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[Improvius]

If we take the Princess to be litterally some sort of succssesor to the Queen, it's possible she is some sort of backup file for Melissa. This could also fit in with the "sleeping" part - as if she were just sitting inactive, waiting to be restored.

-Imp

[Saxon237]

[Spec] re: Sleeping Princess

[ari]

[Heresiarch]

Re: [Spec] re: Sleeping Princess

[Heresiarch]

My biggest problem with all this, which I can't see a way around, is that the Princess is clearly identified by SPDR as an external process, like the flea. How does that fit in?

[Knofc]

Ok, here's my theory on the relationship between SP and Melissa. It's kinda off topic, but bear with me here ;P

Okay, first the princess has been identified as an external process, as has the flea (as Heresiarch says).Now the story seems to start with the retrieval of the forerunner artefact. Melissa scans it and gets "a stutter of lag once in a while" and a sense that "things are being…moved around.","'An intruder, something inhabiting the system." Could this be the Princess loading the flea into Melissa? With the Princess inhabiting the circuitry of the object? (those were from Melissa's memories)

Then, from the operators monologue:

"Spider's just a reflex, a task and a toolset. Doesn't get the bigger picture. I'm nailed to a griddle of sand while some bitch is shooting bullets into me."

In the phase 3 computer code we find the flea trying to evade spider, whilst at the same time digging into Melissa's memories, could the flea be 'the assasin' that melissa is reffering to? Or perhaps the princess is the assasin, and the flea's digging is 'the bullets'? Dana just happens to get caught in the cross-fire, accidently harming Melissa, and gets the blaame because she's the only concrete thing Melissa can get a fix on?

So then, what if the princess is some form of AI designed primarily to infiltrate an enemy AI, and steal relevant information? When the flea manages to convince Melissa to destroy the spider, it immediately goes into "seek behold reveal reveal: !law reveal: !truth" (again from the phase 3 comp code)

In the princesses own words we get "There was once a fell enchantment that broke apart a mighty / castle, slaying many guards and reaching through the Inner / Keep to lay low / the Queen that held dominion there" is she the fell enchantment? She also makes a reference to the flea as her 'man Friday' with the whole fleas footprint in the sand (a Robinson Crusoe out-take, modified) is the flea the enchantment?

Then from the Killer image texts we find that Melissa and the spider are both trying to keep the princess "in very bad shape" (Killer 9). In this she also offers Dana aid in the form of a construct to protect her from Melissa (a form of, the enemy of my enemy is my friend)

Finally in Killer 13 she states" I am fine, have the necessary tools to hide hard in the darkness, to meddle in the affairs of dragons and run like hell This entity generally gives good results." Is this her saying that she does this kind of invasive attacks regularly? She has the tools, and also "generally gives good results."


Summary: Princess and Flea are trying to wrestle something from Melissa's memory/meddle in her affairs. Melissa is just trying to defend herself, accidentally got Dana involved, and now here we are with the flea with direct access to Melissa after destroying the spider.

There you go, now may the flaming and trouting begin!

[vegasdaemon]

I posted this in another topic, but I think it relates better to this topic. Lemme say my two cents, because I want to know other's opinions on this:

If the Princess is a copy of Melissa in her non-infected form, it's very possible it matches up to the killer.jpg messages. The backup of her original code could have been kept on file, and when Melissa realized that she was infected, stored this backup in a quarantined space, where it had no real access to functions and what not.

In relation to the killer.jpg story, a Princess is usually found to be virgin, pure , but yet foolish and carefree. This could be why the Princess's text is showing to be somewhat kiddish in nature. Giddy, carefree. She's playing games of hide and seek. This is before she learned her military role.

Now, as a Queen, a Queen takes on much more responsibility. She's a military role in a sense (behind every King is a strong Queen). And Queens tend to be quite vengeful and angry. This explains Melissa's anger at Dana. And as with all political figures, they tend to be manipulated by advisors without knowing (the flea now being her primary consultant without her knowledge)

With this information, I tend to definitely go in the direction that the Princess is an initial backup that was quarantined.

Another thought of interest, is that SPDR might have been trying to reconstruct Melissa from her last known good configuration, which was before the crash, but after her infection. When SPDR recreated her main sector, kind of her minimal mind, she saw these reconstructions as being hideous (because they were foreign to her, alien-like, infected body parts). Now that the flea has her again, she's back into the mindset that this body is her own and it'll do for her purposes (and when the flea regains control of Melissa, Melissa no longer has any questions regarding her reconstructed system and of her new priorities (to reveal a truth).

Just wanted to purge what was on my mind.

Vegasdaemon.

[Jacqueline]

Aw crap. I've just been catching up on this thread, and while I'm still holding to my theory of the Princess being a backup copy or somehow a part of Melissa, now some of the other possibilities have me worried.

Wouldn't it be the ultimate irony if all along the Princess and the Flea are both from the Covenant, if they went together just like the SPDR and the Operator (don't like each other, but still on the same side?). And here we've been helping her, feeding her information about Earth, and trusting the things she tells us? Though even in that case I don't believe she's being deliberately deceitful, she could be doing all this without even realizing her real purpose.

And getting into wilder territory, maybe she was somehow generated by the Flea from code it stole from Melissa, thus prompting Melissa to lock her away, even though she's technically a part of her (because she saw the reconstructions as hideous?)

Well, that's one way to sew all the theories together in a Frankenstein-esque package...

Nope, no, nevermind. The Princess is good and she's here to help us, she's too funny and cute and likable to be evil. (Don't argue with me, I'm not listening, La la la la la!)