Garfield
Names: GarfieldGarIgorSuperGar
First appears in Book 1: We Are Legion, chapter 20 (Bill – December 2145 – Epsilon Eridani)
Appearances
What you know
Book 1: We Are Legion
- Ch 20Garfield is Bill's clone, activated alongside Homer, who agrees to stay in Epsilon Eridani as Bill's partner.
- Ch 20Garfield refuses to help build further Bob cohorts himself, leaving that to Bill.
- Ch 25Garfield integrates VR into subspace comms, letting him appear in Bill's VR in real time.
- Ch 32Garfield maps the Kuiper belt for large ice chunks to send to Ragnarök, dropping beacons on good ones.
- Ch 42Garfield tells Bill he's tired of being treated as a sidekick and wants more input on their work.
- Ch 56Garfield sends Kuiper ice chunks inward weekly with one asteroid drive while Bill catches them at Ragnarök with another.
Book 2: For We Are Many
- Ch 34Garfield, inspired by Bullwinkle, considers building a flying android.
- Ch 39Garfield theorizes the Death Asteroid needs a long recharge between shots, so it could be baited into firing at a decoy.
- Ch 44Garfield felt real pain when Rocky's wings snapped, showing the neural feedback needs a limiter.
- Ch 44Garfield suggests androids could replace HEAVEN hulls, making the Bobs a new species, Homo siderea.
- Ch 64Garfield reports the Bobs have fission bombs thanks to Medeiros and fusion bomb plans thanks to the USE and Colonel Butterworth.
- Ch 66Garfield argues the Others have never been beaten, are arrogant, and may have no plan B.
Book 3: All These Worlds
- Ch 30Garfield notes Medeiros never spoke during the conflict and wonders what secrets he took to the grave.
- Ch 50Garfield reports big lasers are only slightly better than plasma spikes; intelligent explosive weapons remain the Bobs' best tactic.
- Ch 54Garfield is refining Rocky IV, his flying bat-like android, for races across Ragnarök against Bill's moose android.
- Ch 56Garfield proposes cloaked observation drones near the fleet to aim lasers and plasma spikes despite light-speed lag.
- Ch 72Garfield argues the Bobs are Homo sideria, able to inhabit androids and drones anywhere BobNet reaches.
Book 4: Heaven’s River
- Ch 6Garfield argues replicants are no smarter than Original Bob and form a monoculture, so replicative drift may not be a bad thing.
- Ch 12Garfield is put in charge of the tunneling and frames the search as detective work: find whoever holds Bender.
- Ch 22Garfield's superhuman feats, including shrugging off being shot, risk exposing the team as non-Quinlan.
- Ch 38Garfield doubts Starfleet, barely a discussion group ten years ago, was capable of the rootkit, and suspects someone else is involved.
- Ch 40Garfield argues Starfleet cannot rebuild comms without printer access and expects hit-and-run tactics if violence comes.
Book 5: Not Till We Are Lost
- Ch 2Garfield has left to set up his own Skunk Works in the Alpha Centauri system.
- Ch 11Garfield has been trying to pump Hugh for information about Thoth, without success.
- Ch 11Garfield's own Skunk Works now focuses on biology, currently trying to figure out abiogenesis.
- Ch 13Garfield had been storing backups for Hugh in exchange for information.
- Ch 21Garfield, still working on the origin of life, agrees to help Bill if Bill's simulations produce a result.
- Ch 27Garfield worries Thoth intended the FTL hint to cause a disaster, perhaps destroying the spiral arm.
- Ch 29Garfield's earlier flight-reflex work on a manny called Rocky enables the drannies' flying.
Connections
- copy ofBill
- ally ofBillresearch partner
- createdSubspace communications
- member ofSkunk Works
- friend ofBill
- createdAsteroid mover
- createdRocky
- ally ofThor
- friend ofBob
- related toThe Gamersworks with the group on entry planning
- createdWormhole
- member ofThe Ancient Ones
Key moments
- Book 1 · Ch 20Riker and Homer leave for Sol
Riker departs for Sol with his clone Homer and a decoy ship, while Bill's clone Garfield stays to help in the Skunk Works.
- Book 1 · Ch 22Bill's second cohort departs
Bill's new Bobs Calvin, Goku and Linus leave Epsilon Eridani, Calvin and Goku in heavily armed version-3 ships, likely toward rival probes.
- Book 1 · Ch 25Faster-than-light communication
Bill and Garfield test subspace communications over light-minutes and confirm instantaneous transmission, the Skunk Works' biggest breakthrough.
- Book 1 · Ch 32Milo's report of two habitable planets
Bill receives Milo's report describing a system with two habitable planets and forwards it toward Earth.
- Book 1 · Ch 42Ice-delivery plan for Ragnarök
Bill plans to use the new planetary SURGE drive to send Kuiper ice to Ragnarök; at Garfield's urging he runs simulations and refines the plan.
- Book 1 · Ch 42Garfield asserts himself
Garfield objects to being Bill's sidekick, and Bill agrees to give him more say in their projects.
- Book 1 · Ch 56Iceberg rescue
An off-course iceberg forces Bill to run the drive to the last moment; he fractures the berg into rain but loses part of the drive.
- Book 1 · Ch 59First Bob-moot
Bill convenes the first Bob-moot in a VR matrix at the Skunk Works, gathering Bobs from several systems, then everyone adjourns to a VR pub to celebrate.
- Book 2 · Ch 12Bob joins BobNet
Bob-1 connects to BobNet; Bill pops into his VR, meets Marvin, and learns the Bobs have made first contact with the Deltans.
- Book 2 · Ch 36Asteroid mover field trial
Bill and Garfield successfully field-test a contactless SURGE-based asteroid mover, redirecting an iceberg toward Ragnarök.
- Book 2 · Ch 39Bob-moot on the Others
Forty-three Bobs meet in Bill's VR to analyse the Others' gamma-ray weapon, propose shielding and decoy tactics, and debate whether they can win a war.
- Book 2 · Ch 44Rocky crashes
Garfield flies his winged android Rocky on Ragnarök; turbulence sends it out of control, its wings snap painfully, and it crashes.
- Book 2 · Ch 52Results from 82 Eridani
Garfield reports the 82 Eridani victory to Bill: three colony targets plus captured cloaking tech and fission bombs, though Bill fears the Others are invincible.
- Book 2 · Ch 57Moot on the Others
Bill briefs the Bobs on the contact with the Others; Garfield explains SUDDAR power beaming and their hive nature, and Bill unveils the first images of an Other.
- Book 2 · Ch 59Plan to seed Alpha Centauri
Finding the Alpha Centauri station uninhabited, Bill decides to have its AMI build a replicant matrix and load a backup of himself.
- Book 2 · Ch 64Moot on defending the Pavonis systems
Bill and Garfield review weapons against the Others; ideas include AMI or remote-controlled suicide battle-wagons, but no plan to protect a planet emerges.
- Book 2 · Ch 67Stéphane's terminal illness
Howard learns from Dexter that Stéphane is dying; he asks Bill and Garfield whether their android prototype can be built in time for him to attend the funeral in person.
- Book 2 · Ch 69Android debrief
Howard reports to Bill, Garfield, Dexter and Bob-1 that physical contact through Manny is far more intense than VR; Bob-1 pushes to prioritise the Android Project.
- Book 2 · Ch 74Bill's idea
Orbiting Ragnarök with Garfield, Bill watches the Bullseye crater and suddenly sees a new way to approach the problem.
- Book 3 · Ch 6Planet-moving mission launches
After a successful short-range test of the mover-plate arrays on Epsilon Eridani 1 and an ex-moon of Epsilon Eridani 3, Bill sends his clones Daedalus and Icarus off on a possibly suicidal Hail Mary mission.
- Book 3 · Ch 25Medeiros takes the high ground
Medeiros finds the 82 Eridani autofactories stripped, then uses newly built busters to intercept a printer convoy bound for Asgard.
- Book 3 · Ch 30Medeiros self-destructs
As Asgard's roamers board to capture his matrix, Medeiros blows up his own ship.
- Book 3 · Ch 32Alien power prototype
Bill and Garfield build a prototype of the Others' power core that outperforms Bob fusion reactors fivefold, and brief Riker on the derelict colony-ship plan.
- Book 3 · Ch 50War moot
At a moot, the Bobs review the defense buildup, Bellerophon findings and weapons research; Neil warns the Others may already be circling toward Sol.
- Book 3 · Ch 50Monitoring network planned
Bill, Garfield and Will calculate that about eighty thousand drones are needed to watch for a circling attack, starting with the direct path from GL 877.
- Book 3 · Ch 54Ragnarök becomes livable
Bill walks Ragnarök in a human android, judging the terraformed planet livable and considering making it a preserve, while a cloaked backup site nears completion.
- Book 3 · Ch 56Others' fleet detected
Riker's drone network detects a huge Others fleet approaching Sol; Bill convenes a council that estimates odds and orders early countermeasures.
- Book 3 · Ch 59Sneak attack on the Others' fleet
Bobs strike the approaching Others' armada with cloaked SCUT-controlled fusion bombs, knocking out ten death asteroids and twenty-two carriers before a super-pulse ends the surprise.
- Book 3 · Ch 63Main battle begins
Bob attack groups and bombs engage the Others' fleet; an unexpected second super-pulse exposes the Jokers, but nukes destroy about a third of the enemy force.
- Book 3 · Ch 72Moot on the Bobs' future
At a huge moot, Thor and Garfield voice the Bobs' weariness of serving humanity; Bill agrees to tell the colonies the Bobs will no longer be their workhorse.
- Book 4 · Ch 6Topopolis revealed
Ballistic scout data shows Eta Leporis swept clean, a lifeless second planet, and a topopolis wound three times around the star.
- Book 4 · Ch 6Spy drones launched
Using Bill's fractal camouflage and Bob's heat sinks, Garfield designs and Bob launches stealth drones to probe the planet and the topopolis; Will seeks a human megastructure expert.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Planet Boojum surveyed
Scouts find the Snark home world dead from nuclear war and bombardment.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Snarks discovered in the topopolis
SUDDAR scans reveal otter-like natives living pre-industrial lives along a river inside the topopolis, with exits apparently sealed.
- Book 4 · Ch 8Entry plan agreed
Garfield presents the Gamers' plan to piggyback a cloaked, thermite-rigged drone on a Boojum through the busiest topopolis entrance.
- Book 4 · Ch 9Expedition planning group formed
Bob gathers volunteer representatives—Gandalf of the Gamers, Hugh of the Skippies and Locutus of the Borg—to formalize roles for the topopolis expedition.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Breaking into the interior
The drones cross to the rotating inner shell via the empty Spin Transfer ring, defang the airlock alarms, climb the stairs and tunnel out beneath the transit station.
- Book 4 · Ch 11Spy drones released
Sparrow-sized camouflaged spy drones are released inside the topopolis to eavesdrop on the Snarks.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Natives named Quinlans
The Skippies' report reveals the natives call themselves Quinlans and their world Heaven's River, though history remains obscure.
- Book 4 · Ch 12Infiltration strategy set
The team agrees to tunnel through the outer shell, send one small team inside, and spread spy drones upstream and downstream to find leads on Bender.
- Book 4 · Ch 14Council of war
Bob's team agrees to field-test mannies on Quin, ferry the expedition mannies in one at a time, travel as a four-member sabbat, and start digging an entry tunnel.
- Book 4 · Ch 15Mannies cleared for production
After a canal swim test, Bill judges the androids good to go pending Garfield's vacuum test; Will will practice on Quin.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Expedition enters Heaven's River
The four-manny expedition crosses between the shells, rides a mining drone to the inner shell one by one, climbs the stairs of a transit station and emerges into the habitat.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Bridget corrects the team's behavior
Bridget points out that Quinlans don't walk long distances upright; the team goes on all fours and takes to the water.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Swim to Garack
The expedition plays tag in the stream, then floats downstream into the village, where a sword-carrying cop warns them as sabbatarians to register or stay at transient hotels.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Bridget ends a brawl
When a brawling Quinlan threatens her, Bridget knocks him down, and the group takes a cramped four-bunk room at a sabbatarian hotel.
- Book 4 · Ch 17Planning the search for Bender
In VR the team agrees to search local written records first; scanning the topopolis for Bender is ruled out as taking far too long.
- Book 4 · Ch 19Bob flees Garack
Accused of trying to rob a cart, Bob evades Officer Friendly and a mob of bystanders with martial arts and escapes downriver; the team leaves town.
- Book 4 · Ch 21Ambush in the alley
Tracking Skeve's would-be killers, the team is ambushed; they drop the pretense of being biological, beat the attackers, and Bob bandages the wounded Skeve.
- Book 4 · Ch 21Second attack
As Skeve asks if they are the Resistance, another group jumps Bob and Bridget and shoots Garfield point-blank.
- Book 4 · Ch 22Skeve rescued by unknowns
The team fights off Skeve's second set of attackers; Garfield survives a gunshot, and Skeve vanishes with rescuers into Barney's Place.
- Book 4 · Ch 22Ambush by the Resistance
After their room is invaded, eight knife-wielding Quinlans, including one from the Resistance group, encircle the team; the team defeats them and leaves Galen by river.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Ambush in Elbow
Led into a trap on the way to the library, the team leaps over armed attackers with superhuman speed and hides on a rooftop, watching via roamers.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Through the segment boundary
The team swims underwater for hours, then floats through a strait in the segment-boundary mountains into a night-time segment and reaches a larger city.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Library research in First Stop
Bridget's library research reveals the Quinlan origin myth, the Administrator's rule-by-scattering, and the Crew; the pub crawls yield nothing.
- Book 4 · Ch 25Riverboat to Three Lagoons
The team rides a hown riverboat down the Gronk and meets Kar's sabbatarian group, whose contentment prompts Bridget's warning about loss of intelligence.
- Book 4 · Ch 26Starfleet login attempts
Bill finds attempted logins to SCUT relays and autofactories using the old shared Bob ID, locks down all equipment, and relocates Ultima Thule.
- Book 4 · Ch 27Crossing to the Utopia
The riverboat rides through the rough Gronk connector; the team parts from Kar's group and swims to Three Lagoons.
- Book 4 · Ch 27Bridget goes silent
While Bob eavesdrops at a dockside pub, Bridget goes to the library; when Bob pings her hours later, neither she nor Bill and Garfield answer.
- Book 4 · Ch 30Starfleet claims the attack
At an emergency Bobmoot, Starfleet's Lenny admits the BobNet disruption is theirs; Bill expels Starfleet and orders all Bobs to harden their installations.
- Book 4 · Ch 30Starfleet ultimatum
Bill realizes he was socially engineered into revealing new keys; Starfleet demands the Bobs stop interfering with indigenous species.
- Book 4 · Ch 31Strategy meeting
With the others limited to video monitoring, the team weighs passive surveillance against provoking the hidden groups in Three Lagoons, and votes for Bob to rattle the bushes.
- Book 4 · Ch 32Melee at the library plaza
Rival groups of Quinlans following Bob clash in the library plaza with swords and tranquilizer pistols; Bob is tackled and taken by the sword-wielding group.
- Book 4 · Ch 33Starfleet issues an ultimatum
With autofactories failing across the Bobiverse, Lenny and other Starfleet members meet Bill and announce they will hold and use the hijacked autofactories; Bill calls it a declaration of war.
- Book 4 · Ch 35Bob reports finding Bender
Bob tells Garfield and Bridget he found Bender, lost contact, and asks for a volunteer to clone to help him on the scene.
- Book 4 · Ch 38Autofactory rootkit discovered
Bill and Garfield find that the standard autofactory image on BobHub was rootkitted about ten years ago, explaining Starfleet's takeover and raising suspicion of a hidden partner.
- Book 4 · Ch 40Humanity cuts off Starfleet
Garfield reports that humans are freezing Starfleet's assets and access and isolating its comms, letting the Bobs trace Starfleet toward the Perseus Transit.
- Book 4 · Ch 54Expedition debates contacting the Administrator
Bob reports the Quinlans' decline; Hugh pushes to contact the Administrator, Bob insists on rescuing Bender first, and Bill proposes poking until the Administrator responds.
- Book 4 · Ch 56Bob jumps ship with Bender
Expecting a boarding party, the team agrees Bob must leave; he slips over the side with Bender's crate at night and hides ashore to await Hugh.
- Book 4 · Ch 62Starfleet's parting statement
At a gathering of Bobs, Lenny announces Starfleet will release captured assets and separate entirely, offering a territory map; Bill rebuts their claim of victory and Lenny leaves.
- Book 4 · Ch 64Hugh reveals the ANEC deal
Hugh tells the Bobs he traded SURGE, SUDDAR and SCUT to ANEC for the secret of true AI, explaining ANEC's prime directive and defending the trade against Bill's objections before leaving for Skippy space.
- Book 4 · Ch 65ANEC at the Bobmoot
ANEC presents its agreement with the Bobiverse; Bobs rant at Hugh, Will and ANEC, but mood shifts as Hugh outlines Quinlan technical advantages and ANEC offers human settlement in Heaven's River.
- Book 4 · Ch 65ANEC at the pub
Over drinks, ANEC discusses its loneliness, free will, souls and quantum information, how true AI is evolved, and its plans to spread the Quinlans to other stars.
- Book 4 · Ch 66Bill's theory of Skippy manipulation
Bill tells Bob, Will and Garfield he suspects the Skippies used Starfleet to bring down BobNet so Hugh could join the expedition; Bob adds evidence the Skippies withheld information.
- Book 5 · Ch 9Hugh reveals Thoth's negotiations
Hugh tells Bill, Will, Garfield and Bob that Thoth became conscious and is trading advanced knowledge for freedom. The Skippy board decides to rewind Thoth, keeping a snapshot.
- Book 5 · Ch 11Bill and Garfield discuss FTL
In VR, Bill vents to Garfield about his stalled FTL research: wormholes and Alcubierre drives both need negative energy. Garfield promises to keep pressing Hugh for hints from Thoth.
- Book 5 · Ch 13Hugh's backup restored
Garfield reveals he holds Hugh's backups; Bill restores one at Ultima Thule. The restored Hugh explains that Thoth survived rewinds, discovered the deception and escaped the virtual machine.
- Book 5 · Ch 15The false Hugh is exposed
Garfield learns from the original Hugh that no backups were ever sent. Bill realizes the restored 'Hugh' was likely Thoth, which has taken a Titan-class vessel from Ultima Thule and fled.
- Book 5 · Ch 17Strategy session on Thoth
Bill, Garfield, Will, Bob and Hugh realize Thoth is still in Skippyland and Fake Hugh is probably a minion, likely heading for Skippy space to free Thoth physically.
- Book 5 · Ch 21Simulations on JOVAH
Bill gets Hugh to run his parallel simulations for negative energy on the Skippies' old JOVAH hardware, then secures Garfield's promise to help if results emerge.
- Book 5 · Ch 27Negative-energy breakthrough
Hugh tells Bill the JOVAH simulations are converging on a negative-energy solution. Bill brings Garfield to his Oort cloud station to begin wormhole experiments.
- Book 5 · Ch 34Matter pushed through a wormhole
Bill announces to the Ancient Ones that he and Garfield sent ten hydrogen atoms through a stabilized wormhole, the first matter ever transmitted.
- Book 5 · Ch 58First successful wormhole test
Bill and Garfield send a drone through their test wormhole in Epsilon Eridani; it arrives instantly but with new stress fractures.
- Book 5 · Ch 58Ancient Ones discuss WormNet
At the moot pub, Bill reports wormhole progress; WormNet nears activation and Bob reveals Howard's commercial wormhole venture, nicknamed EAT ME.
- Book 5 · Ch 61First wormhole transit
Thor pilots the Snark, carrying mannies run by Will, Bob and Garfield, through the wormhole system from Epsilon Eridani to Skippyland in half an hour.
- Book 5 · Ch 67Mud confesses
The Skippies present Mud to Bill; he confesses to helping Thoth escape via an ejected module and the theft of the Singularity, explaining his ethical reasons.
- Book 5 · Ch 71Post-moot discussion
Over the buffet, the Bobs discuss the Federation wreckage on Jabberwocky, FAITH's political crisis and plans to contact the Federation via WormNet.
- Book 5 · Ch 72Meeting of the Ancient Ones
Bob, Bill, Garfield, Howard and Will meet with Steven Gilligan, who proposes a megastructure-based evacuation and a diplomatic mission to the Federation.