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Elizabeth Bear
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« on: January 09, 2008, 12:59:24 pm » |
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As per a suggestion, a spoiler-friendly thread in which to discuss what may or may not be going on, and what it may all mean.
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~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Chaz: "As if puberty weren't stressful enough."
Todd: "See? That's why we're better than all those other law enforcement agencies. Correct use of the subjunctive."
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txanne
Laser Snark
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Posts: 2701
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« Reply #1 on: January 09, 2008, 01:12:23 pm » |
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Ooh, I got some.
"The anomaly" and "It"--they're fighting one and only one Thing.
"jamming"--Chaz and Hafs are ensouled vampires, for lack of a better term. They can use the Thing's mojo against it.
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el_jefe
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« Reply #2 on: January 09, 2008, 01:57:30 pm » |
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Hafidha made a lateral move to the FBI from the Secret Service fairly recently, for reasons that are not explicit in her personnel file. something happened. She became drastically ill; her relationship with her fiance crumbled; at work--all she had left--her reliability and security clearance were questioned.
Eventually her health improved, and Stephen Reyes recruited her into the FBI and Shadow Unit. Hmmmmm.
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I carry a gun because I can't fit Sol Todd in my pocket.
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txanne
Laser Snark
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« Reply #3 on: January 09, 2008, 02:13:47 pm » |
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That'd be when she got Infected. Or whatever the kids are calling it these days.
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Joe Sherry
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« Reply #4 on: January 09, 2008, 04:06:31 pm » |
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There may be an Anomaly as a singular, but being that this is the anomalous crimes unit, I think that Shadow Unit is working like X-Files, being that there may be oddness of the week.
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txanne
Laser Snark
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Posts: 2701
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« Reply #5 on: January 09, 2008, 04:25:22 pm » |
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I'll grant you an Iteration (...Host?) of the Week. I think it's one Big Bad, and they're having to find Its minions, which are never the same twice.
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MadGastronomer
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« Reply #6 on: January 09, 2008, 05:47:25 pm » |
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I suspect that there are two types of people affected by the Anomaly: Hosts (who get turned into nasty murdering types) and those who are merely Affected (like Chaz and Haidha, who have "anomaloid metabolisms"). It looks to me as if there is a single source for all of it, but it manifests differently, by infection or affection.
edited to fix spelling
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« Last Edit: January 09, 2008, 07:36:29 pm by MadGastronomer »
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txanne
Laser Snark
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« Reply #7 on: January 09, 2008, 05:52:59 pm » |
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Yes! That's what I was getting at, in my foggy vacashun-brane way!
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Joe Sherry
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« Reply #8 on: January 09, 2008, 07:45:36 pm » |
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But then, is the Anomaly is an entity or just an infecting virus?
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MadGastronomer
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« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2008, 07:50:15 pm » |
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I think it's a whole lot weirder than that.
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Zengar
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« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2008, 09:30:15 pm » |
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Right, deleted this post of mine from the thread in the meta folder, since it is possibly spoilery sepculation  Well, now that I have a more complete reading to go on, I have a new theory.
I think that there are the anomaloids which are... I don't know, maybe an induced mutation? The characters don't know, and at least so far we haven't been offered any tidbits that are outsid their awareness. They come in at least three different observed varieties (may actually be different stages or different expresions of the same alteration as affected by other factors) and exhibit "supernatural" abilities.
And then there is The Anomaly, which may or may not actually exist as a descrete entity. Something that leads the majority of anomaloids down into the realm of our nightmares. It might just be psychological or hormonal factors that most anomaloids have in comon, or it might be some form of intelligence in it's own right. (in which case it quite likely causes the anomaloids) There is some evidence that the latter might be the case, but it could also be just the mixture of coincidence with brains trained to see patterns in everything.
This is as far as I am willing to reason without further data.
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MadGastronomer
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« Reply #11 on: January 09, 2008, 09:37:27 pm » |
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Three? I can only see two, hosts and those with anomaloid abilities. What's your third?
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Zengar
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« Reply #12 on: January 09, 2008, 09:51:57 pm » |
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The characters have mentioned alphas, betas, and gammas in their livejournals. Betas seem to be the good guys, gammas so far seem to be the bad guys, and alphas got a brief passing mention once. Of course, this probably amounts to fourth hand information by this point, so I'm not going to let myself think in those classifications yet.
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