In the morning I’ll be lighting out back onto the road, screaming across CO, NM, and AZ to CA. Looking forward to camping and visiting friends along the way.
Also, don’t forget to check out the guest strip I’m doing for Dave Kellett’s funny awesome strip, “Drive!” I did an eleven page story, and one will post every Tuesday, so make sure you keep up on it! (and read the archives too. Worth it).
Okay, I want her on my team.
Please tell me that she gets to live.
And I thought Joyce was the team’s best negotiator and strategist.
I still think Joyce is the team’s best strategist. What we see here is not a master of strategy, but a master of winging it.
Forcibly collecting people to attend peace talks is like admonishing people for fighting in the war room (Dr Strangelove). This may not be the best way to pursue lasting peace.
But perhaps they will figure out what sort of unobtainium is hidden at Heltch that makes it so unique in the solar system (or even galaxy)?
My best guess is peace and quiet. Peace and quiet are hard to come by. Anyone else?
Your throat will be mighty sore if you scream the entire way across three states. I suggest a suitable War Cry upon departure, and maybe a couple of Victory Yells upon arrivals great and small, and rest during the actual drive. You’ll have better attention of your immediate surroundings that way as well.
I realize you may have your reasons, but… why do the hallways of the (White House/Kremlin/Buckingham Palace) for the planetary ruler of Heltch all look like the cramped corridors of a ship/spaceship? In ships space is at a premium so a hallway is for conduit and piping first, humans second, sometimes hidden behind easy-to-remove maintenance panels to dress things up a little. But it makes no sense at all for the planetary residence / offices of a planetary ruler, where you’d expect expansive and expensively decorated hallways.
I didn’t have these being grand halls because they are more the secret corridors one keeps behind the molten acid pit, rather than a grand place to impress visitors. 🙂
“molten” –> “boiling” acid?
Seems like non-molten acid would be frozen, vapor or plasma.
Your strip(s) are beginning to seem normal to me.
I’m worried…..
Worried about the comic, or worried about your own state of mine? 😉
Maybe the state of the world is warping the mind’s eye.
Interesting negotiation, the other way I have seen uses a blaster. “Aggressive negotiations”.
At this point, I feel like Team Nogg will forge a long-lasting peace between these peoples…by showing them that they’re surrounded by a galaxy of lunatics and that they’d better band together or people like Anesu will never stop bothering them and/or robbing them blind.
On another note, the phrase “molten acid” is driving me crazy. To be “molten” implies an acid of some kind that is normally quite solid at room temperature which has been melted down by heat. While I suppose some kind of technically acidic substance that is a solid at room temperature must exist, I cannot but assume it must not be a very potent acid. All the intimidating acids I know are either liquids or gasses at room temperature, and even the gasses need to be dissolved in liquid to affect anything powerfully.
Can somebody who knows more chemistry than me set me straight, or is this just silliness and I should stop thinking so much?
A quick Google for solid acid turns up a few candidates that would be solid at room temps comfortable for humans, and meltable to a liquid without going to vapor phase too easily. Nothing so nasty as hydrofluoric acid which has a freezing point of -36.111°C (-33°F).
If this alien species happens to have a biochemistry Ph pretty far to the basic end of the scale, then something as mild as citric acid could be crazy deadly to them.
I did that quick Google search, and even a little more. But it was not apparent that the acids in question were at all impressive. You yourself suggest that to make them impressive, we might assume some alternative alien physiology. But the target audience of this tale is humans, so I don’t find that suggestion satisfying.
The overall imagery conjured in my mind (supported by the literal imagery of the glowing pit) is a mash-up of deadly acid and molten lava. But again, the two don’t appear to fit together according to my understanding of the physical universe (which as I’ve already acknowledged may well just be deficient).
Just think of it as a quirk in the way the languages are translated. The device is being literal and true to the Aulton’s speech.
I just noticed this alien guy has two elbows per arm.