Latest blog post: Redraw of chapter 1 is happening (2024-05-11)

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Borg

The Capgras delusion normally originates from brain damage or neurodegenerative disease, so he really ought to see a doctor about that.

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Regular

Perhaps Dan's brother really was replaced, just not by the military or any other human institution…

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Senior

Well we still have these creatures labelled as "Ghosts".

This doesn't really answer Gharr's question though and it suggests they might not even know the answer. I mean, sure he starts going ballistic and extreme paranoia/conspiracy theory nut, but since Val doesn't know why Dan was so sure his brother is a doppelganger there's no indication of what started it.

The other strange thing is that Dan has an intense hatred for military, governments and humanity... But he's adoring of aliens? Suggests that Dan believes the government has the technology and capability of creating doppelgangers and aliens aren't responsible.

Hopefully it really is some strange mental or child trauma, or his brother simply being very different from the intense training and Dan reading too much into it.

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Regular

Yep, I was alluding to the Ghosts. Disclaimer: I have no Idea what they are up to. But it would be cool, story-wise, if they did such things.

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Senior

As usual, the million dollar question is: Why would the Doppelgänger return "home" and risk detection, unless he has some mission to fulfill right there? "I'm still with the army, and quite busy there" would have avoided his Dantection quite easily.

Sure, it would make for a lot of plot if there's something of interest to extraterrestrials within Dans own family, but ...

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Onyavar

Well, the first conclusion (the service changes people) is actually quite reasonable, and children/teenagers can clue in on the subtle differences and changes in a person while closing their mind to the explanation; thus not understanding why that change happened - which leads to the false, second conclusion of suspecting a doppelganger.

I would suspect, just from this sparse narrative, that the brother had some traumatic stuff happening to him. PTSD, robot-like behaviour, not recognizing Dan at first sight (because Dan had grown too), less affection towards Dan... and bam.

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New
Katarn

It would be funny if plot twist would be that the Major is the brother

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Senior

The Chekhovian Obscured Faces do suggest that we might recognize him otherwise. I doubt it'll be the major, though - their ages seem a bit too different. (And not Alec Hyde from the last panel, either. ;-)

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Senior

Yeah, Age difference of 24 years. Dan would be at least 6 in those images so it's hard to imagine the brother starting military service that late in life.

Still... I can't help but notice that Dan is well aware of the military base nearby... and this house is supposed to be Dan's so I could see his brother being there.

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Senior
Wouter215

Gharr:

Did Dan's brother not have antivirus installed on his implant? Because we used to have a problem with that...

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Dan may need some family counselling, therapy, and such. And maybe lay off the American sci-fi movies.






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TRIVIA
The Alliance space stretches for an impressive 16 thousand light years along the longest axis and contains approximately 12 billion star systems. Despite that, 99.99% of those star systems haven't been explored even by an automatic mapping drone yet, and the borders of the Alliance space are defined mostly by the reach of spaceships from the nearest colony or space station, and in general are purely informative.