Saint James Infirmary 343: Ground Control.

[mns_95125]

I think you're mixing up Jakob and Johannes.  We know Jakob had the crystal at one point because he used it on Pearl.  We know Zenon had it later, that Zenon was working for Claudia, and that Claudia was also part of Jakob's harem.  It seems likely that Zenon got the crystal from Claudia, who gained control of it after Jakob vanished.

Cherry and Julian then stole it from Zenon when they burgled his office, apparently on behalf of Jakob's brother Johannes.  They have it now and seem about to hand it over to him, along with Caitlyn as a free toy surprise.

My understanding was that the crystal got its power from a broken shell fragment, while the Watch is built around a whole one.  That's why I think the Watch trumps the crystal if they go head to head.  We think Danielle made the Watch.  As far as I know the origin of the crystal and the shells remains a mystery.

[Haight]

Dani said they have 'circuits' in them, I think. Which implies that they're made post-wwii, and therefore in emulation of Wilmot's coat of arms rather than the other way around. Unless they're, like, alien artifacts recovered from Atlantis or something. Rain *might* be a minor Greek goddess, and obviously there's magic and witchcraft in the SJI universe, so my first thought for the shells was that they were magical (though I guess they could be both; 'magitech').

One of my other burning questions is if the rubies in BR are made of the same stuff. Though, obviously, that would somewhat obviate the current conflict in Kearsarge if they can be simply manufactured.

[GodWilling]

First off, I should say that the last panel here is great and that even if for some reason the pendant doesn't work on Caitlyn - and even the trigger doesn't work any more when Derek turns up - then at least we've got that panel to conjure with.

My reading of 311 was that Dani was pondering who might have been able to make the circuitry, then she saw the Kuppler boxes, and made the connection, which is what led to her contacting Johannes in the first place.

It appears (say in 333) that we have the scallops being referred to both as scallops and crystals. But as well as being called "the pendant", the object Julian is deploying here appears also to have been referred to as a (or the) crystal. Unlike everything else in the story, it's a bit confusing.

In 333 Miriam said that Jakob used a piece of the broken scallop in the pendant, and Dani (we think) butted in to say that he didn't make the pendant. That possibly suggests that it was Dani who made the pendant, as well as the watch.

Perhaps jmundt is deliberately confusing Jakob and Johannes to draw attention to what Caitlyn says here?

The conversation at the end of 321 suggests that having "the boss" around is problematic for Cherry and Julian. It appeared in 317 that Johannes's secretary is a plant feeding information to someone who knows Jakob isn't dead. If that's Jakob himself then she's effectively working for both brothers. Is the same true of Cherry and Julian?

(And is it significant that their initials are C & J? That beat-up plane that Dani's working on is just like the one Jakob disappeared in. Chuck and Jeane are possibly just hired hands...)

[jmundt29]

Actually, I didn't register Cherry's attempt at subterfuge and conflated the names.  How similar are these two twerps--and why would Cherry try to legitimize her presence by claiming to work for Johannes?  Weird.  One would have thought that Caitlyn would have heard about Johannes (and Jakob, for that matter) for the first time from Adrian...or at best, from Dani recounting her experiences (or pieces of them).  Yet her comment seems to indicate she's familiar with at least one brother herself.  Which means...WHAT?!!  This whole time, we've been assuming that Zenon's patient list was an imperfect coordinated grid search for Dani and The Watch (though how coordinated anything can be relying on Derek is an open question).  Is that not the case?  This is especially troubling because Cait is a freshman at Wilmot.

So, we know Jakob is hopeless at creating.  Does Johannes have these skills?  If neither brother has such skills, how and why were they turned on to the scallop crystals in the first place.  Johannes looks a little young to have been a subject or researcher in the Happy College experiment of '83 (unless he's also a Bowflex model or genetically gifted like Jacqui).

If there's a connection point between Jakob's crystal bauble (the one that Zenon was using) and the shells, I can't see it yet.  The bauble seems to be made of different material than the shells which are in the transmitter.