So a wee bit of a landslide on this one…
That’s fine, though, I wanted to give you guys the choice before things start heating up!
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So a wee bit of a landslide on this one…
That’s fine, though, I wanted to give you guys the choice before things start heating up!
I figured that would be the result. When a planet-killing death bracelet grafts itself to your arm, you need all the help you can get.
YES!! Great to see the “avoid the obvious plot device destiny” thing averted, even if it’s by fan-vote.
Hey, remember how repeat voting was possible? With a landslide like that, it looks as though the winning side repeat voted just a little, but I mean, one of those is mine.
Well, at least the voice of sanity prevailed this time.
Common sense won out! Glad we didn’t have a repeat of the “Use a grenade to blow a hole in the floor, thus leaving cover to use it instead of a grappeling hook out the window that does not open my body up to gun fire, and oops, there goes my ear” event we had a few issues ago.
I think you mean we didn’t have a repeat of the “waste time blowing up The Grin’s ship, making it personal between us, when we should just GTFO, and as a result of this incredibly stupid action we have to do an in atmosphere warp that screws out ship up all kinds of fun ways” event
That was by far the stupidest, most lacking in common sense thing people voted for across this whole story. Losing a tiny piece of ear doesn’t even come close.
No, I think that might hover somewhere between ‘vote on the new name of our ship’ in issue one and ‘vote to add the necropuppeteer to our enemy list or not’. One is so obvious as to not have been much of a choice (it was, but….), the other was….something that I don’t even think gets mentioned in the comic a whole lot
Still glad we chose not to make that necropuppeteer our enemy, I bet that guy is worse than the Bounty Hunter and the Mafia.
pretty sure the ship name vote was more of a low-stakes test run of the system to see if it worked and see if we participated.
Ship was LITERALLY mentioned by name 3-4 pages ago XD
And it’s the ship name I voted for. Very happy about it.
I seriously can’t get why people are so opposed to illogical and “bad” decisions. Storytelling relies on characters making poor choices (because if someone doesn’t make mistakes, dumb decisions or less then optimal choices, they aren’t really fun to follow).
Yeah, in this particular choice, going with “I actually need some help with that thing” seems like a logical continuation of a story, but do not underestimate the power of “this was such a bad idea” and “we didn’t really think it through”.
Man I can’t help but be a little salty at that landslide. Yes it’s the option that makes the most sense, but it’s not necessarily the most interesting one. Having Cort and Speck go it alone and try to figure things out for themselves could’ve been a fun development.
well there wasn’t a lot to do if they went it alone. all they would really end up doing is running which just ends up wasting time. It wouldn’t have been quite as interesting as you might think.
Give me a little credit 😉 I could make it pretty interesting.
Good stuff. I voted for this.
Although in this case the alternative route is also an interesting one. Obviously a disasterous one, but still interesting. Is there any plans to publish a “what could have been” once all this is over?
…and good call on the “he can’t get drunk” in the comments a few days ago 🙂
I think that Tim said earlier that commentary and insight on the paths not chosen would be a feature of the bound books, once they come out. So there’s that to look forward to.
Correct, while I cannot explore every option to its conclusion, the books will offer some insight to the “might have beens” and how they would have changed the path of the story.
In all honesty, there’s not really a reason we couldn’t have both options here. Nyrah would probably get captured or held by some person or other if Court decided to leave her, and afterwards he’d realize he actually needed her. Court seems to have lost most of the fight in him now, and I don’t think that’s especially fair to his character that’s been established.
You’re assuming Nyrah would have survived that. Tim has already stated that our choices have an impact on who’ll survive the storyline. Basically, there will be permanent consequences in this adventure.
Honestly, if Cort DIDN’T ask for help after all the comments justifying his need last week, then that would’ve been a better smoke screen than anything Batman ever came up with. And by such a wide margin, too….this has gotta be one for the record books, right, Tim? Right. And heating up? Are you saying that the reason Cort feels hot is our fault? Crap! *looks for a rusty knife* In all seriousness, thiugh, it’s good to see Nyrah taking this tack for once. She’s been so obsessed with how important the object is, it’s like she almost forgot there… Read more »
Hah, whoever guessed that Cort can’t get drunk anymore was right, nice one! XD
And given he “feels off” and “is hot all the time” it is damn good that we asked Nyrah for help because besides the other starcast-holders she is pretty much the only one we can ask for advice regarding this thing on Cort’s arm.
Damn, I just realized! If we’d voted to kick Nyrah off, we might have fumbled our way into needing help and choosing to go with the holders of numbers five or six. We could have increased our galactic knowledge that much sooner! Stupid desire for personal safety!
Let me just say, I love the design of the bartender.
Giant alien bunny FTW.
Yoooou better watch out, you better go hide
You better take cover and I’m a telling you whyyyyyy
ALIEN EASTER BUNNY IS COMING TO TOWN
Silly Cort. Up is toward your own gate. The enemy’s gate is down.
No, no, no, you’ve got that backwards, gruff one. Up is all relative to the observer, so he merely needs to identify his nose and feet, and then go in opposing directions for each one. Problem solved.
Polling readers for a decision and then cutting to a different scene for a few strips was genius. I imagine that allows for you to keep a buffer and have time to work things out.
It does help, yes.
Unfortunately its not possible ALL the time; it won’t work mid-action sequence, for instance. 🙂
that just makes it relate even more to the split-second decisions you make in combat vs the time it took to mull things over and drink seven wasted slugs of rum.
Kinda sad this was the outcome, would have liked to see what would have happened otherwise. I kinda figured this would happen though. This story is getting really good though, keep it up!
So the Aug are the “original race”? I assume we will never see what they actually look like (10 generic units of money says that they look like the little Feep guys from Planet of Doom just to mess with everyone), however this does solve a few interesting things. Most importantly, it explains how all species are able to use ‘casters while machines cannot. One could argue that this makes sense without the Aug because the SC scans for organic compounds or something, but I think someone implied that many of the species in this universe (presumably including some of… Read more »
The Aug were AN original race. They believed in life above all things, and with their advanced technology set about moving from world to world, creating life to suit planets, or altering planets to suit life.
But not all species are Augish. There are species that evolved naturally on their native planets, etc. As such, they do not carry the DNA required to bond with a Starcaster.
Did any of the original races aka ancient races survive and can tell from the Aug? Or did they just like the Aug die out someday giving way to the Aug created species and new natives species?
Just realized- Cort can now get a living by holding alcohol drinking contests.
Sure he could stop an intergalactic crisis or unleash the power of the Aug, but he could also set an unbeatable record of downing 175 shots of the world’s strongest alcohol.
I can see Nyrah’s condemnation of his life choices now.
“The power of the stars at your fingertips and this is what you choose to do with it? Drinking tavern drunks under the table for fun and profit?”
Alternatively, he can also use it for drinking challenges to see how much of a substance he can drink.
“Hey guys, I’m gonna drink this entire lake dry!”
“HA! Good one, foreigner!”
—–three weeks later—-
“….Our environment.”
“That’ll be 4,000,000 credits, please.”
Thats what I told the guy who had the idea that this starcaster meant Cort can never get drunk. xD
Who has two thumbs and freaking called it? this guy! I knew he would be anable to get drunk and said as much. anything that could repair him from a fatal wound would treat intoxicants like a poison because well it is
“That’s fine, though, I wanted to give you guys the choice before things start heating up!”
…
oh sweet jesus, what have we done.
Become thieves in the night? Become dogs on the run?
I’m wondering why Cort doesn’t take Nyrah and go to the triumvirate and offer them a deal? The deal would be, they let he and Nyrah live their lives in peace… and he’ll even tolerate them monitoring him so long as it’s from a distance and not too intrusive… and in return he’ll use the starcaster to help in the event of war.
The alternative is for him to use the starcaster to resist them, and in the process probably bring down their entire empire.
Given such a deal, I think they’d probably see sense.
From what we can infer? Cort doesn’t trust the marshals, OR the Triumverate. Scared. Running. Target on his back. You DON’T go to people you don’t trust.
Just because he can blow up a star doesn’t mean he can’t get knocked out be a covert agent and have a slave chip installed in his brain. I probably would have GTFO myself as well.
Knocked out: I’d expect the starcaster would either quickly fix or even prevent that. It seems unlikely that it doesn’t have a shield function built-in.
Slave chip: I’d also expect the starcaster to “notice” that and remove it, like it did for the alcohol, even presuming it would allow the installation in the first place, which I don’t think it would.
Summary: When you’re all but invincible, you don’t need to trust anyone.
There are probably races who can mindcontrol others and I doubt the starcaster protects from that kinda power. Now if the mindcontrol is something smell-based or needs to be eaten/drunk like blood then the starcaster might see it as an alien and dangerous invasion of its hosts body but it could also just see it as nourishment or normal, maybe even delightful smell. Alcohol on the other hand is always a poison, no matter what, so obviously the starcaster needs to deal with it.
Any form of mind control would involve *something* being used. Spores, chips, mind waves, etc. The Aug have incredible tech, so unless it was a native biological thing that the Starcaster does not recognize as an invasion, it would ward it off. For most intents and purposes Cort should be resistant if not immune to most things that would weaken him or incapacitate him.
I would imagine the same tech that denies him the ability to get drunk would also push such chips out of his system fairly efficiently….and as I’m writing this, I’m curious about tattoos. They’re a foreign agent, but they’re not really harmful, although the process can be…probably not.
I want to remind everyone, this is all knowledge we as readers possess. Cort is not that sharpest knife in the drawer, and he doesn’t have a handle on what the Starcaster can do. He also can’t say, “Well, I PROBABLY could depend on the Starcaster to push a slave chip through the bone and brain mater of my skull, freeing me from control. So I’ll just bet my life on that possibility.” When you don’t know WHAT a super advanced galaxy changing hunk of metal attached to your wrist can DO… you tend to not play fast and loose… Read more »
I think you just made the best possible argument for keeping Nyrah around, Baka. Well done. ?
Please tell me he drops this brooding persona.
“indentifies” instead of “identifies” in the third speech bubble in the first panel.
Y’all really gonna do Captain America like that lmaooo
Of course he’d ask for help. Cort’s a fool but he’s NOT an idiot!
A character that has interactions with others–whether to argue with, to respect, to love, to hate–is inherently more interesting than a character who pushes everyone away, and therefore has no one around to interact with . . . and thus stagnates. I’m *quite* glad the vote went this way. Three cheers for interaction!