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!
Aggghhh what a way to end an issue! Two big cliffhangers.
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I don’t think it’s too big a spoiler to ask… Patrons, does it turn out it actually is a rainbow?
Well, it IS a beam of light.
A rainbow is not a beam of light…
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.
I get the feeling starcaster beams are more … supercritical plasma, more than just photons.
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.
So it is not A beam of light, it is SEVERAL beams of light of several wavelengths…
/pedantic
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
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”.
Much in the same way a shotgun blast is not a bullet.
More like how a spit wad is not a RPG.
You refer to power-level; I refer to mechanical similarity. We are not the same.
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.
Yes! 😀
Y-yes. *Looks away meme*
Oh, that poor Mullet Cow…
That’s going to be the species from now on!
Well yeh? Did you think mullets just grew on trees?!
I choose a bad day to stop smoking…
I picked a bad day to stop drinking…
I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue..
I picked the wrong week to stop taking amphetamines…
I chose … poorly
I picked a bad day to move to a rural farming planet.
More like a bad (wrong?) year (or years) to live on one, looks like they were here for a while already.
/Literal.
Did the SFX Budget run out early so we couldnt get an exploding planet panel ? 😀
Odds are the planet won’t actually explode, but the surface will be turned to magma.
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.
Just go watch the opening sequence of Titan AE again.
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.
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.
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 »
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 »
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 »
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 »
Hence the whole steeling his resolve and the grand religious ceremony
I miss few panels that would show Vectanix actually firing the SC. Getting just this beam of light seems kinda underwhelming.
It’s much more ominous that way.
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).
Besides, showing the whole process is cool, once.
After that it’s just padding.
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.
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.
cue that playground scene in terminator 2
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.
There’s a reason they’re farming mineral clusters for starcraft maps rather than something you actually eat.
Insert “Well yes, but actually no” meme.
“You may fire when ready.”
Aww, we don’t get to see the farmers fry.
Maybe that’s the next panel and Tim said “maybe at the end of the year”. It’ll be your christmas present
Oh damn. Right in the feels. I was wondering what the story was with the farmer family.
Maybe Vectanix’ brother attacks him – u know with the sibling rivalry that’s been going on – stopping the beam and preventing too much damage
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 »
uh oh
Aww 🙁
That…seems bad
What were the story choices for this issue?
There was only one for issue 11, and that was whether or not to blast the transponder in Quel’s ship.
A falling star! Make a wish! 😀
And thus Tatooine went the way of Alderaan….
oof… off to Patreon I go, I guess. The suspense is killing me!
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.
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.
See that planet over there ? You can blow it up !
Personally I’m looking forward to the Players comics again.
(In addition to Ethan & Lucas, of course!)
((Also, I love the Starcaster series))
Yup and here comes the pot of gold.
Ouch, rough
“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?
It was chosen because there’s a significant amount of people on it, desert be damned.