Bun-Bun has left himself out. Also, I think he wouldn't be a "pawn" for a similar reason that I think Zoe won't be: Torg wants to keep all his limbs. Okay, for Zoe, also because he wants to protect her, she's not on the board. But the keep his limbs part goes for both of them.

So, something else about today's comic that occured to me, but I didn't want to bring up in the reactions forum, because it most definitely qualifies as spec. One of the most famous moves in Chess is to sacrifice a piece in order to gain a strategic advantage. Any time in fiction, TV, Movies, etc. you see a someone playing chess and they're supposed to be really pro at it, the piece they sacrifice is the Queen. Torg could be planning to sacrifice Oasis.

And normally this would be no big deal to her. She dies slaughtering HC goons, she respawns in an hour. But, in this case, Torg would be sacrificing her to an organization with the tech to rewrite her mind to serve their every whim. She may survive physically, but the mad woman we've known as Oasis all these years could suffer death of personality, meaning for all intents and purposes, she'd be as lost as a normal dead person.

First of all, Bun-Bun is no pawn. And Lord Golbez is correct, anyone that tries to use Bun-Bun as a pawn is essentially dead.

Lord Golbez is also correct that Bun-Bun left himself out. However, Bun-Bun also gave Torg his word that he would take care of Oasis. You can say a lot of bad things about the bunny, but his word is gold. Torg can count on him - when the time comes.

Agreed. Bun-Bun will be there to deal with Oasis when the time comes, but I do think that his leaving this mission would be a factor in him not being designated as a piece on the board. Plus, I wouldn't expect any of the Sluggy main crew to be pawns. It doesn't appear to be in keeping with the theme.

Bun Bun is no chess piece. If he can't be the player, he's not gonna play.



Actually, there's another move in chess that makes more sense in this situation, since his Queen is missing from the board: Pawn Promotion. If you can get one of your pawns to reach the other side of the board unharmed, they are immediately exchanged for the most powerful piece available. Now, there's two ways you can look at the Pawn Promotion from a narrative perspective. The first way, is as a minor character sacrificing themselves to release/empower a pivotal character. The other way, is as a minor character becoming said pivotal character in name or deed.

Now, when I look around Torg's board, I'm struck by the fact that a certain similar-faced someone was named Pawn 1, and was tasked with quickly infiltrating HC. I wonder why.

I'm betting that the two remaining pawns are Sam and Zoe. Piggybacking on the pawn promotion idea, if anyone is being promoted to Queen, it's Zoe. Sacrifice Oasis, move Zoe into position. Her support pieces are Gwynn, Aylee, Zark, and Sam.

I have difficulty seeing how the analogy could work to well for Zoe, but it could be extremely literal for Teresa, if she's a dormant Oasis body. Sacrificing one Oasis body would truly promote her to the same position. It seems to fit just right in so many ways. Yodimus_Prime has already explained how well it fits the chess analogy. Even if Zoe were a pawn (which I doubt), Teresa would still fit so much better not just for the inkling of a connection to Oasis, but because she's the only one who is analogously on the right end of the board to be promoted (well, Chen is too and I'm sure he'd like to be "promoted" but not to Oasis' position, so let's ignore that).

We may have a problem with Sam... Remember that he was dating Sasha (or at least she was going along with it) before they discovered that she was a traitor. I suspect that she's the one with his body parts. That, in turn, suggests that he will regenerate in front of her first. I suspect that there is more going on with Sasha than we know right now, but I think that it is likely that Sam will be under her sway (whether that works for or against the gang is up to Pete...). Just sayin'... But maybe the Sampire will fool me.

Izzy and Riff meet, this Friday as a cliff hanger.

It's looking like swmartian was right about the Sam problem. I'm not 100% convinced this is really Sam and not some kind of spliced together video yet, but if it is it looks like Sasha may be using Sam against Torg and Sam's too stupid to know it.

Well, now that you mention it, Sasha does fit Teresa's description of the thief of Sam. Female, and a master spy that can slip in under Teresa's nose and make off with the bag. And she's had ample time to figure out how to trigger Sam's regeneration. This probably involved exposing the parts to fresh blood.

If this is the case, the Friday comic won't be Riff meeting Izzy Prime. It will be Sasha.

Sasha is smart enough to manipulate Sampire. I doubt she could ever get him to knowingly betray Torg. Well, maybe momentarily with the promise of seeing her boobs. Sam's pretty loyal, but boobs are his kryptonite. Still, there's a ton of things Sasha could convince Sam to do for her with minimal effort. But Sam isn't smart enough to keep her a secret from Torg. So she's going to have to reveal herself to Torg for what ever she wants now.

She may have been waiting for Torg to use this Minion Master toy again for a while, just so she could have Sam respond.

Edit: Almost forgot, if Sasha was the one to steal Sampire, then she did know about Torg's back up hideout.

Actually, Actually, Pawn Promotion is a bit more flexible (if I remember my Chess correctly): Once the Pawn reaches the other side, it is promoted to any piece the "owner" regards as most useful. In most cases, this is the Queen.
For Pawn Promotion it is irrelevant whether the promoted role is available (==at least one of it out of play), so two Queens are okay (sometimes, an upside-down rook is used then; the Queen from another chess set is okay; you can use additional tokens; paint the pawn or just remember that it is a Queen now). Technically, you even are allowed to have nine Queens on the board (the original one and eight promoted Pawns) although a situation of more than two Queens seldom arises outside of Theory or Joke Play.
It is uncommon but perfectly fine by the rulebook to choose any other piece. As the Queen's moveset supersets the Bishop's and Rook's ones, choosing any of those rather seems like taunting or toying; on the other hand, having two Queens feels like cheating to some players (too much of an advantage).
There are situations in which Pawn Promotion to Knight results in a checkmate whereas Promotion to Queen would result in a tie. I'm currently not sure whether those situations only exist in chesspuzzles or there are documented cases of professional games with that outcome.

Promotion to Knight outside of those situations adds a certain surprise element but also proofs a certain kind of strategy: The Knight has a very peculiar moveset: It doesn't move in straight lines but moves around corners. It is not inflicted by obstacles but can jump over them.

What does that mean for the current storyline?
"Everyone" knows that the Queen rocks. Everyone expects Oasis to show up - and rock!
With a certain knowledge of chess strategies, we might expect Oasis to be sacrificed.
With a certain knowledge of chess rules, we might expect Pawn Promotion to Oasis.
I don't exactly expect Pawn Promotion to Knight but I've learned to expect that Pete does his homework on the stuff he uses (except for german language). I'm pretty sure he's aware of the details of Pawn Promotion. I've also learn to expect that the first few expectations are wrong.

So while Promotion to Oasis makes the most sense with our current knowledge, I think I should keep an eye on the Knights.

And I hope that someone already linked to "Chapter 10: A game of chess" http://sluggy.com/comics/archives/weekly/990208.

Regards,

TCC

Yes, could be Izzy doing a bit of testing to verify that she is being contacted by real Torg.

Well, since I appear to be on a roll with spec (which never happens, by the way, so you should probably not pay attention to me)... I had not noticed that Izzy's scrambler is popped as well until CheeseWhisper mentioned it. I'm thinking that Sasha is responsible for the sabotage. Now here's where I really go out on a limb. I think Sasha's a double agent. I think Sasha is just pretending to work for hC, while actually working against it. She knew damn well that the glass that Riff was behind was bulletproof. That's why she fired. She knew that she wouldn't hurt him, but it would make her look like she's all in with hC. To them, and anyone else paying attention. And it let them know that Riff is a target. That does not explain why she would sabotage Torg & friends (or what she needs with Sam)... ...my spec is that they are ultimately on the same(ish) side - so I'm not clear on why Torg needs to be slowed down or hampered, but that will be one of Pete's genius twists that I'm just not seeing yet.

Short term spec: They will succeed in springing Izzy (and it will look eerily similar to a recent Mexican jail break...).

Other long term spec: The Queen is with the Zahlias - simultaneously lying low and protecting them. Eventually she'll figure out that she can't hide forever, and she will go after hC, too. Not sure whether she'll try to do it her own way, or whether she'll reach out to Torg (while we're on a surprise-Torg roll).

OK, so I'm getting a little heady with my recent spec successes....

I think it's entirely possible that Sasha is a triple agent of some kind. There may be some hold HC has over her that makes her a reluctant ally.
She did visit Torg in the Shanghai hotel 'to explain' after her cover was blown, but his suspicions didn't let her get far and she bailed before saying anything.
She does seem the most likely candidate to have picked up Sam.
I wonder if she is hiding at a MM base with Sam and he has just woken up from regenerating and tried to call Torg but Sasha realised and disabled the comms.