This weekend I’ll be at Can-Con: The Conference on Canadian Content in Speculative Arts and Literature in Ottawa! I’ll also be speaking on two panels on Sunday, one on Self Publishing and another on Breaking into Comics. I’m reasonably certain that they’re allowing people access to just the dealer’s room without paying admission (though you wouldn’t be able to attend the panels), so if you’d like to stop by you have some options. I hope to see some of you there!
You’ll probably notice I took to heart some of the suggestions from last week’s comments about adding grey tones to the sky. Let me know if it works for you…
The grey tones work for me. Would Aria really think the words “a frightening thought” or would she think something more like “that’s scary”?
she’s a trained scientist
So he can hear what she’s just thinking…
Yes, I think the grey tones of the sky, at least in the top three panels, make it clear to me that “this is night”.
@Robert Nowall: well spotted, it totally escaped me.
I kinda see what Zan may be implying: that the hold of the Miesti may be partially voluntary. Neither quite Goa’uld nor quite Tok’ra, so to say.
Zan is undisciplined, messy, quirky, but he’s a damn brilliant fast-thinker.
Sorry, but he’s making a big assumption that everybody would be affected with the same kind of horrible hangover. Since this is his first exposure, the discomfort he feels might not exist after several more (or 20 or 30 more) Miesti stings.
For that matter, after a certain exposure the effect could become more permanent.
If he can hear what she’s thinking, why can’t she hear what he’s thinking? Is she just better at this? The bugs were freaking out that she could hear and communicate with them…
Hmm… Assuming that trenat behaves like most drugs or poisons, it’s more likely someone would build up a tolerance to it. The aftereffects *may* lessen, but so would its effectiveness. If anything, a Miesti-slave would become useless after repeated stings over several years – resistant to control. During Aria’s mind-meld with the Miesti, she did hear them call us “crude tools”.
Ha ha! OK, Could be, but let’s remember the word “Assuming.” Nobody knows the pharmacology of trenat, since that information (if it exists) is in the imagination of the writer of this story ( ! ) Perhaps the crude tool would become a burned-out zombie, or perhaps they would fall easily into a well-worn track which they think of as normal. Alcoholics and druggies can’t seem to function any other way, but too much and frontal-lobe activity drops off to favor the lower levels of consciousness.
The crude tools remark could mean almost anything coming from those so certain of their own superiority that they take it for granted. The best part of this story will be when they lose that.
I agree. I’m still hoping that when they finally lose their sense of superiority, they’ll be able to actually work WITH the Galaxion and her crew and maybe solve BOTH of their problems, instead of one or the other’s sad story ending here on this version of Earth.
That would be cause for celebration! Not only contact with a sentient alien race, but cooperative and beneficial for all. Maybe they could even stop that pointless warfare on the planet too!
Wow – he’s reading her mind!
Stockholm Syndrome. Or the people are just so used to the control that they do what is asked of them without fighting back because they don’t know they can.
Or a more simple reason: they have nowhere to escape TO.
Think about it, it was mentioned that most of the world is either wasteland or wilderness. You’ll likely die in the latter and you’d have to carve out everything from zero in the former. They can also go the renegades but they know will shoot them on sight. Instead, they can live in an established (relative) paradise where they are taken care of.
Why? Because the Miesti do not see them as prisoners or slaves, they see them as workhorses. Bodies to do labor in. And horses are one of the best-kept animals humans have. Which follows two logical conseqvences:
1. They want the bodies to be in the best condition they can be. Explains why they are well-fed and healthy. Remember the doctor?
2. They want to keep good stock of their workhorses. Remember how the doctor was against revenge? You don’t want your workhorses killing each other. So the Miesti are forced to take extended care of their workhorses. Remember the people watching Aria a few pages ago? The people believe that the Miesti know what is best for them. They have to be given reason for that.
Aw, I love that middle panel. Poor Zan.
Still lovin’ Aria’s out of control hair.