REFERENCES n' STUFF * Nina is the cyborg assassin who tried to kill Ozzy earlier on. She's dead now. * They saw Nina's “hit list” while crawling around in her brain on page 75. * The Cipango Plain is a geological feature on Triton (named after “Cipangu,” Marco Polo's name for Japan).
LIGHTNING WEEK STRIKES!!!
Some of you are probably thinking, isn't Lightning Week sort of the same thing as Rapid Fire Week a few months back? And if you're thinking that, then you're WRONG! Rapid Fire Week was the week when updates came rapidly. Lightning Week is the week when updates come quickly, like lightning. Completely different concept, okay!
If Jetta's sudden change of heart has your head spinning, trust me, she's not as scatterbrained as she may seem at the moment. Unfortunately, what she's up to doesn't become truly apparent until page 105 (yes, my page buffer is that far ahead). The fact that she just had a visit from Evil Jetta might have something to do with it.
Sometimes science dilemmas pop up in the most unexpected places doing a sci fi comic. It didn't occur to me until I got to that first panel that maybe pouring liquids on Triton wouldn't be nearly as feasible as it is here on Earth. So I dusted off my trusty 3d software and ran a couple of physics simulations to get to the bottom of it. The first animation is a liquid being poured in Earth gravity, and the second one is a liquid being poured in low Triton gravity.
The Triton pour looked nothing like I expected, and it took me a minute to figure out why that is. I'd expect the liquid to slowly creep out, like molasses, but it actually has a pretty manageable flow to it. The reason – and this also explains why my “egg glass” idea was idiotic – is because the liquid doesn't only flow due to gravity. The initial motion of being decanted gives it some initial velocity, which gives it a certain minimum pouring speed. I never would have guessed that on my own.
Oh, and about the egg glass (which astronaut Gene Cernan famously told me was the “stupidest thing he ever saw”)… So, no, you wouldn't need a straw to drink liquids on a moon, as it turns out, for the same reason pouring things isn't completely impossible. When you drink something out of a cup, it's not gravity that does all the work; it's the angular motion of you dumping the liquid into your mouth, and then you sucking it down into your esophagus. That's why it's possible to drink upside down. (Duhhhh, Cid!)
Just to let you know what you're in for, the coming pages are a total info dump, with lots of plot type stuff being explained. It will not be exciting… and probably a lot of it isn't even necessary.
…what, you thought there was going to be a “but” in there somewhere?
Don't forget to vote for your favorite comics in this year's Drunk Duck Awards! Voting's still open for, I think another week or two. I'm not sure. But I know you can vote right now! So do it! Click on the link button below to vote!
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