Grrl Power #680 – Fancy almost bumping into you here
Not a whole lot to talk about on this page. Mostly it’s to show Deus and Vale missing Sydney by less than a block. Contrary to popular theories, Deus actually has no idea she’s there. So I spent most of the page throwing in some cameos and practicing backgrounds.
I know they don’t look like much, but dang, those buildings took so long to draw. A lot of that has to do with me still having relatively limited experience drawing architecture even after all this time. I don’t fervently collect pictures of cityscapes and bank lobby interiors and meeting rooms and open air markets quite as fervently as I do with pictures of faces and expressions and fitness ladies for my reference folders. I’m sure architectural rendering is super satisfying to people who like it doing it. I’d probably like it more if I knew how to do it faster, but all those little details and the molding on buildings get tedious really quickly.
It’s hard to imagine a station like the one Sydney’s on not having a ton of automation. Unless there’s some weird union deal with a race that’s big on manual labor, like Space Dwarves, Ugnaughts, Ood, or Oompa Loompas.
I’ve updated the vote incentive. This time to another attempt at painting a cover. This one is obviously from a yet to be published Tamer 7. I’m fairly pleased with it, my biggest gripe is Victor’s head, which I used a reference for, and it looks almost like I cut out a model’s head for it. Also his expression doesn’t match the fact there’s a 40 foot Purussaurus surfacing next to him.
Unfortunately I can’t link you to the Tamer series of novels, which I quite enjoy, because Amazon still had its head up its ass concerning Michael-Scott Earle’s books, but hopefully he’ll be back online soon.
Speaking of which, if you look close enough, you may be able to spot a M-SE related cameo on this page.
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Is that Nohar Rajasthan in that second frame? And I recognize Marvin the robot from Hitchhiker and the robot from Black Hole.
I second that Marvin the Depressed Robot (or Paranoid Android) (from the late-1970s early-1980s Hitchhiker’s adaptation) and Maximillian (The Black Hole) in the final panel; although Nohar Rajasthan (Forests Of The Night, and it’s a pleasure to touch base with another fan of Mr. Swann’s work! :) ) could fit that armour (second panel), I think that tiger in the armour is a nod to the ‘engineered weretiger’ lead from the Star Justice novel series (whom I believe Mr. Barrack had drawn as part of a vote incentive a while back).
Either way, you beat this pup to the punch on all three I would’ve guessed about. Cheers!
I thought maybe the tiger was a Kzinti, myself. And that looks a bit like Miranda Lawson behind him, but I’m not sure.
I honestly thought the tiger alien was probably a Kilrathi from Wing Commander, like Hobbes from Wing Commander 3.
I’m probably wrong though.
Wrong for both races at a glance, Kzin have a naked tail and the tips of their ears are bare of fur as well. And armour like that is not something from the Wing Commander universe.
That’s what I thought, too.
I do believe that is Adam (the weretiger), Eve (the vampire with black hair), Zea (hacker with the circuits at her temple), and the twins Kasta and Paula in the rear, with android Kasta being the one making the lewd measuring motion.
Sadly, the Kindle and paperback versions of the Star Justice book have been purged from Amazon; just the audio-book left up.
Glad I’m not the only one who knew this reference!
I noticed the other day another series from another author was only available on Audible. Curious if Amazon is censoring the series for some reason? They were a bit risque in some parts, but nothing near what I’d call pornographic.
No, Amazon has a problem with their Kindle Unlimited program. It’s easy to exploit for false page reads, and the algorithm that detects such activity has been throwing false positives, preventing authors from publishing for months on end while they investigate and fix the bans. As you can imagine, a company the size of Amazon has no idea what its doing most of the time, so resolving these things, at least in the case of Michael-Scott Earle’s books, has taken half a year so far.
The audiobooks ain’t half bad, from what I’ve been told… ;p
You can find his books on the authors website. he has gone independant
Adam, Eve, Zea, Paula, and Kasta. love the series but got sad when they got taken down before i got to read book 10
well, they should be available soon, like hopefully this week, from michaelscottearle.com.
In the meantime I’m stuck reading from the rest of my 20k book library
The fact that he looks so much like a Kzinti reminds me of a afterword in one of Niven’s novels where he described why he doesn’t give people permission to use his settings for their own work. Apparently he did that once, only to be find that the author had written a bit of trashy fanfiction with a Kzinti balling a bunch of human women. Something which offended Niven since a Kzinti wouldn’t even be sexually attracted to a human woman (they refer to humans as “hairless monkeys”, keep them as slaves, and eat them for food) and as he described it they don;t’ even have compatible equipment.
Michael-Scott Earle seems like a close cousin to the guy Niven told his tale about. Hell, maybe he is that guy.
Can remember another famous author (possibly Anne McCaffrey) who did write their cat-people being compatible with humans and very sexually attracted to human women
Can’t remember the name of the cats or the series, butt it was one of her “Earth Invasion” books that started out as a short story (the short story was about the cat ‘claiming’, quite forcibly at first, the earth female, the same scene was re-written slightly in the novel to make it more of mutual attraction thing)
You are talking about the “freedom” series by Anne McCaffrey. I have to thank you for mentioning it because I discovered I never finished the series when I looked on amazon to confirm.
Actually have the PC game, never got too far in that :(
The ‘Freedom’ series by Anne McCaffrey? I couldn’t really finish that one. The main cat guy was treated like a hero because he got accidentally left behind with the humans, and then refused to be rescued later on. Turns out he had lived a life of privilege from birth because he had ben chosen to become a host for one of the alien masters of the cat people. He simply knew his time was running out and took the first opportunity to get away. Very understandable but not noble. Also, he was a jerk because he knew that his family, his wives and children would be punished for his betrayal but that didn’t concern him at all. In fact, he thought the idea that his younger brother who had always been jealous of his privileges now would have to pay the price for it by becoming the new host.. was really funny! Some hero.
And Anne MCCaffrey apparently never looked at a tomcat up close because the thing the human heroine liked best about the cat guy was his huge dong, which in a real feline would be covered in sharp spikes.
Considering he was a giant alien cat (tiger?), genital liberties can be forgiven
Also can remember another fantasy book, where a house cat could transform into a human (or at least a werecat) who also fucked a human female, and that cat did retain his barbs
No, genital liberties cannot be forgiven. The odds of some alien life form being compatible, equipment wise, with humans is just the poorest sort of writing. And I know that authors do it all the time because sex sells and kink sex also sells. That doesn’t excuse the horrible violation of science that takes place in these stories.
Perhaps the former does justify the latter, I mean “horrible violation of science” does sound like something like kink sex
Not a cat, the Catteni are humanish rather than feline, they’re also not biologically compatible with humans, sexually they can do the deed but there’s no chance of hybrids.
VGer’s read is actually pretty much wrong on a lot of the background, once you’re dropped you’re never removed from a world so the insistence on staying was in line with the laws the Catteni had in place, that it benefited Zainal personally was definitely a factor, but not as much as the potential for actually resolving the subjugation of his own race by the Eosi.
I can see most of the people replying about Freedom’s Landing didn’t pay much attention to the descriptions of the alien races. “Cats” was a slang term being short for Catteni which looked nothing like felines except maybe that some had yellow eyes. Catteni where bulky grey skinned humanoids with powerful muscles but (at least in the lower casts) short stature. They had no fur, no tails, and no pointy ears.
Funny enough, one can always say just because its not the norm, or taboo, in their culture doesn’t mean there isn’t going to be some like that, Rule 34 teaches us that. Although a funny moment of Babylon 5 was where they found a porn made between the “Pakmara” and a human, two species physically incompatible, and when the camera turns away from the video screen and they point that out what comments “isn’t technology wonderful”.
Also funny enough today MOST alien cat like species are physically attracted to humans and vice versa in sci-fi.
Of course. Felines have been selectively breeding humans, to appeal to them, for millennia.
Heh, almost the premise of one of my own subsets of Kuhrai (humanoid feline aliens), the Ko Kuhrai interbred with elves so now look like feline versions of saiyans (although kind of fox like too with bushy tails and long fur covered ears *sides of heads*, but with claws and ki powers). and human/Kuhrai offspring tend to be mostly human in appearance with cat ears on their heads and tails *also cat eyes and finger nail needle claws*, called Kuhraikin.
I actually have a major reoccurring character, Hollia, who is a mix of Light Elf (mother), and a mix of Kuhrai and Aesperia as her grandmother on her father’s side was Kuhrai, as was her great grandmother *same person…its complicated*.
and several other cat girl like species as well.
Not core B5 but the spin off Crusade. The data crystal belonged to Max Eilerson.
The writer in question was Elf Sternberg. After he got the C&D, he re-wrote the series with a different (read: almost identical, but named differently) felinoid species and a new background universe, and published as The Journal Entries.
If they do happen to encounter each other, well, Deus knows how to think like a rich person, and thus can clue-in Sydney. For example, the cloth she is wearing is bullet-resistant, and she has proof of that in #661 archive/2947. I’ve encountered other comments that mention the spices she is probably carrying with her, and I don’t disagree –but Deus will be certain of their value.
I should have brought this up in the comments of the previous installment where everyone was discussing matter replicators and whether they were doing energy to matter conversion or were simply 3D printers using elements or common molecules.
If the food is replicated does that mean that strictly speaking that even a quarter pounder would be vegan?
This sounds like a unique opportunity for Sydney to exploit.
Also, would Replicated Bacon be Kosher?
It my be that no replicated food is Kosher.
Leviticus doesn’t just say what not to eat, is says what can be eaten.
Since a hunk of replicated protein isn’t actually an animal at all, while its not on the list of forbidden things, its also not on the list of acceptable things.
Yes, it is forbidden to eat insects. But you can eat all the locusts you want. Because logic and science from primitives is always going to be funny like that. So let’s keep following those rules a few centuries later because we’re stupid.
I don’t think that you can ever get enough degrees of separation, from Bacon, for that to be permissible.
It is a bit like urine. You really want it to pass through several filters, like soil, roots and clouds, before you drink it. Eating directly replicated Kevin is too close to be anything other than cannibalism.
Thank you Yorp, for my first proper laugh of the morning. Made all the more fun by having to explain to my co-workers…
*wags tail contentedly*
*discreetly uses hind-paw to hide ‘Wecipies fow Wabbit Pie’*
Rabbis are only beginning to consider these kinds of issues, so it’ll take some time (possibly a *really* long time) until the issue is resolved. However, at least one is of the opinion that vat-grown meat wouldn’t really be considered “meat” under Jewish law, and would thus be okay: https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/evqxdz/rabbi-suggests-that-lab-grown-pork-might-be-kosher. I presume the same would go for replicated pork.
Reminded me of a short story I read online once, can’t remember the name or where and this was like 2001 so story likely gone or buried in the net.
Anywho,
the short story was basically a thought experiment, it was about an alien who chided humans for enslaving and eating animals, while their own species only ate “plants”.
However it turned out his own species had been space faring for so long that they grew “protein tubes” on their colony ships. So they did eat meat, just it was grown in the same manner that plants were artificially and fed nutrients in the harvest gardens. This alien due to its culture and experience just couldn’t differentiate between plant and animal tissue as its own species didn’t keep other life forms around them (not even pets), and had this lab grown meat.
I read something where all food is replicated and that means that the menu includes recreated human meat.
I recall what I think is the same story, and though I think of it from time to time, I seem to lose track of the story and author between times.
The framing of the story was that a food manufacturer was testifying before a committee (Congressional? Similar at least) about a rival company that was cornering the market, and why their practices where unethical.
In this future time, all food was synthesized from raw materials, and humans found the idea of eating any living thing abhorrent. Food had flavor profiles added via trace substances, and marketing departments to give catchy product names and brand identities.
In order to explain the historical source of most of the more popular profiles, he has to use the word “meat,” since the consistent favorites are all based on things like bacon, steak, etc. One of the committee members faints, and another one vomits.
Then, in order to explain why the new flavor profile that people worldwide are raving over ought to be banned, he has to introduce another offensive and archaic word . . . “cannibal.”
Okay… But it sounds like these protein tube creatures have much simpler nervous systems than human food animals (being largely indistinguishable from plants), so it’s still more humane.
I don’t think they were creatures, at least that’s not what I took from it, made me think of the idea going around of lab grown meat being put on taffy pull like systems to promote growth, like grown from proteins but not really animals sort of thing.
They don’t have nervous systems. The labs are culturing muscle cells, not nerve cells. If they detected a nerve cell anywhere in their cultures they’d practically panic. A nerve cell would indicate that a cultured cell had gone back to a pluripotent state and subsequent differentiation into a nerve cell, and they’d need to track down how and why that happened immediately because on returning to the pluripotent state, a cell is more likely than other cells to become the start of a tumor. Not terribly likely, but more likely than a differentiated muscle cell. And while I think tumors are edible, I wouldn’t want to try to convince the FDA (or whatever equivalent organization exists in other national jurisdictions).
I would say yes…… However I am by no mean a vegan.
I would propose the thought experiment to Hindu leaders. I would trust their guidance far more on this subject matter than anyone else.
People are vegetarian or vegan for a variety of reasons. Some simply cannot stomach the idea of ingesting meat, and I’d think that something that looked just like meat wouldn’t be at all appetizing to them even if they knew that it was not a meat product.
Some just like to be pretentious, like a cousin of mine who, at a family reunion where I asked him to carry a serving platter out to the table, refused on the grounds that it had meat on it and he was a vegetarian. Prompting me to say “I don’t eat shit but I’ll still scrub the toilet.” I know vegetarians who are in the restaurant business, and even one who is a butcher. Somehow they manage to handle meat and still maintain their vegetarian diet.
Well Sydney should have no issues with replicated meat, as she has said she didn’t want to eat anything where something cute had to suffer. That’s why she has no problem eating fish; they aren’t cute.
Technically speaking, yes, replicated or lab-grown meat would, indeed, be vegan. That does not, however, as Oberon points out, mean that it would be palatable to vegans or vegetarians.
Some would object because of how perfectly it would resemble animal carcass, since humans are a squeamish, picky lot, while other rare individuals might well just not like the taste. Plus, if your religion says you can’t eat pork, that pork not coming from a pig doesn’t change the scripture, so it won’t solve every objection. Just ones based on morals.
Interestingly enough, though, I can see some genuine culinary benefit to replicated meat. Build a chicken from the ground up and you have it without the salmonella or campylobacter, meaning that you could safely eat it rare. Something that I hear, from the select few idiots who’ve tried it online, is one of the tastiest ways to eat the bird. Until you later come to regret it and associate the flavour with a bad time.
For Sydney, her only objection to meat eating seems to be what she has said – A super shallow justification of “animals are cute” that fits with the rest of her character. In her case, I’d expect a rather tentative initial reaction and then a practically ravenous enjoyment thereafter, once the dissociation from living organisms sinks below the conscious level.
That’s why she does eat fish since they are ‘ugly and delicious’. Her vegetarianism is really only skin deep.
See now that is the problem with calamari. We really should not eat sentient beings but… sooo yummy!
Ugly though, so alright.
Love the second panel. Almost all of the Star Justice cast.
Unless you can designate your replicators as “Schochets”…
And then there are all sorts of dietary laws and customs regarding food preparation and serving, like the milk stuff isn’t supposed to touch the meat stuff, or some such. Is there a Rabbi in the house?
Well replicated “meat” was never alive, and thus was never part of an animal that had to be slaughtered.
If nothing was slaughtered, why would there be a need for a “Schochet?”
“No animals were harmed or even inconvenienced in the making of this bacon sandwich”
Most of the animals that are thriving on Earth are the ones that Humans have domesticated. So whilst pigs are subject to the vagaries of their masters, and most are doomed to be slaughtered, their high population sizes are dependent on being a useful food source for Humans.
What happens to them when that incentive goes away?
Will pig farmers become altruistic pig colony administrators, once cheap, perfectly tasty and nutritious meat from a vat is developed?
Or will that replicated ham sandwich be representative of the extinction of all but a few zoo and pet pigs?
unfortunetly for most domesticated food animals many are entirely relient on humans for survival. many have lost the natural instinct for self preservation and some cattle cant even have calfs without human assistsence. the grim reality is if thier no longer needed for thier meat then they will most likley be either culled enmass or abandoned to either go extinct or somehow adapt in a world which thier is nolonger an enviroment for them,
Yorp every “weed” grows well to the point of humans working to eradicate them while food plants are in need of human aid constantly to do well. Why isn’t that reversed? The animals and plants that are surviving despite humans tend to not be liked like coyotes and milk weed.
Once we figure out to work with Nature instead of against it we can do that to the plants and animals we prefer over those we don’t. But until our hubris is tamped down we will continue. Just as we have the power to ignore Nature we are in peril right now to not have much of a planet to live on in as little as 30 years. I have come to the conclusion that intelligence as we have has its pitfalls of its own type. Gene Roddenberry understood that and showed several variations in the first series.
Sadly nothing about the AGW is mentioned in any of the series that I am aware. My hypothesis is a variation on Kardashev’s views of energy use by a species in development. WE are a Type 0 yet the AGW is a Type 1 happening. But it is done accidentally and without order so it is destructive. So I submit an intelligent species can produce destructive outcomes in their next level of impact. One of many pitfalls of having such mentalities and manipulative abilities.
So what happened to the Kutullû? They were Type 3 on the verge of Type 4 when their celestial machine failed. So many died, others trapped in different dimensions and level of being even one of their lowest scouts could produce quite an impact on a world like ours. One of the last things they did without orders was to create human like beings. Not humans but damn close. Long headed ones that ate red meat. Some went underground on Earth (K’n-yan) others into that dimensional world called Dreamland and live in the multifarious Yian-Ho. The basis for the MIB and the coming army of 200 million the furthest north you can go past Mongolia to Leng in another dimension.
Hot House Earth will be deadly to live in. Just the heat alone will kill millions, food shortages more millions and savage wars for all types of resources from fresh water to food to eat eventually into the billions. Not even counting the types of materials needed to keep our tech going and to create more and better tech. We have waited too long and now the Piper is playing more loudly.
I contend that Vat meat (yeast? fungus? soylent green?) and replicated meat are not at all the same. Replicated meat is duplicated meat, indistinguishable from the original. Shout to the rafters that the bacon sandwich from the replicator has never been within a parsec of a pig, but a kosher Jew is still unlikely to nibble at your bait. Unless, of course, the Rabbis say, “Can’t hurt.”
Turkey bacon, though… [shudder]
I agree that vat and replicator are different methods, but my point is that either can be developed to the point where the product that is supplied to the consumer is indistinguishable from either one another or real meat. Of course an argument can be made for one process having characteristics like an animal (in as much as it grew), however for the purpose of ‘is this an animal’ neither of them were harvested from an animal.
However the original samples were taken from an animal. Or they were copied in a manner which makes them indistinguishable. So that is the key moral point. If you perfectly replicate something that is ‘unclean’ (or whatever term or description may be used) are you replicating its unclean nature too?
Which is really down to theologians of the appropriate persuasion to argue, based on the relevant dogma.
If though it boils down to moral concerns, rather than religious ones, such as ‘is there animal cruelty involved’, in which case that is clearly not the case.
There’s the sticking point. The vat-grown stuff – let’s call it soylent pink (pink for porky piglets) – is vegetative matter that was never an animal, to which additives and flavors and emulsifiers and gods know what else is added to achieve what some omnivore would say is close enough for gubmint work. Now, if your replicator is replicating vat-grown vegan pork, bacon, chops, whatever, you have no trouble, either religious or moral.
But if what you are replicating is dead animal tissue, the result is dead animal tissue. How it got dead is history, hopefully on file somewhere so you can determine its religious rightness. One steer might produce 500 tons of steaks before someone requests a different pattern. For Star Trek, every single steak ever eaten from a replicator may have come from the same cow, a grass fed steer in the panhandle of Texas. Considering how many steaks one can get from a single steer, they could get a lot of different meals without duplication.
BUT, if a Schochet didn’t kill that original steer, nothing that comes from that replicator pattern is kosher. Moslems have similar dietary restrictions. It may be that to feed all of Star Fleet forever, they needed to kill a dozen steers. Either way, the Jews and Muslims in Star Fleet are eating the Soylent Pink stuff, not the replicated pig meat.
and then the Hindus are not eating beef
Many Hindus do eat meat including cow. A bone of contention there to be sure.
Humans eat dead things not living ones. Unless you count bacteria which makes up the bulk of all life including our own.
The replicator patterns of steer meat are identical between the kosher and not. Just magical thinking at work. Though they could easily take kosher meat and use it to replicate just so both religions are satisfied. Even though the molecules may not be kosher by the Jews and Muslim’s thinking process. Illogical, but relevant.
once one gets to the point of replicaters which would most likely work by stringing ammonia acids into specific chains then one is faced with the fact that everything is effectivly the same thing in a different pattern not sure how relegious belief will handle that. proberly through wishfull ingnorence and blantent avoidence of the truth
If it’s patterned off of kosher food, that might help. So bacon would probably be a problem for a good long time, since pigs just aren’t kosher.
I read a short story once called ‘The Ruminant Strain’ about a genetic researcher who engineered a pig that chewed its cud (thus improving the efficiency of meat production) and, completely accidentally, creating a breed of pig that was 100% Kosher.
the way religion has always handled these things; just pick the thing that will give them the most power and influence with the least amount of oversight. nothing like preachers for exploiting emotional situations.
My experience is that there will be much debate in the religious organizations. It will vary from organization to organization, but new sects will be formed. Some that allow, some that don’t. Yada, Yada, Yeah.
Only exception that I could see would be Hindu’s and Beef. Even if artificially reproduced, cows are just too sacred to be consumed (even if it was never alive in the first place). I could never imagine them allowing that.
I’m not too sure I’d care much for food made out of ammonia acids. I’m not even sure I could survive eating anything with a significant amount of ammonia in it. Now string some amino acids together and you might have something.
Guys…
Fake shrimp is already treated as kosher by all but the most stringent of Jews (even if most just don’t like the taste) so there is every reason to believe that fake pork will be treated the same way.
I did not know that. Thank you.
I also did not know that Fake Shrimp existed. I should ask some of my Jewish friends about this.
But does ‘the world without shrimp’ have fake shrimp? Was there a burning gap in their existence which could only be filled by that invention?
And what are we missing from our world, that likewise needs filling?
We don’t even have a word for it!
*pulling fur out of head*
Everything about this page seems wrong.
Sydney isn’t going ga-ga over the dozen different obscure sci-fi references, but in that first panel Vale is. It’s like they swapped personalities! Everything is wrong!
I’m starting to think that the idea that Sydney projects some sort of aura of stupidity onto those around her has some weight. Vale seems to have been infected by Sydney; before they met Vale was a serious bad-arse of few words and now look at her!
Those references are for the readers.
She would not recognize Captain Kirk.
They are references that we can pick up easily because the characters are facing us. In a panoramic city scape, with thoughts on how to earn passage back to Earth, would you recognise Marvin from behind? Likewise the robot he is chatting to would have his face blocked by the wall as she approached, then Marvin as she passed.
Whilst the other cameos appeared either a city block away or behind her back. Thus leaving only the robot in the centre of panel 3 as being the one Sydney would have gotten a clear look at, and he is one of the few non-cameos.
Hah hah, yeah, I kind of thought of that. Putting Sydney in proximity of pop culture references without her reacting to them is kind of disconnecting, but, eh. I can live with it.
well sydney is most likely in superfocus survival mode, i will bet once shes safe back on earth everything shes seen will catchup to her and then she will freak about it
In Heinz sight?
Beano Vision?
I’m assuming that the Robots in the third panel were designed by alien fans of a certain Disney Movie and British Miniseries. Clearly Earth Culture has slipped out into the interplanetary zeitgeist.
Heh, all the cameos thus far on this station are due to a cosplay convention being in town.
Maybe Vale called ahead (I’m guessing Deus hasn’t been there before, she dialed) and paid for a flash mob to dress up as characters from Earth sci-fi literature, just to mess with Deus. They’ve covered over the actual signs and are just killing a couple more minutes while he reaches the target intersection.
the earth broadcast deepspace relay station (or E.B.D.R.S) is the most viewed FTL communication network of a pre ftl species media in the galaxy, the highest rated shows are, the reality show doctor who, where an alien disguised as a human runs around with several earthlings, startrek with its alien celebrity camoes and every david attenborough documentry
Any guesses on what Vale is carrying in the first panel that she’s so excited about? I can’t figure it out.
Been mentioned a few times on the first page (probably also the second, and now the third) as a Red Marker from some game series
I need to play Dead Space so I can understand why Vale’s so happy about it :)
Personally don’t like ‘horror’ games like that and it would have to be a very special kind of game to get me to even look at it (have played a few, butt they were mostly ‘cheap’ browser games, ones where the main character and ‘victims’ were mostly anonymous pixels)
I like certain survival horror games. Not a fan of jump scare games – they seem cheap to me. But other survival horror, like Resident Evil games (except for 5 and 6, which suck), Biohazard (technically it’s Resident Evil 7 and is excellent), Silent Hill 2, Outlast, Amnesia, The Last of Us, Observer… they’re all excellent games).
And P.T. was excellent too, wish they made the game. It was one of the brief times a game did jump scares WELL…. by not relying on them constantly…. instead building up the dread and creepiness for a LONG time.
There is nothing there, you are just hallucinating and maybe paranoid.
its a sex toy. its always a sex toy
so.. did anyone else notice the ALIEN warning poster in the background of the second panel effectivly confirming that the ALIENS from ALIENS exist in this world..
Aww, somebody wants them. How sweet!
i expect a weyland yutani megacorp to be included in a upcoming page sometime then.
Aww, that’s sweet. Even such an asexual and murderous species seeks romance.
“Now appearing at The Giggle Grotto, the comedy stylings
of Errrchhht, / Authentic Ethanol / 50 Yeet cover charge.”
The xenomorphs were designed as workers, as close to living machines as you can get. The First Men, created by the Star-Headed Old Ones as a kind of successor species in the next morph (humanoid) to come about 20 million years ago during the Miocene. Then they retreated to the lightless sea under Antarctica leaving them to their own devices. When the Thermal Maximum occurred it was too much even for the New Men so some went into hibernation others left Terra to found their own planet. It was the Race that settled their own world that experimented with servitor species. When they created the Xenomorphs they were perfection, can work in any environment including out space. And a certain amount of intelligence. However the flaw was in their flawlessness. Very hard to kill & ultimately designed to rebel and go their own way. Several ships went off course lost in the depths of space. So the New Men created a hunter species to track them down to exterminate them. WE call them Predators. They have gone on their own and are now in a civil war between the Natural Predators an the Eugenic Predators over being hunters. Now they have their own peculiar society dedicated to the Prime Directive hunt and kill, take trophies. They don’t spend all their time hunting the Xenomorphs so there are still some left alive. Very dangerous since their intelligence is more than one would expect. The Predators even did a violation of their Prime Directive by cultivating the Xenomorphs to hunt and kill. Glad for them their creators don’t know this. They would be very cross with their creations.
And that Armored Tiger could be from Tigerland, a pocket universe of intelligent felines. Only they have larger craniums. My first thought was a Kzinti warrior.
I thought “Kzinti Warrior” was redundant?
Then you need to do a little research on Kzintis. The females are not allowed to even be intelligent. And not all do battle. The telepaths among them have a miserable life and are poor warriors. The point was to breed out the aggression so that they would become civilized over barbaric by the Puppeteers. Kzinti lost 3 times against the Terrans and were not happy with that.
The animated Star Trek episode, 14. “The Slaver Weapon” 4187.3 (Dec. 15, 1973) #22011is about Human-Kzinti relations and the stasis boxes. Based on the short story “The Soft Weapon”.
Oh, to all those who recognised Interlac (the middle row of letters), the sign in the first panel reads “Market District 2F” though the M, D and F aren’t capitalised.
I think the top row is the same thing in Magespeak font.
Given that Vale is not alone in her body and Deus commented on her making a joke earlier it’s not unreasonable for her to be out of character because it probably isn’t wholly her in there.
We don’t have any reason to believe Vale isn’t a solitary entity. Multiple eyes don’t mean multiple beings, she could just be gaseous version of a Shoggoth.
I meant that she is now hosting a planets worth of souls that came through the portal.
She isn’t. We have no reason to believe those Alari souls are inside her at all.
Deus: “Vale, put down the Marker.”
Vale: “But, but, but…”
She clearly has a shopping bag in the second Panel which makes sense because there’s no way Deus could say no to a face like that.
Maximillian AND Marvin? Baby, you had me at hello.
I have to say, given all she’s just been through, Sydney is remarkably calm and collected. In her place, I guess I would have been looking for a safe place to crash. (And I mean ‘crash after the adrenaline rush wears off and the exhaustion and horror of the last hours catch up with her…’) Makes me wonder if the orbs are secretly calming and supporting her or even slightly mind-controlling her?
But we’ve seen that the flight orb suppresses vertigo only when being touched.
I don’t think the orbs can influence her unless she’s holding one of them.
A place to ‘crash’ really should have priority.
Hopefully she won’t sleep through her rescue.
Right now, for Sydney, the priority is to get home, and then crash
Even if this was set far in the future after Earthican’s and infested other star systems and slash or plaents, and Sydney had arrived on an Earth station, she still wouldn’t feel safe enough to crash until she got home! The Earth Station would simply make that easier
Do NOT forget Cap’n Cora & crew.
This obsession some here have of complicating the story with time travel is starting to bug me.
Haven’t forgotten about Cora, butt Sydney doesn’t know she is on her way (or she wouldn’t have left Alari Prime in the first place)
That Future Setting was just an example, personally have never believed that ‘time travel’ bullshit
I see Sydney has come out of her bubble. Brave. Stupid?
https://youtu.be/Bbzuu14bGgs
I really don’t know.
I get where you are coming from. Sydney probably feels that she has primary protagonist immunity. ;-)
Going to go with: she kept Mr Buble up until she got through Space Customs and was told it was safe (and she observed humanoids walking around safely)
It would be a grave mistake to assume that similar structure meant similar atmospheric needs. I would not assume safety based on that of other humanoids.
It would have taken a week to show her…..
Finding the front door.
Being scanned for space diseases and parasites.
Discovering her drivers licence is adequate as identification.
Taking off her rebreather for the first time.
Meeting honest to Go d aliens (Knowing Dabbler made it easier)
Walking around the Space Mall (That’s where we are now)
Location cubed!
Sydney scout out a good shop and find yourself a local manager, then all you have to do is figure out how to ship comics from Earth. The rest is just doing your advertising thing.
She has a cosmic doorway. Just add a trolley and the transport should be easy.
We don’t know how long it took her to get through customs
Anyone who has done international travel can tell you, sometimes it can take many hours, and that’s not counting the extra time if one of your destinations had been to an ‘undesirable’ country
Coming back from America in ’01 (start of the year, so wasn’t involved in 9-11 >.>) was held up because had a decorative wall-sword in bag (even though it was clearly packaged as simply a wall-ornament, they confiscated it and it took months to get it back, because the stupid government refuses to have a customs office at our local airport)
Given it’s likely she can’t be scanned when her shield is up, Space Customs would have tried to establish a safe location for her to drop it without suffocating on whatever passed for atmosphere at that particular custom station.
“Please drop your shield for Mandatory Health Scan.”
“Um… you do breathe air, right?”
“Air? Nitrogen-oxygen mix?”
“Yeah!! That’s air.”
“No, this is the Hydrogen Peroxide breathing section… Establishing safe zone for Oxygen breather.”
“… Good thing I didn’t drop my shield then!”
“Yes, the paperwork I’d have to do for dry-cleaning a tourist’s lungs is a horrifying amount.”
Is it just me or does Vale in the first panel/page/whatever look more like Pixel from arc-light? Ref: #491/492
P.S. I prefer 492 since she gets a hotness and FLUFFY! upgrade. Oops sorry, my inner Sydney is showing :P
Almost like mother and daughter.
Perhaps Pixel’s DNA was sampled in order to grow Vale’s skin-suit? Deus seems like the kind of guy who wouldn’t have any moral issues with swiping a few interesting chromosomes. Seems like were-jaguar would be some pretty interesting genes.
If those two are related on purpose for a later plot device that would be awesome. Dibs on saying ‘I told you so’ even though I totally didn’t
If those two are related on purpose for a later plot device that would be awesome. Dibs on saying ‘I told you so’ even though I totally didn’t.
Huh, a miniature version of The Marker.
Since Sydney first made her log entry describing what she
thought to be Dyson Sphere around a Pulsar, I’ve noticed
the word ‘Bonkers’ over and over, and not just in Grrl Power.
Was it always there and I am only just now noticing?
Depends on where you are seeing it, ‘Bonkers’ is an ancient English word
Disney had a series from 93-95 called “Bonkers” (even a videogame based off of it)
That is NOT Nohar in the second panel. First, Nohar doesn’t have nifty sci-fi armor with glowy spots just like the tiger in Star Justice. Second, Nohar’s hand cannon was a 10mm semiautomatic and that thing he’s carrying around looks very much like a revolver. I know Mr. Swann personally and while he would be flattered to have Nohar drawn, he would more likely rather commission a piece (and that is rather unlikely in itself).
Is it just me or do the blonde twins look like harem…
You are not alone. But it is easy enough to make the association with the ‘blonde beach babe’ look. But the different facial features and lack of freckles (at a range where they should be visible) kept me from making that link myself.
I foresee the purchase of a red marker from dead space going rather poorly.
Honestly, I can’t wait for Tamer 6. Or Tamer 5 audiobook =D
Wait… Eve is shorter than Z?
Yeah, I think she’s the shortest one in the group actually. I sometimes think of her being tall like Morticia or something, but it’s said several times that Eve comes to human-Adam’s shoulder, whereas Zea, Madalena and Elana are basically as tall as him. I posted this on another page of comments I think, but since Adam is always described as “large” even in his human form, I can’t help but picturing the three of them standing around 6’4″, which doesn’t seem right to me.
Pictures of fitness ladies for his….ahem…”reference folders”… Sure, sounds legit… >.>
The level of coincidence required for both of them to show up at near the same location in the same hub on the same area of the same motherfuckin DYSON SPHERE in the same part of the Universe … is close enough to impossible for the difference to be negligible to a great many decimal places.
I know I’ve mentioned it a few times now… but to use No Man’s Sky as an example again since contrary to public opinion it is actually a very good game for imparting a sense of scale appropriate to intergalactic travel…
… BUT anyway… NMS has or had millions of players. They all started in the same galaxy. Yet it is not only possible but probable for any given player to not only get 95% of the way towards the galactic core without encountering any evidence of another player along the way… but without even entering a star system that any player of the game has ever entered before… It is only when you get close to the core and the number of systems is lowered considerably that you start to find pre-named ones… and even then, good luck finding anyone’s base at random.
Seriously… NMS drives home the feeling of being isolated VERY hard.
I am kicking myself SO HARD right now, for not noticing Adam & Co. in this page. Roflmao! ^_^
As camoes go, I thought that one was fairly conspicuous. :)
You know, I’m on something like my 6th or 7th read-through of this, and I only just noticed the perspective you pulled, having Vale and the kiosk they were shopping at in the 1st panel placed in the background of the 2nd panel, and then 1 of the twins from the 2nd panel and the previously mentioned kiosk both in the background of the 3rd panel, showing that Sydney was only 2 streets away from Dues.