hehe love the expression but the words seem more reserved. His face screams to me “WHAT!!!!??” Yet the words seem like something your butler would utter with a calm dignified expression.
THAT would be an unwelcome surprise to learn in the morning….
I don’t wanna know how the energy build up can cause a blood vessel to widen…. actually now that I think about it…. I can see it happening: A small random discharge of energy in the body can damage the vein/artery wall causing it to dilate…. Now that is a double edged blade to be forced to wield…. Use it or die…
Stray: Actually, from what Mercial says in panel 3, it’s not the buildup that will kill Darrik and his family. It’s releasing the energy without the proper preparation and training.
The exact reason is unclear. However, random destructive surges is a good guess. Which does make sense in light of the “proper control needed” issue. My theory is that improper control of the power is like an adrenaline rush, which puts strain on the heart and arteries.
Hmmm. Stephen and Sean had to deal with the same problem and learn the same control at some time before we first see them in Campus Safari.
Also: Consider why Syris and Mercial are so shocked and worried. They just realized that there’s an entire family that is at risk of sudden death from the ignorance of their own power’s risks.
Methinks that Syris is going to want to get this information to Darrik’s family as fast as possible. Either by getting Darrik to tell them where his family is or by training Darrik and sending him back to do the teaching.
Well, Darrik WILL meet his future mate on earth (and rescue her “along the way”), won’t he?
Which would make your suggestion that Darrik will be sent to Earth a possible development at the very least.
When thinking of things that “already happened” in Campus Safari, keep in mind that Tiff ended that series because her vision for Akaelae no longer meshed with those events. It is entirely possible that she could be thinking along completely different storylines that far ahead and that Akaelae could end up going a different direction.
This comic has had me wondering just how the heck you could generate the necessary energy levels, biologically.
Knock a demon horse about? Sure, biochem can get you that kind of juice.
Weather modification? Making it rain if there’s water up there is one thing, not really that hard, iirc, but pulling it in, be it to start or sustain(and I doubt there just happens to be decent cloud cover in the immediate area when ever Vin is depressed, for however long he happens to be depressed)? You can quickly start to approach energy levels more often associated with nuclear weapons.
Cold fusion is one idea(tho still not near nuke scale), and I suppose there are some reactions that aren’t too messy, but what it would impose in terms of diet? Forget key elements, you’d need specific isotopes, in quantity.
No. I’m not sure what, if anything Tiff has in mind, but you’d probably need some kind of exospace tap(hyperspace, grid, subspace, whatever. 31 flavours to choose from) and draw it in from an external source.
Storage, well, I have a few ideas, but that’s treading down a rather verbose tangent. Mechanics wise, I’m guessing a constant involuntary trickle charge, with the ability to crank up the wattage to either power directly or just recharge faster when you need it – you could get alot of juice by trickle charging on just about anything over a long enough period, but unless you want to wait years to rebuild your reserves after expending them, well, that’s why I discount biochem, but I suppose it makes cold fusion doable, albeit still iffy.
The fact that Darrik never learned to control his power, even in the slightest, has further implications, potentially implying that it isn’t a problem on Earth(if lack of control is that dangerous, he should have seen his fellow blackfox suffering the consequences if they didn’t know. The alternative if that Darrik simply has really, really bad parents) – biofusion could be starved by diet, but I personally doubt there’s that much, say, deuterium in the water on Cyantzium.
If going with the exospace(/etc.) tap or the ilk, it could be that the local environment in Earth’s neighbourhood just isn’t very conducive to passive(or even active) tapping – no unwanted juice, no rush to teach the kids to control it. Or, heck, maybe someone simply set up a dampening field – I dunno.
(and this is the abreviated version – wish I had more to go on, this stuff is fun to think about)
@hariman: Yeah, it seems I misinterpreted that sentence. I don’t see a need to amend my statement too much though. I should say an accidental small release of energy can cause the vein/artery damage.
@KHGV Defenestration: Interesting concept you bring with it being possibly not an issue on earth. If that were the case we could determine that there is a substance either an interesting protein or possibly a form of radiation that is present there but not here. I have my doubts about radioactive though due to complex organisms being more threatened by radiation than simple ones. For example: roaches actually aren’t the best candidates for nuclear survival, think even simpler, like fruit flies.
However: thinking about genetic elites long life spans though gave me a theory: the enzyme that organisms on earth have to repair the rings on the end of DNA. I can’t remember what they’re called but I can picture them. Anyways this ring sacrifices parts of itself during replication to prevent damage to the more important ends of DNA. And it suffers massive damage I’m talking lost gene bases. The enzyme goes in and repairs the loop after each replication, only has to add 1 type of gene base so its fairly easy. Only problem is, as we age the enzyme becomes less effective and can’t repair that ring so well. Resulting in a smaller ring until the DNA’s more important parts begin to suffer damage. Perhaps they have that enzyme that lasts longer in genetic elites and a more complex enzyme to do the same thing to the rest of the DNA. That would protect against more forms of mutation, viruses, radiation, etc… Allowing their bodies to survive a more hostile environment than most organisms and allow them to collect and store more dangerous materials within their bodies. It would also allow them to live longer with less health issues. Except the hereditary ones those would be a pain to suppress.
With genetic elite foxes I wouldn’t exclude light and heat as an energy source, black skin would gather and hold heat fast and they would need a way to store or expend the energy quickly before they suffer dehydration or heat exhaustion. That could explain why it isn’t a problem on Earth, if it wasn’t an issue that is, possibly our ozone layer is filtering a specific light wave frequency that theirs isn’t.
Oh what fun we could have KHGV if we ever met in real life! So many theories so little time to explore them all…
I do remember something about a rare mineral or something on Cyantzuim that made the creatures’ bones stronger and lighter, allowing some of them to fly when they would not normally be able to fly at a place like Earth… Perhaps there are indeed other materials that allow for special abilities.
I found it hard to maintain the proper level of shock at Mercial’s announcement after looking at what appeared to be a VERY stoned Syrys in the last panel…
@Stray: I agree. Large amounts of energy are a dangerous thing to throw around without control.
Stray/KHGV Defenestration: Perhaps we need to remember that the Shivaewiki is back up. “Black Fox have the ability to form energy out of the air around them and change it at their whim, converting it into one of two forms – energy or solid mass.”
@ Stray and KHGV Defenestration and all other regarding the energy:
Folks… aside we’re talking about alien, upright walking, talking animals – we recently seen Darrik teleporting himself on a tree. followed the most common rule in nuclear physics e=mc^2 he had somewhere created and/or destroyed a middle-big star to do so.
I think in a few hundred years we will find that the maths defined by Einstein’s theory of relativity doesn’t hold true at the quantum level, and at speeds at or greater than light and a new theory will be defined for these conditions. It’s at least a reasonable assumption of Deus ex Machina that an alien race would have already found this.
It’s a great story! Enjoy it!
The ability to create matter from energy is scary, once you realise just how steep the curve is.
Creating one gram of matter takes about 90 terajoules.
That’s equivilent to a ~21.5 kiloton nuke. This is a slightly greater yeild than that of the larger of the two nukes droped on Japan by the US in WW2.
Creating a one metric ton object would take more energy(about ten times more, iirc) than would have been released by the combined arsenals of all nuclear powers when their stockpiles were at their greatest during the cold war.
Seriously.
Now…
Stray:
Replication errors and “enviromental damage”(to simplify) are different, but I’d agree that Elites would have to have some defence – be it a bolstered repair mechanism, or an immune response to cancer, or whatever. It’s not particularly relivent, as any reaction that produces dangerous radiation would kill them outright if used to produce the needed power.
As for while sinking energy from the enviroment wouldn’t work, see above. Sunlight, for comparison, has an energy density of about 1350 watts(joules per second) per square meter. This is total energy, not just visable light, and Cyantia cannot be much different, or, well, it’d look more like Venus.
Which is why I tend to favour the theory that they’re getting their power from subspace/etc. – maybe it even leaches through from a high energy-density plain in a form that doesn’t normally interact with our universe, and Black Fox can generate a field that can harness it, in a way not unlike how dark matter can only interact with normal matter via gravity – and, if Black Fox on Earth don’t have the training problem, then Earth would simply be in an area of the galaxy where less energy was avalible, or something to that effect.
This would mesh well with the quote about drawing energy from the air around them.
The alternative is pretty much on-the-fly conversion of ambient matter to energy, at will. Or throwing thermodynamics out the window and allowing the creation of energy from nothing, which, well, it kinda breaks the universe. :p
HEX:
What does E=MC2 have to do with teleporting? Unless you’re saying space-folding or wormhole creation, which would take something like the mass-energy of Jupiter. That’s the, uh, brute force method. There are other methods, especially if you’re willing to fudge things – I’m assuming this is some kind of subspace side-step, tho for personal use I like uncertainty displacment.
SpamDragon:
Eh? You’re talking about two different things; quantum = size(really tiny), not speed. Anyway, yeah, I should hope we do have theories that better describe how the universe works in a few decades, much less centuries – there are, however, things we know, and E=MC2 is one of those things we can prove. So, unless you’re talking about the teleporting bit, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Just my two cents of Black Fox powers not manifesting on Earth, remember that Darrik was just a baby when his family left Cyantia. This means that most if not all of his older siblings would know about Black Fox powers and how to control them. Also, Darrik has just begun to manifest his powers which means that his younger siblings are not at risk. There is a very high chance that no-one has died yet but Darrik’s same-aged siblings (remember foxes have multiple children at once) are very much at risk.
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27 thoughts on “07/17/2009 (25 Comments)”
Stripey
Erf, talk about dire consequences.
Now I really want to know what happens next.
SpamDragon
Yeah the story is travelling well!
Squival
How eye popingly shocking oO
vulpinewarrior
Oh man that is serious.
So the power will build in him until POP!!!
Well at least we know he survives into CS
fancy pants
I know this is serious, but I just can’t stop laughing at the face in the last panel.
MephitMark
At least now we know what shocked look for a wolf is.
Definitively an eye opener!
JamieSkunk
hehe love the expression but the words seem more reserved. His face screams to me “WHAT!!!!??” Yet the words seem like something your butler would utter with a calm dignified expression.
Stray
THAT would be an unwelcome surprise to learn in the morning….
I don’t wanna know how the energy build up can cause a blood vessel to widen…. actually now that I think about it…. I can see it happening: A small random discharge of energy in the body can damage the vein/artery wall causing it to dilate…. Now that is a double edged blade to be forced to wield…. Use it or die…
You weren’t the only one unaware Syrys!
hariman
Stray: Actually, from what Mercial says in panel 3, it’s not the buildup that will kill Darrik and his family. It’s releasing the energy without the proper preparation and training.
The exact reason is unclear. However, random destructive surges is a good guess. Which does make sense in light of the “proper control needed” issue. My theory is that improper control of the power is like an adrenaline rush, which puts strain on the heart and arteries.
Hmmm. Stephen and Sean had to deal with the same problem and learn the same control at some time before we first see them in Campus Safari.
Also: Consider why Syris and Mercial are so shocked and worried. They just realized that there’s an entire family that is at risk of sudden death from the ignorance of their own power’s risks.
Methinks that Syris is going to want to get this information to Darrik’s family as fast as possible. Either by getting Darrik to tell them where his family is or by training Darrik and sending him back to do the teaching.
Darakhoranon
Well, Darrik WILL meet his future mate on earth (and rescue her “along the way”), won’t he?
Which would make your suggestion that Darrik will be sent to Earth a possible development at the very least.
Frost
Just love Syrus’ expression. `O.o’
Lycanthrope
When thinking of things that “already happened” in Campus Safari, keep in mind that Tiff ended that series because her vision for Akaelae no longer meshed with those events. It is entirely possible that she could be thinking along completely different storylines that far ahead and that Akaelae could end up going a different direction.
KHGV Defenestration
This comic has had me wondering just how the heck you could generate the necessary energy levels, biologically.
Knock a demon horse about? Sure, biochem can get you that kind of juice.
Weather modification? Making it rain if there’s water up there is one thing, not really that hard, iirc, but pulling it in, be it to start or sustain(and I doubt there just happens to be decent cloud cover in the immediate area when ever Vin is depressed, for however long he happens to be depressed)? You can quickly start to approach energy levels more often associated with nuclear weapons.
Cold fusion is one idea(tho still not near nuke scale), and I suppose there are some reactions that aren’t too messy, but what it would impose in terms of diet? Forget key elements, you’d need specific isotopes, in quantity.
No. I’m not sure what, if anything Tiff has in mind, but you’d probably need some kind of exospace tap(hyperspace, grid, subspace, whatever. 31 flavours to choose from) and draw it in from an external source.
Storage, well, I have a few ideas, but that’s treading down a rather verbose tangent. Mechanics wise, I’m guessing a constant involuntary trickle charge, with the ability to crank up the wattage to either power directly or just recharge faster when you need it – you could get alot of juice by trickle charging on just about anything over a long enough period, but unless you want to wait years to rebuild your reserves after expending them, well, that’s why I discount biochem, but I suppose it makes cold fusion doable, albeit still iffy.
The fact that Darrik never learned to control his power, even in the slightest, has further implications, potentially implying that it isn’t a problem on Earth(if lack of control is that dangerous, he should have seen his fellow blackfox suffering the consequences if they didn’t know. The alternative if that Darrik simply has really, really bad parents) – biofusion could be starved by diet, but I personally doubt there’s that much, say, deuterium in the water on Cyantzium.
If going with the exospace(/etc.) tap or the ilk, it could be that the local environment in Earth’s neighbourhood just isn’t very conducive to passive(or even active) tapping – no unwanted juice, no rush to teach the kids to control it. Or, heck, maybe someone simply set up a dampening field – I dunno.
(and this is the abreviated version – wish I had more to go on, this stuff is fun to think about)
Stray
@hariman: Yeah, it seems I misinterpreted that sentence. I don’t see a need to amend my statement too much though. I should say an accidental small release of energy can cause the vein/artery damage.
@KHGV Defenestration: Interesting concept you bring with it being possibly not an issue on earth. If that were the case we could determine that there is a substance either an interesting protein or possibly a form of radiation that is present there but not here. I have my doubts about radioactive though due to complex organisms being more threatened by radiation than simple ones. For example: roaches actually aren’t the best candidates for nuclear survival, think even simpler, like fruit flies.
However: thinking about genetic elites long life spans though gave me a theory: the enzyme that organisms on earth have to repair the rings on the end of DNA. I can’t remember what they’re called but I can picture them. Anyways this ring sacrifices parts of itself during replication to prevent damage to the more important ends of DNA. And it suffers massive damage I’m talking lost gene bases. The enzyme goes in and repairs the loop after each replication, only has to add 1 type of gene base so its fairly easy. Only problem is, as we age the enzyme becomes less effective and can’t repair that ring so well. Resulting in a smaller ring until the DNA’s more important parts begin to suffer damage. Perhaps they have that enzyme that lasts longer in genetic elites and a more complex enzyme to do the same thing to the rest of the DNA. That would protect against more forms of mutation, viruses, radiation, etc… Allowing their bodies to survive a more hostile environment than most organisms and allow them to collect and store more dangerous materials within their bodies. It would also allow them to live longer with less health issues. Except the hereditary ones those would be a pain to suppress.
With genetic elite foxes I wouldn’t exclude light and heat as an energy source, black skin would gather and hold heat fast and they would need a way to store or expend the energy quickly before they suffer dehydration or heat exhaustion. That could explain why it isn’t a problem on Earth, if it wasn’t an issue that is, possibly our ozone layer is filtering a specific light wave frequency that theirs isn’t.
Oh what fun we could have KHGV if we ever met in real life! So many theories so little time to explore them all…
KJ Fellie
I do remember something about a rare mineral or something on Cyantzuim that made the creatures’ bones stronger and lighter, allowing some of them to fly when they would not normally be able to fly at a place like Earth… Perhaps there are indeed other materials that allow for special abilities.
Yojimbo
No offense, but the proportions seem a bit off in this one, especially in the last 2 panels.
Hortmage
I found it hard to maintain the proper level of shock at Mercial’s announcement after looking at what appeared to be a VERY stoned Syrys in the last panel…
hariman
@Stray: I agree. Large amounts of energy are a dangerous thing to throw around without control.
Stray/KHGV Defenestration: Perhaps we need to remember that the Shivaewiki is back up. “Black Fox have the ability to form energy out of the air around them and change it at their whim, converting it into one of two forms – energy or solid mass.”
Tom Redlion
Wow! Seriously heavy stuff here. I love Syrys’s expression in that last panel.
@ Stray and KHGV: Nice walls’o text there.
Geek
@…well everyone I guess: Comment boxes are the most fun without an upper limit to theamount you can type 🙂
Omniscia
I have to wonder… Is she being 100% truthful, or is she exaggerating to frighten Syrys, even if just a little?
I’m not saying it’s not possible that she’s telling the truth, but it does seem like the kind of thing someone might make up to scare someone else.
HEX the Dark
@ Stray and KHGV Defenestration and all other regarding the energy:
Folks… aside we’re talking about alien, upright walking, talking animals – we recently seen Darrik teleporting himself on a tree. followed the most common rule in nuclear physics e=mc^2 he had somewhere created and/or destroyed a middle-big star to do so.
just take it not all so seriously, will ya ;)?
Dr.O
Uh-oh.
SpamDragon
I think in a few hundred years we will find that the maths defined by Einstein’s theory of relativity doesn’t hold true at the quantum level, and at speeds at or greater than light and a new theory will be defined for these conditions. It’s at least a reasonable assumption of Deus ex Machina that an alien race would have already found this.
It’s a great story! Enjoy it!
KHGV Defenestration
The ability to create matter from energy is scary, once you realise just how steep the curve is.
Creating one gram of matter takes about 90 terajoules.
That’s equivilent to a ~21.5 kiloton nuke. This is a slightly greater yeild than that of the larger of the two nukes droped on Japan by the US in WW2.
Creating a one metric ton object would take more energy(about ten times more, iirc) than would have been released by the combined arsenals of all nuclear powers when their stockpiles were at their greatest during the cold war.
Seriously.
Now…
Stray:
Replication errors and “enviromental damage”(to simplify) are different, but I’d agree that Elites would have to have some defence – be it a bolstered repair mechanism, or an immune response to cancer, or whatever. It’s not particularly relivent, as any reaction that produces dangerous radiation would kill them outright if used to produce the needed power.
As for while sinking energy from the enviroment wouldn’t work, see above. Sunlight, for comparison, has an energy density of about 1350 watts(joules per second) per square meter. This is total energy, not just visable light, and Cyantia cannot be much different, or, well, it’d look more like Venus.
Which is why I tend to favour the theory that they’re getting their power from subspace/etc. – maybe it even leaches through from a high energy-density plain in a form that doesn’t normally interact with our universe, and Black Fox can generate a field that can harness it, in a way not unlike how dark matter can only interact with normal matter via gravity – and, if Black Fox on Earth don’t have the training problem, then Earth would simply be in an area of the galaxy where less energy was avalible, or something to that effect.
This would mesh well with the quote about drawing energy from the air around them.
The alternative is pretty much on-the-fly conversion of ambient matter to energy, at will. Or throwing thermodynamics out the window and allowing the creation of energy from nothing, which, well, it kinda breaks the universe. :p
HEX:
What does E=MC2 have to do with teleporting? Unless you’re saying space-folding or wormhole creation, which would take something like the mass-energy of Jupiter. That’s the, uh, brute force method. There are other methods, especially if you’re willing to fudge things – I’m assuming this is some kind of subspace side-step, tho for personal use I like uncertainty displacment.
SpamDragon:
Eh? You’re talking about two different things; quantum = size(really tiny), not speed. Anyway, yeah, I should hope we do have theories that better describe how the universe works in a few decades, much less centuries – there are, however, things we know, and E=MC2 is one of those things we can prove. So, unless you’re talking about the teleporting bit, I’m not sure what you’re getting at.
Eboreg
Just my two cents of Black Fox powers not manifesting on Earth, remember that Darrik was just a baby when his family left Cyantia. This means that most if not all of his older siblings would know about Black Fox powers and how to control them. Also, Darrik has just begun to manifest his powers which means that his younger siblings are not at risk. There is a very high chance that no-one has died yet but Darrik’s same-aged siblings (remember foxes have multiple children at once) are very much at risk.
illeatyourself
Their expressions in the last two panels are so exaggerated that I can’t help laughing! XD
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