Latest blog post: End of the chapter 5, and a short hiatus (2024-02-19)
Author's comment:
I was waiting for a chance to showcase the modularity of cerebral implant for a couple of years now.
Comic transcript
Major: *Defeated inhale*
Major: Ugh...
Major: ...Okay, so you said you can help us search for your crewmate.
Major: How?
Nea: Not I help, you help.
*gestures with hand*
*Implant piece detaches*
Nea: This...
Nea: *alien*
*implant piece clacks on the table*
Nea: ...Um ...speak-thing. Three hundred me lengths.
Nea: *alien*, ship, improvement-thing is inside, four ten hundred me lengths.
Nea: You bring me improvement-thing and move me around outside. I search speak and we bring here.
*Chair creaks*
Nea: Then you speak *alien*
Comments (13)
Oh dear. I think I know what's going to happen now.
I wonder if, what is presumably a range extender for her communicator, is going to have power since they removed the ships main power source. Guessing the extender is also better at picking up signals to pickup Ghar's response, if any.
Certainly seems like a perfectly reasonable plan though. I imagine they would try the closest towns first, just to rule out easy swathes, then maybe a helicopter flying grid patterns over areas... Only problem is that a helicopter could easily spook them.
Other problem is this third party possibly listening in for signals.
Beyond that, I could imagine them working out any signals being sent out and scanning for Ghar's signal to pinpoint his location, which might be seen as a breach of trust.
Prediction:
Nea: [with range extender and possibly being driven around] Gharr, come in, Gharr Neht Ra, please respond...
Gharr: [never turned his own radio back on]
Edit: It's also a heck of an act of trust to give Nea access to a spaceship-grade range extender. It's entirely possible she could get unauthorized signals to the fleet using it, which isn't great even if the military are trying to contact said fleet themselves.
Yay! A new page!!
The (wave-length [?]) of both devices, one of those being on the crashed ship... They would at least know about the personal communicator, but does the one on the ship even work?
At least the Major won't have to break his earlier decision while his new "Specialist Lady Friend" can get her way by allowing the alien to search for her crew-mate.
Also, the ship-communicator can reach the fleet? So many people would be happy if this important key works for them!
She is talking about communication range . with the amplifier from the ship the range is greatly extended. The fleet would be monitoring the frequency of communications with the satellite they placed near earth.
Ah. That makes more sense. Still time-lags for com to Jupiter and back though.
The size of the page I am getting will not show more than half of the captcha
page
, and I can't figure out how to expand it.
You could just, I dunno, make a disqus account to be done with the captcha. You've been commenting for years now (by the way, thank you).
Hmmm, "four ten hundred me lengths" translates to 9 kilometers, tops, in my book. (As in 4x10x100x2.3m, ignoring the possibly of her meaning "fourteen hundred", which would be about 3 km.) That wouldn't be enough to even get to the bugged satellite, so I'd say she's exclusively referring to them searching for Gharr.
Would this be the same satellite that detected Nea's IFF transponder without a range booster?
Yes (unless it was Gharr's, to be precise).
And if you think that being able to detect a typical frequency being used somewhere "down there" implies being in range for a working two-way communication, you'll be surprised ...
The really neat thing about Science Fiction is that it doesn't have to be real, but just realistic enough to make the story.
Well, it might not make any difference in the range if they're scanning the planet for signals. Possibly these devices have characteristic transmissions that can be clearly identified.