April 29th - Plans and Confrontations

[Madmoonie]

On a totally unrelated note, I love coming up with the name for new topics based on RH's comic.

Anyway, I think is Quentyn is doing very well, and as well-prepared as he can be for his trip. I think it was rather smart of him to take the medicine. Putting himself in the hands of a human? That would be a very bad idea. I still think that he really needs to take someone with him. He really stands a better chance than if he was alone.

I am nervous about those lawyers though. I hope they don't get roughed up. They legimatly seemed to want to help and had no real malicous intent.

[Dapple]

They definitly had the I hate this job look on thier faces.

[StrangeWulf13]

Probably just a couple of schmucks who got handed the job since no one wanted it. And now that it hasn't gone the way their superiors (and those leaning on them) wanted, the lawyers are about to get in serious trouble.

It's likely they'll make their case as best they can, pointing out the little loophole Quentyn found and stating that they couldn't legally get out of it. But then, I suspect the people behind this are looking for a scapegoat or two, and the lawyers look like tempting sacrifices...

[Shyal_malkes]

the question is, who is doing the plotting and what it being plotted?


and who stole my cheetos?!

[TMLutas]

Probably just a couple of schmucks who got handed the job since no one wanted it. And now that it hasn't gone the way their superiors (and those leaning on them) wanted, the lawyers are about to get in serious trouble.

It's likely they'll make their case as best they can, pointing out the little loophole Quentyn found and stating that they couldn't legally get out of it. But then, I suspect the people behind this are looking for a scapegoat or two, and the lawyers look like tempting sacrifices...

Oh, I don't think that they're going to be in trouble at all. They can't be in trouble because they just did their job. Of course their next assignment might not be so pleasant. Perhaps it'll be to witness the progress of the quest they just helped revive?

[Richter B.]

Damn.... who was that being led away at the bottom panel there???
also i was wondering is there lux outside in the human lands and how much???
since i picture it as a resourse were and how is it manufactured or stored
and acumulated (writing errors galore huh?) i know of the one place
in the capitol there but since it might be so far from there wouldn't the
lux be less and might cause problems with the balloon?

[UncleMonty]

There have been various tales of "ley lines" and "areas where magical energy is strong" through the ages, so there's a chance this story will include some natural lux being available in the "outside" world. It's just that most humans in this story cannot detect or manipulate lux, while most Rac Conans can. Of course, if they "run out of lux" that luftgas pump could prove problematic... And that makes for a nice little bit of plot foreboding.

I'm interested in the human society Quentyn might find. Will it be locked into a feudal agriculture-based system in which nothing much changes from generation to generation, or have they progressed beyond that into an industrialized civilization?
(Wondering what Quentyn would think at first sight of a steam-powered tocomotive.)

[Zobeid]

Anyway, I think is Quentyn is doing very well, and as well-prepared as he can be for his trip. I think it was rather smart of him to take the medicine.

Bread mold pills. . . Penicillin? Penicillin is actually quite difficult to produce in any sort of useful amounts. I would be pretty impressed if they can accomplish that.

Trivia: The first test subject who was given penicillin responded favorably at first, but relapsed and died after the researchers were unable to produce enough for a full course of treatment.

I wonder if the humans have advanced any during the long period since contact was cut off. Maybe they had a renaissance? Maybe they had an industrial revolution? He could be floating into steampunk land for all we know.

With regard to the last couple of panels: "The fix is in!"

[Madmoonie]

Anyway, I think is Quentyn is doing very well, and as well-prepared as he can be for his trip. I think it was rather smart of him to take the medicine.

Bread mold pills. . . Penicillin? Penicillin is actually quite difficult to produce in any sort of useful amounts. I would be pretty impressed if they can accomplish that.

Trivia: The first test subject who was given penicillin responded favorably at first, but relapsed and died after the researchers were unable to produce enough for a full course of treatment.

I wonder if the humans have advanced any during the long period since contact was cut off. Maybe they had a renaissance? Maybe they had an industrial revolution? He could be floating into steampunk land for all we know.

With regard to the last couple of panels: "The fix is in!"

I hear ya! Who knows where the humans are, technology wise? Depends on whatever wrench RH wants to throw at us.

[Madmoonie]

(Wondering what Quentyn would think at first sight of a steam-powered tocomotive.)

I am guessing he would think it would be some sort of steam breathing beastie.

[MikeVanPelt]

(Wondering what Quentyn would think at first sight of a steam-powered tocomotive.)

I am guessing he would think it would be some sort of steam breathing beastie.

Nah, I don't think so. Quentyn's folks are very familiar with machines. Theirs just run on lux, or water power. It would be more along the lines of "I don't ken any lux in that machine, how is it doing that?"

[TMLutas]

Anyway, I think is Quentyn is doing very well, and as well-prepared as he can be for his trip. I think it was rather smart of him to take the medicine.

Bread mold pills. . . Penicillin? Penicillin is actually quite difficult to produce in any sort of useful amounts. I would be pretty impressed if they can accomplish that.

Trivia: The first test subject who was given penicillin responded favorably at first, but relapsed and died after the researchers were unable to produce enough for a full course of treatment.

I wonder if the humans have advanced any during the long period since contact was cut off. Maybe they had a renaissance? Maybe they had an industrial revolution? He could be floating into steampunk land for all we know.

With regard to the last couple of panels: "The fix is in!"

We already saw bread mold ointment during the wight episode:
http://npc.comicgenesis.com/d/20050207.html

I don't see why it shouldn't come in pill form too.

[EdBecerra]

Be a stone cold pain if he comes out, and it's 2007 AD. Heh. Of course, that would make for a VERY short story, sans some sort of MIB's preventing world-wide panic/interest in the Rac'coonians.

[RHJunior]

Anyway, I think is Quentyn is doing very well, and as well-prepared as he can be for his trip. I think it was rather smart of him to take the medicine.

Bread mold pills. . . Penicillin? Penicillin is actually quite difficult to produce in any sort of useful amounts. I would be pretty impressed if they can accomplish that.

Actually, its rather simple.

They add bread mould to vats of nutrient, and stir it in. Then stir it continually with mechanical paddles. Originally they merely let it grow across the surface of the nutrient--- which is why it took so long to produce, and why they ran out when the first patient was under treatment.

And penicillin was apparently used long before the industrial age. It seems a common home treatment for stomach problems was to give the patient a hot cross bun---which had been stored in the cupboard <I>and had been allowed to go to mould.</i>

[Dapple]

Well RH unless you have given it alot of thought beforehand you have to basicaly invent the outside world now. Quite a chore.
So those bread mold vats acted like a primitive bioreactor. Interesting.
It is right along the lines of what you would expect a Biomancer to be toying with. I mean just look at our pharmisutical market, There's money in them there pills.

[Siirenias]

Well, the hot cross bun remedy can potentially serious side-effect, especially for the time. There is a kind of fungus that can grow in breads that can cause psycotropic reactions...which is where werewolf stories are said to originate (peasant goes mad, people claim that it's posession/transformation into a wolf).

What I'm wondering is...and I jsut made this connection a few minutes ago...why are those lawyers wearing robes? At first, I thought the poor lawyer in the last few panels was a priest, what with the collar. It seems kind of strange to me...

[Detrius]

Heh... did anyone else find it kinda funny that the Rac Conah use the same design for their first aid kits as we do (square box with a big red cross on the top in the fifth panel)? It's of course self-evident that Ralph uses this design, otherwise we wouldn't be able to recognize it as a first aid kit, but still strange. This makes me wonder if the Rac Conah have their own version of the Red Cross Movement.

I wonder if the humans have advanced any during the long period since contact was cut off. Maybe they had a renaissance? Maybe they had an industrial revolution? He could be floating into steampunk land for all we know.

My guess is that the events leading to the self-isolation of the Rac Conans are in scale comparable to the Thirty Years' War and the humans might now live in a 18th century-ish society (Age of Enlightenment, Industrial Revolution begins, first modern democracies). Enough opportunities for Quentyn to get involved in one or more major developments ("Hey Mr. Watt, why don't you just add a flywheel there?"). My personal favourite would be Quentyn helping in the foundation of the United States of Airth.

[Tom Mazanec]

Well, an explorer came in about a century ago from what seemed a rather enlightened late Medieval society...maybe c1500. So they may be c1600 by now.

[EdBecerra]

Well, the hot cross bun remedy can potentially serious side-effect, especially for the time. There is a kind of fungus that can grow in breads that can cause psycotropic reactions...which is where werewolf stories are said to originate (peasant goes mad, people claim that it's posession/transformation into a wolf).

Ergot, which normally grows on rye, and was the source that led to the creation of the drug LSD.

(see: http://www.chm.bris.ac.uk/motm/lsd/lsd1_text.htm )

[Jaydub]

Anyone else notice that the two Rac Conah who delivered the Luft Pump could be the same two who grabbed the Lawyer?

I hope the pump has not been tampered with.