Grrl Power #642 – Screwed
I’ve never been good at drawing inorganic stuff. Cars, guns, spaceships – so when I came to this page, I just drew the first thing that came to me. Why the design is best described as a giant, fucked up screw is unclear. (Also if the actual layout of the ship changes slightly from panel to panel, don’t lose too much sleep over it. Like it, uh, deployed those tentacles between panels. Why a gigantic ship like that needs streamers like a little girl’s bike is equally unclear.)
Dabbler is a remarkably fast runner, between her digitigrade legs and strength to body weight ratio, she’s probably at least 50% faster than the fastest human once she gets up to full steam. Of course, we know that Max and Sydney can both go supersonic. Hiro is limited to roughly commercial airliner speeds. He can break the sound barrier with gravity assist (i.e. flying down) but even without that caveat, he’s still the team’s 3rd fastest flyer. With Harem on his shoulder, he’s probably limited to ~100-ish MPH. Maybe a bit faster if she was on his back and her head was tucked behind his. The 4th fastest is the V-22 Osprey at about 300 MPH. Heatwave is limited to “fast car” speeds.
Jiggawatt can move incredibly fast by turning into lightning, but she needs a cloud or something to bounce off if she’s not doing a line of sight hop, so her top speed is somewhat conditional. She’s never tried jumping into powerlines, she’s worried about blowing everything up between her and her destination, and also possibly getting scattered across the power grid and not being able to pull herself back together.
Harem is sort of the fastest mover on the team (when she isn’t discombobulated) but also technically not, depending on whether you measure speed as actual velocity or simply the interval of time it takes to get from one point to another. Like if a starship moves into hyperspace or the warp or whatever and isn’t physically in our dimension, then it pops out at another point, did it move quickly? In instances like this (and probably in proper science), there is a distinction between speed and velocity.
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This is really quite scary.
Scary? Maybe.
Then again they could be facing the mighty Pakleds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dCeD2gF9jUo “Careful Men! There’s a light grenade on the ground!”
Where? I can’t see it?
Hah hah, that would be a let down after all this set up.
So… her orbs seem to be something more important than just some alien’s utility belt.
Nah they just have really strong anti-tech protection. Dabs, Cybernetic eye can’t see them at all either.
“Dave! Dave, I found your missing keys! Yeah, the ones you lost on your last vacation, one of those hairless monkeys is fumbling with them. Guess you forgot to set them to auto-disable when they got out of range.”
:-D
Ruh Roh!
Any chance Dabbler knows that ship design?
Given the rather idiosyncratic design of the ship, these may not be the folks that wiped out the Alari. They could be a race of scavengers combing over the wreckage of the Alari homeworld, and their bloodhound just sniffed out something mighty interesting.
Scavengers don’t tend to show up while what they are about to pick over is still burning
They do if they’re “scavenging” the all-you-can-eat buffet. And the tastiest bits are those that still move.
I don’t want to eat food that fights back while I’m eating it. Yes, there are such things. Do you really want to talk about it?
Many scavengers are a lot more than just opportunistic eaters of road kill, other animal’s abandoned kills, and the like. Plenty of them are more than happy to “help along” the process of something else becoming their next meal. They may see food that doesn’t fight back as the better option, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t willing to fight for a meal.
Depends on the scavengers as to how fearless they are, and these ones seem well equipped. Having said that the fact they are responding to a summons from a watch-dog left in place on the recently destroyed world would argue against them being simple scavengers.
As to who they are.. it may just be me, but their ship reminds me of the design of the robot that Sciona built – could these survivors?
Many scavengers are a lot more than just opportunistic eaters of road kill and the like. Plenty of them are more than happy to “help along” the process of something else becoming their next meal. They may see food that doesn’t fight back as the better option, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t willing to fight for a meal.
Or they want to come as early as possible so they can get the good salvage before some other scavenger do the same. A scavenger needs to be a opportunist to be successful.
Funny you guys should talk about “ship design” and “scavengers” under one comment topic. ‘Coz the ship design reminds me of the Junkions from the non-Bay Transformers movie.
” Patented enamel resists fire, rain and corrosion. Five year warranty, satisfaction guaranteed.”
“Or your money back!”
Naw, it was the Quintesson ship that Hot Rod, Kupp, and the Dinobots stole on their escape from Quintessa that looked a little like that. The Junkions ship looked much more normal, other than looking like it was made of rust.
Given that that tentacle squid sentry scanner thing that summoned the ship was clearly left in place laying dormant until something tripped it I’m going to lean pretty hard against these being scavengers since that just isn’t how scavenging works… and in favor of them being the civilization destroyers responding to a signal from a monitor/probe they left behind to keep an eye on things/look our for survivors/etc…
Yorp!
*leaps into Nephandus‘s arms*
Always expect Ninjas!
Speaking of ninja attacks: you know, Jay-Arm, if Fey finds out thy you were the one who came up with the ‘Negligee Nightingales’ nickname, she’s gonna fry your ass. Again.
Oops, wrong Nephandus. My bad.
Nah, you can go on the attack too.
With the kind of training I can provide, you also can go on the attack, Yorp.
Look, Nephandus! A self-delivering meal!
Do they have a way to close the portal once on Earth?
Because i don’t think leading the robot-tentacle-monster’s civilisation to a portal that leads to Earth is a good idea.
Unless the portal is linked to Japan. Then the locals would be more than happy to accept the civilisation of robot-tentacle-monsters.
The Japanese are well known for their skills in defeating tentacle monsters with both conventional and unconventional methods.
And, indeed, for their success in domesticating more than a few specimens.
(Marriage also counts as domestication, yes?)
Some tentacle monsters are more reluctant to become domesticated than others…
In every movie I ever saw of Japanese vs giant monsters, the Japanese military was completely ineffective.
Yeah, but here, it’s Japaneses against what seems like tentacle monsters (seriously, even their ship has tentacles)
So all you need is a Japanese schoolgirl to distract/defeat/seduce them.
Or you could equip the Japanese military with schoolgirl uniforms.
you mean equip the military vessels with schoolgirl uniforms
Impossible for anyone but Japan.
Not true – I have seen the pictures of sailor moon cosplayers. <a href=“https://www.cnread.news/album/72152.html” title=“I’m a little jealous of the beard & pony tail combo – that’s not an easy look to pull off”
Oops, forgot the closing > – really wish this comments section had an edit function.
think that’s more due to the era they’re made in. look at Godzilla 2014. despite having their asses handed to them, the military in that DOES actually manage to do a few things of note, like blowing up the MUTO nest, for one, which actually got one of those Skyscraper sized beasties to look quite pissed at a single soldier.
To reply to Dave’s blurb below the comic, in scientific terms, velocity is speed in a given direction. You can move in a circle at constant speed, but your velocity will be changing constantly and can even become zero or negative.
Not only. To be honest, there are so many fields that need different terms for “how fast things move” depending on what “thing” they are talking about that the meaning of “speed” and “velocity” is really context dependent.
That’s why a more precise term exists, it is “rate”.
In those other fields they come up with different terms for them (eg interval). Velocity is a standard term in all scientific fields.
It doesn’t make sense to say negative velocity; it’s just going in the opposite direction (and given that we’re not in 1D space, it’s got several components to it). Speed is just the magnitude of the velocity vector, and as with any magnitude it can’t be negative.
Or at least not without something seriously screwy going on with time (as time-like dimensions have the opposite sign to space-like dimensions). Relativity gets pretty weird.
Well, the square of a time-like separation has the opposite sign to the square of a space-like separation when you combine them into the relativistic equivalent of Euclidean distance. Mathematically, that’s equivalent to what we commonly call “time” being the real magnitude of an imaginary number, rather than having the opposite sign to “distance”. Which is just as well since distances (technically, displacements) can be negative in one or more components without turning into times.
Velocity is a vector, so it is assigned a specific direction. If right is positive, an object’s velocity is the rate at which it is moving to the right, so an object moving “left” has a negative velocity to the right.
20 quatloos says that Dabbler either tries to cop a feel or otherwise suggestively snuggle against Maxima. 4 hands vs. 2 advantage Dabbler, Maxima’s super speed and reflexes on the gripping hand. Pick yer poison.
Dabs is smart enough to hold off any unwanted moves until the ride has come to a complete stop on the good side of the portal.
Closing an unstable portal may involve sneezing on it.
Poking the edge with a stick might work too.
It would take a serious will save for a succubus to resist though.
“Dabbler, I swear, if you try anything…”
“I assure you that I’m uninterested in any course of action that would distract you from getting us out of here.”
“Good.”
“*Good*? Do you have *any* idea how terrified I have to be to not be thinking about sleeping with you?”
“Noted.”
“On the other hand, once we’re safely through the portal, you’re going to have to peel me off you one limb at a time.”
“You *just said*…”
“What can I say? I guess I have faith that you’ll get us through this.” [snuggles in just a tiny bit]
“Are you… trembling? Didn’t figure you for someone easily frightened, Dabbler…”
“Not frightened… resisting. Desperately. I’m literally fighting my instincts… urges screaming at me to grab those golden globes of yours and motorboat them until I get neck cramps.”
“…well, at least that kinda qualifies as showing restraint, in action if not words – I appreciate the honesty, I guess…”
I’d love to see something like that just for that tiny indication that Max and Dabbler are capable of seeing each other’s perspective.
Not possible from Maxi
I fully expect Max to grab Dabbler by the ankles or hooves, or possibly horns. Maybe the hair. Seat of the pants. Anything that makes it difficult for Xuriel to think about messing with her ride.
Quite literally, I have this vision of Dabbler pulling a full-body face-hugger maneuver on Max. Of course, Maxima can peel her off. Probably. If Dabbler snuggs in close and at the correct pressure points, even Maxima might be challenged by the awkward angles and poor leverage available.
Max: “Dabbler, you know I’m going to have to hurt you?”
Dabbler: “♥ Worth it! ♥ ♥”
Max: “You’re going to have to let go.”
Dabbler: “Eventually. Maybe.” * puurrrrrr *
[ Because, of course, Dabbler purrs. ]
Max: “A lot less eventually than you might think. I’m flying into that brick wall, and you’re the only thing between me and it.”
Dabbler: “STILL worth it! ♥ ♥ ♥ “
My brain hurts from the clash of _Ringworld_ and _Star Trek_ references.
I’ll give you “Mostly Credit” due to FAIL on the Niven-Pournelle Motie reference. In the comment. I’ve been wondering for a couple years now how many people get the Ringworld one, though. Nobody before you has mentioned that one across the comments & forums of several dozen locations. So, I guess extra credit on that one balances the Force, somewhat. I-am-groot.
Louis Gridley Wu – Known Space (including Ringworld)
Quatloos – Star Trek – Triskelion currency
Gripping Hand – Moties
Did I miss any?
Nope. Got ’em all in this round.
My failing memory, though. It’s been close to 30 years since last I read the original Ringworld/Known Space books & stories, and about 45 since I first read them. Lost my collection to the 4 winds a long time ago … but, I had remembered it as “Luis Wu.” Which I will stick with, but I’m confused about the spelling now and am wondering if it changed over the years.
But, explains why nobody seems to have noted it before now. Although, my regular hobby of mixing memes from different universes should have helped, just as much as it might have been confusing in and of itself. May the Protectors protect me.
Larry Niven did write at least one episode for the animated Star Trek. That’s why there was an episode where the Enterprise runs across a stasis field, and Kzinti try to take it from them. When I saw that as a kid I thought they were just ripping Niven off, but that was before I had the slightest bit of understanding about copyrights and such. I was just a big scifi geek boy who had read a lot of Niven and caught the cross-pollination of settings.
Larry Niven’s short story “The Soft Weapon” was adapted to an episode of Star Trek: the Animated Series. By permission and all other legalities necessary. While quite interesting as a Star Trek episode, the original story is “superior” in that it fits (as intended) in the integrated telling of Known Space lore.
So, either the Alari poked the wrong bear with a short stick, or another civilization with a genocidal bent and a higher tech level wandered across them. It also comes to mind that a race that seems to have tentacles as manipulative appendages might make something like the orbs.
“It also comes to mind that a race that seems to have tentacles as manipulative appendages might make something like the orbs.”
My thoughts exactly.
I think Sydney’s hypothesis that the set comprises a “space ship” (emphasis on quotation marks) is accurate. However, full use requires enough arms to hold all the orbs (plus a brain/physiology capable of coordinating all of them at once).
Either the alien species encountered in the last update is the maker of the orbs, or familiar with them and capable of their use.
Sydney can control their movement and position by thought, without touching them. They can obviously respond without contact. I think the ‘having to hold them to use them’ thing is like training wheels on a bike.
Eventually, when she is proficient enough, she will be able to use them without actually touching them. This will let her use more than two orbs at once.
I’m thinking that this is the effect of maxing out a particular orb’s “skill tree”. Once the user masters an orb, they no longer need to hold it. That said, I really don’t think anything with tentacles made the orbs. They specifically require Sydney to grip them with her hands in order to work. She can’t just poke them, and other body parts are ineffective. Tentacles have no digits, and could not properly “grasp” the perfectly smooth spheres, so I’m fairly certain that tentacles are incompatible.
Oh, no. R’lyeh’s vacuum cleaner salesman has arrived.
Just don’t anybody tell them that the password to the atmosphere shield is 1-2-3-4-5.
“1-2-3-4-5?!” That’s the same combination I have on my luggage!
Sir or Madam (not familiar with your particular species, sorry) I have here the Marvel of the Ages! If you will allow a small demonstration? Good. Now, I know what you’re thinking, My (Deity/Higher Power of your choice here)! You’ve just destroyed my entire civilization and committed a mass genocide of my species. (And really, isn’t “mass genocide” a bit redundant? Is there such a thing as one eighth or a quarter genocide?) But see here as I flip this handy dandy…huh. Now, now, don’t panic. This worked in the training scenario back at the office. Uh… Well. Huh. Well, really must be going. Have to keep on schedule, you know. Would you like a complimentary key chain or drink coozy? No? Well, Remember to keep us in mind for all your planetary subjugation needs. Well there’s no need to get hysterical. I… Well that was rather rude. It’s as if no one has ever initiated an apocalypse here before. Some people.
:-D
If you aren’t familiar with some species, why are you assuming the species even has sexual dimorphism? That’s racist! :-P
Specist (or maybe Genderist)
And then we find the ship filled with Junkions jamming out to “Dare To Be Stupid” were merely on their way to stab Unicron in the eyehole… but trust us, Unicron had it coming.
Hey Sydney, the ones who kicked their balls over your fence seem to want them back. Don’t run, it will only hurt for a few eons.
Here is my (hopefully) constructive criticism.
I’m having difficulty seeing the transition between panels two and three. Then a scaling error between panels three and four.
In panel two there is no ship, but there is a laser. In three there is a ship and a laser. The ship’s blur and VOOM sound effect make it seem like the ship was moving forward. If the laser was meant to be a portal, there are several problems I have with this: 1.) In the last page it was implied that the red beam was being focused from orbit then channeled through the monster. I now suspect the opposite is true, but this is not clear. 2.) There is no transition between 1-Dimensional line and 3-Dimensional starship. Since the line is still being (emitted?) from the bottom of the ship, the confusion about the source and purpose of the beam remains. 3.) Returning to the blur. It looks like the ship was moving forward instead of teleporting in. One of your descriptive *KA-PANTS* sound effects might be more appropriate. 4.) The clouds make this forward motion far more pronounced. While they are crescent shaped already in panel 2, seeing them in panel 3 implies the ship is parting the cloud in a wake-like shape due to forward motion.
As to the scaling. In panel three, I’m guessing that thing is maybe a kilometer or two tall. In panel four it’s more ‘Oh, look! I’m taller than that continent and bigger around than that flaming city!’ Either it’s an issue with the ground perspective, or how the vessel scales with land masses.
Thoughts?
Follow the laser to the end, and that’s where the Ship appears
If I might inject my own humble opinion. I think most of your issues start from the (wrong?) assumption that the beam starts at the bottom of the ship instead of the other way.
My interpretation of the previous and this page are that the beam originates from the scanning creature and is send upwards, functioning as a beacon for the incoming ship to lock in on.
The forward motion blur is because the ship was in motion and didn’t actual teleport in. Look at scenes in Star Trek or Star Wars of ships dropping out of warp / lightspeed. They appear out of nowhere but still have some forward momentum while slowing down to a complete stop.
As for the scaling issues: Drawing is hard, even more for things the artist is not familiar with and has no references for.
It’s a ship dropping out of Warp or Hyperspace or whatever you want to call it. The laser is a beacon, the ship stops at the beacon with a Voom sound effect to signify “I am here now”.
Psst, hooves are unguligrade, not digitigrade. Still offers similar benefits, though.
I love those long ship designs. Its not like ships need to be aerodynamic and the long ship design looks cool to me. I also love seeing Borg ships fly through space because it looks so funny to me, sense it is just a giant cube coming at you.
“Voom” rarely means anything good.
Will they make it,or will they be stuck there???
Unfortunately, we know at least Sydney and Maxi make it back…
And so the chase begins and there better not be a cliche alien spotlight beam that will levitate a captured Halo :0
Don’t worry, have the chase music ready :D
I prefer Flatt and Scruggs myself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_Y3mnj-8lA
How could have ever forgotten this great track :(
The dinner bell has been rung. And it looks like this (panel 8) has arrived!
“Table 6, your civilization is ready for harvesting.”
To the best of my knowledge, the main distinction between “speed” and “velocity” is that the first is a scalar and the latter a vector :) really though, I wouldn’t consider teleportation to be speed or velocity in any sense. Unless you want to use delta distributions.
There’s a distinction between teleportation-like travel where elapsed time varies with distance, and where it doesn’t. Long-distance or very instantaneous travel also has to deal with issues arising from relativity (like the source and destination points having different ideas of precisely which events are simultaneous) – and problems of momentum (going from one side of a rotating planet to the other, unless you’re very close to a pole, involves a significant change in momentum if you’re going to remain stationary with respect to the ground…).
Anyway, if travel time does vary with real-world distance, then terms like “pseudo speed” or “apparent speed” tend to get used to express how long it takes to get from A to B.
Seeing the giant, messed up screw…..I Just suddenly get an FLCL (Fooly Cooly for those that don’t know the moniker) vibe from it.
“messed up screw” I guess you could call it a “screwed screw”. I’ll show myself out.
I’ve picked up a broadcast from the ship, it says:
“Greetings, we are here to molest you!”
Hopefully, it’s either a case of, “molest” meaning something else in their language or my translation been off
So, they’re moving faster than the air speed velocity of an unladen swallow?
An African swallow or a European swallow?
+1
And how does it compare to one laden with a coconut?
But how does it carry a coconut?
With its beak and claws, of course!
Even though Dave said the ship looks like a screw (which I can see), my first thought was that it looks like an odd [humanoid] brain with an attached spinal column. In biomech fashion. The tentacle-dreads it grew are a little…weird…to say the least. Time to ponder what sort of uses they might have!
I see what you did, I approve the ship design. AND those who think interstellar travel doesn’t need streamlining amuse me…
So the Alari live in the Eve Online universe? I swear that’s a Gallente battle-cruiser!
I feel like the look of that ship is something we’ve seen in recent movies, I won’t judge you for it however.
I think it’s quite cool that you were able to draw it, looks authentically ominous. (Impending Doom)
Cue Indiana Jones theme here.
Time to readjust for maximum speed.
Everybody except Maxima should get into Sydney’s shield bubble. (Hiro can gather them up.)
This will make them faster AND protect the squishies from alien weapons. Plus, in case Sydneys orbs are disabled, for example due to leveling up, Hiro would be there to catch them.
Also, Maxima can then get in the back and push, if needed.
If Max pushes for the extra boost, can they reach ludicrous speed?
So far the orbs have only leveled up while not in active use, I would imagine that’s a safety feature. It would suck having powers you were constantly losing while you were mid battle and earning that next level.
I think Sydney may need to get to the portal from another direction, that ship may be targeting just her and will ignore the others.
Dabbler will have to watch very carefully where she puts her hands.
I think these guys must be a big fan of the ‘Predator’ movies. They modeled their space ship on the armor.
https://www.afhub.com/images/wp-files/Alien-vs-Predator-Scar-Predator-PR4.jpg
1) Domed helmet with toilet seat surround – check!
2) Tentacle dreadlocks – check!
3) Ship design resembling severed skull and spine trophy – check!
Welp that is bad, if Sydney is the target its probably going to fire on her and ignore the rest.
Just after a bit of advice from our community, if you will indulge me? I have identified two fundamental flaws with democracy, and developed a two-stage solution. By using variations on that theme a lot of the world’s current problems can be fixed (see below for some examples).
Having failed to get it into the hands of anybody in power (politicians or media), I am looking to publish it direct to the public and seek what crowd-funding I may be able to get. I have managed to overcome depression, and other problems, though, so am close to publishing. But need to stay ahead of a deadline, namely emigrating back to the UK.
Knowing we have a community rich in people who have published a variety of things, and/or sought crowdfunding, I thought I would seek your collective thoughts, and advice on my plan of action? My catch-22 being that what I have is a concept. Once it is described there is not really much left to sell, other than the usual kind of perks associated with crowdfunding.
That said, despite my totally impoverished situation, my greater priority is getting this out into the world. And to the maximum number of people possible. If it fails to generate much money, then I can always try to get back into the rat race. Or seek a park bench with a power outlet and wifi. ;-)
I intend to publish on Amazon, as that has the potential to reach the most people possible. In that vein I also aim to floor the price, as I do not want it to be unaffordable for anybody.
My initial dilemma is regarding publishing strategy. I could either publish all twelve works simultaneously or just the basic concept, with the remainder as appropriate funding levels are achieved. The drawback being that people have been used to democracy working a particular way for thousands of years.
So even seeing the basic concept a lot of people will be sceptical that it can be implemented. It can, but it will take time and effort to modify the systems that have been built up over a couple of thousand years.
The remaining works show how it can be used to fix a variety of problems. Thereby adding credibility, if they are published up front. But reducing any potential to get a viral buzz going. Likewise possible revenues, obviously. Although if I cannot convince enough people anyhow then there won’t be revenues.
Here are the titles of the works in question:
Kind of out of the blue and outside your personality from how I see you, but you might as well go on. If you want to get in touch with as many people as possible, then you need to force yourself to be able to use the programs and sites that others use, and you know what I’m referring to.
Yea, I will have to set up a Facebook account. But a friend is giving me and the kitties a lift to the UK, without which I could not afford to take them with me. The stuff I mentioned above is what I recon I can complete before then. So simply would not have the time at the moment.
Even if I did manage to, there would be an indefinite blackout from when we depart. Once we get to the UK, I will have to put my computer into storage, with friends, until I can get an income going again and settle somewhere.
There would be little return for the time spent setting it up, if I failed to support it, and any interest it gathered withered away, in my absence.
The plus side, for those fed up of seeing the doggy avatar, is that I won’t be bothering the forums for a while. Other than on odd occasions where I might have access to an internet cafe or the like.
After witnessing first hand your writing style, often missing the point completely or focusing far too much on some irrelevant detail, failing to present in discreet paragraphs and meandering all over the place, I’d have to advise you to never write anything you hoped would be published. But nothing ventured, nothing gained. So if you do manage to find a publisher willing to take you on as a client, good luck to you. I’d never knowingly purchase anything you’d written, but as PT Barnum said there’s a sucker born every minute.
Pretty good advice in there, delivered in your characteristic way. I had purposely moved my ramblings off into ‘elaborations on …’, in the appendix. Along with a Q&A section. My main aim being to show how there are ways to adapt present bureaucracies, to the different government structure I propose. So felt that covering as many points as possible would help to win over anyone who had doubts on specific points.
But I will have a good look to see how much of that I can cut out, whilst still leaving useful answers to common questions.
You really are an asshat, aren’t you, Oberon?
I don’t even know where you’re coming from. Yorp uses paragraphs and I find his writing approachable and well thought out.
Beyond that I would be after advice on crowdfunding. I am thinking of making a pitch either on gofundme, or Patreon, to see if I can get funding to get me the necessities of life, in order to carry on refining and developing this. And, more importantly, publicising it, to the world. Hence why, prior to this, I need to publish (at a minimum) the basic concept, so that people can see whether they think it is a sound idea and worthy of supporting.
Another option, of course, would be Kickstarter. Which would be weakened by me already having published the basic concept (from which the remaining applications listed above can be inferred fairly readily, by those who grasp the idea OK). However, with sufficient funding I could do things like getting the works regarding specific countries / regions to be translated into the relevant languages.
Incentives which could be offered (depending on which crowd-funding used) might include getting:
• free updates for new electronic versions of the works.
• a numbered signed, first edition, when printed versions are made.
• new works (either the 11 above, or further ones beyond that) a day or so prior to the public release.
Oh, and I forgot, I will be doing a few articles, with the aim of sending them out to a bunch of newspapers, TV stations, and the like. Using a variety of different angles, to see if I can get any of those published. Thereby maybe earning a bit of money, that way, and trying to generate the publicity which I otherwise lack the means to do.
Sorry about cutting into discussions on the current comic, given how profound it is.
I now return you to your normal programming …
I wish you all luck with this ambitious project but I got to say this sounds a little too much like you are advertising here on Dave’s site. I assume not intentionally but still.
:-(
As a side-effect, it is. I’m just feeling rather overwhelmed by the various pressures on me, so have been reaching out for advice, as and where I can. Being in a small rural village, at the moment, there is only a tiny pool of individuals who can help, and they have limits to their expertise.
Whilst I have gotten pretty good at researching specific things of interest, what I am in need of at the moment is advice tailored to my specific situation. Finding specialist forums was one option, but is not an environment that I am particularly familiar with.
Plus might be wasting time going down ill-advised routes (if I have not picked good crowd funding sites, for example). And it would be helpful, if anyone who has done any of these options, could steer me away from any rookie mistakes.
Finally this community is a good one to ask complex questions, of an unusual nature. The comic attracts such a wide variety of people (and a lot of them who have published themselves), that I’m very hopeful folks will be able to give some good tips.
But really don’t want to disrupt the community, if folks feel this is too pushy. As soon as I have finished off getting this in a publishable state, I will be turning to researching the stuff above. So please just ignore the posts, if I have over-stepped the mark. I can find another way.
I just thought it would be useful to get a head-start on the process, and give me thinking-time for any major decisions I need to make, ahead of that time.
For instance one friend, in the village, told me that at least one type of e-book (Kindle I think) does not support graphics. Not owning such a device, I had not even considered that as being an issue. So I am making sure that my text incorporates things which I had previously relied on graphics to convey.
Have you considered posting on stack exchange or Reddit (with the appropriate group, obv).
To be honest I have never even heard of the former. The latter I have heard of but have never used (although it does come up in search results sometimes, so I have gotten some info off it, that other people have raised). Which would be the easier for a novice to get to grips with/ find their way around?
I think the writing stack exchange is probably your best bet. It’s a pretty simple QA format site. In fact, you might find that the information you’re looking for is already on there. They’re pretty strict about the whole Q + A thing, so it’d behoove you to do a little reading around the site before asking your question.
Thanks. Will be sure to check around first, as I’m never too keen on things I am unfamiliar with.
You can do it! We believe in you!
Thanks. After a year’s worth of beating my head against a wall, I have been feeling like Cassandra. Cursed never to be believed (or in my case listened to).*
Small task though it is, having faith that I can figure out a Q&A forum is a step up from that. :)
* Doubly frustrating mind, as it is a simple fix. Only the two-stage nature prevents it from having been done before (Northern Ireland got darned close to one stage, but is still having glitches). Well that and persuading those in power to relax their grip on the reins.
The latter has been done before though. When we went from monarchies to democracies and republics. And what I am proposing is far lesser a step. It is just the next logical one to take, in the same direction.
My biggest depression is in seeing so much suffering continue, around the world, whilst knowing there is a solution.
That spaceship, on the page above, is a pretty good visualisation, of what it feels like.
My followers are even more influential than I am, but this is Dave’s site. I’ve pointed some direction at myself as well, so I can’t say I’m any better. Just get a hold of me on my Discord. I’ve already provided the information to find it on your own elsewhere.
That is very kind of you, thanks. :-)
Looks a bit like a Myrmidon from EVE
Don’t you mean “screwed-up screw”?
Sure does https://evepics.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/epmyrmidon.jpg
Oh, I see what you did there in building Sydney’s character.
Advantage: Ancient alien artifact carved out of reality itself with near infinite advancement.
Disadvantage: Multiple alien civilizations know about it and are willing to commit genocide over it.
Now let’s hope our guys can get to the
chopperportal, close it, and that even though the scavenger scout scanned Sydney, it doesn’t recognize humans and doesn’t know where Earth is.Except, this invading species already has representatives on The Council of Evil Douchebuggerers, and we have seen how they react to threats of discovery (what? you believed the Great Plague and Fire of London were accidents? o_O)
… They arent streamers. Tendrils. extend out to latch on and grab debris, meteorites, or whatever else is around to collect whatever useful materials might be in them. Reminds me of some floating aquatic archology from something, had giant mechentacle to harvest larger sea life or such. apply that to space going species and its a means of defense against smaller things and harvesting resources.
Oh my God. The red beam is like a Combine superportal.