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The Nanotech didn't quite leave Gavia...

There's trouble at the spaceport: it's no longer there.

Ardent supplies some nanotech for Gavia - it's not compatible.

Something Completely Different

Purple Monkey Dishwasher Harpoons (oops, wait, wrong comic...)

Back in Alice's village, Jack hits the Big Red Button

Detachable Felix invariably adds another poll option like they always do..

Hey, YOU try coming up with poll options on the fly.

I usually do, jwhouk

[brasca]

Oh, but the Praeses had nothing to do with his behaviour after he arrived on earth. It's more his actions after he came to earth that made me think Ardent had never believed his actions could have detrimental impacts on people. There were several occasions where Alice was not mincing words about how unhappy she was at him being here potentially upsetting her carefully balanced community harmony with outright dimissiveness (Do you know any other girls Jack? This one's boring") or only focusing on how her supervision would impact on him: ("Sweet, you're my tour guide!") He also was gawking and pointing at an obviously freaked out child and mother, reacted to hearing he has to pay for things by asking Alice for money, assumed the crowd was coming to see him rather than Alice, throwing a tantrum because Alice didn't compliment his delightful tail, wanting to meet Miss Wheelwright simply because of her big bottom, and getting upset Miss Wheelwright slapped him after being asked to fuck within minutes of being introduced.

Ardent is certainly careless and for the first time regrets his actions, but I have to question how much of it is his personality and the rest culture.  We really don't know that much about the space habitat's people other than Ardent and Gavia.  Ardent's behavior was likely acceptable since he seemed to be popular.  I get a bit of a Brave New World vibe with him.  Gavia seems to be more of an unpopular introvert and workaholic.  The latter may prove useful since she seems very focused on learning how to survive.  Ironically enough she might become popular with the natives while Ardent appears as a shiftless layabout.

[Eastrim]

Data:
They've been traveling for 3 weeks, but not necessarily across the lake that entire time. Assuming walking speed in a straight direction 10 hours a day, that's 30km a day, for 630 km so far.
They are headed way out west, to a location with many rockets.
The lake was drained for irrigation, THEN for land for farming, in that order, for those reasons.
The lake was really huge.
The area they left was green and forested, and apparently that way any day trippable distance (read: not riverine greenness in an arid or semiarid area).
The area they are now is grassland. Not sure what's up with the exclusively dead trees.
A lot of names and stuff more closely associated with the US than other regions.

The climate stuff is not necessarily indicative, considering how much the world changed, though if this was Earth I would expect most weather systems to remain basically the same. And of course, this all depends on the whims and knowledge of Jeph, and the location of things remaining basically the same as it is today.

Having said that, the biggest indicator is that specific sequence and reasoning for draining of the lake, which is not very common. Many have been drained for land (sometimes for settlement, sometimes for agriculture), many for irrigation, but that sequence only applies to one large lake I know of; Tulare Lake. Formerly the largest lake west of the Mississippi, now nonexistent, drained first for irrigating the developing farmland in the California Central Valley, then to itself be used for land. Vandenberg, a major rocket launch facility, is reasonably southwest (well, more the south than the west) from there.

That lake would probably reconstitute itself without agriculture, but so would most drained lakes when human water usage stopped, since the ground level is still lake friendly. It temporarily reconstitutes to this day when there's enough rain and the canals can't drain it off fast enough. Also, unless they had also been heading much more south than west, there aren't a lot of forest friendly places east of Tulare Lake like we saw. Still, the area would be arid grassland if it wasn't for farming, so it's the most likely option with current data. In my opinion.

[Wildroses]

Ardent is certainly careless and for the first time regrets his actions, but I have to question how much of it is his personality and the rest culture.  We really don't know that much about the space habitat's people other than Ardent and Gavia.  Ardent's behavior was likely acceptable since he seemed to be popular.  I get a bit of a Brave New World vibe with him.  Gavia seems to be more of an unpopular introvert and workaholic.  The latter may prove useful since she seems very focused on learning how to survive.  Ironically enough she might become popular with the natives while Ardent appears as a shiftless layabout.

As it happens one of my theories that the Praeses do all the work in the space society and leave the humans nothing to do except pursue pleasure. It would explain a lot about how Ardent and Gavia behaved when they first arrived. Ardent cheerfully ran around thinking of his own fun and not the people around him as that was how his society works, and Gavia decided the best way to find Ardent quickly was threats and pyrotechnics because she's never had any need to learn problem solving and conflict resolution.

[brasca]

Ardent is certainly careless and for the first time regrets his actions, but I have to question how much of it is his personality and the rest culture.  We really don't know that much about the space habitat's people other than Ardent and Gavia.  Ardent's behavior was likely acceptable since he seemed to be popular.  I get a bit of a Brave New World vibe with him.  Gavia seems to be more of an unpopular introvert and workaholic.  The latter may prove useful since she seems very focused on learning how to survive.  Ironically enough she might become popular with the natives while Ardent appears as a shiftless layabout.

As it happens one of my theories that the Praeses do all the work in the space society and leave the humans nothing to do except pursue pleasure. It would explain a lot about how Ardent and Gavia behaved when they first arrived. Ardent cheerfully ran around thinking of his own fun and not the people around him as that was how his society works, and Gavia decided the best way to find Ardent quickly was threats and pyrotechnics because she's never had any need to learn problem solving and conflict resolution.

That's one possibility, but I think that Praeses require some amount of work or something that passes for it.  It might not be all that different than George Jetson pushing a button all day.  If work was that much of a foreign concept to them they would have complained a lot more, but Ardent seemed to be mildly irritated with the inconvenience while Gavia didn't like the chore (and who would) and was probably concerned with all the busy work she has at home to do.   

[retrosteve]

Gavia has to learn a whole new skill set, and she's going to discover how intelligent and skilled our "primitive" ancestors had to be to survive.

The Jetsons meet the Flintstones!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtkGaFKs2rY

[sitnspin]

I am in that unhappy middle ground of not understanding most modern tech and not knowing how to do caveman level things.

[brasca]

And Ardent's still beating himself up over it in spite of Alice's explanation.

I also think that there is a bit of blame being directed from him Alice's way too. He needn't bother; I get the impression that Alice blames herself for everything, including things that, for no sane reason imaginable, could she be responsible. I suspect that's what made Sedna leave her. She couldn't handle Alice's thundering conceit that, if only she was faster, smarter or more perceptive she would have foreseen and prevented some disaster.

Seems likely although I think Alice is expressing this to Ardent to make him feel better.  There really wasn't anything she could do since the Night Walker seeped in through a cabin instead of an open cave.  Short of sealing Gavia in an airtight box (which has problems of its own) I don't see what Alice could've done to prevent that.  What she really needs to be thinking over is why it didn't absorb Gavia's nanotech the first time.  Was it just scouting the area the first time or was it under someone's control?   

[Wildroses]

Maybe the first time the Nightwalker backed off because it was afraid of an awake, alert Alice, or recognised she would interfere. And that's why it followed them and struck when Alice was fast asleep. Or maybe it was an awake and alert Gavia that prevented it from taking the nanotech the first time. The first time it tried to touch Gavia her response was to go: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" and race into a nearby cave to hide. The second time, when Gavia was initially asleep, went much better for the Nightwalker.

[BenRG]

Or maybe the first encounter was just a 'scan'. Perhaps the Night Walker had to relay its readings back to its current operators and wait for instructions on what to do next. It is possible that it didn't have much in the way of 'smart' and had no real ability to change its behaviour unless new instructions were uploaded to it.

[brasca]

Maybe the first time the Nightwalker backed off because it was afraid of an awake, alert Alice, or recognised she would interfere. And that's why it followed them and struck when Alice was fast asleep. Or maybe it was an awake and alert Gavia that prevented it from taking the nanotech the first time. The first time it tried to touch Gavia her response was to go: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!" and race into a nearby cave to hide. The second time, when Gavia was initially asleep, went much better for the Nightwalker.

Perhaps, but what could Alice do even if she intervened?  She wasn't entirely convinced she would survive rescuing Gavia the last time.  And while it's possible that attacking Gavia while asleep would be the best way to avoid any countermeasures she might activate while conscious it could've attacked numerous other times while everyone was asleep, but didn't  The Night Walker emerges on moonlit nights so it's not dependent on a full moon.  Moreover, it attacked while Gavia was with two super powerful immortals which seems more risky.   

Now maybe the Night Walker has some preset program where it seeks out possible nanotechnology and then strikes on a full moon or maybe it was under the control of someone or something. 

Speculation is fun and I like to stake my claim on this crazy theory of mine before someone else does.  The nanotechnology Gavia had made her powerful, but not enough to be any match for Alice.  Perhaps this was by design.  While Gavia wholeheartedly embraces technological enhancement it might be possible some of what was implanted on her actually inhibited her natural abilities.  Maybe after years of experimentation the Praeses figured out how to duplicate the creation of people like Alice and Sedna, but needed a test subject, Gavia.  She could've been engineered from birth to be just like Alice and Sedna, but never know her true power because the nanotechnology inhibited the super strength.  This might explain how she could recover so quickly from her ordeal and seems to be a fast learner in survival skills.  What other purpose would the Praeses have for sending her?  They could have forbid her to go and it's likely that she would have heeded their decision, but they allowed her to pursue Ardent and then marooned her too.  Their scheme could be two fold.  They send Ardent to cause problems with his ability to upgrade technology and they send Gavia as their prototype super soldier.  Either by accident or design the Night Walker removes Gavia's inhibitors and she becomes stronger and invulnerable.  Now unless she has some kind of sleeper programming she's not likely to turn on Alice or Sedna, but she doesn't have to because if she's a successful copy of whatever process created the immortals then they could send hundreds of people designed as human weapons, deactivate their inhibitors, and overwhelm the few people who would object.  Moreover, these soldiers would be indoctrinated since birth to obey them so they would never have to fear a mutiny and once they subdued anyone who challenged their plans they would happily return to being enhanced humans without superpowers. 

[JimC]

The climate stuff is not necessarily indicative, considering how much the world changed, though if this was Earth I would expect most weather systems to remain basically the same.

I like most of your post a lot, but maybe this is contestable. Climate has changed radically and rapidly in the past, even without obvious external factors (Araguainha, Chicxulub, Deccan Traps etc). If you add into the mix the possibility of the technologies before the blink having caused climate change, and than the massive effects of the blink itself (vis ecological changes) then I submit all bets are off in the area of climate.

[Loki]

BenRG: hold on, has it been established Sedna left her?

[BenRG]

Very few things about Alice are 'established'. All we know is that Sedna knows Alice well enough that the two of them tend to say identical things in unison and that Sedna is very, very tired of Alice's self-condemnation.

[retrosteve]

Maybe the first time the Nightwalker backed off because it was afraid of an awake, alert Alice, or recognised she would interfere.

The Nightwalker is defnitely artificial, but not necessarily intelligent,. If it were intelligent (ie. sentient), then it would  kinda screw up Alice's narrative.
She says no AIs were left on earth. And Gavia believes AIs are impossible.  Alice has known of the Nightwalker for millennia.

If Alice thought the NW was sentient, she would have mentioned it by now.  I'm assuming not, and that it can't be afraid of anything. I think  it's  as self-aware as a Roomba.


EDIT: Fixed quote tags - Felix

[retrosteve]

Fridge Horror about the Nightwalker:

Nightwalker isn't self-aware, it's just a mechanism that seeks out nanotech, then absorbs it and sends a flare to the moon.  Okay, fine.

...;a week later...

...and dissipates on the wind!  Its job is done, and it's a ONE TIME JOB.  This ONLY makes sense if someone is coming in response to that flare.

[Method of Madness]

Well, yeah.

[mustang6172]

Caveman and Space Girl, coming this fall on Syfy

Friggin' feminist knock-off of Prometheus and Bob.

[JimC]

...Its job is done, and it's a ONE TIME JOB.

That's only true if you know its not reforming. After all it dissipated every day anyway. Maybe its still looking up at the moon each night?

So did Gavia's nanotech get parcelled off and blasted to the moon, or whereever, or was it broken up as an energy source, or is it hiding under leaves in the forest with the rest of the nightwalker components? And if the Nightwalker is still reforming every evening - maybe waiting for a response to its signal - is Gavia's Nanotech taking up a distinct role as part of it?

[Neko_Ali]

Hmmm. Perhaps that is the Nightwalker's purpose? The ejection of any forbidden nanotech off the planet? That really doesn't make a lot of sense though, as it doesn't explain the Night Walker's long habit of staring at the moon, or why it didn't purge Ardent of his upgrade nanobots. More likely it had a function to send.. something to the moon. Gavia's nanotech gave it the boost it finally needed to complete it's mission, and after that it drifted away into it's component machines.

Caveman and Space Girl, coming this fall on Syfy

Friggin' feminist knock-off of Prometheus and Bob.

Moderator Comment

 Slamming on feminism is not appropriate, is unappreciated and will not be tolerated. If this comment was meant as a joke, it was a very poor one. If you were seriously using feminism as an insult and a slur, you should be reconsidering.

[brasca]

Strip is up!

Large birds that can be used as pack animals as well as lay eggs for sustenance.  Now that's progress! 

Not sure if Gavia is the one you want to send to help Ardent out.  She's physically able, but I'm not sure if she's really all that motivated. 

[JimC]

I do like the way the facial expression of the Struthios portrays - to me at least - a sort of dumb amiability. That to my mind is clever artwork.

[Method of Madness]

How is Ardent an idiot? He did what you told him to do!

[brasca]

How is Ardent an idiot? He did what you told him to do!

Yes, but he's reacting like she's going to bite his head off.  If she was really that dangerous Alice or Senda would be fetching the eggs. 

[Zebediah]

Coming from Alice, "Ardent is an idiot" is a general observation, not necessarily a specific comment on this event.

[BenRG]

Note to Ardent for future reference: When Alice or Sedna tell you to poke a large animal to get it to move, they're probably being sarcastic. That said, I'm not sure that the Struthi is being aggressive. For all we know, biting the head is an act of affection for their species!

[Neko_Ali]

I would say sending Gavia to 'save' Ardent is sneakily brilliant. After the Punchinating (Punch Harder) they seem to be doing their best to avoid one another due to mutually blaming Ardent for Gavia losing her powers. And while fine is fine, he did set into motion the chain of events leading to it, hanging out with two sulking kids for a loooong trip is not going to be fun. Pushing the two of them together and letting them work it out maybe without making it seem that's what they are doing... Very clever.

[brasca]

I would say sending Gavia to 'save' Ardent is sneakily brilliant. After the Punchinating (Punch Harder) they seem to be doing their best to avoid one another due to mutually blaming Ardent for Gavia losing her powers. And while fine is fine, he did set into motion the chain of events leading to it, hanging out with two sulking kids for a loooong trip is not going to be fun. Pushing the two of them together and letting them work it out maybe without making it seem that's what they are doing... Very clever.

Except that Gaiva isn't sulking.  She's not overjoyed about what happened, but she seems to be throwing herself into learning how to survive rather than being all mopey and constantly sniping at Ardent.  An admirable approach really.  Perhaps Gavia might tell Ardent that she doesn't hate him, but she needs to focus on learning these skills so they can get back home as well as cope with her situation. 

[pendrake]

The bird's benign face at "eating" Ardent's head is what makes the punchline work so laugh-out-loud well.   

[Neko_Ali]

She's still pointedly not talking to him. There's not much she can do to avoid him on the wagon. Until they hash things out, the silent/guilty treatment is not going to be fun for anyone.

[brasca]

She's still pointedly not talking to him. There's not much she can do to avoid him on the wagon. Until they hash things out, the silent/guilty treatment is not going to be fun for anyone.

Well it's not fun for Ardent and Alice seems to be blaming herself for what happened regardless.  Sedna, however, could care less and who knows she might actually like having a willing student.  All things considered Gavia could be reacting a lot worse to what happened so I really don't see why she should entertain Ardent's pleas for forgiveness.  I know it's been 22 days since she was in coma, but for her it's been a day or two since she's regained consciousness.  Personally, I'd be more upset with him for sulking instead of being productive. 

[Stoutfellow]

Obviously Ardent should have used a pokin' stick: http://www.alicegrove.com/post/99955503769/try-kicking-him

[Kugai]

I think at this stage Gavia will be in two minds about saving Ardent - Grab the egg and let the giant Bird have an Ardentworm for Breakfast 


And yes, despite it all Ardent is still an idiot

[Stoutfellow]

And yes, despite it all Ardent is still an idiot

And what does that say about the two superhumans who assigned him this task?

[Kugai]

There  is that.

[Wildroses]

I'm pretty sure that Struthi is trying to show affection, otherwise there would be a lot more blood and the immortals would be a lot more worried. Also, we know something else about the space society: they have dogs. I guess pets do exist on their society.

[anahata]

Yeah, apparently they have dogs with two legs, a beak and wings. It's not the first time Ardent has called a bird a dog. even though that was a 'weird dog'
My conclusion is that where Ardent comes from, they don't have birds.

[JimC]

Ardent has called a bird a ...  'weird dog'

I suggest that dogs are the only non-human living creatures Ardent has ever seen or heard of, and so dog is the only word in his vocabulary to describe them, the use of generic words like animal having died out.

[USS Martenclaire]

Ardent is one of the major food groups of all lifeforms on this planet.

[improvnerd]

I'm pretty sure that Struthi is trying to show affection,

As a general rule, coming between an mother animal and its young is going to bring out the worst in it. Even cows kill about 20 people a year in the US, and many of those are cases where a mother felt her calves were threatened.

Animals that are chill about their offspring being carried off tend to go extinct pretty fast.

[USS Martenclaire]

I'm pretty sure that Struthi is trying to show affection,

As a general rule, coming between an mother animal and its young is going to bring out the worst in it. Even cows kill about 20 people a year in the US, and many of those are cases where a mother felt her calves were threatened.

Animals that are chill about their offspring being carried off tend to go extinct pretty fast.

It may actually be more straightforward than this. I also tend to bite the heads off people that poke me while I'm trying to sleep. Perhaps the dog is more literal minded than most.

[JimC]

Animals that are chill about their offspring being carried off tend to go extinct pretty fast.

Different with domesticated animals, and even plants. Domestication is a very effective evolutionary strategy. How many wild Aurochs are roaming the fields of Europe?

We only saw the wild Struthis in the dark, but I reckon the female had spots which we don't see on this one, so I suspect these are a long domesticated strain. The domesticated chicken has been evolved for continuous egg production, no reason why the domesticates Struthi shouldn't be the same, whereas the wild ones do have a nesting season: http://www.alicegrove.com/post/113972900304/never-mind-the-giant-smoke-creature-outside-its

[BenRG]

Humans can ride ostriches and the Struthis are much bigger. Anyone remember a 1980s-era arcade game called 'Joust'? I'm thinking of a future scene where an armourd Alice is charging into battle against the baddie of the chapter on the back of a riding Struthi.

Interesting thought: If this is a domesticated strain, then are there many subvariants? Maybe a breed that has thick winter plumage that it sheds in spring and can be used for clothing, insulation and padding? A specific meat strain? A strain known for laying large numbers of non-viable eggs (again, for food)?

[JimC]

The moon it was then, so much for my orbit theory...

[TinPenguin]

Sedna is not responsible for any moon craters, but only 'cause she never found a big enough gun.

[BenRG]

It takes guts to go back to something so utterly traumatic like that. It's a credit to Gavia's strength that she knows that she has to for the greater good of her friends and everything she cares about. I'm not surprised that there wasn't any 'leak back' from the Night Walker into her mind though. I'm sure it was totally non-sentient and just mindlessly carrying out a pre-loaded instruction set. Simply put, there were no thoughts about which she could be aware.

Why am I not surprised that Alice is responsible for a crater on the Moon? Maybe she's responsible for the new lava plain maria/impact basin? It would be excessive but so her.

[Method of Madness]

Sedna is not responsible for any moon craters, but only 'cause she never found a big enough gun.

Alice doesn't need a gun.

[Zebediah]

Alice was the gun.

[Method of Madness]

Btw, does the Night Walker going after Gavia and not Alice mean my crazy theory that she's naturally superpowered as opposed to nano the likelier option now?

[Kugai]

And it was a shot in the dark 


It looks like Ardent was Lunch

[brasca]

Btw, does the Night Walker going after Gavia and not Alice mean my crazy theory that she's naturally superpowered as opposed to nano the likelier option now?

If Alice had any nanotechnology I think it would have attacked her centuries ago.  I'm still not dissuaded from my own theory that Gavia may be a genetic copy of whatever process created Alice and Sedna and that her nanotechnology was actually inhibiting her supernatural abilities.  It's still early into this chapter, but Gavia has physically recovered faster than any baseline human could and while she may just be concentrating on learning survival skills as means of coping with her loss she seems to be an uncannily quick study. 

I'm glad we're getting some exposition and that Alice was sensitive enough to wait a day before asking.