Topic: WCDT Oct 25 - Oct 29 (4641-4645) (Read 41604 times)

shanejayell · « **on:** 24 Oct 2021, 18:43 »

"It's the mysterious slab!"

Hmm. AI with a very unique body? Or 2001 reference?

Baz_Yat · « **Reply #1 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 18:52 »

Why not both?

zioninavision · « **Reply #2 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 19:29 »

unless there is an earlier time i am forgetting, this is without precedent!!

it will be interesting both if there is a context for what it is, or if there isn't! will someone be able to change its mode or converse with it??

Gnabberwocky · « **Reply #3 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 19:34 »

It wants a mmmmmocha with almmmmmond mmmmmilk.

Tova · « **Reply #4 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 19:35 »

Gyrre · « **Reply #5 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 20:25 »

Emily's got a new friend?

DaiJB · « **Reply #6 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 21:18 »

Quote from: Gyrre on 24 Oct 2021, 20:25

Emily's got a new friend?

It's either one of Emily's ill-conceived experiments that the government has somehow overlooked, OR it's come to take Emily back home to Epsilon Boötis, her people miss her...

Farideh · « **Reply #7 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 21:32 »

Emily, get back here and write a translation algorithm.

St.Clair · « **Reply #8 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 21:54 »

I got curious.
In most of the panels, the mini-lith is drawn with the (approximate) measurements of 45x100x200 pixels.
So, more like .9x2x4 than the iconic 1x4x9. (It would need to be a little taller, and only half as thick.)

Delator · « **Reply #9 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 22:11 »

Slab is my new favorite thing.

badbum61 · « **Reply #10 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 22:59 »

I feel like Slab would/should already know Emily's roster and shifts, so for it to be there today means strange things are afoot at the Circle K(offee of Doom)...

traroth · « **Reply #11 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 22:59 »

Quote from: shanejayell on 24 Oct 2021, 18:43

"It's the mysterious slab!"

Hmm. AI with a very unique body? Or 2001 reference?

Or a convoluted Steve Jobs hommage...

BenRG · « **Reply #12 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 23:16 »

Come to Coffee of Doom, coffee so good that ascended multi-million year old aliens manifest to drink it!

Seriously, they need something to keep them awake. We were supposed to find their trigger beacon on the Moon thirty years ago and Jupiter was supposed to be a sun a decade back! I do wonder why it's there though; Monoliths only usually appear to the most historically-important people which is why I wonder it's been visiting Hannelore!

Or, alternately, is that Gary, come to visit his sister?

Tova · « **Reply #13 on:** 24 Oct 2021, 23:42 »

Emily has evolved and is now contacting Coffee of Doom to try and get them to follow.

neurocase · « **Reply #14 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 00:32 »

I love the implication that this is NOT the first time that Slab has graced CoD with its presence.

dutchrvl · « **Reply #15 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 07:11 »

Implication? It is literally stated by Hanners that it has been there before.

Question is: what happened the previous time? Dora's answer implies that they couldn't really figure out how to deal with it, but obviously nothing disastrous happened either, so maybe it just left in disappointment because it never got its desired order?

I am hoping for this to be related to Raven's latent-savant physics genius status, if only just for her to make an appearance again

cesium133 · « **Reply #16 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 07:39 »

My head cannon (which I posted on Patreon yesterday): the first time it appeared it caused a chimp to kill Sara with a bone (the allosaurus ate her remains). Poor Sara. So now Dora knows to get out of the way ASAP when it shows up.

Roborat · « **Reply #17 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 11:17 »

Interesting, they filming a remake of 2001 somewhere nearby?

zmeiat_joro · « **Reply #18 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 12:17 »

My Literature teacher recommended that novel to me in high school -- I did not know it was a novelization of a film, much less by Arthur Clarke : an author whose SF I don't like much.

shanejayell · « **Reply #19 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 18:52 »

Comics up.

"I'm gonna make it a latte, just to be safe" strikes me as oddly funny.

Quote from: zmeiat_joro on 25 Oct 2021, 12:17

My Literature teacher recommended that novel to me in high school -- I did not know it was a novelization of a film, much less by Arthur Clarke : an author whose SF I don't like much.

I THINK it was a book first, then a movie...

Farideh · « **Reply #20 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 18:59 »

According to Wikedia (emphasis mine):

Quote

2001: A Space Odyssey is a 1968 science fiction novel by British writer Arthur C. Clarke. It was developed concurrently with Stanley Kubrick's film version and published after the release of the film. Clarke and Kubrick worked on the book together, but eventually only Clarke ended up as the official author. The story is based in part on various short stories by Clarke, including "The Sentinel" (written in 1948 for a BBC competition, but first published in 1951 under the title "Sentinel of Eternity"). By 1992, the novel had sold three million copies worldwide.[1] An elaboration of Clarke and Kubrick's collaborative work on this project was made in the 1972 book The Lost Worlds of 2001.

shanejayell · « **Reply #21 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 19:08 »

Kida nit picky, but as I remembered it was based off existing works....

Farideh · « **Reply #22 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 20:11 »

Isn't everything?

hedgie · « **Reply #23 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 20:49 »

Quote from: cesium133 on 25 Oct 2021, 07:39

My head cannon (which I posted on Patreon yesterday): the first time it appeared it caused a chimp to kill Sara with a bone (the allosaurus ate her remains). Poor Sara. So now Dora knows to get out of the way ASAP when it shows up.

Unless Jeph pulled it, the details of Sara’s fate are on Patreon somewhere.

neurocase · « **Reply #24 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 21:54 »

Implication was not the right word for an outright statement of fact; I blame sleep brain.

I also...was not expecting an immediate explanation. I was kind of hoping it would remain a noodle incident for a little longer

Still, there's nothing for it, I suppose: ALL GLORY TO THE SLAB *clap clap*

DaiJB · « **Reply #25 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 22:39 »

Maybe the Slab is from the far future or some alternate dimension and is investigating Raven's messing with space-time back when she tinkered with Espressosaurus...

Maybe it's a highly advanced alien AI that wants to meet the Distributed-Intelligence AI known as Yay Newfriend and needs directions from the locals...

Maybe it just wants a latte, but it's shy and a bit nervous about asking because it's heard about the reputation of the baristas at Coffee of Doom...

badbum61 · « **Reply #26 on:** 25 Oct 2021, 23:35 »

Maybe it's the annihilation drone dispatched by Station in response to Hanners' code red, but through the vagaries of spacetime, it turned up a day early and a dollar short of a latte...now it's back but hasn't detonated yet because it doesn't understand why Hanners is still there and not "duck and cover"-ing. Fleshy entities are confusing...

BenRG · « **Reply #27 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 00:01 »

Girls? Just don't touch it. Freaky things happen when you touch those things. Examples include:

Broadcast of a all-frequency jamming radio 'shriek' for exactly 1024 milliseconds
Hyper-evolving the person
Jumping the object touching it to the system where the DORDs hang out.

BarGamer · « **Reply #28 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 01:14 »

Quote from: Claire

"...Paralyzed by social anxiety."

Be confused by the hit spinoff anime, "Slab Can't Communicate," only on Netflix!

traroth · « **Reply #29 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 09:25 »

Maybe it will suddenly become the very first webserver?

(ok, it was actually a NeXTcube, not a NeXTstation, the so called "slab")

(click to show/hide)

snubnose · « **Reply #30 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 14:32 »

So ... why/how does it FLOAT ?!?!?!?

The cubes from 2001 didnt float.

Mr_Rose · « **Reply #31 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 15:08 »

Quote from: snubnose on 26 Oct 2021, 14:32

So ... why/how does it FLOAT ?!?!?!?

The cubes from 2001 didnt float.

What cubes?
Also, the monoliths can turn Jupiter into a star. Floating, by comparison, would be trivial, so I assume it’s because they didn’t want to.

Farideh · « **Reply #32 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 18:42 »

New comic.

Good job Hannelore. The Slab will remember you for this.

shanejayell · « **Reply #33 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 19:02 »

50% tip too.

Gyrre · « **Reply #34 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 19:23 »

Quote from: shanejayell on 25 Oct 2021, 18:52

Comics up.

"I'm gonna make it a latte, just to be safe" strikes me as oddly funny.

Quote from: zmeiat_joro on 25 Oct 2021, 12:17
My Literature teacher recommended that novel to me in high school -- I did not know it was a novelization of a film, much less by Arthur Clarke : an author whose SF I don't like much.

I THINK it was a book first, then a movie...

That's correct.

However, the two sequel books retcon a few things to match up with Kubrick's movie adaptation of the first book.

Quote from: Mr_Rose on 26 Oct 2021, 15:08

Quote from: snubnose on 26 Oct 2021, 14:32
So ... why/how does it FLOAT ?!?!?!?

The cubes from 2001 didnt float.
What cubes?
Also, the monoliths can turn Jupiter into a star. Floating, by comparison, would be trivial, so I assume it’s because they didn’t want to.

The slabs in both sequels (I own all 3 books) can. Not to spoil anything, but Dave and HAL do make ammends.

snubnose · « **Reply #35 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 23:19 »

Yeah I never read the sequels.

pelotard · « **Reply #36 on:** 26 Oct 2021, 23:36 »

Quote from: shanejayell on 24 Oct 2021, 18:43

Hmm. AI with a very unique body? Or 2001 reference?

If they had served the monolith a latte, 2001 would have had a very different plot.

Tova · « **Reply #37 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 00:54 »

I was going to make a wisecrack yesterday about how Jeph is really phoning it in with new character design these days, and now after seeing Jeph's note today, I wish I had.

b_jonas0 · « **Reply #38 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 04:09 »

Quote from: Gyrre on 26 Oct 2021, 19:23

The slabs in both sequels (I own all 3 books) can.

There are three sequels, four books in total. The last one has a starting point similar to Lem's Fiasco: a person from our time is woken up in the far future, and tries to find their place in its very different society.

Akima · « **Reply #39 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 05:10 »

Quote from: shanejayell on 25 Oct 2021, 19:08

Kida nit picky, but as I remembered it was based off existing works....

I think off Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", at least partly.

Quote from: snubnose on 26 Oct 2021, 14:32

The cubes from 2001 didn't float.

In the novels and in the films, the dimensions of the monoliths are in the precise ratio of 1:4:9 (the squares of the first three positive integers), so definitely not cubes. Jeph seems to have got the proportions about right.

I suppose we can deduce that anti-gravity is a thing in the QCverse, and that Slab can interact with point-of-sale terminals.

Marco · « **Reply #40 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 09:20 »

Quote from: b_jonas0 on 27 Oct 2021, 04:09

Quote from: Gyrre on 26 Oct 2021, 19:23
The slabs in both sequels (I own all 3 books) can.
There are three sequels, four books in total. The last one has a starting point similar to Lem's Fiasco: a person from our time is woken up in the far future, and tries to find their place in its very different society.

The last book also retconned things a lot to set the original events in 2015, not 2001. Considering the slow pace at which QC time proceeds, is it possible that "today's" Northampton coincides with the founding of the monolith on the Moon?

Is it cold in here? · « **Reply #41 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 12:12 »

>the dimensions of the monoliths are in the precise ratio of 1:4:9 (the squares of the first three positive integers)

Which reminds me of a favorite bit of Star Trek fan fiction, a riff on Journey to Babel in which the Enterprise D is transporting all-powerful beings to an all-powerful beings conference.

Upon finding out that the 1:4:9 monolith will not fit on board, Riker (I think) orders

Quote

Activate square root beam.

That follows an exchange
"This monolith is white, unlike those found in the vicinity of Earth which are always black."
"Difficult to understand how so advanced a race would resist monolithic integration."

It's a favorite, but I have not been able to find it for years.

Baz_Yat · « **Reply #42 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 18:26 »

I'm impressed that Jeff managed to make a completely featureless floating black slab look crestfallen.

SmilingCat · « **Reply #43 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 18:46 »

Oh god, I can *hear* that comic title.

Though I do have to wonder, does this mean immortal wardens of time and 9000+ year old Atlantean shark girls really exist in the QC timeline?

Also, I have one complaint. Mumei didn't throw berries at anybody.

shanejayell · « **Reply #44 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 19:35 »

What does the monolith DO with a latte anyway? *lol*

Tova · « **Reply #45 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 20:05 »

Quote from: SmilingCat on 27 Oct 2021, 18:46

Oh god, I can *hear* that comic title.

Though I do have to wonder, does this mean immortal wardens of time and 9000+ year old Atlantean shark girls really exist in the QC timeline?

Also, I have one complaint. Mumei didn't throw berries at anybody.

Congratulations! I've missed a lot of references in my time here, especially on the pointless thread, but that is the least sense I've made yet of any post I've ever seen on these forums.

I do understand most of the words though.

Farideh · « **Reply #46 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 20:28 »

The 'flower' reference went straight over my head (insert relevant meme here). Poor Slab though - their overpriced latte got wasted!

Gyrre · « **Reply #47 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 20:34 »

Quote from: b_jonas0 on 27 Oct 2021, 04:09

Quote from: Gyrre on 26 Oct 2021, 19:23
The slabs in both sequels (I own all 3 books) can.
There are three sequels, four books in total. The last one has a starting point similar to Lem's Fiasco: a person from our time is woken up in the far future, and tries to find their place in its very different society.

I'm missing one?
Dammit, I thought I had them all. I've got 2001, 2010, and 2063. I'll have to look for that final odyssey book.

EDIT: There's still a joke I want to make regarding the slab that probably isn't spoilers, but I'll refrain for now just in case it is.

SmilingCat · « **Reply #48 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 20:42 »

Flower

ihaveavoice · « **Reply #49 on:** 27 Oct 2021, 21:12 »

Aw, poor Slab! I'm so glad Faye immediately brought the entity back to buy it a new latte. It's unclear how it would do anything with the drink once it has it, but I still hope it gets that cupholder to safely take its beverages to wherever it goes to...do...whatever it does to enjoy them.

Also, I came into the thread not realizing I'd only read the second to last comic, and when I saw a comment about the slab looking crestfallen, I went from confused to sad and concerned very quickly. Slab has feelings and I MUST PROTEC

THESE FORUMS NOW CLOSED (read only)

Poll

So what WOULD make Hanners nuke stuff?

Author Topic: WCDT Oct 25 - Oct 29 (4641-4645) (Read 41604 times)