Grrl Power #842 – Legal xeno
I put a little thought into Lorlara’s name. It’s a bit like Arabic names that recount lineage. For example, Alexander Siddig’s full name (Dr. Bashir on DS9) is Siddig El Tahir El Fadil El Siddig Abderrahman Mohammed Ahmed Abdel Karim El Mahdi. That’s fucking tight. I’d love to see him use his full name in some show.
Anyway, Alari names, at least the nobles and general upper crust, recount not only lineage but house. “Ora” means “of house” and “zar/zvar” indicates whether the recounted ancestor was a matriarch or patriarch. There are other particles to indicate if your progenitor was lowborn or knighted or whatever. “Xe” just means “and I am.” So if you’re being super informal, or your lineage has been properly established, you can just say “Xe Lorlara” i.e. “I’m Lorlara.”
Maxima doesn’t speak a word of Alar, BTW, unlike what some people were speculating. I’m not sure where she would have picked it up.
I do wonder how it would go down if an alien race wanted to start a colony on Earth. It’s not like there’s a unified body that would have any real say about it. The UN is the closest thing, but really the nation hosting the new colony would have the lion’s share of input. I think a major deciding factor would be if the aliens decided to settle in a wealthy country that all the other countries wanted to maintain trade relationships with or not. In the case of them landing in some backwater that’s barely recognized by the UN like Galytn… honestly, I think there might be some super aggressive invitations from other countries to come for a tour before the put down roots – if not a straight up invasion or some sort of CIA/SVR RF (apparently the thing that came after the KGB)/Chinese MSS/etc aided political turnover.
The thing that’s throwing a big ol’ wrench in the usual playbooks is Galytn’s curiously effective military. Effective due to an usual density of supers. Something that might support Deus’s claim about the Galytn’s overall super population. That or he’s just hired a shitload of super powered mercenaries from all over Africa and is a big dirty pants on fire guy.
You may think that “African American” is an odd entry for a form immigrating people into America. (Or applying for a Visa) I would agree with you. I think it’s there because some white guy was building the form and was like “Is it okay to say “black?” Better put other options in as well.”
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so what are the odds that the group Syd saved on fracture being related to one of the leaders of this ship. that would give them a way to enter the ship easily when it randomly comes up in conversion later.
it would also be interesting to see what they say about her killing some of the squids
When most of a planetary population has been wiped out, you really want to hope that the survivors are not all closely related to one another. It would not bode well for genetic diversity and thereby the long term survival of the species.
“Yay Sydney! Wow, you are awesome! You are a one person armada! Can we join your house?”
And yet, there’s a good chance that the people with the fastest access to escape craft are closely related, because either their location put them in the vicinity of the same ship (or group of ships), or their status (eg aristocracy) gave them similar preferential treatment.
The lone survivors having a connection is a trope for sure, but not an unreasonable one.
One order of ‘extinction’ for table three. Would you be interested in a side of novel STD too, to help that go down?
I mean the main thing that drives inbreeding to be bad is recessive genetics. So assuming they dont have gene therapy, or have already eliminated(if they ever had any “bad ones to start with” the bad genes from the pool in some way…they could always test the genetics of people before conception to prevent “bad” genes being passed on. yes it opens them up to certain other issues, such as disease down the road, but a population of several thousand is plenty enough with their technology/magic base to continue their species.
Also with gene therapy you could actually INCLUDE changes to offspring that diversify their genetic code so that they are less (genetically) related to their parents so that the issues you are talking about are far less likely to occur. after a few generations you once again have enough genetic diversity that you can breed as normal.
Long story short i dont see how a species can invent FTL and NOT have gene therapy, we already have limited forms of it and we have barely touched space. Considering how warlike the species is i would imagine its already been breed as well as gene therapies to make them better “warriors” for taking over other species. Or they could have select casts that have been therapied in different directions, but even then they would likely already be inbreeding to a certain extent to keep that power “in” its place if its not already species wide.
There is a bit more to it than just ‘bad genes’. Genetic diversity protects against disease and other environmental issues. Both of which the Alari will be at far greater risk now, as refugees, than when they had safe and prosperous planets to live on. For humans diseases such as cholera are common amongst the unsanitary conditions that refugees can find themselves in. Especially when combined with poor nutrition (even worse if living on an alien planet who’s eco system is not compatible with their digestive system).
Those Alari on Fracture looked like they may have been at risk from their equivalents to cholera and the like. Then consider that the refugees will have found themselves on whatever planet they could get to in the exodus. Many of which will have environmental issues that will cause problems to alien species. Be that toxic elements in the air, water or food or, as with the Alari on Earth, pollutants.
And this is where gene therapy can have a major downside, especially if social or wartime pressures drive an optimisation program. A number of those ‘bad’ traits may exist in a gene pool because they provide a major benefit to a rare danger. Enough such that even though it also causes a serious reduction in quality of life or causes early deaths and other such problems during normal times it may provide the only means of surviving against the rare problem.
Highly topically it looks like there may be a genetic aspect to Covid 19 mortality risks. Some peoples immune system gets attacked by the virus, killing off many of their T-cells. In a culture which had optimised their immune system to deal with all known diseases, but thereby reduced the genetic diversity in this key area, then finding themselves reduced in numbers to a few hundred or thousands of individuals, just one disease may wipe out enough of the survivors that they cease to be a viable species (without major artificial intervention).
And these refugees are especially vulnerable to disease at the moment.
Yorp I think you’re referring to the 50/500 rule of Genetic drift. All it means is it’s a suggested minimum population of 50 to combat inbreeding and a minimum population of 500 to reduce the chances of genetic drift. This is only for humans though so far. It doesnt always translate to other organisms.
Case in point, the Galapagos Tortoise was saved from extinction because of ONE male tortoise (the last living Galapagos Tortoise alive – named Lonesome George) fathering over 800 offspring. There was 1 male, 13 females left (Lonesome George died in 2012 at the age of 102 – he fathered most of the offspring between 1972 and 2012, and pretty much single handedly took the Galapagos tortoise away from the brink of extinction.
There hasn’t been any real evidence of genetic drift in the offspring though.
Humans, on the other hand, require a lot more diversity to prevent genetic abnormalities and problems from occurring in the population. But who knows how it works for Alari – probably quite different than humans. We’ve already seen they have a VASTLY superior healing ability, and they probably have superior genetic science. So the 50/500 rule might not apply to them as it would to us.
Plus we’ve already seen that the Alari are able to forego their physical bodies entirely and still survive.
Re. the last though, that sounds like quite a lot of lost DNA.
Lets hope their reconstitution technology is up to it.Actually, if many of them are like Sciona, good riddance!We haven’t seen the last of Sci-pina, we need someone who knows just what SmugD is like, and what he is up to, to come back and fillet his genitals (on global prime time TV would be nice)
I really hate raining on parades… Unfortunately, Lonesome George wasn’t the last remaining Galapagos Tortoise, he was the last ever Pinta Island Tortoise (a Galapagos Tortoise variant), and he fathered no babies, as all prospective mates were genrically too far away.
However, it seems there are some tortoises which have a 90% DNA match, so there may still be some hope.
A 90% match isn’t all that close else humans would have more than just cohabitation with the Abyssinian domestic cat. [yikes – according to wiki anyways]
Gorblimey, I am ashamed to say this but you are correct, and I was wrong.
I named the WRONG TORTOISE.
I meant Diego, not Lonesome George.
“Long story short i dont see how a species can invent FTL and NOT have gene therapy, we already have limited forms of it and we have barely touched space.”
This assume that all technologies must go forward at the same step for all race/cultures/planets, which is quite the assumption, considering we have only one example of planetary culture to look upon. I can’t see why it could not exist, for example, a race that reach FTL with only a very basic knowledge of biology.
Of course Alari have blood magic, so it is highly probable they have gene therapy, or the magical equivalent.
If they are doing politics in similar way as we do, the heads of houses might be more related to each other than to commoners of their own house.
Humanity is thought to be terribly inbred because of a period when we had been wiped out down to just a few thousand individuals.
So the Alari will probably do ok regardless.
Here’s an article a quick Google search turned up:
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029453-500-inbreeding-shaped-the-course-of-human-evolution/#
I have no idea if the source is reputable or not, I don’t recall ever visiting that site previously.
look up mitochondrial Eve/ Y Chromosome Adam — if you want to know more about our shared ancestry as a species. btu we are all basically descended from them. Though they are fairly certain they were alive at very very different times. (as in like over 100,000 years) but yeah, we are inbred as hell as a species, one of the most inbred on the planet. Some of that is also by choice. (such as royal bloodlines wanting to stay “pure”)
Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised if we find out that part of why Man wants to reach the stars is to find non-Terran DNA to help clean some of that out.
Then again there is the tech to make demihumans right now, but we don’t for some reason.
You’re probably thinking of the Toba event, an example of a population bottleneck.
Oberon, I think you’re talking about the bottleneck period known as the Toba event. I wouldn’t say it caused us to be terribly inbred though. There were still approximately 12,000 homo sapiens alive at that point – well above the 50/500 rule that I think Yorp was alluding to. A population of 12,000 is still a very viable amount of genetic diversity, especially when you consider that the Toba event is theorized to have occurred over 75,000 years ago for a period of only about 900 years (ie, about 30 or so generations of humans).
Also, Darkvision, we are not the most inbred species on the planet by a long shot. If anything, we have some of the HIGHEST amounts of genetic diversity, especially for an upper level complex organism on the planet. Remember, the homo sapiens population of the planet is, as of May 2020, approximately 7.8 billion by conservative estimates.
Royal bloodlines and other examples of inbreeding make up an almost negligibly small percentage of our population.
Unless you and Oberon are meaning that we went from having four species of humans (Homo erectus, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens) down to two species (Homo sapiens and Homo neanderthalis), which then got whittled down to just one species – ours … Homo sapiens. I wouldn’t really call that ‘inbreeding’ though, when there are almost 8 billion of us all around the world with a WIDE variety of different genetic traits.
Homo neanderthalensis, Homo sapiens) , those are proven to be close enough, to breed.
Wait, which one was the Hobbits, heidelbergensis? You know, that race that was found on some island(s) near Australia
And, it’s not as though the 3 extinct species were actually killed off, as the evidence shows we (Sapiens) simply interbred and incorporated their geneitic diversity in our bloodlines.
And that’s the reason interracial marriages are bad!
That’s actually exactly the opposite. It’s the reason “interracial” marriages are very good.
False assertion!!!!
You may be right, and I am no expert on the subject. But when you list things like “12,000 individuals is a viable population” you’re ignoring the fact that these 12k are not all in one place, and not all swapping genes with each other. Instead the 12k is a pile of much smaller groups who are inbreeding amongst themselves, and who occasionally swap genes with their neighbors.
Actually the smaller a number of a species that exist, the more likely they will be clustered closer together. You really should not take today’s human population, which has spread far and wide throughout the world, and compare it to the human population of 75,000 years ago. They would have been in similar regions, and likely had many of the tribes and grouping cross paths with increasing frequency.
This seems to make sense at first glance, but it isn’t accurate according to the researchers.
Here’s the article I drew that conclusion from. I probably shouldn’t say “I” drew that conclusion, because they spell it out fairly clearly. I just tend to believe that they got it right.
https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22029453-500-inbreeding-shaped-the-course-of-human-evolution/#
“For thousands of years our ancestors lived in small, isolated populations, leaving them severely inbred, according to a new genetic analysis. The inbreeding may have caused a host of health problems, and it is likely that small populations were a barrier to the development of complex technologies.”
“In the distant past, human populations were probably only in the thousands or at best tens of thousands, and lived locally, exchanging mates only with their nearest neighbours.”
So yeah, small groups inbreeding, and only occasionally swapping DNA with neighboring groups. Note that they used actual DNA evidence to arrive at this conclusion. Inbreeding causing health problems, and possibly mental issues as well, preventing the development and retaining of new technology and innovations. And failing to retain advances due to, I guess, early deaths and etc. caused by inbreeding health problems.
From the same article I’ve linked previously, a rebuttal of your claim by people who are presumably experts in the field and who are not a supposed lawyer making a claim on a random webcomic comments page:
“Describing the genomes as “nearly error-free”, Reich says both species were severely inbred due to small populations. “Archaic populations had low genetic diversity, really extraordinarily low,” he said. “It’s among the lowest diversity of any organism in the animal kingdom.” “
Try to imagine Sydney with a few dozen(?) sworn, loyal, and potentially Lorlara-level enthusiastic followers. SYDNEY.
Wait, how tall is Deus? Max is listed at 6’1″, and in panel four she appears to be standing just a couple inches over him as he sits. Is he like 8 ft tall or are those extremely high bench seats?
I figured it was one of those raised dining areas, the ones where the walkway is lower than where the table rests. You step up to get into the booth.
Knee level of M and D are about equal, table height would suggest no raised dining dais, however behind M we see the seating are, which D is clearly sitting on. He must be further back. Combined with slightly upward view (to accomodate L’s flight), it is all merely a (brilliant) trick of perspective.
Or it’s a trick of Deus’ with the seating setup to ensure he appears taller than any guest at his table, standing or seating.
Good old power position play.
Brilliant. Yes.
I don’t think I ever wrote down how tall he is. I want to say maybe 6’3″? I’d have to go back to check some panels of him standing near Max.
The mark of a true statesman – the first answer has little relation to the question asked.
For what it’s worth, I’m Jewish. My full name is Paltiel Yeshai ben Pesach Yonah ben Moishe Yacob ha Cohen.
Noice.
Do you go by Pesach? Because I’d go by Pesach if I had that name.
If you were a rebel you could go by ben, and insist on the lower case. ;-P
Just change her name to ‘Dot’
I got a good laugh on that, thanks!
So They’re the Dark Eldar from 40k. Gotcha.
When I see them I instantly think of Drow. I’m surprised that no one else has stated it as there is so many similarity’s. (elf ears, black skin, white hair.) All we need is a Drider and it will complete the circle.
It has been mentioned several times
Go back… a bunch of pages. There’s a drider on the rift station.
I’m an African Briton, but you could probably tell that just by glancing at me.
Apparently also related to xenomorphs (mouthception)
They just don’t want to say ‘black’.
People of every skin color live on the continent of Africa. When they move to the USA, they’re African-American, even if they’re white. But apparently you’re supposed to look at someone’s skin color before you decide what rules you describe them by. Seems racist to me.
A truth not universally acknowledged about humans is this:
We Are All Brown.
I mean, you know, there’s different shades of brown. But we’re all brown. If human skin had the same range of pigmentation as, say, flower petals, then it would be meaningful to describe someone as “black” or “white” or whatever. But it doesn’t. Brown is all there is.
It would be kind of cool if we had the variety of coloration you find on cats, where some are spotty and some are stripey and some are calico/patchwork and a lot have a white patch “tuxedo” marking on the front, or white paws, with whatever other coloration, and so on. But we don’t. Brown is all there is.
Seriously, for such a simple and relatively subtle variation in shading, we sure make a big deal of it.
Then again, I can’t get over the Alari apparently having the same set of secondary sexual characteristics – or for that matter even the same set of sexes! – as humans. That seems really weird to me.
“We Are All Brown”
I somehow don’t think that’s accurate. Even with a very liberal take on color shades.
Okay there is the exception where certain individuals lack pigmentation altogether but for all the rest it is exactly the same two pigments.
Yes TWO
Melanin has two forms, pheomelanin (yellow-reddish) and eumelanin (black-brown)
In addition, the number and size of melanin particles differ among individuals, and is even more important than the proportions of the two forms of melanin in the determination of human skin colour. Other skin-related factors, e.g., keratin, also contribute to skin colour variation.
[them the rabbit hole of genetic mapping et al gets really messy]
Speaking as someone that works at the US Census, we have a “other” category for race on our forms, though iI don’t think it was intended with this in mind.
Yeah, we meant that one for the Reptillians.
“- banana fanna fo fanna, fe fi fo Lorlara…
If the formation of Israel is any indication, any attempt at a whole new colony anywhere on the planet would be a total shitshow probably involving a war, and then unending strife involving the displaced people and their descendants until the end of time being angry about it.
If a country agreed to host them and give them some land it might be okay… except there is almost certainly someone already living there and they will be pissed off about the “guberment givin’ thar land to some funny lookin’ forners”. Hell even if you try to buy the land there will still be SOMEONE who will be a stubborn ass and won’t sell their few hundred square feet of worthless dirt with the run down house on it no matter how much you offer them.
In short… I seriously doubt it could be done without it causing problems that would plague them for centuries.
Send the Alari here to Oz. We know how to deal with “Nail houses”.
All land in Oz is vested in the Crown, and our State Governments simply apply “Eminent Domain”, write a “Resumption Order” and start moving in with ‘dozers. They will compensate you with “Fair Market Value”, but you know how far that goes…
But what would really happen is that we have lots of inland hectares, nice dry climate except when it rains — but that doesn’t happen much — so all we need is a road in and a road out. We could even have those sealed if you generate enough trade!
Oh, and for Africans it is most definitely NOT okay to say black. Quite a number of them get REALLY pissed off at being called black. Hell, I was told that even to call an object black was risky in some places.
“I got a new car.”
“What colour?”
“Black.”
GRRRRRRR!
“What?”
If ANY race qualifies to be called ‘black-skinned’, the Alari do. In fact, if Lorlara finds out that there are ‘black-skinned’ humans, she will either start laughing uncontrollably, or consider it an insult against her entire people.
Knowing humans, they will probably start trying to figure out where the Alari fall in their skin-color-classification system. Will Christians start wondering if they should redefine the whole ‘mark of Cain’ thing?
“Christians”? “Mark of Cain”? “should redefine”?
You mean Mormons/LDS, right?
Or if you want to say “Southern Baptist segregationists”… except there aren’t many of them around these days.
I’ve literally never heard that stuff in any of the ten different Christian sects I’ve been in in my life, although I was aware of it wrt LDS.
No, LDS/Mormon don’t believe that either, or at least haven’t in maybe a century (dating back to whenever it was common among Christians at large). Certainly not current dogma at any rate, not sure it ever was officially.
Not sure it was _official_ dogma, but there are recorded instances of Brigham Young and Joseph Smith both stating that being black was the mark of Cain an that’s why slavery was A-OK. Similarly black priests weren’t allowed in the church until 1978, which is pretty late as far as things go.
Mind you, it’s not like Brigham Young and Joseph Smith were the ONLY people espousing that view at the time, it’s just notable because of their high positions in the church hierarchy.
Also, I slightly overstated things, there was a process for rare exceptions to be made on the black priests issue pre-1978, but it was designed so they would have to be exceptions.
Some exceptions, and no policy against blacks and priesthood at all until they fled the borders of the US and started seeking political security through recognition as a territory and future statehood. It only became an issue then because the statehood vote was jeopardized by the approaching Civil War and the violent history of opposition to Mormons in the South (specifically Missouri), and they didn’t want to upset the Southern states when there had already been military forces sent to occupy Utah territory. And then the issue sort of just… never went away until 1978. Not a shining example in retrospect, but pretty understandable from a survival standpoint in a fledgling community under heavy persecution.
As for slavery, I’m not aware of any source from either Joseph or Brigham endorsing slavery, whether or not because of the ‘mark of Cain’. Joseph was publicly against it, including during his run for office which included a plan for abolishment via the government buying out all slave owners, and years earlier had welcomed 2 black migrant women into his own household as equals, one of whom (Jane Manning) stayed for years.
That was his claim, that Mormons, who were reluctant, to obey. Became American Indians. Very Racist, our ancestry, in the Americas, have been traced back 12,000-15,000.
…I don’t understand what you’re trying to say here?
As for racism against Native Americans, the Mormons had nothing against them, and actually viewed them as a fellow ‘tribe of Israel’ per the Book of Mormon. Even during the westward expansion, they had far better relations and treatment with Native Americans than almost any other group of settlers.
Re-reading this, I think you’re saying that Mormons claim that the American Indians were all descendants of a wicked group…? If so, also not what anyone claimed. The Book of Mormon is presented as the record of three group of peoples (among hundreds) whose histories intermingled in the ancient Americas, some of whom obeyed God and some of whom didn’t (as in any religious text). No one thinks it represents the entirety of the ancient populations or their cultures, or that it implies that all modern native peoples in the western hemisphere (or even the US) are inherently wicked or inferior in some way.
Interestingly, in the Irish language, a dark-skinned person was always called “fear gorm” – a blue man. This was actually politeness, because the Black Man (“an Fear Dubh”) meant the devil.
So, Irish speakers would have no difficulty with the Alari at all. They’ve been expecting them.
When I was in college, two of my professors and my dean were from Africa. Two were Nigerian, so of course they sounded British. But they didn’t call themselves African-American. They referred to themselves as black. I asked.
Don’t worry, forms do that kind of thing all the time. It’s like how a lot of forms just list transgender as a third gender option.
*Sends in Dabbler to help the triumvirate relax on the condition that no lasting political decisions are made in her presence.
“Well, I got them to agree on peaceful coexistence, establishing a colony, and establishing trade relations with the US. I also got them to agree that I am their Queen, that nudity is the colonial dress code, and to regular orgies all day every Thursday. Unfortunately, due to your rassinfrassin’ condition, none of it is legally binding!”
“Um, yeah, ’cause we know you!”
I recall during the 2012 London Olympics, a black British Athlete was being interviewed by an American reporter and she absolutely would not stop referring to him as “African-American”, despite how many times the athlete would tell her he was neither of those things.
“African-American” seems to be hardwired into the brains of some people, no matter how little the term actually applies to the situation.
Any Youtube of that incident?
Like when they printed that Kofi Annan was the first African American to hold his UN post…
… or at the Atlanta Olympics, when the hosts played “Land of Hope and Glory” as the British national anthem. It isn’t anyone’s national anthem. Then again, the British tend to think that “Stars and Stripes” is the US national anthem
I remember that happening to Nelson Mandela as well. Although in that case the interviewer (being a political reporter and not a sports reporter) noticed himself that that didn’t make much sense and became quite flustered.
Take a look at the picture of the members of the Dave Matthews Band and identify for me the African-American members:
https://bloximages.chicago2.vip.townnews.com/wvnews.com/content/tncms/assets/v3/editorial/e/40/e40f9243-b134-5322-a7a0-98f79164e52a/5e97b8dae2ea3.image.jpg?resize=1200%2C827
.
.
.
It’s kind of a trick question, because the black members of the band are black Americans, while Dave Matthews himself, although Caucasian, was born in Africa and is an American citizen. And so he is the sole African American in the band.
I suddenly recall author mention that Maxima had (as yet undeveloped) powers before her geode symbiot joined with her and that it likely “hatched” because it sensed her latent super powers.
…And Deus had a half of her symbiot geode/egg. So did he figure out something about detecting super potential from that?
Alternatively, he purchased some alien super computers and they quickly figured out the variables.
Citation?
Was this in the museum/doctor’s office/hole in the wall sequence?
Maxima had a genetic predisposition to become a super?
A piece of rock DETECTED THAT????
A pretty special “piece of rock”. No reason to decide it was purposeful or not, or whether she had any special characteristics that made it more likely or not, until the author decides the story warrants inclusion.
Clearly you didn’t read comics as a kid. Superhero origin stories are as wildly varied as they come.
Flash – Lightning struck some chemicals, so he’s really fast now because that’s how that works
Captain America – Drinking a magic *ahem* a science potion made him the physical peak human possible. The potion could never be duplicated because even though they knew all of the chemicals involved the scientist fell asleep during the process and there was a ham sandwich involved, so yeah it’ll never be duplicated.
Superman – No origin necessary, he’s just from a race of people who are like that. The rest of them died horribly, so he is unique. (Let’s not talk about Kandor or Supergirl, shall we?)
Mutants – Just about the time they start getting pimples their powers just manifest. Why? Because they are mutants, that’s why.
Spider-Man – Bit by a radioactive spider.
The Cat – Empowered by an ancient cat goddess statue. Originally was unchanged physically other than her cat like reflexes, etc. and wore a suit that covered her from wrist to ankles and had built-in steel claws, but later she picked up tiger striped fur and a tail, changed her name to Tigra, and refused to wear anything other than a tiny bikini from that moment on.
So a superhero potential being ‘read’ by a rock, sentient or otherwise, which then decides to hop aboard for even more superhero fun isn’t really too far ‘out there,’ as origin stories go.
My own superhero webcomic has the hero lick a television and discover https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ItWasWithYouAllAlong
People know the ingredients used in both KFC and Coke, doesn’t mean they are able to duplicate the recipe exactly (that’s why you ended up with CFC & Pepsi)
Oberon – I cracked up when you said the part about the ham sandwich with Captain America’s Super Soldier Serum :)
James Brown: “say it loud I’m BLACK and proud. I refuse to call myself a “person of color, simply for being partially American Indian!!!
Okay? :) Not really sure what that had to do with what I wrote but that’s cool :)
It wouldn’t have been the piece of rock, it would have been the weird gold stuff inside the piece of rock that is now permanently bonded to Maxima’s body.
Or he bought some alien gadgets (something like Sidney’s glasses), give them to his soldiers and pass them as superpowers.
For that matter, the Alari could be enhancing his soldiers with magic, we know they have some powerful mages.
Taking a look at the Alari, I think you could probably take the super-literal approach and say “Black.
And most of the Earthly population of Alari are in Africa after all…
Can confirm.
dark greyliens
I have seen some drow that are literally black as night. Alari tend to strike me as more dark grey/blue. Not sure how that coloration would translate into reality, but I suspect it wouldn’t look similar to human melanin, which is basically just various shades of brown.
Actually… there are some hyu-mons who have ‘black as night’ skin, not just ‘various shades of brown’
I don’t know what the fuck a ‘hyu-mon’ is, so unless you’ve become confused and are badly roleplaying as a ferengi because you mistook this for a star trek rp forum, please learn to communicate like an adult. And yes, melanin is a brown pigment. Black does not naturally occur in nature, it is dark shades of other colors, mostly brown. Humans are various shades of brown, including those with very little melanin. Those few with extremely dark skin, such as Nyakim Gatwech are still just very, very dark brown, and beautiful regardless of their lack of or surplus of melanin. :)
No idea who ‘Nyakim Gatwech’ is, but look up images of Nubian’s and West African’s (like the Nigerian’s), most certainly the Matabele (possibly even Zulu)
Thought at first maybe Henry Cele* (the guy who played the great Shaka Zulu), except he is more of deep mahogany rather than ebony
*hopefully that link works
Just had a similar discussion with someone else.
Turn out there are TWO types of Melanin: Brown-Black and Yellow-Red.
The kicker is that you can be either or both and have varying levels of each. A zero zero is Albino though.
Bestest African-American?
Elon Musk!
Man, that’s subject to debate depending on who you talk to these days. XD
What? That he’s the best? Or American? Or African?
He’s American by naturalization and African by continent of origin. As to whether he’s the ‘bestest’ of either of these things, I guess that depends on your measure of ‘bestest’ in those categories. But he is not an African-American. Still an amazing businessman, a genius inventor and a hell of a shitposter tho. XD
He is LITERALLY African American, which is what I think Gunsandrockets is saying. :)
He was born in Africa (South Africa), and now is an American. IE, from a technical definition, he is African American a lot more than even someone who is black and was born in the US and has never been in Africa (nor have their parents, grandparents, and possibly great grandparents).
And as we know from Futurama, technically correct is the best kind of correct.
It’s just a bit humorous because of how political correct-speak definitions sometimes does not quite mesh with the semantic, literal definition. A person would not be able to say, without lying (or at least ignoring the breakdown of the words African-American), that Elon Musk is NOT an African American, any more than you could say that …. for example, Robert De Niro is an Italian-American. Because the word ‘African-American’ means, on its face ‘An American with significant origins from the continent of Africa’ (key point is significant or most of the planet would be considered African American (although admittedly they are now finding that the earliest humans might have actually been in southern Europe, instead of from Africa (which was the former understanding in anthropology)…. at least from the most recent fossil records. Specifically from the Atapuerca Mountains in Gran Dolina, Spain (Homo heidelbergensis), from between 850,000 years ago.
Went off on a tangent there.
Anyway. Elon Musk is African-American as a technical definition and its funny because people tend to forget about South Africa, Morocco, and Egypt when talking about Africa. He’s from Africa. He’s now American. That means Africa-American, and claiming otherwise is just because a politically correct nomenclature takes precedence over technical accuracy :).
Incorrect!!!!!!!”admittedly they are now finding that the earliest humans might have actually been in southern Europe,”
Still to be proven.
Not incorrect. It has been proven already. I just gave you the most recent fossil records and where it was located even. Gran Dolina, Spain is in Southern Europe. Not sure how that would be considered ‘still to be proven.’
Rightmire, G.P. (7 December 1998). “Human evolution in the Middle Pleistocene: The role of Homo heidelbergensis”. Evolutionary Anthropology. 6 (6): 218–227.
We also no longer can say that pre-human ape-like creatures originated in Africa for certain anymore, since in 2017 they discovered in both Bulgaria and Greece fossils of ape-like creatures with human-like teeth dating back 7.2 million years – called Graecopithecus freybergi….. which wound up showing that human species were beginning to evolve in Europe about 200,000 years before the currently earliest African hominid. Graecopithecus freybergi is classified as hominins, the direct ancestor of the species homo.
It’s possible that they could have still first evolved in Africa and moved up north, but the fossil records are not nearly as old as the record in Greece and Bulgaria. On the other hand, Africa does have a significantly more fossils of early man overall. But that might just mean that proto-humans started out in Southern Europe, then moved down southward to Africa, rather than the other way around like scientists previously assumed (since there were so many more fossils in the fossil record in Africa).
With Lorlara’s name it almost seems like it is the opposite of Tali’s from Mass Effect. Lorlara’s name lists all of her family houses and alliances in order of how current they are. Ora must be the ‘Of’ word, Alar might be the ‘House’ and Zar must be the ‘And’ word for the Alari. For a complete English translation she is Lorlara of House Kanthis, of Kanthis and Morrundis, of Bithlura and Liglalathane, of Zetch Zvar Hannor, of Deus XE.
Seriously, RTFB.
What does the Bible have to do with the price of fish in China?
Bible? Where? Oh, you mean The Word According to DaveB?
Bad joke: Read The Flogging Bible :P
You know it is bad when the villains say “no you can go in and talk with them” and he completely serious.
Space politics on top of earth politics… A nightmare that can be easily avoided and shoved into someone who might have a better idea on how to survive the mess… Without a political disaster.
Because he knew Maxi wouldn’t take him up on that offer
What he doesn’t know, is she will pass that on to the branch of Archon who will
The usa form really says:
White
Black or African America
American Indian or Alaska Native
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander
Select all availble boxes (so you can select more boxes)
But it does not have a selection for outside earth.
Is that solely for selection among categories of US citizens, or are the categories the same for visitors/immigrants? That doesn’t appear to give any accurate ‘box’ for anyone of Asian extraction, let alone the further distinctions which may be relevant. Even high-level groupings would be better than nothing, e.g. Middle-East, Pakistan-India-Bangladesh, Central-Asia, South-East-Asia, China-Japan-Korea. (Apologies if the associations implied by those top-of-head groupings offend!)
I don’t know, but I think Sydney has experience with negotiations with aliens. The first major aliens she encountered had a real “blast” with her!
Technically the first aliens she met, outside of Dabbler, was Jeannie the waitress. :)
I’ve killed your pun. muhahaha.
It was a “Dub step” night club, and at the volume they were playing, it definitely blasting!
I had a thought about Sydney’s shield.
What if the shield blocks everything but also work as a video and audio display, so what you see is being displayed from the shield.
Ew! The idea that some country would *officially* register you as a “race”, an outdated term from a 18th century pseudo-science, with no basis in reality, and which was used to push slavery, colonialism, apartheid and genocide, is simply horrifying! What kind of dystopia is Galytn to ask that of its outer space alien refugees? As an European, it conjures up some really nasty “memories” of Nazi occupation. (From studying it in school, obviously, not actually living through it… Stil…)
Read, “the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich”!
Er, I think that’s meant to be the US visa application form.
It is.
And, yes, Lyzi, it is.
That’s an application for a USA work VISA.
The US has been heavily invested in this manufactured concept of “race” for their entire history… and they’re not ready to let go of it yet.
Even though they would call me “white”, I still wouldn’t want to live there.
And a lot of paperwork forces you to choose one race only.
A woman I worked with was half black / half white, and her husband was half Hispanic / half Asian.
What was their daughter?
What was their daughter? Human
Race is real and we can identify it using genetic markers.
British people don’t call themselves English unless they ARE English, which means white, born in England, with at least three English grandparents, speaking English as a first (and probably only) language.
Except the ones who, in Orwell’s phrase, “would rather be accused of stealing from the poor box in Church, than be called English” – and they are usually about as English as it gets. Or the ones like David Cameron, who tries to pass himself as “of Scottish descent” which none believes for a moment. Or the REALLY grand ones, whose ancestors came over with the Normans, and think the Queen is something of a parvenu.
British nationals with one or more non-British parents call themselves British, or British Pakistani, or something of that nature.
That isn’t actually true, is it? (Except in some racist dream world, where the British Empire still exists, and all Englishmen eat pork pies
I am familiar with large numbers of people who call themselves English, and are not ” white, born in England, with at least three English grandparents”. They would be stunned by your statement. I will be chatting to one of them in a few minutes’ time.
I know that many people do use British instead of English. Their numbers have increased precisely because they don’t wish to be associated with the racists who use “English” as you describe.
Um, ok… what’s this got to do with… *gestures wildly at the comic and blog text* any of this?
I think Ben2 was referring to discussions above – about how African-American is mistakenly applied to actual Africans and to English people.
But his comment was inappropriate, and in a very different direction – as I think i pointed out.
In that purview, I’m looking at “American Indian”. There aren’t any. There are Native Americans and Indian-Americans though.
I conside4, Native American, to be an insult, to everyone born in the Americas.
So how do the various pre-Columbus nations of the North American Continent describe themselves these days?
I ask ‘cos in my childhood they were “Indians”, which I learnt later was because Columbus thought he had bumped into South-East Asia; then they were “Native Americans” ‘cos they were there before Columbus and Vespucci.
BTW, I’m a boomer, therefore my thought processes are (apparently) inherently malformed.
Funny you should ask that, because there are a large number of indigenous people in the states that have embraced ‘Indian’ and ‘American Indian’ as part of their culture and dislike being referred to as ‘Native Americans’. It’s all rather silly, I think. People spend so much time getting worked up over the best labels for themselves and others that they forget how to be people.
“American Indian”, I use that one often.
Most of us prefer American Indians, even tho it is redundant.
You are aware that ‘Britain’ covers at least tree countries, right? England, Wales and Scotland, Great Britain is the Island they all inhabit (United Kingdom also includes Northern Ireland)
So you can be British & English, or British & Welsh, or British & Scottish
Well, they were “tree” countries, until the natives cut them all down to make ships :(
Didn’t even notice :(
Guesticus – your summary is of course correct. Ben 2 was trying to make a claim that “English” had a very different meaning.
I’m not sure if he is writing from a mistaken non-UK viewpoint, or from a rather ugly English viewpoint. Either way, it is a hurtful viewpoint, that a UK citizen born in England may not be English because of skin colour or hisher parentage.
….curious how topics of this sort evolve.
As it happens, the British Census and passport forms, specifically differentiate between White ethnicity as English, Welsh, Scottish, Northern Irish and British.
Then follows a list of mixed-race ethnicities, all using the term British.
There are a list of categories of Asian, Asian British, Black, African, Caribbean or other Black British.
There is no option to describe yourself as Black or Asian English, in any shape or form. None of this is a matter of opinion, it’s a matter of public record that those are the official options. Passports all list nationality as British, without qualifiers of any sort.
That’s because England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland don’t have their own passports… yet
Canada and Nigeria used to be British, too. Not sure on the other British countries.
British citizenship and/or nationality are a complex subject. There are at least six categories, most of which entitle the holder to a British passport. Note that British nationality, and British citizenship are NOT the same thing, it is possible to hold one but not the other. Not all categories were (are, at this writing) recognised by the EU as British nationals for EU purposes.
Not all categories have the right of residence, or entry to the UK.
Was born in New Zealand, lived entire life here, but, due to our retarded laws, could not get a New Zealand passport, was forced to get a British one due to father being English (or maybe it was a UK Passport? believe it’s expired and only used it twice)
My situation is similar and yet totally different.
Born in Dorset to European immigrants I am now Canadian and hold a Canadian and for a while also held a British Passport. I am actually not sure on my status regarding Britishness but I can renew that British passport whenever I feel like it.
What medals is Maxima wearing? I tried to work out the ribbons, and can’t..
What medals is Maxima wearing? I tried to work out the ribbons, and couldn’t?
As previously mentioned and discussed, she is wearing Webcomic Fruit Salad, which has no relation to the real world awards and medals. It’s a webcomic. Creative license invoked.
Uh, Max, hate to break it to you, but you’re a high-ranking military official that regularly deals with local alien issues (Sciona, as the most recent). Also, you are the most powerful super on the planet, aforesaid planet having just made official first contact with an alien species.
So, space politics? TOTALLY in your job description. Or if it isn’t, it should be!
Dealing with alien threats is not the same thing as dealing with alien politics
Politics is something Ari does, Maxi just ticks off many
Dot: “My name is Princess Angelina Francesca Banana Nana Fo Fesca The Third.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRve-sxetUs
It’s not just the green card application, if you work for the U.S. government in any capacity, military or civilian, the bureaucrats will want to classify you by your ethnicity and skin color. So I wonder how they classify Max. She may have been born a caucasian, but she’s solid gold now.
At least she cannot be a “Gold Digger”…
Not born in Oz.
That is a different comic.
Or if you’re filling out the census. Or applying to college. Or getting a driver’s license. Or going to the doctor. Or the dentist. Or filling out insurance forms…
Dave said there’s no “super registry” but I think you just pointed out that there probably is.
It’s a racial demographic on government paperwork.
America is deeply weird about this particular topic.
But I guess you knew that.
The whole race question or ‘skin color’ question, became important for horrible reasons having to do with enslavement.
But then we (sorta) got over that, and started trying to have civil rights for everybody.
And it turned out we were really bad at civil rights because we couldn’t get local bigots to follow federal rules about civil rights.
So then the federal government started/continued keeping track of people’s ‘race’ so they could tell more easily when local officials were trying to thwart their efforts at extending civil rights,
And after that the information collected for that purpose was found to be getting used *against* people who were of the races that the officials who dealt with them most directly didn’t like,
And then there were efforts to try to ‘level the playing field’ with things like scholarships, loans, and grants available to minority students, home purchasers, or business owners,
And then they had to gather information about the people’s ‘race’ in order to distribute those benefits,
And on and on and on and on. It’ll be another century, probably, before we have really put the wounds of the civil war behind us.
I’ve never really understood why the Confederacy thought they could achieve diplomatic recognition from Britain, given that the British had abolished slavery throughout the Empire, thirty years before and conducted some quite dangerous brinkmanship against slave ships (including American ones) subsequently.
You are one of those who believe the US Civil War was about slavery, aren’t you
As opposed to…? I’ve heard a couple propositions in the past, but given the extent and range of extant documents on both sides saying “it’s about slavery”, I have a hard time giving such theories any more credence than I do to Holocaust deniers and Flat Earthers.
It was about slavery, you walnut.
Am I the only one who hears Lorlara as sounding like a female Strax?
Depends, what does a male Strax sound like?
Like this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HbpOAvfllJc
Oh, thank you, stopped watching a lot of the rebooted Americanized Doctor (specially the “Adventures of Amy Pond, with her alien sidekick, The Doctor”, and Capaldi was the last Doctor, still haven’t had a 14th Doctor yet)
Is it even legal for supers who can fly to drink? Like, you can’t drink and operate a car, boat or aircraft… but what if you *are* the aircraft?
It’s not illegal to drink and walk, is it?
Well said. I’d just consider it “public intoxication” that happens to take place in the air.
Or more than likely, the living room window of someone’s apartment you crashed into.
Not necessarily a penthouse, but maybe a deluxe apartment in the sky.
That reminds me of this skit of the Flash getting stopped by a cop for speeding and getting a speeding ticket. Even though he was on foot. Jersey cops don’t give no warnings.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4aMWSl1SX0
Umm, what did he us to record Flush’s speed? That over-priced coffee cup? o_O
His imagination just like most of the rest use.
Those radar guns are just props after all.
Not exactly laboratory grade or qualified equipment.
/sarcasm … or is it?
Can you walk at fifty times the speed of sound, while crossing commerical air traffic lanes?
Being drunk and able to fly opens up an entire new universe of possible bad decisions.
Probably starting with staring in through 30th floor windows at soon-to-be-traumatized couples who were just minding their own business and innocently boinking.
That’s why curtains, were invented.
They’d better be lead-lined, and made out of Kryptonite just to be on the safe side
Technically, we don’t even know that she can get drunk. Maybe she just drinks because she likes the taste.
Is it also sterile?
Why do I think of Madeline Kahn from Clue speaking in a German accent when I see Lorlana speak?
She speaks in a German accent, in Blazing Saddles!
Interesting… If I followed the Alari naming conventions, Loralara has essentially declared herself as part of Deus’s “house”…
It was a “Dub step” night club, and at the volume they were playing, it definitely blasting!
Acrually laughed at panel 2. Great job.
Archon has a tactical lawyer section correct?
The length of the name wont be an issue on the greencard I expect.
In Austria academic titles are pretty useful, so I sent in my graduation document to my health insurance after finishing my PhD. I expected they’d just write “Dr. Firstname Lastname”, instead they used the full form of all degrees. So now I know that they can fit a five line name on the card. (My full first name is also bit long.)
Thank God I graduated before the masters degree was split into bachelor+master, or they might have needed another line.