Well, over the course of the previous week we have blown past our goal for funding our Indiegogo campaign for Galaxion: Volume 3, and we’ve even reached our first stretch goal! And we’re not even done yet. There’s still over two weeks until the campaign ends, so if you’ve been undecided about jumping aboard, or wish to help us out by continuing to spread the word, there’s still time. Will we be able to reach our next stretch goal…? 
In regards to this current page…
I have to let you all know how much I appreciate and enjoy the careful analysis left by many of you in the comments. Sometimes it’s spot on, sometimes it suggests a different direction than the story is going to go, but I always find it worthy of consideration. By necessity I work many pages ahead so by the time the new page goes live the followup for weeks to come in already a fait accompli; I can’t change what’s going to happen next. (Well, I could, but it’s it’s such trouble to re-draw a page that it’s easier to just get it right the first time.) But I do often wish I could explore some of the interesting ideas you guys have! 
Scavina: “…which would involve jumping back to our dimension and possibly not ever making it back here. Nuh-uh.”
I think I’ll count my contribution as a retroactive birthday present for myself…
Who wants to bet that Scavina will send a team down to the planet before anyone has debriefed Aria…?
Doubtful. Whatever Scavina’s planning, she’ll need as much intelligence on the Miesti village she can get. Debriefing Aria and Zan would likely be top priority before sending another team.
When I get paid tomorrow, I will fundraise for a card! Though there’s still only single-digit numbers of those taken, so the deck won’t be a reality, sigh. And I like unique decks…
Actually when you count those that contributed more than $100 too you get a total of 13 cards taken. Maybe if Tara can get close enough she will still make the deck, please. Or maybe she can fund raise for the rest of the deck with the next volume. I have high hopes that I will someday be able to add this cool deck to the other decks my family has collected.
For what it’s worth… I really want to see that deck a reality, too!
Hey Tara – good job on the Galaxion campaign video at Indiegogo – I donated before I even saw there was a video
You came off as both personable and confident – glad to see that its running successfully!
Oh, right– I forgot to mention the video! The original plan was to have the video for the campaign launch, but various issues got in the way and it didn’t happen in time. But it’s up now. I think the footage was shot in March– that’s when I was inking last week’s page!
Or they can just let Zan at the encrypted stuff. He’ll have it cracked in ten minutes. (I will be cross if it takes more than twelve minutes.)
I think I must beg to differ. I may actually be a bit disappointed if Zan could break it that easily
But it depends on how you spin it. I quite enjoy the approach taken so far, that if you don’t have the keys, you don’t have much hope at all of getting through the encryption. Far too many stories just seem to go on the assumption that if you throw a smart enough person at it, or apply enough brute force to it, any encryption is breakable.
In reality, most encrypted data is only retreived by third parties if they can get at the keys somehow, by social engineering or through some technical leak of the key (leaky communications protocols is one possibility).
If you have no way of getting to the key, your best bet is probably having some smart people go over the encryption algorithm to see if they can find possible weaknesses. But that seems like a long shot, even for Zan. And otherwise, with strong enough encryption, no conceivable computer would stand much chance of coming up with the right key before the heat death of the universe.
But… back in chapter 4, the decryption team did mention that the logs used “obsolete interplanetary patrol ciphers”. I’m not sure if that refers to the keys or the actual algorithms in this context, but if an encryption algorithm is considered obsolete, there’s a good chance that is has known weaknesses. On the other hand, this decryption team didn’t seem hopeful at all about managing it without the keys.
In short, there may be plausible ways to break it, but at the moment, it really does seem like their best bet is to either go back to Earth, or… maybe find Jeff Nelson and/or his belongings somewhere? If his copy of the key hasn’t been destroyed somehow, there’s a good chance that it will be on a storage device of his.
But if they have all the crewmembers back on board, going after the Rautani/Miesti (and Jeff?) does seem a bit hot-headed at this point. I’m curious to hear Scavina’s reasoning/excuse