Forum:The purpose or meaning of the lights Agatha's tripping

So, what exactly are those lights we've seen twice now for? Are they the same lights? And are they going to be relevant in the inevitable show-down between Agatha and Zola?

My current pet theory is that the lights are part of a mechanism that lets Mechanicsburg know that the Doom Bell needs to be rung to signal that a Heterodyne is once again in charge. This being Castle Heterodyne, this probably also means that it's a series of tests designed to prove conclusively that it is a Heterodyne who just took charge. So, what do the lights mean?


 * 1) The top light. This is what the Castle, with its love of High Drama, would call the Test of Command. Essentially, this is the test to determine if the subject is able to use Command Voice and make the castle obey them. Being determined not to play by its rules is all well and good, but you have to show that you can make it play by your rules.
 * Agatha can. Thus far, Zola has shown no ability to do so - and I'm quite certain that if she could walk in and Command the castle, she would; the more she acts like a Heterodyne, the more the people will accept her, after all - I'm sure her sponsors will have mentioned the most likely reaction of the Mechanicsburg populace if the mob stops being on her side.


 * 2) The middle light. This would be the Test of Blood (or the paternity test, in our world). In other words, do you actually have the genetic right to call yourself a Heterodyne? We know that there's a certain something to the Heterodyne genes - something that allows the Jaegers to recognize a true Heterodyne by scent alone, something that produces unusually strong Sparks. The question, though, is if the Chapel's testing apparatus is looking for proof that a subject has enough Heterodyne genes to be called a Heterodyne, or if it's looking for a specific sequence that is unique to the Heterodynes.
 * Agatha has passed this test - and we knew that she would, from the Jaeger's reactions to her. I consider it unlikely, at this point, that Zola would pass this test, given the actions of her backers - if Zola had any legitimate claim to the Heterodyne name, they wouldn't have instructed her to try and kill the castle.


 * 3) The bottom light. Agatha has yet to go through whatever test would activate this one, but I suspect it would be the Test of Spark or 'are you a Spark, and are you Sparky enough that you could maintain the castle with your own two hands?' In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if it turns out that there's a bylaw somewhere in the Mechanicsburg legal code that requires anyone in charge of House Heterodyne to be a high-level Spark - it just hasn't been needed until now.
 * I mean, think about it - the castle has to be maintained properly in order to allow the town to be defended - the torchmen were the only thing able to drive off Castle Wulfenbach and Zola's airship, and Zola herself said that the castle is supposed to have helped defend the town before the attack on it; over time, it's probably grown to become one of the keystones to Mechanicsburg's safety, even discounting that it was the stronghold of the Heterodynes.
 * And while it's true that the castle is in the worst shape of its life right now, recall that it has been sixteen years since people started working on repairing it. Sixteen years of engineers, master craftsmen, low-level Sparks that the Baron wasn't interested in experimenting on, and minions crawling around inside the castle - not to mention the countless variously-skilled prisoners who were there for a crime other than rebelling against the Baron - and the most the castle can say about all this is that it "is more cohesive" than at the start...but it is still far, far from its old self. No one has been able to put together all that is currently known about the Castle and go "Aha! This is what is wrong, here is where the root of the problem is, and this is what needs to be done to fix it!" And, assuming that the room Gil, Zola, and co. have just been herded into is where the severed main control circuits are....no one's even been able to recognize the control circuits as such, or figure out how to repair them. The castle is just way too baroquely byzantine for anyone but a high-level Spark to know where to even start trying.
 * My estimate is that Agatha and Gil will pass this test. All current evidence suggests to me that Zola will fail miserably; we know that she knows Gil from his time in Paris - and we also know that Gil has complained about not being able to meet any girls who shared his interests in Sparky things and were able to carry on intelligent conversations about them. Further, if she were a Spark of any level, I feel that her backers would not be sending her in to try and destroy the castle - if they sent her in at all, they'd be sending her in to try and convert it. And lastly, while Gil's reaction to seeing the broken machinery is to start looking like he's trying not to drool and froth at the mouth, Zola just seems...annoyed...about the fact that the castle has managed to herd her somewhere she didn't intend to go. Volouscheur 06:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)