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Outsider page 201

🕑 Added 2021-04-01 03:11:22 +0000 UTC

Comments

Arioch

The "cheat sheet" with the Loroi alphabet written on it.

CNW

Pen, comb, tablet.. what's the fourth?

Sunphoenix72

IF ONLY That psionic goddess would dain alow someone to touch that mane of divine glory! lol! Gotta LOVE those redheads, they WILL Break you.. but what a way to go!!! :)

Mk_C

The comb is most likely for gently combing Fireblade's luxurious mane, sooner or later.

Olivier GRAVES

Either MacGyver or Rambo style, or both.

Sunphoenix72

hehe... I'm betting that "hair comb" or "Pen" is going to get used in some non-traditional use!

Olivier GRAVES

If it was not about the clear and imminent danger, I would find it romantic. Well, I am cliff-hanged since page 199...

Classical Salamander

This is gonna be fun... I just know it! Fun for me, not for Alex.

Peter S Panov

My first thought was to expect something like that scene in Babylon 5 when the rogue telepaths and Talia fool Bester into thinking the rogues are all dead by telepathically projecting a false experience into his brain. But I don't know that the Loroi are capable of something like that.

GhostlyYorick

Maybe this specific Umiak spaceship is not piloted by Umiaks. Maybe it's been taken over by some of the other races. Maybe Historians have hacked it and are controlling it remotely. That would be a surprise twist

Ronald Homer

that shouldn't work.... you could block visible light that way, but without any significant heat sinks or ballast, the cloth burrito will quickly just assume roughly the same temperature as it's warm-blooded occupants. and it HAS to give off black-body infrared radiation proportional to that heat. Also, being vantablack, any heat it absorbs from visible solar light must also be emitted back out as blackbody infra-red.

Ronald Homer

they might just mean "how to communicate BEFORE Tempo gives the signal to play dead" not necessarily how to communicate AFTER Temp gives the signal.

Shane Wegner

All right. I know what my plan would be. It assumes the Loroi have some advanced stealth materials and there are some aboard this ship. We have prototypes of such available even today, nanotube EM absorbers: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vantablack I assume they have a few square meters of that on board to hide anything an admiral needs smuggled with a high clearance. Presumably Loroi versions of Vantablack are orders of magnitude better. Wrap up Alex and any Loroi coming along (probably Beryl for liaison and research and Fireblade for telekeinses) in a Vantacloth burrito in space suits, with max battery charge packs to keep the CO2 separators working as long as possible. Bring along a few emergency beacons too. Put the burrito in an airlock. The remaining crew put up a (suicidal) fight as a distraction, and make it seem like they’re just unlucky Loroi and nobody else making a last stand. Launch the burrito into space with either boosters, or bring Fireblade along and use her telekinesis to push the burrito in space. If she can push Alex with arbitrary newtons, she can push a darkness burrito through the vacuum of space. The odds of Umiak sensors picking up a tiny burrito patch of pitch blackness with no background stars is small, especially if the last standers are shooting off flares and EM bursts and rockets and whatever armaments the ship has and then blow the reactor once they’re at minimum safe distance, leaving nothing left for the Umiak to search. (And maybe taking the closest one with them or damaging it). Telepathy senzai helps coordinate the timing on these steps. Umiak have to move on to continue their invasion. Float there for like 24 hours. It sucks but your suit has a week or more of power and maybe even some emergency water. Hopefully Loroi or allied ships regain some control in the area and find you first. When they get close you unwrap the burrito and trip the emergency beacon. Even if it’s still Umiak, you have the choice of getting captured, which is no worse than the current situation, or just turning off your suit’s heater and going to sleep forever. Several Loroi die blowing up the ship, but they’re all dead anyway.

Shane Wegner

Observations- Giving him instructions on how to communicate implies their plan involves at least one Loroi surviving TO communicate with. Which is preferable to floating in space wrapped up in some light and EM absorbing meta material alone. Which is preferable to communicating with an Umiak interrogator/torturer via screams. (Joke)- further confirmation the Loroi are a female dominated society- even their space garments have ample pocket space.

Shane Wegner

If and when I get my act together and figure out what to do with the previous webcomic I wrote a 240 screenplay for, paid artists to do all character, vehicle, and environment for, then storyboarded, voice casted, audited and animaticed 1/11 episodes for in terms of pitching to Netflix or whatever, it could be fun to put Outsider on the long range To Do list. Edit: I’ve investigated the Netflix route enough to know their policy on suggestions is approximately “Netflix does not accept unsolicited content suggestions except possibly via representation.” Which means you gotta get an agent and have said agent make the overtures. Which implies they might actually consider suggestions along such avenues.

Arioch

Once I get my act together, I'll see about getting the early chapters printed. It would be nice to have some merchandise to take to cons and the like.

Emalkartha

Since about June of last year, once a month I go and suggest to Netflix that they make a series based on Outsider. I keep hoping you'll put up a kickstarter or something where we can get hard copies of the prologue + chapter 1 and chapter 2. I love the art and want to see where this story goes!

Ronald Homer

or maybe some sort of illusion-based telepathic power? either an illusion to make them seem dead, or a broad-spectrum illusion horror attack? of course, if Alex is immune to illusions, it would be very hard for him to play along...