An old house, a geek, a cute transvestite, a very tall lesbian, and at least one ghost–what could happen? – Adult situations and artistic nudity. Not suitable for children.
I figured Ace was the Guide, more time travel would explain Trey. I forgot about the cat tho. I wonder if he was a certain Jewish in a previous life, and an Egyptian.
JMOdom64 is correct. That is a direct quote from the “Bastian” kitten who escorted Ace’s spirit self back from the afterlife.
Piecing together all these clues about which split of Ace is probably going to hinge on who remembers what. (It also assumes Andy makes zero mistakes about who is supposed to know what… which may be optimistic, but we’ll assume so until told otherwise. )
-The splitting off of “Deus” was what happens when the timeline changes and casualty is broken; a duplicate soul. Not necessarily the only way to split off a soul… but considering there seems to be more time-travel involved for “Trey” and “Quaid”, it’s likely that’s at least part of how that will happen (in fact, the suggestion that timelines have been altered might explain some of the contradictions we’ve noticed below). Dues traded places with Ace and is going to hang out with the Mami Wata in isolation for the next century or so. We aren’t likely to see him again in the story.
-Current-era Ace and his spirit self have not yet split, but “with every spirit walk, you grow stronger” and they are already distinct minds. “Spirit-Ace” does not share everything he knows with “Waking-Ace”. Given that Spirit-Ace is entirely a spectral entity, he’s a likely suspect to become the future “Trey”. However, there’s some conflicts with that.
-Agent Usher, a.k.a. “Trey” appears to be an astral split-off of Ace that happened when he’s physically older (going by the grey hair) that ended up at least many centuries in the past (before or after splitting from Ace is unknown). Trey has displayed knowledge of events that happened while Dues was in isolation (such as remembering Spirit-Ace’s interview with Reaper Mercy), and so is presumed not a split-off from Deus. However he’s also thoroughly surprised by the appearance of Orions, and seemed to know nothing about them at all. This suggests he is not familiar with the Orion’s historical Guide figure, “Quaid”.
-(Spoiler warning: some of these hints come from farther ahead in the reading… but I’m trying to get these hint collections all in the same place, because they’re confusing enough already) Finally “Quaid” is the name given by the Orion’s legendary Guide, who saved them from Dilmun something like 500 years ago. Quaid is very much a physical, meat-entity, so one of the more compatible theories is that Ace will time-travel back into the past at some point, his spirit-self will split off and become “Trey”, while his physical self will go on to become the Orion’s heroic Guide, not being aware of each other or what they’ll do after the split. The weak point in this theory is Trey not knowing anything about the Orions in the present time, however, a change in the timeline (namely Ace/Quaid having gone back to rescue the Orions from their Dilmun masters) might explain that: There were no current-era Orions interacting with Earth in the previous timeline that Trey remembers, because in that one, Quaid hadn’t liberated them 500 years in the past, leaving them still slaves of the Dilmun in the current era.
…I think I may finally have sorted it all (or mostly) out. A closed loop of the theory behind all the different time-travelling Aces? A question remains in why a time-travelling Ace would give his name as “Quaid” and not merely call himself “Ace”, which might imply he’s another split-off somehow, rather than the original. It also pretty much requires he be aware of all the previous split-offs.
Top panel: Sounds like what a “kitten” told Ace during a spirit walk.
I think most of these came from Grampy Says. The kitten Shinobi did impart some excellent information as well.
I figured Ace was the Guide, more time travel would explain Trey. I forgot about the cat tho. I wonder if he was a certain Jewish in a previous life, and an Egyptian.
Oh wait until you hear the “name” The Guide used with the Orions! It’s not “Trey”, but it does drop a big steaming hint that’s almost as subtle. ^_^
JMOdom64 is correct. That is a direct quote from the “Bastian” kitten who escorted Ace’s spirit self back from the afterlife.
Piecing together all these clues about which split of Ace is probably going to hinge on who remembers what. (It also assumes Andy makes zero mistakes about who is supposed to know what… which may be optimistic, but we’ll assume so until told otherwise. )
-The splitting off of “Deus” was what happens when the timeline changes and casualty is broken; a duplicate soul. Not necessarily the only way to split off a soul… but considering there seems to be more time-travel involved for “Trey” and “Quaid”, it’s likely that’s at least part of how that will happen (in fact, the suggestion that timelines have been altered might explain some of the contradictions we’ve noticed below). Dues traded places with Ace and is going to hang out with the Mami Wata in isolation for the next century or so. We aren’t likely to see him again in the story.
-Current-era Ace and his spirit self have not yet split, but “with every spirit walk, you grow stronger” and they are already distinct minds. “Spirit-Ace” does not share everything he knows with “Waking-Ace”. Given that Spirit-Ace is entirely a spectral entity, he’s a likely suspect to become the future “Trey”. However, there’s some conflicts with that.
-Agent Usher, a.k.a. “Trey” appears to be an astral split-off of Ace that happened when he’s physically older (going by the grey hair) that ended up at least many centuries in the past (before or after splitting from Ace is unknown). Trey has displayed knowledge of events that happened while Dues was in isolation (such as remembering Spirit-Ace’s interview with Reaper Mercy), and so is presumed not a split-off from Deus. However he’s also thoroughly surprised by the appearance of Orions, and seemed to know nothing about them at all. This suggests he is not familiar with the Orion’s historical Guide figure, “Quaid”.
-(Spoiler warning: some of these hints come from farther ahead in the reading… but I’m trying to get these hint collections all in the same place, because they’re confusing enough already) Finally “Quaid” is the name given by the Orion’s legendary Guide, who saved them from Dilmun something like 500 years ago. Quaid is very much a physical, meat-entity, so one of the more compatible theories is that Ace will time-travel back into the past at some point, his spirit-self will split off and become “Trey”, while his physical self will go on to become the Orion’s heroic Guide, not being aware of each other or what they’ll do after the split. The weak point in this theory is Trey not knowing anything about the Orions in the present time, however, a change in the timeline (namely Ace/Quaid having gone back to rescue the Orions from their Dilmun masters) might explain that: There were no current-era Orions interacting with Earth in the previous timeline that Trey remembers, because in that one, Quaid hadn’t liberated them 500 years in the past, leaving them still slaves of the Dilmun in the current era.
…I think I may finally have sorted it all (or mostly) out. A closed loop of the theory behind all the different time-travelling Aces? A question remains in why a time-travelling Ace would give his name as “Quaid” and not merely call himself “Ace”, which might imply he’s another split-off somehow, rather than the original. It also pretty much requires he be aware of all the previous split-offs.