Latest blog post: Redraw of chapter 1 is happening (2024-05-11)
Author's comment:
Being the most interesting being on the entire planet has its downsides too.
A science fiction comic that updates on Mondays
Being the most interesting being on the entire planet has its downsides too.
Comments (17)
Realistically, the potential debris field from this kind of incident would be enormous. Experienced human investigators probably wouldn't be surprised if a body or two never gets recovered. Especialy if local animals can eat raharr bodies.
I also wonder if Zhane might be motivated to accept that Gharr is gone. After all, this is still a collossal mess, and it's easier to blame those on the dead.
Imagine some hunters finding shuttle parts and Raharr "parts" months later deep in the woods. Sure to go Viral on the interweb, then brushed of as fake .
According to page 50, Zane took Gharr under his wing as a kid (he seems a teen) , so the bond is deeper than just business. What you suggest would be a hard choice for Zane. So I cant see that happening but there is always an "if" in this case how the negotiation proceeds. You know...Politics and Realpolitik.
And where is Major or Bahin!? Fasionably late ?
Well, yes, if the shuttle had disintegrated way up, there'd be a large debris field, and probably body parts strewn all over the landscape. What we've been shown, however (from page 20 on), is that it remained in essentially one piece all the way to the ground impact. You might be interested in the author's comment on page 20, too ...
The shuttle is mostly intact, but it also has a big hole in the side. That looks like explosive decompression, and that woudl imply the pieces that made up that hole, and anyone standing next to it, are going to be potentially spread over a wide area, even if the shuttle is mostly in one piece.
See the wreckage of the Titanic, and it's associated debris field, for a famous RL example of how wreckage can be spread over a wide area, even if the main hull is in just one or two pieces.
Which comment on page 20 are you refering to?
The author's comment, above the section for readers' comments:
Alright, let's talk about explosive decompression, then. You noted that, on page 16, Gharr got yelled at for not remaining buckled up (and seems to promptly be the only crew member found outside the wreck)? And that this shuttle routinely operates in zero-g, which means that most stuff that could float around will be properly latched?
According to the Thayer sketches, the two main hull sections of the Titanic did an outright headstand, freshly-torn opening pointing down, before they even went below the surface.
Are you ignoring that Darth_Bioimech also drew the shuttle with a big hole in the side? And that he also drew the interiour ghetting shredded on page 16? The 1900kmph airflow outside is not going to be kind to the exterior or interior of the shuttle. Something as heavy as Gharr has a chance of staying inside, given how far he was from the hole, but lots of other stuff is getting sucked outside.
Also this kind of severe structural failure has happened multiple times in the real world. (UA-811 and AA-243 just to start with.) We don't need to guess what happens next. We know.
If they were still going 1900 km/h within range of the missile system - which translates to about Mach 1.6 -, their sneak-up-to-the-locals-fu is pitiable.
The main point was whether bodies would wind up outside the wreck. One of the things learnt from airplane crashes is that passengers who were killed having their belts on - as flimsy as they may look when compared to those in spacecraft - will usually be found still attached to their seats. (Thus, the directly relevant part on page 16 is the one Raharr other than Gharr shown being dismembered and out of his seat.)
How true. In the two incidents you point to, there are exactly two casualties who did not end up on the same side of the hull as their seats: The passenger from seat 9F on UA 811 (the other victims were sucked out with their seats), and a flight attendant standing in the aisle of AAF 243. Chances are they both happened not to have belts on.
Of course, Zane's error here is to think of "THE locals". Because in fact, Gharr has been ... well, not exactly "captured", but still ... by sort of the next-door locals.
Will he realize his error, or will he (wrongly) conclude that Gharr has "gone native" to evade being held responsible for his creative writing? Gharr's radio silence might well help the latter misjudgement along ...
(Not that Zane wouldn't wish that had been the case when, after their return, Gharr is awarded the Raharr equivalent of the Prix Goncourt ... )
Hmmm, it seems to me that the majority of Neas (visible) implants are placed a) nowhere near the spine or other places that I'd expect to be conducive to any sort of "communication" with the biological body, b) smack in the middle of large muscles (which means that they'll move around WRT her skeleton a lot), and c) where they'll be covered by clothing.
Even assuming that their fully nanobotted immune system does away with the problems that we run into when an implant protrudes through the skin, what purpose would agree with such a placement?
They might be connections to nerves or ingress points for targeted stimulant injection.
90 shows an x-ray with some implants.
They might be lots of things, if only we assume Raharr physiology to be sufficiently weird from our POV. But I prefer to take, e.g., the presence of a spine as a strong indication that their important nerves don't take detours through their back muscles. Nor should arteries ...
Concerning the x-ray, have a look at its HD version here; you'll note that many of the implants visible there seem to be affixed to bones, and thus likely buried well underneath the skin.
I guess the next page is a smash cut.
The shower scene reminds me of the "Big Brother" show with all the one-way mirrors setup in the bathroom. But I think Nea's point is much more that because she's treated like their most valuable "exhibit" she doesn't believe Gharr has been captured and secretly held elsewhere because they would show less interest in her.
Gharr could know that something is going on (maybe even that the rescue party has landed) but he's waiting to see what will happen next.
That surveillance room needs a fog-machine , mirror ball and a slooow beat that goes
"bow chicka wow wow"
But yes, to know someone is constantly watching your every move, mannerism, response and behavior must be very taxing.
... I have a suspicion that Nea has more implanted one-way-mirror-defeating cameras pointed at the two scientists than they have pointed at the shower ...
"Oh, you did not want us to post that video on your planetwide network ... ?"
On the next page (hopefully): Some serious thought about possibilities to triangulate Gharr's implants. And I also hope that Quantum is busy scanning the crash site at subatomic level as we
speakread!Gharr is known to turn off his implant (8), I wonder if this turns off all comms like airplane-mode (Yes, I know airplane-mode doesn't completely turn off reception), so unless the implant has a remote way to be activated, Gharr remains hidden. And the implant Gharr has might be more of a "civilian" model rather than the military implant Nea would have.
The Rharr might have a different visible spectrum than humans, it's possible that they can see through these one-way mirrors even without the help of implants.
Well, there are shades and grades between "can't readily locate you because your implant isn't actively transmitting", "let me wave a grid-dipper around and see whether it can couple with the one tuned IF circuitry loose on the planet even though the device is powered down", and "saturate the landscape with enough radio energy to locate Gharr by the mushroom cloud" ...