A speculation about the Geisterdamen

[murgatroyd666]

I've been thinking about the Geisterdamen. They're rather unusual, aren't they? Some people have speculated that the Geisterdamen might be cave dwellers, or perhaps the inhabitants of another dimension

Comments

[bunnyjadwiga]

See, I kept thinking of the ladies of Mars from the books by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
But hollow earth, or Moon, works well too. We know that Barry figured out where the attack was being launched from (in the book) but... where is it.

P.S. people keep saying that we have confirmation that Lucrezia had time travel based on some comment of Vrin's, but I can't find it.

[murgatroyd666]

P.S. people keep saying that we have confirmation that Lucrezia had time travel based on some comment of Vrin's, but I can't find it.

It seems to be a reasonable inference, based on what Vrin says here: http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20051230

[bunnyjadwiga]

It's an inference-- but it was only the visits when Vrin was a novice that The Lady came to them in the same guise, i.e. Lucrezia. So, we can't assume that it was Lucrezia 'from the beginning of all things.' It's equally-- or perhaps *more*-- likely that Lucrezia stumbled on the mystery cult and pretended to be The Goddess. Typical victorian fiction fare, too.

[murgatroyd666]

Well, there's also the panel on that page in which the Eternal Lady is choking a worshipper with seems to be Enigma's black mechanical arm. We know Enigma used a time window.

Did Enigma exist at the time of the events on that page? If so, does Enigma also exist at the current point in the story? Or is she a version of the Other who will at some point in the future inhabit a clank body and go back in time to visit the Geisterdamen?

[bunnyjadwiga]

At the beginning of Girl Genius, we see Enigma looking through a time window, and something causing all the metal to arc. But again, as was pointed out here, we don't see physical time travel taking place. So, while it's a reasonable expectation that the hand on that page, which Vrin says belongs to the Eternal Lady, is that of Enigma-- and it may in fact be the Other as Lucrezia in Enigma's body... (or another Other, or someone claiming to be the Other, in Enigma's body).
Mind you, that's all groundless speculation.

[murgatroyd666]

Dang! If we ever want to learn the answers, I guess we'll just have to keep reading, won't we?

It's all a dastardly plot to ensnare our eyeballs, I tell you!

[bunnyjadwiga]

No, no that's the Mr. Fan Services to keep us reading. :)

[vnend]

Well, we know that, on taking possession of Agatha's body, Lucrezia said that it had been a long time since she was human. I find it hard to read that as something other than that she was in a clank body for several years, given the other glimpses we have had.

But we have a lot of dots and damned few lines to connect them back in that time period.

[murgatroyd666]

It might also mean that it waas a long time since she had any body at all. She could have been trapped in the Summoning Engine, or existing on an aetheric plane somewhere, or not have been anything until she'd been downloaded. Where is a character in a video game when you aren't playing it?

[doc_w_31415]

But we know Vrin was a revenant, making her an untrustworthy witness.

We have no idea how much of that story was observation (and over what period of time) and how much was programming.

[murgatroyd666]

Hah! Good point!

Wouldn't be the first time that readers of a mystery were misled by what they thought they knew ...

[quadibloc]

The Geisterdamen are overdressed for Martians.

But of course Burroughs did write a series of novels about Pellucidar, his land in a hollow Earth, which even intersected with the Tarzan series. And the novel in which that intersection took place involved an airship - the O-220 - which was based on some pretty Sparky technology. It was made of a fantastically light and strong metal, so instead of being filled with helium, hydrogen, or hot air... it had vacuum inside for maximum buoyancy!