Grrl Power #846 – City planning
On the one hand, Deus may well be a great manipulator. On the other hand, someone who yells the phrase “artful subtlety” in the middle of a classy restaurant might not be the best judge of such things.
If Lorlara does win employee of the month with behavior like that, it’s going to create an escalation. The next time we see Deus, he might be riding on a palanquin teamed by a bunch of women that look like they’re taking time off between taping American Gladiator episodes. I’m not saying that might not happen anyway. It’s just more likely that one of his other PA’s might sign him up for “Super Rich Person UBER.”
Yeah, I know, Deus never said that Lorlara was his new PA. I guess Maxima inferred it, or there’s some business getting done in between pages.
“The House Archs” BTW, is some shit I made up, because I didn’t think there was a word that meant “patriarch and/or matriarch” so in Alar they’re just called “Archs.”
And if all the house leadership dressed up in riot gear and delivered warrants, they could be called “Arch-SWAT.” Hah hah, tip your waitress, etc.
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Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like!
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She’s definitely got miniboss potential. Maybe the end of the first level.
Meet the old school.
Also, I wonder how they (The Alari) will react when they realize nerd Sydney nuked their planet-crushing foes no sweat at all.
With the mystic Booga Balls of legend. If only they could kill her and get ahold of those….
But when and how will they learn about that?
So far, the only knowledge Maxima and Arc-Swat have is Sydney’s story. I don’t think she even has a photo of one of those titans going down.
And those titans are quite likely constructs. Nothing more than walking superweapons that are able to adapt to threats.
And besides, letting Deus or the Alari know about Sydney’s little episode is probably not on the itinerary. They want to keep her power levels and more ‘special’ powers a secret after all.
eh, easy enough to write in an explanation. They left behind scouts/satellites to watch for the return of their foe. These drone satellites detect the giant ship, turn on, and observe the battle, following the heat signatures of combat observing Sidney blasting them to bits.
scenario:
Upon retreating Alari military leaves behind stealth satellites to watch for enemy activity. One picks up the return of the continent sized ship, immediately picks up a blast on the surface, possibly tracing to find a portal on the surface if the satellite has a zoom function. Not long after a small glowing blue sphere can be seen ascending from the atmosphere passing the unknown enemy ship, the sphere they may zoom in to find has a single petite occupant with glowing orbs about them. The sphere turns around, at which time the enemy ship deploys fighters. The satellite sees the battle, the unknown combatant decimating a thousand or more fighters before returning to the planet’s surface, making a direct line for the gargantuan entity rather than hiding. Satellite sees the battle, back and forth of energy, before seeing the small unknown alien entity being the victor; possibly against an enemy their own armies never even harmed. The satellite then detects three more gargantuan enemies, a brief battle resulting in one potentially down but the small alien entity forced to retreat. The enemy suspiciously goes all out bombarding the planet with city destroying level blasts which the blue sphere shielded alien could potentially (depending on how well the satellite can zoom in), be seen dodging those blasts.
Now the big kicker, they detect the famous/infamous Cora’s ship showing up and deploying their own observation drones at the same time the small alien entity impossibly opens an Aetherian causeway to leave the planet.
At this point the Alari don’t have satellite reports, however someone among their numbers casually observing space-tube sees the video of Sidney at Fracture station eating Gratz; or else the colony ship is alerted to the new development by their military and then they later see Sidney on Earth news or in person and put it together.
If/when they find out Maxima downed a Fel craft. well, I obviously wouldn’t know where it would go from there, but the potential is there in such revelations.
I pretty much suspect Deus already KNOWS hat Sydney did on that Alari world. If he didn’t know when it happened, he likely learned about it during the two months that Sydney was missing…
Deus perceives all – that’s his super power
When it happened was after that two months. He didn’t jump forward in time when he gated, only Sydney & the rest of the Archon team did that. It’s not a function of the gates, it’s a function of Sciona’s gate going off without full targetting.
simple Syd will obviously be in the group that goes to Deus’s country and there she will bump into the Alari leadership (good odds) find out that the Alari Syd help will be related to them. that will get her invited into the ship where they will be talking about the squids and Syd will drop some off handed comment correcting some misinformation
she’ll get asked how she could know that yada yada her mouth gets ahead of her and she spills the beans on what happened.
Well, Sydney was sweating at least a little back on the Alari homeworld. After all, she took a minor wound in her side, her glasses were broken & she had to figure out what needed more leveling up with her orbs. Although to be fair & honest, Sydney gave far more than she got.
Funny… I remember her as spending the two pips she got for killing the two Colossi and getting out before the figured out the teleport-trick and killed her. Just doesn’t sound like “no sweat” somehow.
Heck, she didn’t even pop up behind one and go “Badgers”!
“Also, I wonder how they (The Alari) will react when they realize nerd Sydney nuked their planet-crushing foes no sweat at all.”
I wouldnt say she did it ‘no sweat at all.’ She almost died multiple times and she realizes if she kept the fight up she probably WOULD die if the squidwards upped their game (since their weapons already are the only things to even tax Sydney’s shield)
But in any case, the Alari would probably be impressed by her. Or at least some Houses would be. Other Houses might be impressed that she took and saved Alari refugees, while other Houses would consider her empathy to be a sign of weakness. The Alari form different houses with different viewpoints – they are not a monolithic culture nor do they have a monolithic worldview, as far as I’ve seen so far in the comic (could be wrong but so far they arent, despite Dabber’s assertion, which strikes me as an unfair and generalized stereotype. For example, even in Nazi Germany, there were people like Oskar Schindler.
Sydney’s shield has been penetrated before.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-161-cooldown/
Where? There is no indication that her shield didn’t block everything. Those bullet holes and such are shown already on the block a couple pages beforehand and she even remarks on how Max wasn’t able to get through the shield.
Um… no it hasnt been penetrated before. The whole point of the link that you just provided was Maxima’s blast did not penetrate the shield, even when her blast crystalized the area just outside of it Sydney and the cement block and everything within the shield were completely unphased.
The only time in the entire comic that Sydney’s shield has even been at the brink of being penetrated was the squidward blast, which apparently put so much stress on the shield that it turned red and started beeping. Basically a warning ‘shield at maximum stress levels.’
When the shield was over extended. It could probably shrug off a lot higher energy levels at normal dimensions. Probably inverse square or cube levels more, 4 to 8 times as much incoming energy.
Possibly. I try to not make assumptions too much, but you definitely have a point that the size of the shield could have something to do with how powerful it is.
True. It may even be that a larger shield can handle more energy than a small shield because it has more surface area to dissipate incipient energy. All we can say is that it struggled when it was that particular size and got hit by that blast.
This is part of the reason I love Dabbler’s Science Corners. Because then DaveB gives exact information even if it hasnt entirely been explained in the comic itself yet. :)
Is Maxima looking at her boobs in panel 4?
The Alari have some mystical talent. It wouldn’t surprise me if they integrated succubus hypno-boobs into their genome.
I think it’s more a case of “in your face, much?”
Might be lower. Notice the right arm is down there and she had been holding a dagger. Likely in the course of her exposition she stabbed the table.
That was something that jumped out at me, too. And, her line of sight DOES seem aligned with what must be impressive cleavage in motion. It’s hard for anyone of any gender or orientation to not admire magnificent cleavage on a highly animated & excited owner. It’s probably even a developed ability in Alari.
My second thought was: Max has been exposed to Dabbler for so long at this point that maybe Max is developing an appreciation, if not an affiliation.
Which lead to my third thought: Dabbler potentially could be a Secret Weapon against Lorlara. As as passionate as Lorlara seems to be about … well, everything, I’d love to see the scenario play out where Dabbs tries to seduce her. Might even challenge Dabbler to wear Lorlara out.
No. It’s not even a question if Lorlara would. She will obviously sleep with anyone if motivated properly, and Dabbler will not ail to find proper motivation.
@DaveB — Please give consideration to this possible scenario. First, I don’t think we see Dabbler seduce enough people (as opposed to teasing that never plays out on-panel). Second, The Rule Of Funny may apply in the future to derail Lorlara at a convenient plot turn. Just a thought.
Your penultimate paragraph reads to me as an attempted slight against Lorlara’s character to me, though it’s true of everybody. What differs is what motivation that requires, and how enthusiastic we are about it given the best possible motivation.
We have seen Dabbler fail to find proper motivation before. She’s persistent, but she’s not omnipotent. She may act like she thinks she is sometimes, but that’s just overconfidence. (I’m thinking specifically re: Dabbler and Maxima here.)
I saw this look as more of a “Holy shit, you’re right” look regarding what Lorlara was saying about her superiors dancing to Deus’ symphony.
She kinda has no choice… I mean, they’re right THERE!!
Something worth noting – many people are not obsessed with boobs.
I notice that this is a common postion among women, and gay men, for example. And many hetero men lose that obsession once they leave their teens – although it may be replaced by a liking for derrieres.
So, I did not consider that Maxima was focused upon Lorlara’s mammaries. Like Andrew, I read her look as thinking deeply about what has been said to her.
Yeah. I mean, I think it’s hard not to at least glance at them when they’re right there, regardless of orientation, I’d wager.
There was a study that one of the first thing a man does on meeting a strange woman is look at her boobs. The same study showed that one of the first thing a woman does when meeting a strange woman is to look at her boobs. Mammaries are a sign of sexual maturity in humans and the ole lizard brain wants to know the biological status of any human it meets, for any number of reasons, be it sexual interest or to evaluate a potential rival.
Sophia is probably thinking, “Holy Crap! Well the hair colour is not real, so maybe those things aren’t either”
Actually, can recall reading somewhere, that she was wondering when they were going to fall out
Plus, they didn’t like each other and Blondie just parked her plastic arse at Sophia’s table without asking
When they did the homage to this picture on “Modern Family”, nearly did a spit-take.
Glad I’m not the only one who noticed that.
I would suggest Primarch, or perhaps Exarch?
Lorlara definitely feels like someone who could benefit from learning how to relax, if only a little bit.
If he calls them Primach he’s gonna get sued by Games Workshop.
I doubt it, but even if they did, I don’t think they could win. But I suppose the mere threat of a lawsuit from a large company against a single individual is enough of a risk to not go that route.
No, SmugD will convince GW it is in their best interest to sell their entire company to him, to avoid any unpleasant ‘accidents’ happening, hypothetically of course *verbal wink*
He probably won’t need to resort to threats or illegal actions. The supercapitalist Deus almost always get what he want with his superior skills. It would be interesting to see him fail for a change to be honest.
I am pretty sure that Lorlara’s behaviour is being considered an HR failure.
Since ther eis a running gag that not even the God Emperor could, if he proved who he was, avoid being sued by GW for claiming to be the God Emperor, I would LOVE to read that ^^
Okay…
Ever heard of a little book ‘Spots the Space <marine: In defense of the Fiddler'?
The book that Amazon recalled the electronic version of from the Kindle of everyone who had bought it?
Going after the woman who wrote the book…
It's actually a pretty decent book…
(but I prefer her 'Dreamhealers' series which is a sci-fi slice of life story)
Yeah, a single person can fight them, with a bit of support from their audience and certain non-profit organisations.
Depends on how widely extended Games Workshop’s use of ‘Primarch’ is.
Trademarks tend to be limited in scope and not universal. It’s extremely expensive and difficult to defend a trademark that’s universal in scope, and if you fail to defend it successfully, you can lose the ENTIRE trademark.
Games Workshop is a British manufacturer of british wargames, such as Warhammer 40k. Their trademark on ‘Primarch’ likely extends only insofar as games, game paraphrenalia, and maybe certain media goes. I’m not sure that it will cover comics, especially of a non-role playing comic genre. I’d have to look that up in the USPTO database and I don’t feel like spending the money to do that search for an internet forum discussion :).
Oh wait, if you mean could DEUS let the Alari call him Primarch? Then yes. He can. The trademark protection would not cover that. Or at least it would be a really hard sell to try to claim it does, and if they lose that lawsuit, they could risk losing the trademark entirely.
Primarch specfically refers to specific characters and lore in the 40k universe the characters and lore surrounding them are trademarked the word is not espcially as primarch was historically used long before GW used it. therefore anyone can use the word so long as they are not directly copying the characters or the lore
A word can still be trademarked if it was used in common language beforehand, but there are a lot of conditions on that. For example, Apple can be trademarked, even though apples were used before Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak were a sparkle in their parents eyes.
Historical context alone is not always enough to attack a trademark. Context is usually required as well. If someone else made a company called Apple brand oatmeal, and the symbol of the oatmeal brand was a apple and a smiling kid eating it, that would be fine. Apple would not be able to successfully sue.
If someone made a home entertainment system, however, and called the company Apple, then Apple would likely be able to successfully sue because it would create brand confusion, since Apple’s trademarks includes entertainment and home entertainment electronics.
You know that Apple was sued, and had to settle, right?
By the remaining members of the Beatles, owners of Apple Records
Yes. Because in that case, Apple Records had a trademark over an area which Apple had encroached upon.
To be honest, based on other cases that I’ve seen, they actually probably would have won, since they could have argued that there was a minimal chance of brand confusion – computers vs music, which at the time was not nearly as intertwined as it is today (the lawsuit took ten years as it was, from 1979 to 1989, long before the iPod was created in 2001), but it was less costly to just settle.
Um, there were at least two Apple v. Apple cases.
The *first* time, you’re possibly right, depending on the court room involved. Apple’s biggest difficulty for that case was educating the court on exactly what a computer was, and how it wasn’t synonymous with music. I suspect what took ten years was attempting to educate the court and failing, thus the need to settle.
The second time, however, when Apple opened the Apple Music Store… That one was a different story. I don’t know what Apple Computer Co was thinking there.
Lurker was clearly talking about the 1979-1989 case, where Apple Computer Inc settled, not the 2003 case, where Apple Computer Inc WON and the judge said that there was no trademark infringement.
Even when it’s ‘close-ish’ in context, it’s risky to get too sue-happy. Case in point:
McDonalds lost is trademark for ‘Big Mac’ in the European Union because they were overzealous in protecting it. They sued a European restaurant chain called Supermacs, claiming it was too close to Big Mac. The judge was so against McDonald’s argument, claiming McDonalds had not proved genuine use of the Big Mac trademark in this case, that McDonalds lost all use of the trademark ‘Big Mac’ in the entirety of the EU.
Now if you want, you can start a restaurant in the EU, call your burger a Big Mac, and McDonalds can’t do anything about it.
True story.
The Mac (or Mc) prefix for a name is a common one in both Ireland and Scotland, and among their worldwide diaspora. It just means “son of” in Irish/Gaelic. MacDonalds were trying to own the prefix, as if it were a made up word.
An Irish man called MacDonagh owned Supermac (which was his childhood nickname) and took them on. And they lost everything.
It also didn’t help their case when the McDonald, of clan McDonald, who owns a restaurant/ inn
called McDonald’s that it been running since at least the 1800s, weighed in on the side of the local Businesses That the McDonalds Corp.had been leaning on. (It wasn’t just supermacs)
Also, another example:
Alari Prime – DaveB is allowed to use that as a name, even though it’s similar to the name of a world also mentioned in both Star Wars and Warhammer 40k (Alaris Prime in Star Wars, and Alaric Prime in Warhammer 40k). Even though the names are similar, they are too far removed in context in US law (and, at least in EU law, in genuine use) to be a successful lawsuit. There’s also a company called Alari Design which makes handmade jewelry in California. They would not be able to sue either – too far in context. People will generally understand that when DaveB says Alari Prime, in respect to the story being told here, he is not talking about jewelry manufacturers.
Where exactly, I did a quick and dirty search and found no references to Primarch outside of GW’s 40K
Found a copyright for Primarch (GW squished a kickstarter), so it is an IP; but no trademark for Primarch so the basic word is available for use as long as that use does not infringe the IP
Mass Effect – a Primarch is the leader of a Stellar Cluster, and the Promarch of Palavan is the leader of the Turian Hierarchy as a whole.
Or Final Fantasy XIII (leader of The Sanctum)?
It’s a bad word, anyway – mixing Latin and Greek. “Protoarch” would be the correct word.
Proto has taken on a completely different meaning… the thing that came before, or an early version of.
Or just Archon, which is what matriarch and patriarch are ultimately derived from in the first place.
And which, interestingly enough, is the name of the organization the good guys work for… even if they pronounce it differently. Make you wonder, doesn’t it?
…should’a read the commentary BEFORE the comments. Dave did it deliberately…
Triarch, or triumvir, surely – since there are 3 of them?
Just not ‘Triad’ :P
Well I have to say she makes a good point and I’m betting that the only thing that would make her happier than serving Deus as is if he were to pick her as a consort
Except that she probably only has Alari homeworld politics to compare it with. It may be that their version of ‘subtle’ is to stab someone with a dagger isntead of going nuts with an axe…
I’m sure they can be more subtle. Like slipping poison into their opponents drink or simple hacks that goes unnoticed until 3 Days Later causes a massive heart failure event.
It might just be the grain of the wood behind her and the brush on top, but my headcanon is that she’s fluttering her wings excitedly while giving this speech.
Hmm… Does this mean Deus has had a conversation with the Arch on Archon?
Oops – not sure why this was turned into as reply instead of a new / separate comment.
Then again, commenting is frequently buggy on mobile
Well, well, well. No Magic Portal for colonists. No Blood Mages. Humble FTL.
Innnnnterrrrestinnnnng.
And now I wonder where the Sqidwards’ are, which colony world have they visited?
They visited and destroyed the Alari homeworld, not a colony.
Which is why I’m wondering about the Colony Worlds.
it would all depend why squids went after the Alari home world in the first place. they’d only go after the colonies if they wanted to wipe out the Alari race but if they only wanted to clear a section of space they wouldn’t care about the colonies much.
at this point i half expect Desu to be some secret member of that squid race and he sent they to the Alari homeworld
The clearing of a section of space makes awful sense. Vogons, anyone?
Yes! Have you heard SmugD recite poetry?
Just say she is an alien and has yet to learn earth culture…. Because the important part about secretly manipulating people is for it to be a secret! You can hint and use misdirection, but it is rude to our right state that you are doing it.
Also it ruins the mood of any possible attempts at wooing your date. Just because the last few attempts did not work it does not mean that this attempt will not work out.
I’m starting to think that Lorlara is faking. The Alari are an Imperialist Families culture. There is NO way someone this mouthy about her superior’s secrets survived til adulthood in that culture.
OK, maybe one way… If she’s the child of important people and this is the manifestation of an Alari mental disability… And that means she’s going to be a poor yardstick by which to measure the Arch Families.
Either way, Maxima seems to consider her amusing. Though in panel 4, she seems to be wondering if Lorlara is going to smack her in the face with her boobs… Personally, I’d have been watching the dagger, but then my skin hasn’t been made of golden metal for years.
Maxima seems slight off put by the amount of cleavage in her face in panel 4.
Probably the wobble!
VOTE
Why? The good stuff was parked behind a paywall.
So, how does this work? Lorlara states her allegiances, then goes on to announce that she has abandoned them? Or is she conferring status on Deus, by announcing her parents’ allegiance, then identifying HER allegiance.
More towards the latter, I would suspect, but not necessarily to the point of deliberate emphasis. The Alari don’t seem to ‘do’ surnames in the same way as most Earth cultures; instead they have a personal name and a house allegiance. She had to specify the allegiances of her forebears to distinguish them from any other Alari with the same personal name, and had she still been aligned to her previous House she would have stated her name accordingly.
If I’ve got this right:
Alar Kanthis ora Kanthis zar Morrundis ora Bithlura zar Liglalathane ora Zetch zvar Hannor ora Deus xe Lorlara
translates as:
I am an Alar of Kanthis; of House Kanthis, my (mother/grandmother/great-grandmother) was Morrundis; of House Bithlura, my (mother/grandmother) was Liglalathane; of House Zetch, my father was Hannor; of House Deus, I am Lorlara.
The structure implies that the first Kanthis is not a House in the same way as the later ora references. It could be a parallel to caste, nationality, or ethnicity among Humans, and as such potentially independent of which House the individual Alar owes their allegiance.
Without asking an Alari, I don’t know whether the recounting traces back linearly or includes both sides of the most recent generation. And that’s assuming the Alari have a two-partner reproductive system similar to Humans, rather than all three of the named individuals being parents to xe Lorlara. A three-parent biology might actually fit the linguistics better; if zar denotes two parents who only contributed genes while zvar denotes the parent who also contributed gestation space, this would explain the lack of generational markers in the genealogy as all would be of the same generation.
Pfffft! Max looked right into her cleavage! Those must be impressive jugs to pull that off. Dabbler is that you?
Deus doesn’t deny it. Subtle!
Oh yes, SmugD needs to keep her around, so Maxi can find out all his shitty deals
I feel like no matter how many times Deus tries to explain how modern Earth politics work to her, she’s just going to assume it’s all part of the game and ignore him.
Pray that’s she’s never introduced to games like Risk or Sid Meier’s Civilization.
Civilization would be perfect. She’d be trapped forever.
Lorlara vs. Sciona-who’s your money on!?
Sciona, hands down. Lorlara lacks focus. Sciona is an Alari of focus, commitment and sheer fucking will.
Much as i like Lorlana’s campiness and over the top attitude, Sciona would win a confrontation any day of the week. Because, among other reasons, Sciona knows how to be subtle. Sometimes.
It should be obvious Sciona is a much higher rank than Lorlara. I don’t think she’s an Arch yet, but…
Do Alari wings somehow prevent lower backpain? For Lorlara’s sake, I hope they do.
In panel 1, “What does that have to do…” could have been replaced by “None of those names meant anything to me. Why should I been impressed?” Mind you, that might have taken the conversation in another, although similar, direction.
I love that Deus seems to be regretting bringing her along more and more as the dinner goes on. She also is making it relatively easy for Maxima to get the upper hand in the conversation while at the same time annoying her enough to not endear herself to Max for that…I wonder just how long a talk Deus is going to have with his new employee after this, lol.
I’m not clear that Deus is regretting Lorlara’s presence.
He decided to bring her, knowing that she would act precisely like this. We have seen her before, going massively over the top.
I suspect he likes the way she acts. He finds her funny, and enjoys her weird form of hero worship.
He is happy to let her rant, because the information she is “leaking” is what he wants Maxima and her bosses to know. He is pretending not to want this, to be embarrassed, BUT – did you notice that he has not sent her home?
Almost certainly, he is using her to create a smoke-screen for what he is really doing.
Deus doesn’t mind – he’s the kind of candor. All he tries to do is keep the directly criminal aspects of his plans out of plain sight.
I think it’s making him seem rather endearing that he has to put up with someone who’s so unaccustomed to normal human interactions. Maxima probably knows what that’s like after dealing with Sydney for a few minutes. She was on rocking back and forth in a crouched position after what happened with Leon upon their initial meeting and ‘the reset via head to desk’
Her…outbursts seem to elicit facial expressions and small body language hints that things are not going as planned or at least embarrassment. That’s why I say regret. Of course, I could be wrong and he’s only acting that way to lead Maxima on, which I wouldn’t put past him, but I’m actually leaning more toward at least a twinge of regret bringing her along.
Man, I like Lolara, but holy cow, she has the subtlety of a rampaging hippo and needs to learn how to use her ‘inside voice’. Kind of makes me wonder if ‘melodramatic villianry’ isn’t one of their racial traits or something.
Maybe it’s a compulsory class the Military personnel take in boot camp.
In a couple of pages, we need to hear Max say, “Lorlara, let me introduce you to one of our newest recruits, Sydney Scoville.”
“Oh, are you one of Alari that landed over in Africa? Oh, where are my manners?” [ Suddenly sticks out her hand ] “I’m the Mightai Halo!” The speed of Sydney’s gesture startles Lorlara, who retracts from the outstretched hand. [To Max] “She seems a little high-strung.”
Anyone notice that Deus’ clothing changes? Green suit, khaki shirt and green tie in frame 3, black shirt, purple tie and no jacket in frame 7.
Panel 3 is a flashback to inside the Alari ship. Panel 7 is the present, in the restaurant.
Alright Dave, I’ll admit, your Arch-SWAT line in the commentary made me laugh out loud.
I love the way Lorlara is totally playing Deus. Like the Court Jesters of Medieval France.. loud, brazen, totally ignored at critical meetings and discussions, getting to know every secret, and then dropping a single word or name at the right time to get the nobles to do exactly what the jester wants.
Remember the Alari have been Imperialists for a long time. And even though hated by everyone around them they still obviously had lots of wealth and control. They are experts at manipulation. They will not underestimate Deus either in his abilities, or his usefulness as a tool for them. And Lorlara is making sure with her little shows that Deus will underestimate the Alari.
you can’t think of space faring races that way
the way we see “wealth” on our planetary scale means very little once you have access to the resources of one or more solar system. they could have all the “wealth” in the world without ever interacting with other intelligent races. the very idea of economics as we understand them don’t work in interplanetary scale let alone on intergalactic.
+1.
We won’t get off this planet until we — the world — has a single government and a complete absence of civil war: not even insurrections.
Required anthem: “We are one”.
Whut? We’ve gotten off this world multiple times both as individual nations and as group efforts between cooperating nations. Why would we ever have to have a single government to accomplish that? Even private industries are doing it these days. If planetary unity was the requirement, we’re gonna be stuck on earth for a long time – different countries can barely keep from warring along their borders let alone even uniting into a world government. The European Union has multiple states considering breaking off right now, and one already has. Individual nations are rife with such absurd levels of individual strife, that the people in them haven’t known peace for decades. There are cultures on this planet so utterly disparate from each other, it could take hundreds if not thousands of years for them to change enough to see eye to eye.
I appreciate your vision, but it isn’t gonna happen anytime soon, and that’s not me being pessimistic, it’s realism about the human condition. Space travel, however disconnected people are from one another, is happening right now, and I take no small amount of pleasure in that. If humans set up a colony on Mars during my natural life span, which I suspect we will, I’ll be as happy as a bug in a rug.
Let me put it this way, an analogy. I used to leave home every morning, and returned in the mid-afternoon. Except on week-ends. Then I grew up, and I still used to leave home in the morning, and return in the mid- or late afternoon. But did I leave town? Why, yes! Several times I amassed all my financial resources, climbed in my car, and headed for places unknown, where I would work and play. But I always returned, often wealthier.
Running around the block is not leaving home. Orbiting the planet is not “getting off this world”. Leaving home is really very expensive, and not many people can afford it. Leaving home means packing up all your worldly, then finding passage, and arriving in a far distant place, and finally investing in a new home. Let’s just put it at tens of thousands of dollars, without worrying over tiddly details or exact numbers.
Getting off this planet means more than sending a 3-person crew to the Moon. Mars sounds good. Let’s go to Mars. This is a one-way trip of somewhere between 80 million and 380 million kilometers. One way only, because — unlike Sydney to Perth — you’ll never come back. When I travel to Sydney from Perth, I can be sure the environment will be friendly. When you travel to Mars from Earth, I can guarantee the environment will be highly unfriendly on the best possible day, totally hostile on all other days.
Apart from anything else, Mars has no magnetosphere, nothing to shelter you from solar and cosmic rays. You will huddle inside, under a protective dome, and pray an asteroid does not hit it: there’s no Moon to deflect them. Who’s going to pay the millions of dollars to leave Earth forever?
Do I really need to go on? We have not yet decided to visit an “Earthlike” planet. It seems these are uncovered every 3rd day. Except they’re not really Earthlike. And, when we do find one, it is likely to be somewhere between 80 million and 230 million LIGHTYEARS away… And it probably will already have bilaterally symmetric highly intelligent bipedal beings running around…
Space travel hasn’t even started on (off?) this lonely blue speck, and it will be a very long time.
I think I remember reading that NASA had been planning the launch of automated ships and robots which, once they land on Mars, would start essentially pumping out gases in order to create a greenhouse effect over a century or so, which in the case of Mars would actually be beneficial to us. But then they concluded it was impossible with today’s capabilities, until some Harvard scientists explained how it could be done, even starting with today’s technology. Plus apparently SpaceX has plans on terraforming Mars also, and I won’t put ANYTHING past Elon Musk’s capabilities.
It’s an interesting read, at least.
https://www.teslarati.com/terraforming-mars-is-still-possible-despite-nasa-scientists/
Interesting – sounds like laying down a thin layer of aerogel to create mini greenhouses, which would be quite fragile without a protective structure. Which could just be a traditional greenhouse, so I’m not sure what the aerogel is really doing for you. Gotta start somewhere though.
The aerogel gets you low heat conduction, so that what you gain from retained radiation you don’t lose to the wind. It’s also much lower density than just about any other solid, which may be relevant if the plan is to ship from Earth rather than manufacture in situ.
sadly any form of transforming is a pipe dream period.
its talked about because it makes good new and plays to the people who only understanding of space comes from sci fi. the problem is you could send the 100s of years to build a earth like atmosphere (the 100 mark wasn’t for a earth like atmosphere that would only get you one you don’t need a complete space suit for.) only for a single solar flair to strip 90% of that away in one hit.
even if transforming could work it still won’t overcome the larger problem of the low gravity. the human body was “designed” to live in the one g of earth not the .3333 g of mars. any child born on mars will be horribly disfigured ( their bodies will look stretched and thin) with bones like Styrofoam and weak hearts. there is no way to fix that problem, no magic pills that make their bones hearths stronger or stop any of the other growth defects that would happen.
we are no where near ready to colonize mars, the homo sapien species may never be able to colonize mars. it would be easier to build a new species form scratch then then to make mars suited to house human life. and people like inbred uneducated snake oil sales man Musk are hurting real science even time he opens his mouth.
(FYI Musk has never invented anything the only thing he does it use his families blood diamond money to buy up existing companies and slap his name on them. he literally sued the real founder of Tesla motors to keep him quit so he could pretend to be the driving force behind the company)
The “stretched thin” thing doesn’t scan. We don’t actually know what would happen during gestation, but a human baby growing up on mars would have little in the way of problems. Crawling will not result in the proper lower back curvature to stand upright under earth gravity, but the adult won’t have to.
They will have to figure out what changes to make, but there will be plenty of years for that.
Humans could easily make the place colonizable, and import lots of highly productive young adults to populate the place. Even older adults, if they can safely make the trip, will probably live longer and more comfortably under reduced gravity than they would have on Earth.
Yeah, I’m more or less with you on foetal and infantile development. However, there’s much more to worry about.
As I pointed out to Sigurther above, “Apart from anything else, Mars has no magnetosphere, nothing to shelter you from solar and cosmic rays. You will huddle inside, under a protective dome, and pray an asteroid does not hit it: there’s no Moon to deflect them.”
Mars used to have a molten iron core, but it cooled to merely warm and is no longer rotating. Arguably, one of the reasons it cooled was the lack of a planetoid moon, coupled with an intact crust which absolutely prevented anything that looked like tectonic plate movement. Because the crust was intact, there was no way water could find the kilometer-plus pools for oceans — which is why Mars is now essentially a water-free environment. The solid crust was also a major reason there is little vulcanism on Mars.
The lack of a planetoid moon also means there is no gravitic shield to divert asteroids from the Martian surface…
Of course. you could go with Arnie’s “Total Recall”, it’s a really good romp.
Persoanlly, I feel Venus is a better choice, but we need to learn how to move a Theia into a colliding orbit. And figure how to reheat its iron core…
“Mars used to have a molten iron core, but it cooled to merely warm and is no longer rotating”
We could try jump starting it like in the movie “The Core” :)
Btw Venus is actually a HORRIBLE choice. It’s literally a death planet. You can’t even go to the surface without being crushed by the pressure, if you’re not first eroded into constituent molecules by the acidic atmosphere. The only theory on colonizing Venus that MIGHT work would be some sort of ‘floating cities’ in the upper atmosphere of Venus where it’s not as toxic or high pressure. That’s why people tend to either look at Mars or one of Jupiter’s moons as the best chance of extraplanetary colonization for humans.
Although if you like SciFi stuff, play a game called Space 1889 – it’s based on the 19th century beliefs on the different planets’ habitability (plus the existence of Aether in space), and in that game, Venus is basically a jungle planet :)
But in real life, the majority of probes to Venus as landers tend to fail, and when they don’t fail, they usually are crushed or corrode within minutes of landing (the Venera and Vega probes). Most of the actual information we have on Venus’s surface is from orbiters, like Magellan in 1989.
“It’s literally a death planet” – like these ones? Or more like this one I think.
Nonono :) I don’t mean a death planet in that it can kill man. I mean a death planet in that it kills everything, including probably most microbes. You’d have to have a VERY hardy extremophile to survive on Venus.
The surface of Venus is 880 Farenheit. It rains sulfuric acid, and the atmosphere is a THICK (42 miles thick), crushing, incredibly dense fog of acid as well. Its atmosphere traps all the heat from the sun, and it’s getting hotter every year, and it spin is slowing down even more than its already slow spin is rotating.
Imagine being at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean with its high pressure. Without a submarine. Now imagine the ocean is made of acid that can eat away titanium in minutes. Also the acid is boiling at almost 900 degrees.
That’s Venus :).
The Deathworlder planets? That’s a picnic in comparison :)
That’s a pretty pessimistic and hopeless view, not to mention barely based in actual science. I’m no extrasolar biologist, but countless well educated people have suggested and are working on the ability to live on other planets, not only for the health of our own planet, but for the health of the species in general. There will come a tipping point in history when Earth simply can’t sustain the needs of the human species without utterly surrendering its natural beauty. Colonization of other planets, ideally ones we can’t screw up anymore, is the best alternative. Though Mars’ gravity is lower than Earth’s, there’s nothing to suggest humans couldn’t live there comfortably. We’re amazingly adaptive, and astoundingly adept at coming up with solutions to problems. Cheer up, man, with a doom and gloom outlook like that, you may as well not even nip off to the corner packie for a stout lager. XD
I very much hope that humanity does not develop the ability to colonize other planets before they learn to take care of the one they currently occupy, because I doubt they’d bother with the latter once it’s no longer necessary for their own survival.
I think the best way for humanity TO take care of the planet that they currently occupy is to start colonizing other planets.
Everyone on one planet = diminishing resources, requirement to keep mining the existing resources more
Everyone on mutiple planets alleviates the strain on any one planet.
Think of it like this. You have a huge house, and it’s full of furniture and knickknacks and whatever. You then have to move into a small studio apartment. But you still have all that furniture, knickknacks, etc. The studio apartment is going to be cluttered and very uncomfortable to live in.
Sure, you could get rid of some of the stuff, but that might not be possible (for our purposes of the analogy, the ‘stuff’ is people). So what do you do? How do you make the studio apartment more livable?
Put some stuff in a storage unit. Or get a bigger apartment or house with more rooms.
And thats the analogy for colonizing other planets in order to help Earth. We’re not a virus and it takes a long time for humanity to reach a population size that actually would cause a problem regarding stuff like overpopulation or pollution, and as soon as that pressure is released, the Earth seems to be extremely resilient. Dolphins in the Venice canals and whatnot.
Oh Pander no no no no no… It did take humanity a long time, but we reached that several decades ago, especially with the pollution. We humans produce Carbon Dioxide by the mega-tonne every year from our power stations and infernal combustion engines. We produce Methane in endless quantities from all the cattle we breed and eat. We use our oceans as rubbish dumps, chiefly for plastic. Do you know the “environmental fate” of most plastic? I’ll tell you: under UV light and/or in the presence of chlorine, the molecules of plastic dissociate from each other, eventually leaving only little single molecules as nano-particle poisons. But on the way the plastic also kills birds and fish and turtles in various horrible ways. No government in the world has legislated mandatory use of recyclable plastic regardless of the end use — and if any do do this, it will still be too late. On the other hand, we’re so busy raping the seas for fish products it may not matter.
How many humans are on this planet? At 0:19 WAST on Monday 8 June 2020 we had approximately 7,789,773,000 souls on board. Yeah, no worries cobber, we can easy take another milliard, dunno if they want to live in the Simpson but… We’ve already moved to the studio apartment.
Do you want the good news? If we don’t do something productive real soon, Gaia probably will. And I don’t want to be there when She wakes up. Think Covid-19 was bad? It wasn’t. Unavailability of medicines will be bad.
Sorry man, given history, that doesn’t add up in the least, personal anecdotes notwithstanding. Multinational government agencies, groups, and corporations have been coming together for ages for huge projects, space exploration included. While it’s possible being one unified government might help, there’s little to nothing to suggest that individual nations (or even companies, given enough incentive) can’t explore space and colonize other planets. Capitalism is an amazing driving force, surprisingly enough. In suggesting that the only way humans can accomplish a goal is that if we are all singularly aligned in it discounts the accomplishments of individuals and small groups throughout, not to mention coming off as a little Communistic, capital ‘C’. It seems as though you’re pandering pessimism with a label of optimism on it; I guess I just have a little more faith in humanity.
Yes :)
To quote from Star Trek 5:
SYBOK: What you fear …is the unknown. The people of your planet once believed their world was flat. …Columbus proved it was round. They said the sound barrier could never be broken. …It was broken. They said warp speed could not be achieved. The Great Barrier is the ultimate expression of this universal fear. It is an extension of personal fear. Captain Kirk, I so much want your understanding. I want your respect. Are you afraid to hear me out?
OK. Probably my bad. I forgot to mention something extremely important, MONEY.
Going back to Columbus, we see that Ferdinand and Isabella (as the Crown of Castile) provided at least 1,140,000 maravedis for the First Voyage. I cannot find any accurate currency value for the maravedis, the Spanish system was a wonder to behold and a nightmare for accountants. We can get a reasonable estimate from the allowance of 12,000 maravedis per year granted to Columbus by The Crown in circa 1486. I’ll assume that 12,000 maravedis represents, say, Au$50,000, so we multiply by 95 and get Au$4,750,000. That’s not insignificant for circa 1500AD.
From Money we read: “Efforts related to the Apollo project cost the government about US$25.8×10^9 between 1960 and 1973, according to data collected by space nonprofit The Planetary Society. At first glance, that might not sound like much — after all, NASA’s budget today is US$21.5×10^9 for just one year — but, when adjusted for inflation, that number becomes a jaw-dropping US$283.8×10^9, according to Planetary Society calculations. And, when adjusted in terms of gross domestic product, which places the spend in context of the overall economy, that price tag skyrockets to US$641.4×10^9.” I have adjusted the amounts to “Freedom units” so those folks outside the USA can get an idea of the true magnitude.
At this stage, I think it should be fairly clear that getting off our planet is not for the faint of heart. Capitalism is indeed a driving force, and generally represents our best way forward.
Now. Let’s not worry about Earth’s population tipping point atm, let’s instead figure how to terraform Venus. And yes, it is indeed a hell-hole. The reasons for choosing Venus over Mars are 1) it has an atmosphere, and 2) it has a better gravity. We can fairly easily change the atmospheric composition, which leaves only the problem of providing a large moon.
Oh come ooooon! Who needs a moon? We do. We can simply shove a very large asteroid or very minor planet into orbit, or we can just as easily orgainse a Theia collision which, if done properly, will also remove a decently large fraction of the Venusian crust.
So. Capitalism to the rescue. Oops. Capitalism has lots of ways of raising money, but none of them work when two nations are fighting each other. Even small nations. In times of conflict, there is no room for any luxury other than (national) survival. So, we need peace. Equals “no national or provincial conflict taking out infrastructure to make room for arms factories”. Equals “no removal of our finest youth to be sacrificed to the Gods of War”.
Capitalism can indeed raise the necessary, say around US$1×10^18, to move a Theia from the Oort Cloud to a carefully calculated collision with Venus. But everyone on the planet must pull weight. We do not have Dick Seaton, “Blackie” DuQuesne, “Tony” Stark or Deus, regardless of how Elon sees himself.
But it’s still going to take us, what? decades? And that’s only to start reshaping Venus. At the same time we need to sort “warp” drives. Could a “warp” drive actually work inside our Galaxy? It seems even if we head (Galactically) north or south, there are still star clusters and other rubbish like Dark Matter there… And we will need to steer very carefully around the Galactic Center due to Saggitarius A* and any temper tantrums it may be having with its accretion disk.
While I like your post, Mars is definitely an easier place to terraform than Venus, because Venus is a literal deathworld. It’s easier to create an artificial greenhouse effect on Mars and create an atmosphere than fix the atmosphere on Venus. Not to mention Mars is closer to the ‘habitable range’ than Venus is.
The other thing I probably would need to dispute with you was “Capitalism has lots of ways of raising money, but none of them work when two nations are fighting each other. Even small nations.”
Of course capitalism can raise money when two nations are fighting each other. A huge amount of inventions were created during the cold war. Even more inventions were created during WW1 and WW2 and the Civil War.
Lest we forget the rules of acquisition #34. War is good for business.
But wars do also end. Fortunately… Rule of acquisition #35. Peace is good for business. :)
There’s actually some solid analysis that war does not accelerate invention, only the time to market and scale of production. Airplanes are a classic example – most people associate the development of biplanes with WWI, early fighters with WWII, and modern jets and helicopters with more recent conflicts, because that’s where we see them in the photos / news. But tracing the lineage of the underlying tech reveals that in nearly every case, working prototypes existed years before the wars, and it just wasn’t economical yet. Granted the refinement and polish of those designs is a type of invention, but the breakthrough ideas weren’t due to the war effort.
It’s less clear-cut with things not directly tied to war, but tends to hold there as well. NASA for example developed a lot of commercially viable products during the Cold War (and since), which could arguably be part of a war effort, but they also just bought a lot of their solutions from industry (e.g. Tang, Velcro, and the infamous zero-G pens).
Yes, the prototypes had been around for years, there just wasn’t the motivational (or monetary) incentive to do shit with them until the wars
There is an old joke that’s been going around for decades (or at least it feels like it has) about developing something to write in zero-g, two countries spent a shit-load of cash (second one more than the first) to come up with a viable ink pen whereas (you will love this bit gorblimey :D) the Aussies spent less than a dollar and bought a pencil from the corner dairy :P
:)
“It’s less clear-cut with things not directly tied to war, but tends to hold there as well. NASA for example developed a lot of commercially viable products during the Cold War (and since), which could arguably be part of a war effort, but they also just bought a lot of their solutions from industry (e.g. Tang, Velcro, and the infamous zero-G pens).”
Yes but I did not say war causes GOVERNMENTS to be more innovative. Governments, as I’ve said many times, are rarely innovative. :)
I said war can be profitable and spurs on innovation. From private industry. Private industry sees a need, whether it’s a need by the masses or a need by government for a war effort, and they invent something that fits that need. Then after the war is over, the invention often gets a civilian use as well.
It’s sad, that most people — having been forced into an about-face from Carson Napier’s experiences — are unable now to consider any upsides to Venus as a potential colonial venture.
The biggest problem is not the pea-soup atmosphere, it’s the missing moon. One of the Venusian scenarios is that it once had a planetoid moon, formed in the same way as ours was. However, a subsequent hit reversed the Venusian rotation, making it almost tidally locked to the Sun, and causing the moon to fall back into the planet. The atmosphere is a direct result of the solar tidal locking. All we have to do is restore a “proper” rotation speed, along with supplying a replacement moon: the two can be done as one.
Even if a future coalition was to choose Mars over Venus, there is still the major problem of restoring the magnetosphere and breaking the planetary crust. Simply putting an artificial greenhouse will not get the desired result. And a Theia collision will alter the rotation speed unacceptably, unless we can live with a retrograde rotation.
@brichins is mostly right about invention in wartime. In “wartime” capitalism does indeed produce*, but only what is needed to beat off the enemy and preferably win the conflict. If any of that weapons-related technology can be used for peaceful purposes after the hostilities, so much the better: but it’s not essential. On the other hand, if a peace-time invention has a war-time application, it can be developed separately. if it’s needed at all. You are correct in your Rules of Acquisition, except that Rule #35 ranks Rule #34.
* But only if delusional leaders can be dissuaded from interfering in the product assessment and development process. Dear Adolf helped the Allies immeasurably by such shenanigans. At least Josip had the good sense to let his government do its job, most of the time.
And maybe we’d only need US$1×10^16 to move a Theia…
That she thinks Deus is subtle says a LOT about the competency of Alari’s schemers… Thusfar Deus has been shown to be anything but subtle. His “thing” seems to be just straight forward telling everyone what he wants and then everyone trips over themselves trying to figure out what 5D chess move he’s playing while he just directly goes and gets what he wants. Far as I can tell, the only reason he hasn’t been defeated yet is that nobody thinks he actually needs to be stopped.
His bluntness turns out to be deceptively subtle. He not only is direct in terms of what he says he wants, his timing is such that people move into configurations that they could not have predicted previously. That’s what makes him so effective… he can literally tell people what he is going to do, and they believe him, but it allows him to do it anyway.
Arch is correct. Basis and foundation of construction. Weakest and strongest point is the archstone itself. W/it all the rest of the support crumbles.
This is applicable to families too. Be it patriarch or matriarch or both. The arch grows from the keystone to its legs and then can support walls and ceilings…growth.
A family starts somewhere. It can also end there if the family is too reliant on the keystone ie the ARchstone. But the arch itself well that’s just a WAY… (pun intended).
Very perceptive.
DavidB – it is hard to see, linguistically, why either Deus or the Alari would choose to call their leaders “Archs” in English, unless the Alari’s own word for their house rulers have the meaning of being the structural member supporting an opening and they decided due to sheer stubbornness that a literal translation into English made sense for others referring to their rulers rather than, as in common in translation, choosing an existing word in the language being spoken for the leader.
If that isn’t the case, if you want some derivation of archon (which is where all those X+arch leader titles come from) without calling the leaders archons to avoid possibilities of misunderstanding, can we please pretend that either Deus or the Alari are competent and chose to use OLIGARCHS or possibly ETHNARCHS (depending on to which degree the house and family/tribe are intermingled) in English, both of which would seem to fit the political power structure you describe, but Lorlara shortened it due to pronounciation problems or haste?
Deus seems to have enough of a classical education to suggest this, even if the Alari didn’t dig it up from whatever dictionaries and reference works they accessed to get up to speed. :)
Incidentally, the best English term for such leaders might be “prince”, as they are effectively sovereign nobles, their houses their principalities. Since prince used for the rank as leader of a principality is a gender-neutral title, it works for all. E.g. a female merchant prince isn’t called a merchant princess. You only use the prince/princess distinction to indicate gender of members of a royal family.
Well, as I read DaveB’s 4th para, the word “Archs” is implied to be an Alar word, not English. However, the similarity coupled with the apparently plural form of the word does confuse me.
I’m not unhappy with Alar having a word that sounds (or is spelled) like an English word, becuse shit happens and we just have to deal. However, DaveB does have the right to retro this blog and give us the canonical correct Alari version.
About the word “prince”… maybe a better translation of the Alari would be “duke” or “earl”, both of which translate eventiually to “leader”.
Or it’s the closest translation from the Alar word that English can use and still be consistent in the meaning :)
If any conception of “royalty” is involved. I think that better titles would be either Duke or Earl (the two are equivalent) or possibly Count, given that it seems there is no single ruler of Alari. OTOH, something along the lines of “Prince-elector” may be appropriate in Alari terms as they may be in the habit of electing a chair-person at the meetings of the Arches, which must have been at least regularly if not frequently.
I find it pretty amazing that the Alari managed to have a world-spanning empire given the lack of formalized governments. It sort of reminds me a little of Star Trek TNG’s Klingons, except… actually less organized, which is saying something. :)
I have no difficulty in believing the Alari have a very long written history, possibly 400 – 500 millennia. The written Earthican history is maybe 4 millennia. We have a lot of hard work to do.
Formalised governments? The evolution of (peacefully) co-existing fiefdoms sharing a common meta-language will do the trick.
A good example is the evolution of what is now the People’s Republic of China. Starting with the early development of warring petty kingdoms, the big push came with the Han invasion, I can’t be bothered to look up all the dates. The Han dynasty achieved one fundamental intellectual reform, by forcing the universal use and adoption of Hanzi, the Han orthography. They tried to “standardise” the spoken languages, but failed like everybody after them in many different lands. Mandarin is the closest thing to “Standard Chinese” and its adoption is a late development.
For me, the take-away is the universal adoption of a standard orthography. Hanzi is univerally understood in modern China, regardless of your mother tongue. All you need do is write your statement, and anybody can understand it.
Good point in bringing up China as an example of how a civilization can be both extremely ancient but remaining very feudal at the same time (well, at least until the Communists came in).
Very good point :)
And, FWIW, we cannot assume the the Alari have only one language. Earthican history shows that wherever there are two separated communities, they may share a common meta-language but they will develop their own dialects. And those dialects may well be informed by proximity to other meta-languages and dialects thereof.
One that bugged me for years was in reading (and occasionally conversing in) French, I kept finding very strange constructions… I always though of languages other than English as being “perfect”. (I was young and uneducated.) Then I saw the same thing happening in German. And then I discovered Switzerland… “I know better now..”
Just so you’re aware, DaveB, probably the closest you’re going to come to a word that could mean either patriarch OR matriarch is parriarch, but you should be aware that its neutral position between patriarchy and matriarchy is a bit weak, etymologically speaking.
The word patriarch comes from the Greek patria (clan), not the Latin pater (father). However, it is still used to mean a male leader. By contrast, matriarch does come from the Latin mater (mother), and the prefix parri- probably is a cognate of the Latin parus (relative).
Things I gleaned from this comic:
– Lorlara was a member of one of the three houses that own the ship. I couldn’t assume this out the gate, it’s possible that Alar of other bloodlines were hired to man the ship. However, Panel 4 shows her standing at the table behind one of the house lords (I imagine only the leaders sat at the table itself), wearing a uniform that closely matches that of the sitting lord. Those gold elements along the seam seem like rank insignia to me. A lot of assumptions here, but I like where they lead.
– The Alar don’t seem to know who the ‘Squidwards’ are, or why they attacked them (“new and unknown aggressor”). While the Alar seem to be militarily belligerent, they don’t seem like they wouldn’t know who their enemies are. They are a feudal people, so it’s possible that one House recently pissed the Squidwards off, and the other houses are only just now realizing that the Squidwards hold the entire race responsible. Or, the attack could be completely unprovoked. While strange, it wouldn’t be the first time. Maybe someone made a poorly-planned secret treaty?
I wonder… They sent three colony ships to a world not all that close to their own, which has no formal interstellar contact. Did they figure, since Sciona was late reporting, that she’d take the planet for herself and that they could just show up and make her share?
Colony ships, for a race which apparently usually conquers (or tries to) other worlds, are an ODD choice for fleeing your planet… Or even building in the first place. Is colony ship a euphemism for troop transport?
They sent ONE colony ship, run by three houses. Also, I don’t believe the colony ship was intended for Earth, I seem to remember they had some fuel issues, and had to stop here. I think their vessel set out before the ‘Squidwards’ attacked, and are not part of the refugee exodus. You may be confusing this vessel with Cora’s, which was full of Alari refugees, not colonists.
Well, it had been a colony ship. However, in comic #719, Suzie News explicitly terms it as a refugee ship,”… damaged as they fled their homeworld, which was besieged by an unknown agressor.”
And Cora was carrying (IIRC) 37 Alari.
“Is colony ship a euphemism for troop transport?”
There are thoughts that invasions are facilitated through Blood Magic Portals. I have my doubts about that, and dicussed it in the previous comic.
Etymology Today: Patriarch. Although patri- might look related to the Latin pater “father,” it actually comes from the Greek patria “family.” Presumably, it was assumed that such a person would be a man. In any case, patriarch has come to mean the male head of a family or clan, while matriarch is used if the head of a family or clan is female.
So in short: Patriarch actually means Head of the family.
“Lorlara, we’ve been over this. We don’t point out my behind-the-scenes political machinations until Maxima works it out for herself after futilely examining the other options. You’re taking the fun out of my master plan.”
Lorlara: There are OTHERS who DARE try to claim Employee of The Month??? FOOOLSSS!! NONE can match me in this endeavor!! I shall crush these pathetic worms beneath my heel, and their families will prostrate themselves at my feet, begging me to spare their worthless lives! Oh, how glorious shall my VICTORY BE!!!
Deus: (Aside to Max) You know, I always thought I had a bad case of megalomania, but these Alari are really teaching me a thing or two. We can really learn a lot from interspecies exchanges, don’t you agree?
Deus doesn’t have megalomania. Or at least, that’s what he claims.
Yeah, Megalomania has SmugD :P
I wonder what kind of tie knot that is. A dog knot?
Trinity knot. Discussed to death. Look it up.
Shame it’s not a slip knot :(
@codebracker Maybe her breath caused Maxima to point her nose down as not get a direct assault from it? -\_( ••)_/-
I really can’t wait for her to meet Sydney. It’s gonna be a train wreck of the best sort.
SitCom/Buddy-Cop pairing.
Roommates.
(Odd Couple Theme music plays)
I’m gonna say this again (but not be rude this time), this comic is kind of a mess. The art is fine and has improved measurably. But the story is drifting nowhere slowly.
Ive read a book recently by the jojo bizzarre adventur creator (manga in theory and practice dave b if you are reading this please pick this up) he made a good point that long lasting comics survive and become great when they follow 4 fundementals: characters, story, setting, and theme, and that they all are connected mutually to each other and the art itself. The arts improved but its not helped by the fact that the rest hasnt gotten any better.
Characters: there are a lot of interesting and (supposedly) diverse characters. But all of them take a backseat to sydney and dabbler (this os the first time in like 5 years someone else is driving the plot). And that wouldnt be bad at all if the lady went through any character developement. Plus there are way too many. And while i say diverse all the charactes look similar, half a dozen goth girls look the same as harems (2 or 3) goth clones and are hard to tell apart. All the men have the same body type and bland personality.
Story: what is the story? Sydney becomes a superhero? Dues takes over the world? Max trying to form a super team and navigate the politics that come with it? What is it? There are so many plot holes dead ends and loose ends, that some would rather the answers to that than dues x dinner date with a psycho third wheel (as funny as this the whole thing has been). Though creative in shot placement and panel layout, this gets highlighted in the lack of consistancy. Most damning of all my ccriticismsis that most pages due not flow well from the end of one page to the first panel in the next.
Setting: what city does this take place in? While arc-swat works throughout the u.s. it hasnt moved that far away from this city. I want to hear anyone elses opinion, but i think it takes place in austin texas. The world building is… fine. No doubt he thinks a lot about this stuff and the full implications. But it gets too thick at points, like these half a dozen pages or so are almost unnecessary, like knowing how much money and the details of vapor farming on uncle owens farm in star wars. This leads to some of the aforementioned talking heads pages, with some interesting but distracting image spots and and cuttaways.
Themes: what are the themes? Is this a full comedy with serious elements, parody/satire of pop culture, or does it have any deeper meaning that hasnt cropped up in a way we have seen (I have avoided comparing this to any other work because it is subjective, but im going to list some here mostly to show that a theme is clear and important). The punishers theme is about how far you can go before you go too far, jojos is about both destiny and the human experience, batman is about how loss defines us, and spiderman the burden of responibility. I dont what the theme of grrl power is.
Im gonna get a bunch of comments saying im a troll and that creativity comes in all forms and media should just entertain. I agree with 2 out of 3 of those to an extent. However in the 4-5 years i have read this i have caught up on one piece, read up to the current web comic of empowered, and have been catching up on so many other books. They have all changed grown and even ended… while grrl power is almost no different than when it started.
Im sorry you had to listen to this rant, but i didnt intend to go this in depth with this. Its just frustrating when something so good just sputters when it should instead take off and down the strip.
Have you tried clicking on the link near the top of the page that says “ABOUT”? It’s informative.
If you’ve read the whole thing and don’t know what the theme is, then we aren’t going to be able to help you. If you think the male physiques all look alike, then I don’t know what to tell you.
In general, this comic is a celebration of those things you don’t enjoy. This current interaction between Deus and Max and Lorlara is fun, and sets up what will happen later. If you’re not engaged with the characters, then it’s fine. Please, feel free to move on, with our blessing.
Why not? It’s not like English is Lorlara’s primary language and it’s not like an official translation for what the leaders of the Alari houses would be called yet, so you can pass it off as a misuse or unofficial translation if you want to later.
Besides, wouldn’t be too surprising since, as you pointed out, “arch” is a Latinized Greek root that is used in many words signifying authority (matriarch, patriarch, archenemy, archbishop, archon, architect, etc) stemming from arkh, arkhi, arkhos, arkhein.
Love the Baron Harkonnen reference :D
I appreciate that Max gets called out for blatantly deflecting as she attempted to diminish Lorlara’s worth based on occupation. Lorlara may be slightly naive as earth based mannerisms go, but swiftly managed to cut the verbal bullshit.
Lorlara is spectacularly over the top and she’s great! When she goes on a rant I can hear Hitler pontificating in a Berlin beer hall in 1936. I’m surprised that the Alari ever developed a civilization beyond their version of a Stone Age given the fact that they can’t seem to agree on much of anything.
BTW, Maxima is looking at the knife in Lorlara’s right hand, not her impressive boobs.