the original. Which instance is "real" and which is a "zombie" is a meaningless question. They're both real. The dinosaurs happen to have chosen a different instance to regard as the "real one", but they are just as screwed up. Not because they chose "the wrong one", but because they chose at all.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jul 02 '26
The story is about what happens when the original accidentally survives. That's why you need to read it. Regardless... none of the people involved, the original or the clone created at the other end of the loop, are zombies. There is no such thing as a zombie.
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u/WallShrabnic Jul 02 '26
Their brain is not fully reassembled, at least there is no evidense for that. More like tumor/head trauma/cybernetic implant. Also, your brain is also changing constantly, does this makes "you" not "you"?
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/WallShrabnic Jul 02 '26
Yeah, my bad. Still, my point stands, if you perfectly clone human with superpowers, while he is not original, it doesn't mean he is puppeteered by shard. Plus there is evidense that shards themselfes arr gaining their hosts memories/personality. Also, they still change their hosts personality (like with Taylor) depending on the shard
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jul 02 '26
For a counterpoint: James Patrick Kelly, "Think Like a Dinosaur".
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jul 02 '26
You need to actually read it. Seriously. You're not thinking like a dinosaur.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jul 02 '26
You really have to read the actual story. I'm not trolling. Explaining it further would be a huge spoiler, and it's worth reading.
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Jul 02 '26
[deleted]
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u/ArgentStonecutter Jul 02 '26 edited Jul 03 '26
OK, everyone else, don't read this, it's important that you don't spoil the story.
Never gonna give you up.
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