Spacetrawler, audio version For the blind or visually impaired, November 03, 2023.
The Kickstarter for Spacetrawler BIG Book THREE is LIVE!
Yeah, the Bupillions seem to MEAN well, but I can’t say they picked the right method that works on Choan. If there is ANY method that would work on Choan.
…what are the chances she -knew- they’d take it back and already learnt how to make her own?
I would be shocked if she hadn’t made a scan of it and it’s components within minutes of getting it.
In character, she’s scanned and started production on the thing, preparing to make several millions. Also she’s sold her shares in ship manufacturing.
Pool Christopher, his plot for twentyplus strips ahead is revealed.
Poor, I meant poor. Poor.
Sold them to shape-shifting snakes.
Have they made sure she hasn’t already reverse-engineered the portholer and modified it? It’s what she does.
My guess is that the Bupillions have already figured for that.
Or maybe not, as we find out about them specifically because they had to chase down the Stribs to recover stolen tech. Maybe their interest in Choan is due to their own having shared tech bite them in the ass once too often?
I think Choan’s principal characteristic is generosity. Every time we encounter her, she is using her talents and connections to save someone, help someone, or give someone something. Yes, she often takes a planet or two in trade, but if there’s no profit to be made, she saves, helps, or gives anyway.
I believe Choan’s species was already failing before she was born. I think her parents realized this and decided to try to create a super-scientist who might find a way to save them. Science is amoral; they suppressed her moral sense. Science is curious; they made her so curious that she can’t stop herself from stealing everybody’s proprietary tech. Science is objective; she has never expressed a strong opinion about anything.
Would it have worked? Probably. Choan visited her home world for only seven minutes and in that time implemented a stopgap that will give her people probably another century or two to work out a solution. Imagine what she could do in seventy years. The great tragedy of Choan’s species is not that a regicide toppled their government. The great tragedy is that they banished their only hope for salvation in a fit of grief over a forgivable crime.
Of course this is all speculation but it fits the facts of Christoper’s narrative.
So the Bupillions are dicks too.
Welcome to reality and fiction, every species is a dick in general, with non-dickish specific characters~
Choan: “So that’s what that feels like.”
I’m delighted.
Choan, the technocrat, gets a technocrat’s comeuppance. Her magic potholer is taken from her. Better yet, she’s given a virus to warn her against her constant cackling. One her skills are not proof to remove. All intended to make her a better person, but almost calculated to show her that a technocrat can be technocrattrapped. Most excellent.
It makes up for the Bupillions’s failed attempt to better Choan through self-reflection. Ruddock did a better job biting her leg. I don’t think the Bupillions understand Choan’s biologic limitations, and they hope for better from her than she is actually physically capable of manifesting. A puzzling lack of insight, but then, as I’ve noted before, they were also hornswoggled by the Stribs, so this appears to be a fault of sympathy, detecting such where it doesn’t exist. A failing, I note, that Choan is constitutionally unable to capitalize on. A clear case of unperpetrateable mopery.
Are those eyebrows or just a brow furrow in the last two frames?
Heh. Just a brow furrow. 🙂