Sar’teri are the “peacekeepers”, the clan that wanted to take a mild stance towards humans and nearly wiped out Jin’sorai (Selkie’s clan) when they wanted blood for blood.
well, call me sarcastic, but in hindsight blood for blood, as in sinking a single fishing boat, would´ve been the far more ‘peaceful’ solution, compared to a war that cost how many lives?
peacekeepers, my a#! guess they came to the cnclusion that the best way to keep peace is to become dictators
A semi carrying manure just hit a semi carrying fans. I have to wonder if the beam was actually a sort of herald for the newly crowned Emperor, a fireworks display if you will.
Um, if they’re taking over the airwaves that implies that they are expending substantial effort to work with human technology. That means they either want something from the humans or they want to impose something on the humans.
Which is why I said the s*** hit the fan. Could be a warning shot, or it could be the Sarnothi announcing their presence in a spectacular fashion, either way it gets the attention they’re after.
My guess is the beam is what took over the satellites to show this (yes, technology doesn’t always work that way, but it is *traditional* in sci-fi/superhero/fantasy of taking over the satellites to take over the airwaves)
At this point it appears the war is over and we are seeing the victors. Now we find out what the NEXT step is, and it obviously involves humans in one way or another.
They could have just stayed underwater, but chose not to.
Well, Dave, I thought the Great Reveal would be Ms. Zhang at the Orphanage, saying a bad word as Jennifer comes into the room, and so was caught cursing. Of course, her saying bad words may not be canon under Any circumstances, may not be possible, but that was where I though you would go, for the reveal. Wrong again.
I think this is what they should have done to begin with – though it largely depends on if they’ll follow up with a variant of “we come in peace” or “all resistance is futile”.
The US would never use nukes in the Great Lakes. Not only would it piss off Canada which owns half of them, but the radiation would spread to all the lakes and kill off the fisheries. Besides the US wouldnt need to use a nuke; conventional weapons are more than enough. The shockwaves from explosions are what cause the most damage, and the sound would also devastate any aquatic life within a certain area. But to continue with your idea of needing a massive explosion Look up the GBU-43 MOAB, or its predecessor the BLU-82; they are the US’s earthquake bombs, and one would happily achieve your implied results.
Fun fact: that’s actually a part of my in-canon relationship between Sarnoth and America. Sarnoth’s technology is more advanced than ours, but they’re a much smaller nation. If direct conflict broke out overwhelming firepower from us would neutralize a sarnothi technological advantage, but they’re still advanced enough that it isn’t in America’s interests to try and force anything upon them.
If you are willing to answer this and it’s not spoilers, for how long did sarnothi and humans know about each other? Was the fisherman incident pretty much first contact, or…?
Don’t overlook the significance of Canada’s socio-economic, political, and military “input” on the issue. Granted . . . which lake is this happening in again? One of the four shared lakes, or the solely u.s. one?
VileTerror–it’s Lake Superior here: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie999/ The source of the beam is very close to the U.S./Canada border, by the looks of it.
AFAIK, the only thing we have that will deliver a MOAB is the B52, and I think that Sarnothi technology is quite capable of shooting those down. A ballistic missile might go too fast to aim a beam at it, but I don’t think we have put a conventional warhead on one since we stopped firing off captured V2’s.
Moab is designed to be pushed out of the cargo doors of a c-130. If your worried about getting shot down, then just lob a couple hundred cruise missiles into the lake. They are capable of supersonic flight and can be launched from hundreds of miles away. Ohio class subs refitted to carry cruise missiles are capable of launching 154 of them before needing to resupply.
God, I LOVE the relationship between Benny and Avery. Benny may very well be my new favorite character.
ALso “Dada may be watching Armageddon roll out.” Fantastic.
First – just because he says he’s Emperor don’t make him Emperor. Go look at any third-world country full of warlords, and one will pop up and say HE is field-marshall-and-president-for-life, and then a week or so later another blows him away and announces that HE is now grand-high-poobah. Don’t mean a thing.
Second – if some alien-looking guy showed up on MY tv and announced he was taking over the world, I’d just wonder what stupid new movie this was a commercial for.
The mere act of getting blown away in no way negates his claim. He may be field-marshall-and-president-for-life, it’s just going to be a rather short life.
How did they get EM transmissions (radio,etc) without anyone noticing? Surely the Sarnothi are just as fallible as we are, and it would’ve leaked into some broadcast or radio somewhere. Also, if they *can* hijack our broadcast, either that means they had such a tight ship nobody got word out, or that they just got help from a different human group.
Does no one have contact with the main Sarnothi people? Why didn’t Avery know about their tech? Why, with such risk of accidental discovery, didn’t the black ops guys force a reveal earlier?
We actually don’t know that though. Selkie’s case is the only known case of bullying because of how she looks. Other people have thought she’s been sick and reacted with concern for her. Pohl said some children reacted in fear towards him, but can you blame them? Sharp claws, sharp teeth, green skin and eyes with no whites? I mean, any kid would react poorly there, but even so, the bunny ears apparently helped with that bit. We have no idea how Benny and Carrie are treated right now. Benny seems jaded, but we don’t have a lot of information as to why that is. Selkie’s mom was walking around in a crowd and people weren’t cowering from her either.
Although people are likely to react in fear now, because if there’s a potential threat of war, well…
umm isn’t benny’s dad the sarnoth that got caught in the fishing net to start the whole civil war thing? even if he doesn’t know about its impact on the war, he would know he lost a parent at a young age and forced to move to an alien environment right after.
plenty of reasons for a child’s mind to be cranky.
At least the… uh… rational doesn’t seem like the right word… unbiased maybe… clan is the one in charge? I doubt they’d make threats of war without a good reason behind it. They didn’t want to slaughter a bunch of humans for some fishermen making a mistake. They seem… at least slightly less violent?
Oh my that would be a problem indeed. You’d have people in fear for their own lives trying to hand them over, people wanting to protect them as refugees and people saying we shouldn’t interfere with another species culture.
my thoughts exactly….and i fear they´ll demand that the US stop supporting ‘rebels’ or however they call helping the refugees.
also, the fact that there´s now an ’emperor’ indicates the loss of the last bits of democracy – remember, before the war they used to have this sort of council where all clans had equal say?
I think we should be worried about that “Emperor” title he just threw down. Empires historically tend to be expansionist by nature. While he demand total control of all the lakes, will he anex parts of the shore line in Canada and the US, or will he demand the return of the refugees to face reeducation or prosecution? No matter what, I doubt that he has peaceful intent on the brain.
I sort of thought that too. That at least might suggest that he’s reasonable, but feels pressured to be in his current position. Adequate assistance in finding an alternative might just be the only necessary act to get a solution.
true, from the author comment he is addressing himself as he would be addressed as a “voice”. that could just be habit or it could be a subtle way of showing regret about the situation and saying he would prefer the old title.
of course only sarnoth would possibly catch that point most likely.
okay, one I effing LOVE the way this is going.
Two I say the beam wasn’t a shot at all, but more like … a satellite, something to let them tap into ALL television stations.
Three, I love Cern’s face, he looks… calm and tired and resigned.
I can’t wait for monday
Well, this is suitably frightening. 😮
I can’t believe I’m actually looking forward to a Monday…
Sar’teri are the “peacekeepers”, the clan that wanted to take a mild stance towards humans and nearly wiped out Jin’sorai (Selkie’s clan) when they wanted blood for blood.
well, call me sarcastic, but in hindsight blood for blood, as in sinking a single fishing boat, would´ve been the far more ‘peaceful’ solution, compared to a war that cost how many lives?
peacekeepers, my a#! guess they came to the cnclusion that the best way to keep peace is to become dictators
Aw craps, now I need a recap of the clans!
oh sugar honey ice tea
A semi carrying manure just hit a semi carrying fans. I have to wonder if the beam was actually a sort of herald for the newly crowned Emperor, a fireworks display if you will.
Um, if they’re taking over the airwaves that implies that they are expending substantial effort to work with human technology. That means they either want something from the humans or they want to impose something on the humans.
My guess is the green beam is a warning shot.
Which is why I said the s*** hit the fan. Could be a warning shot, or it could be the Sarnothi announcing their presence in a spectacular fashion, either way it gets the attention they’re after.
My guess is the beam is what took over the satellites to show this (yes, technology doesn’t always work that way, but it is *traditional* in sci-fi/superhero/fantasy of taking over the satellites to take over the airwaves)
I took the beam as literally taking over the satellites TO send this all-over broadcast. But then the time frame is too long, huh?…
At this point it appears the war is over and we are seeing the victors. Now we find out what the NEXT step is, and it obviously involves humans in one way or another.
They could have just stayed underwater, but chose not to.
Maybe that beam was just the aftermath of them blowing up another of those “colony towers”.
Or a less bad alternative would be that they were establishing uplink to a broadcasting satellite.
Regime changes often want their exiles and refugees back – for good or for ill.
That is what I was thinking.
especially if most of the valuable echo´s are among them
I just screamed, holy shit
Well, Dave, I thought the Great Reveal would be Ms. Zhang at the Orphanage, saying a bad word as Jennifer comes into the room, and so was caught cursing. Of course, her saying bad words may not be canon under Any circumstances, may not be possible, but that was where I though you would go, for the reveal. Wrong again.
If I could put in a gif here, it would be of Thorny lowering his sunglasses saying “Mother of God”.
Well, fudge.
Guys, remember what I said about how *not* to do inter-species integration?
Sorry Avery, the Saronthi have officially screwed up.
I think this is what they should have done to begin with – though it largely depends on if they’ll follow up with a variant of “we come in peace” or “all resistance is futile”.
“We no longer accept the U.S. quarantine, and will see further attempts at implying it as a hostile action.”
Reframe the narrative!
Magitech aside, if it comes to an open conflict I’d bet on the sarnothi being toast – they are all concentrated in one location and humans have nukes.
The US would never use nukes in the Great Lakes. Not only would it piss off Canada which owns half of them, but the radiation would spread to all the lakes and kill off the fisheries. Besides the US wouldnt need to use a nuke; conventional weapons are more than enough. The shockwaves from explosions are what cause the most damage, and the sound would also devastate any aquatic life within a certain area. But to continue with your idea of needing a massive explosion Look up the GBU-43 MOAB, or its predecessor the BLU-82; they are the US’s earthquake bombs, and one would happily achieve your implied results.
Fun fact: that’s actually a part of my in-canon relationship between Sarnoth and America. Sarnoth’s technology is more advanced than ours, but they’re a much smaller nation. If direct conflict broke out overwhelming firepower from us would neutralize a sarnothi technological advantage, but they’re still advanced enough that it isn’t in America’s interests to try and force anything upon them.
If you are willing to answer this and it’s not spoilers, for how long did sarnothi and humans know about each other? Was the fisherman incident pretty much first contact, or…?
Don’t overlook the significance of Canada’s socio-economic, political, and military “input” on the issue. Granted . . . which lake is this happening in again? One of the four shared lakes, or the solely u.s. one?
VileTerror–it’s Lake Superior here: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie999/ The source of the beam is very close to the U.S./Canada border, by the looks of it.
AFAIK, the only thing we have that will deliver a MOAB is the B52, and I think that Sarnothi technology is quite capable of shooting those down. A ballistic missile might go too fast to aim a beam at it, but I don’t think we have put a conventional warhead on one since we stopped firing off captured V2’s.
Moab is designed to be pushed out of the cargo doors of a c-130. If your worried about getting shot down, then just lob a couple hundred cruise missiles into the lake. They are capable of supersonic flight and can be launched from hundreds of miles away. Ohio class subs refitted to carry cruise missiles are capable of launching 154 of them before needing to resupply.
It was already screwed up. This may help, or it may not, depending, as Mikael says, on the follow-up line, but it was already screwed up.
It really depends on what they want. Perhaps they just want to be known?
God, I LOVE the relationship between Benny and Avery. Benny may very well be my new favorite character.
ALso “Dada may be watching Armageddon roll out.” Fantastic.
wow the only way to cover that up is with a war of the worlds type hoax claim and really make it stick.
Not. Good. O_O
Oh… well…
Fluorine
Uranium
Carbon
Potassium
Rhenium
Aluminum
Yttrium
?
Fluorine: F. Uranium: U. Carbon: C. Potassium: K.
Easier to understand, if you use the Latin names:
Fluorum
Uranium
Carboneum
Kalium
Rhenium: Re. Aluminum: Al. Yttrium: Y.
Very clever. 🙂
Have I mentioned how much I adore Pohl? “Dada may be watching Armageddon roll out” *falls over laughing*
War were declared
Well, this looks… horrible!
Oh…no…O_O
First – just because he says he’s Emperor don’t make him Emperor. Go look at any third-world country full of warlords, and one will pop up and say HE is field-marshall-and-president-for-life, and then a week or so later another blows him away and announces that HE is now grand-high-poobah. Don’t mean a thing.
Second – if some alien-looking guy showed up on MY tv and announced he was taking over the world, I’d just wonder what stupid new movie this was a commercial for.
I don’t think anyone will believe it.
I agree with your second statement, but, the obvious reaction from the media would clear this up in a jiffy
The mere act of getting blown away in no way negates his claim. He may be field-marshall-and-president-for-life, it’s just going to be a rather short life.
I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say that this isn’t gonna be a “let’s all be friends” kinda deal…
All those people who know Todd & Selkie are going to be asking them a lot of questions. Case in point: https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie1037/
How did they get EM transmissions (radio,etc) without anyone noticing? Surely the Sarnothi are just as fallible as we are, and it would’ve leaked into some broadcast or radio somewhere. Also, if they *can* hijack our broadcast, either that means they had such a tight ship nobody got word out, or that they just got help from a different human group.
Does no one have contact with the main Sarnothi people? Why didn’t Avery know about their tech? Why, with such risk of accidental discovery, didn’t the black ops guys force a reveal earlier?
I’m pretty sure that’s what the green beam was all about. Sarnothi technology hijacking our broadcast satellite system.
….man. I wonder how this’ll affect their lives. Humans treat them pretty meh already. This might hurt them more. DX
We actually don’t know that though. Selkie’s case is the only known case of bullying because of how she looks. Other people have thought she’s been sick and reacted with concern for her. Pohl said some children reacted in fear towards him, but can you blame them? Sharp claws, sharp teeth, green skin and eyes with no whites? I mean, any kid would react poorly there, but even so, the bunny ears apparently helped with that bit. We have no idea how Benny and Carrie are treated right now. Benny seems jaded, but we don’t have a lot of information as to why that is. Selkie’s mom was walking around in a crowd and people weren’t cowering from her either.
Although people are likely to react in fear now, because if there’s a potential threat of war, well…
Benny’s not jaded, he’s a teenager.
I can. This is like x-men stuff. Not everyone fears them. But enough do.
umm isn’t benny’s dad the sarnoth that got caught in the fishing net to start the whole civil war thing? even if he doesn’t know about its impact on the war, he would know he lost a parent at a young age and forced to move to an alien environment right after.
plenty of reasons for a child’s mind to be cranky.
Well, craps
This is absolutely not good.
At least the… uh… rational doesn’t seem like the right word… unbiased maybe… clan is the one in charge? I doubt they’d make threats of war without a good reason behind it. They didn’t want to slaughter a bunch of humans for some fishermen making a mistake. They seem… at least slightly less violent?
The real concern is they could demand the sarnothi being given exile be returned to them, or something.
Oh my that would be a problem indeed. You’d have people in fear for their own lives trying to hand them over, people wanting to protect them as refugees and people saying we shouldn’t interfere with another species culture.
That would be very, very bad.
The clan that went full-on genocidal on another clan with the excuse of “keeping the peace” is not the one I’d call rational or unbiased.
my thoughts exactly….and i fear they´ll demand that the US stop supporting ‘rebels’ or however they call helping the refugees.
also, the fact that there´s now an ’emperor’ indicates the loss of the last bits of democracy – remember, before the war they used to have this sort of council where all clans had equal say?
I think we should be worried about that “Emperor” title he just threw down. Empires historically tend to be expansionist by nature. While he demand total control of all the lakes, will he anex parts of the shore line in Canada and the US, or will he demand the return of the refugees to face reeducation or prosecution? No matter what, I doubt that he has peaceful intent on the brain.
Remember that giant green beam that shot into space? Wouldn’t call that “no-one noticing”
This was meant to be a reply to someone’s comment. Which I can’t find now.
Easier to understand, if you use the Latin names:
Fluorum
Uranium
Carboneum
Kalium
He looks very tired and unhappy to be Emperor.
I sort of thought that too. That at least might suggest that he’s reasonable, but feels pressured to be in his current position. Adequate assistance in finding an alternative might just be the only necessary act to get a solution.
true, from the author comment he is addressing himself as he would be addressed as a “voice”. that could just be habit or it could be a subtle way of showing regret about the situation and saying he would prefer the old title.
of course only sarnoth would possibly catch that point most likely.
okay, one I effing LOVE the way this is going.
Two I say the beam wasn’t a shot at all, but more like … a satellite, something to let them tap into ALL television stations.
Three, I love Cern’s face, he looks… calm and tired and resigned.
I can’t wait for monday
I can’t wait for Monday’s update. Dave I know you only update your comic three times a week but OMG this is getting intense.