Don’t say I never give you a good read for your money! So yes, it would seem that Gola has now lost for good those memories she had gone to Magellan USA to recover. Ooops. Today’s updateshould help to explain more clearly abour how and why Vera was absorbing “age”… there’s still a lot more to happen in the last four pages.
Hopefully the exposition heavy nature of today’s update still reads as a normal conversation.
Is it just me or is gola’s hair turning gray again?
…um… just you maybe?
BTW, two lines in today’s update came from comments you made for the last update… the “Fountain of Youth” line was already in the script – but I liked the bit about the diapers I decided to
stealborrow it for today’s page.Well that is cool. I feel honored.
So if I am reading this correctly if she takes a month away from a resident she is aging her self 5 days.
about that, yes.
so … who among my fellow old codgers would make a trade like gola had inflicted on her? how much of your life would you be willing to forget in exchange for physical youth? how about younger people? anyone willing to go back to childhood? to start over in infancy?
Well I would love to go back to being 12 again,
.
before the monthly visitorHmm not sure how to do the Strike through on this site.
me neither (well, not through the comment box) – I added it for you through the control edit panel…
Okay true this is a wonderful idea but i hope the characters realize what danger they are putting Gola in.
The obvious possibility is that some now-forgotten enemy shows up looking for revenge…
Say, did Gola have a family? More importantly, did she have a kid after she turned 34, that she no longer remembers?
Good for picking up on that, I suspect that in some future story we will see her attempts to catch up on things she has missed. I find it particularly interesting on finding out how much of the original teams adventures will be “classified” and what about important policy decisions and Magellan institute secrets she may have been privy to? My what wonderful possibility’s this gives us.
It didn’t answer the question I’m dying to know. Is Gola still telepathic?
There’s a remarkable number of questions to be answered for such a short story isn’t there? That will be revealed soon.
Poor Gola Beh…
On the one hand, she’s now fifteen years old. She’s got a whole life ahead of her, and thanks to Twilight’s reinforcing of her memories, she remembers at least her basic education.
On the other hand… everything she does now, for her whole life, will be held up to and compared against everything that a stranger called Gola Beh did during that amnesia blackhole. This stranger did – some incredible things. Gola Beh is going to be forced to live up to the example of her more experienced self; and she’s going to have to catch up on 41 years of technological improvements as well, and 41 years of improvements in telepathic techniques on top of that…
Is she going to end up registering at Magellan in order to catch up?
Hmm. This is an interesting case. The usual scenario is that the aging-deaging is reversed. But it does make me wonder how morally wrong her actions are.
For one, she could use it on people a few days away from death at old age and turn them back into newborns. The person then has no memories anymore, but again a full lifespan to make new ones. You’re not taking a life, and you’re not taking memories that weren’t about to disappear soon anyway.
There is the matter of consent of course. But frankly, I suspect that she doesn’t need unwitting victims anyway. If she opens up a practice, offering people a second youth, she’d have a cue. Even with the memory loss, I suspect many people would in fact consider it a fair trade to get another dose of their ‘best years’ (assuming they aren’t happier currently of course). And now that we know that it’s possible to “fortify memories” before the de-aging to make sure you keep them, Vera and one telepath can open up a private clinic, offering to de-age clients after the fortify-procedure. Open up a branch in Hollywood and she’ll be putting several plastic surgeons out of buisness :p
I’ll touch on that a bit shortly – but don’t forget the more she absorbs the older she gets, so it’s not like she’s be able to help all that many people.
I would advise Gola (if she wasn’t a fictitious character) to get out and enjoy things a bit. She devoted a lifetime to saving the world. She now has another one. She should use it to take a vacation.
Bleh! I do not approve of this turn of events. I wanted Gola to get her memory back.
Sorry… I did for the longest time toy with one of three options – gets all her memory back; doesn’t get her memory back but keeps post-15 memories; loses all memories past age 15. Admittedly, getting all her memory back was never really in the running. There’s a reason I went down this path as we’ll see…
And what was Vera’s third and final wish? Don’t tell me Vera still don’t know that genies always grant three wishes
Thanks everyone for your comments!
I love that she now looks to be moving like a teenager. Defiant “No!” with the swish of the hair, leaning on one arm (I used to do that when I was a teenager – ha!), throwing open the curtains, seems to have that restless-teenager look even in still pictures!
It’s great you picked up on those little cues… yes, despite her ‘mental age’ I’m changing her body language to suit her physical age.
Ya I noticed that too and thought it was a nice surprise.
Long-time reader, first time commenting (I think). What an original and interesting power/curse you came up with. The explanation for why Gola didn’t lose more memories was a a bit hand-wavy for my taste, but over all this is very interesting storyline.
Thanks for commenting! I agree about the hand-waviness of the explanation, but then it’s also only a guess by Twilight so might not be the actual reason…
Ah that grey area so you can come up with a better true reason once you think it up…. Am I right?
well she now has the opportunity at a new life, with the benefit of more experience. perhaps she should apply to magellan.
That would be funny–leave as a teacher, return as a student.
I think that’ll be abit weird… Even for that school.
My bet is that she goes back to Magellan as a student, but with a new name. What an opportunity for the faculty to assess their training from the inside! Plus, she needs a new set of peers, and she probably never had the kind of training the kids are getting now. Spence will get special joy out of kicking her little teenage butt. Jones will eventually figure it out but be convinced not to tell. …Of course, I’m assuming she hasn’t lost her telepathic abilities. Sounds like she’s intact except for the lost memories, something inherent like that should still be there.
So your saying that she will recover her full memories given time? interesting thought but that does not seem to be where the text is pointing to, at best we might get her having a affinity with news reels about her but that is the closest i can think of.
Nah… I meant that the inherent telepathic abilities would still be there. The lost memories seem to be gone for good. Explanation makes sense to me.
this is quite a turn of events. cant wait to see the rest of this chapter.