Spacetrawler, audio version For the blind or visually impaired, September 27, 2023.
Even Choan has to rely on others when her only other option is to possibly create a portal into empty space, or the center of a planet, or the bottom of an ocean, or a black hole, or a sun. Although they’d be fun visuals to draw. 🙂
What cop would follow his quarry into a portal, lose his gun and have the quarry cut it in half, and still think he has any leverage?
As we can see, universally, cops are not smart…
The point is to maintain the mystique to the extent that they can. There aren’t enough cops to be everywhere.
Of course, once enough people start acting like they would if there weren’t any cops:
1. Hire more cops, build more jails, give offenders who like to fight a choice between jail or joining the Marines (special cannon-fodder division).
2. Civilization (such as it is) begins to crumble and you start getting warlords and the equivalent of the Mafia. Consider the countries without law and order; would you really want to live there in your later years?
EG Chicago.
i.e., Mar-A-Largo.
Beat me to it, but I’ll modify it.. Welcome to Flor-i-da!
I didn’t realize they only have one leg until now. Not great attention to detail on my part…
She needs to work on her coordination.
Poudric has a plan so wise you could put wings on it and call it an owl.
If he still has jurisdiction here. Otherwise, he hasn’t a leg to stand on.
And here I thought the Bupillions gave Choan three ‘something-or-anothers’ that had to do with beer (Coor- in panel 3). Funny that no matter how fast a person might read at, the mind will fill in the blanks even faster.
Maybe they invented Coor-Dinates. An alcoholic beverage that has antiemetic qualities. Got to admit, that would be useful.
I feel like Choan would be okay at the bottom of an ocean, what with the gills and all.
She may be okay with breathing underwater (though there’s always the question of what kind of water exactly; fresh water critters usually don’t fare well in salt water and vice-versa); but with water there’s always also the issue of pressure. Water builds up pressure much faster than air, what with being so much more dense.
For an illustration: the atmosphere is generally estimated to be about 100 km thick (Kármán line), meaning that if you are at sea level, you have about 100 km column of air weighing down on you. This exerts about one bar of pressure upon you. Now there’s no way to get a 100 km column of water anywhere on Earth, but if you dive in the Mariana Trench you can get about 10 km deep (the deepest known point is just shy of 11 km). At this depth, you get a pressure of over 1000 bars. Ten times less water height than air height, but a thousand times more pressure from water than from air.
Going near-instantly from atmospheric pressure to bottom of ocean pressure would be pretty bad. Also probably impossible because of gushing water flowing like a geyser through the porthole due to the pressure differential.
Is that a green hill they landed on, or just a very small planet?
Somehow I suspect Poudric is out of his(?) jurisdiction.
So, coordinates to three places, of which this is the second, and Bupillia, which I understand the Bupillions don’t want to see her in.
No “back home?”
If she ends up on Bupillia, they would probably insist on giving her a way back home or wherever she wants to go. Or even explain how the silly thing works as long as they get to block her from coming back.
She probably could make notes of her current starting coordinates before putting in the destination ones.
Three destinations. The first with a local hostile lifeform and a not-too ‘wise’ woman. The second smelling familiar and with rather elastic turf. And the third, presumably the home of the Bupillions themselves.
The ingredients for a voyage of self-discovery, a Candidessy, if you will. Methinks the Bupillions have an actual motive in providing Choan with their potholer and their coordinates. But I doubt they’ll have the ending they expect. I mean, come on. The Bupillions got dry-gulched by the Stribs same as everybody else. Choan’s a different level of mastery altogether. So who knows what the ending will be?
I know, I know: Christopher. I’m off to get a fresh limeade in time to see how Poudric claims his jurisdiction, as promised Monday. Don’t steal my seat.
If it smells familiar, it could be her homeworld.
It struck me that she sliced into what may have been an energy weapon. I’d be a bit concerned about uncontrolled energy release (though I’m sure she would be rather more familiar with the technology).
There are two places you can cut a gun like that in half without it exploding. Choan knows one of them.
I don’t think that, legally, Poudric has a leg to stand on.
Doesn’t work like that. Locals have to make the arrest, extradite to your jurisdiction. If they want to.
Plus, I don’t see where she committed any crimes. Browsing the open internet should not be a crime. If you want to make it a secret, don’t publish that information.
This would be a problem in a society like this. I don’t see an answer.
“Officer, you appear to be out of your Jurisdiction.”
Shrek moment: “…oh? You and what army?”