Give her a moment.
Transcript
Talita climbs back out of the hole in the habitat wall, carrying her equipment.
Talita: How long will the transfer take?
Bip: About 3 days. Any thoughts on other repairs?
Talita: …I'm going back to work. Talk to you later.
Talita packs her stuff into a large cart and gets back on the industrial lift.
Bip: Talita, can I ask one more question?
Talita: (annoyed) What.
Bip: Is the emergency boat still docked?
She looks down at the ship below, and sees the small spaceplane still attached to one of the docking ports.
Talita: Yeah? Wh—
64 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 106”
EveryZig314
Sadness, but also Loaf
Elixer
Oh. Oh no, Bip!
These last pages are gorgeous, btw!
$ilverspoon
…what are you planning to do bip?
evileeyore
This is the page where I stopped giving Bip the benefit of the doubt and began questioning everything Bip said and what possible motivations and trickery could be going on here.
Frex: If it’s going to take 3 days to transfer the BipClone off the phones… how did Bip get the clone onto the phones in the first place? Either it was setup before the “attack”… or there is something fishy going on here?¹
Who cleared the dead crew from the vessel, but left the Q-phones scattered about by the hull breach?²
The “object” struck at just the right angle to sever Bip from power. Really bad luck or calculation? And if calculation, whose?³
1 – Having it set up before the attack would in itself be “fishy”.
2 – I’ll be willing to discuss more on this in the future, “spoiler no spoiling” as the youths would say.
3 – I’m implying the calculation may have been Bip. For reasons unknown, just my ‘paranoia’ talking.
I have doubts all this will be addressed. I suspect the questions of “how did Bip end up in the perfect place at the perfect time needing repairs and a crew” will never be answered. This is a comic more about relationships than mystery (at least so far) and I don’t think that’s going to change (but just know Jay, that my yarn-web board is growing and the tinfoil headband is ready!).
Glop Glupson
It’s a lot easier to transfer stuff from a powerful bigger device to a smaller less powerful device than vice versa, so it still checks out
Sen
How Bip transferred themselves to the phones after being cut off from power is also something I have thought about.
Many important server structures today include emergency batteries. If my brain was in a server I’d make sure it had something similar so I am not instantly incapacitated when the power goes out. This way I could at least call for help or something.
And the 3 day transfer might be the leisurely speed. In an emergency an AI can probably compress its data more effectively and reduce some safety checks that make sure all data packages arrive. Losing some of your memories is an acceptable risk if the alternative is death. But now with no emergency looming Bip probably wants to make sure every single bit is where it needs to be.
JoB
New theory: The Bipphones were placed aboard the Runaway *after* its arrival on Dirtball. Neatly explains how *they* are sitting right behind the hull breach, while explosive decompression should have flushed lots of stuff – possibly including the crew – into space.
Note, too, that the ship post-breach went through a bunch of changing gees as it was transported to Shivakiil: Probably still under full (axial) thrust as the impact hit, zero-g as it went inert, then towed by the scrap collectors, shoved through a wormhole gate, (perpendicular) centrifugal force by the skyhook, notable deceleration on the launch loop, then came to rest (essentially) in Dirtballs 0.8g. If the phones had already been strewn about in the habitat, some would have gotten hemorrhaged into space in the ordeal.
Interesting corollary: Given the steep stairs leading up to the ship’s habitat, I don’t see how our so-far main suspect, Calcery, could have done that on their own …
evileeyore
My guess on the phones is that they were boxed, and stowed and while the ship was under acceleration would have hugged the floor. Even during decompression. They could have come free from stowage while undergoing all the shifting forces you mentioned.
However… it’s after the ship is on the float, when the salvage team hooked it up for towing, possibly removed the prior crew? That’s when a salvage team would start going through stuff to see what was or wasn’t portable, fungible, and valuable. And several boxes of Qphones would be all three.
Unless the salvagers were hired to tow the Runaway here and were specifically paid not to go through the ship’s stores, maybe just remove the dead crew (or if the crew wasn’t even onboard when the ship was attacked, my other theory).
If you follow that thread then the question is “who paid the salvage team”? And we’ve only got really two primary suspects (so far): Calcery and Bip. Bip could //possibly// do it from the Qphones themselves or Calcery could //if// they knew the Runaway had been attacked and where.
Or if Bip called Cal once they were on the phones… I have theories about Calcery setting things up here to motivate his friend Talita into a better social environment… and saving a friend whose been attacked as part of that? I can see those pieces coming together easily.
Maybe too easy… /tinfoil headband tightens
Peter Jensen
My suspicion is still that Bip was on the phones ahead of whatever situation happened, but there’s no reason to think it would take as long to transfer relevant data over very near distances to the phones, and transferring / syncing over a hijacked third party communication system while hiding from detection. There’s going to be a world of bandwidth difference.
Phlosioneer
I think the transfer is fast and easy when adjacent, but slow and difficult over long distance wireless connection with bandwidth restrictions. He can’t max the connection, it’ll be too obvious. You saw the panel when they downloaded ASL, it made the lights flicker; multiply that by a hundred or two for bip’s consciousness.
Hunter
So yeah, that crew is hella dead.
Greenjoe
The question is, though.. where are the bodies.. going to be a nasty job for whoever has to clear those up.
Fallingfeather
Could have just been launched into space by depressurization. I mean granted you’d expect that to make more of a mess inside, but…
SheThe TDE
and off he goes
TheMushroomInside
From context there appears to only be one emergency boat docked as bip asks Talita if The Emergency boat is stilled docked, meaning the runaway only had one likely because of its status as a derelict ship and could not afford more than one because of multiple considerations. The crew is very likely to have perished, its not known if their bodies are still on the ship or not, the reason why Talita didn’t find them was because they either got ejected, or are somewhere else inaccessible to her, that or they are within the emergency bus itself which failed to seal when Bip got struck, resulting in an instantaneous decompression event. Sapient AI in this universe have their own form of sociality which itself is based off of bugferret sociality their emotions and feelings are quite literally unfathomable, i can’t imagine what its like to be Bip here, especially as a being with Highly advanced, supercomputer computation. Imagine knowing with near 100% certainty in one of the last computations occurring, just before the power busses fail in the very algorithmic certainty of it all blaring in your very being, that your crew will with absolute certainty perish violently and cease to exist. All of that being the last thing that you can comprehend only to wake up later as the bits and pieces of yourself you downloaded into a few hundred phones somehow successfully gets someone to power you back on, having to essentially relive that experience again that to you happened seconds ago but you’ve as a whole been offline for potentially months. The only sliver lining about all of this is that those memories can be deleted, but that itself is Beyond merely jarring.
Ruby
I don’t know for whom this is going to hurt more, Talita or Bip.
Ruby
Probably Bip, since they knew the crew personally. But I’m not sure that Talia will take it any better.
creetur
Probably Bip too, though both will hurt for different reasons. As you stated, Bip because they knew the crew personally, and Talita because she’s likely inferred that Bip had to witness that happen to their previous crew.
Jackie
I was wondering what sort of connection Bip had with the former crew and what happened to them. I cant recall if we’ve seen Bip be anything but a chaos gremlin who just sticks around for amusement
TotallySomebody
Talita, I would like you to know I have accidentally adopted your nervous tick, and now I start gripping my throat when I’m unsure about something
Liza
I only started noticing I was doing it because of Talita
Translunary_Animus
I’ve also developed this on accident, oops! Guess that’s character mimicry for you.
JoB
… I was going to reply “not over here”, but then I realized that I tend to put my fingers somewhere around my lower *face* – ’round the chin or on the ‘stache, mostly – when thinking stuff through. Guess I’d be a trunk-twirler if I were a centaur. X-D
Phasma Felis
I can’t remember if I did it before or not, but I’ve definitely been doing it since I started reading RttS.
the Inmara
Talita is loafing!
dokki
THE CREW DIDN’T MAKE IT…………
BugFerret
I always wonder how Talita gets down stairs
Phasma Felis
Bip, get your feet off the fourth wall.
Gar G
xDD
Lilac
oh no why is the “wh-” cut off…. what is about to happen that cuts her off….. oh dear……….
JoB
Could be that she realized that the lifeboat(s) is/are a *classic* place to hide the most valuable loot a pirate ship’s carrying, in case they meet “colleagues” … ? 😉
eden
or that the clan of ten never made it to the lifeboat
HAL9000
A sunken ship shouldn’t have its lifeboats.
The crew never made it out.
Elixer
Oh. Oh no, Bip!
These last pages are gorgeous, btw!
0xabad1dea
She’s remembered mid-syllable why an AI’s ship would have a lifeboat.
Phlosioneer
I think she caught herself mid sentence realizing the gravity/implications. We just spent a full comic page “humanizing”/establishing reader investment in the ship’s previous inhabitants. Talita hasn’t had any reason to believe the accident was fatal, yet, until this question.
Hubert
Talita is pretty adept at stairs.
Tye
I think its very possible Bip is about to realize their crew had no survivors but I also think that emergency life boat is about to cause problems for Talita… The “wh-“ makes me think the next panel is gonna have the boat ejecting suddenly..
Feather
I think Talita is cutting herself off as she realises what Bip has actually asked – “Did my crew make it out alive?”
I’m hoping the crew weren’t on board when whatever happened to the Runaway happened, but it’s really not looking optimistic…
Greenjoe
If the crew didn’t evacuate… Talita is lucky she didn’t end up traumatizing herself from finding the bodies somewhere on the ship
JoB
… now that you mention it, there’s *one* “emergency boat” docked to the Runaway, but a total of *four* identical-looking docking tubes, so there could have been more … question is whether the crew actually abandoned ship *before* the hull got punctured …
JoB
… and, of course, whether whoever fired on the Runaway was willing to let the dinghys zip off …
HAL9000
IIRC, space warfare really would be very similar to modern submarine warfare. You shoot at someone from literally a galaxy away. The two ships may never even meet or see each other, you’re just obliterated from a projectile launched from across the world (or galaxy in this case). The Runaway was a small smuggler vessel, I don’t know if they could detect an attacker before they launched their attack, and by that point what can you do?
malmo
Bip would know how many boats were docked. Seems to be one, based on the question
JoB
*Or* the information that the others *did* get launched during the incident is available to them.
*Or* Bip is trying not to tip any hands, and wagers that a surprised Talita might answer “huh? There are *three* of them, how’d you get to think there’s but one?”
*Or* the difference between “*emergency* boat” and “shuttle” is actually an important one, for whatever reason.
… I guess that the one piece of immediately usable information on this page is that it’ll take phone-Bip three days to reintegrate with mainframe-Bip; that should toss out theories of “Bip transferred onto the phones as the projectile closed in”, unless the attacker fired a guided missile across an entire star system.
evileeyore
Or, Bip knows they escaped in the other shuttles and knows this question will help tip Talita into agreeing to help him.
Tentament
This got me wondering. Presumably the bodies were removed before the ship was sold to the scrapyard, but why wasn’t anything else removed? The phones and all the crew’s belongings were left inside.
Phlosioneer
The vacuum of space could have cleaned up the bodies… a hole blown into a pressure vessel causes a few tons of atmosphere to pull/push anything inside through the opening. And there’s no gravity to resist that force.
JoB
Counterproof: There was all sort of clutter, including the Bipphones, still sitting loose *right* behind the breach.
https://www.runawaytothestars.com/comic/rtts-page-8/
evileeyore
I think you’re on the right track JoB. I’ve been asking that same ‘question’ since since seeing the phones scattered right next to the hull breach..
HAL9000
you’d be suprised how lax the procedures are on these things. mate of mine works in a scrapyard and gets ruined cars in a lot. they just cut the bodies out and leave the rest. it’s techincally a biohazard to go digging around in there so the cars just get compacted with everything still inside ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
you can also buy used evidence cars from police auctions that can still have traces of the previous owners inside, and even in estate sales its not rare to buy furniture still containing people’s stuff (I got some really nice luxury soap and blankets this way!)
JoB
Hm. If we want to compare the Runaway to abandoned cars, it’d likely be a largely-intact, previously stolen one, lethally shot at by a rival gang, with the valuable loot from another crime still inside. I hope that the police in your ‘hood ain’t *that* lax …
Carmenifold
Oh.
1d4Nadg
Oh, now that Bip can get out of full survival mode, they might start to get feelings…
Phlosioneer
Yeah… very rare bip-has-a-heart moment. They haven’t started mourning yet…
Tyrone the Miner
Uh oh…..Nobody made it off.
waterfan2
Nobody made it off using that boat. It is possible that another vessel docked using a different port and took away living people.
After all, there have to be dozens of airtight compartments on the ship, plus service airlocks that would have suits in them. That being said …
zaratustra
Yeah, the AI could have easily closed some bulkheads and — oh wait.
Phasma Felis
Not after having all his wires cut.
Phasma Felis
(That’s probably what you meant, sorry)
JoB
If there *are* any bulkheads (within the habitat proper). I haven’t seen any in the sketches on Tumblr yet …
evileeyore
Phasma Felis: “Not after having all his wires cut.”
How did Bip transfer BipClone to the phones after the wires were cut?
I can see it if the servers had their own backup power generator and Q-tooth //and// the phones were conveniently on… but then also the ship should have had some level of redundant wireless connectivity so Bip should have been able to access things…
Peter Jensen
I would very much hope emergency decompression closing of bulkheads is wired with something a lot more primitive and unlikely to fail than a shipboard AI. That is, if such bulkheads are even included. The mechanism adds weight, which is always at a premium, and the reasoning may be that a rescue in deep space isn’t realistically going to happen anyway. There’s also precious little room between impact that is handled by shielding and impact that completely obliterates the ship, when talking orbital / interplanetary speeds. Which again makes the very precise damage to the Runaway … suspicious.
Hyratel
Emergency bulkheads would be on a Fail Closed trigger: power loss would release a magnetic latch and they’d drop closed like a toaster popping up.