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[rose]

[Question] Why are the 3P after Combed Thunderclap?

[DarkHuman]

i thought it was just the driver. didnt think about the earth 3P agents.

(i dont' understand how CT got home-if he/she did.)

[Mexican]

That's a good question. never really thought about it, but know I'll probably think about it for the next few days. My guess is that CT is hiding rather than being at home, where the 3P can find -him/her, since he-/she requested help from us.

[Scott]

my random sporadic thinking suggested the 3P were planning on stealing the cube, then CT accidentally made off with it. So then either the 3p immediately traced CT to where she was, or else there were already plans in place fFor whoever-managed-to-get-to-earth-with-the-cube to be whisked away in a car with a driver and all.

Another nugget of contemplation. While we know when CT left perplex city, we don't know when CT arrived on earth. There could be a big period of time between the two, during which time 3p could have been tracing and tracking and digging up as much info about CT as they could, so when CT landed on earth they knew right where CT would be.

directly answering your question: the 3P are after CT because CT knows where the cube is. essentially the same reason CT is of interest to us. She's the only one who knows fFor sure where the cube is right now.

[Mexican]

this is true. I completely forgot all about that. Thanks for answering my question.

[Geist]

[rose]

This is very helpful. Thanks.

Do we all agree that CT is on Earth now? Or is only the Cube here?

[DarkHuman]

I was under the impression that the "gateway" here was one way, but the cube can do whatever it wants to. so unless CT AND the cube are in Pxc, i don't see how she could be.

[rose]

So my imaginings on what might have happened:

CT knows that the Cube is about to be stolen and intervenes ending up on Earth. I think that someone on Earth - the 3P agents - knew about the Cube and CTs arrival. {my support for this is the markings on the Academy invitation card showing the times and the actions of the theives, I suspect CT may have had something to do with that being put on the card.. or if not, clearly CT could have known about the theft ahead of time. ) I still think Aiko was involved for whatever that is worth.

Even if the original plan of the 3P had worked, someone would have ended up on Earth with the Cube, no? I'm thinking that they would have planned for that eventuality, the 3P seems to have always known more about the Cube than any other group.

I think the 3P arranged for the car, etc for CT, but CT eluded them at some point. ( Although I did wonder if CT was posing as one of their agents, there was an email about an agent that questioned the manner in which he or she was recruited.)

I'm still not clear on when CT would have buried the Cube- before he or she got into the car? If so, then it might be near the original spot - if only we knew where that was.

Clearly the 3P don't know exactly where the Cube is now, even though they started in San Francisco they could end up anywhere by now, so we don't know where they are either. I'm assuming they don't know where CT is or CT would be coerced into telling them where the Cube is.

In the meantime, CT being a great hacker, managed to interrupt the card data and add stuff to them, including the "I STOLE THE CUBE. HELP ME" message, the blobs and shapes (why did we omit the sybols on card 60 from the layout of the shapes pieced together?) , the number strings, the risk pieces and dice and the playing card symbols. I am also willing to speculate that CT had something to do with getting the leaked emails released to players who solved a certain number of cards. (I can't come up with any other logical person who might have done that - but there could be someone else.

So I think CT has been here, living large, maybe even posing as a 3P agent for part of the time for all these long years while the Cube is missing.

(Please feel free to disagree and point out anything that I overlooked - there is so much information here. And, I understand that the Cube may be sentietnt at some level, but I am not sold on the Cube making phone calls, arranging cars and buying coats. I think the 3P with their advanced technologies could easily have a bank of payphones ring, heck the PMs did it in ilovebees and they are mere Earthlings like us. ; ) )

[volvox]

I've always leaned toward CT being some sort of double agent. Maybe CT was a 3P agent and knew about the coming cube theft and what the 3P would do with the cube afterwards. CT then decided to thwart the theft, probably for moral reasons, possibly consulting The Academy before doing so. If so, I'm guessing CT would have contacted Sente directly. Sente would probably have kept all of this a secret, but got the wheels turning for recovering the cube and interfacing with Earth. I'm betting both CT and Sente figured having the cube on Earth, and the subsequent recovery, would buy some time until a way to deal with the 3P could be figured out.

On a semi-side note, one thing that always bothered me is that we don't really know how the Earth/PXC relationship was forged, or how the original data link go set up. Hopefully I won't get trouted for that, but my searches didn't seem to turn up much.

I've spent a good chunk of time thinking about this. I feel if we knew how the original link and such was established, that would help us figure out how CT got to Earth, and possibly where they ended up and why.

Ok, enough babbling. All of this is hard to put into words since there is so much swirling around. I should also get back to work.

[angadeon]

Ok, spec mode on:

~CT is not working with the 3P, she's trying to keep the Cube away from them. The leaked email of Jan 8, 04 would have marked one instance where the 3P failed to catch on that someone else was going to interrupt their plan.
~Since CT is working against the 3P, none of the arrangements when she gets to earth were put in place by the 3P...notably the coat in her size.
~The Cube has a limited intelligence, and nearly all the power of the time/space with which to do what it means to do... but we've seen in research notes that it has no will to disobey.
~Upon touching the Cube, it now knows what her intentions, or orders, are. As the Cube can't disobey, it immediately sets to work following through with everything at about the speed that CT can think of it. CT probably thinks, "Earth would be the safest place to hide this right now..." and Shazam! the Cube obeys. CT thinks, "I'm cold", Shazam! again.
~CT wasn't expecting the Cube to have those kind of capabilities... "NOTHING CAN DO THIS, NOTHING AT ALL. NOTHING CAN DO EVERYTHING, NOTHING CAN BE EVERYWHERE." and subsequently doesn't actually believe it yet. If she did she would have spent some time with the Cube learning to control what thoughts of hers it acted upon to get her and it back to PerplexCity without outside help.
~CT, being the computer genius she obviously is, uses that to enlist help in a way that she can believe in. But she's very scared... she's scared of the 3P, she's scared of the Cube's power, she's scared of doing the wrong thing, she's scared to hand the cube over to us even, knowing what it is capable of, and perhaps with her computer skills she has been able to follow the information we have all discovered about the Cube.

Virtually all the power of the universe, at a thought, would you hand it over?

[volvox]

I'd sell it on eBay, but only if my reserve price was met.

Seriously, those are some possibilities that I had not thought of. Thanks for sharing.

[rose]

[rose]

Another thought - if the Cube is sentient - didn't CT think about maybe going to a library or a hotel? Wonder which library of hotel CT would have in mind??
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but perhaps the Cube got tickets to the library or hotel that CT was thinking of, although why the Cube couldn't just transport CT without a car service is another question to be answered another day.

[Note - I admit bias against the Cube being sentient theory simply because I made an expensive wager that it wasn't sentient, so I can't claim to be objective in this discussion.]

[ixalon]

It could be the cube is only operational in the conditions found on PXC's planet. It could possibly require trace amounts of the mineral it's made from to be nearby or some other requirement. This would go to explain why it's pretty much powerless here on Earth (a good thing ass it makes it safe for us to handle) and why it had to take someone with it...