Page 19: What appears to be a Federation scout ship is approaching Cort and crew’s camp.
- Pack up the Aphelion and run. 13%
- Take up a defensive position and wait to see what the ship does. 82%
- Fire a warning shot with the Starcaster 5%
24
Heh, a definite safe choice.
Ya this was my vote but damn it was resounding. I kinda expected alot of people to YOLO the BEEEEEAMS but I guess not. If it was the free public community it may have been more BEAM heavy 🙂
I certainly would have voted for BEEEEEAMS!!!!!!
YEa, wasn’t the public community choice rather risky back in the old CAD 1 days with Ethan the Space Archeologist?
One Example –> https://cad-comic.com/comic/idiots-in-space-page-12/
If I remember correctly Tim’s early forays into public decision making for the storyline had a couple of rather … dare I say it…. Dumb choices, that ended the story rather abruptly. Nice to see a sensible decision.
That one also didn’t have clear consequences that choice was basically a coin flip, it wasn’t like people had any way of knowing escaping through the ducts was instant death. Granted lots of earlier ones were more clear about which was the stupid choice.
True, wasn’t the best example, but it was only a quick search of the archives and the first one I found. I know there were others when the obvious results of a choice would be the end, and still it was the choice made by the “group”.
People pay for this vote. They value it.
I would actually say readers are most likely to choose over safe choices. Classic videogame RPG syndrome. They don’t want to permanently lock out or endanger something.
Yep, “no skin in the game”, or “no dog in the fight”, leads to more risky choices, generally, I believe anyway.
yeah firing a warning shot would’ve definitely obliterated that incoming vessel XD
True usually hurts
82%, finally some sensibility with the voters. Was worried for a bit they will do another Starcaster shot. XD
Here’s to hope Cort and his Tentuncle can finally hug it out together.
kek “tentuncle”, nice
“Where’s Nyrah?”
“In her bunk.”
“?Fiery?”
You weirdo, Cort. XD
The “Fiery…” is part of cursing in their universe, much like our “feckin’hell”
Correct. I think we’ve generally seen it finished as “fiery nebula”. Could be wrong, but that’s the word that my mind fills in.
Um, am I the only one DEEPLY concerned by the fact they’re leaving Nyrah behind? I know they don’t mean to do that for good, but it could quite easily end up in disaster. I know every decision can lead to disaster in a heartbeat right now, but this one is even worse. Like, they could lose Nyrah. And/or she may misinterpret their apparent absence and lack of warning, and act accordingly. I guess they’re counting on whomever is/are on the ship, seeing them running and follow them. But unless it’s Quel’Oran, any others are gonna come in groups. And… Read more »
Any of the choices could go wrong: the ship is rickety (and Speck bought fewer ship parts to fix Nyrah’s body); no idea who is in the scout or what they want; and firing off a Starcast where someone can see it is a surefire way to attract unwanted attention. Wait and see certainly *seems* the most reasonable.
I know that about any of the choices. That’s why I said so. My point is, I’m betting the voters weren’t counting on such a big issue as Nyrah being left behind, being part of their decision. Now, thinking about the other options, which I haven’t before… Honestly, Starcaster warning shot sounds like the smartest. 1) If anyone else nearby can spot them thanks to such a thing, they surely did already when Cort fired earlier (and almost hit Speck and the ship). Why bother with subtlety? We’re talking just a second shot, after all. Not a constant display of… Read more »
.
Where’s option D? Get Nyrah and take a defensive position?
The time it would take to wake her would require their defensive position be inside the ship, making it a bigger target for whatever weapons the scout ship might have.
Would it? I don’t think they’ve established if they have any kind of life scanner, and if they did then they could still find Nyrah. I would guess that running into the ship would be best, worst case scenario and they investigate they’d have to go inside to find the team, in which case you have the jump on them. The only way this could go really wrong is if the scout decides to blast the ship into pieces for the fun of blasting space junk, but the odds of that seem low.
Nah, it’s best to be outside because it allows use of their best weapon. If the scout does decide to fire a missile or starts to make a strafing run, Cort can make quick work of it. If it lands and the pilot is an unfriendly, Cort doesn’t have to worry about punching holes in the ship with the Starcaster.
Besides, even if they do get inside, Nyrah can take care of herself against a single pilot and they’re close enough to the Aphelion that they can get back inside before it could take off.
Just want to say that Starcaster Chronicles is some of your best work.
Being able to control how high the nose of the ship is pointed seems like it would be important. Good choice, patreons.
Doubly impressive, since they weren’t fed the significance of the interaction between the vas-relay and the omni-cyclic injection valve. In a lesser webcomic (not naming names) this would be meaningless sci-fi technobabble, but I can tell the Patrons know CAD well enough to know that these details matter.
To be fair, we all knew the status of the ship before this vote. It’s been limping along in various states of disrepair since Cort got the starcaster bonded to him, if not before. We knew that Speck was buying parts, but only had limited credits. We’d been running for so long, on bad parts, low supplies that we determined just *waiting to at least see* who it was in this ship was better than possible breaking our ship more.
There was a lot of conversation about this particular choice in the Vote thread on Patreon. The resulting overarching choice was that wanton destruction was not a good idea, so choice 3 was out. And that the ship that had not gotten new parts at the space station, and was actively being repaired, was not in a position to be making a hasty exit, so people shied away from choice 1.
My personal stance was that Choice 2 could allow Cort to try and talk his way out of a patrol craft inspecting their ship.