- Reto Mirkning: I appreciate your concern for us, Mr. Frey, but that sounds too much like scaremongering to me.
- Tibor: This isn’t scaremongering! This is deadly serious!
- Reto Mirkning: There hasn’t been a severe famine in Kirelia since my grandfather’s childhood.
- Tibor: This year’s will be worse!
- Reto Mirkning: 5367 was almost as cold as this year, and nothing happened.
- Tibor: If not for yourself, please stock up on supplies for Julius at least.
- Reto Mirkning: All right. If a good deal comes along, I’ll take it.
- Tibor: There won’t be any! The prices have already increased noticeably. Soon, all the stores will be out of stock!
- Reto Mirkning: What did I just say about scaremongering, Mr. Frey?
- Tibor: Come on, Scarlet, this is getting us nowhere.
A Sky Full of Stars 055
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13 thoughts on “A Sky Full of Stars 055”
Chris
That’s the terrible thing about such unforeseen crises, that they come at times nobody thinks they will, and always are an extreme inconvenience. A pertinent saying to this is an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of the cure. In this particular situation, though, an ounce of prevention by stockpiling, would be worth many, many pounds of scrabbling through cold dirt for scraps of food.
Vicious Sand
“At the beginning of every disaster movie there is a scientist being ignored.” Mr Mirk’s “Spring is eternal because I don’t want to worry about winter” attitude has caused a lot of trouble for anyone who picks it up.
I don’t know how Tibor think he can fix the problem, but it will be interesting to see how he thinks he- and Scarlet- can fix anything! Scarlet may know how to grow beets, but she can’t make them appear out of thin air.
-Go on a full scam tour of the marketplace and/or food suppliers. -Figure out how to invade Grond, and take all their food. -Learn to eat frozen rocks.
MelkiorWiseman
This is all too realistic. Whenever a crisis starts, there’s generally people who bleat out “it won’t be that bad” in a fit of wishful thinking. But reacting to a crisis can be a two-edged sword. People tend to either deny that there is a crisis or over-react to it. Viz the recent pandemic with all the people over-reacting by buying up all the TP they could get, which caused a shortage which wouldn’t have existed if they hadn’t caused it. Both reactions are the wrong ones. A proportionate reaction is the right one, but most people tend to think in extremes when there’s a crisis. They’d rather go far too far than not far enough, forgetting that going too far can be just as bad as not going far enough.
Owen Smith
What is TP?
John W. Stafford
Toilet paper.
MegaJar
Well, I mean, to be fair, Tibor isn’t a scientist, or a meteorologist, or a farmer. He doesn’t really have ANY credentials that would make him a credible authority to be issuing this kind of dire warning. All he has is his gut instincts. Granted, we all know that his instincts will turn out to be correct, because Drama, but Mr. Mirkning has no real reason to take his word for it.
Sharien
i have a strong suspicion that most poor folk in that world will have the same reaction (which is why prices are already going up)
any kind of crop failure/famine will hit them first and hardest…so they learn to read the signs… while those in the wealthier classes tend to be shielded from the consequences and as such only ever experience noticable effects from the worst of these… and usually in retrospect
when your survival depends on figuring out that something like this is coming… you learn to read the signs
Vicious Sand
I think we’re skipping the part where Mr Mirking says “There hasn’t been a -severe- famine. Since (time.)” Meaning that _lesser_ famines have happened since, and he’s all “oh, as long as it isn’t as bad as this level of ‘bad thing’ then it’s ok then.” Like it’s ok as long they don’t label it as a famine, and that he’s expecting the severe famine to be called severe at the beginning of the event or before it happens. Meanwhile Tibor is seeing the signs and putting the pieces together. I half expect this to end in a shootout over a bushel of hay that he plans to take back to the Mirking house for everyone to eat. It’s too bad bean sprouts have been lost, since some greenhouse kudzu trays would seem to be needed. As long as they can melt snow, they have water. When you have a food supply problem like this, any answer is the correct one, because it keeps you alive.
Crystalgate
There’s actually quite a lot going on here.
The first issue is the question of how Tibor, assuming he’s right that is, knows about this while others seem ignorant of the situation. To my best of knowledge, Tibor has no special knowledge about agriculture. In fact, Scarlet would know more about that and it’s Tibor who told her there will be a famine. Reto’s argument in panel 3 also seems solid, if it already was almost as cold before and nothing happened, then wouldn’t things just be a little worse this year then? That is, unless the extra cold reaches a critical failure point in which the question remains how Tibor knows about it. Tibor also doesn’t even address Reto’s argument in panel 4. That said, maybe Tibor’s reason for fearing a famine isn’t because it was very cold this year, rather it is that the cold doesn’t let up. Maybe it indeed was almost as cold not too long ago, but the cold let up much earlier. In this case, Reto’s argument doesn’t even address Tibor’s concerns and as such Tibor would be justified in not addressing Reto’s argument. What we have here then is a situation where the cold has remained much longer than before and Tibor is putting two and two together, but others are not. Then the question is, why not?
One clue may be Reto’s reaction. He seemed a bit hostile to Tibor’s “fear mongering”. In reality, Tibor isn’t doing much fear mongering, he is just warning a friend in a situation where the information can be contained. When someone fear monger, they usually try to get it out to a lot of people. Now, if this civilization consistently has a very low margin when it comes to food production, it is important that people with money doesn’t stockpile food because that can change barely making it into a famine. So, the society may be training its citizens to not think there will be a crisis, it may happen in the future, but not yet. If so, it is reasonable that Tibor’s life changing experience along with being exposed to Scarlet’s odd ideas deprogrammed him.
It’s also possible that Tibor is just talking out of the end that’s below his tail.
Nat
Its more about Tibor being poor/from a poor background knowing how bad it hits and Mr.Mirkning from a much better backgound where they were never being affected by said problems.
The harsh climate + ongoing war should be a reason to be concerned. But as I said, looks like war is also something they never had to be worried about.
No one of conseqence
“Don’t look up”
If the incoming disaster is too big to comprehend, people will refuse to consider it as real. This is a coping mechanism that is ingrained pretty deep in us.
Poll
Characters
Ariana Carolus Athamas Baako Bolin Cyril Evelina Ferrus Gale Nenawa Gavin Carolus Iona Jehona Shardyk Julius Mirkning Kala Silverspring Kenan Orege King Protos Lauro Levon Goldwood Leyton Wayt Luitpold Marik Marton Princess Elodie Raymond Reto Mirkning Reva Rodar Rosetta Greenleaf Scarlet Carolus Severin Silvana Mirkning Tibor Frey Vidal Viola Vreni Xaver Yerim Zach Ilkin