- Scarlet: A long, long time ago, there was a lake on Lavarel that was so large it took weeks to reach the opposite shore, even with the fastest boat.
- Scarlet: This lake was called “The Ocean”. It was magnificent, but also inaccessible and dangerous. Nonetheless, people used boats to transport goods across it.
- Julius: What happened to all the water?
- Scarlet: Nobody knows. One theory is that all the water now flows underground.
- Scarlet: Another theory is that it was converted into energy.
- Julius: I can’t believe so much water simply vanished!
- Scarlet: Me neither. There was probably never such a lake. One mustn’t believe everything that’s written in books!
- Julius: Books can lie?
- Scarlet: Absolutely! But if you read a lot of them, you learn to recognize the worst lies!
- Julius: Like this “Ocean”?
- Scarlet: Exactly!
A Sky Full of Stars 037
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17 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars 037”
BlackDragonSlayer
1. The little Scarlet face in the speech bubbles is a great touch.
2. THEY DRAINED THE OCEAN?! This is really a catastrophic scenario.
HKMaly
If their problem was high temperature and not low, I would guess it evaporated, but like this? Either there is REALLY big piece of ice somewhere, or one of those theories is correct.
Also, if they have no ocean, I’m surprised low temperature is their worst problem. How often it rains?
Cyndayn
There probably is a really big piece of ice somewhere, at least two I imagine. During Earth’s ice ages, glaciers consumed much of the world’s water, and covered much of the world. What with their world’s problem being the endless cold, and the answer being the machine of eternal summer, I imagine most of their water is probably stuck in the poles.
I imagine some is also underground, and some also got turned into hydrogen fuel, usually there’s some truth to these kinds of stories/theories. The machine of eternal summer Scarlet saw is underground right? and it had big water pipes leading in and out of it? I’ll bet it has to do with this mystery and these theories.
Crystalgate
The Land has very little snow despite being very cold, so I would think very little rain as well.
Dilandu
If the planet is in “snowball” stage, then all the water are slowly getting concentrated in the thick ice crust over the oceans. There aren’t enough percipitation to replenish the water that flowed downward and froze, so continents become vast cold deserts. No snow (all snow and ice from land eventually would move to oceans and join the ice crust), no water.
Vicious Sand
What did they do to drain a small ocean? Break open a cave system? Turn it into bottled hydrogen and oxygen to use instead of the petroleum industry?
It’s good to see Scarlet using the scientific method: if it sounds too fantastic, disbelieve it until there’s proof while you try to prove it. (She’s skipping the last step, but 5C isn’t good for beach visits anyway.)
Scarlet saw underground cave water herself at the Machine’s cave on the farm.
Arthur
If they were capable of interstellar travel, could they not have skimmed a gas giant for hydrogen rather than drain an ocean? Or they could have used deep space ice. Hydrogen is pretty much the most plentiful stuff in the universe making up 92% of all atoms.
If the oceans were drained they could have actually needed the water or oxygen for consumption. maybe it was a colony ship and they needed to refuel their air and water supply for a long journey. And in draining it that’s where all their aquatic life went.
T
he current residents are the descendants of those that were left behind.
Rainman
The water being converted to energy panel reminds me of the game Dyson Sphere Program. That said, losing your ocean would do terrible things to your planet like desertification on a grand scale. If Lavarel is a similar size to Mars, and started with a similar sized ocean and if they’re losing atmosphere the way we think Mars is/does then it’s possible the ocean just bled off into space over time and/or really is under ground, at least in part. This would cause the place to get colder and colder as the atmosphere thinned and time went on (depending on where it is in relation to it’s star’s goldilocks zone). All this assumes that they have similar physics to our universe, unlike Gaia. There’s still more to learn but so far we haven’t seen evidence of massive glacial ice sheets covering large parts of the world (though that can still be introduced) that could explain the water being captured that way. I look forward to more reveals!
Arthur
If Lavarel was a similar size to mars he shouldn’t have broken his leg when falling off the roof. or we would at least see signs of lower gravity in the architecture or structure.
HKMaly
If their problem would be losing atmosphere someone would already complain how hard breathing is … BEFORE they would lost the oceans, IMHO.
Isharfoxat
«Jet fuel can melt steel beams, the ocean was real and other lies “they” want you to believe» -a PDF you can buy for cheap on my website tinfoilconspiracy.rept
BookWizard
Pfffttt the “ocean”, what a ludicrous concept! As if anyone would believe there could be a lake so large that it would take *days* to cross on a boat. Honestly, it’s shocking what nonsense people will believe these days. You can’t trust everything you read!
Crystalgate
Scarlett said boat as if their function is common knowledge. I can’t recall seeing lakes or rivers in this comic yet, but I may have missed it and it would make little sense if they didn’t exist. Either way, Scarlett called the ocean inaccessible, but the truth is that anything on Lavarel that isn’t close to either rivers or farmland is inaccessible.
Imagine you’re transporting food, you use a wagon drawn by two horses and you are of course one human controlling the horses. How much food can you load on the wagon so that the horses can still pull it reasonable fast? Next, ask yourself how much food you and your horses need to eat everyday. The first number divided with the last number gives you the number of days you can travel. Multiply that with the distance you can travel every day and you get the maximum distance you can travel.
Not that if you travel that far, all the food you had will be eaten. If you want to transport food and you transport it half that distance, you will consume half the goods by just transporting them. Adding more horses, wagons and drivers will solve nothing, you can transport more food, but you also eat more food as well every day. You can improve things somewhat if you use mules instead of horses and go trough land where the mules can graze Firebeets (if that’s a thing in Lavarel), but you will still hit a limit.
Unless this setting has motorized vehicles that we haven’t seen yet, a lot of land will probably be inaccessible because presumable the cold lowers the amount of farmable land compared to our world and the amount of rivers as well. In our world, places that were impenetrable for states prior to the railroad is Sahara, Arabian desert and steppes like most of Mongolia. In Lavarel, there will probably be far more land inaccessible this way, that is unless they do have motor vehicles.
I’m not sure if there is a lot of interest in reaching those inaccessible locations anyway, but if the machine of eternal summer exist and is in such a location, Scarlett better learn Steppe Nomad logistics or she will be in trouble.
LurkerAbove
There is at least one river, near the army-base, see
https://www.sandraandwoo.com/scarlet/comic/the-machine-of-eternal-summer-033/
Dilandu
Well, the probable explanation – is that Lavarel is closing to “snowball Earth” geological epoch:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowball_Earth
Essentially the majority of planet water froze under thick crust of ice. The only areas with the temperature still above freezing point (most likely artificially) are likely equatorial parts of some continent.
Werwolfe
Somehow the notion that they’re shooting each other with squirt guns takes a bit of the “oomph” out of action scenes.
HKMaly
Look here to regain the oomph: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlacOX68OME (Water Jet Cutting through 3″ inch thick Aluminum Metal 4′ x 6′)
Poll
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