Grrl Power #718 – Mundane majesty
Well this hopefully answers the question from the previous page as to who was already here. Or whom was already here. (Honestly, why do we even have the word who?)
I guess to be fair to the Alari, there are probably places in the world where you could land a huge spaceship without anyone noticing. Assuming you could beat electronic surveillance and negotiate your way through all the crap orbiting the planet. Granted, the quantity and quality of cameras in the world would make it difficult, but there are plenty of places sparsely populated enough to get away with it. At least initially. A satellite would probably eventually spot anything of sufficient size, but maybe anything from a Firefly to Defiant sized ship could evade detection for a few days even if it was sitting right out in the open. Probably in Antarctica or some BFE part of Africa, or some island in the middle of the ocean probably, but it could still be done.
An Alari colony ship is not the size of Firefly. It’s just shy of a kilometer long and many decks deep. Chances are, someone noticed it landing.
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The Alari are on Earth, pity them; the human race is extremely xenophobic.
unless they are smoking hot, then we can give them a pass.
Which does not necessarily bode well for them. Our history with assimilating divergent cultures or races tends not to make fun reading. Hot or not.
LESS ADVANCED cultures, yes, partly because we’ve been dicks, , partly because of inferiority complexes, and partly because theyve been weakened by disease. A more advanced culture with a starship behind them, not so much I suspect.
Take a look at South Africa right now. When the white colonists arrived they had the advanced culture. The less advanced were heavily oppressed by those with the upper paw.
However now it is only the one culture, yet oppression continues. This time though it is the white minority who are being oppressed. For example there are laws mandating a minimum black employment levels in companies (but, to my limited knowledge as a foreigner now, no corresponding minimum for the white population).
Where the black slums of South Africa were always heavily in international news (certainly in the UK during Apartheid), nowadays there is very little if any mention of the white slums of this era.
Which is to just point out that it is simply a matter of power. Humans do have xenophobic tendencies and it is those in power who get to choose whether they are kept under control or are exploited.
So if that is an armed colony ship then yea, they have less to fear.
Although I suspect that their armament, if any, will not be sufficient against super attacks!
EARTH! Surrender! You will be colonized and harvested!… Earth: Yeah, right! Meet Maxima… Oh, by the way, Maxima, they just declared war, you may employ any level of power you deem more damaging to earths enemies than to earth.
I am pretty sure that mandatory minimum hiring quotas are not discriminatory against the people they are not for. They would’ve been implemented because without them, blacks would find it extremely hard to find employment just because they are black, whereas no similar problem would exist for whites.
Meh it is also because of a common confusion between equitably and equality. The mandatory minimums for blacks only are not treating the different demographics equally, but they are treating them equitably (equally being treating everyone the same, equitably being treating them so that they experience the same advantages. There is a picture that explains this but it goes along with 3 people, one is 1 tall, one is 2 tall, one is 3 tall. They are behind a fence 2.1 tall so naturally only the person who is 3 tall can see over it. Equality would be giving each of them a box 1 tall so that they are now 2 tall, 3 tall, and 4 tall, but then the shortest still cant see over the fence. Equitably would be giving the 1 tall two boxes, the 2 tall one box, and the 3 tall no boxes, so that they all end up being 3 tall and being able to see over the fence)
+1
ROFL. i work in an undesirable job that pays minimum wage, so most of the staff are not brits. Guess who are the majority? White South Africans. Barring the rich, who can always use their influence and connections to get family jobs, there is a whole generation of white South Africans who are having to seek employment overseas.
Mind you there is a cosmic irony, in that my generation of white South Africans lived in luxury, whilst black South Africans had to travel to serve them. Whereas the shoe is on the other paw now.
But kind of unfair on those who were born after Apartheid ended. The nation has had a level playing field (barring the ever-present divide between rich and poor) since then. And it is not like black people lack connections now themselves. With the ANC having dominated post-apartheid politics there is no shortage of government jobs and in industries they have an influence over.
Yet even those whites who work hard to get straight A’s throughout their education are now working along side me in a job with no requirements other than a willingness to do what other people prefer to avoid.
All things need balance. I am a feminist, but once society reaches a level where there is equality between the genders there will no longer be a need for me to be such. If though the balance goes too far and positive discrimination starts to cause harm, by being applied when it is no longer necessary, then I shall speak out against it.
White people still have a stranglehold on the economy in South Africa. Expecting equality and witnessing equity instead should not make you think “oppression against white people”.
Compound that with the fact personal work experience always makes for a terrible sample, you get a very biased sociological analysis.
Whites were in Cape Town first (well, not counting the Bushmen)
The “Bushmen”, were natives of Australia.
You say a lot of really ignorant things, but this one has to take the cake. “Whites were first, except for all of the non-white who were there first.” Yeah, right.
I know this will fall on deaf ears, but you might want to self-impose a “Don’t post when drunk/on drugs/stupid/without taking 12 hours to think twice about the dumbass thing you’re about to say” policy.
Bushmen of Kalahari, a simple search would have told you that (and not one mention of Australia)
The only ‘non-whites’ who were there first were the Bushmen, the other blacks were pushed down from the north by other white migrants
Sasha Whitefur, the term “Bushmen” was not an exclusive term, it was also used to describe the San people, who were (amongst other places) indigenous to South Africa.
Oberon please see Devon‘s comment further down this thread for a more comprehensive description of the early situation in colonial era South Africa. Guesticus‘s only fault was trying to over-simplify a complex situation by compressing it into one sentence. That does loose necessary context.
Guesticus, that is a deliberate falsehood promulgated by the Apartheid Government. The Xhosa and other tribes were also in the Western Cape as well as the San & Khoi San. No tribes were pushed down into South Africa by white colonization. The Portuguese kept to their coastal settlements in Angola and Mozambique until the 19th Century.
The Mfecane caused by Shaka uniting the Zulus certainly cause a massive upheaval and caused many tribes in the KwaZulu-Natal area to migrate, but the Western Cape was not the uninhabited wilderness the Apartheid Government liked to pretend.
That should be progenitors of the Xhosa and other tribes, sorry
Yea, fair comment about bias from personal situations. However that does back up reporting I have followed, from various sources. Do note that I kept emphasising the disparity between rich and poor. And many (but by no means all) of the rich South Africans are white. However it is the other end of the scale that I am concerned with. Life as a poor South African, of any sort, is really rough. But at least poor blacks have positive discrimination to assist them. Poor whites? They have just been thrown out with the trash and forgotten about.
That is discrimination.
Yes there is great suffering throughout South Africa (which is a shame given its wealth and the democratic freedoms it has enjoyed to try and find some solutions), however that does not excuse allowing that policy of positive discrimination in favour of the majority to be biassed in a way that increases the suffering of a minority. Why should poor whites suffer because rich whites live in luxury? That is where your counter-argument fails to hold water.
On the cosmic scale, there was this light skinned, taller group that got pushed out of the more fertile lands near the Mediterranean, and kept on getting pushed north into colder climates. Things warmed up a bit, they could grow more food, the population expanded, then things got colder and they came back and eventually beat the crap out of the people that originally pushed them north.
Europe from prehistory to the fall of Rome, in a nutshell.
Guesticus, as usual yuo miss the entire point.
Just parse your sentence, slowly and carefully:
X was there first (well, not counting Y)
X first, the exception being Y which was actually first
X was first, because Y is of course an insignificant exception and who cares if they were first.
The white race was there first, except for the insignificant other race that no one cares about.
It is a highly racist comment.
I don’t care if it was Bushmen or Little Green Men who were there first before the white race which displaced them. Or even no one at all, assuming that you are simply wrong about someone being there first. Your attempting to ‘correct’ me on that detail, which is a complete non sequitur, just proves your racism even more strongly.
No biologist would ever say “Animal X was in this place first. Well, except for animal Y.”
No historian would ever say “Inventor X was the first to make this discovery. Well except for Inventor Y. Fuck that guy!”
You know who else considers the Bushmen ‘insignificant’? The black Africans
Of course it was a racist comment, considering it was concerning two different races
How the fuck, can any comment concerning any race be anything butt ‘racist’? o_O
Unless you are claiming to be either Lys or Sasha Whitefur, wasn’t correcting you at all
The primary point, was that the Whites were there before the Blacks, and, do note, didn’t say all of Southern Africa, specified the Cape Town region. Do everyone a favour and do a modicum of research before you spout off bullshit, m’kay?
Wow. Just….wow. That was a Trumpian level of tone deafness. You are a disgusting sack of shit. Fuck you.
Most attempts at “equity laws” do very little to move humankind towards a harmonious post racial society. Because the enshrine a certain advantage to perceived victimhood.
Yorp…South Africa is actually a bad example and probably one you’re too close to, given the comments. When the white colonizers arrived there, the land had recently been cleared of all inhabitance by a Zulu led Genocide. The Dutch Boer lived and farmed there for 40 years without encountering a single African. After that, they had another 60 or so where there was a tense working relationship, NOT an oppression. Then the britts took over, set up apartheid and there’s your oppression. Given the rise in population from half a million to 40 million by the time it ended and the mass immigration from other parts of africa though, it’s debatable about how bad it was. Now things are run by the ANC, and it’s apartheid all over again, but with a clear downward trend. Entire cities losing municipal services and the UN’s genocide watch list among other things. The lower class whites aren’t even being allowed to leave in many cases, as countries such as Australia and the UK have offered to take the lot and been told not only no, but that they’re racist for offering and shouldn’t interfere in the countries affairs.
It’s funny really, Africa’s changing it’s tune on the whole evil white colonizer thing now that China’s the one colonizing. Multiple continental governments have complained that “With the whites, at least they would build us schools, hospitals and plumbing. All China will offer for our resources is better transportation.”
Another counterexample for the humans kill everyone, archeology suggests that wasn’t the case with Neanderthals. Few of the recovered bones were murdered, Neanderthal DNA is clearly present in white an Asian lineages and bone groups of early humans and neanderthal aren’t uncommon to be found buried together. Evidence suggests we basically fucked them out of existence.
Given the Alarai seem to have landed in Africa, yeah, I’d feel sorry for them, except that I’m pretty sure they’ve landed in our friendly neighborhood supervillain’s territory. And given what he did to the country because it was merely amusing to him to do so, I can only imagine he’ll be pretty good to the Alarai.
Whilst your comment is generally fair, there are a few points I will pick out. Firstly being that I was specifically knocking humans mistreatment of those who look different to themselves, not white people. They just happened to be an example I chose. Likewise “fucking them out of existence” is mistreatment. Whilst humans ARE Neanderthals, in part (barring Africans), as you point out, what they lack are the distinctive visual differences, such as the prominent forehead.
Everybody bearing these traits died off, one way or another. Be that through being out competed or murdered (more likely a combination of both*) the smoking gun cause was the other human species living alongside them. So they did not wipe out the Neanderthals, but they did wipe out any who did not look pretty to them.
As for your portrayal of South Africa, here is an excerpt from Wikipedia, to provide a bit more balance:
“Dutch traders also imported thousands of slaves to the fledgling colony from Indonesia, Madagascar, and parts of eastern Africa. Some of the earliest mixed race communities in the country were formed through unions between vrijburgers, their slaves, and various indigenous peoples”
* We have very sparse collections of Neanderthal bones, so for even a few to have been murdered that is statistically significant. If you have an endangered population even a few deaths, (less than 5% of a population) of key breeding individuals, can lead to extinction. Not that I am trying to portray humans as rampaging destroyers (although they certainly can be). But other species certainly do die off around them, when humans move in. Every other lineage of human does not exist anymore (other than those who managed to interbreed). And the list of extinct animals has been increasing exponentially. This is not a very safe planet to park a colony ship on!
Regarding the “species tend to die around humans” point: I suspect that is less about humans in particular and more about sapients in general. You’re going to end up extincting a bunch of stuff whenever you start reshaping your environment for your own convenience, and sapient beings are always going to reshape their environment for their convenience.
I’ll be interested to know how many Alari are on the ship and with what tech and skills. It’s quite possible that they could end up being a threat to *us*, even unintentionally.
As with many things it is a matter of degree. We have accelerated extinction rates such that what might occur over a few million years of natural planetary change is occuring within a generation.
I imagine that species which survive long enough to make contact with sentient aliens would actually be less self-destructive than that. Given the more we reduce global biodiversity the less likely we ourselves are to survive.
Various of the organisms out there are creating the air that we breathe or supporting those who do, as one example of the biosphere. Knock out too many key elements and the others will have a harder and harder time regulating our environment within the norms that our respective species can survive within.
Great for the extremophiles, who prefer different temperature ranges or atmospheric makeup. Not so good for us.
Yorp, I’m gonna call “insufficient data” on that. Data on what levels of extinction per year are “normal” over the long term are severely lacking. Many extinctions have taken place in an absence of humans, all extinctions prior to a couple million years ago took place in an absence of humans.
There’s a strong tendency to assign blame for everything to human presence, even in a vacuum of hard evidence. And even more tendency to assign blame for animals (such as rats) that simply avail themselves of humans moving about to move themselves about. And that’s a bit of a stretch, it’s equivalent to “if only humans did nothing at all, then rats wouldn’t have killed the dodo bird off by eating it’s young”. It’s too much to demand of any species that they do nothing.
Err, no. the San, Khoi San and the progenitors of the Xhosa and other tribes were in the Cape before the Dutch arrived, 400 years ago. The Mfecane was between 1815 and 1840 or so. No ware of Southern Africa was uninhabited.
Located on the shore of Table Bay, Cape Town, as the oldest urban area in South Africa, was developed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as a supply station for Dutch ships sailing to East Africa, India, and the Far East. Jan van Riebeeck’s arrival on 6 April 1652 established Dutch Cape Colony, the first permanent European settlement in South Africa. Cape Town outgrew its original purpose as the first European outpost at the Castle of Good Hope, becoming the economic and cultural hub of the Cape Colony. Until the Witwatersrand Gold Rush and the development of Johannesburg, Cape Town was the largest city in South Africa.
A bit of advanced technology doesn’t necessarily overcome human nature. Even if you aren’t human.
Sure, the Federation has the Prime Directive, but no other space empire in that setting does. And plenty of Federation peeps from TOS through all the movies have exploited primitives for their own profit, despite this being the ‘Prime’ directive.
xenophobic is not the right word but we do have a habit of reacting poorly to things that are different but that mostly a the small majority if not even less………….problem is we also have a habit of think the guy yelling louder never everyone else is right , not just a crazy nut case….sooo i think its not much better
wow my selling just now -_-
Nah, it’s not the minority. It’s ubiquitus. You, me, your brother and sister, my parents, children, grandparents, best friends, and all the people they know and all the people they know… till it’s everyone in the world that isn’t suffering from some sort of mental disorder.
It’s human nature… if you are human… then it’s your nature. The only way to prevent that nature from gaining teeth is to acknowledge that you have it and actively work against it. Pretending it’s only a few people way over there somewhere ::points:: is how supposedly good people end up doing bad things with a clean conscience.
Well said.
I tend to refer to us as Homicidal Xenophobic Monkeys. Which we are, we even have issues within our own species. This should give you some idea how badly first contact will go if it is a species that is hostile towards us. Now this is if we are on somewhat equal footing, if is currently all they need to do is play my favorite game of drop the rock on the monkeys.
That’s hilariously inaccurate, from a historical and conflict studies perspective.
Pre-agrarian societies are estimated to have had a 25% generational mortality rate to inter social group violence. Their numbers were quite a bit sparser on the ground, and stayed sparse in large part because of constant inter-group conflict over resources.
These days, we have seven billion people on the planet, and the majority of people will never have someone in their direct social group be killed by inter group violence. It rates less then 1% generational mortality. You’re FAR more likely to die from poor eating habits, poverty or suicide.
We’re currently at the absolute nadir of human violence, the lowest its ever been, and trending downwards. While I won’t deny we still have a xenophobia problem, and that aggression and violence are certainly still a major issue, we are getting better at addressing those problems when viewed within the long sweep of human history.
And on the other paw, you can expect any sapient species that’s driven to expand outwards from their home planet, to have a similar level of aggression as we do. And given that xenophobia could be more accurately called a resource competitive aggression response targeted towards external to group agents, it’s fair to assume they’d have a streak of that, too. It plays a part in being successful, in evolutionary terms.
Which again, isn’t to say it’s not a problem in the here and now, or that we don’t have to address it. We do desperately need to convince people that ALL of humanity is one extended tribe, worthy of being prized as such, and worthy of working together to save particularly from our own myopia.
Imagine a group of people who do not worship your gods, who do not bow to the authority of the Church, who do not see your King as a valid king. They have their own language, laws and culture. They will abide by your laws and agree to live peacefully in your lands.
Things don’t go well for them, do they? Now imagine actual non-humans arriving.
Is there… WHERE is there a wiki for GrrlPower that lists the races and such?
Not that i know of but TV Tropes have a good character page where you can find some information on the subject: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Characters/GrrlPower
Characters, yes:
https://grrl-power.fandom.com/wiki/Cast
It would be cool if someone could find the time to add a races page to the wiki though. Quite a few supernaturals and now also aliens. Cameos should be recorded separately mind, as they will be one-off appearances, and not indicitive of a new Grrl Power race. For instance there are categorically no robot sentients,* despite a cameo by a couple from other sources.
* As stated in the comic. Although Dave did confess a temptation to change that, at one point.
In comic, it was stated “No robots” on the Twilight Council. However, on that same page, in the author’s note below that comic, Dave clarified that there *are* a few robots here and there, but they’re counted as aliens, since they’re non-terrestrial intelligence.
It’s “who is already here.” “Who” is a subject pronoun (it does verbs); “whom” is an object pronoun (it has verbs done to it). And I am far more tolerant of people using “who” for objects than I am of people being hypercorrectionistic and using “whom” for subjects.
(On a side note, if you are adhering strictly to formal grammar you’d use “who” even if you said something like “The one who are already here are who, exactly?” The verb “be” only takes subject pronouns, never object pronouns, since when it has a noun/pronoun as its object it is defining that its subject and object are the same thing, so that this is uniformly grammatically treated as a subject.)
Whom is Borg?
Can I haz cheezeburger from Borg?
Knowing the Borg, they can haz cheezeburger from you.
in soviet russia, cheezeburger haz u?
I’m having a weird problem with the website. The comment link is no longer there. I have to type the actual address in to get here. Is this just thing with my browsers? I’ve used multiple. Same issue. I don’t have any popup/ad blockers that I’m aware of.
DaveB has been transitioning the website to new software, so glitches are to be expected. To help him bug fix can you provide more details please. What type of device are you using? When you say “the comment link” where is it that you normally see it? I say this simply because there are multiple ways people access the website, such as from RSS feed or, in my case, I just bookmark a favourite page. Likewise if you can mention the operating system and browsers you used please.
I know that some of us are getting different page layouts on some browsers (those of us on Chrome and some others only have a teeny little dialogue box to type our comments in. It i actually smaller than either the name or email field!
My comment box is only a little smaller than before, still useable. I access the link grrlpowercomic.com, Android tablet, Firefox browser. There is no comment link, but clicking on the comic title, i.e ‘Grrl Power #718 – Mundane majesty’ takes me to the latest comments page.
The comment hyperlink at the bottom of Dave’s author comment box. Usually in the bottom right corner. There is usually an orange “Comments” link. For the last few weeks, it’s been missing. (since the site update, I believe.)
I’m on mobile, chrome browser.
Try clearing your browser cache. That usually helps with issues of changes between updates/versions/etc.
Ooh, good point, thanks for the reminder!
Having just tried that I found that the new comments box is nice and big. But the reply one I am typing in now is just as teeny as ever.
That might be because of ‘nesting’
One webic’s comment system has the nesting comment box ending up so small, it barely fits a single word in it :P
It seems to be fixed now. Either there was a long delay between me clearing my browser cache, and then it sorted itself, due to an earlier update. Or DaveB read the comments and has put in the necessary fix.
Either way, thanks Dave.
Like said earlier, never noticed a substantial reduction in the size of the comment box in this system
The comments link is now stuck between the “Prev” and “Next” buttons above and below the actual comic image
Only on desktop. There is no comment link at all on the mobile version of the site.
Did not know that, just offered a location to look as the old location is gone even on desktop
I mean, the Avenger (Xcom2) avoided most detection in an alien occupied Earth that was probably actively looking for it.
Plus if any governments knew they wouldn’t exactly tweet out “So yeah aliens exist” and freak out the populace.
Yup, but that was just an aircraft of modest size. This colony ship is almost a kilometer long! Twice as long as any ship we have ever built. And we don’t usually park ours inland.
So, if it is in a very remote location, it may escape detection. But if there are any people wandering around within miles of it, it will stand out like a sore dewclaw!
Yorp, the Avenger was give or take at LEAST 300m long, probably larger. it’s a refurbished crashed alien transport, after all.
that said, yes, it is significantly smaller than a colony ship, but it’d still dwarf a B-52 Stratofortress, and contend in size with anything short of a ocean superfreighter.
My god, we’ve built some big ships!
There have been a few times that we have built big bridges and harbors out of boats. True fact
You would assume that the colony ship is not only longer but also wider and higher then modern ships. Probably by more then factor two, as there is not a lot of drag in space and probably not a problem while landing. What I’m saying it’s probably not only 8 times but more like 50 times as voluminous as the ship.
*nods*
Yup, sold reasoning. 8 times mass agreed. I would have thought that the volume would increase by the same amount too though. But us doggies are not great at maths, when the figures exceed the number of paws we have.
Stick with it, math is hard.
Hey, I can count up that far!
If I sit on my bum.
can we puny humans count up to 21 when doing hard maths? :D
Only if you are male :P
That’s OK, Females can count to twenty-TWO then… :D
Was going to mention that, and, in fact, some females are able to count to twenty-three (some males as well)
I’ve been counting to 99 with just my fingers and thumbs for fifty years. You just learn how an abacus works, and apply it to yourself.
Yorp doesn’t have thumbs, do dewclaws count? o_O
Looks to me like they parked their colony ship on the Muchinga Mountains of Zambia. Fairly remote as locations go.
Who wants to bet that they parked it in Deus’s personal African country?
Judging by the blue line or the red lines, it’s either too far to the east or south. It’s close enough where Opal could get there with multiple jumps.
If he was involved in the landing, having it land close would make it too obvious he’s involved and probably cause Archon to investigate, even if Machina is somehow protected by the Veil effect as suggested by the logo in the middle of this page.
Agreed. Deus could very well be involved, but if be was involved early enough, he’d arrange to put them far from any population.
I’m hoping the next page will look in on what they’re doing.
I KNEW IT!
It is getting harder and harder to hide things on the surface of our planet. With more and more private satellites in orbit.
https://www.planet.com/products/planet-imagery/
Comes in 3 meter, 5 meter, and 1 meter PER PIXEL resolutions.
Although with this comic taking place in the near past of 2010-ish, this is less likely to be available. Planet didn’t get into real operation until about 2014, and really usable 2017.
Comics are rarely more than casually dated. While the comic date was around 2010 when it started, it has now “started” about 2018, a date that will continue to advance, and the current page both in reality and comic is 2019. This can cause some confusion, but not as bad as when we have to keep track of what is now history.
Unfortunately, the appearance of President Obama on one page nails down the time frame pretty firmly.
Well, in OUR universe.
This is still a flashback to before the first few pages, which were set in 2011
There has been NO major timeskips (by more than a few days during Sydney’s training)
And that’s just free, public, world-wide imagery – local governments are likely to have much better data. I’ve personally worked with public state-wide satellite data with 6 inch/pixel resolution, and non-public aerial-flown, site-specific data at something like 0.1 inch/pixel.
Below maybe 1 in/px, you’re really, really not getting anything more useful and are ballooning your data sets and processing times exponentially.
What worries me is that the only Alari refugees that we’ve currently seen reach Earth PHYSICALLY are on Cora’s ship. The others were disembodied souls, when they poured thru that portal …
(which opened into N. America, by the way, not Africa)
… so today’s news most likely reveals a THIRD set of Alari refugees!
Hold-On …
… why do we assume that Syd asked Cora to bring the station’s Alari-refugees to EARTH?
They could be heading for a more “Alari-Friendly” (AKA: “More Advance Tech”) planet, where the Alari wouldn’t need to start at quite so low a level to rebuild. It could be just a quick stopover, either before-or-after Syd is brought home, at any planet that already knows about other space-faring races, rather than having to deal with the ‘trauma’ of bringing Human cultures face-to-face with Alari.
Been saying that about Cora and the Alari refugees ever since Sydney asked her to pick them up
Cora might have been willing to play the Ferry (wo)Man to carry the Fugees to a colony world, butt she would know there would be no chance of taking them to Dirt: Sydney wouldn’t have the authority, and Cora knows about the embargo (for lack of better word)
DaveB specifically stated that Cora was okay with taking them to an Alari Colonyworld.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-709-para-go-on/
Last paragraph in the author’s notes reads:
“So, some of these Alari refugees would probably be okay. The ones with little kids like this mom here would have a rougher time of it, and if Cora can take them to an Alari planet, they’ll probably do better.”
According to DaveB, they’re being taken to an Alari colonyworld.
Well, we know there is a colony ship, but do we know it is a recent arrival and not some sort of ancient astronaut unmoving wreck, for example?
It has never been commented upon how did Sciona end stranded on Earth, except it has been a stretch on the span of decades or centuries at least, if memory trricks me not….
Good point: it’s possible that that ship had been there for decades or longer, just no one with the proper scanning technology had looked, or pointed it out to a ‘native’
I have a complex conspiracy theory here. A) the ship is in Deus’ African country. B) the ship is being BUILT there. C) The Alari souls that invaded the Earth are paying Deus to build the ship. D) once the ship is built, the Alari will use it to escape this backwards, insane planet full of hicks and morons. E) Deus is using the mass fabricators he bought on the Fracture to build the ship. F) Maxima knows about all of this, and is trying to help the refugees herself. G) Cora’s cargo hold passengers will elect to disembark and join the colony ship. H) While Sydney was away, she won the Make Maxima Say bingo contest.
There literally hasn’t been enough time for any of that except for A)
Why do we have who? CASE!
“Who” is the subject of a sentence – “Who is that?”
“Whom” is the objective case, indicating an object to whom action is done (see what I did there?).
If “who” follows a preposition (to, from, and similar such words), them “whom” is merited.
Pedantic Donkey, away!
Note: You were right the first time, however. In that case, the phrase “Who was already here?” is an distinct clause that is being referenced by another clause – if you replaced “as to” with “, “, the meaning is unchanged.
And everything Borg already said.
I always miss that one relevant post…
Arg, not only did I miss Borg, I missed your 3 comments as well.
Probably not relevant but somewhat foreshadowing…
Panel 3:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-603-schtooping-with-the-frenemy
“The deed to property which, unbeknownst to mankind, has an alien temple buried under it”
Sooo… is this Deus’ property with the “temple” on it?
The “in the open” comment would seem to imply it’s not buried AT ALL, not to mention Deus seem to be familiar enough with starfaring civilizations that i find him mistaking a colony ship for a temple improbable.
Mobile version of site appears to be missing link to comments on front page
I have brought that to Dave’s attention. I’m sure he will look into getting a fix for that, when he gets a chance.
On all versions, not just mobile (and the link is at the bottom of the page now, not like many paid attention to when it was at the top… *grumblelawnsgrumblewhippersnappersgrumble*)
Yeah, that* ^really^ bugs me as well.
*having to go to the ^bottom^ of the page ~ just to see ^which^ page (of how ^many^) it is of the comments
Hrrmmm, this looks pretty shoe shaped.
Lets drop it and see what happens.
Omg a Maxima shaped hammer flattened it!
Stop buying shoes that are vaguely nail-shaped!
We have who and whom for the same reason we have he and him. Whom has just fallen out of favor, but you wouldn’t say “whom was already here” any more than you would say “him was already here”.
Going science geek here based on my experience with satellite intelligence tech and other ‘Ints”. Can a kilometer long spaceship be hidden from our current surveillance capabilities? Possibly maybe. Starting with Cora’s mention of radar absorbing shields and being spotted visually.
First, if the shields can absorb radar then they should be able to do the same thing with light which is a part of the electromagnetic spectrum on a higher wavelength than radar with photons tossed into the mix. Yeah wavicles, a matter of observation and other spooky stuff.
Second, if the shied did absorb visible light frequencies then you’d be looking at a black ship, shaped blob, not much better if at all than actually eyeballing the ship. But, didn’t Cora mention that the ship was equipped with a nano-changable paint scheme? That seems to be in the category of adaptive camouflage ala the Predator, which we are pretty much capable of now. Cora’s ship should be able of becoming virtually invisible and by extrapolation, so should Alari colony ship. IF, the Alari would bother to equip their colony ships with stealth tech against ‘primitive’ alien cultures, fit for nothing but to be conquered.
Now my first hand knowledge of our surveillance tech is over 25 years out of date. But, I keep up with available open source information so I can make a pretty good guesstimate of the capabilities. ReconSats come with variable attributes and it depends on their orbital parameters as to whether they can ‘see’ anything. I’ll bet real money that we have several ReconSats in a polar orbit so that any slice of Earth’s surface is gonna be ‘observed’ every 90 minutes, maybe less. Doesn’t matter if it’s in an out of the way part of southern Africa, it’s going to be spotted. There’s so much data coming in that it’s humanly impossible to catch anything new showing up on a real-time basis so all the info is gonna first be run through computer analysis with AI picking out any discrepancies from previous observations which would be tagged as a priority for a human look. If something is identified as being of ‘interest’, then other assets will be focused on it.
Bottom line is, that if that Alari colony ship has ANY detectable emissions in the electromagnetic, thermal, whaterverable observable spectrums, then it will be spotted. I’ll bet more real money that Leon will have tagged it if possible.
Then there is Deus. Doesn’t he have ‘interests’ in Africa…?
Radar wavelengths and the wavelengths of the visible spectrum are not interchangeable. There is a material in existence (and has existed for around a decade now!) that can bend light around it…deep infrared wavelength light, and only those wavelengths. The object is still 100% visible to the naked eye, but if you looked at it with a camera calibrated to see deep IR, then…it wouldn’t see the object.
In theory it is possible to do so with each spectrum frequency…but in practice, it’s not necessarily something that’ll come out of the same equipment.
I’m not sure what you mean by interchangeable as visible light and radar exist in separate parts of the electromagnetic spectrum with radar operating in a much lower frequency band than light.
https://leadertechinc.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2016/08/Electromagnetic-Spectrum.png
My point was that as Cora said that their shields could absorb radar frequencies, then they should be able to absorb visible light, although that might make ‘visual flight rules’ a bit difficult in flying a spaceship. In Science Fiction, shields are designed to protect your ship against lasers, grasers, nukes, projectile weapons and other stuff depending in which SF universe one is referring. Cora’s ship’s shield obviously protects against EM radiation, it’s just a matter of what part of the spectrum. I’d certainly want my shields to protect my ship and crew against the higher frequencies such Gamma , X-ray and other hard radiation as well as high energy particles and cosmic rays. Hmm, a valid question is if her shields work against projectile/kinetic weapons. Based on Cora’s comments, the assumption is that her shields must be ‘tuned’ to specifically allow the visible portions of the spectrum through, which is pretty much a given in the SF realm. There are notable exceptions by various authors where shields are partially transparent, visible or block visible light. The Langton Fields of Pounelle’s and Niven’s, “The Mote in God’s Eye” comes to mind. Then there is David Weber’s Honorverse where ships are protected by bands and wedges of highly compressed gravity waves which are so powerful that light is grossly distorted when passing through them.
Light and radio are indeed different parts of the EM spectrum, but they’re separated by several magnitudes of energy and wavelength. Many materials are strongly absorbing in one band but completely transparent in others – radar (tuned to the appropriate scale) may have little problem finding the needle in the haystack, but struggle to pick up the broad side of a wooden barn.
As the Lady, there are now materials that can bend specific wavelengths of EM radiation around them. Technically they’re metamaterials: not bulk materials like the glass in your window, but specifically-shaped coils of wire in a transparent matrix. The wavelength of the radiation affects the scale of structure that it can interact with: long wavelengths ‘see’ the metamaterial as a bulk and are diverted around, while shorter wavelengths can ‘see’ the gaps in the structure and aren’t affected in that way. We can make fairly complex metamaterial structures at the appropriate scale for radio, microwaves, maybe down into the far IR, but beyond that you start to run into the limits of the materials themselves.
Lots of stuff in orbit, but lots of space up there. Chances of hitting a satellite without working very very hard to hit the satellite are astronomically low. Someone posted a link to a very cool map with lots of dots each representing satellites. But the dots are way bigger than the scale of the Earth. You had maybe 50 spread over the continental US. Each a few feet to a few tens of feet wide, over an area of a few million square miles.
Although your odds do go up somewhat if:
1) You are planning to go into a low Earth orbit, in order to survey a landing site.
2) You are travelling very fast and covering a lot of space.
3) You are planning on landing near the equator (there is an awful lot of junk following that particular orbit).
4) You have any vulnerability to small debris. Flecks of paint and other bits that have fallen off our satellites actually create a lot more hazards than just the listed satellites. More of a threat to our primitive technology mind, as a high speed impact with a fleck of paint can damage part of a solar panel or an exposed wire. Less of a risk to an advanced colony ship though, so just mentioned that for the sake of completeness.
http://www.stuffin.space/
What do you need radar absorption and the like for when Earth has The Veil™?
I thought that at first too. But then recalled that the Veil has to be specifically programmed for each species. So, even assuming that it is capable of disguising a kilometer long object, has it been programmed into the Veil yet? One titbit we did find out is that whilst indiginous supernaturals (such as werewolves) have been added, many of the aliens have not. Simply because they normally use technological cloaking devices, so there was no need other than if using a “belt and bracers” mentality.
I hope Sydney gets to reveal how she took down those space squid and drones. And more importantly, that she gets believed. The Alari who are actual refugees and not jerkbags need to know someone got some revenge for them.
Mmm, there is a good argument for that. However she should not rush into that. Proudly boasting about starting an interstellar war, between Earth and a species capable of wiping out a planet (with an advanced well armed race defending it), does have some potential drawbacks too.
“That’s something you might have mentioned before we appeared in orbit.”
That seems a kind of obnoxious thing for Cora to say. I’d think common sense would be that if you don’t know whether they know about aliens, then you assume they don’t. Not assume they do and then rely on a third party to bring it up of their own accord.
Cora is about to have to interact with humans. Giving Sydney a nudge to warn her about stuff she does not know about is pertinent.
“Do not fondle the ambassador’s genitals in public” would be a good warning to make before the event, for example. Cora may not realise how touchy nudity and sexual taboos are in prevailing human culture today.
They had to rush off on an emergency rescue mission, so there is a limit to how many things Dabbler could have briefed Cora on. Plus there is no way that Dabbler would discourage risque behaviour anyhow. So, brusque though the comment was, it is necessary to ensure Sydney starts to think ahead now.
Honestly it wouldnt come down to a question of “where can we land without being noticed” it would be… “where can we land that would have the resources to sustain us because this ship cant do it alone.”
The best place would be not to land at all. Errm this is not another ‘lets knock humans thread’. As Dabbler pointed out, early on in the comic, the Solar System has resources bobbing around it in just waiting to be harvested. There really is no need to go down to a planet which is already suffering from overpopulation pressures.
Setting up their colony in space, say in the asteroid belt*, would allow easy pickings in harvesting ice, metals, minerals, plus a whole bunch of rare-Earth materials, which could allow healthy trade to develop with Humanity.
About the only thing that is not readily available is gravity. Which can cause weakening of bones and other bad ailments in species evolved on planets. However Cora’s ship appeared to have artificial gravity (we did not see a single example of them floating around). Assuming that is fairly common galactic technology, then the Alari probably possess that too. Or they could simply pick a big rock, hollow it out, and get it spinning, for poor man’s artificial gravity. Either way the rock provides the necessary protections from radiation in space.
* A static base in a resource rich area would allow the bulk of their population to live safely, whilst freeing up the ship to pop off to other areas and gather up comets and other bodies which would be able to provide resources which may be scarce in that location. But without the huge fuel/power drain associated with escaping a planet’s gravity well on every trip.
One resource not readily available in space is blood. We know that for Sciona at least this was a pretty danged useful resource. What we don’t know for certain (yet) is just how common blood mages are in Alari society.
At one extreme it could be that Sciona was the only Alari blood mage in existence, or just one of a very few. If this is the case, then the huddled masses of Alari currently looking for a place to stay may not care much about the availability of blood sources. They still may prefer a planet’s surface over an ongoing life in space for reasons other than the availability of resources. They may just want to live somewhere where they can feel grass between their toes and feel the wind in their faces.
At the other extreme, it may be that all Alari are capable to one degree or another of performing blood magic. If this is the case then the huddled masses will definitely want to settle someplace with plenty of available “livestock” to maintain their hemoglobin powered life style. In this scenario, blood may be to the Alari what petroleum is to us. One doesn’t have to dig too deep into our history to find some truly horrific nastiness related to the acquisition of oil, so it wouldn’t be too hard to imagine the Alari attempting to exploit humans and animals for their blood.
I could imagine that if the “All Alari are Blood Mages” scenario is the correct one, that could explain why the Squidward Aliens wanted them wiped out. The Alari tapped a Squidward ship, or a colony world, or something similar. The Squidwards may have simply been engaging in some (what they felt was) justified vengeance. The Squidwards would have justified the genocide as the only way they could be certain that the Alari would never do it again. Thus they launched a literal bomb them back to the stone age campaign.
Ooh, pretty good angle, which I had not considered, and well argued throughout.
Still, even factoring that in, it would still be wise of them to opt for a space colony. Not least of which is that the Twilight Council have already established the precedent, with Vampires, that volunteer donors are ethical. An ultra advanced technological race could easily barter for enough resources to pay for as many donors as they needed. So many things that they could offer that there is not even any need to list examples.
So, in addition to the benefits I listed for a space colony there is also the added advantage of being situated far enough away from people who will be hostile to the concept of “blood magic” or a race which needs human blood.*
Shipping donors off planet will be costly, but it will still be far less cost than having to bring extra-planetary resources to Earth (with the cost of getting into orbit for each outbound part of the trip). And far far less costly than having to compete with humans for the resources on Earth. Having to pay for every resource, in addition to paying blood donors, just does not stack up well.
Not when there are alternatives sitting in orbit with a big “Use me! Free on a first-come-first-served basis” sign dangling off them.
* Bear in mind that they could consider animal blood as an alternative, even if sentient blood is actually better for magic, for whatever reason. If you need 10 times as much animal blood it is going to be better PR to just buy that in bulk, if it avoids provoking violence or protests from hostile interest groups.
Oops, at the end “alternatives sitting in orbit” should have read “alternatives sitting in space”.
Dollars to donuts the Alari ship is in that little country Deus for all intents and purposes took over.
Also flip a coin Archon knows about the Alari ship, do then (we know they are refugees from a decimated empire), don’t then (Deus has some explaining to do)
either way, we wander if the Alari on Cora’s ship will be dropped off there.
It seems a fair bet. If Deus wants to openly sell products made with super advanced technology, but without revealing his [stolen] capability for interstellar travel, then their presence provides a plausible explanation for the source.
Generally speaking people prefer to hang around with others of their own kind. So, unless the colony ship and refugees happened to be from rival or antagonistic factions then that is likely. Although politics might intervene. Just as Deus may want a cover story, the USA may too.
If the cat is already out of the bag (which they should always be, poor kitties!) about aliens, then they may want a few of the same kind themselves, for the same reasons. That way they can keep the rest hidden behind the Veil, until the public have gotten over the initial shock. Thus buying time for a controlled reveal, when suitable precautions have been put in place to prevent vigilante attacks against them or rampages in general.
Ah. Realization.
Deus DIDN’T buy a bunch of illegal tech to have high tech gizmos and cool blasters and such.
What he was on Fracture buying was replacement parts for the broken colony ship.
Which he will then SELL to the colonists at a MUCH higher price, as they are very motivated.
Deus is a firm believer in the double-win, as well as altruism that benefits him greatly.
He just does not want it to get out how those parts were broken in the first place.
Depending on what it looks like, a kilometer long alien ship would blend right in with some of Earth’s architecture in some places. I mean, if it was all borning grey cubes on a flat plate… well, who notices industrial parks, right?
Hey respect for some of the things you get up to on XKCD. That scheme where you flooded the Senate with all the coloured balls, genius!
And those alien space ships you have had disguised all this time, I hope the aliens were dead before you started to autopsy them?
Let’s see. Maxima was told Sydney would be arriving “within the hour”. That was page #717. With the average “day” being something like 240 pages (averaged for convenience), divide that by 24 hours, then it should take something like 9 more pages after this one for Maxima to see Sydney. Sounds reasonable.
The content of your comment aside, why are you trying to falsify the Global Positioning System? Are you trying to ensure that anyone who attempts to navigate through the region, using the now ubiquitous GPS navigation, gets steered just enough off course that they never see a 1km long space ship parked in the open?
Lol Yorp. I am the original person with the DrGPS call sign, way back from before the AOL days in the early 1990s. I was in the US Air Force and worked specifically with GPS in Colorado and later California as part of my AFSC (originally 277×0, but later 1C6X1). I intended to be a doctor in that field, which is why I used it. I became a doctor in a different field, but never dropped its use.
Ooh, cool. Nice to come across a meaningful handle.
*wags tail interestingly*
@DaveB I don’t know if you’ll see this, but I just had to share it with you. Not relfecting on your story, but just sci fi in general.
https://imgur.com/gallery/hINj1xf
Some series actually do play with this, in the Macross universe humans and Earth are/were borderline eldritch abominations thanks to music and singing. Which has a magical effect on all other life and isn’t something other species do naturally. The Earth was destroyed by aliens because they discovered that humans weren’t the only singing things there, but that so much of the animal life could sing in some manner and the potential threat to the rest of space was too great.
I’m calling it right now. The Alarai that Sydney helped rescue will end up being someone important that is going to resolve this issue.
If it landed at the line intersection, the people whose homes got flattened likely did notice. The area in question is respectably heavily populated. Hopefully they all made it out alive. Pwerhaps the pilot was careful about where she put her vehicle down.
Come on, Sydney! I’d give the view four point five stars at least. Four point seven, if you consider that you’re looking at the Earth from practically the same angle as the famous Blue Marble photo.
Maybe someone has already mentioned it, but…
Couldn’t Syd make the descent on her own?
(Sorry, no time to check all the comments now)
She certainly could, having shown her ability to fly to Fracture (the Dyson sphere space station).
There are potential problems though, as Halo could:
1) get lost (she navigated using saved waypoints previously, rather than actually plotting a course or getting to a specific destination she wanted.
2) be fined for flying without a licence (if flying with Maxima she probably has some dispensation as a military trainee, but every time she flies solo she risks falling foul of laws regulating flight.
3) crash into something important, like a satellite or airliner full of kittens and orphans.
A firearm, is a Kinetic Weapon.
So is a bare/bear arm.
So, depending on whether the screen is marking the ship with that “i” symbol, or the two red lines, it’s touched down either somewhere in Ethiopia, OR possibly around Zambia. I say Zambia, because it’s framed roughly by a few lakes that you can just about see, and Zambia takes up a large chunk of that region.
…Except for a small snaking sliver of the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Which is where Galatin, Deus’ pet country, is supposed to be. Which by the Law of Conservation of Detail (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheLawOfConservationOfDetail) means it is the most likely spot.
Good lines of reasoning, tying together different threads (with bonus extra information thrown in) in one elegant post.
I’m still not 100% sure if that’s and image of the shape of the Alari Ship, or if its a giant holographic sign saying Hi.
Can we have an extras cast page for everyone else named but not considered main cast.
Last panel with the huge display showing the location of a single ship.
Now imagine how a high tech planet with hundreds of ships parked everywhere would look. You could barely make out the planet never mind read the overlapping information.
The display is huge, not the ship
thus a filter think shadowrun and the matrix
If there are Alari that look like Sciona, except not freaking evil blood mages…oh PLEASE let there be.
Yeah, we saw them, Sydney talked Cora into picking them up
Almost all of Earth’s Satellites are nowhere near that close,
and just how close IS “that”… the rectangle that they are looking at is most definitely NOT a window… therefore it is a computer monitor/display and as such, there is a thing called “zooming in” that they are probably using to get the view of earth from however far away they are, and those satellite orbits are just the ones that pass directly between their current location and the surface of the ground… the same goes for the red icon of the Alari colony ship, it’s just a tiny thing and it’s been zoomed and highlighted on the display.
One thing I notice a lot of people forget no matter how long they’ve remembered all of star trek. Those aren’t windows into space that the command deck is looking out of. They’re monitors. or else why would kirk, or picard go from looking at space to looking up the nostrils of an angry entity on its ship.
You mean alien bridges do not extend out, on a tether, so that they can negotiate with other ships’ command crew up close?
You really sure about that?
look at http://www.stuffin.space/
So the fictional country of Galytin (spell?) is where Malawi or Zambia are in our world?
Haven’t read through all the comments, so maybe someone already covered it but… “Whom” is the form of “who” you use in special cases, as when something is the indirect object of some verbs and of prepositions. (Called Dative case). Also certain verbs expect that case, like help, thank, give, make, buy, read, save, get, show, present, offer, hand, pass sometimes or always take a dative pronoun. Most times, you can think of it as a verb that receives something.
Quoting an internet grammar source: “Whom should be used to refer to the object of a verb or preposition. When in doubt, try this simple trick: If you can replace the word with ‘he’ or ‘she,’ use who. If you can replace it with ‘him’ or ‘her,’ (or them) use whom.” The problem with this rule is that in a lot of places, the wrong use is so common that now it “sounds right” to a lot of people, even when it’s wrong.
Also, a frequent mistake is to say “who is whom.” With “is” (to be) type verbs, both sides of the equation should be the same form. Who, He, She are all Nominative case. “To be” verbs are like an equal sign. It’s the same as saying “who is she?” “who is who” “She is WHO?” (not whom). Has to be the same on both sides of the equal sign, IE the “to be” verb.