Right yeah, the big green sky laser. Visible from all over Wisconsin and parts of Minneapolis Illinois and Michigan. That thing.
-EDIT- Sorry for the late notice, but next update will be Wednesday May 8th’s comic. Not feeling very good. đ
Today's edition of the Secret Commentary is empty, because Dave failed to come up with something for it.
I really want to like Then, so for his sake I am hoping that he did not think that the humans would realize that was a WMD. But I’m also really glad that Scar DOES realize it.
Asking the important questions, Scar. *thumbs up*
Wait.
Scar knows Amanda has Echo powers?
Oh wait he says so in an earlier comic, never mind. Bleh.
Scar was the one assessing their abilities in the training session where Selkie broke through her barrier and exploded the practice target.
Well, it’s either a WMD, or he’s planning on seeing how humans take to echo powers. Because the only thing better than a giant laser is a laser wizard capable of making more lasers.
I’m kinda starting to wonder… If Scar doesn’t like the answer that Then gives him, would he report the truth to Agent Brown or Todd to try and warn them, even if it meant that Then could take his life in return?
Also, while such a vow may hold strength in Sarnothi culture, I think Then and Scar may find that human culture might not permit the consequences that were agreed to. The same way Todd pushed back on the idea that Selkie being an Echo basically set her lot in life to having to serve the general community, regardless of what she wants. I think there could be some unanticipated culture shock there too.
Possibly Scar’s response would be more… direct.
True. I suspect that one of the things that will be getting addressed sooner rather than later will be the expectations of Sarnothi culture vs. American/human culture. Things like this oath that the three of them have sworn or the idea that Selkie could face some sort of punishment because of Scars actions might be normal to Sarnothi culture, but if it ended up in an American court, there could be a clash because their laws go against American laws. Given that the government is already involved in maintaining Selkie’s wellbeing as well as being Then’s employer, anything harmful to either one is bound to escalate rapidly.
If I learned that the U.S. military is up to something sketchy, then Agent Brown is absolutely not the person I would think it’s a good idea to report it to.
I’m willing to bet Agent Brown knows things via a certain difficult, distasteful woman I’m thinking both he and Then are dealing with.
I don’t remember if Father’s Fangs have been mentioned before, but does “offering myself to Father’s Fangs” mean submitting to someone killing you directly, or going out into the lake and looking for a big eel or something? The method of death if the Vow is broken might be specific.
I wonder if it relates to a story told much earlier on. I’m struggling to remember it now, but it was something along the line of father eel giving of his children so the sarnothi could live. And eventually every sarnothi repays that debt when their life ends. It was during the tale of the maiden that Pohl’s wife tells Selkie. It kinda sounds like they could be related.
There’s also the whole Human Echo can of worms. If it turns out Humans can be turned into them en mass, that would have major implications.
Get him, Scar!
I still feel like Then isn’t being completely honest. The best way to lie, after all, is to tell the right amount of truth and shut up.
I don’t like Then’s attitude.
“Nothing. To be clear, I -had- several possible plans. Then I actually met the walking balls of chaos. Now I’m just playing damage control on my other plans.”
Nobody does. But I understand stand it. The whole how willing is he to commit to child labor/soliders and weapons I can respect being a deal breaker for Scar.
Scar knows what’s it’s like to justify means to an end and throw people to the Frenzy. He clearly is fine with dying before he does that again.
Humans already have weapons of mass destruction.
Nothing we’ve seen Resonance do has come close to the destructive power of a nuclear weapon from eighty years ago. What the military would be interested in isn’t raw power, but rather finesse. An Echo may only have the destructive power of a light artillery piece, but if that Echo is smaller and can move faster than the artillery piece, then it still has tactical uses. Even more interesting would be magical powers like telekinesis, healing (it’s explicitly been stated in the last storyline that some Echoes can use their powers to heal!), and so on, that aren’t simply beams of destruction.
I think Scar is wrong here. “Mere skiffs and carriers” (which, if you’ll recall, are vehicles that are capable of flight without needing aerodynamic shapes, and potentially quite large) could revolutionize mechanized warfare, and are absolutely more interesting to the military than mere weapons of mass destruction that you can’t even use because it would cause an international outcry.
Even if humanity masters Echo powers, they’re not going to replace existing military technology. They’ll act as a force multiplier on top of the perfectly effective assault rifles, howitzers, cruise missiles, and so on that we already have.
Viable energy directed weapons at strategic scale would utterly alter the face of war in ways I can’t even begin to get into.
^ what He said, and I CAN get into it if someone wishes.
A sniper is a bad thing they will ruin your day. A sniper that can take out an Abrams with a kinetic kill or something much bigger like a pocket cruiser like a Ticonderoga class (or a ‘buke) or their equivalent, especially a sniper that doesn’t have to breathe air? It changes the whole game.
Except we’ve known how to protect things from energy weapons and death rays since even before we invented such things in World War II. For many, an electromagnetic field would do it. For others, a simple reflective surface.
In fact, many of our current anti-radar tech would probably easily be able to be altered to block Echo beam weapons. (a lot of them do work on death rays)
A big reason they aren’t viable is that it takes a lot less energy, and is far more effective, to just throw a relatively heavy and fast thing at something than using any kind of beam or non-physical energy weapon.
And if you need more than that, having a shaped explosive in it that goes off a moment before impact makes it even more impressive.
People forget that we do have working death rays / energy beam weapons. It’s just that explosives work better, and there’s not much that can stand up to speedy heavy thing.
Put simply, put the energy of that beam into throwing a nicely aerodynamic rock instead and then the laws of physics are going to help you out a lot more.
In fact, such beam weapons we’ve seen the Sarnothi use would be far better to be used defensively against missiles than as an actual attack. As a part of a comprehensive missile prevention system of course (which already use things like lasers, and more importantly accurately shooting them out of the sky)
It would of course have to be fully computer controlled, since no Sarnothi or Human would have a good enough reaction speed to do anything.
Another problem with Resonance-tech is of course the reliance on Echoes. From what we’ve seen, Echoes are very rare compared to non-Echoes in the population, which means anything relying on Echoes to happen just… won’t be scalable enough to make much of a difference.
A Sarnothi Echo with powerful beams as a sniper might be very effective hiding in the water… but they’d only be able to get one shot off before they would effectively be dead unless their opponent would be already outclassed by even poorly equipped soldiers. At which point, why risk an Echo?
The energy beams are very flashy and easily seen, making anything that fired one off a very easy target.
And we haven’t seen anything to suggest they can protect themselves from a normal sniper. Or a drone.
And using a drone doesn’t risk anyone.
Really, the magical flying things that don’t seem well designed to function either underwater or above water but still do are far more interesting to try and adapt to a military context.
Usually we keep vehicles either on the ground or far from the ground for many reasons.
Sarnothi vehicles look like they’d easily loose against humanity’s current air combat craft, as well as modern tanks, but they do look like they might actually be able to make hovercraft-style tactics actually viable. And that could definitely be a game changer in certain environments.
“Except we’ve known how to protect things from energy weapons and death rays since even before we invented such things in World War II. For many, an electromagnetic field would do it. For others, a simple reflective surface.”
We don’t know what Echo beams “are”, physically speaking, or even if they use any scientifically principles we’re familiar with. So it’s anyone’s guess what defenses work against them. The only thing we know for a fact that works against them is other Echoes (remember in the last storyline where an Echo “caught” a beam and twisted it to return to its shooter – something that you can’t do with bullets).
Electromagnetic fields are unlikely to help. The kinds of rays that electromagnetic fields protect against are (among) the ones that are liable to give you cancer long before they blow you up.
“Another problem with Resonance-tech is of course the reliance on Echoes. From what weâve seen, Echoes are very rare compared to non-Echoes in the population, which means anything relying on Echoes to happen just⌠wonât be scalable enough to make much of a difference.”
It’s quite possible that the research is focused on figuring out how to make more Echoes.
This didn’t use to be believed to be possible (I think Echodom was originally believed to be an inborn trait?), but Amanda developing Echo powers proves that even the Sarnothi “experts” on the subjects didn’t know everything. If whatever gave Amanda Echo powers can be replicated, Echoes could become quite common.
Alternatively, there are also Echo-made tools and weapons that can be used by non-Echoes.
“People forget that we do have working death rays / energy beam weapons. It’s just that explosives work better, and thereâs not much that can stand up to speedy heavy thing.”
It’s interesting to note that when lasers were first invented, people called them “a solution in search of a problem” because they looked cool but nobody had much of an idea what they’d be good for. Science fiction authors, of course, immediately started imagining their potential as weapons. Since then, we’ve found all sorts of uses for lasers… but weaponry is just about the one application that we haven’t managed to use them for (outside of some clunky prototypes too heavy and inefficient for real battle use). Militaries do make widespread use of lasers… as aiming guidance for firearms!
It’s very naive to look at a new technology and see only its destructive potential. We already have very good ways to destroy things. It’s far more interesting to find ways to do stuff that we couldn’t do before.
“Put simply, put the energy of that beam into throwing a nicely aerodynamic rock instead and then the laws of physics are going to help you out a lot more.”
Scientifically speaking, kinetic energy weapons are still energy weapons đ
“A Sarnothi Echo with powerful beams as a sniper might be very effective hiding in the water⌠but they’d only be able to get one shot off before they would effectively be dead unless their opponent would be already outclassed by even poorly equipped soldiers.”
Good point. Snipers tend to rely on stealth to survive. Glowing green beams aong the entire firing path from the sniper to the target aren’t very stealthy.
“Itâs very naive to look at a new technology and see only its destructive potential. We already have very good ways to destroy things. Itâs far more interesting to find ways to do stuff that we couldnât do before.”
My entire point was that using them for direct damage doesn’t seem to make sense. Human weaponry is either just as effective, or more so due to things like not being so flashy and being able to target things over the horizon, out of sight, or having no straight line to it.
And that using resonance tech for non-destructive purposes seems much more interesting and useful (especially when combined with more standard human tech), even in a military context.
“Itâs quite possible that the research is focused on figuring out how to make more Echoes.
This didnât use to be believed to be possible (I think Echodom was originally believed to be an inborn trait?), but Amanda developing Echo powers proves that even the Sarnothi âexpertsâ on the subjects didnât know everything. If whatever gave Amanda Echo powers can be replicated, Echoes could become quite common.”
Magically-speaking, Amanda and Selkie are probably twins. Same parent, and IIRC same birthday.
Twins sharing powers and other connections is very common magically.
We also know that certain Sarnothi have theorized that humans did at least used to have Echoes, just being called wizards or witches.
It’s entirely possible that Amanda was born an Echo but humans need some kind of inciting incident to unlock their dormant powers rather than just developing glowing eyes naturally. Or perhaps even Sarnothi Echoes are like that, it’s just that they are always exposed to Resonance-tech or other Echoes and so always get that inciting incident early on without any extra effort.
I don’t think we’ve seen enough to suggest that Echoes can be artificially created without an existing bloodline supporting it.
“Alternatively, there are also Echo-made tools and weapons that can be used by non-Echoes.”
Except with low number of Echoes, that still doesn’t lead to scalability.
Almost everything we use everyday relies on the ability to mass produce it with minimally trained labour and often a lot of automation.
If you can make a hundred “normal” automatic weapons compared to one Resonance beam weapon (which have been shown to have far lower rate of fire and similar-to-lower killing potential), it’s a no-brainer to go for the regular weapons (even if the resonance-gun does more damage).
Same thing for cars, trucks, planes, mass-produced sculptures, bottles, chocolate bars, etc.
One of the best places to use Resonance tech and Echoes to me seems to be in manufacturing specialty devices.
I say specialty because it would have to compete with existing factories, which are already very efficient and the cost to convert them to using Resonance-tech would likely outweigh any benefits for most applications, at least for quite some time.
It’s quite possible that something like generic prototyping – where you produce a few (less than a hundred) of a thing made out of something very close to the final product and then that place never makes them again since the final version would end up being made in a specialised production line – would be a very good place to use Resonance-tech tools as it does seem like you can use the same thing for many different materials a bit easier than how we do it today with dedicated printing/sculpting machines for various metals, plastics, glass, etc.
Current specialised mass-production looks like it would easily out-compete Resonance stuff for a very long time though.
I love how he’s concerned about Amanda too.
wait it was big enough to be visible from *Minneapolis*
I knew it was big but that’s BIG
Humans will always want more if only to ensure other humans don’t get it.
Oh, right. The laser. The big green sky laser. The laser that was especially visible in the midwestern sky. The midwestern sky laser. That laser?
(Thanks, The Emperor’s New Groove)