I have posted the places 13 to 25 of our yearly artwork contest:
- Viviana: What!? How?!
- Cassius Livy: With this.
- Viviana: Is this one of the projector crystals?
- Cassius Livy: Yes.
- Ilias: How come you still have one of them?
- Cassius Livy: For large projects like this, you always order one or two additional specimens of the key components. What if a part breaks? It may take months for a replacement to arrive!
- Cassius Livy: I couldn’t sell it, though.
- Ilias: Why not?
- Cassius Livy: Despite not paying me, the government technically owns the crystal. They’d have thrown me in jail for selling stolen goods.
- Cassius Livy: But I also didn’t want to sell it. Because this crystal is special.
- Viviana: Special?
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One crystal to rule them all!
@ pink.penguin:
one message to send them.
one flew over the cuckoo’s nest…
One queen to conquer them all
And in the darkness rule them
Yes, special. It was the first one to arrive, and I did all the testing with it. As a result, I’ve grown quite attached to it.
This one has a system connection address of 00-00-00
which means they will be unable to trace the location of whoever is using it.
JjKnowles wrote:
That depends on whether or not somebody borrowed her silencer crystal.
Okay. Now that is evil. Not just stealing the country and stiffing the maker of the intercom system, but making it illegal for him to sell his goods because “they belong to the government?”
Ladies and gentlemen, that’s legalized highway robbery. No wonder he bears a grudge.
“That which is wrong becomes right in Canaan” indeed.
well, he doesn’t look like smeagol, but he looks even less like sauron, so…
Skeleton key crystal.
This is my crystal. There are many like it, but this one is mine.
I’m guessing it has access to debug commands.
This reminds me of government contracts.
Single inventor:
John A. Anderson invented the Pancor Jackhammer, a robust and fully automatic
shotgun.The US department got all his test models and after doing tests with them
for months, the government denied him the right to offer the weapon for other interested
parties. Finally they came to the conclusion the Jackhammer is not for them.
Anderson went bankrupt.
Big firm:
Lookheed are building the F-35 “fighter” which should replace the F-22 Raptor because
it will be “cheaper” and can do anything: fighting, VTOL and ground fight.
Currently the promised budget goes through the roof so that the “replacement” will
be more expensive than the original.
For that price the government get a plane that it is not allowed to fly near thunderstorms (the
stealth coating could burn), cannot maneuver (being outmaneuvered against F-16),
cannot run (the slowest fighter, cannot even supercruise), cannot look (because they
are using the very same base for both VTOL and normal jet, the seat is far too low
so that the pilot cannot look backwards) and has so many bugs and technical warts
that it will take years until they are under control.
It um… works like a normal crystal but 2.0
@ Commentary Ver.2.72:
They never got to 2.72 🙁
the crystal has a back door… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jB2PxMfnUHM
@ Uhl:
Technically that is just contracting. Here wat work we machine very expensive parts, and sometimes when we have a order with a handful of parts with hard-to-get material or very long machining time we will make one additional one – so that if one unit gets damaged we can switch it with the spare without losing too much time.. The customer has the option of buying the spare if it was unneeded, but we cannot sell it to anyone else.
One or two additional specimens? Hell, if that thing is as fragile as it looks I feel like you’d probably order an extra 10 percent.
Who, me? wrote:
You would think that except that our adventurers hadn’t packed spare crystals themselves, showing that they should be very strong and durable. In addition, it seems like the one or two may be an understatement, as they probably ordered a few extra just incase somethings causes it to malfunction while installing but ordered more later for if they break later. Remember, this guy installed the initial system before Illeaser got taken over, meaning the government would’ve taken it onto themselves to maintain these projectors for “security reasons” (PROPAGANDA) but still used the originals systems manufacturer because it’s easier to ensure the part fits.
“You do remember that I said, “haunted” earlier, right?”
@ Uhl:
It’s not *his* goods, it’s the government’s goods — if he was working as a contractor, and they paid for that crystal’s construction.
Now, it’s not super clear what his “debts” were in the previous comic. If he was buying the materials himself, and the contract said they would reimburse him for his costs, then he should be within his rights to withhold any and all parts of the system, including that crystal, until full he was fully paid off.
But if his debts were just existing debts, and the materials and services were purchased on the government’s tab, it’s less clear what his rights would be w.r.t. surplus materials.