Girl Genius/WMG: Difference between revisions

The hive machines were created when the clone/twin was a '''novice''' and the Geisterdamen were created when she was advanced and time-traveled back to when she was a novice (although the Geisters may have existed before, in which case the clone/twin of Agatha was combined with their goddess.). Lucrezia had a slaver shoved down her throat one night and became a stealth revenant and was made to marry Bill (or, maybe Barry) and get pregnant, creating Agatha (and if the combination was involved a twin, the twin as well.).

The other, after that, possessed Lucrezia and combined with her but pushed Lucrezia's mind into its subconscious. Other people '''did not''' notice that anything had changed. The other then time-traveled to were the Geisters were and got them to create the downloading device so she could go into her daughter (The other had possessed Lucrezia '''before''' Lucrezia's pregnancy but '''after''' the marriage. That technically makes Agatha '''the other's''' daughter.). The other then attacked the castle to kill the son and damage the castle.

Well, they're only one letter off. And [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070817 this comic] notes that the Other seemed to focus attacks on the major Spark houses.

* Except the Other is running around underground at the moment, and Othar's quite alive (some more).

Lucrezia Mongfish clashed with Klaus and the Heterodynes more than once. You would think that she would have gone all out with her sparkings giving Klaus a good indication of her true power and yet Klaus believes that she was too weak to have been The Other, that she could never have designed the Hiver Engines. So what if the Geisterdamen came from wherever they came from, all those years ago, to find the distant descendant of their now dead royal-divine line? Lucrezia Mongfish, and thus Agatha, are related to that line and as such are suitable hosts for a far older intelligence that is the thing that the Geisterdamen worship.

* I like this theory. Also interesting to note that the Geisterdamen and the slaver wasps do not even remotely look like they were made by the same people, despite sparks, including Lucrezia, having enough of a "style" that the Baron could link the engines to Lucrezia. Only problem: If this were the case, the Geisterdamen should already have had to build a device for downloading the Other, and have it work. So why did their second involve so much failure, and why did they at first think they'd failed? Perhaps they had the help of a powerful spark (perhaps the Heterodynes or Lucrezia herself; after all, they could've lied about what it would do) the first time but didn't have his notes when they went to Strumvoras for the second.

* When Lucrezia locks up Zola, Zola claims that the rogue geisters learned to see Lucrezia "for the fraud you are." Here's my theory: The original Other created the geisters hundreds of years ago and repeatedly imprinted itself on members of the Mongfish line throughout the generations. But when it got to Lucrezia, she managed to destroy it instead. But then she crossed the moral event horizon when she proceeded to steal all its secrets, pretend to be the Other, and invent the slaver wasps.

At some point, Lucrezia developed time and/or dimension travel technology and went to another time and place, where she stayed for decades or even millenia, developing her skills and her army. In doing so, she became so alien as to not even be human anymore, instead becoming something Other than human. Then she went back to her past, staged her own kidnapping, and started the war. Klaus even decides that Agatha is the Other because the Other's devices are similiar to Lucrezia's, but far too advanced. Lucrezia learns how to build such advanced devices during her time away. Using her technology, she disappeared the Heterodyne boys and Klaus to someplace else, although both Klaus and Barry are known to have come back. Also, the geisterdamen refer to being brought by their goddess to "this shadow world". The time machine also explains why the geisterdamen have worshipped her forever--remember Vrin's quote? "No matter how long she was gone, we always knew she'd be back"? Lucrezia just hopped in her time machine and travelled ahead, leaving the geisterdamen to catch up with her the long way. Later in the comic, Agatha will discover her mother's time machine, and this will lead to the portals seen earlier by Agatha herself in Beetlesburg, and by Captain Dupree in the wastelands.

Furthermore, she is - at that time - locked in a battle of wills with Agatha. Her visible arm looks exactly like the one choking Vrin in the flashback, and she's clearly pointing directly at (pre-breakthrough) Agatha. Her full sentence, as cut off by the window, is "Do you want to go back to being like THAT?!", indicating that Agatha has found some way to permanently destroy The Other, but risks her own Spark in the process. So The Other pulls open a time-window to remind her what she'd turn into if her spark was lost...

* Define 'true'.

* We can see that these 'windows' occur in reverse order, and Klaus has guessed that they are windows into/from the future. But his conclusions surrounding Agatha are not as reliable as his others have been. Is it possible that they are windows into/from the past? (Once you have time windows, the question of past and future starts to become fuzzy anyway.)

Lucrezia is clearly a scheming power-hungry person, but this whole mess isn't entirely her fault. She just got curious while the boys were off adventuring and let loose some old stuff that had been hanging around for who knows how long. Since she married Bill, the castle/machines decided they could recognize her as a Heterodyne (after all, the castle is somewhat less than saintly, it would love the chaos). Of course, she was more than happy to run with the idea, apparently.

* First: the [[Meaningful Name]]. Heterodyne is really just some [[Gratuitous English|gratuitous Greek]] that means "other power". Now, Greek being Greek, depending on the story this could stretch as far in one direction as "powered by the other" or in the [[Incredibly Lame Pun|other]] to "power over the other" - but whatever, there's clearly a plot-important connection to the Other.

* Seems to be Jossed at least in regards to the loyalty of the Jaegers, who would'nt be loyal to the people who treat you like you're a person instead of a tool to be thrown away.

Lucrezia Mongfish. Not a time-travelling version, not an ancient demon whatever-the-fuck from beyond the Moon possessing her, but the genuine one and only Lucrezia fucking Mongfish. Utterly '''mad''', I know, but this ''is'' WMG.

Mainly, whether or not to give Zola her locket in order to suppress The Other. While this would seem like the [[Take a Third Option|third option]] in a classic "Kill the possessed victim Y/N?" scenario, giving up the locket would put her at risk of being completely overwhelmed by Spark-induced insanity. This would also be risky because Zola may not be as good at suppressing The Other, even with the locket's help -- and if The Other managed to wrest control while she was ''wearing'' the accursed thing, naturally its first move would be to ''smash it''. But if she ''doesn't'' try it, even as a stopgap measure while working on a ''better'' third option, we'd be right back to "Kill Y/N?"... and how would Gil react?

The Other/Lucrezia Mongfish has advanced knowledge of downloading and switching consciousnesses and minds, as seen with the Summoning Engine and the lab under Castle Heterodyne. The Hive Engines produce slaver wasps that prevent anyone infected from disobeying Lucrezia or her daughter. Also, Agatha's dingbots are self-replicating and have the spark themselves. If The Other gets full control of both Agatha and her dingbots, and combines them with the other two concepts, on a more massive scale, she could overwrite the entire planet. 1) The dingbots would act as a [[Grey Goo]] vanguard, dissembling cities and armies and then rebuilding them into more dingbots, with the added bonus of more summoning engines (they can only focus on one minor project besides replicating themselves at any given time, it seems). 2) The slaver wasps take over all the humans that were not scrapped for parts (though the dingbots have not been seen to do that at all yet). 3) The Other/Agatha/Lucrezia commands all dingbots and revenants to have their minds overwritten with her's, if possible. All Sparks that might resist are killed for good measure. Then, the dingbots and revenants, now extensions of The Other, rebuild the world into Lucreziaburg, which is also an extension of The Other (intelligent like Castle Heterodyne). She showed them all.

The Other really is T'Otheron, Dragon King of Mars, [[Du Medd]] did not make him up (mostly), and his plan is similar to that of Mass Effect's Reapers. The martian dragons sent the Spark to Earth countless years ago, so the humans-turned-Sparks would build impressive and useful biological and mechanical constructs. When the humans have built everything the dragons need, the dragons activate "The Other" causing a program loyal to them to manifest in someone and take out any threats that might cause problems for their harvesting. Then, the dragons come through a portal, and strip the Earth of all life and machines. They use the parts to build more dragons.

An incarnation of Lucrezia did not turn evil and start the war. Rather, an evil Lucrezia sent her consciousness back in time, into her past-self's brain. So, the Other just came into existence.

Baron Klaus Wulfenbach didn't fight The Other to a standstill. He got infected, and now his campaign to force order on Europa -- by dominating increasingly large parts of it -- is a cover for doing The Other's work for it.

* More-or-less jossed. There is the fact that the Other disappeared ''before'' Klaus returned - IE, as far as is known he didn't fight it to a standstill, but there is also the question of {{spoiler|why the Other would scheme to infect Klaus with a special and unique Spark-infecting slaver wasp and then rule Europa through him if the Other had already succeded with that exact scheme}}.

Which means that the characters aren't trying to avert disaster, but actually attempting to overthrow the Evil Overlord.

MASSIVE SPOILER! [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110330 This page] reveals that the early revenants {{spoiler|were the exception, not the rule, and that there are many more normal-appearing people who are under control. It's possible there are enough that The Other didn't need to continue the fight}}. Total direct control isn't needed if no one has a meaningful way to combat or contradict its wishes.

Mr. and Mrs. Mongfish had three beautiful, sparky daughters. only two of them were evil. Their family's reputation hinged on making sure all three were evil, so they managed to create an artificial, evil personality to implant in their good daughter Lucrezia. They called it "Other Lucrezia" and raised her like they did the rest of their daughters. But as this daughter got older, the other personality split from Lucrezia's real personality. It was at this time, Lucrezia learned of her other personality. She decided to separate her personalities once and for all. The good one remained in her body, and the bad one was stored in a device, ready to be copied downloaded into a suitable body. The Knights of Jove became Guardian's of "Other Lucrezia" while "real Lucrezia" married Bill Heterodyne and bore him a son. When she was pregnant with Agatha, One of the Knights of Jove got "Other Lucrezia" a body and it attacked the castle. It saw how good it's former body had become, and was disgusted and no longer wanted anything to do with her, so she dropped the "Lucrezia" part of her name. The Body the other was store in was destroyed in the attack, but as long as that machine has the ability to copy and download the other's personality, it will live forever.

* Explain the naughty flashback scene.

** Lucrezia Mongfish was good ''by the standards of the Mongfish family'', not by the standards of the Heterodyne Boys.

The Other was a spark on the Mongfish family line, but according to Klaus, showed far more skill than Lucrezia. If I remember right, she worked with her father, explaining how she would know how to work The Other's machines. Her father used her to control the Geisters since they already worshipped her, and the ones that deflected did so because they learned she was just a puppet. It would give a motivation for the attack on Castle Heterodyne- he could hardly risk her telling them everything. And Lucrezia's a smart girl who would have realized that; according to the castle itself she betrayed the Heterodynes, but it also recalls her putting a fair deal of effort into making both a functioing backup of the castle system and a fierce protector for her son. That's awfully conflicting. The airship accident Dr. Mongfish died in that Zola mentions could be why The Other dropped off the face of the planet. Could be where Barry and Bill caught up to him.

This is why "[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20031017 any plan where you lose your hat is a bad plan]" and also why [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20071214 Jenka wants Gil to wear a big hat with his name on it].

* Alternatively, the Heterodyne that first made the Jägerkin had some sort of strange hat fetish, which he passed on to his creations. Given the other strange things that Sparks do, this isn't that far fetched.

** In the above linked comic filler arc, it's stated that it's possible to steal it or trick him out of it, which (for a Jaeger would be more impressive), but the normal way is to make sure the original owner no longer needs it.

* Maxim makes considerable efforts to obtain Old Man Death's hat, which seems to be quite sufficient for the purpose despite OMD being human, not Jager

The casualty figures for users of Jaegerbrau are artificially inflated due to the early Heterodynes not selecting for physical compatability when chosing Jaeger candidates, they were chosing for ''Loyalty''. The Jaegermonsters are soldiers to their bones and consider things like espirit de corps and regimental honor to be things not unlike their very life's blood and breath. This keeps the Jaegers in-line, not any kind of implanted compulsion, but their own sense of duty and loyalty.

* Also, Vole may be a result of a Heterodyne seeing what would happen if the 'Perfect' physical specimen were given Jaegerbrau, the result being a tall adonis-like Jaeger with few extranious monster-y features.. and precious little use for the Jaegertroth.

*** [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110722 According to Tarvek,] Vole tried to kill Barry and Bill for being weak - i.e. not enough like the old Heterodynes. This would indicate that Vole approved of his former masters because of what they let him do, rather than because of who they were - more or less what I would expect from someone with all of the typical Jaeger aggression and none of the typical Jaeger loyalty.

The creation of Jägers using Jägerdraught only has a 30% success rate, tops. The first Hetrodyne drank the water and became something very like a Jäger. As he was a Hetrodyne we can assume he was a Spark. Perhaps the Jägers, when human, ''were'' (weak) Sparks, or Sparks that had never broken through. Drinking the stuff causes a breakthrough and mutation, redirecting the power.

Both Sparks and Jäger are pretty durable, Jägers more so. Their speech bubbles are similar to a Sparks when they are in the madness place, ''AND'' both are immune to Slaver Wasps.

They're just too big to wear. Look at [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080514 the one] for impressing them and defending the town.

* The "bad side effects" of Jaeger Battledraught on humans hasn't been described in any detail, and the only clues we have are a few pages of [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080430 Gil acting uncharacteristically irrational]. His voice bubble also gets all spikey, though not quite like it does when his Spark is showing. Though it could merely be a sight-gag, his teeth look peculiarly sharp. Mamma Gkika [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080505 warns him to avoid losing his cool], saying "his face might stick like that". It is thus a distinct possibility that a spike in adrenaline (or pineal whatsists, or who knows what...) could trigger a reaction resulting in his transformation into a Jaeger. Given the sheer saturation of the universe with mad super-science, the supposition that Jaegers were created from humans through some kind of [[Super Serum]] isn't improbable. It would also serve to [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060726 explain how Oggie's great-great-grandson] (aka, [[Author Avatar|Phil Foglio]]) is somehow human.

** [[Word of God]] has confirmed that Jagers are transformed humans, made by drinking Jagerdraught. Whether this is the same as Jager Battledraught is unclear.

* As of 19/11/09, His evil grin is even more Jaegerish than the usual evil grins given by the non-Jaeger cast. I'd say plausable. It would certainly make it seem like Gil was dead, as per Othar's twitter. The Time windows where he's fine? Agatha made an anti-Jaegerbraw somewhere between him becoming a Jaeger (Likely of whatever color he is when the Si Vales is done) and when he ends up in drag (ish).

Aside from Mama Gkika, he's the only flesh-coloured Jager we've encountered; and whatever that ram's horn thing is, he's only got it on one side of his head. His lineage clearly becomes diluted somewhere down the line, judging by his great-great-grandson - who's to say it hasn't already started with him?

* There seem to be all kinds of Jager lineages with different skin tones - the Orks, the vaguely-drow-ones like Jenka with the bear, the purple ones, et cetera. Since about the only constants of the Jagers are "speaking vith [[Funetik Aksent]]", "being bound by their oath" and "enjoying breaking stuff far too much", assuming that one with pink skin and one horn isn't full Jager blood...well...like Stosh, who was clean-shaven, pretty much humanoid and appeared to be blond. Some of the early ones have distinctly simian appearance, with bow legs and elongated arms, but this seems to have been less conspicuous lately.

**** I don't recall seeing anything anywhere that says that Jagers can, or can't father children as Jagers. The pseudo-Jager bar girls seem to find Da Boyz attractive, and it seems to be reciprocated. Mama Gkika is VERY feminine in a sort of Wild West, Frenchy-from-Destry-rides-again sort of way.

It explains everything! They're green, they have tusks, they speak with a [[Funetik Aksent]], they really enjoy <s> big shootas</s> clenk gunz, they're nearly impossible to kill, and they're never happier than when fighting. It's just that one of the old Heterodynes combined a few Ork spores into a huge bio-experiment, giving us the Jagers we know and love.

* It's possible, but unlikely. Still, one of the recent Dark Heresy splats mentions a (mostly) Feudal World (called Heterodyne) that serves as an Adeptus Mechanicus experimentation base. But remember-not all the Jaegers are green.

Jäger appearance is [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20051010 all over the map], so if you see only one or two of them you might just think they're some random construct. But if you see a dangerous-looking humanoid ''wearing a fancy hat'' of whatever variety, you immediately have reason to consider that you may be dealing with a Jäger. The association with their honor would have come over time.

Jagers like to eat bugs. Slavers are bugs. They were created to fight slaverwasps, and other stuff.

* And Jägerkin are immune to slaver wasps. Noize!

It's not just a sociolinguistic thing, and it might not be just because of the fangs. There are certain things the Jaegerbrau changes in consistent ways (biologically improbable muscle tone and bone density, pointy teeth, that sort of thing), maybe changes to the structure of the tongue and the top of the ventral side of the throat are one of them.

Most of them have to file their teeth into points. If they didn't, they would have a disadvantage against the Jaegers with tusks, the other Jaegers who ''do'' file their teeth, and anything with naturally pointy teeth (as well as being more attractive, in the opinions of the Jaegers who care about being aesthetically pleasing in ways other than intimidation). Some sort of increased bone density and/or constantly growing teeth keep this from being a structural problem (and they may also file their teeth to keep them from growing uncomfortably long; Dimo, for an exception that implies the rule, doesn't mind having longer teeth than most).<br />The exception is Jaegers with tusks (like the General). Those are unusual but not extraordinary side effects, like Oggie's horn.

* Confirmed by Mamma Gkika: Jägers get variable properties and "nize" teeth apparently are part of those variables.

It completely skips the "9% go feebleminded or gibbering" and cuts down significantly on the 1% that get turned into [[Super Soldier|Super Soldiers]], but the neurological results (most importantly the insanely strong loyalty pattern) work out differently. That, or it's only recently that feminism has gotten to the point where more than a very rare Heterodyne (or the Heterodyne who ran the first clinical trials of the Jagerbrau) could consider a woman a viable candidate for the brew, no matter that she might be able to outmatch some of the weaker post-Jagerbrau males even as a human.

It is (I think) canon that strong Sparks are just plain physically better. They're also neurologically different in a way that makes them incompatible with {{spoiler|all but one of}} the Slaver Wasps. Perhaps the Brau makes Sparks physically better without mutating them (much), and ''drastically'' cuts down on the risk of dying horribly or going uselessly insane. Perhaps the Heterodynes generally never bothered wasting Sparky test subjects and underlings by turning them into foot soldiers with a 99% chance of never being a useful spark again, and the ones who did ([[For Science!|just to see what would happen]]) declared the experiment either tainted by improperly made Jagerbrau or boring because nothing interesting happened (this may, of course, explain the Unstoppable Airman Higgs).

She doesn't have the hat thing (unless her hairpin is her hat), she has human-pink skin (except when it is green, blue or grey), and she expresses loyalty to the Heterodynes the way a human would, rather than the way a Jaeger would (not to say that the Oath is coerced, just that it is... ahm... "[[Serious Business|strengthened]]"). Presumably, she was made with an early formula of the brew and, because she wasn't put in the army, didn't get the "hats, not heads, hats=very big deal" training.

* Except Mamma IS a General (it's canon) and does have a hat with her uniform when she comes to meet the new Heterodyne.

** That page was released after the guess was submitted. It [[Jossed|Josses]] the hat-stuff and the extrapolation that she doesn't have a hat because she wasn't a soldier, and confirms the authority (and probably but not necessarily the seniority), but doesn't say anything about when she was created in the scheme of things.

And Mamma Gkika was a wanderer from Skifander who decided that the Jagerbrau was something she should drink, and that the warnings not to drink it were an affront to her awesomeness as a Skifandrian. Oggie might be half-Skifandrian.

Like, bringing Spark level Genius to bear against predicting an enemy's moves and how to move their own bodies to maximize damage. Neatly explaining their occasional superhuman abilities in a fight.

** All nigh-on superhuman combat ability so far has been shown by people either highly trained (Zeetha as a Warrior Princess, Violetta, Zola and Tarvek by the Smoke Knights, Gilgamesh as a badass put through a [[Training From Hell]] by his father) or drugged with a super-powered stimulant (Moveit). Sparks do tend to be physically powerful and have fast reflexes, but these abilities aren't necessarily beyond human capacity.

They also have enhancements of other nervous system functions such as reflexes, perception and coordination; every major Spark that has been shown is also a [[Badass Normal]] when it comes to physical combat, taking out Jaegermonsters and War Clanks single-handedly. Additionally, when Agatha's De-Sparking medallion was fully functional, it make her a klutz as well as limiting her intellect and concentration.

* Well, first off, the spark has been shown to be able to cause "mad" fits such as what Gil used to defeat Vole and to intimidate Wooster. And we already know that the spark grants unearthly charisma (especially the Heterodyne spark, though we've also seen Gil draw upon it for such and most sparks we've seen ''are'' ruling something and visa-versa). But don't rule out that Klaus is probably decked out with physical enhancements (that scar across his chest in the flashback with Lucrezia looks amazingly similar to that on, say, Punch), Gil may be slightly as well, and both have extreme training. But even as I type that my words ring hollow, as in all other cases the Jagermonsters seem nigh-invincible and the cast page even describes them as "possibly immortal", yet the Wulfenbachs have both beaten them up bare-handed. Perhaps the spark gives some recipients more of one gift than another; the Heterodynes got charisma out to wazoo while the wulfenbachs are superhuman in a way that surpasses even the best living war-machines. We already know that some get a longer or shorter stick overall.

*** I think it's mostly berserker strength, backed up with mad science steroids and exercise routines. Imagine if all those crazy adds actually worked...

Whilst there are some people just born with it there are also those with the innate ability lieing dormant but it can be brought to the fore by the presence of other sparks. I base this on 5 points:

*** In fact, Sparks need not be scientists. It seems more like they apply the Spark to the skills they already possess. It is implied that witches were Sparks who used the Spark to make their love potions and whatnots work. Also, the Chef from Master Payne's Travelling Heterodyne Show is a Spark who works solely in the medium of pies. No real dent in your argument, but I thought I should bring it up.

In the last few pages, while discussing possibilities for Tarvek's treatment, Agatha, Gil, and Tarvek have all slipped into the wavy-lined "madness place" speech bubbles - even though Gil is clearly trying to stay clear headed, and Tarvek is dying. I propose that one Spark going into the madness place sets off other Sparks (perhaps only the particularly strong Sparks) in the area, either by some biological agent or in a purely psychological process, in a similar way to how yawns are "contagious."

The 'spark of brilliance' is a transition point, which can branch off into a 'flame', or a 'Light'. Flames bring illumination and heat, but burn you if you get too close, like Madboys and girls. They build monsters, death-machines, and enslave the populace for fun, but at the end of the day, they get radio. Electric lights, on the other hand, steadily emit light, aren't that dangerous, and are fueled by electricity, like Agatha. She makes things that are practically useful, driving her 'minions' into constructive work, instead of destruction. Also, she eased through her 'break-through', and didn't go nuts.

* On the other hand, she did once design a merry-go-round capable of levelling a small town, and for every dingbot or coffee engine there's a death ray, each one bigger than the last.

Or more [[Incredibly Lame Pun|precisely]], can't build anything that requires tight tolerances, math or precision. There may be exceptions to this, of course, but as a general rule, Sparks are chaotic and build things in a chaotic fashion. The world still runs on steam, because internal combustion engines cannot be built to sufficient tolerances. We don't see complicated electronics, because that requires ultra-pure silicon and cleanrooms. No nuclear weapons, either, for the same reasons. Or it could be something slightly different, but a bit broader.

* '''Sparks are chaotic''' and this prevents them from building anything that requires significant calculations, precision, or repeated experimentation. This is a world of mad science, not the scientific method. Discoveries are made almost solely by accident. Crazy things are built, yes, but there is a lot of stagnation. The nature of a Spark precludes proper science, in favour of SCIENCE!, which is not very effective at determining underlying causes or doing any sort of directed research. The nature of a Spark also prevents them from building anything particularly precise or requiring tight tolerance. Not a very good explanation, but I think you can get the gist of it.

[[Crowning Moment/Fate Stay Night|Check]] [[Crowning Moment/Web Comics|out]] each one's Crowing Moment of Awesome. I '''dare''' you say that it doesn't [[In the Blood|run in the family]]

* Is Higgs Irish?

* Chuck Norris once read one episode of ''Girl Genius.'' The result was Airman Higgs.

Just look at all the amazing things he's done. It's hard to believe that an ordinary person could do them. He's clearly got mechanical knowledge, super-strength, and knows the Castle.

** I suspect that he did in fact die, but was revived by Jagerdraught, which brought him back with Jager-like strength and speed (and accent, once his control slips) but burnt away his spark. He has been hanging about Klaus because its the safest place in Europe to be.

As above, mostly. Bill and Barry's homonculi are ''definitely'' the strong, silent type (which Heterodynes themselves tend not to be) and the castle's reaction to recognizing its masters would likely be stronger than "I know you!" One of its fellow servants, not so much. It's also a more direct explanation of his superhuman physical prowess.

* A related theory, Higgs is a construct made by Barry to protect Klaus and potentially Agatha, and to keep an eye out for the Other.

* Given that [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100419 this strip] suggests he's far older than he looks, this sounds the most likely of the current theories.

The Mongfish family had evidently been involved with the Storm King plot for some time before the whole Other business, so it's not unreasonable that a member of that family might get access to Muse-related data, explaining Higgs' familiarity with Otilia's components. A Mongfish married in to the Heterodyne family, so it's not unreasonable that other members of the family might have visited before the Kestle-Shattering Kaboom, explaining Kestilia's recognition of Higgs. The Mongfishes were very gifted in biology, explaining Higgs' superhuman attributes. Lucifer Mongfish had at least three daughters (Theo's mom was "one of the less famous Mongfish daughters", meaning that there were at least two other than Lucrezia), two of whom had [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast]] (Lucrezia, Serpentina) and (most likely) personalities to match, so a lone male nephew or younger brother would probably learn from an early age to stay low-key and hidden lest he be subjected to the [[Mad Science]] version of forced dress-up/tea parties/whatever else the girls could find to torment him with, explaining how Higgs has managed to avoid drawing any attention despite his great talent and ability. Anyone associated with the Mongfishes enough to know the truth about The Other but who opposed it for some reason would want to support Baron Wulfenbach but not let him know of said association, explaining why Higgs is a Wulfenbach airman. Finally, Lucrezia and Higgs are both blond.

Trelawney Thorpe's sidekick, who NOONE thinks is for real? Trewlawney will certainly come into play in the inevitable England arc, and being the actionsurvivor hypercompetant sidekick of one of the greatest heros of the age would explain many things.

I can't believe everybody missed this one. A strip as genre savvy as ''Girl Genius'' has got to have a Time Lord. English accent? Check. Always in the right place at the right time? Check. Able to recover from being stabbed in the heart? Check. Looks like he's trying to pick up Zeetha as a Companion, too. (Lila anyone?) Most probably a descendent of Agatha's from the future. Also its funner to call him Bosun Higgs, you know, like the particle... (Higgs Boson)

Explains how their devices can selectively violate the laws of physics pretty much at will.

* Well YEAH...

Likely been in "cold storage" for some time and taken out to keep tabs on all the major players in this plot to install a fake Heterodyne. Explains, among other things, why he saved Bang along with Klaus and why he also answers to Tarvek. If Higgs is gonna be any kind of important to the plot, there's gonna be a major problem with loyalties later on.

The muse/castle's comments suggest that he's older than he looks, and he's ridiculously strong and durable, just like a Jaeger. Maybe he drank a slightly different recipe of the Jaegerbrau or it was a .00001% chance that he would look like and speak like a normal human.

* Now that Higgs has started [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20101018 talking like a Jaeger], this seems more likely.

* I do Hereby note that Higgs ALWAYS has that hat on. We have NEVER seen it off him, even when he gets stabbed, kicked, punched, beat on, etc. by Zola... the hat stays on. When he is at Mama's, bandaged up, covered in hurts, smoking his pipe with his shirt off... the hat is still on his head. The man has some connection to the Jaeger... Maybe he was an attempt to make a Jaeger that had a higher success rate? Instead of the process by which less than 30% survive, they wanted something with a higher success rate so that they could have more Jaegers (they being older Heterodynes) and Higgs was the result?

Based solely on facial resemblance to Klaus in the last panel [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20101018 here]. Note; it distinctly ''changes shape'' to appear that way.

** I don't know, people who are really really annoyed tend to look a lot different, though your idea has merit.

Some say that his elbows don't bend...and that he is imperturbable in the face of staggeringly absurd danger while showing a taste for wearing all white...all we know is, he's called Airman Higgs.

Just take a look at the flashbacks involving the Heterodyne Boys, and compare to Higgs' face. It would also explain how he could find his way to Lucrezia's bedroom (remembering that Lucrezia and Bill were married), and how he could be so [[Badass]] in combat.

We know that Klaus had to patched together after "coming back", and that at least one of the Heterodyne boys did. He also know that revivification can lead to varying degrees of memory loss (hence why he doesn't recognise his daughter, and, for that matter, why he's serving as Airman/3c in the Wulfenbach air navy). The only problem is that the Jaegerkin don't recognise him as a Heterodyne, but that may be an artefact of whatever happened before he "came back", or the revive process, or he might just eat a lot of garlic...

And has been living in/near castle heterodyne since it was built. Higgs is showing signs of being a Jager, but has almost 'no' monstrous features. The first Heterodyne to reach the sight of Mechanicsburg drank the waters of the river, but did not undergo a Jager-like transformation. The Jagerdraught was developed later to create (mentally) inferior super soldiers.

* This seems to make some sense, but my theory is that he's one of the originals, but not "the" original. The castle knows him and chats with him, but doesn't mention it after he beats the living tar out of it. Although my other theories are even more far-fetched... I like your thinking.

[[Defensive What|What?]]

It's not just that he's [[Made of Iron]]. In the comics pages from 01/28 and 1/31/2011, he refers to Tarvek as a "smart guy" (standard Jaegerspeak for Sparks) and seems overly concerned (given the situation) about being seen as a deserter.

Well, multiple characters are anticipating his return, and in the old Heterodyne stories, Barry is the one commonly shipped with exotic high priestesses. Would that explain Higgs's relationship with Zeetha?

[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100222 In this comic], part of the castle recognizes him. He's blond, like Agatha, Higgs begins with the same letter as Heterodyne, and he's ''awesome''.

** And they've got the same hairflippy thing, like how {{spoiler|Zeetha has the same ruffle in her hair that Klaus and Gil do.}}

** However Higgs also mentions an old Heterodyne performing a similar experiment to Agatha's, suggesting a long lifespan. Of course that could just mean he's an ancestor. Or that time travel was involved {{spoiler|which would explain ''a lot'' about everyone}}.

Does this even need to be addressed. Look at all that he has done.

Higgs belongs to the family of priests and priestesses who took care of the Dyne spring. The family was around before the Heterodynes arrived in Mechanicsburg. One of them showed it to the first Heterodyne. Higgs became unstoppable when Egregious unstoppered the Dyne and Higgs was rushed into the waters by the increased current. He kept his hat, though he had a different one then. It is all in the [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091102 comic].

We know it's most likely he was at Mamma Gkika's to be patched up, and presumably drunk the Battledraught. But there seems to be hints that he's a Jager (using Jager lingo, being very strong and durable, getting a bit of a Jager accent when angry). But he's not as dumb as your average Jager. The Jagers were likely not all that stupid before they became Jagers, it seems to dumb them down. Perhaps it did dumb Higgs down as well- it's just that he was a Spark and thus incredibly intelligent beforehand, and it just brought his intelligence down to a more normal level. There's also some evidence he knows mechanical things (getting on course to Mechanicsburg without any ranking as a pilot or navigator, see this http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070406 and also analyzing Otilia's apparent brokeness http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100217 ), while although not enough to merit a Spark, we've already established he may have lost that. As for being a Heterodyne, he knows about the layout of the castle, knows some family history, and the castle recognized him. Of course, this raises the question of why a Heterodyne got turned into a Jager. However, it's possible that he invented the Jagerdraught and decided to test it out on himself (remember that Sparks tend to be unreasonable in the Madness Place) without knowing the side effects. And... Here we are.

* Okay, I take it back about Higgs inventing the Jagerdraught. That was apparently Vlad the Blasphemous http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091102 and he looks nothing like Higgs. Still, the theory stands, though it needs an alternative explanation.

Part of the old family, someone close enough to not only run with the Jaegers but to have a familiarity with their generals and Mamma Gkika but outside of the purview of what makes a descendant of a Heterodyne part of the Jaeger-smelt, castle-commanding Heterodyne line. Possibly a lack of Spark, or a much weaker (but, as we've seen by comparing various sparks, not necessarily less effective) spark. If he was given powerup potion (and the healing draught necessary to keep his overpowered body from permanently ravaging itself) often enough that his body adapted to it, in order to [[Asskicking Equals Authority|keep him near the top of the Jaegers' "people in charge" list]], it could account for increased lifespan and [[Badass Family|possibly]] strength beyond the typical Heterodyne.

Assuming he was a Heterodyne (he does have more than a passing resemblance to what would happen if Bill and Barry were combined), the castle recognizes him as someone who ''was'' one of her masters, but now he's not legally qualified to be in charge. He's old enough that he doesn't smell much like Bill, Barry, and Agatha (to the Jaegers), but rather like their great-great-great-great-great grandfather. Assuming he is [[Authority Equals Asskicking|of some other noble lineage]] (such as a [[Badass Family|Wulfenbach]] from before Gil's time, and possibly even the ''reason'' for the first "physically dead, legally dead" laws) who was revived and subsequently went for broke on collecting power-ups, this doesn't have much evidence for it but it also doesn't have any evidence ''against'' it.

...Well, we were all ''thinking'' it.

** Explain the notable shortage of roundhouse kicks.

ok, so it's a bit of a stretch, but would Airman Higgs be about the airborne equivalent of Bosun Higgs? and there you have the Higgs Boson!

The castle knows him, he's well acquainted with the Heterodynes and their history, the other Jaegers (including at least one other Jaeger general) appears to know him, and if he's the 'shadowy' member of the generals it would make sense for him to infiltrate the Baron's ranks as part of his service instead of serving openly.

* This overlaps with the theory of Higgs being a Jaeger, the most glaring evidence being his little accent slip back when.

* He's also endured massive amounts of damage without flinching multiple times, done things no human character would be capable of, and he's rarely seen without his famous [[Nice Hat]]. Mamma Gkika has also more or less [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20120430 subtly confirmed this theory] by mentioning that Higgs has a lot of secrets that he'll only reveal when he's ready to, which is very similar to the Jager Generals' lines about the mystery General.

It's very hit or miss, of course because genetics can be tricky. But consider this:

* He actually is in the Madness Place whenhe is introduced.

hence no contact or anyone wanting to go there and check on them. Think [[Fallout]] [[X Meets Y|meets]] [[Queen Victorias Bomb]].

* Unlikely, people want to go there, they just can't get there. It's implied that the expeditions all die or disappear.

**** She's also saying "Hoka hey". That's a Lakota Sioux phrase, inferring they have at least gotten far enough westward to encounter the Plains tribes.

Her [[Yandere|unusual and]] [[Clingy Jealous Girl|unstable]] [[Murder the Hypotenuse|personality]] is the result of intentional meddling on the part of the mad social scientist. [[Laser-Guided Amnesia|Wiping her mind every year]] not only helps her [[There Are No Therapists|cope with their terrifying lifestyle,]] but gives Mittelmind a clean slate to work with or, if new variables crop up, give him a new control group to which he can compare his experimental data. Her [[The Igor|fanatical devotion to him]] is also a result of this meddling. The ultimate goal may be to find a cure for Snaug's apparent status as a [[The Virus|(high-functioning) revenant.]]

It's not British nationalism that he claims the books of her exploits are the truth-he knows they really happened because she's related to him (WMG she's an aunt or other slightly removed relative.)

* Unlikely, since Gilgamesh uses the example of the Heterodyne stories to refute his claims. Even if Trelawney Thorpe ''did'' exist and was a hero that's no guarantee the stories are actually factual.

Tarvek's flashback as far as showing Gil and Dupree together was indeed the exact truth. Obviously it didn't work out.

He promised to meet his cousin Agatha in Mechanicsburg, but she never did, and none of their other classmates are there. And when they first entered the castle, Theo referred to Zeetha's raunchy dancing and said to Sleipnir "I don't suppose you could..." and she retorted "No, I could not." Why would he even ask his classmate in all seriousness to dance erotically for him if they weren't dating? This is going to come back to bite them when Sleipnir's engagement comes up again.

* {{spoiler|[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/ggmain/strips/ggmain20100906b.jpg Confirmed!] And judging by what Sleipnir said, they [[Runaway Fiance|don't seem to be worried about that engagement.]]}}

At some point, Klaus will time travel to kill Lucrezia at Castle Heterodyne. Barry told Dr. Beetle not to trust Klaus for a reason. Bill and Barry were shocked when the castle's security systems revealed Klaus attacking Lucrezia, and causing the death of Bill's son.

* Would make more sense if the Heterodyne Boys stated they where going after Klaus, rather than an utterly unknown "The Other".

* Keep in mind, though, that the lab and assistants were wiped out by the Geisterdamen traitors. Compare Von Mekkhan's account with Vrin's, you'll see.

This would explain how Klaus knew Skif, how he recognized Zeetha as a warrior from Skifander, and why he hasn't seen his (Skifandran) wife in years. As for why Klaus is convinced that Zeetha was sent to kill Gilgamesh -- I'd wager that obscure cultural laws forbade that particular pairing, which is why Klaus had to leave so quickly!

***** That's not bad, and works in with a possible infanticide reason. It has also been put forth that he ''misunderstood'' a ritual or comment as threatening infanticide of some sort, and fled for that reason.

** Now they have met, you think that she may have mentioned it. After all she would have been told at some point (probably).

*** Maybe her memory isn't 100% after her bout of illness.

* It's entirely possible that Gil and Zeetha are FULL siblings. Gil doesn't want to take on his father's title right away. But apparently he has another title: ''your highness''. Zeetha is a ''princess''. Her mother is a ''queen''. If Zeetha's mother is also Gil's mother, then Gil is a ''prince''. Why else call him "your highness"?

Complete with Star Wars kiss (and ring, and brother-sister incest, and...). Even the castle expects a male heir. Klaus talks about "keeping him alive". The promise of revealing "everything" on Gilgamesh's return to the hospital room. They way Vole is scared of him when he shouts. So the Jagers don't seem to detect him as a Heterodyne, but Agatha had her spark hidden - how hard would it be to hide something like that?

* Alternatively, he's her half-brother. We don't know who Gil's mother was, but we do know that Lucrezia was having an affair with Baron Wulfenbach...

* Jägers can tell a Heterodyne by his/her smell, so ''very'' hard [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090615 according to Krosp].

Vole was expelled from the Jägerkin after Jenka disappeared, and the Jägers refused to help find her. Vole didn't know she was on a secret mission to find the Heterodyne heir.

* It is implied that all Jägers know about the mission. How else would they be able to know that they had not abandoned their masters?

** Jossed, or at least that wasn't the main reason. Vole apparently tried to ''murder'' the Heterodyne boys because he thought they were too soft. Also it seems to be suggested that the mission to find a Heterodyne heir was kept secret from Klaus and the regular world but was a loophole in their code that allowed them to serve Klaus.

Hence why they worship her as a god.

* Yeah, that's less WMG and more Really Blatant Obviousness.

* Perhaps they're meant to be her equivalent of the Jagers... which may mean they're altered humans.

Nobody notices because it works.

* Making it... the steampunk version of Jack from Gears of War?

** Actually, I think it's quite thoroughly jossed!

All Sparks end up killed off. Before dying, Othar convinces the rest of the world to cover up their existence, to avoid any possibility of new Sparks getting ideas.

* In other words, Girl Genius is our world.

...and the emergence of Sparks is what helped them win it. All of the German language influences and theatre ranging from Wagnerian opera to gypsy-like travelling bands are evidence of the culture. Also, the proliferation of zeppelins in the real world was arrested by Germany's war reparations and many of the creators having ideological conflicts with those wacky Nazis.

* But there were apparently Heterodynes and their Jaegerkin around at the time of the Storm King (in the opera synopsis), which I believe was mentioned as being in the 13th century. I have always just assumed that the story was actually set in the Germanosphere. Mechanicsburg is in Germany. Passholdt and Sturmhalten are in the Austrian alps. Beetleburg is in Germanophone Transylvania (look up Transylvanian Saxons). German crops up elsewhere because Germany is still the most populous counntry in Europe today, so imagine how important it is culturally in a world where America is apparently almost unsettled by Europe, Britain is shut out of continental affairs, and presumably Germans were never ethnicly cleansed from east of the Oder. If you assume Agatha left Castle Wulfenbach somewhere over Hungary, references to the Danube, the Carpathians, and Bucharest all seem to fit in. As to language, I think almost everything, spoken or written, is actually in German but comes under a [[Translation Convention]]. Look closely, and German appears on unimportant notices. Things like "Jaegerkin" are for effect, and their accent is meant to have on the reader the effect their dialect has on the characters: make them hard to understand and not very sophisticated-sounding.

**** The sketches are [[Word of God]] uncanonical. We are not allowed to snatch at crumbs that might interfere with The Funny. :grin:

She needed a female child to ensure that if anything went wrong, the Stormvoraus would be able to bring her back in the body of her daughter. She killed her lab assistants, made sure that her war engines crushed the castle defenses, and then fled with her geisterdamen to become The Other and take over Europa. (Well, it almost worked.)

* How would she know she was carrying a girl? Steam-powered ultrasound machine?

** The Geisterdamen trashed Lucrezia's lab - compare Von Mekkhan's account to Vrin's. Who attacked the rest of the castle is another question.

Leaving out the death rays, about everything (clothes, hair, architecture) is mostly early 19th century. We've all ready had some clear historical reflections: (Rembrant?) Van Rijn and the Storm (Sun?) King. And if you look at the political situation, it seems remarkably familiar despite the very different characters: after sudden events sparked chaos and devastation across Europe, a brilliant leader has brought order. But people have grown tired of him, his vast armies do battle with constant insurrections, the British remain defiant, and his "vassals" and "allies" are liabilities. He is determined to have a suitable heir because the other royals of Europe see him as a usurper and one of his biggest worries is a conspiracy to restore an ancient house to his throne (a house founded by somebody awfully like Louis XIV). And now, events which unfolded rapidly in a place full of Russian people threatens to cause the mass mutinee of the behatted German people who fill his armies and bring the Empire to its knees!

: Bzuh? The last substantial insurrection was 'dot Magnetic Prince guy' three years before the story-as-current. The empire has more than enough resources to handle the 'vassal' states if they get frisky, but they're hardly micromananged. And what Russian people?

[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080519 Look] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080512 at] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080418 Zeetha's] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080502 headband]. That may be a joke by the artist, or it could well be that there is a spark in Skifander who can make jewelry that match your emotions, and who can do it so easily they don't bother giving it other abilities, just making it for fun/appearances.

** Uh, guys? I think you'd better take another look at the astrolabe in this [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20050928 frescoe].

* It doesn't just seem to match the wearer's mood, it looks like it is almost completely replicating Zeetha's facial expression, albeit in a simpler form.

Agatha's slightly-older brother Klaus Barry was born in [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070810 '72]. What century isn't given, but the shape of the numbers visible suggests either "18" or "19." The easy answer is 1872: it puts the comic smack in traditional steampunk time (turn of the 20th century), matches up with the fashions and the German-influenced culture, and given that the description of the comic is "The Industrial Revolution became all-out war," there's already a sense of the 19th century. That in and of itself should be enough to point to 1972, really; but the establishment of the Wulfenbach empire becomes much more impressive if you throw in a hundred years of that all-out war before Order was reestablished. And if there was constant warfare, and the pseudoscience of the Sparks so effective, some of the science we know took place in the 20th century might not have happened.

** I don't really follow. You present all the best arguments for 1872 (you left out the sketch showing Klaus with his 1882 journal)... and then an argument for 1972 that I can't make head or tail of. I don't see how shifting that death of Klaus-Barry a century down the line adds in a century between it and the Wulfenbach restoration of order.

*** Stockholm is mentioned though, and seems to be a rather large industrial city (Zola's airship was built there) and by 1394 is doubtful that Stockholm would be more than a minor northern fishing town, even with all the sparks running around.

We know she is a real person and some of the stories may well be based on fact. His father is the Iron Sheik and we do know which Trelawney Thrope story Gill likes the most after all...

* That'd be amusing. It's hardly implausible.

The authors have admitted that the language being spoken isn't English, but rather German or Romanian or something similar. Whenever I look at the Jagers' speech, I am reminded of the stereotypical "Russian Accent" that everyone and their father does. Ergo, while they may speak in German, the Jagers have a thick Russian accent that marks their speech and thus gives them the distinct speech patterns that remain when "translated into English".

* It's closer to a stereotypical ''German'' accent. It could be meant to convey a cruder or more archaic version of German, or perhaps they're from Germany and everyone else is speaking Romanian, Austrian, {{spoiler|Hungarian}} no, that's way too difficult to be a lingua franca, but you get the point.

*** Consider that they're mostly Mechanicsburg natives from a couple hundred to several hundred years ago, with some adventurous boys from out of town, and you have them speaking a German trade-tongue with archaic Roumanian accents filtered through tromping all over Europe killing t'ings. Through fangs.

Look at [http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/The_Muses this mural from] <s> the Girl Genius Wiki</s> the tympanum hall of Transylvania Polygnostic University. They are not meant to correspond ''exactly'' to the Greek nine, but their purposes are, from Left to Right:

* Music, specifically musical instruments

** [[Freakazoid|Not Important - But Interesting!]] :D

If he wasn't told about Zola, but knows the plan anyway, he may be attempting to outflank his own allies by allowing Agatha to live. With a fake, highly trained and manipulative Heterodyne, and a real Valois blood descendant, the Knights may be attempting to set Tarvek up as a figurehead, while they use Zola as a means of controlling the real power through him, underestimating his own Byzantine-style devious streak. By attempting to get Agatha (or Lucrezia in Agatha's body) on his side, once he attains enough power, he could denounce the fake Heterodyne plot and those behind it as traitors to the true purpose of the order, consolidating power even more because people would flock to Agatha instead of Zola.

* Wait, you're saying they're thinking they (the Council) will be able to play Tarvek once he's enthroned?

** If they've monitored his breeding/creation and upbringing as closely as Zola implies, it's very likely they've overestimated their ability to continue micromanaging him, especially once Anevka threw a spanner in the works by killing Papa Sturmvoraus.

* She consistently keeps her mouth covered, possibly to hide an important marking or a scar.

* Her hair resembles that of a Geisterdame.

** Jenka has pupils. She can't be a Geisterdame.

Just before Agatha's escape from Castle Wulfenbach, Judy explained that Female Sparks "disappear" as soon as they're discovered. While the culture of Europe at this time isn't going to be the best one to raise a female Spark in anyway, both the Storm King and the Geisterdamen remark about how many girls they've killed with the machine that transferred Lucrezia into Agatha's body. Given how long they've been looking for ANY Female Spark, could they have single-handedly kidnapped/murdered them all in their zeal to find Lucrezia's daughter? (and oy, something ELSE for Agatha to feel guilty about...) Also, now that they've "finished" with the machine, will we start to see other Female Sparks appear now that they're no longer hunting them down?

* Well, even if that was the only reason, it'll probably be quite a while before we see any effects, probably years in-universe. Also note that I'm fairly sure there was at least two female sparks in the circus (Dame Aedith and Professor Moonstock), so it's not "female sparks are unheard of", just "female sparks have an even lower survivability rate than male sparks".

*** If you pay close attention to the phrasing, countryside sparks are burned as witches and female sparks disapear.

According to the Secret Blueprints, "Her plans collapsed when she returned from a solitary excursion to find her fortress a smoking ruin. Every last pirate was dead and the munitions and supplies that she had stockpiled in preparation for the attack were destroyed. There was no trace of the attacking army, and no hint of who was behind the destruction." [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20041103 Sound familiar?]

* IIRC, this is implicitly confirmed in the comic. Compare the design of Dupree's fortress as seen in her flashback to the design of the unnamed pirate fortress in Zeetha's flashback.

* [[Rule of Funny]] makes it nearly inevitable.

I've got no factual basis on which to back this up. I just mention it because A) America's unexplained inaccessibility has to be a plot point, B) Bill and Barry traveled there extensively, and C) it's the one place on Earth nobody could find them.

The true homeland of all [[Mad Scientist]] cliches. Complete with torch-waving 'eastern european' villagers with inexplicable Cockney accents.

* They do seem to be mining all of the old Universal monster movie cliches, don't they?

* I suddenly have this vision of a great Sparky battle [[Blazing Saddles|accidentally interrupting rehearsals for "The French Mistake"]]...

Think about it: An experiment gone awry in the belly of Castle Heterodyne leads to someone being possesed by an otherwordly intelligence with tragic and horrific consequences... and Theo's Mother is a Mongfish, after all. He may actually have insider information, even if it's just a half-remembered bedtime story from his chldhood.

* [[This troper]] notes the following:

** [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20030825 Power glove]: Well, [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060417 Maxim has one], as does [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021111 this mysterious character], but more importantly take a close look at [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20051230 the only view we have so far that we can be sure is the Other (central column, bottom half)]. (The two views of Lucrezia in the upper row do ''not'' resemble each other, though the first one looks like Lucrezia does at the other times we've seen her; conceivably the Geisterdamen ''are'' Lucrezia's invention that the Other took advantage of. This image is the only time we're sure we've seen "Lucrezia" between the attack on Castle Heterodyne and the present.)

Um, yeah. Why else would it have been in the comic?

* [[Author Appeal]]

**** Not to mention propaganda

* When Agatha is first brought to Gil's lab, [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040206 she looks over the books he has and begins reading "Trelawney Thorpe in the Seraglio of The Iron Sheik"] Gil instantly tries to distract her from it, and keeps doing so when she tries to go back to it. In that book, then, is an account of a night he spent in said Seraglio, and had a steamy encounter with Trelawney, which may have ended badly (or even more embarrassingly, with Trelawney actually having slept with him to gain information about the Wulfenbachs). He didn't want Agatha to a) think he was a sort of female-spark-player or b) he was too embarrassed by the outcome of the encounter to tell Agatha when he was trying to impress her. He even says that the stories are great, but total British propaganda - perhaps the Trelawney of the books (whom Gil, say, developed a celebrity crush on) was different enough in reality for Gil to be highly disappointed. Of course the book makes Gil out to be a sort of bumbling idiot prince who falls hopelessly in love with Trelawney. He keeps it around as a sort of schadenfreude to remind him of his own failures and not to repeat them.

** Unlikely. Wooster and Othar have both alluded to Gil's history as a ladies man in Paris, but Gil complaints to Wooster that none of the girls he met really understand him. If he'd dated a Spark, he wouldn't have that problem. The Seraglio of the Iron Sheik is probably just pornographic, and he doesn't want Agatha seeing it/knowing that he reads that sort of thing.

Jenka says [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080310 she has it on the "highest authority"] that Agatha likes Gil. Who would a wild Jaeger accept as highest authority -- who would '''also''' know how Agatha feels? One of Agatha's time windows opened in front of Jenka, and either future-Agatha explicitly '''told''' Jenka to look after Gil, or Jenka saw future-Agatha and future-Gil acting in a way that had "happy couple" written all over it.

* Alternatively she could have heard it from one of the Jager Generals who seemed to be trying to [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20031103 set Gil and Agatha up.]

*** Supported by a line in the novelization narrative, showing that General Zog smelled ''something'' he evidently found promising after he asked Agatha what she thought of Gil.

Both seem to have matriarchal societies of warrior-women, and their languages are similar. Perhaps Zeetha really was sent to kill Gil, but she forgot about it when she became sick.

* Tenuous, but perhaps:

* Years pass, and Lucrezia/The Other uses time travel to supplant the local Goddess, assuming control of Skifander and occasionally pulling the Geisterdamen back in time to the "shadow world".

We've already established that, biologically, they've diverged noticeably (green hair, anyone?), and being a matriarchal society, it's not unlikely that male Skifandrian Sparks would suffer the same fate as female European Sparks, or even have sufficient incentive to [[Gender Bender|change their own sex]] en masse.

[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php All we know about them] is that they [http://www.ozyandmillie.org/d/20030528.html tax fire]. Need I say more?

She is the one playing him and he is underestimating her.

* Remember, Gil has that ring he once gave Agatha on a chain around his neck ... and it has the Wulfenbach insignia on it.

**** This appears to be confirmed as of June 2010.

Because she stated she will "Dance with all the boys" just like Agatha said. And she is saying it aloud to the castle to send it (and maybe Agatha) a message for some reason.

* Oh please. That was just [[Rule of Funny]]. Everybody's reading way too much into a stylistic thing.

The Zola Gil knew from Paris is dead. This WMG is compatible with the previous two.

* Wow, so the count of people who are, were, or will be the Other totals...about 714 by now.

Gil has recently claimed that to go against the merest whim of Albia of England is "literally unthinkable", a statement which might imply she uses mind-control. Lucrezia uses a kind of mind-controlling voice, which Agatha has partly inherited. When Agatha first meets Sleipnir O'Hara, a Scottish spark and member of a noble family, Sleipnir inquires if Agatha is from England, a question which makes little sense, considering that Agatha is from an Eastern European family, and was raised in Transylvania. Thus, Sleipnir is at least partly familiar with Albia's Voice (and as a spark, would be unaffected by it), which is at least partly based in the English accent. Lucrezia learned the Voice from Albia at one point, and it was passed on to Agatha, meaning that when Agatha spoke, Sleipnir unconsciously recognised the English undertones to the Voice, prompting an instinctive inquiry if she was English.

* Where did it say Sleipnir was Scottish? 'Cause last time I checked, O'Hara was an Irish name (in fact, pretty much the archetypal Irish name).

*** How else would she be called? Lucrezia's not the type to say "Her Majesty", in the real world the Queen is called "Elizabeth II" by people in casual conversation all the time, and as far as we know Albia has no last name. It seems most likely that Lulu just wants away from Klaus, and Gil's threats to Wooster notwithstanding she's confident Albia can keep Klaus out. And there's the old "enemy of my enemy" thing. Britain didn't put an undercover agent practically in Klaus's back pocket because they're on cordial terms.

Think about it. Charismatic, powerful, exceptionally strong spark, probably going to marry Agatha and have peace, ''carries around a stick that can call down storm bolts from the sky''...seems fairly obvious to me.

* Tarvek is the True Heir by descent but Gil is shaping up to [[Incredibly Lame Pun|steal his thunder]]. Paralels both the political animosity between them (Tarvek hates the Wulfenbachs as (extremely competent) usurpers to the real royal families) and the [[Love Triangle]] with Agatha. And there's a [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070713 fairy tale] about the Storm King and a female Heterodyne...

* Volume 9--which focuses mostly on Tarvek and Gil--is called "Agatha Heterodyne and the '''Heirs''' of Storm." That's basically confirmation.

In the hospital scene, we see his chest covered with a scar pattern similar to Punch's, and definitely too extensive to be explained even by the massive injuries sustained by having a house dropped on him. He is also very strong, and resilient enough to survive previously mentioned house. He also has dropped his more "traditional" (read mechanical) mad science in favour of the research of the Spark, presumably to transfer it to himself, which is exactly what this troper would do if he was trying to imitate a powerful Spark. It would also explain why he is so extremely picky about who is doctor is, but that could just be standard run-of-the-mill paranoia...

* There was talk about him being made by his father from 3 of his sons somewhere in first chapters.

*** One more interesting thing... Baron is the second-lowest noble title in Germany, above Knight. Klaus humiliating the rest of the royalty cannot be ruled out.

* Dear God, I hope not.

** However, Moloch and Violetta have been [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081112 getting pretty chummy]...

*** That could have more to do with Violetta and Moloch both being top-grade minions.

And now for the most bizarre WMG logic in history: ''I had a dream about this''. It involved a small dog at some point.

* I am NOT a small dog. I'm merely short.

Hey, as long as I'm here, might as well throw in one. The 'von' has never been included in canon, yet shows up all over fan commentary. A barony in the Siebenbergen would certainly qualify for the particle in German or Sachsen, but Klaus at least doesn't use it. We know from the Secret Blueprints that his parents were responsible and caring rulers, and likely sided with the villagers and peasants rather than dabbling in the power games of nobility. I think it's a way of thumbing the family nose at those who are more interested in what they can accrue to themselves, rather than who they're responsible for.

* Interesting... amusingly, that would be the exact opposite of [[Those Wacky Nazis|Ribbentrop's]] fake "von". And of course there could be a legalistic aspect. Klaus is on top because he knocked heads, and Gil will be on top because he's the one Klaus taught to knock heads. Heriditary doesn't enter into it (I'd imagine that if for whatever reason Klaus couldn't produce a satisfactory heir, he'd just find one). Being "von Wulfenbach" would imply that his title, like those of the 50 families, is what gives him the right to rule. He doesn't hold for a second with their ideas of "legitimacy", so he's deliberatly abandoned any "legitimacy" that he had.

* Or maybe [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20070713 the Wulfenbachs were just a minor house] and never used "von".

For one reason or another he has decided it is best that there are no sparks. This is why Othar was going to save Agatha for last and goes after the Wulfenbachs. Not to mention his personality does somewhat match the showy-ness of the Heterodynes in tall tales. As the Dragon of Mars WMG above shows there is more than a passing resembelance to reality in those stories.

* Something happened. Bill went Othar, [[Zen Survivor]] and [[Knight Templar]], but Barry became jaded.

*** In one comic, it said that after the attack on the Castle, "Master Bill was nearly insane." Hmm...I don't suppose, in 18 years, he crossed into full madness?

This is slightly supported by [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021211 Dr. Beetle's panic at Agatha's missing locket], and more strongly so by the effect of the locket on the Other after the download. I imagine at the time they didn't know if the Other would be transmitted from mother to daughter, and therefore saw Agatha's (''very, very early'') breakthrough as being the manifestation of the Other. This one is premised on the Other being a sort of parasite. That it shut down her Spark is just a side effect (and one she overcame).

* One wrinkle in this theory is that Uncle Barry was scared by child!Agatha's heterodyning-- it's her humming, a manisfestation of the Heterodyne spark, that prompts him to give her the locket. Also, it's been said that Agatha's breakthrough went so smoothly because she'd been eased into it. She'd started designing dingbots back at the university, and the sleepbuilding came shortly after she'd lost her locket. It wasn't until the locket's affects had worn off completely that she was able to use her full Spark abilities. The gradual growing of abilities meant she didn't go insane like most.

** It's far, far more likely that Dr. Beetle was afraid that Agatha would give herself away if her spark was exposed and reveal his treachery.

But... in [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060109 this comic] we see that Tarvek's crest also has wings. So the trilobyte with wings can either be Tarvek + Agatha, or Gil + Agatha.

* However, if you look carefully Tarvek's wings and the Wulfenbach wings are different designs, and the wings on the wallpaper are Wulfenbach's.

** I always assumed the the [[Non Sequitur]] was due to Gil poking around in the Castle's innards.

In [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090713 this comic], Von Pinn states that she has existed for over two hundred years, and was created by a "beloved king", likely the Storm King. According to Master Payne, the muses have been in hiding for over one hundred years, and were likely in circulation (and being disassembled)for some time before that. Lucrezia's connections to the Knights of Jove could explain how she got a hold of Von Pinn.

* I'll give you the "created by/for the Storm King" thing, but I think it's pretty obvious she's a construct, not a clank. Unless you mean there are nine other muses, only constructs instead of clanks?

*** So, Von Pinn we know and Jagers love is in fact ''Otilia'', stuck in this construct body after a mind transference (by Lucrezia). ''If'' she yells at the castle for bad handling of the Muse body--which appears to be the case, because the party mishandling her ''current'' body is on the other side. That explains a lot.

Look at the lower left panel in [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20080310 this] comic. Doesn't that area of Jenka's face look a little bit too flat?

* Corollary: This is somewhat negated by the fact that you can sometimes see the bridge of her nose, so perhaps she's just missing a chunk of it.

** She doesn't smell because her nose is ''covered''.

As noted a fair ways above, Albia ([http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20061122 the only name we ever hear for her]) is used for many queens. She has a progression through the maternal line, and each simply follows the political ideas of the previous queen(s), so the ideas never die. Alternatively, the queen is a clank or construct (the latter of which would be more than one person, just a little differently).

* Albion was one of the first names for England. Albia is just a feminized version. Also note that on [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060306 this] page Gil mentions "What's left" of the island of England. Not only is Albia an undying anquitarian thinking machine, she's also ENGLAND, full stop.

** He also threatens to "destroy" Albia, which suggest she is an Clank or AI instead of a living organism. Or maybe just that he will destroy her entirely so there is nothing left for resurrection.

Both of them are very hard to kill. Granted, Gil's [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090812 comment] was in the context of disease, but Klaus is nothing if not thorough. And since the guy ''lives'' on an airship, some sort of tweak to avoid defenestration makes sense. We also know they both like waffles, and both have a "my way is the right way" mentality. And finally, we know time travel exists in this setting. Put them all together, and you have a later-period Klaus driven insane by temporal paradox or attempts to get that wasp out of his head jumping back in time to "fix" all the problems he's experienced by eliminating the causes of them: Sparks.

* And makes a special point of opposing himself and his son... why?

The facts we know for sure: Von Pinn was not created by the Heterodynes or Lucrezia, but was given to them as a gift. [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090713 She was originally charged with] keeping Agatha "safe" for those around her, and then with "protecting" her, but she found loopholes to do both of those without Agatha having to survive. Even though she disagreed with her king she says she wouldn't even want to betray him if she could. But Lucrezia then gave her an order to keep Agatha alive, and she would very much love to be able to disobey that but cannot.

* [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100730 Disproved]

The Baron and his people ''claim'' that they're new, but think about it. A tool like that is much more valuable if kept secret, since they can just step up security and add four security keys to every important mechanism or something if her enemies found out about it. Everyone would be second-guessed, and eventually they'd find a countermeasure (read: the bug sniffing dogs). Far more useful is to have a few key players infected and ready to sabotage things or lead their troops to certain death, without leaving any evidence that she'd made them do it. The reason they're in the open now is that Agatha wasn't in on this subterfuge; Lucrezia never would have wasted her trump card by ordering one of her stealth revenants to activate the hive engine, but Agatha didn't even do that on purpose and certainly wasn't trying to keep anything hidden. Once an action had been taken which couldn't be attributed to anything but stealth-revenants, the Baron figured it out, ran whatever tests were necessary to verify it, and had his countermeasure in under three months. The reason these revenants are "new" is because this is first time they've acted so inexpertly as to be noticed.

** Confirmed: The shambling revenants were the exception, not the rule.

As [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=0000000000000000000002oy&page=95#2362 pointed out] by Dr East on the forums, everybody assumes that the locket killed Omar, but when he steals it Agatha, in full madness mode (which makes the command voice much stronger, or at least makes her voice closer to Lucrezia's), [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20021122 orders him to die slowly and painfully]. By the end of the day, he caught an unexplainable illness which killed him. All that locket was was a mental suppressor--I could imagine it giving the wrong person a headache or making it hard to think, but we don't ''know'' that it should be strong enough to kill a non-spark. Wheras we know that the command voice can be used to command someone to die (not to kill themselves but to ''die''), since Lucrezia orders Vrin to die in book six and she seemingly chokes to death the instant the order is given. So while the amulet could have been what did him in, he might have simply died because he was a revenant and he was ordered to. This also has the bonus effect of explaining why the protagonists are so interested in retracing Moloch's steps once they get the time window--if he was a revenant, he had to have been infected somewhere, and figuring out where might help them find the hive.

* It's worth noting that when Agatha tells her parents the locket was taken, they look in the thieves' market instead of the local hospitals, which means that ''they'' at least weren't expecting it to cause illness. Now, since it's presumably a unique piece of technology, it's possible they didn't know ''what'' kind of effect it would have on a non-Spark, but it's still suggestive.

** Moloch broke the locket by throwing it in frustration, almost as soon as he took it from Omar's corpse. The other points still stand, though.

* In a timeline where Othar never went into Castle Heterodyne, Gil is dead. However, we know from the 'future' scene that not only is Gil alive, but he's important to some stuff. Now, the only thing different in the two timelines, is Othar's presence. Thus, Othar is going to save Gil's life. Albeit it, probably on accident...

Okay, another strange story, but some time after the end of it, Glinda looks at Oz, thinks it's hopeless and leaves after installing a shadow government and Figurehead (Probably a fake Scarecrow) She manages to tough through a lot, but gave up her magic for some reason (Emotional Baggage?) and ends up in Paris. Her money is no good there and ends up as a showgirl. She gets caught up with a lot of strange sparky schemes because through it all, she believes the best in people. She started finding her own two feet and quite possibly decided no more strange things when she meets Gil, and it's the Fiyero thing all over again, even if she doesn't know much of the Wulfenbach empire (Or even that he's the Baron's son).

* Thoroughly disproven by this point, I would think. {{spoiler|Turns out, ALL of the above is merely an act. The real Zola is evil, evil, EVIL.}}

It's stated that time travel and Bardo shenanigans pretty much destroyed the previous timeline as we know it, and the Terminals had to remake it in a way that could survive alteration (and may well have destroyed themselves in the process). Othar may have a point; Sparks will eventually get into time travel, and the resulting time wars and temporal paradoxes will make time collapse on itself, and the Geniuses of the new timeline are a faded reflection of the power of the Spark.

I've got a hunch that Agatha,Gil and Tarvek are going to mess Si Vales Valeo up - somehow - and end up [[Freaky Friday|exchanging]] [[Man, I Feel Like a Woman|their bodies]] for some time. [[Hilarity Ensues]].

* This Troper is betting that they'll screw up the Si Vales Valeo, and that the Other is going to end up in somebody other than Agatha's head... most likely Tarvek's...

Various forms of drama could have had Barry and Lucrezia get together in the time where they were missing. An affair, possibly due to Bill going insane and sending her into his brother's arms? Closeness after his possible death, turning into something more? What we know is that Barry, not Bill, was the one who brought Agatha back to live with Punch and Judy; and he had a locket which could shut down the Other - something which could have been used to rescue Lucrezia previously, if we got with the "the Other took over Lucrezia" theory. In any case, guilt over this emotional betrayal of his brother could have had Barry decide to tell Agatha he was her "uncle". Since she would no doubt hear all the Heterodyne stories growing up, it would after all be a rather sordid thing to inform a young child of. This theory may also account for Barry's general atmosphere of regret/shame in his flashback appearance, though that may simply be from the necessity of repressing Agatha's talents.

* Disproven by Word of God. Agatha is absolutely, positively Bill's daughter.

Compare (what's currently today's) strip and the one in back of http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20050928 and tell me they aren't the same. (Note the headband, in particular). Edit: Called it!

* Lucrecia!Agatha just bit him. Earlier, she got it from Tarvek by kissing him. Therefore, Moloch has it now, too. This does not bode well.

She pretends to be a [[Dumb Blonde]], but she's actually smarter than she looks and perfectly capable of killing when needed without loosing her cool - skills that come in handy when you're a spy. She kept getting involved in the schemes of minor sparks - and subtly nudging them towards failure - because the Master of Paris needed them stopped for the safety of his city. She knew who Gil was all along - getting Gilgamesh Wulfenbach involved whenever possible in order to evaluate his abilities and character was an important secondary mission of hers, since the Master of Paris would want to know everything he could about the heir to the empire. While in the course of her stumble-into-conspiracies-and-screw-them-up job, she became a part of the Knights of Jove's plot, and the Master of Paris realized that this was something much bigger and more dangerous than the other little problems she'd been solving for him and ordered her to drop the dumb act enough to get picked as their fake heir so she could do ... whatever would be most convenient for Paris. Once Zola gets in touch with her boss again and provides enough information for him to realize that Agatha is A) really a Heterodyne and B) not a threat to Paris (either directly via trying to take over the world or indirectly by destabilizing Klaus's peace), she'll probably be ordered to help Agatha - and to get the new Heterodyne to Paris ASAP. When the current crisis is over, she'll run into Wooster and they'll recognize each other and reminisce over some martini-flavored [[Noodle Incident]] before engaging in a long and entertaining series of backstabs as they each try to get Agatha to their respective governments first.

Weather or not he's the scion of the Storm King is another question completely.

Not "the heir to the throne of", but the original, thanks to a stable time loop which (obviously) hasn't happened yet (after all, Tarvek was capable of sending Twitter!Othar back in time.) Alternatively...

* Okay, I'm an idiot: Tarvek was capable of sending Twitter!Othar's ''consciousness'' back in time.

Again, a stable time loop which (obviously) hasn't happened yet; after being thrown back in time, he will construct the Muses for the Storm King - as somebody who is fascinated with van Rijn's designs, who has constructed a replica - which became ''sapient!'' - of a van Rijn design, and who would have a knowledge of future technology at his disposal, he'd have no difficulty in claiming to be "the greatest spark of all time" - the only oddity is that Tarvek doesn't seem to enough of an egomaniac to make such a claim.

Much as in the theory about Gil above. No affair has been explicitly shown, but Aaronev was clearly infatuated with Lucrezia. Problems include the description of Aaronev's consort as a Valois (which, admittedly, Lucrezia could be for all we know) and the Summoning Engine failing to work correctly on Anevka.

Spark Tesla is a pretty terrifying idea and would explain why no one has returned from the Americas. I mean the guy was pretty close to one in [[Real Life]].

* Due to the [[Rule of Cool]], this theory is now part of this troper's head canon until [[Word of God]] says otherwise. They would also like to think that Tesla won.

** What, and Steinmetz wouldn't be the clear victor? Dude was a hunchbacked scientist who built a small city and then destroyed it with artificial lightning, lived with crocodiles, gila monsters and vultures, and was every bit the genius Tesla was. In real life. Adding the spark would largely be a formality.

An extensive (and effective) breeding program, and at least one known instance of a control voice. Think about it.

* Which probably makes the Dyne [[Dune|the Spice]] good thing it's secret or whole continents could erupt in a war that spanned the globe. As opposed to the troubles Klaus settled, which were limited to less than 3 continents.

Even if her human body was long dead she had her memories stretching all that way back to her childhood, long before she was connected to Tinka's body, she seemed to have emotions, she had free will, basically she had ''everything'' that makes a person a person, and with those memories that person ''was'' Anevka. Tarvek just denied it to rationalize away killing (or at least essentially causing a coma for) his sister.

* I think that she was like the muses that she was based on: a fully sentient construct. The difference is that she thought she was human.

Jaegers will only let Heterodynes work on them, but they let Mamma patch them up. QED...

* there is not enough jagerdraught in the world to re-grow an [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060719 amputated arm]. Though minor injuries are obviously treated easily.

You've got giant mechanical spiders, crude cyborgs, what-have-you. Dr. Loveless is obviously a Spark, with his loyal minions and steam-powered wheelchair. Artemis Gordon is also a spark, albeit a low-key one. Professor Escobar and the other kidnapped scientists were also Sparks, complete with their own minions (Rita, for example). Those guys in foreign uniforms aren't all legitimate- some of them are warlords fleeing Wulfenbach. James West and Gordon are the start of the Secret Service, designed to police rogue Sparks.

* Slight problem with this theory, the Americas are completely cut off in [[Girl Genius]] canon so anyone from Europe wouldn't be able to get there. On the other hand, we don't know what the year is in the comic so the events of [[Wild Wild West]] could have happened before America was isolated or after comtact was re-established.

We already know that Klaus likes to hide his children when they're young, and for good reason. He runs a tyrannical empire, and there are plenty of people who would love to get their hands on a juicy hostage. Any of the children on Castle Wulfenbach, even those with supposedly established backgrounds, could be a Wulfenbach. Might explain why Klaus was so broken up over Zulenna's 'death'.

Bang = [[Sky Pirate|Pirate]]. Violetta= Smoke Knight= [[Ninja]] (more or less). Both the [[Rule of Cool]] and the law of the internet demand that they fight.

** Another possibility: Pirate versus Spy, as Wooster's first [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] involved delivering an [[Offhand Backhand]] to Bangladesh. Of course, he's also managed to earn the muderous rage of ANOTHER of Klaus's minions, so Bang may have to take a number behind Dolokov...in any case, it's pretty clear all the [[Badass Normal]] characters will at some point have to have an internet cliche melee.

She's dangerously close to death and is going to put herself even closer to try to help her two beaus. Luckily, she's right next to the source of that famous potion that created everyone's favorite near immortal killing machines.

* Well, maybe not a Jager, since water from the Dyne is only an ingredient in Jagerdraught, and she doesn't know the recipe. But, given that Knife Heterodyne survived drinking the water, she has a very good shot.

** It certainly makes ''[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100409 SO MANY THINGS BECOME CLEAR!]''

We know she perfected [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100407 mind transfer], so it is possible that the Other is ''not'' her, but instead one of her "copies". She might even be one of the good guys fighting against the Other, which could be a [[AI Is a Crapshoot|defective copy]].

* How about she isn't the Other, but she will become the Other. After all, time travel exists. Some sort of stable timeloop effect I'm thinking

The Other is a malevolent super entity, demon, spirit, thing; created, or discovered, by Lucrezia. It is very intelligent, a chess master, and will use anything to achieve its goals. Thus, it can possess people to further its means. Lucrezia experimented with mental transfer, and either:

A) formed The Other from scratch, and, like so many creations of sparks, it went rogue

* Once she discovers who The Other really is, she decides to kill It by going back to the attack on Castle Heterodyne and using the attack as cover for a more covert assassination mission. Turns out she has to cause the attack first, though. She's already been shown travelling through time and being seen by [[Du Pree]].

[http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20071102 Dance naked through the streets trying to shoot down the moon, turned all the tourists into monsters, and then built a very dangerous fountain out of sausages.]

Today's comic seems to be saying this.

* This was already guessed, about a third of the way from the bottom of the page. Look for "Von Pinn is a muse."

There arguments seem to be more of a [[Slap Slap Kiss]] then actual hatred, and look at [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20060315 this], their closeness doesn't seem very, ahem, professional. Also, as dedicated and strong willed as Klaus is, he's still human and she's an [[Evil Is Sexy|attractively]] [[Ambiguously Brown|tan chick]], and why would Bangladesh do it? Well Klaus is [[Mr. Fanservice|pretty]] [[Hot Dad|hot]], and maybe Bangladesh likes old guys.

* In that panel he's is physically restraining her so that he can use the weasel on her. (Wow, ''there's'' something I'd say again.) There's nothing sexual about it at all.

... In this recent storyline ([http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100519 "Maxim Buys a Hat"]), there's an awful lot of Jewish overtones to the story that don't make sense otherwise:

* The hebrew writing on the [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100528 schlognwurst].

***** Never mind ''Othar''--that's [[Unfortunate Implications]] for the whole damn comic. 99.9% of Sparks are evil geniuses who end up destroying everything around them in spectacular ways.

* Oggie and Maxim seem to listen carefully to what he says. He is much less goofy than the other two. His gruff-but-caring attitude and low-key hardness fit the bill perfectly. He has been stated to be a fair bit older than the others. Even Maxim, who was apparently an officer, usually defers to Dimo's judgement. Everything about him practically screams [[Old Soldier]] and [[Sergeant Rock]].

We know that the slaver wasp he swallowed is specially engineered to work on sparks, but is it engineered to work on constructs? Klaus does obey the Other in the scene following his infection, but he is definitely intelligent and quick-thinking enough to let the Other think he is infected, and there is a clear advantage to that. Then again, the Other may have known Klaus was a construct, and taken steps accordingly.

* Because every WMG entry needs one. Besides, he has travelled in time, shows up in strange places he could never have gotten to by conventional means, and cannot die. He decided to sample Earth snack food after being given a Jelly Baby by the Doctor, and fell in love with popcorn.

** His twitter confirms that he has other versions of himself... Those who are messing with the time-line.

Not just that they are already exhibiting unstable characteristics, fighting amongst themselves. We've learned that Lucrezia worked out how to transfer consciousness between humans and machines. She's used the Muses in the past, but surely, a Dingbot, a clank with the Spark, would be even better? Look at the time window at the start of the story - notice the voice balloons. We've assumed they are just echos, but what if they signify a collective entity made up of many dingbot clanks, all speaking as one?

They've referred to the other as "Brodder" at least twice, and it stands to reason that if one of them goes on a suicide mission, the other goes too.

Well, it would explain so much. Overly pink. Heads all wrong. Lack of romantic entanglements. Always up for adventure.

* [[Jossed]].

The rules for sparks and mad scientists are practically identical, but a few hundred years later sparks are much less common (possibly due to Othar's quest) and thus normal people have forgotten/been mindwiped. Now the sparks that remain have much more advanced technology and research to draw from, and most people simply do not notice or rationalize away anything strange they encounter unless the veil is broken for them (again, possibly due to something Othar did).

* The fanfic [[The Mad Scientist Wars]] is based on this.

When we [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091030 first see it], we see bizarre growths everywhere. We then find out in the next comic that it grants strength and has mutagenic properties. Not to mention seeing it create [[Elite Mooks]]. And then we're told it's fatal in high doses and can be used as a vast energy source. It even glows blue. And then the clincher. With a more controlled application of the Dyne's power, Agatha enters [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100416 Hyper Mode]. She even properly vents it before it overloads.

** Thanks for the idea, now my imagination can come up with all sorts of distracting stuff... Zero Suit Agatha?

Though it really depends of how much drama the authors want to milk from it, and how unlikeable they're aiming to make {{spoiler|Zola.}} As it stands now, it looks pretty certain she will {{spoiler|due to the [[Impaled with Extreme Prejudice|blade through the gut]] from Zola.}} If this DOES happen and stick, [[Player Punch|dammit, Foglios, that's a low blow.]]

* I was under the impression that Personal Trainer took place at the circus.

Face it, we all get that Zeetha's Gil's sister. In this scenario, the Zulenna side story (with Klaus not caring about inheritance rules and her being brought back) isn't important itself but as foreshadowing--Zeetha is a princess, but if she dies {{spoiler|after Zola's stabbed her}} and is either [[Killed Off for Real]] or [[Death Is Cheap|brought back]] she loses her ability to inherit the throne, and has only one sibling we know of--Gil, son of Klaus/Chump. The Skiffandrans were angry with Klaus and potentially out to kill Gil because he's in line for the throne.

** Big problem: that rule was made up by the 12 (?) royal families of Europa so Great great great grandpa wouldn't be on the throne forever and his desendants could actually inherit. It's not a universal thing.

*** Not a big problem. Just because that PARTICULAR law was made up by the European families doesn't mean Skifander doesn't have a similar rule. Without a law like that governing succession, there's nothing to prevent every country ending up with an Albia--once you have an undying ruler, it's hard to get rid of them. Not to mention, she might NOT be bring-back-able, or even WORSE, Gil is older and the legitimate heir either way.

There are too many contradictions between his character as established in the flashback, and as established in person. In particular, flashback-Higgs isn't nearly as [[Made of Iron]]. Compare: in the flashback, he gets his arm broken by a territorial goose. In a later appearance, he gets slammed into a wall by Otilia and doesn't even blink. Besides that, he breaks his [[The Stoic|Stoic]] facial expression twice just during the flashback, and only three times since then.

So now we must ask ourselves: what ''did'' happen? We know that he was at least a ''little'' injured when he arrived. Doctor Sun mentioned that one injury - supposedly, a bite from Bang - was infected, which suggests that the Doctor looked him over. If Higgs actually [[The Worf Effect|got hurt]]...

* At the barfight, it is implied that Higgs was healed in the same way that Gil was, and was healed with a Jäger potion. He may be showing some side effects from that.

At some point, Agatha will use the waters from below Castle Heterodyne to brew coffee. I believe a vaguely accurate term for what happens next would be [[Limit Break]], and manipulation of time and space would be the very least of her powers.

Most likely Gil.

To phrase it better: It seems that Albia '''is''' England. I believe that she was human at one point, (that would explain the heirs) but that some situation, a war possibly, forced her to fuse with England itself, allowing her to administer its systems (maybe the AI controlling them normally was destroyed in an attack). This rendered her immortal, but unable to exit the machine, as that would make the remains of the islands fall apart. Also, when Gil threatens Wooster, he says he will '''destroy''' her, not kill her. So she rules to this day as Her Undying Majesty, possibly with her original persona gone just as Anevka's, but no one dares to disobey her, as she can control every part of the country - denying her is "literally unthinkable", because she's [[Big Brother Is Watching|everywhere]].

''[[Street Fighter (film)|Street Fighter]]'' takes place in a timeline where Othar managed to kill off most, if not all, of the Sparks (or else they wiped each other out somehow, or else they're just not relevant to the movie's plot and thus don't show up due to [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]])

And then his talent for surviving will be stretched to its limits as Othar does his best to kill him dead. Othar was right there when Moloch successfully tricked Klaus into thinking he was a Spark worth watching, and the art on the next page [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040112 shows Othar taking note of him]. Okay, he ''might'' be noticing that Moloch looks suspiciously relieved, but Othar being Othar it seems more likely that he's memorizing the face of a new target to take out when he has the time. And with Agatha proving so hard to find (possibly helped along with his ''big brother senses'' telling him that Moloch's having unpure thoughts about his baby sister) he might as well get ''some'' "good" done that day.

Of course he won't succeed since we've seen Moloch in the time portal, but he might take down Mittelmind and Mezzasalma in the process so Agatha won't be stuck in the position of either keeping two obviously evil sparks as allies once she's done needing every bit of help she can get to fix up the castle, leaving two obviously evil sparks to their own devices, or becoming the type of person who betrays her own allies when they haven't given her cause to (yet, being [[Department of Redundancy Department|obviously evil sparks]])

Nuff said.

* No particular reason; but she is a 'pirate queen', and one of the pirates in that flashback sequence looks vaguely like her.

** More than likely, I'd say it's pretty near certain. [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20041101 Have you checked the device (symbol or seal) on the airships that attacked Zeetha's lately?] [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20040123 Now look at Bang's forehead (extra-big view at the bottom).] Look familiar?

More seriously, perhaps one was inspired by the other. (I'm not sure which came first.) Come on. [[Du Pree]]'s [[Rebus Bubble]] incident that led to the "World's Best Boss" trophy? Or the castle's dislike of being called "good"? Then again, I suppose the character type is just so much fun that it doesn't really need inspiration...

Lucifer Mongfish, Seriously miffed by his favorite daughter's heel face turn decided to get back at her. When Lucretia announces her second pregnancy, Lucifer takes his dim-but-devoted daughter [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Demonica]] and gets her to become pregnant (Most likely Using Barry as the father, so the child will still register with the castle as an official Heterodyne heir) And then groomed this granddaughter to take over and destroy Castle Heterodyne when she was of age, effectively ruining Lucretia's new family. However, the Other attacked. Lucifer still used this to his advantage, by making Zola the "long-lost" Heterodyne Heir. He died before she became of age.

The first time window we see scares Agatha into Moloch and Omar von Zinzer, who take her locket, thereby giving us a plot. Taking into account the facts that, we know Agatha has made time windows herself (without the arcing metal), and that she (in the window) was saying "Like THIS??" we can conclude that she was a rival spark who heard that Agatha had time windows and sought to do it herself, but... badly. The arcing metal and speech distortion were from the bad quality of the time window.

So, Agatha would not have become a spark without the effects of her having become a spark... [[Dragaera|That way lieth the headache.]]

It seems to intensify one's mental abilities in a certain area, at the expense of your social awareness. With proper training it can be molded into a useful trait, but if not recognized early, the spark can be devastating.

Klaus would probably do it to get rid of the Other once and for all, but Tarvek may do it to protect Agatha.

For some reason Zola thinks she has a right to claim the castle as the home of her father. Zola was willing to interupt Agatha to claim that she was entitled to call herself a Heterodyne. Somehow Zola is something special in physic, able to withstand a double dose of Movit#11 and the Princesses tweaking of Suns equipment. We also have the fact that while Bill usually got the girl, Barry got the high preistess. Would that apply to the relation between the Mongfish sisters?

* Since She's been proven a member of the mongfish family, this would make Zola and Agatha Double first cousins.

They download something into the brain itself (as opposed to a chemical agent or being a [[Puppeteer Parasite]] along for the ride) which is why revenants cannot be cured.

After doing all they can to make her appear to be a horrible, unlikeable character she'll get a chance to take a bullet for Gil, proving that she really loved him all along. Alternatively...

And Gil will be forced to kill her to save Agatha's life.

Specifically, just after he read the fake account stating that he was the son of a rural Spark. That's the reason he told Klaus about Tarvek's spying, once he realized that Tarvek was going to keep digging Gil knew that he had to do something to get Tarvek away from Klaus or Klaus would have killed Tarvek without hesitation.

We haven't seen any Jägers recognizably infected with The Other, and Jenka keeps that scarf over her face.

Jenka, although a Jäger, is also still a spark, and is avoiding detection by approaching them selectively (she ran into Da Boyz and gained their trust, but hasn't joined the Jäger forces and doesn't actually report to them -- although it's unclear, it wouldn't be surprising to find the Jäger Generals know of her, even if they aren't sure who she is). However, most of the Jägers have had to tolerate Lucrezia before the attack and would know her on sight, even after the transformation, so she wears the scarf over her face. She smells different, and as long as she continues to speak and dress like a Jäger that is all she needs.

She's a classic [[Mauve Shirt]] type generally, and she and Othar have expressed the intention to start adventuring together once they're out of the castle, but in the radio dramas, presumably taking place after Agatha's in residence (and all the prisoners free), she's nowhere to be seen. Add in the fact that she's one of the legs of a [[Love Triangle]] - in general [[The Plot Reaper|not a healthy position]] to be in - and [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20100908 this strip] is going to become a [[Funny Aneurysm Moment]] before long, especially if [[Murder the Hypotenuse|Snaug is responsible]] (although probably not).

* The radio dramas are a bit of half-canon, and there are other weird things about those, such as where Gil and Tarvek are (and why the hell they're adventuring with Othar). Maybe Sanaa becomes Gil's bodyguard.

Klaus Barry was a [[Red Herring]] - everyone was right to expect a boy. Barry and Bill, either [[Land of Oz|to hide her]] or because [[Transsexualism|they thought it fitting]], or both, changed her sex very early in life. Note the obvious [[Gender Flip]] of title, and more importantly, the width of her shoulders - wider than many male characters, and nearly ''all'' the female characters but Judy.

It really was a world of [[Black and White Morality]]; there was simply the Heterodyne Boys against the forces of Evil, AKA The Other. After all of them disappeared, moral ambiguity crept in, and even those who were alive during that era became indistinguishable as good or evil. The re-appearance of The Other will force everyone she encounters to align absolutely again, and both sides will battle for dominance.

Not only did Lucrezia need to have a daughter to ensure her continued existence as the Other, she needed ''not'' to have a son - the Geisterdamen religion speaks of a Holy Child, not Holy Children, and the symbol of their goddess ([http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20051230 at the top of the page here]) appears to be a stylized depiction of Lucrezia holding a female infant. Lucrezia knew or suspected that Klaus Barry's existence would give the Geisterdamen reason to doubt her divinity, and, having pretty much given up on the whole "one of the good guys" thing, killed her son as soon as she had reason to believe that she was pregnant with a girl, perhaps meaning to pass the boy's death off as a tragic accident. What she didn't count on was the fact that the Castle is apparently tasked with doing [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20091118 whatever is necessary] in preserving the line of succession, up to and including blatantly disregarding orders from the reigning Heterodyne. Lucrezia barely escaped with her life and was forced to cripple the Castle in order to a) get away and b) prevent it from telling Bill what ''really'' happened to his son.

It's already got [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20110509 a good king turned evil by a witch's power] and more recently the story's got a child of the former good king being taken from their shattered home and raised by a supernatural servant until the child had matured enough to go out into the world. Is anyone else seeing parallels to Agatha's situation? Maybe Klaus just felt the need to just vent for once and did it in a way that wouldn't send everything into chaos.

A simple swapping over of Heterodyne and Mongfish makes it work. Lucrezia takes over the Heterodyne reign, Wulfenbach brings about the collapse of the regime by suggesting that she turn on the Heterodynes, leaving Wulfenbach to take over. Maybe the Heterodyne brothers' rule wasn't as good as people remember it?

Agatha as Other, the evil queen, takes over the Wulfenbach empire, turning him into a mad wolf. The prince, Gilgamesh, having learnt wisdom, returns and makes the Other slay his father, leaving himself to rule as a good king. Klaus knows he can't talk about the slaver wasp, so he's making a metaphorical allusion to his desires for his son.

**** And furthermore, note how the message will get to its intended recipient, by all-but-directing the storyteller to inquire about it to Gilgamesh! Brilliant scheming on the part of the Baron!

Firstly, when Gil goes into Castle Heterodyne he says he was a pirate. Zola thinks this is obvious for three reasons.

1) He was always going on mysterious trips.

* The novels stated that Klaus sent Bang to Paris to work with Gil, mainly so that Gil would learn how to deal with and if necessary fight against crazy people (Not that he let Bang know the real reason). They also mention rumors that they became romantically involved, but the author doubted their veracity, as both of them were still alive.

* Anyone remember "Auntie Mehitabel's Natural Causes"? I don't recall that she ever received an antidote.

** Violetta gave her the antidote, check the couple of pages after she IDs the poison.

*** Headdesk. Don't know how I missed that.

* think about it, there are three boys, always together, and a single girl (one of only two female jaegers) usually apart from them. they are smarter than most jaegers, due to their long time separated from the rest, making them good candidates.

** Dimo made General, at least...

When the Doom Bell rang, every non-Heterodyne that hadn't heard it before was immediately floored. [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20111125 But Gil wasn't, despite not being old enough to be around when it was last rung]. The only effect it had on him was his recognizing the implications of it being rung (Namely that Agatha had fixed the castle and was claiming her territory). Momma Glinka immediately referred to him as the Consort of Lady Heterodyne.

The Heterodyne boys learned about the events of the present comic (and future ones) some time ago, at the very least at the time the Castle was attacked. Klaus briefly mentions that Barry told Dr. Beetle something that convinced him not to trust Klaus with the information about slaver wasps and Agatha, which would make sense if he learned that Klaus was going to become a revenant at some point. We've seen several points where Agatha (or possibly Lucrezia in her) used some form of time travel technology to view events in Moloch's past. In Othar's twitter account he mentions that Tarvek was able to use Lucrezia's technology to send him back in time to prevent a bad future. The Jagers are noted to really like to eat bugs and have a loathing of the Other. All of the Other's plans and the Heterodyne responses have been made by imperfect understanding of future events, trying to stack the deck in the favor (and probably manipulating the past to get the best tools).

In this world, there are more possibilities than in ours. Remember, the setting is based on the premise of [[Science-Related Memetic Disorder|a heritable subtype of humanity]], including the protagonist, with [[Super Intelligence|increased mental capabilities]], [[The Madness Place|hyperfocus as a superpower]] and [[Mad Scientist|a particular view on experimental ethics]], so it might be possible for there to be some genotypes that leads to increased physical prowess (for example Ol' Man Death, maybe very common in the female population of Skifander)-especially considering that Sparks (especially Gil) have performed feats of extraordinary strenght and endurance.

And Agatha will have to watch her back until she officially gets together with Gill.

* Why would she care about Tarvek? She forgot about him the second Vole showed up and started ranting about oceans of blood and the empire going down in flames.

Tarvek met DuPree during his academy days, not long after reuniting with Gil. DuPree, attracted to his relative innocence, developed a crush on him and, being [[Heroic Comedic Sociopath|DuPree]], decided to act on it one night. At first Tarvek put up a fight on the basis of propriety, earning him the nickname "Prince How-Dare-You," but eventually relented. The "little scars" DuPree mentioned are her own handiwork. Tarvek was thoroughly embarassed after learning that DuPree was a pirate and faked his own death to get away from her. He wants Gil to shoot her to keep the details of the affair secret. DuPree, still delighted by how flustered Tarvek gets in her presence, continues to carry a torch. Or, at the very least, ''really'' enjoys teasing him about it.

# From Zeetha's experience we know there is a market for human trafficking. The mark on Bang's forehead isn't a mark of position or lineage. It's a mark of ownership, from possibly Petrus Teufel of the Black Mist Raiders. A mark showing something was handpicked by him perhaps, and Klaus rescued her from this fate. Saw she was highly motivated for revenge and he became a father like figure to her and earned her loyalty. She later received the best training possible and was unleashed on the world as a rogue agent for Klaus.

# She's a privateer since she isn't an outlaw in Wulfenbauch territory. Klaus destroys what he cannot control if it is in his territory. One pirate would not be a problem, so she is a privateer raiding OTHER pirates and territories and bringing Klaus the tech and sparks gained from the attacks with the added bonus of gaining the additional crew members when she breaks up slaving rings. When she went on her solitary excursion, her crew at her home base decided to mutiny and go pirate, leading Zeetha to do an unintentional favor by cleaning house. It's highly unlikely she would have had the most loyal crew when she earned her title as a pirate queen in territories besides Wulfenbauch's.

** The novels give Bang's backstory. She was the only daughter of the queen of a minor nation (Of pirates) who was overthrown. Her mother raised her with the intent of her being able to retake her kingdom. But just as she was starting to get a sizable fleet built up, some unidentified group ({{spoiler|Which has been strongly implied to be Zeetha acting alone}}) destroyed her base and most of her forces. Part of her employment terms with Klaus is that he has agents trying to figure out who trashed her base.

All we have so far is Klaus' word that Gil's been infected and an easily faked test. Gil was around Klaus for a while after Agatha's escape, he could have easily been tested in a matter of moments and Klaus would have every reason to do so. So far nearly all of Gil's actions that we've seen (with the exception of saving Zola) don't seem to do much to help the Other and we have seen Klaus under Anevka's control. Once Gil takes a moment to actually think about it he'll realize how implausible Klaus' story is and break out.

* We've already seen that Klaus got wasped. This happened on-panel, just before "SHOWTIME!"

One thing that I couldn't reconcile was why Gil saved Zola when Tarvek was killing her. He never explained why he needed her alive. One thing I noticed was that she asked for help, and Gil gave it, with a "Get off her, you—!" Rather over-the-top, and he seemed a little disoriented afterwards. Then we find out that Tarvek's notes stated that Gil was wasped back in Paris. Who did he spend a lot of time with (mostly "rescuing") in Paris? Zola. Who has shown that she's hiding a lot of things about herself? Zola. Who has a copy of Lucrezia firmly lodged in a corner of her mind? Zola. As much as I hate to think it, I think that Gil HAS been wasped, and he got wasped by Zola. ~RD

Bang is the Baron's wild card in all of this and having every spy who hears about recent events believe that she is incapacitated only allows her to work with even more freedom. We've seen how loyal she is already.

It is strongly hinted that Klaus is Chump. Higgs' comment about Zeetha's old grandma could be foreshadowing if Klaus' mother is still around.

* Unless Lucrezia also sent Klaus' mother to Skifander, which is unlikely, Zeetha was talking about her maternal grandmother.

*** ...I really don't think he was.

Because [http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090311 apparently the Heterodyne can do that]. (Notice Violetta's objection to the idea wasn't on any sort of moral grounds at all.) Seriously though, it would unify the most powerful blocs east of the Rhine, and yes the arrangement is unusual, but a world which has had Sparks for a few thousand years isn't going to bat an eyelid at rulers with odd proclivities. Thankful it's something harmless, more likely.

No one's ever heard of it, outside of a select few, and what's the one place on GG's Earth we know for a fact Europeans have an inexplicably hard time getting to?

Also, theories on the wiki makes a pretty convincing case for it being in the [http://girlgenius.wikia.com/wiki/Skifander#Possibly_relevant_outside_information San Fernando Valley].

It was put there by Zola. Zola already betrayed Lucrezia once, and Zola's family have been preparing for her return. We know Lucrezia's allies have been working on the wasps, after all, and that presumably includes Zola's family. Therefore, they may have developed a variation. Gil's wasp makes him do what ''Zola'' says, not what ''Lucrezia'' says.

Remember what the Baron said: "No matter what happens, I will do EVERYTHING IN MY POWER to HELP you." It's likely that Anevka/ {{spoiler|Lucrezia}} is ordering him to do this, so he's doing what he can to subvert her. Right now? He just gave Gil an excuse to help Agatha while still allowing him the potential to take over the Empire at a later date (when he is 'cured' of the Slaver Wasp). Remember earlier in a time window, Gil was dressed like a Geisterdamen? This is the setup for that. It's highly likely (to me) that Dupree is fine and is going to break him out later under Klaus's orders, both of them going to serve Agatha and help her stop Anevka/ {{spoiler|Lucrezia}} and Zola.

Think about it. He is perfectly positioned to know about the Baron's movements. He's definitely intimidating enough, and recently he chose to join forces with Gil, who is recognized by Mamma Gkika and Mechanicsburg as Agatha's consort/boyfriend. That way, he indirectly serves House Heterodyne, while still remaining behind the scenes. He went into hiding to spy on the Baron because the Jagers couldn't trust anyone but one of their generals. (If Da Boyz are considered smarter than average, well...) Being kicked out of the Jagers is his cover story, but he is obviously experienced playing the character. He allows Gil to beat him up sometimes and pretends to be scared of him so no one thinks he actually is competent enough to be a general. Also, being near the Baron lets him keep track of what's going on with the wasp, but being near Agatha will let him keep track of the Other. Gil was the happy medium. He will resume his position as general later.