Strip 310 -- First Seen: 2009-11-20
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
Establishing shot, Dr. Peña's office. Reggie and Ken Nightingale are seated across Dr. Peña's desk, facing Dr. Peña. Reggie is making his final pitch.

Reggie: If methane clathrates are heated beyond a certain 'tipping point' they release vast amounts of methane in a runaway reaction.

Panel 2
Let's have a medium shot of Peña, listening thoughtfully to Reggie (chin resting on hand or something like that).

Reggie (OP): Methane is an extreme greenhouse gas.

Reggie: It is 25 times more powerful than CO2.

Panel 3
Medium shot of Ken, listening thoughtfully to Reggie.

Reggie: In fact, the Clathrate Gun hypothesis holds that the Permian-Triassic Extinction Event – The Great Dying – was caused by a slight rise in ocean temperature.

Reggie: The unstable methane clathrates on the seabed released massive amounts of methane, triggering a runaway greenhouse effect.

Panel 4
Two-shot of Reggie and Ken. Reggie is looking enthusiastic but Ken looks grim.

Reggie: The global warming killed off more than 96% of all marine life and 70% of terrestrial life.

Ken: If you are somehow trying to cheer us up, you really, really suck at it.

Panel 5
Two-shot of Reggie and Ken but focus is on Reggie. Reggie tones down his enthusiasm a bit.

Reggie: The amount of heat energy needed to destabilize the methane clathrates and water at the South Pole are well within the capabilities of modern nukes.

Reggie: Also, it could be possible to redirect thermal energy to the Polar region as another way to start the destabilization process.
Panel 6
Medium close-up of Ken, who suddenly has a far-away look in his eyes.

Reggie (OP): One way or the other, human action can dump enough greenhouse gases into the Martian atmosphere …

Caption: Their eyes were no longer seeing him.

Panel 7
Medium close-up of Peña, who has a similar expression to Ken's. They are getting it.

Caption: They were seeing a warmer, greener Mars.

Reggie: … to heat up the old girl and pump up her atmosphere.

Caption: A new Martian era was about to dawn.