Latest blog post: Redraw of chapter 1 is happening (2024-05-11)

Author's comment:



Add Comment

* Required information
30000
Powered by Commentics

Comments (4)

Avatar
New

General Hammond, is that you?

Avatar
Senior

I would think this sounds good to Zane. Earth is on the cusp of space faring unlike other pre-space civilisations they've discovered so it's been a difficult decision either way. This gives him a potential middle ground to initiate contact to a limited set of leadership and if they reveal it to their people then its a decision they've made for themselves. In the meantime he gets to come down and retrieve his people.

...Except if the existence of the Ghosts complicates matters.

If he wants to respond privately, I'd dare say Quantum could hack through their satellite to deliver an e-mail directly into the general's mailbox, hopefully avoiding detection by the Ghosts. The main problem being that if its easy for Quantum to hack their networks I imagine it would be equally trivial for the Ghosts.

Regardless, I suspect the idea of revealing themselves to just Earth leadership is a good slowdown and plot hook for further discussion and debate in the comic about opening up the existence to the entire Earth so they can Leave the Cradle, as opposed to keeping them ignorant like infants.

Avatar
Senior

Actually... If Quantum is really skilled, he might even be able to hack computers in the base Nea is being held in and have them send a signal to Nea's communicator. A base like that would almost certainly have communication equipment able to adjust to different frequencies. He could encrypt it to the standard of her communicator and transmit at low power so it's only received within the base. Then have it self terminate. He might even be able to upload the translator app to her.

Avatar
Senior

"Not all nations are aware of these developments"

General, if you want the visitors not to talk to the general populace of in-the-know nations, either, you'd better say that out loud ...

(Not that I'd expect the Alliance to do so, but the general doesn't know that, does he?)

Avatar
Senior

Given that the very first thing they noticed about us is how spectacularly chatty we are, Zane probably understands that he'll need to be discreet if he wants to preserve whatever secrecy is still to be had.

Avatar
New

Fortunately, I'm pretty sure the general has the sense not to say "it's your fault for sending a shuttle before you had enough information to do so safely" and Zane has the sense to understand that from the way it's not said.






Share this comic



The author is against any kind of application of AI to his artwork.

TRIVIA
Many homeworlds of the respective species are still divided into countries, but freshly established colonies on other planets are almost always monolithic and basically independent, since they sprawled from a single initial outpost, and time lag involved due to interstellar distances making remote management of the colony from a homeworld to be ineffective and frustrating at best.