Girl Genius discussion OPEN SPOILERS

[Lenny]

Read through it again since I last posted here, haha.

Lucrezia is almost certainly every iteration of Van Rhijn's "Muse of Time". I've been wondering if there's a reason as to when she was killing all the queens off. She had all of time to choose,  but seems to have done it all in one go, or in batches, at least with the queens Albia was aware of. I also wonder exactly how old she is now.

Whether Higgs has seen a Queen made before or not vastly depends on whether any queens were made after the Heterodynes discovered the Dyne. Jägerdraught is made from the Dyne's water, the location of which was abandoned before it was settled by the Heterodyne, no queen to be found. I also have the impression - though I don't think it was confirmed anywhere - that Albia is older than the first Heterodyne. I do think it's pretty possible that Higgs might have seen an attempt to control the Dyne's waters go a bit... haywire. In fact I kinda remember a reference to a particular Heterodyne's attempts, after which they switched to indirectly using the waters via the castle, but I wouldn't know where to start looking for it. ...in faaaaaact.... it might be pretty probable that that's where Higgs saw something similar! There was a very similar setup with a mirror in the castle. I'll have to go and check out the layout when Agatha et al were escaping through it.

Stream of consciousness thought: would this mean that technically the castle is a mechanical queen? Probably not, but it's a fun thought.

Edit: So sadly there's only a front view of the mirror, which doesn't show a flame pit. https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20130506 So no way to confirm it until Higgs remembers, I suppose.

[Jitter]

Hmm, seems like Higgs will be learning a bit more about Skifandr than he was planning at the moment?

Now, will the collapse kill one or bo of he new queens, or not?

[thorny]

Not good.

Not only are Higgs and Zeetha separated, and Zeetha cut off from Skifander again, but also Higgs' aid and information are now unavailable to the rest of the party: and they're liable to need both of them badly.

[Róisín]

On the other hand, if Higgs can persuade the Skifandrian Queen that Zeetha needs her help, and that Lucrezia is involved, he may be able to bring back assistance that nobody is expecting. I can’t imagine that Zeetha’s mother approves of Lucrezia.

[wavewright62]

In other news, that image of Lucrezia arising from the rubble is beauteous - Cheyenne Wright has done it again.  Worthy of a wallpaper, without the speech bubbles.

Higgs still possesses Zeetha's headband communication device, which would come in handy when he needs to corroborate his story.  Pity it isn't two-way. 

[Jitter]

So it’s looking like I was correct earlier, assuming that the clank body cannot withstand the power. Took its sweet time to start falling apart, though!

[thorny]

If Lucrezia destroys or puts out of reach the spring and flame, however, she won't have access to them either.

And she actually is (whew) gone from Agatha. So if this clank body gets destroyed, where is she still existent? I'm losing track. -- plus which, it's the clank body that looks like the one in the time window, very early on. Though I suppose that if she exists elsewhere she could probably build another one.

[wavewright62]

There's still one copy of Lucrezia in Zola.

[Jitter]

At least the on in Zola, and the original is presumably wherever the spider priestesses made copies from. Some sort of alternate reality or another dimension or something like that?

[wavewright62]

<rank_speculation>Barry had an idea, and has gone to find her.</rank speculation>

[thorny]

So how fast can Agatha rebuild engines, I wonder?

I seem to remember her doing one before they hit the ground once --

ETA: not precisely. I remembered it wrong; what I was remembering was this -- start at the link, read that page and the next two.

https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030623

and wow the artwork sure has changed!

[Róisín]

I wonder if there is enough power left in the flame to let Agatha go Queen?

[wavewright62]

I'm not sure Agatha would choose to go queen at this stage.
Unless
she realises that it may be the only way to open the portal to Skifander again.

[Jitter]

Also they say a Queens needs her wellspring and her flame, which I think might indicate she will be linked to a particular place. Surely Agatha doesn’t want to reign on this island?

As for the repairs, how quickly can Agatha, assisted by other sparks, plus Train and Castle, be able to repair the ship? Hopefully quickly enough!

[thorny]

I don't think Agatha's a queen in the time window scenes in which Bang sees her; and we haven't seen those from the other end yet.

Will try to find them, but not right now.