Going Grey
Feb05
on 2019-02-05
at 22:14
He doesn’t look happy…
↓ Transcript
Peach
I should mention that my real reason for bringing you over was to ask about our relay pods getting destroyed, which appears to include the ones you’ve “borrowed.”
Ixil
Ah, borrowed, yes.
It isn’t just relay pods. We’ve had to completely disable the hypercoms on anything that gets near the planet. We thought it was you, until your own relay pods were also getting destroyed.
Since it would take a heavily modified hyper drive, a big one at that, to generate the necessary energy, it can’t be any Earth humans. They don’t have anything like that.
Gina
Ace’s theory that some Saurians may have survived on Earth is starting to make more sense.
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Pause
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Ixil
YOU SAID THEY WERE GONE!!!
X
At least it’s too soon to need a mop again.
I should mention that my real reason for bringing you over was to ask about our relay pods getting destroyed, which appears to include the ones you’ve “borrowed.”
Ixil
Ah, borrowed, yes.
It isn’t just relay pods. We’ve had to completely disable the hypercoms on anything that gets near the planet. We thought it was you, until your own relay pods were also getting destroyed.
Since it would take a heavily modified hyper drive, a big one at that, to generate the necessary energy, it can’t be any Earth humans. They don’t have anything like that.
Gina
Ace’s theory that some Saurians may have survived on Earth is starting to make more sense.
---
Pause
---
Ixil
YOU SAID THEY WERE GONE!!!
X
At least it’s too soon to need a mop again.
Not happy at all.
He looks torn between terror and anguish.
Either the Greys are tasty, or he pranked the wrong people.
I’m going to go with Saurians finding Greys tasty myself, and this one had a prior experience with one or more Saurians that he felt lucky to survive.
Maybe the Saurians treated greys like a go-gurt tube… that “Haha at least your organs haven’t grown back so you could make another mess” was a kinda mean.
Hmm so somebody’s basically put the planet on Lockdown. No one In or Out and no communication.
My money’s on the bird bitch.
She is currently hiding in the ocean, worried about springing a leak but not willing to surface and risk discovery.
Anyone else noticing that Ixil’s ribcage in the last panel resembles a frowning Tiki-mask … ?
Even his RIBS alone are freaked-out by the mere rumor of (possibly) more Saurians!
Are Greys just that craven, or are Saurians just that impressive?
Or maybe it’s just Ixil — perhaps one of his “pranks” has resulted in the Saurians putting a bounty on his head?
If there was a bounty on their head, the fact there may or may not be any Saurians would not remove the bounty (hunters usually only care about getting paid after collecting the bounty)
Not sure calling Greys ‘craven’ is really called for: everyone who is not a Gibbs has a healthy fear of them (and Just Ace didn’t even know he faced a Saurian, he just saw a predator going for someone he considered under his protection, which basically encompasses anyone not able to protect themselves)
Uh, the bounty is the reward that bounty hunters get after bringing in their target. So collecting the bounty is how they get paid.
[Guesticus]
1)__”If there was a bounty on their head, the fact there may or may not be any Saurians would not remove the bounty”:
=====But if there’s no Saurian left, how does the hunter collect? Not everyone is organized-enough to place the bounty with an intermediary, who will then post the bounty-announcement & its terms.
We’re basically in “very deep waters”, speculation-wise, & bounty-hunting is so VERY_MUCH not my area of expertise, so I’d best “tap-out” of this one. ( … metaphor most deliberately mixed … )
2)__”Not sure calling Greys ‘craven’ is really called for: everyone who is not a Gibbs has a healthy fear of them”:
( … & by ‘them’, we mean ‘Saurians’, not ‘Gibbs’ … ) … 😉 … 🙂
=====I’m perfectly willing to concede that my use of “craven” may have been a tad “over the top”.
Would “panicky” be an acceptable word-substitution … ?
We don’t know when the bounty was placed, we know the Saurian’s were still active less than ten T-Years ago (is that the correct term used? ‘T-Years’?)
Yes, ‘panicky’ sounds more acceptable, or maybe ‘timid’ 😀
Heh, they kinda make me think of the Gronk from “2000AD”: timid as a species with one notable exception 😀
[Guesticus]
1)__We don’t have proof that any bounty exists at all. It’s only been mentioned in comments, & never by the Author. This is why I fear that our speculation is starting to wander rather far-afield.
2)__I started to like “timid”, then I saw the next page, & I started to ponder. A timid species is far less likely to explore outside the safety of its home-planet’s gravity-well …
(Larry Niven’s “Puppeteers” comes to mind as a very-well-designed exception to this notion.)
… but a spacefaring race that has lost 95% of its population & all of its base-worlds would be somewhat more entitled to become a tad “panicky”, given the … “backlash” from a former … “experiment-gone-wrong”.
Turns out, the Greys are living on the edge of a very thin “razor”, indeed.
3)__I’m familiar with neither “the Gronk” nor “2000AD”, I’ll have to look them up. 🙂
Well, yeah, pretty much everything is speculation and guess-work until AndyO explains things, and then we can see how close (or how wildly off course) we were
You can still be an explorer while being timid, and all it really would need is a few who are just a little braver, or simply more curious, than the rest of their people (just like with hyu-mons: most are perfectly content to stay home, where it is nice and safe and known
“2000AD” has been around since the late 70’s (one of their first stories pre-dated “Jurassic Park” and more than likely influenced it), it is also the ‘home’ of Judge Dredd
[Guesticus]
D’OH!!!?!
(I hit “Post” too soon — sorry!)
I don’t recall off-hand if it’s been used in THIS story or not, but “T-Years” is (to me) a familiar shorthand for “Terran Years”, to distinguish from any other (alien) measurement of time.
Less common versions of this shorthand might be:
H-Years ( =”Mercurian”, since Mars has already taken “M”, we’d use Mercury’s Greek name: “Hermes”)
V-Years ( =”Venusian”)
M-Years ( =”Martian”)
J-Years ( =”Jovian”)
S-Years ( =”Saturnian”)
U-Years ( =”Uranian”)
etc.
Yeah, could have easily used ‘Earth Years’
Butt thank you for confirming that had the right term