Comments on: p. 177 (Chapter Six)

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:32:58 +0000

I mean it’s the future. They must have met space zombies before, right?

It’s like Starbucks. EVERY future has a space zombies.

By: Nate

Nate — Mon, 18 Oct 2010 09:29:10 +0000

Indeed. How many characters does it take to say “Ship crashed, crew got eaten by space zombies. Your husband’s missing”?

By: redbeard

redbeard — Sat, 16 Oct 2010 22:30:12 +0000

Well, if they were all as reluctant as Carl to get to the point, I could sorta sympathize with this — I’ve wanted to smack Carl upside the head several times now. Which I feel a little guilty about, since he seems a really nice guy, and I can see that he wouldn’t want to be the one to have to tell them all of this — but still….

By: Andrew Crisp

Andrew Crisp — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 14:27:34 +0000

Not sure that Reavers or Zombies are a proper comparison to what the Rautani are.

Our first glimpse of them was a well-coordinated ambush focussed on Patty. They were clearly able to speak (to judge from the curses when Scavina tossed one into the dirt back in chapter 5). My thinking is that we’re looking at something like a group-mind. More exactly, an expanding group mind. Getting killed by the Rautani is not the scary thing – it’s becoming a Rautani.

If this is a homegrown biotech disaster, I’d be more willing to bet that it’s more of a result of some transhumanist cult seeking to bind everyone together so that wars and violence cease to exist. But I’m also thinking that we could be looking at a kind of alien invasion – some group-mind critter that has taken humans as a host, and uses a very simple criteria to determine friend or foe (i.e. attack anyone that’s not part of Us, because their minds are closed to Us).

That would explain the attack that happened without provocation. A group-mind’s worst fear would be minds not part of the group, since you don’t know what they’re thinking, and hence they could plan to hurt you. And the concept of an alien group mind using humans as puppets might explain why they aren’t skilled at combat, as Vessa mentions on this page.

Eagerly awaiting the next page to see just how much of this is correct…

By: Glennnn

Glennnn — Fri, 15 Oct 2010 13:17:06 +0000

Maybe people from other planets irritate them so much they feel compelled to chase them with rakes.

By: redbeard

redbeard — Thu, 14 Oct 2010 15:37:53 +0000

Sorta – not as extreme as Reavers probably – though without the cognitive ability to handle higher tech (which frankly makes no sense in Reavers – though it makes for good nightmare fuel). It’d be a good idea — make the infected lose the mental ability to work their war machines and infrastructure while wildly attacking in all directions (likely part of how the virus or whatever is spread). Probably intended to work for a while to cause major havoc and then kill its victims — but of course, biology is never that predictable – or that stable – and viruses and such have no idea what an “enemy” or a “friend” is. From Carl’s comment last time on viruses, sounds like there were a number of nasties let loose on this world that are still active in one form or another.

By: Deirdre Mundy

Deirdre Mundy — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 20:28:49 +0000

So they’re Reavers> With rakes? Rakers?

By: Dwight Williams

Dwight Williams — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:36:54 +0000

It would be good to see Tara's work end up on omniglot.org in the con-lang section, wouldn't it?

By: redbeard

redbeard — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 04:16:25 +0000

If I’m right in my thinking, I think the Rautani are the survivors (perhaps a few generations along, depending on how long ago this world’s civilization fell) of a nasty bit of biological warfare — that they are infected with something that turns down their thinking ability and turns up their savagery (perhaps hosing up their fight-or-flight mechanism and hooking fear directly to fight – making them attack strangers on sight).

By: Quieteyes

Quieteyes — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 01:00:43 +0000

Ah, yes: the +5 Shoe of Other.

I agree that it’s Vessa and Carl who are talking. However, I disagree with everybody’s assessment of the last frame. Instead, I suspect it was Carl’s statement that concerns her and what it implies.

Carl’s statement, along with the earlier definition of their name to being “Plague”, implies they could be carriers of some deadly virus. If so, then her husband didn’t die a violent but quick death; instead he died slowly (and possibly painfully) of an illness…and she wasn’t there to help him.

BTW, if this guess turns out correct, it might bring a whole new meaning to the attack on the survey crew; they were driving them away to prevent other deaths. They were also possibly angry that the Hiawatha crew (which the survey team could be mistaken for) didn’t “get it” that they had to stay away.