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24

The Starcaster Chronicles, 11.24

March 9, 2023 by Tim

That wraps up Starcaster #11. We’ll do another issue maybe towards the end of the year. If you don’t want to wait, you can always check out the Starcaster Patreon. Patrons are always a couple of issues ahead (we’re currently on #13 there), they get 4 pages a month and get to vote on story choices.

We’ll resume our regular update schedule on Monday, and get back to Ethan and Lucas, Console Wars, gaming one-shots, etc. All that good stuff!


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Esc
8 months ago

Aggghhh what a way to end an issue! Two big cliffhangers.

Nightdagger
Nightdagger
8 months ago
Reply to  Esc

See more

Risky
Risky
8 months ago

I don’t think it’s too big a spoiler to ask… Patrons, does it turn out it actually is a rainbow?

BakaGrappler
BakaGrappler
8 months ago
Reply to  Risky

Well, it IS a beam of light.

Mael
Mael
8 months ago
Reply to  BakaGrappler

A rainbow is not a beam of light…

Alexye
Alexye
8 months ago
Reply to  Mael

Umm… Not to be rude, but that is exactly what a rainbow is. Sunlight passing through drops of rain and splitting into the visible colors. If that beam went through a prism, it would in fact turn into a rainbow.

CTOWNS
CTOWNS
8 months ago
Reply to  Alexye

I get the feeling starcaster beams are more … supercritical plasma, more than just photons.

Eldest Gruff
Eldest Gruff
8 months ago
Reply to  Alexye

I don’t think they covered this at all in Rogue One, but the original design of the Death Star had a prism affixed to it. Shot the beam into a large rainbow. It didn’t exactly kill, per say, but looked absolutely stunning.

If they went through with the plans the Disco Sphere would’ve had thousands of 20m x 20m mirrors on the outside, but at one point Darth saw the plans and said “Shit, we could use this thing to blow up a planet” and Palpatine was like “Whaat no way do that” and the rest is history.

wkz
wkz
8 months ago
Reply to  Alexye

So it is not A beam of light, it is SEVERAL beams of light of several wavelengths…

/pedantic

toughluck
toughluck
8 months ago
Reply to  wkz

It’s not several, it’s multiple. A rainbow is continuous, but due to quantum nature of light, there’s not an infinite number of beams.

/pedantic²

Hugh
Hugh
8 months ago
Reply to  Alexye

Light gets scattered by water vapour. All vapour, in ~all directions (depending on wavelength), so the whole “cloud” has light scattering all over. This is hardly worth calling a “beam”.

By virtue of observing from a particular point, the light coming in from a particular angle relative to the sun, i.e. around a whole circle, appears within the visible spectrum of the observer’s eyes. Someone 50m to the right perceives similar light, but coming from a circle essentially 50m to the right. No real focus, no actual “beam”.

Mike
Mike
8 months ago
Reply to  Mael

Much in the same way a shotgun blast is not a bullet.

Eric the White
Eric the White
8 months ago
Reply to  Mike

More like how a spit wad is not a RPG.

Mike
Mike
8 months ago
Reply to  Eric the White

You refer to power-level; I refer to mechanical similarity. We are not the same.

Arcatus
Arcatus
8 months ago
Reply to  Risky

Sure. We get the full explanation in the next issue: You see, in our atmosphere rainbows are created by light being reflected by droplets of water. In this atmosphere dust from the crystals they grow are in the atmosphere. A couple of pages ago we saw that these were blue, so the scattered light is yellow-ish (similar to the blue indicator lightbulbs seen on some older cars).
These guys actually make a fortune on selling crystals, after they enjoy a delicious crispy dinner.

no thanks nintendo
no thanks nintendo
8 months ago
Reply to  Risky

Yes! 😀

darius404
darius404
8 months ago
Reply to  Risky

Y-yes. *Looks away meme*

BakaGrappler
BakaGrappler
8 months ago

Oh, that poor Mullet Cow…

Drew
Drew
8 months ago
Reply to  BakaGrappler

That’s going to be the species from now on!

ShrewdMrMoose
ShrewdMrMoose
8 months ago
Reply to  Drew

Well yeh? Did you think mullets just grew on trees?!

Gonfrask
Gonfrask
8 months ago

I choose a bad day to stop smoking…

Scarsdale
Scarsdale
8 months ago
Reply to  Gonfrask

I picked a bad day to stop drinking…

Dyna
Dyna
8 months ago
Reply to  Scarsdale

I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue..

Kenju
Kenju
8 months ago
Reply to  Dyna

I picked the wrong week to stop taking amphetamines…

vede
vede
8 months ago
Reply to  Kenju

I chose … poorly

Last edited 8 months ago by vede
Kasey
Kasey
8 months ago
Reply to  Kenju

I picked a bad day to move to a rural farming planet.

Dagroth
Dagroth
8 months ago
Reply to  Kasey

More like a bad (wrong?) year (or years) to live on one, looks like they were here for a while already.

/Literal.

Jedi
Jedi
8 months ago

Did the SFX Budget run out early so we couldnt get an exploding planet panel ? 😀

BaufenBeast
BaufenBeast
8 months ago
Reply to  Jedi

Odds are the planet won’t actually explode, but the surface will be turned to magma.

Esc
Esc
8 months ago
Reply to  BaufenBeast

severely cracking the crust of the planet may be enough to cause near endless roiling upheavals of continental plates which would render the entire surface inhabitable also. Like when they test fire the death star in Rogue One.

James Stakey
James Stakey
8 months ago
Reply to  Jedi

Just go watch the opening sequence of Titan AE again.

John Swift
John Swift
8 months ago

Aww sad day. Too bad we dont get to see just how bad this is. I figured cutting the planet in half would be how he planned to destroy it based on what we have heard of their abilities with the starcaster.

Darkhorse
Darkhorse
8 months ago

All I’m wondering is how the planet is going to be destroyed. We’ve seen that a laser blast destroying a few Dreadstorms already fried his arm to nearly a crisp, leaving him in need of serious recovery. He’s never able to do a ‘Death Star’. He’s probably got enough power to put in a crater and cause a global firestorm like a big meteor impact would? Otherwise I’m very uncertain how he’s going to do this. The power simply doesn’t seem adequate in any other way.

DAT
DAT
8 months ago
Reply to  Darkhorse

also it’s a beam with what diameter? a couple hundred meters at worst? Held up for some seconds? Maybe an hour? That might punch right through that planet and heat it up somewhat – we’re probably talking something like dinosaur-extinction-event. But no shattered remains of a planet – that’s for sure. Even if you create a 1km diameter hole through the planet, that’s just gonna fill itself after the beam stops. Oh, those farmers are dead anyway… they see the beam, so it’s pretty near. Bot someone half a planet over? they might survive. (at least some days until fallout… Read more »

Scarsdale
Scarsdale
8 months ago
Reply to  DAT

Super heating the air, filling it with dust and debris, in a few hours it’ll kill most of the life on the planet with the clouds lowering the temperature planet wide that would take decades to recover from… Causing a planet wide ice age on an aired planet like that few if any animals would survive. Much less any settlers. A natural ice age only affects the colder pole of the planet, in earth’s case it only went as far south as Indiana’s middle (north of Indianapolis is smooth-ish while south of Indy is covered in deep hills and valleys).… Read more »

Darkhorse
Darkhorse
8 months ago
Reply to  Scarsdale

Could you explain ‘boiling’ a core? They are generally pretty hot already. I also doubt that he could burn through the surface of a planet quickly enough to get to the core before a Starcaster is too damaged and needs recovering. I do not doubt the awesome power of the Starcasters, but there are probably big limits to their destructive power. I think it is much more feasible to blast the planet hard enough on one spot to make the whole planet suffer a nearly unsurvivable apocalypse (like asteroids can) than to bore to the core, let alone ‘pop’ it.… Read more »

Scarsdale
Scarsdale
8 months ago
Reply to  Darkhorse

It was a idea that IF the core could be reached. Earth’s core isn’t liquid, it’s a semi-solid mass of the heavier metals that’s were pulled to there by gravity. the liquid stuff or lava/magma is in the outer core and is at the melted state you’re thinking of, mostly rocks and such. Anything that can melt can reach super-heated and turned to “steam”. Ask any foundry worker, just watch them, if it’s happened to them you can see it in their eyes, it’s very ugly. Someone almost always dies if the molten metal “pops”. I had a friend that… Read more »

CTOWNS
CTOWNS
8 months ago
Reply to  Darkhorse

Hence the whole steeling his resolve and the grand religious ceremony

Mike
Mike
8 months ago

I miss few panels that would show Vectanix actually firing the SC. Getting just this beam of light seems kinda underwhelming.

toughluck
toughluck
8 months ago
Reply to  Mike

It’s much more ominous that way.

Tim
Tim
8 months ago
Reply to  Mike

Actually, I find this way of depicting the destruction of a planet way more strong on an emotional level.
We don’t see the rocks which are the planet itself explode but we see the life of its inhabitants being destroyed (or well, we are kinda forced to imagine it).

Pajuka
Pajuka
8 months ago
Reply to  Tim

Besides, showing the whole process is cool, once.

After that it’s just padding.

toughluck
toughluck
8 months ago

Full disclaimer: I wanted to see this last strip in advance, so I bought Patreon access to the Starcaster Chronicles. Totally worth it.
I won’t reveal what happens next, but let’s just say that Tim has a great way to keep the readers involved and interested, and the story definitely doesn’t get boring.

The Legacy
The Legacy
8 months ago
Reply to  toughluck

There’s been many times during this arc that I’ve been wanting so badly to tell some of the responses that they were right on the money, but couldn’t. 😅

Which ones? Can’t tell you for obvious reasons. They’ll know when they see it though.

foducool
foducool
8 months ago

cue that playground scene in terminator 2

Rolando
Rolando
8 months ago

I THINK rainbows happen on all planets with enough water in their atmosphere. You know, enough to cause phenomenons like rain.

So, the fact this implies it never rains there (or maybe it does, but only once every X YEARS)… Makes me think their life has been extra-tough thus far.

So, it makes the whole situation even more painful to watch.

BaufenBeast
BaufenBeast
8 months ago
Reply to  Rolando

There’s a reason they’re farming mineral clusters for starcraft maps rather than something you actually eat.

Sasquatch
Sasquatch
8 months ago

Insert “Well yes, but actually no” meme.

Paul
Paul
8 months ago

“You may fire when ready.”

Zack
Zack
8 months ago

Aww, we don’t get to see the farmers fry.

VibrantEvolution
VibrantEvolution
8 months ago
Reply to  Zack

Maybe that’s the next panel and Tim said “maybe at the end of the year”. It’ll be your christmas present

Gear
Gear
8 months ago

Oh damn. Right in the feels. I was wondering what the story was with the farmer family.

VibrantEvolution
VibrantEvolution
8 months ago

Maybe Vectanix’ brother attacks him – u know with the sibling rivalry that’s been going on – stopping the beam and preventing too much damage

GeorgeV
GeorgeV
8 months ago

There really doesn’t seem to be that much hate between them, just disagreements on strategy. I may be misremembering, but didn’t he even express some concern about the damage this could do to Vectanix? And even if Kelias would for some reason decide to go full traitor (and probably turn least half his empire against him being a murderous traitor to the realm, this is literally the worst possible time for him to do it. Everyone is watching, and his brother is in prime condition and already actively wielding immense power. And he’s actually delivering some of the bloodshed Kelias… Read more »

Betonhaus
Betonhaus
8 months ago

uh oh

ShonaSoF
ShonaSoF
8 months ago

Aww 🙁

Eodyne
Eodyne
8 months ago

That…seems bad

Cheuk
Cheuk
8 months ago

What were the story choices for this issue?

Quaza
Quaza
8 months ago
Reply to  Cheuk

There was only one for issue 11, and that was whether or not to blast the transponder in Quel’s ship.

Mr. Casual
Mr. Casual
8 months ago

A falling star! Make a wish! 😀

Verdiekus
Verdiekus
8 months ago

And thus Tatooine went the way of Alderaan….

Marvin
Marvin
8 months ago

oof… off to Patreon I go, I guess. The suspense is killing me!

Paweł Zdanowski
Paweł Zdanowski
8 months ago

Yeah! Going back to normal updates! Don’t get me wrong, I guess a lot of people like Starcaster, but I really hate the months without regular things.

Eric the White
Eric the White
8 months ago

I love them both, but I really am dying to get more Analog and D-Pad. Zeke is the best drama running in webcomics right now that I know of.

Todd Howard
Todd Howard
8 months ago

See that planet over there ? You can blow it up !

Matt G.
Matt G.
8 months ago

Personally I’m looking forward to the Players comics again.
(In addition to Ethan & Lucas, of course!)
((Also, I love the Starcaster series))

Last edited 8 months ago by Matt G.
Pyre
Pyre
8 months ago

Yup and here comes the pot of gold.

Ron
Ron
8 months ago

Ouch, rough

Gravshire
Gravshire
8 months ago

“Let’s kill all the Non- Drangalax.” Proceeds to use a magic space nuke on a nearly-desert planet with only with 3 humans and a mutant cow known to be on it. The starcasters eat intelligent points, don’t they?

BaufenBeast
BaufenBeast
8 months ago
Reply to  Gravshire

It was chosen because there’s a significant amount of people on it, desert be damned.