Chapter 3, Page 4

LEVi!!! u been talking some shit

Today’s bonus art: a little up-close of a Thrip guy~ (Patrons can access the post with development and behavioral notes here)

 

 

51 Comments

  • Bug

    Just….don’t visit earth or look at transmissions. If Mike got you disappointed, I am afraid that the common denominator of humanity will make you want to burrow back in your hole and forget you ever contemplated the potential reasoning behind synthetic life. I mean, all that organic life is just right there, waiting for you to just mess with it and yet these funny monkeys decided to go about the long way.

    • StClair

      “Human thought is so primitive, it’s looked upon as an infectious disease in some of the better galaxies.” – K, Men in Black

      • Vert

        “Kinda makes you feel proud, doesn’t it?”

  • Localized

    “LEVi made you sound super interesting…
    You’re kinda boring tho”

    • shingworks

      re: humans

  • Ceceoh

    Martian looks so stately in the first panel. Then in the second panel he’s just frickin’ adorable.

  • NegativeBurn

    Humanity is disappointing… I weep for the moment when he meets a human politician.

  • Aroree

    I just read back through the entire archive, and the build up and foreshadowing was so brilliant, every page was lead up to this, and it is so impressive and amazing. Also, this…Martian is so rude. In a condescending way. XD Cool looking though.

  • Fruckert

    God, I absolutely love the design of the martian.
    Also it’s thripfriend is really cute.

  • DukeBG

    I am surprised of the “crudely” comment, actually. Why would he think so?

    He (assuming gender, of course, sorry) doesn’t seem to have any crafted tools of whatever sort of artifical object that would represent his civilization’s achievements with him. Maybe, their civilization has biological basis and their tools are organic. But still, LEVi would be “crude” from that perspective? He’s got, like, a metal shell, that’s so far from organic to be comprehensible…

    (Yes, Leggy the troll has trolled me.)

    • Fridge_Logik

      For all we know the big guy is some sort of naturalist just out for a walk away from some super shiny colony. Heck for all we know big guy’s part o some weird symbiotic bio-technical collective and to it building a servitor out of smelted rocks seems crude when you could grow a much more elegant system.

      Though it’s pretty condescending to call experimental technology crude, you’re freaking experimenting.

      • Martha Wolfe

        Going off of this, what if ThighFriend is actually bioengineered (perhaps by NewFriend and Co.)? I mean, we’ve been kind of taking its magical healing/blood-cleansing/oxygen-creating powers for granted for the sake of the story, but what if they are perfectly explainable?

        • Vert

          I actually asked Der-Shing flat-out if Thighfriend was designed, and her response was that he wasn’t. But the tone of her response left all kinds of questions open… I have a feeling my question wasn’t specific enough to net me the whole truth.

          The Der-Shing is wily, and will not be snared by such questions as we simpletons can pose ;)

  • NielsR

    Note to self, avoid putting crude AI in a first contact situation. We should have worked that out after the horrors of Vger.

    I love Shark Lundgren’s body language, though!

    • hkmaly

      There wasn’t any AI on Voyager 6. The race which upgraded it interpreted it’s programming very loosely.

    • MiniMoose

      Yessss, “Shark Lundgren,” my favorite name for the new Friend.

  • Draug

    lol poor Mike though. The first intelligent life he encounters wants to badmouth him. xD

  • Zathura

    Sooooooo am I the only one here sitting with a cocked head and thinking “dafuq is going on?”

  • Pylgrim

    Anyone getting strong The Dig vibe from the comic lately?

  • Lorenzo

    Oh man, this is getting super interesting!
    I can’t help but read the martian with a sort of protoss-sounding voice. Are they telepathic?

  • Goo

    Sharkey Kong continues to confuse and astound.

    I like that even in a first contact situation, Mike can’t help but be a bit fed up at all this rudeness.

  • fox-orian

    I give this creature a voice in my head where it speaks very methodically making sure to enunciate every syllable.

    • Vert

      It sounds like Carl Sagan’s accent to me, but with a gender-neutral voice that has a slightly breathy, hissing quality.

      • fox-orian

        Yes —

        That’s actually EXACTLY how I think about it hahahah Good way to describe it.

      • Edmund

        Can we just call sharkfeets here carl sagan instead that would be glorious

        • Vert

          Carl is a good name. Can always be Carly if Carl turns out to identify as female. Assuming gender identification is even a thing for sharkgorillas…

  • fox-orian

    also

    LITTLE HERMIT-Y-CRAB-ISH DUDE!

  • Vert

    If it’s so much more intelligent than we are that it has problems try to think down to our level, one wonders why it’s wandering around under Mars (instead of hanging out with Q or whatever it is Sufficiently Advanced lifeforms do in their spare time).

    My guess is that it’s not (on its own) tremendously more intelligent than most humans, but that it’s looking at us from a completely unrelatable angle. I strongly suspect that ecosystem in which Mike has found himself *is* a large part of this being’s “technology”. Why build synthetic critters to do your dirty work when you can adapt what’s already there?

  • DukeBG

    Big Questions that one might have:
    What happenned to Thighfriend, if anything?
    Why is Mike bleeding?
    How much time has passed? (Mike’s facial hair looks much more bushy, btw)
    Where are they going?

    My theory on the last part is that they are going to a place, where LEVi is. Note how LeggyFace is always talking about LEVi in present tense. He’s definitely still functioning all right.

  • Justsaying

    Given the title of this chapter, pretty sure the alien is female.

    • Ceceoh

      Unless the title might be referring to Bex? (But you’re probably right.)

    • DukeBG

      You might be right! Darn languages. I might have to fix russian pages later, when we know for sure.

  • izzy

    Oh my god. Der-Shing, I wish I had your writing style. I have some good ideas for possible biological/technological futures and advancements, but I would never have the ability to put them into such a compelling story as you have.

  • JakeyBakey

    that’s cold

  • Lar

    Does newfriend know where Bex is…

  • Tindi

    I’m pretty sure Mike’s heard “I’m disappointed in you” so often at this point that he’s like “Of COURSE you’re disappointed. Everyone is.” Poor Mike.

  • David

    Honesty is one of most important assets in an early romance. Nice to see Mike playing Captain Kirk and flirting with the cute alien girl. Now only need a little more biological adapting so Mike can make babies with his new girlfriend rather than just breath the local atmosphere without coughing. ;P

  • GhostlyYorick

    Wide Stance Carry Friend thinks YOU are a boring alien!

  • To be fair, Mike, he has a point.

  • Fik of borg

    What if the entity doing the talking IS thripcrab, and the big guy is only his “bio-car”? Thripcrab is “speaking all the time, maybe the big guy is only translating?

  • Anni

    Man, some weird shit is happening. I keep wondering though, what is growing on his face? Are those rocks or something?? This is so weird.

    • Vert

      Fungus, man.

      Fungus-man.

  • shane

    great. first contact is with man so screwed up he is suicidal. No wonder the martian is less than impressed, Depressed people do that to the people they are around.

  • Adam

    Mike is in denial. Any AI that can teach aliens English to this high a level and handle first contact so well is hardly rudimentary or primitive.

  • Stickman550

    thrip

  • David

    This is just stupid! Humans are smarter and better than most aliens that have head start in space by thousands of years. I have Star Wars, Star Trek, Babylon 5 and many other SF shows to prove it!

    • Lar

      Babylon 5 was the best example of it too! All you gotta do is give them a stern talking to and say “Get the hell out of our galaxy!”

  • msouth

    If you’re going to bring on the Singularity, don’t do it *casually*. I think that’s what the martian’s getting at.

  • Teej
  • squidlifecrisis

    ((rereading and caught a typo… no “E” in judgment!))

    • squidlifecrisis

      well there is one e. but not that e. ayie when will I learn to shut up

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