Questions still to be had
-June 6 2018 EDIT- I apologize for their not being a Selkie comic today. I… kind of had too much to drink while socializing last night and crashed when I got home. Woke up with my foot behind my head, no idea how that even happened. Not really a good excuse, but I’d rather be honest about it.
Next update Friday.
Ands wheres is my freakings Death Rays?!?!??!
Trying to avoid this line of questions just makes it seem like they have something to hide – at this point I think he’s just bad at this, though.
It’s more that the “What we’re all thinking” dude is clearly *looking* for a confrontation here and doesn’t care how much of an asshole he’ll have to be to demonstrate his willingness to Keep America Safe From Alien Freaks or whatever he’s come up with in his tiny mind…
I don’t think ‘tiny’ is the word you were looking for. I think Minuscule might be the better word. Tiny just doesn’t encompass the lack of critical thinking skills he could be employing in favor of Blocking his fear by covering it with outrage, or … just rage.
Rage blocks all the emotions, so you don’t have to think OR feel, either one.
I’m hoping he turns out to be, oh I don’t know, a gay dad who shaved his head to keep his new baby from grabbing his lustrous locks, and that his appearance is another tweak at judging people based on very little information ?.
I thought he’s just regular balding. 😀
I don’t think its unreasonable to be fearful under the circumstances, big mind or small. We the readers understand a lot of whats going on AND are sympathetic because of the characters we’ve met, but take a random citizen and announce to them that a technologicially advanced “alien” species has been secretly living within/beside the borders of the country (and the gov’t knew about it and hushed it up), have just engaged in a civil war AND have giant frickin lazers and I’d say its more than fair to be a little worried/scared. It certainly doesn’t help that being apex carnivore predators the Sarnothi also LOOK scary.
I dunno – if he were in full a-hole mode then he would probably be picketing outside the school to keep the Sarnothi away – I keep thinking of Alien Nation’s first episode/movie. Instead he’s inside asking questions, and honestly rather calmly.
All I have to read, is text of what he’s saying, and his body language. But he hasn’t done anything except make (possibly) a fist (don’t know for sure-unclear). So I’m giving him the benefit of the doubt, … Call me cautiously optimistic. ‘Cause you know Dave’s middle name is Subvert that Meme!
eh some of us goon types walk around with curled hands.
yep, all the drama you thought you had avoided is going to come back and bite you in your green butt!
seriously though, where DOES their species come from? they´re way to humanish to be aliens (i think) so my theory is more leaning towards mutation. i mean, whales where original land dwellers as well, soo…why not a human sub-species that went back into the water, perhaps to escape the harsh climate during ice age? heck, we already know about homo sapiens sapiens (us) the neandertal and cro magnion, all different branches of the same tree, why not add a fishy one?
Ok, They definitely aren’t related to humans, because humans haven’t been around long enough to have that extreme of mutation. (humans have existed for 0.2 million years, it took ~9 million years for whale ancestors to become relatively amphibious) Also, if Sarnothi did indeed evolve on earth then they must have either A: been around and surviving the last ice age trapped under the ice. (And since Sarnothi are vulnerable to cold that doesn’t seem likely) or B: have migrated to the great lakes sometime in the last 14,000 years (since they only formed when the glaciers retreated) In which case, where did they live before, and why aren’t they still there, and why haven’t we heard of any evidence of them?
This is why I support the alien theory.
They’re not necessarily vulnerable to the cold. They just hibernate. And if you bring resonance and its related tech into it, who knows what they could have had going at the time. Their tech is more advanced. They could have had a crude way to heat their underwater homes when land dwellers were still using spears.
They are definitely aliens. Mammals with gills is extremely odd, toxic saliva is strange, and the close technological effectiveness-parity with humans despite seemingly independent development is another vector of weird. Making bizarre technology with little more than thinking at it? That is right out. They may not be space-aliens, illegal-aliens is debatable(and a poor use of language), but they are definitely some variety of aliens from the human perspective.
They have been in their pond for long enough to be considered natives regardless, but there won’t be a biologist or anthropologist on the planet who says “this is completely sensible”. At best their isolated lake has been doing its own evolution for an arbitrarily long time and stumbled upon a ludicrous coincidence along with a touch of recent cross-pollination. At worst they are a created species, mixing traits from establishes species and throwing in some bonus “magic” to stagnate their technology until humans were ready for them. Anything that could of created them is well ahead of humanity, regardless of how local it is.
Pretty sure not human. Even whales are still endotherms. Selkie’s biochemistry is not human or even mammalian as far as I can tell.
Dave> If humans resemble apes, biologically speaking, more than other animals, what do Sarnothi resemble/are most akin to biologically? Eels? Sharks? Just thought I’d ask:)
Looks like I’ll have to continue from page 1079
1. Sarnothi are not mammals
2. Sarnothi are Cold-blooded
3. Sarnothi are Aquatic amphibians with gills instead of lungs
4. Sarnothi are not omnivores they are carnivorous, and can tolerate only a limited amount of plants in their diet
Firstly, Sarnothi are cold blooded, meaning they have to have evolved from a cold blooded common ancestor, narrowing it to fish, amphibians, or reptiles.
Second, Sarnothi have gills but can breathe air as well as water, narrowing it to an amphibious fish or neotenic amphibian, similar to a Mudskipper or a Axolotls salamander.
Third, given that Sarnothi have 4 limbs, it’s safe to assume that their evolution branched off around the same time that the human ancestral amphibious fish left the oceans for dry land.
The Sarnothi humanoid appearance is evidence that they frequently walked on land through a large portion of their later evolution. But the fact they are aquatic amphibians says they still spent most of their evolution in the water.
As the Great Lakes have only been in existence since the end of the last Ice Age, it’s safe to say that the evolution to freshwater was the most recent part of Sarnothi evolution, if there are more Sarnothi tribes to be found most likely they’ll be found in the oceans. Given the rarity of large fresh water lakes the ocean is the only place they could have originated from. and most likely are the origin of tales of mermaids.
There won’t be much if any fossil evidence, as the conditions to make a fossil is actually very rare.
The fact that Sarnothi are sentient, can be attributed to their Echo technology and abilities, that basically replaced what fire did for human evolution.
Fire is a technology that allows the cooking of food, and is a prerequisite for more advanced technologies. no fire, no pottery or ceramics, no metal, no steam, no industrial revolution, no electric revolution, no space travel.
Sarnothi origins could be easily confirmed by comparing the genomes of humans and sarnothi. If they both evolved from the same origin they would have similarities between both genomes. If the sarnothi were infact “aliens” their genome would share very few or even no similarities.
Hopefully this is clear enough to get everyone on the same page.
While I certainly think its fair to speculate and I appreciate that you offer reasons for your conclusions I don’t think they are as concrete as you make them out to be.
For example: “Firstly, Sarnothi are cold blooded, meaning they have to have evolved from a cold blooded common ancestor”
While its certainly reasonable to consider this as the most likely possibility there is nothing that says they couldn’t have gone from warm blooded back to cold blooded if the conditions were right for it.
Its also not a given that because two species have the same trait that they inherited it from a common ancestor. Lactose tolerance in humans isn’t from a shared ancestor for example, while Europeans share a single allele for lactase persistence, in Africa 5 different major alleles which can cause it are found in different populations. So while it is reasonable to consider a common ancestor with the shared trait as the most likely, absent other data, it is certainly not a slam dunk. Other examples of convergent evolution include echolocation in cetaceans and bats, flight in bats and birds, and the eyes of vertebrates and cephalopods.
Meanwhile sentience is not necessarily tied to fire. The example you give is of a certain type of technological advancement, which is not a requisite for sentience. You are also confusing sentience with sapience (a common mistake, I had to double check the definitions myself cause I always get them mixed up). Sentience is merely a sense of self. Dogs and cats are sentient for example. Sapience is the ability to think and reason. Whether or not other non-firing using animals meet a minimum level of sapience is far larger discussion, but reasonable arguments have been advanced for some of the other primates, dolphins, and even squid and octopuses.
Of course this is all with the giant caveat that this is a fictional story so none of it REALLY matters unless Dave decides it does.
It’s a measure of how good Dave’s storytelling is that he inspires discussions like this.
There is a long tradition in science fiction of using “aliens” as a way of sidestepping societal preconceptions, to tell a story that is really about differences among humans. An alien species can be anything an author needs it to be.
If Sarnothi evolved on Earth, well, there are difficulties around the Ice Age and all, but authors also get to write their world’s backstory. (Who’s to say that Dave’s-world Ice Ages were the same as ours?)
In any case, as you say… in science fiction, the rules of the game say you don’t get to question a story’s premise. What qualifies a story as good, is the working-out of consequences.
some things in biology evolved a number of times, and in many different ways, Eyes, lungs, and gills, being but a few.
But there are some traits that evolved only once in a branch on the tree of life. 4 limbed with 5 fingers on each limb being one of those. all land animals that have 4 limbs evolved from a single species of amphibious fish. marine mammals also evolved from this lineage. Assuming that the Sarnothi did evolve on earth, and are not aliens, it’s very safe to say that based on them having 4 limbs, they evolved from the same amphibious fish that we did.
the real question is why did no 6 limbed fish crawl out of the ocean all those years ago ? Humans could have had 4 arms, or wings, or been centaurs.
as for warm blooded, cold blooded, that is determined by the climate. Prior to the ice age the earth was very warm and allowed cold blooded life forms to rule the land and grow to large sizes, after and during the ice age, it was mammals that gained larger size and ruling the land.
they are cold blooded but HAVE warm blooded adaptations (they shiver to create muscle movement that provides SOME heat) They probably have similar adaptations that Opah Have.
Are we sure they are ONLY gilled and not anabatoid with a labrynth organ like Gourami, bettas, and Several other species? or do they have primitive lungs like Bowheads/Snakeheads?
I’m more inclined to think they are channidaids as they have the requisite LUNG organ, the sharp pointed teeth, predatory habitat, can survive relatively cold water like bowfins, and they can walk on land. (taxonomy of fish is a hobby of mine and I frankly lost a gourami over the weekend…)
Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) have been fully aquatic for 40 million years, but they are still placental mammals. They breath only air. They are warm-blooded. (Gills are as good at exchanging heat as at exchanging oygen and CO2, so gill-breathers cannot maintain a temperature much different from the water.) They nourish the fetus with a placenta, and give live birth to a form that differs from the parent only in size.
And in spite of living in the seas, cetaceans left plenty of fossils.
Sarnothi breathe both air and water, are cold-blooded, and lay eggs in the water (unlike reptiles). Their young hatch in a different, purely aquatic form, grow to several times as large, and then undergo a metamorphosis to the amphibious adult form. The Earth life-form they most closely match is a frog, but there are big differences there, besides size, intelligence, and opposed thumbs. Amphibians have at most just an air sac for lungs; to get enough oxygen for an active creature the size of a human requires complex lungs that expose far more surface area, plus a breathing tract that warms and moisturizes the incoming air. Amphibians and most reptiles have primitive hip and shoulder joints – their legs splay out instead of being under the body, requiring much more muscle tension to hold their belly off the ground. Sarnothi have hip joints similar to mammals, birds, and dinosaurs, which allow the legs to be under the body and better support a large body.
To have evolved on earth, Sarnothi must have diverged from other clades before the K-T boundary (66 million years ago) – but left no fossils. That’s much less likely than an alien species happening to have four limbs and five fingers on each limb. The human-like aspects of their appearance would be the result of parallel evolution – a quadruped tool user has to have an upright posture to free the forelimbs (or a something like a trunk more effective than an elephant’s). It has to have opposable thumbs, although for the hands to look so much like the human hand is a bit of a coincidence. Two eyes is not much of a coincidence; one eye means you lack depth perception and have no spare, while a third eye would add a bunch of brain tissue to decode what it saw, and brain tissue requires lots of energy and other nutrients. The arrangement of eyes, nose, and mouth top to bottom on the head, with the brain in the head and the ears on the sides, seems to be optimal and likely to be duplicated in alien evolution: it keeps the highest-bandwidth nerves short, puts the eyes highest for the best view, ensures seeing and smelling the food before biting it, and keeps crumbs from falling into the eyes, nose, and ears.
Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) have been fully aquatic for 40 million years, but they are still placental mammals. They breath only air. They are warm-blooded. (Gills are as good at exchanging heat as at exchanging oygen and CO2, so gill-breathers cannot maintain a temperature much different from the water.) They nourish the fetus with a placenta, and give live birth to a form that differs from the parent only in size.
And in spite of living in the seas, cetaceans left plenty of fossils.
Sarnothi breathe both air and water, are cold-blooded, and lay eggs in the water (unlike reptiles). Their young hatch in a different, purely aquatic form, grow to several times as large, and then undergo a metamorphosis to the amphibious adult form. The Earth life-form they most closely match is a frog, but there are big differences there, besides size, intelligence, and opposed thumbs. Amphibians have at most just an air sac for lungs; to get enough oxygen for an active creature the size of a human requires complex lungs that expose far more surface area, plus a breathing tract that warms and moisturizes the incoming air. Amphibians and most reptiles have primitive hip and shoulder joints – their legs splay out instead of being under the body, requiring much more muscle tension to hold their belly off the ground. Sarnothi have hip joints similar to mammals, birds, and dinosaurs, which allow the legs to be under the body and better support a large body.
To have evolved on earth, Sarnothi must have diverged from other clades before the K-T boundary (66 million years ago) – but left no fossils. That’s much less likely than an alien species happening to have four limbs and five fingers on each limb. The human-like aspects of their appearance would be the result of parallel evolution – a quadruped tool user has to have an upright posture to free the forelimbs (or a something like a trunk more effective than an elephant’s). It has to have opposable thumbs, although for the hands to look so much like the human hand is a bit of a coincidence. Two eyes is not much of a coincidence; one eye means you lack depth perception and have no spare, while a third eye would add a bunch of brain tissue to decode what it saw, and brain tissue requires lots of energy and other nutrients. The arrangement of eyes, nose, and mouth top to bottom on the head, with the brain in the head and the ears on the sides, seems to be optimal and likely to be duplicated in alien evolution: it keeps the highest-bandwidth nerves short, puts the eyes highest for the best view, ensures seeing and smelling the food before biting it, and keeps crumbs from falling into the eyes, nose, and ears.
They appear to be seabed dwellers and those have a poor fossil record. It is also likely they’re a recent offshoot branch of an ocean dwelling cousin or migrated after some disaster (possibly Atlantis).
“Ands wheres is my freakings Death Rays?!?!??!”
Would you settle for sharks with frickin’ laser beams on their heads?
(Or even just “PANTS!”)
Feed him to Pants! Feed him to Pants! Feed him to Pants! Feed him to Pants! Pants! Pants. Pants. Pants! Pants!! Pants!!
Feed him to Pants. And then get Pants some Lepto-Dismal, for his indigestion.
Is that trouble-seeker even supposed to be there? He looks more like a homeless guy who just wandered in from the cold…
He may or may not be Ralph from #259. Outfit is familiar, and face might be just artistic changes.
We are we asuming he’s a troubleseeker? So far he hasn’t done anything other than ask what a lot of us have been thinking.
Without making judgement, shaved heads and red suspenders tend to make people think of Skin-Heads, and when people think of Skin-Heads, they tend to default to “Neo-Nazi,” not the guys who think that shaved heads, steel-toed boots, and ska music are cool that the Neo-Nazis stole the look from.
The guy could be totally benign, and in fact Dave tends to subvert our initial expectations with these kinds of things, but some people might be looking at his character design, a big man with a shaved head, and conflate that with racism which is then conflated with fantastic racism.
I agree with your assessment of how people judge others by looks. However that guy’s body language screams confrontation to me. But it may just be the lack of detail, … Looks to me like the left hand is relaxed but the right hand is in a fist. It could be my small screen’s fault.
You say that like there are people who don’t like ska music.
I believe that he is Big Tammy’s dad from Comic 259, took a bit of archive binging to find him but here is the link https://selkiecomic.com/comic/selkie259/
OOh, nice catch!
I wonder if it was intentional or just an accident on Dave’s part.
Given that he’s here at the school assembly, he pretty much has to be a parent of some kid attending the school. I think you (and others) are right that he’s Big Tammy’s dad. This would make much more sense, narratively, than to have him be just some random stranger introduced to the story for the first time.
If so, what do we know about him? Only that he approves of his daughter hitting back hard when she’s attacked. That’s not enough evidence to assume that he’s going to be racist, even against aliens. It might be that he just wants to know the answer to his question. If he’s sounding a bit hostile right now, well, that’s understandable. Then blew him off with a bafflegab evasion, then quickly ended the Q&A.
Maybe he and Selkie are going to double-team Then! However it turns out, I bet he’s not going to be a stereotypical racist, because Dave doesn’t do stereotypes, he does people.
It isn’t her fault he came over. So cool yer jets and make something up.
If this were real life I’d like to know if they were aliens too. Getting info on just one other life bearing planet would add a whole new dimension to the Drake Equation & the Fermi paradox debate.
If the answer turns out to be yes, we’re in trouble
Hey Dave!! is Agent Then wearing an Armani suit?… if he is, then you can do a cross-over with Gini Koch’s “Aliens in Armani” series… though i’m not sure that Agent Then fit’s the “International Super Model” description… 😀 he does fit the surly and grouchy meme though…
I have a feeling that Georgie wants to know if his best bud is an alien, NOT to be afraid of her but to be able to claim the bragging rights.
I think he already said he didn’t know.
He said he wasn’t trained in anthropology to give an in depth answer. Then never said he didn’t know tbe answer.
We’ve all been there. Not that any of us can remember.
Dave, you’re supposed to do research on alcohol abuse BEFORE writing the “Amanda gets drunk” arc, not AFTER 😛
I’ve occasionally woke up in contortions I am unable to perform while awake, and been somewhat debilitated by that after managing to untangle myself. None of my experiences involve alcohol, though.
let’s hope that he’ll actually post this morning
and that the comment section has given him enough information
for Then to give a proper anthropology type answer.
I’m working on it now, it’ll be up in an hour or so. I’m not going to screw up twice in one week. …Ideally.