Strip 130 -- First Seen: 2009-03-13
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

What Comes Next

The war is over, but This Means War has a ways to go. Novo Paolo/Bubbleopolis is still in a nebula/stellar nursery, no one knows what happened to the planet Sharen (center of the Intergalactic Council), and the status of the now-surrendered Invaders is yet to be resolved. What will they do when they learn their homeworld is basically destroyed? Will Alyss and Li be re-united? How about Diana (the real one) and Otto?

These questions will be resolved in the next few weeks, before This Means War part 3 wraps in late May.

After that, I plan to go BACK in time about 400 years, to when Alyss and Li left their home in the Sol System to colonize a new world on the far side of the galaxy. As one might expect, hijinks ensue. New subtitle yet to be determined, start date sometime in around the start of July. Stay tuned!

A Little House Cleaning

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The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Tall panel Introducing Admiral Arthur Harris, standing in a darkened room full of flashing LED lights and monitor screens (it's the command deck of the Gamma Conqueror, though we don't see much of it here.).

Focus here is on the man. Harris stands in a 'parade rest' pose, looking, well, commanding in his dark, crisp Admiral's field uniform, decorated with a Worf-like sash festooned with medals. He looks ahead with steely eyes and set jaw.



Caption: Admiral Arthur Harris – a direct descendant of the British war criminal, 'Butcher Harris' – was on a mission to 'put down the Cererean rebellion against United World rule.'

Caption 2: He was given plenipotentiary powers to arrest, try, convict and if appropriate, execute the king and other rebels...
Panel 2
Large squarish panel, showing the Naval Strike Force, consisting of six Beta Class Destroyers, and one Gamma Class Destroyer, the command ship UWSS Gamma Conqueror. I don't really have any ideas about ship design, except that the Gamma class ship should be a bit more than twice the size of the Beta Class ships. The six Betas fly in a hexagonal formation around their Gamma Class leader. It should also have some air of malevolence about it, but not so much that it can't be modified later by the Cerereans to look less evil as the Delta Free.


Caption: … And a UW Naval Strike Force to make it all stick.

Panel 3
The space-traffic control room at Ceres City. Not unlike today's air-traffic control facilities at smaller airports, [remember, this is a private business, probably supported by spaceport landing and other fees] a largish room with four people at various computer stations, monitoring radar and communications. They don't wear uniforms, just normal Cererean clothing. Focus is on one particular controller at a communications station. A filtered-voice balloon emits from the console.

Caption: Meanwhile, at the Ceres Space Traffic Control center:

Filtered voice: Hey Cerereans, this is Daniel in the Lion's Den.

Filtered voice (2): You are not going to believe what I'm seeing...

Panel 4
We are looking at the communications console, where Daniel's head and shoulders fill one of the viewscreens.

Daniel: There's a group of UW Navy burners headed your way.

Daniel (2): It looks like six smaller ships, one larger ship.

Panel 5
Now all attention in the room is focused on the comm station. Everyone gathered around, watching and listening to Daniel.

Daniel: That's odd, the small ships have moved back from the big ship and some sort of a door is opening on its side ...

Daniel (2): There's something sliding out …

Daniel (3): Oh, shit! It's a –

SFX (next to last balloon): BZARRK!!

Panel 6
Same shot, silence as the controllers look at one another in shock.

Panel 7
Wide panel, sort of diagrammatic, illustrating a gossip-chain-cum-communications network. On the far left, one of the controllers is talking excitedly, inside a circular inset panel. Lightning-bolt-type lines link this to two half-sized circular panels, each containing two other individuals talking excitedly to their comms. These lead to four still smaller circular panels with excited talkers, then eight circles, then sixteen, with a last set of lightning bolts bleeding off the page at the right.

Caption: Without any central coordination, word of the attack went out quickly to thousands of friends, family, and partners. They were warned of the danger and told to prepare.