#AND she has a deep enough understanding of the Disassembly Drones so that she knows how to prevent their Solvers from functioning properly

[kraymerman]

I believe that there is a high likelihood that Alice survived episode 6.

...

Well okay, maybe "survived" isn't the right word, more like I believe that there is a high likelihood that Alice could come back from her death in episode 6.

Why do I think that? Well partly because she's one of my favorite characters and I want her to, but more prominently because she's come back from the dead before (if my theory is correct)!

Now, anyone who has spent some time in the Alice fandom knows about the list. She's in it, it deadnames her (evil trans queen), and so on and so forth. What matters to my post, though, is what her status is labelled as, which, chronologically, would have been her status at the time of Cabin Fever Labs's attempt at patching Nori of the Solver.

There she is, number 017, deadname scribbled out for respect. And what is her status? "Corrupted". Now, we don't know for sure what it means to be "corrupted" (trust me, I have spent several late nights/early mornings trying to figure it out), but my hypothesis is that the state we see Mika (032) and Jame (012) in are the result of being corrupted by a bad patch (Mika left, Jame right)

Chained up, sedated, kinda fleshy, and very dead, right? Now, to explain why I think this is what corruption looks like, it's just process of elimination. It can't be a successful patch because these guys aren't anything like Nori or Yeva (plus it does everything except outright say that Yeva was the first drone at Cabin Fever Labs to receive a successful patch).

Athough I could see a possibility where this is the result of a patch having no effect and the Solver lashing out, the part that hangs it up for me is that these drones wrote on the inside of their locker doors, meaning that they weren't killed then chained up inside of their lockers. It means that they were restrained inside of their lockers, then died on their own afterwards. That's not what would happen if the Solver was on a rampage. Also, even if the writing means nothing and these drones had ineffective patches, the Solver fought back, then they were offed, why would Cabin Fever Labs keep the dead bodies? Let alone chain them up and sedate them? They would've properly disposed of it so as to eliminate a potential host for the Solver, there's no reason they would have kept the body around if this was the product of a "no effect" patch.

So that leaves only one option: corruption. And just looking at it, this feels, at least to me, what "corruption" could look like. A sort of halfway between machine and flesh, chained up and sedated so as to get the spazzing drone from catching anyone, and a slow burnout after being confined in their locker (possibly kept alive so the scientists could see what happened). Seems pretty straightforward to me.

So to bring it back to my original point, this short-circuting freak out, a corruption of the mind, followed by a slow confined death. If this is an accurate evaluation of corruption, then that is what happened to Alice when they tried to patch her. What Mika and Jame look like? At the time of Nori's patching, Alice looked like that too. Despite that, though, she was still, through methods unknown to us, able to not only come back to life, but also completely reverse the fleshiness and return to looking like a completely normal worker drone (minus the knife tail, although I always assumed that that was a self-modification on her part considering it lacks any of the fleshiness characteristic of Solver Tails).

If she was able to come back unscathed from such a terrible fate then, then what's stopping her from using the same methods to come back from a simple head stomp? It was just her head that was crushed after all, not her core.

An addendum: "What Methods?!"

After reading my initial theory, I'm sure you're asking: "unknown methods? What does that mean?" Well I'm glad you asked, hypothetical person reading this that I made up in my head, because that lets me get into the biggest reason why I love Alice as a character so much. She doesn't make any sense according to the rules of the Murder Drones world that we already know. But not in a "she contradicts them", moreso a "she works in a different way", implying that there is a whole new set of rules in this world that exist, but we just don't know about them yet.

Anyone who thinks about Alice for more than a few minutes realizes very quickly how her existence as a drone admitted to Cabin Fever Labs makes no sense. She's very obviously been given the Solver, both because of her "corrupted" status on the list and the fact that she's even here at all, yet she also shows no symptoms of being possessed by the Solver or, most importantly, any signs of possessing the telekinesis/regenerative/create flesh limbs abilities inherent to all drones who possess the Solver, patched or otherwise. Not only that, but she also actively distances herself from drones who do, calling them "witches".

Hell, in the case of regeneration, she straight-up proves she doesn't have it when she replaces the tip of her finger that Uzi bit off with a new one instead of regenerating her old one.

In a comment section somewhere, I saw someone speculate that the reason Alice is like this is because she is asymptomatic to the effects of the Solver. This idea absolutely fascinates me, the idea that, for whatever reason, the Solver sits dormant in Alice's code instead of infecting her like it does all other drones. (I suspect that this is the reason why she was able to come back while other corrupted drones weren't. For a moment, something happened to kick her strand of the Solver out of it's dormancy to bring her back to life, before going dormant again.)

Even if my speculations don't end up being true, this idea that, in some drones, the Solver can lay dormant is still an entirely new concept, a new function of the Solver that we never see it display anywhere else. It's a treasure map hinting at a treasure trove of all-new lore waiting just at the end. The sheer promise Alice has is so exciting to me. There's so much there, hiding just below the surface I can feel it.

It is for this reason that, out of all the Murder Drones characters that go underutilized, Alice is the one that, I feel, is the most desperately deserving of an episode/mini comic series of her own. THERE IS SO MUCH GOING ON HERE, I CAN SMELL IT! WE JUST NEED TO GO A LITTLE DEEPER!!!

[waayix]

take an old doodle of 1 staring at ur search history and a big fat info dump about her under the cut because i wanna talk about this bitch and make myself sad.

She's not canon to any AU other than my own, where she's the only internecion drone in existence. There's some angst under the cut so weeeeee

-While 1 is not a sad character by personality, nor is her story compelling, her circumstances are fucked up. She was basically a testing ground for JCJenson to see if they could make haha big murder bots but was also sent to copper 9 in a rush. But then they eventually changed their minds and abandoned the internecion line and 1 herself, figuring she would just die on her own as they worked on the next line.

-Nope, not for 1 though. She was a stubborn drone. of course, since she was a prototype she was bound to have more problems, such as aging and having worse heating problems than disassembly drones. And due to her having 3 "eyes" instead of 5, she is considered half blind by drone standards. Not that it makes a difference for her. She just sees more solid shapes than details.

-Due to the fact she was sent alone, she never really developed emotionally since she had no one to talk to and bounce off of. All her programming told her when she first woke up was to kill and survive, and since she didn't know anything else, naturally went down that path. Didn't help that understandably, workers NEVER wanted to speak with her. There were a few workers who would work with her for black market trades and smuggling due to her traveling skills, but they usually ended with them catching her on a hungry day and her eventually killing them, and everyone else avoiding her until the inevitable.

-Over the years, 1 was and still is EXTREMELY strict with herself. She refuses to let herself develop any hobbies and considers emotions a waste of time once she learned what they could do. However, this also stunted her emotional growth even more.

-Since she only had to rely on herself for anything and everything, while she is extremely reliable, she never set a goal for herself. She stopped caring about her company's protocols years ago, even moreso once the disassembly drones arrived. That just gave her more of an excuse to do her own thing. She never lets herself have anything but the bare minimum. Because in her head, that's all she needs.

-There's still a part deep down inside of 1's personality chips that wants to expand and grow, but there's an even bigger part of her that tells her it'll be a bad thing if she ever did anything else. She doesn't know why she thinks like this, and prefers to not think about it at it's core.

-In other words, 1 is stuck in a mental loop she accidentally created for herself of just sticking to the bare minimum and never trying to understand herself, anything, or anyone.

-1's A.I still has a loose concept of depression though. Strangely enough, those are the most 'peaceful' days for her. When she has a 'good oil stash' and 'good shelter', and she'll even let workers approach her during those days, when really it's just her own subconscious begging her to rest and try to think more for herself, because 1 is the workaholic type who refuses to look after herself other than food. Because she's convinced that's all she'll need.

-That's the reason why her voice box is broken, after all. Doesn't help her body's recovery nanites have also been declining, so it's only a matter of time before 1 slowly rots in her own little world, where oil just won't help her anymore.

[i-just-love-spop]

About what happened...

“I had another nightmare. You died again.” For Scorpia and Entrapta? Scorpia feels guilty for leaving Entrapta on the island for as long as she did and is plagued with nightmares where she didn't leave in time to get her back?

Request by @haro-ra

I was not expecting to get a request for Entrapta and Scorpia, but I love this idea so much and immediately knew what I wanted to write. I love both characters, and they have such a fun dynamic, too. This was SO fun to write!

Thank you so much for the request, I hope you like how it turned out!

Summary: Takes place in between “Horde Prime” and “Launch”. Scorpia goes to Entrapta’s tent to talk about what happened back at the Horde and tell her she’s sorry she didn’t come look for her earlier.

—

“Hey. Sorry, I know it’s late, but...”

Scorpia stuck her head through the tent entrance. Her pincers clicked open and close on repeat nervously.

“Oh, hi Scorpia.” Entrapta looked up from the drone she had been dismembering for the last hour and waved at her friend. “Shouldn’t you be sleeping? My statistics indicate most princesses tend to be sleeping at this hour. The exception to the rule is Adora, but recent events seem to indicate that lack of sleep isn’t good for her health, either.”

“Yeah, I... that’s true. I think... most people need sleep?” Scorpia shrugged. “Anyway, I... wanted to talk to you. Can I- can I come in?”

“Sure. I mean, about...” Entrapta paused to calculate for a moment, “seventeen percent of you are already in here anyway. The remaining eighty-three percent can enter.”

She smiled at her.

Scorpia was nice, and one of the few people that had ever actually considered Entrapta her friend.

People were... weird, and complicated, and everyone was different. That wasn’t exactly easy for her. It had never been.

But Scorpia was just nice, and friendly, and supportive. She made Entrapta feel less left out. Entrapta liked that.

“Yeah, I- sorry, that was kinda rude, I didn’t want to disturb you or anything. I was actually going to knock, but this is a tent, so that was kind of ineffective.”

Scorpia rubbed the back of her head and grinned sheepishly.

“It’s fine, really. Come sit with me!”

“I... thanks.”

The white-haired woman did as she was told.

Entrapta pointed at disassembled pieces of drone in front of her. “This tech is fascinating! It’s so different from the one the First One’s left on Etheria. If you would look at this-”

“I-” Scorpia took a deep breath. This was hard. Stars, this was really, really hard. Especially since she was afraid changing the topic might make her friend think she wasn’t interested and hurt her feelings. Which absolutely wasn’t the case. It was really interesting to Scorpia when Entrapta talked about tech, even if she understood next to nothing. But that wasn’t what she needed to talk to her about right now. “Entrapta, listen, I- this tech thing is super interesting, really, but there’s actually something I’ve been meaning to talk to you about.”

“Oh?” Entrapta looked up at her. “What is it?”

“Uhm... I... About what happened... Back at the Horde, I mean... Entrapta listen, I- I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I shouldn’t have let Catra hurt you, I shouldn’t have let them take you away like that, I... I should have left the Horde and go look for you sooner. You- you could’ve gotten hurt, or... or worse-”

Scorpia couldn’t say it out loud. She couldn’t bear saying ‘you could’ve been dead by now, and it would be partially my fault if you were’, no matter how much the thought wouldn’t leave her head when she looked at her friend and no matter how much it haunted her in her sleep.

Entrapta raised an eyebrow.

“Waaait. Are you... apologizing? To me?”

She looked genuinely confused.

The white-haired woman nodded vigorously.

“I...” Scorpia swallowed hard. Tears were running down her face. “I’m sorry I was such a bad friend.”

“Hey... don’t cry. I don’t like seeing you upset.” Entrapta smiled at Scorpia encouragingly. “I’m not mad at you. But... I forgive you, if that makes you feel better.”

“It does, actually. A lot. I-I’m so sorry. I keep dreaming about something happening to you on Beast Island and when I wake up I keep wanting to check on you to make sure you’re actually here and okay, but I kept chickening out because I wasn’t sure if you were ready to forgive me or talk to me and I thought maybe you still needed some space – which would be totally cool by the way. Do you need space?”

Entrapta tilted her head to one side.

“I just said I’m not mad. Was my answer not clear enough?“

“I- no- I just...” Scorpia sighed. “I’m sorry. I... guess I was expecting you to stay mad at me longer.”

Entrapta gave her friend a pat on the head with her hair.

“It’s okay. And Scorpia... you’re not a bad friend.”

“I... I’m not?”

The tech genius shook her head.

“I mean, I’m still not an expert on friendship because the data on that topic is really confusing, but... I think you were just trying to be a good friend for Catra too hard.” She shrugged. “I get it. You find a friend, or a lab partner, and being with them is fun and makes you happy, so you do everything you can to help them, so they’re also happy. I mean, I did it for myself, too. Building the robots was an incredible experience, and working on the portal with Hordak was sooo fun!” The excitement in her voice died down quickly as she lowered her head. “But... people got hurt, and now nobody likes me anymore.”

Scorpia patted her friend‘s head with one of her pincers.

“Hey, that’s not true. I like you. And I’m sure the other will, too, eventually. It’s just a weird situation for all of us, with the war and Prime and-” Scorpia hung her head. “I still can’t believe how nice everyone here is. I hurt them, too. I feel so bad about it now.”

Entrapta shrugged.

“We can’t change the past, scientifically speaking. Not yet, at least. And even if I were to invent time machines, I still have tons of different theories about if and how it could change the past and there’s no real way of knowing which one of them is accurate until we test it! Isn’t that exciting?!”

Her eyes gleamed. Scorpia chuckled.

“I mean, yeah. Totally!”

She had no idea what her friend was talking about, but Entrapta sounded excited and happy and that was pretty contagious.

“We can start getting hung up on past mistakes when I finish it! But for now, let’s just... try to not hurt our friends anymore. Maybe I can use my technical knowledge to help them. Maybe then they’ll... like me again.”

Scorpia hugged her.

Stars, she loved hugs. They always made her feel better. And it worked for most other people, too.

“I’m sure they will. You’re great. And when your robots aren’t trying to kill people, they’re actually really friendly! I mean, look at Emily.”

The robot was integrating into the group very well, all things considered.

“Thanks!” Entrapta grinned. “Oh, speaking of, thanks for taking care of Emily when I was gone. She really likes you!”

“Of course. Anytime. Emily is great. And I... figured the least I could do was protect her from Catra after I didn’t protect you.”

Entrapta’s look turned puzzled again.

“Catra... I’ve never had as much trouble understanding anyone as I have understanding her – which is saying a lot, because I’m just... not great with people in general. I don’t know why she’s so difficult to figure out. I... thought she was my friend, but then she hurt me, and now I don’t know what to think anymore.” She looked kind of hurt, but shrugged it off a moment later. “It’s almost like Catra never says what she really means, and no matter what she does, nothing ever makes her actually happy. The only constant I can find with her is Adora.”

Scorpia threw her pincers in the air.

“Tell me about it! Catra is, like, really big on talking about her all day. ‘Adora here, She-Ra there, I can’t believe she’s doing this, how dare she do that, we used to be best friends‘ – the whole shebang. And even when she’s not talking about her, you sometimes feel like she’s still implying something Adora-related.“

“Yeah, she definitely has some kind of fixation on her,” Entrapta concluded. She still seemed kind of lost in thought for a moment. “And my analysis from Princess Prom indicates that it at least used to be mutual. I haven’t collected enough data yet to find out what the current situation on this is.“

Scorpia shook her head.

“Oh, don’t get me started on the weird passive-aggressive slow dancing they had going on at Princess Prom. Seriously, what is it with these two?“

The Scorpioni chuckled, but the feeling of happiness soon vanished, replaced by the same bittersweet thought that had kept crossing her mind a lot recently.

“In all seriousness, though... I hope Catra’s alright, wherever she might be now. She hurt me, but... I still kind of miss her. I still kind of hope she could, you know, be better. I don’t think I would be ready to just let her back into my life if she showed up outside the tent right now, but... She’s just making herself miserable the way she’s acting. I don’t want her to be miserable. Even after everything, I kind of just want her to be happy. Is that stupid? It’s probably stupid.“

“It’s not stupid.” Entrapta put one of her pigtails on Scorpia’s shoulder. “One thing that is statistically very frequent in friendships is that most people don’t want their loved ones to be unhappy or get hurt.“

“Huh. Yeah. Guess you’re right.” Scorpia exhaled loudly. “Glad I got that outta my system. I feel so much better now.” Despite Entrapta being someone who struggled with friendship a lot, she actually understood more about it than most people. “I’m just... happy you’re okay.”

“More than okay, actually. Beast Island was really interesting and I made so much progress with my research and my theories, and now I get to take all of this new technology apart!”

Entrapta was beaming.

“You were going to tell me something about this tech-stuff earlier?“

“Eeeeek, I was hoping you would ask!”

Scorpia still didn’t understand much of what Entrapta was saying, but it sounded exciting, and she didn’t care too much about understanding it.

She was just glad to have her back.