Just so you know, I’m totally loving all the theories about what the yotz* Carl is not quite saying. It’s hard not giving away all my secrets! That’s mainly why I’ve been so silent lately in the comments, because I know the minute I start typing a response I’ll let slip out what’s really going on. I know some of you have a pretty good idea already, though….
And also, the new book by Lois McMaster Bujold, Cryoburn, is now in the house. I am going to go gleefully shut myself away with a big “Do Not Disturb” sign on the door until I have finished it. ^_^
*We finally started watching the Farscape DVDs we acquired last Xmas. 
I’m not nerdy enough to know what yotz is supposed to mean. (Call me crazy, but a human + puppet sci-fi show just isn’t one of my likes.)
This isn’t the ground shaking event I was referring to. Eh, can’t predict them all. If I could, I’d be the richest weatherman in the world. (Using my predictions for gambling isn’t the most efficient way to go because people catch on quickly.)
“Yotz” and “frell” are made-up expletives within the alien cultures of Farscape, used where you would normally use a profanity. Yotz basically would be used in place of ‘hell’ by one of the characters (the swearword was more particular to his culture), while the others used ‘frell’ in much the same way as ‘frack’ was used on the new Battlestar Galactica.
*strikes a dramatic pose* Geek-Trivia… and AWAAAAY!
“Do not disturb”… good thinking! I’ll probably be the same way when the Jordan/Sanderson book Towers of Midnight, comes out two weeks from today.
I haven’t been chiming in with the theories either; I’m one of the “pretty good idea already” people.
…gone to borrow one of those rakes to smack Carl with; be back shortly….
First they came with rakes, and I said nothing.
Then they came with lawnmowers, and I said nothing.
Then they came with tetherball poles, and I still said nothing.
Then they set up spa pools and HD TVs and a surround sound system and at last I spoke out, but it was too late -
The Party was in control.
All in good time, I suppose.
Actually, I could care less.
Ho hum.
Its only a webcomic. Its only a webcomic.
If it weren’t for my finally surprising Angie with a Kindle, I’d have run out and bought her Cryoburn already; but I don’t think it’s out for Kindle yet, aside from perhaps Baen’s webscriptions. Soon, though; soon.
All the more reason to rush out and buy a Baen first printing hardcover. Because it comes with a CD-ROM which appears to contain all of her novels (except Memory – even The Vorkosigan Companion as an easter egg) in e-book format.
Have fun with the hallucinatory angels!
ARRGG! A-GAIN with the delay of needed information. For a military man, Carl has no idea of how to give a concise report.
Come on, spill it. What do we need to know? You’ve got to tell….wait. Hold up with a good book? Darn it. The one excuse I’d actually buy.
I’m not sure that the word you were looking for wasn’t hezmana, but much more likely frell… but we always welcome more ‘scapers into the fold
also, perhaps Carl’s a bit more scattered since his head trauma, many people are. How he can dissemble in her presance though… dunno, I’d be telling her precisely what she needed to know in a very short time.
Carl is certainly coming across as if the head injury scrambled his brains a bit.
Hee. I just dug out the dead-tree Galaxian I have (the flip-book, the Graphic Novel, and issues #9 and #11, and have to wonder (especially since you seem to have dropped the side-plot with Ito, which is a good thing from my view)…Is Myth Adventures still a movie in the Galaxion-verse?
Haha! I always wondered if anyone ever picked up on that!
*laugh* Well, it does help that I’m also reading Myth Adventures itself on the Studio Foglio site.
I saw the ‘Are you gonna shake my hand or am I gonna rip your heart out?!’ line, and went ‘Waitaminute’. And looking at it again, I’m also noticing the ‘partial scene’ on the screen on the previous page. 
Also, going back a bit, I’m amused by the decor in Aria’s room (Catbus, Hack and Slash figurings, the Bujold titles on the shelf, among other things) and in Major Nelson’s room (the games motif–chess piece sculptures, checker/chessboard pillow…the other pillow with a diffrent boardgame pattern…and I’m trying to remember what the heck the game in the wall hanging is called, but all I can remember is that I saw a version of it in Dragon magazine once..). Nice detail work.
Hm… I don’t think Carl is dissembling or holding back. Not willingly, anyway.
It’s been ten years since he’s had to punch the IP clock, so I doubt he’s had much practice in giving succinct reports in all that time. Plus, whatever the Rautani are, I’d bet dollars to donuts that it’s something so far out of his experience as a machinists mate he’d have a tough time describing it without sounding like a loon. There’s a threat – he knows its a threat, he’s seen it in action – but his warning would be for naught if the SCT and Scavina respond with, “Yeah right, you’re imagining things. The Rautani can’t be that wierd/scary.”
I’m not surprised he’s at a loss for words, and suggesting they talk to someone who could explain it better.
That said, Scavina’s made a gutsy move to force the issue – I just hope it doesn’t lead to her and the others examining the business end of those guns again…
@Andrew: But he was a machinists mate on a spaceship in an organisation devoted to exploring. You’d think he’d at least have some geek points and know his science fiction.
What could be so far out of his experience that after ten years of constantly facing it, he couldn’t even come up with a fictional comparison?
He’s lived with the problem for 10 years — it killed almost all of his crewmates, and he’s surrounded by people that have lived with it for far longer – and he speaks their language just fine. And this problem is *the major problem of their existence* — indeed, it’s the reason they’re all living like Troglodytes. And he’s not able to just come out and tell folks what it is? Just how much brain damage does he have anyway?
I don’t think it’s brain damage he’s suffering from. The more I think about it, the more I think he’s suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Probably a very serious case of it, judging by how long he’s been there and how long it took the Rautani to thin down their numbers from 70+ to 5.
Have a look back at page 175, when Carl first breaks the news about how many were lost in the first year. He says: “I don’t like remembering it.” Interesting phrasing, don’t you think? Whatever happened to his crewmates, whatever the Rautani did to them, it’s something that his mind is doing its level best to lock away in some little corner and not touch. Not repressed memory – Carl probably remembers the events just fine, but I’d gather he’d rather be burned alive than dwell on what happened. Not thinking about it has probably been his way of coping for the past nine years.
So he hasn’t had much experience trying to deal with those memories outside of locking them away, and thus it’s safe to say he doesn’t talk about it with his fellow survivors or the Orehu. Probably at certain times he might not be able to cope, and probably suffers a breakdown now and then. And now he’s on the horns of a dilemma – he doesn’t want to dredge up those memories (and risk a nervous breakdown in front of the people he’s trying to warn), but if he doesn’t dredge up those memories, he can’t warn Scavina and the others and he risks what happened to his crewmates happening to them. He’s trapped between two personal hells.
Nate,
I don’t know that I would describe Interplanetary Patrol as “an organisation devoted to exploring”. I believe that is more TerSA’s role. IP spends its time more patrolling established space lanes.
Side question: my girls keep asking; about how much longer until we have material to complete and publish dead-tree version of Book 2? Holidays are approaching…
Oh, the material is all done now! (There are still a couple pages that have yet to be posted.) I won’t have the book ready before the end of the year, though– the plan is to have it ready for the spring.