09/09/15 The City 30

9 Comments

1. 

   Dajagr

   September 9, 2015 at 1:41 am

   This might be more difficult to do (and result in occasional duplicated panels in the archive), but the opening line in today’s strip is a lot funnier if you have the previous panel or two to go with it! I can (and did) go through the archive to look it up, but it might be worth keeping panels from the previous strip together for the extra punch. Just a thought!
2. 

   Xeiran

   September 9, 2015 at 5:11 am

   Someone else may have already commented on this, but as the overall plot has progressed, I find myself wondering where you’re going with this. This latest part of the plot with the 4-eyed BEMs seems completely unrelated to the rest of the story you have been weaving so far.

   That said, I am admittedly impressed with the 4-eyed BEM plot for the sole reason of getting me to feel a general sense of apathy regarding them, despite whatever crimes the humans may have committed in their culture. Granted, humans have historically vilified cultures they don’t or cannot feel a personal connection with, but in today’s highly connected world where everyone (in general) is beginning to empathize with everyone else on earth, I guess I’m surprised I forgot that for a time.
3. 

   Owen Smith

   September 9, 2015 at 8:36 am

   They are assuming the NEBs don’t understand english and are discussing their plans openly in front of them. This may be a mistake.
4. 

   CompaniaHill

   September 9, 2015 at 9:41 am

   I’m still wondering what Dilvan did to irk the Nebs.

   Meanwhile, I’m enjoying the appearance of the new retractable LaserBlade3000, another fine product of the Non-A-Light-Sabre-So-George-Lucas-Can’t-Sue-Us corporation.
5. 

   Sengkelat

   September 9, 2015 at 11:49 am

   Companiahill, the NEBs have a giant jellyfish creature statue in their city. Dilvan set that jellyfish creature on fire to save Anna, while NEBs were watching. If that’s not why the NEBs are mad at him, Chris is being very sneaky.

   Also, I’m wondering the same thing as Xeiran about where this story is going. I’m hoping the NEBs story isn’t just a side-quest, but will have bearing on the initial mystery presented. I guess it depends if this is a novel or more of an adventure serial.
6. 

   CBob

   September 9, 2015 at 1:39 pm

   I think they are part of the main plot. Before they showed up the popular spec was that the ship was a kind of press-gang colony. It seems super-unlikely that whoever was in charge of such a plan wouldn’t have picked the planet in advance (otherwise you’d just be sending everyone to die at least 9 times out of 10, and you can only “lose” so many passenger ships before someone starts to notice), and these NEBS aren’t something that would go unnoticed by a site survey. A city built like that is practically jumping up and down to be seen.

   So IMO it’s more likely that the situation with the ship is actually directly related to the NEBS somehow. Bear in mind, we actually had VERY little to go on with the ship-related plot so far, so the assumptions/speculations made there were almost entirely blue sky and could very plausibly be wrong.
7. 

   Christopher Baldwin

   September 9, 2015 at 5:12 pm

   @Dajagr, yeah, that is one of the problems of converting a story to broken parts. The first panel of this one I want the first line to go in the previous installment, and the rest to go in this one. I didn’t have a good solution, although I almost included the same panel in both.

   @Sengelat, well… it’s a mix of a serial and a novel. There isn’t a specific things about this city that will help solve the physical problems, no special magic key found to unlock doors, but it is part of the larger themes of never fully knowing what an alien’s intentions are, character development, and tying in a side plot. 🙂
8. 

   night-gaunt

   September 9, 2015 at 6:17 pm

   This part of the story is going well. I am just sorry we don’t have an idea of the other characters, the locals who hare pissed off that their god or pet was burned. Still interesting. Intelligence and a poor first contact on their world. Since the humans are the aliens.

   This might look like a side story, but who knows if we see them again toward the end unexpectedly?
9. 

   Herandar

   September 10, 2015 at 8:13 am

   Panel 6: Foxglove looks truly heroic, but jumping fist/laser cutter-first like that ends up with her facedown in the dirt a second later. I guess that’s why I like comics.