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Gavias Exorcism

They talk to The Night Walker and ..... learn things

Gavia becomes the Sauron of the Aliceverse

The Praeses appear.  This has been their plan all along

Ardent grabs Gaiva - Chaos ensues

This is where things get REALLY interesting

Naked Sedna Butts

Purple Monkey Dishwasher FROM SPAAAAAAAAACE!!!!!!!

[FunkyTuba]

"The NightWalker"

It's the NightFlyer now, baybee!

  

[Zebediah]

[SubaruStephen]

[retrosteve]

I'm inclined to think it had to have been a radiation pulse, not a missile of any kind.

Completely agree, I originally thought it was coherent light, but now I think of it isn't the central blue colour a reasonable facsimile of air ionisation blue?

It was definitely a signal, it was definitely light, and it was definitely aimed at a receiver on the moon. Result is too fast and dramatic to be anything else.

Now here's the science: https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/

[Channelore HellicottAtham]

Quick thought: Jeph's comment for that comment was "I guess it hated the moon", which to me sounds to imply that the laser struck the moon and caused the red glow, an explosion.

[mustang6172]

Has Jeph stated how many chapters AG will have?

[JimC]

It was definitely a signal, it was definitely light, and it was definitely aimed at a receiver on the moon. Result is too fast and dramatic to be anything else.

Dunno I'd care to be quite so definite...

... could be coherent X-Ray radiation, if we hypothesize the trail is atmospheric ionisation.
... supposing the target was something in orbit, and the appearance in front of the moon is because the transit across the moon was used for targeting. That would mean the night walker has been looking at the moon in order to monitor transits, which explains why it didn't turn up earlier - had to wait for a transit.
... and if we assume an object in LEO transiting the moon then the scale, physical and time, comes down to something more reasonable, and we can even consider missile or particle beam rather than light, provided its something capable of producing the ionisation. But that might be propellant of some kind...

Loads of other amusing speculations possible, and we have a month to play with them... Consider what in LEO the NW might want to take out...

[Method of Madness]

Has Jeph stated how many chapters AG will have?

What makes you think there's a planned end already?

[Zebediah]

I'm pretty sure that Jeph has a coherent plot for AG with a definite end in mind. I also suspect that even he doesn't know how long it's going to take him to get there.

[Welu]

I think that's there's chapters at all suggests there is a planned beginning, middle and end. If it was intended as forever ongoing, it would be a lot harder to break it into chunks, especially when the chapters are relatively short (four chapters in less than 150 pages). Not impossible but unlikely.

[retrosteve]

It was definitely a signal, it was definitely light, and it was definitely aimed at a receiver on the moon. Result is too fast and dramatic to be anything else.

Dunno I'd care to be quite so definite...

... could be coherent X-Ray radiation, if we hypothesize the trail is atmospheric ionisation.

It's good that you're covering all the possibilities. It could be, but I'd just call that high-energy light, for the purposes of this discussion, since (see below) there's a high probability this is a message, not a weapon.

... supposing the target was something in orbit, and the appearance in front of the moon is because the transit across the moon was used for targeting. That would mean the night walker has been looking at the moon in order to monitor transits, which explains why it didn't turn up earlier - had to wait for a transit.

That's a stretch, but I'd buy it if I had to. The appearance of the bright red beacon apparently on the moon could just be something in between.

... and if we assume an object in LEO transiting the moon then the scale, physical and time, comes down to something more reasonable, and we can even consider missile or particle beam rather than light, provided its something capable of producing the ionisation. But that might be propellant of some kind...

Yeah, again possible but a stretch. Why would the moon need to be behind this LEO object before it could communicate? Why not just take Occam's advice and put the object on the Moon?

Loads of other amusing speculations possible, and we have a month to play with them... Consider what in LEO the NW might want to take out...

Well, all the 'Spacers' are in earth orbit, though not necessarily low orbit. But the spacers were put there by something way more powerful, at the Blink. Let's call that something the Eschaton, after Stross's similar scenario. The nightwalker seems to have been around since the Blink as well, so it's not part of some recent Spacer scheme. Anything that powerful on Earth was destroyed at Blink time, so it's got to be something left by the Eschaton.

I think whatever was in LEO at the time of the Blink was either destroyed by the Eschaton along with all the other Earth technology, or left there deliberately for its own purposes.  If the Nightwalker is an Eschaton agent (or autobot), it's not going to need to destroy any more satellites now. It's going to send a message.

One thing nobody has mentioned, so I thought I would -- that red beacon on (or in front of) the Moon could also be something physical coming this way.

[Neko_Ali]

Well, my understanding of Lagrange Points is that L1 is placed at the point between two celestial bodies where the gravities and forces of each other out. So if I'm understanding it correctly, if someone were to say, place an orbital colony at the Earth-Moon L1 point, it would remain forever between the two, barring external forces. Like say, a giant nano-bird energy pulse being fired from the Earth. Or to put it another way... We are assuming that the target was the moon. What if it was something that just happened to be between the Earth and Moon? That would account for a couple of discrepancy people have pointed out about the big red spot being on the surface of the moon, would it not?

[JimC]

Well, my understanding of Lagrange Points is that L1 is placed at the point between two celestial bodies where the gravities and forces of each other out.

L1 isn't very stable. There was a reference earlier in the thread.  Things that are left at L1 tend to drift away, and have to be actively maintained there. Of course that is a possibility...

Getting a fine selection of options for next time's poll.

[FunkyTuba]

[sorry I didn't read every word of every post above, so I'm probably being redundant]

Cognitive dissonance stemming from extrapolation from our reality (dangerous, I know) leaves me needing the exposition coming in Ch 5:
* The blast was too big to be just a signal since we could manage communications easily enough using regular radio during the Apollo project... you wouldn't *need* something that big to merely send a signal
* That's a pretty big explosion up there. A real-world blast that would leave a spot that big on the surface of the moon red and glowy would (probably?) have pretty catastrophic effects on the spot on earth that was sending the blast... Alice and Sedna's indestructibility would have saved them, but Ardent and probably Gavia would have been toast from plasma effects, etc (see the What If post referenced above)

so... either AG physics and the need for cool graphics alleviates these concerns ("It's just a comic and I really should just relax" is totally acceptable btw)

or, the blast was aimed at something on the moon, disrupted/destroyed it, and *that's* what's red and glowy and we've just witnessed the first shot of the Second Big War, unintentionally fired by Alice/Sedna but likely to be viewed as their hostile act

What do you think, sirs?

Edit: Here's what I should have read above:

I make the 'impact' point on the moon about W 2, S20.  In the highlands a bit south and east of Arzachel. The red corona, or whatever it is, is about 20 degrees across, getting on 400 miles I reckon. Vaporised surface, ejecta, heated surface, who knows, but if the latter that's a mindblowingly huge energy release. The actual impact phenomenum, crater or whatever, well hard to be accurate about 3 pixels, but certainly not as big as Tycho. Could be 20 miles across?  That has, as they say, left a mark.

As for what it signifies, who knows, we shall just have to wait and see. I don't think I see an interplanetary/orbital war scenario though, it doesn't feel like the writer's style to me.

[JimC]

Alice and Sedna's indestructibility would have saved them,

Not (quite?) indestructible though: See http://www.alicegrove.com/post/142301957714/gonna-punch-it-right-in-the-giant-nanotech

[retrosteve]

[sorry I didn't read every word of every post above, so I'm probably being redundant]


* That's a pretty big explosion up there. A real-world blast that would leave a spot that big on the surface of the moon red and glowy would (probably?) have pretty catastrophic effects on the spot on earth that was sending the blast... Alice and Sedna's indestructibility would have saved them, but Ardent and probably Gavia would have been toast from plasma effects, etc (see the What If post referenced above)

so... either AG physics and the need for cool graphics alleviates these concerns ("It's just a comic and I really should just relax" is totally acceptable btw)

That doesn't need to be an explosion up there. It could instead be something on its way back to Earth. Or just another really bright beacon.

[HiFranc]

The way I see it, the red dot is the after image of the device that caused the night walker to break up.

[FunkyTuba]

Alice and Sedna's indestructibility would have saved them,

Not (quite?) indestructible though: See http://www.alicegrove.com/post/142301957714/gonna-punch-it-right-in-the-giant-nanotech

fair point... my take on that is that physical forces are pretty much not an issue for them, it's more like "if the nightwalker can take over Gavia like that then I must not fully understand its capabilities for infiltration"