Shading: Koof
Out-of-Placers
A story of inconvenient changes
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OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
Now also in French:
And Ukranian:
Shading: Koof
OOPs now has a Russian translation which updates shortly after the English pages are posted!
Now also in French:
And Ukranian:
Alright.
He was speaking of “created”
CREATED
Like, they’re some kind of bio-engineered warrior race gone sentient.
He could be referring to a creator deity?
And coalesce:
1. To come or grow together into a single mass.
2. To come together as a recognizable whole or entity.
3. To come together for a single purpose: synonym: mix.
What does it all meaaaaaan?
wow this is the first time leaving a comment actually worked
If you use the wordpress route, it works every time.
Switching to a different browser is what finally worked for me, oddly enough.
Though now I have to complete 5 captchas instead of one. Oh well.
OK, if you must know de boss is cheap, and used Yinglet labor for zhe wensite design. Zo, here’s what to do.
1: Go to zhe top of de page.
2: hit tab until zhe SECRET MENU pops up just below zhe OOP banner on zhe right side.
3: Hit zhe Login option.
4: Login at wordpress.
5: On zhe top left of zhe logged in screen, zhere is an option to retun to zhis page, do so.
6: On zhe top of zhe OOP window zhere should be a wordpress banner, if not, refresh zhe window once. It should appear zhen.
Now you should be able to post, without zhe captcha crap. Zhis was necessary because of huge, crippling amounts of spam postings zhis site was hit wizh, zo, zhings had to be where bots couldn’t just post crap on here.
^ Yes, all of this. Sometimes using yinglet web design is even more effective than captcha. It’s at least a thousand times easier to post once you learn the Specific trick!
Specific Trick…I see what you did there. ^_^
^^ Seconded! And if you need mobile access you can paste the URL from your desktop through a self chat on Facebook, or text it to your own number or write it down. Whatever. Sadly I will not post the link here, that is too easy for bots to figure, but it’s a valsalia dot address.
Still a pain to scroll posting on mobile personally, so I prefer desktop anyways. But who always has the time?
It just wouldn’t let me click Post Comment. Even after captcha. So here’s hoping.
but dont you know that YING YING POWER BEST POWER……. so sayeth the noodle
And don’ts forgetz za so SOOO pretty stars… O_o
cheers, I’d always wanted to post, but it’d never let me, thanks to your comment I can finally add my two cents 🙂
De Humani have a saying, when in Rome so when on a Yinglet website, expect the absurd to actually work once in a while.
No hidden menus were found anywhere, so I ended up digging into the page with the Inspect tool, and found it that way.
For anyone who happens to see this, and also doesn’t find it:
https://www.valsalia.com/wp-login.php
Glad to have you around, doubly so if you brought clams. De super secret menu has red lettering so is hard to see even if you know where to look for it. It behaves differently between chrome and firefox, wizh chrome, hitting tab twice brings de entire menu up, but wizh firefox ESR it adds one line per tab hit.
Ooh, hitting tab! Thanks, that’s way simpler than browsing back here every time I need to find that link.
I’ve been kicking around a crack-theory. Maybe it doesn’t even manage to clear that high a bar. But anyway, take the following points:
The various “impulses” alter physiology for unknown purposes.
The gorging impulse was specifically mentioned to be about bringing back nutrition for reproduction.
Young baxxid are undifferentiated for decades.
Now there’s something called “coalescence”.
Followed by subtext that the natural baxxid impulse is to merge in some way, and that attempting to bond with just one other individual will cause problems.
There was what seemed to be a heavy implication that baxxid can do something like mind-melding, with the emphasis given on “opening his mind completely”, to the extent that he possibly wouldn’t exist anymore.
The fierce defense of a new philosophy of seeking a path as an individual.
The heavy embarrassment they feel at being unable to control their biology during an impulse, which would make even more sense if it was a physical manifestation of them losing their grip on what they now consider to be important.
Not to mention it’s already shown that something hive-mind adjacent exists in this world’s biology, vis a vis indrel.
And probably more I’m not thinking of right this second. This comic has relied quite a bit on subtle and long-seeded foreshadowing, even for minor points.
What I’m driving at is, what if the baxxid are sort of like cells? The weird shifts their morphology and body function, just organelles being switched on for some kind of gestalt super-organism they fuse to become for a time? What if they’re kind of like some types of snakes too, that have to return to a specific spawning pit(i.e. The Teeth)? Hell, has any mention been made of whether the rock the dome is made out of might, possibly, share some uncanny commonalities with the substance used in baxxid limbs and head crests? Like maybe you get enough of them together for a merger period, and it results in something big enough to use that as a shell?
Realistically I’m completely throwing shit at the wall, but it is an interesting idea.
Hivemind gone individualist makes sense to me.
Hopefully we’ll find out more next time.
Or we won’t, this feels like a natural way to make a cut to a different scene.
If you mean a hive mind in the sense that they all think together, like telepathy, that’s not how the Indrel work, nor does that level of scifi-fantasy seem in line with what we’ve seen so far except maybe the transformation at the beginning. The Indrel only seem to think as one unit because they are all giving off pheromones and reacting to each other’s pheromones, which is what insects do in real life. They’re not actually linked, mentally, they’re just communicating on a faster yet more primal level.
To be fair, we don’t know jack about de Indrel society. We know zhat dey do have a group social conciousness, but zhat is not de same zhing as sharing brain cells wizh de group zhinking. Yannit is strongly reliant on pheromones for her mental well being, and being a worker drone feels adrift wizhout it.
I wouldn’t put much credence in what HWKWHD says. Just because someone claims to be created does not mean an actual creator. He may be a religious nut, not unlike Narklet, or might just be using creation as a metaphor for evolution. They evolved to fill a particular niche, and he might be using that to say they, as a species, were “created” to fill that niche.
Er, I’d have expected someone different if zhey really had planned to off Kalgkur if he had turned to de dark side of de Baxxid. But what kind of assinine crap is it for Kalgkur to come out of having said “no zhanks” to de baddie, only for zhe presumed goodies to say “ya know, ole asshat you talked to a minute ago? We really do respect what he’s a saying.” Gee makes me zhink zhere is a few extra asshat awards to go around.
Impulses and emotions don’t go away just by putting some pieces of cloth on and pretending not to be an animal. This isn’t about respect. It’s about truth. It is a fact that the Baxxid possess untold capabilities for killing. It is a fact that Kalgkur has made use of those capabilities. As I said in my comment on the page of the incident, this whole tragedy happened because Baxxid fully turn their backs away on what they can do, pretend that it is not a factor anymore. Something to be hidden and repressed, rather than understood and managed. While pretending that they have left such terrenal tethers away seems to work for the majority of Baxxids, it seems obvious that, when those capabilities do surface, it is not enough to try burying them again. My take on the situation is that the elders are letting Kalgkur understand the whole situation, so that he may adapt. Because it may not be healthy, or possible, to pretend that side of his being does not exist after what he has done.
Nice post. What would really be handy about now is a record of how de Baxxid got “civilized” in de first place. For us Yinglets, all de Humani had to do is figure out we love clams, and offer us one if we behaved, and to zheir great surprise wizhin a week of offering us clams not only did we pick up zhe common language, but dey had to post guards to keep us out of zheir cities. Or so de legend goes.
Zo, de old Baxxids were properly blooded, and zhen suddenly eizher were stopped from doing it more, or decided to stop for some reason or anozher. Zhe fact remains zhat line can be crossed, being bloodied, and zhen return from it.
It’s eizher zhat, or every living Baxxid adult was killed by zhe humani, and every living Baxxid today is descended from captured children raised by regretful Humani, having destroyed zheir culture. Dark, yes?
I just don’t see how humans beating Baxxid happens in the current tech level. They have the advantage in melee (obvious), siege (tunnels) and guerilla (tunnels again) scenarios, and I don’t see bows and arrows making a significant dent. I think Baxxids had their own culture, to a debatable extent, before encountering humans, as this is a thing that happens with creatures that live in packs and are unchallenged in their ecological niche (see: elephants, orcas). All that intelligence they have is not just for tunneling.
The most I can theorize from the available information is that coalescence may not be a process that is beneficial to the individual, or to the species at a whole (it has to have been at some point, but changes in the enviroment may have rendered it dangerous), and the Baxxid found something in human culture, human civilization that allowed them to avoid it. Or it was given (taught?) to them. Wasn’t the first encounter between Baxxids and Valsalia violent, then the Baxxid stopped attacking for seemingly no reason? That couldn’t have happened if they didn’t possess the intelligence to make some kind of cultural exchange, or trade.
Aside from the cultural angle, the only thing my mind goes to is the water reservoir under Valsalia, the only source in a vast area. Maybe Baxxid are reverse locusts (locust swarms happen after heavy rainfall), ‘coalescing’, whatever that is, when there is not enough water in their environment. But that doesn’t quite fit with the vibe of Kalgkur’s arc, if ya know what I mean.
Another theory: sound is thought for Baxxid. They are a sound-based limited hive mind, where the infrasound conversations of the whole affect the individual. Rendering the idea of violence a complete taboo in their civilization makes the collective generally incapable of commiting it. Kalgkur is really just very clumsy (not just the last incident, the scream that got him into this mess), and pretty much rediscovered violence by accident.
Well, it did happen. Baxxid are de submissives in the Human-Baxxid relationship. Sure de Baxxid are powerful on a individual basis, but zhe Humani are faster zhan dey are, and capable of not only running de hell away (somezhing Us Yinglets are good at too) but are capable of driving away or poisoning de Baxxid’s food, starving zhem.
Zhere are ways to win a battle zhat doesn’t rely on using a spear, using one’s head before doing zo is much, much better. For de water zhing, de Baxxid would have left ValSalia long ago if zhat were de case. Surely Yannit’s people (Zhe Indrel) are at least as tasty as Humani are, and being in an underground hive already, a more rewarding target zhan a measly Humani villiage is.
But neizher de Indrel, Baxxid or Yinglets control de area, zhere is somezhing special about being human (ask Laaady Kass for details).
The human advantage is in fixed and improvised defenses. Fine motor control and tool usage. Even without a speed advantage, a pot of boiling pitch or urine is going to make any creature suffer. Briefly, and for too long at the same time. Nets. Arrows, baxiids have no natural way to carry shields that aren’t impaled on their noses or arms. We don’t know how well a baxiid can climb a sheer or near-sheer stone wall, but whether or not they can and whether or not it’s fast, there are definitely still options.
Plus, Ivenmoth flat out controls every source of water in and near the whole city due to the Baxxid assistance they get, in times of siege. Is that completely a baxiid ability or did they have some capability of that stuff beforehand?
Oh, forgot pit traps. Baxiid are smart, they form their own complex traps in the wild. But do they also have experience AVOIDING traps in the same way? It would seem plausible that coalescence and a lack of numbers would preclude major wars and conflicts with fixed positions of the formerly nomadic baxiid. Regrettably, such experience is also a human “strength,” from a very particular point of view. Unpleasant, but, a definitely crucial skill to have when it’s suddenly needed.
Forgot to specify. Crossbows, not archers. Baxiid armor is not nearly continuous like a lobster or something. Humans already build and fight in lighter and better as seen by Dinnland armor flashbacks.
Crossbows can punch through a half inch of plate armor at 100 yards. Needleheads are specifically designed to punch chainmail aside and get as deep as possible. And while archers are harder to train fast, if you’re not raising an army from nothing and have time to train good crossbowmen, you can absolutely get them trained up very finely to aim for gaps in armor, shield walls, turtle formations and ram’s armor. Frankly, baxiid eyes are larger than many gaps in armor they would be trained to puncture, through mail and gambeson, in a well supplied human siege.
Arrows are accurate over a larger area for lightly armored targets, but crossbows have more punch, especially closer up. And considering the intricate gearage I’ve spotted on their treadmill crane that one page, they are 100% perfectly capable at this point of carburizing a hard edge on wrought iron arrow cores.
Fire arrows too. Poison, arrow nets. SLINGS, would likely be able to crack a large chitin plate at close range, and those are VERY accurate! Medieval slings were in numbers greater than 3 slingers, capable of driving bears off and harming their bones, something a modern pistol even, is lacking in achieving.
These are not primitives. They are as smart as modern humans, they just do not have as complete a scientific view of things. Most mathematics systems are NOT. REMOTELY. YOUNG. Calculus was oh, 1300s, Newton’s time anyways. We just have extra uses for them now. Algorithms are only useful at computer computing speeds. Ancient Greeks proved the earth was round and calculated it’s diameter, only religious dogma kept everyone from continuing to know this past Rome’s official converting to Christianity.
Slings, eh? Wish I had zhought about dis years ago (can’t be bozhered wizh looking up ALL de past chats to remember which one so can so brag on dis) for Yinglet use, but for weapons to use on a Baxxid, I like de bell. Seeing how zhey CANNOT untie a knot, looping a rope wizh a bell attached to it around zhier neck, is surprisingly effective. Once “Belled” a Baxxid would not be able to move wizhout letting de world around zhem of zheir location.
I, like Kalgkur do not fully understand at the present time, however based on these things we can assume:
the Baxxid do not hunt to survive and reproduce
The purpose is, in fact to coalesce.
To become ‘one entity together’
If one does not hunt to survive, then what is the true purpose of hunting?
what purpose of hunting, not for survival will lead to ‘one’ ?
Maybe in reverse? De Baxxid coalesce to survive and reproduce? Green Reaper’s observation of Baxxid being similar to locusts, grasshoppers who gather into a swarm once certain stimuli are met is interesting. Grasshoppers are familiar, as zhey can reproduce and thrive wizhout triggering zheir Locust transformation. Do Grasshoppers dream of zheir untapped potential to consume? Zhat is de question I zhink is being asked here to Kalgkur, zhat untapped potential zhat comes when blood is spilled.
Kalgkur certainly seems more emotionally stable after re-affirming his choice to remain “sane” despite having been razher crazy just before seeing ole wazziz name. Why de elders are tossing de poor boy back to de wolves mentally at dis point has to have a reason, ozher zhan Baxxid are weird.
I wonder if Kalgkur is one of the Baxxid generation that’s finally made the jump to genuinely internalizing the idea of peaceful, mutual coexistence and the elders simply weren’t prepared for someone who experiences cognitive dissonance not from hearing “the truth” of the chained one, but rather from hearing that the leaders he trusts don’t actually believe the principles they claim to espouse and have long ago drank the koolaid that he so readily resisted?
Perhaps Kalgkur is solidly, or maybe just barely, on the other side of a line that nobody realized was there with one part of the Baxxid populace speaking in coded language and always thinking in the back of their minds that all Baxxid (or at least a part of every Baxxid) want to return to the old ways given the first opportunity. And on the other side of the line is Kalgkur and those like him who have grown up with the same stories and lessons, but unlike the other camp have actually have set their hearts on living out the principles taught to them with enough optimism and hope to believe that their dreams of peace are actually possible, darker moments like this aside? Maybe it’s all part of some larger test or just extra conditioning to make Kalgkur aware that this line of reasoning isn’t limited to one lonely, old prisoner, but it might be a case of one side realizing “Wait, you actually believed all that stuff we said?” and the other side realizing “Wait, you didn’t?”
My guess is Kalgkur is simply young, and is now just learning about zhe whole “Sins of de Fazher” zhing. Baxxids be wierd, but learning who you are in any world is part of becoming an adult regardless of what you look like.
For change coming to zheir world, and re-defining what and how Baxxids see zhemselves, we will have to wait and see where dis goes in de story. De boss does like himself de unrequited love stories.
So are y’all saying that baxxids are this planet’s Vulcans (from Star Trek)?
*hums za Ancient Battle/2nd Kroykah…*
What… O_o
Created to be killers, and finding visceral pleasure in the act of killing itself, I understand. Cats are like that. But the way they’ve been using the word “coalesce” puzzles me. You could describe Valsalia’s theory of government as a commitment to “cultural coalescence” of all kinds of people into a universally beneficial society. But the baxxids’ use of the word in the last few pages must mean an exclusive coalescence, not just dangerous, but also hostile to the Valsalian way. So I want to ask: is this “coalescence” something the high elders have decided to abandon, even though it’s a “Truth” spoken by HWKWHD, or are they here to induct Kalgkur into a secret society of rebels against Valsalia? Will they decide they have to kill him because HWKWHD did not persuade him? I fear there’s something deep and dark and very old going on here.
De truzh is maybe to de Baxxid, we (humani and yinglets) are zheir clams. I can understand dis, as I too love de clams, but also want to eat zhem. I was made to eat zhem! I LOVE TO EAT ZHEM!! But also I want to protect and help zhem make lots and lots of clam babies, to make me happy in de future too.
I guess I have to be satisified zhat clams are not sentient beings who understand zhat I their protector, am also zheir predator as well.
Don’t deny yourself – there will probably be more clams elsewhere. 😋
Um, zhere is, but over zhere *points across de tidal pond* belongs to zhat fancy pants Yinglet who is always singing and making so, so fancy rhymes and such on here. Zhat zheir clam bed is better zhan mine is somezhing I cannot stand! And If I ate em all, zhat would be bozh admitting defeat at zheir hands (somezhing zhat will never, ever be a good zhing) and bad for de next time I want a clam in de future. And worst of all is zhey would probably make up some fancy pants song about me asking zhem for a clam, and sing it to ozhers. So, de clams are safe, for now at least.
Rememberz to saves some clamz fors a rainy day…
as zhey tastes sooo much betters zhats way.
*blink blinks* And I never understandz why a clams-mining ying would wearz za pants. Zhey would gets zooo heavies when wets an stickies wizh za clams-juice an fulls of sandz an blah blah clams-rake blah. But but… yous sounds zorta sad, so here has a clam. *gives clam*
Just don’ts listenz to za clams whisperings and sets za Patriarch’s huts on fires… unless is Narklet’s one zhen maybies is OK. Weehehehehehe…
OH MY GOD I CAN COMMENT IM FINALLY ALIVE
Are you zhough? Or are you part of a simulation, and everyzhing you zhink is real, is just part of de matrix?
Okay but what’s the simulation trying to simulate? If the simulator had a better GPU, would that clean up all the fuzzy quantum nonsense?
Well, remember zhis? https://www.deviantart.com/lunarscorpion1990/art/New-Ties-P9-799693323 where some dumn as hell Humani deicded zhat we Yinglets were ready for de space age? Yeah, zhat didn’t work out for us, and de Humani kinda messed up so, so bad about de prime directive.
De worst zhing is dey got us hooked on dat wonderous zhing called coffee, so we’d do pretty much anyzhing for a hit of de stuff, so dey tricked us into zhis zhing called a “holodeck” where dey brought us to 21st century Earzh (apparently zhier home planet) where we can have coffee wizhout damaging de ship, and apparently learn to live (anozher good comic) by intereacting wizh “de internet” as when we tried to use de ship’s native computer, it kind of tried to steer de ship into a somezhing called a black hole.
Zo basically, I’m living in a simulation, and have access to one replicator for food (apparently eating what’s in de holodeck is so, so bad) a potty (don’t get me started about what happens when you have to ask to have dookie removed from de holodeck) and using de internet, I can read about OOP, when I feel homesick a bit. So if you are reading zhis, yes, you are actually real, and I am not. Zo feel good about life, and yes, I always say “Computer, save program” when I leave.
I was not even aware of that, but deviantart hates my mobile browser so I prefer to read webcomics on the authors’ own websites, like this one. So yeah, it’s pretty surprising to hear you’re a time-traveler living in a simulation. If you’re not real, where do you go when you leave? Does the Federation let you take excursions off the starship? Earth has a lot of interesting places you could explore, even in the 21st century, and we definitely have good seafood if you know where to go.
Well, seeing all de species of de Federation is pretty much around here, I don’t have to leave de ship to visit ozhers. However, de Federation determined us a “mistake” but when dey tried to drop us off on Ceti Alpha V (Zhe last person dat lived zhere was named Khan or somezhing) we ate zheir ecosystem’s brain eating parasites to extinction (Zhey taste like Clams,we couldn’t help ourselves) and de Poor Captain was forced to take us back in, and lock us up on de Holodeck once more.
As for time travelling, kinda? As far as I know OOP takes place in de Earzh’s 24th century. How Humani got to my own planet, zhey are curious about zhis, but zhanks to de Prime Directive cannot interfere furzher as de Humans zhat Kass came from are now part of de fabric of de world.
For meeting ozher species, I did get to meet a Klingon (Besides Wharf, son of Mogh, also known as jerkface being head of security, is our natural enemy when we were on de Enterprise) who paid us a compliment, calling us zhe Humans Tribbles. Seeing how cute a tribble is (was shown a picture) I feel warm zhoughts towards zhem, and our dietary tastes are similar as well.
For our current “home” me and a few ozhers live near Johns Island, South Carolina, and since de Holodeck settings can make de swamp puppies and skeeters, and stray dogs, and sharks all not want to eat us, nor is zhere any hurricanes, or earthquakes as long as SOMEONE does not mess wizh de settings. It is a near paradise for Yinglets. Zhe food is good, and we have a few cabins to live in wizh “internet” (how I am talking to you now) which replicates 21st century Earzh’s. We have a teacher called Professor Moriarty, who is as interested in de Universe as we are, and is so, so nice, zhough he has to stay in de Holodeck, he seems happy to have us students, whom he calls “weapons of chaos” to unleash on de universe.
EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Is so LOUDZ. O_O
*gives a clam an pat pats*
It was Kalgkur who first said “coalesce.” So it’s not the /idea/ of coalescence that’s a secret among Baxxid, but rather the (continuing) /truth/ of the idea. Does Ran know about the idea? (Thinking it’s obsolete?) I’ll have to go back to the Field Guides to look for foreshadowing of this scene.
De foreshadowing? Best zhat I know of is de one shot when de trademaster had a “talk” wizh someone who had sold off some of ValSalia’s food reserves. Why would Viracroix be so, so paranoid/murderous about selling somezhing zhat can simply be re-bought?
De answer is likely related to de Baxxid, and coalese-ing. We like happy, well fed murder machines, right?
Your local bread thief has passed! I stole all your bread! And I will strike again! (:<
You do know Yinglets and bread don’t mix, Yes?
Ahah! But you don’t know my evil plan! I steal bread to force feed the Yinglets! I even hide bread in their food when they least expect it! I am truly evil! (:<
Just so you know, this means war.
Sooo SOOO EVILZ!
As evils as za Buttered Toastz… but not zo much as za terrible TERRIBLES Zinnamon Rollz…
wizh za glistenings sweetnezz an za sooo SOOO tasties Zinnamonz zhat tempts za poor POOR yinglet. EEEEEEEE! EVILZ!!!
Is Truly evil! Worse zhan de time de Matriarch banned humpings just to see how long we could hold out! Worse zhan da Humani who dumped Isher after courting her! Some zhings cannot be tolerated! Forcing Yinglets to eat palegrains is one of dese, and so war has been declared.
However, Um Will, doze cinnamon roll zhingys do a good job of um…padding for making de males be looking like feemales! Two rolls stuffed into the right places and you get first dibs on all de humpings you want on de bakersroof. (If we ever get back zhere) I of course heard zhis from a friend. *coughs*
I’m gonna guess that this is a test of sorts, that the elders are lying to Kalgkur in order to test him, and see how he reacts to their claims. Baxids who don’t resist this narrative will be judged wanting, and punished further. I expect that Kalgkur will go against them, deny their claim, and thus be judged pure.
I am also gonna guess that coalescing probably entails going into some kind of hivemind form, whereing they not only telepathically communicate, but almost become one in mind. So those hordes they used to form, would be a whole group of Baxxid moving as one, with a unified mind and purpose.
I’d not play poker wizh zhem, dat’s for sure! Zhough Baxxid do have de ultimate poker face, dey do tend to be a bit emotional, so perhaps look at zheir tails for a “tell” as to how zhey are zhinking? Zhose mouzh zhingies dey have on eizher side of dere jaws do a lot of moving too, zhough so far we have not been told why, and what dey are for.
I’m not sure about the first one, but yeah, there is something about what’s being said here that feels vaguely inaccurate. I don’t think they are lying so much as they are omitting parts of the truth, that one can accept that evolution made them to be killers, but reject that life for the meaning and purpose and comfort that Civilization has.
Perhaps the endpoint is that he understands this and moves on, wiser about his place in the world… At which point I think he’s going to be punished by being transferred into Kass’s entourage.
I think people are misreading the term coalesce though. I don’t think there’s any telepathy being implied here, I think it’s either coalescing into a more primitive state of mind, or coalescing as a group into an army.
I’m not sure about the first one, but yeah, there is something about what’s being said here that feels vaguely inaccurate. I don’t think they are lying so much as they are omitting parts of the truth, that one can accept that evolution made them to be killers, but reject that life for the meaning and purpose and comfort that Civilization has.
Perhaps the endpoint is that he understands this and moves on, wiser about his place in the world… At which point I think he’s going to be punished by being transferred into Kass’s entourage.
I think people are misreading the term coalesce though. I don’t think there’s any telepathy being implied here, I think it’s either coalescing into a more primitive state of mind, or coalescing as a group into an army.
I mean we hope zhat he ends up wizh Kass’s group, and ties in years and years of having two entirely separate story lines finally.
As for de Baxxid pulling a Obi-Wan Kenobi “I told you de truzh, from a certain point of view.” Kind of zhing, it is so, so bad. It was BS when de Jedi said it, and it is BS here too. What de eldres are doing is cementing mental damage, done so zhat dey can feel better about being secure. It is bullying, done solely to zhier benefit, and it is gross.
As for de Coalese zhing. Imagine you are a Submarine And live under de water, wizh ozher submarines nearby. Zo, how does one communicate wizh de ozher? Zhey have two ways, for de most part. One is Sonar, using sound to see de ozher, in relationship to where dey are at to one anozher. Can sound be used to communicate? sure. But de longer de wavelength of de sound, de less information it carries so if used for communication it would be a amplitude modulation (for computer nerds, using 0’s and 1’s) instead of frequency modulation like Humani use for speech. Needless to say, inefficient.
Zo, De submarines use Radio waves to communicate. It isn’t fantasy zhat said waves pass zhrough unseen and unheard to a device zhat is made to recieve zhem, which intereprets said waves so zhat dey are understood.
Zo, De Baxxid are kind of Land Submarines. Dey use infrasound to “see” like how submarines use sonar, but using it like whales do, would be inefficient, and de Baxxid who are in plant form and paralyzed can still be heard and communicate. Zo, do zhey have a equivalent to de submarines’s radio? A secondary way to communicate more complex zhoughts and in a way zhat would not give away zheir locations to zheir prey, de same way using sonar does to bozh submarines and whales alike?
I think people should remember that coalesce doesn’t necessarily literally mean they all become one. It could also mean coalescing internally, into one’s baser desires and instincts, as opposed to the higher level thinking they’ve branched out into.
I think this is an argument between three points, his original indoctrinated thinking that they must never fall into their base desires, this rebellious way of thinking that the instincts they have are good and the only thing that brings purpose and thus the thing they should do, and a new way of thinking he is going to have to learn which reconciles his place as a predator with the fact that he clearly is dedicated to being a part of civilization.
Zhe answer is “We don’t know” for sure, but it is fun to speculate, no? Zhe question is one of how a under de ground species would be able to communicate to de ozher. Humani have already been said in de comic to be sensitive to Baxxid’s private talkings, and zo a key to how de Baxxid became de bottom in de Humani-Baxxid relationship. (How Yinglets respond to Baxxid talk is unknown at dis time, cannon wise).
Zo to say dey use telepathy, may not be accurate, or it may exactly be what dey are doing, and Humani are just Psi-sensitive. We don’t know yet. However, you don’t see any Baxxid’s mouth parts moving in dis page, do you?
This is one of those times I hate having to wait for the next page! “Coalesce” is such a strange word to drop on us non-baxxid readers. I imagine the author seeing all our speculations, chuckling softly to himself, thinking things like “If only they knew what my true plans are … heh heh heh …” Whether we all end up completely wrong or someone is actually onto something, I’m having fun with the speculation. 😀
I use it for database stuff! Good way to get rid of nulls. But even then it’s relatively rare.
Raccoon… How did you manage to post the same comment twice, and to post on the same day the first comment at 12:47am and the second comment at 12:46am, when the time a comment is posted it goes from the oldest to the most recent from top to bottom? Did you use a time machine or something?
Zhe second comment was at 12:49, so you are as blind as you are evil. Need to borrow some of my soap to clean your eyes wizh you supervillian person you?
Silly little Yinglet… You’re the one who’s blind. Don’t you see he replied to Cyndayn, and then there is his comment again after that. You even replied to him, and you replied to Cyndayn before his reply to Cyndayn. Or maybe my computer has a problem and I’m the only one to see that. But I’m pretty confident of what I saw.
I admit…you smell as bad as you are evil. All zhat bread yuck. As for Zhe Raccoon being a quick typer, sure. Raccoons feet are razher like ours as zhey are as dexterous wizh zheir front, as zheir back feet. And wizh more fingers per paw too! If zhe ‘Coon types like I do, wizh all four appendages, zhey are quick indeed when zhey aren’t savaging in zhe trash.
Zhis does not mean zhey are some sort of time traveller, who is going to steal your yuck bread back using zheir super-powers.
The way the comments are laid out on my browser, each “original” comment is ordered by time of posting, and then all of its replies are grouped with it. So if you post an original comment one minute, and the next minute paste the same as a reply to someone else’s slightly older comment, the later post would appear higher on the page, since it’s a reply.
But here’s a question for you, Specific: if you hate the smell of bread so much, explain why the oracle chose to live on the baker’s roof?
Um, where else would allow Yinglets to have sex in de open inside Valsalia? Plus while I dislike de smell of yeast ridden palegrains, insects are attracted to it. And so a symbiosis of us eating zhe pests zhat eat palegrains, and de Humani ignoring de ongoing sex occuring on de roof makes de Baker’s one of de few places for de outcasts of Valsalia to get a free meal and not be kicked for stealing it.
Oh nope sorry… You probably replied to the comment.
But why two times…? Where were you between 12:46am and 12:47am? You are under interrogation now. You can call your lawyer if you want. What’s your alibi? The obvious answer would be that you posted your comment but you didn’t reply directly to the person, so you write your comment again to reply to that person. But is it though? Did you write your comment again because you felt guilty of something? Was it because you forgot to hit the “post comment” button so you double posted your comment? Or did you want more atttention by commenting your comment twice? Come on, spit it out, and I promise your sentence won’t be that bad.
I’ve never seen a baxxid with colored claw-stalks. Are they painted or dyed somehow?
Under de Laady’s veil, she has a Green stripe on her head armor de same color as de claw Stalks. So, painting/cosmetics is a yes.