Chapter 7: Page 4 - Secret Passage -

Jun 2015

Chapter 7: Page 4 - Secret Passage

Posted by Daniel Sharp / in Comic / 61 comments

Oho, Konstantin? Where are you going? (as if I didn’t know the answer) ;)

Had a good Father’s Day yesterday, and have a family reunion this week! Don’t worry, I’ll still post the next page on Thursday and etc, but it also means I’ll be able to bother Nick IN PERSON about fixing some site problems :D

Vote and stuff!

Xylas Incarnum

… is he going to put that flash drive in some shipment container or something?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  You’ll see ;P
  - Hornet
    
    He’s going to switch the new key with an older key in a bank of a lot of keys that forms the D-bot hive-mind.
- Matt [in Middletown]
  
  It contains the dance moves for the new D-bot heavy, he will make a killing in the dancing robot genre!
  :-/ *deadpan*
Daniel Sharp

Oh, that text in the background? Is says this:

СОПКА
Самоорганизующаяся программа для консультации и анализа
- Xylas Incarnum
  
  Translation… according to google translate anyways:
  
  “Nipple
  
  The self-organizing program for consultation and analysis”
  
  … Nipple, Really?… well that’s what Russian gives me, Macedonian gives me “Ruin” instead of “Nipple”, which sounds better to me personally… that said the sentence below is still gibberish if translated from Macedonian.
  
  Also that bit about it being a program for consultation and analysis raises red flags to me.
  - Daniel Sharp
    
    Huh. Wow. I…didn’t note that the acronym was itself a word.
    
    Whelp, either the Russians who helped me come up with this are having a good laugh, or, well, the Russians who built the SOPCA are :D
    - Daniel Sharp
      
      Although, translating the definition of the noun gives:
      
      “A small mountain, hill, mound, as well as (the Far East), a small volcano.”
      
      So maybe that’s just a poor translation, and referring more to the shape than the body part?
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        eh, who knows.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        *casts summon Russians* Come forth and tell me what the word means! ;)
      - Иван Трусков
        
        The translation you have given above is correct
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        Thank you :D
      - Dusty Coyote
        
        Your nipples arnt the shape of small mountains?
    - Dusty Coyote
      
      I did not scroll down far enough to see this.
      
      Good job Dan. You made a secret organization called NIPPLE. I hope you’re happy.
      
      Because I’m a Potato.
      
      *Slow Clap*
  - Amberlight
    
    I have no idea why Google says “Сопка” means “Nipple”. Although it’d be rather fun if it really was the case.
    The word means a flat mountain/hill or sometimes “mesa” or “Table mountain”.
    - Matt [in Middletown]
      
      Hello, and welcome to the Black Mesa transit system…
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        Next stop: Crowbar storage.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        “Boss, these crowbars..they kinda walk around!”
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        … yeah you lost me there.
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        That’s pretty normal. Matt loses me all the time ;)
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Found you.
        You’re right there.
      - ReturnOfDaveBro
        
        It’s the original research facility that experienced a transdimensional breach, starting his struggle for survival armed initially with a crowbar. Gordon Freeman is the hero of the Half-Life franchise from Valve games (if I haven’t garbled that).
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        If Gordon were at this Mesa facility instead, he wouldn’t have a crowbar.
        He’d have a D-bot.
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        Nah, he’d still have a crowbar. Manual operation trumps all automated operations due to pure simplicity.
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Unless the D-bot was named crowbar.
        Now there would be an interesting game mechanic.
        “Select crowbar to bust open the crate!”
        *OKay, click*
        And then Deathbot stomps across the screen, wiping out everything.
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        a bar of metal used to pry things open is always more simple than something with moving parts, and can be used to break said thing with moving parts if it’s used right.
        
        …. Crowning moment of Awesome: Someone kills a Deathbot with a crowbar.
      - DrCrazy102
        
        Or they use a screw driver that may or may not necessarily have to be just a run-of-the-mill screw driver but may use sonic technology, just saying. For those that get it, *hugs*
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        … Nah, I doubt there’s any pacifist Doctors around this neck of the woods. Seems a might bit too much of a liabilty unless they also don’t stay quite dead.
        
        Also, a post Time-War Kelad would make one of those death bots look like a child’s plaything due to the tech differences.
      - DrCrazy102
        
        Come on, the kaleds made the original Daleks, the original Death Bots of TV, so they have death-bots down pat despite the fact that Daleks can’t really grasp other weaponry like a D-Bot can, but I reckon the D-Bots could go toe-to-hoverthingy with the Daleks in a fight.
        
        Anyway, what about River? She’s not exactly a pacifist (from what I remember) and then there’s the Meta-Crisis Tenth Doctor, aka human-hybrid TimeLord, who is “filled with anger and needs help”. We could be lucky and have them show up and blast everything to pieces, right? … Please? … Ok, maybe not in the main comic but in an extra?
      - Xylas Incarnum
        
        … A Dalek’s sheild renders most firearms useless due to it basically compacting the mass into near non-existence, that and I doubt that these death bots have laster weapons or defences against the caliber of the ones used by properly trained, sane daleks. To whom the Doc’s Tardis’ wooden doors are just wood too. (Doctor-Donna series finally says so for that last bit.) And No, River Song is NOT pacifist, seeing as she was sorta raised to KILL the Doctor. ‘sides I was talking about the Doc specifically. Hence the capital D with Doctor.
        
        Granted, Dalek armor is basically a tank like mech for what it’s worth, and I can’t remember melee resistances at all actually. So in a melee a D-bot might wipe the floor with the Dalek… but ranged the Dalek most likely wins.
      - Jack Crow
        
        There’s a bar in my town called “crowbar”, still need to visit there…
      - Adriano
        
        If Casper was working at that mesa, he woukd have Errorbot ! XD
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        Lol, true.
        And Derrorbot would wander the wastes, tirelessly spreading the robot religion.
        “I have seen beyond the Veil..”
    - Amberlight
      
      I still like the name “Voland”, more:D
      - Daniel Sharp
        
        You already got something named after you ;P
      - ReturnOfDaveBro
        
        Oh, that’s in Stavanger, on the way to the airport.
    - Xylas Incarnum
      
      I’m gonna go with “google translate is sommat stupid” I mean, it’s good with words in context but not single words more often than not.
      - DeNitro
        
        If I am forced to used Google Translate to communicate with someone, the first thing I make certain that is clearly translated is, “Please forgive me, Using Google Translate to mangle both our languages!” That program could provoke a international incident. 8-p
    - Dusty Coyote
      
      What if its an acronym? Where do you work? At the N.I.P.P.L.E. Why?
      - SebasP
        
        Hey Dan, you have to incorporate this on the script. I can totally see some characters asking why the -spoilers- is called nipple
      - Amberlight
        
        I totally support the idea.
        Would be hard to translate though.
Matt [in Middletown]

Secret tunnel..secret tunnel through the mountain, secret secret secret tunnel!
- Daniel Sharp
  
  Hehe, excellent episode! I can hear the song in my head :D
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    I get the feeling I just brought an earworm to mind as well.
    *oops*
Matt [in Middletown]

This dam wouldn’t happen to be similar to the Sayano–Shushenskaya hydroelectric power station, would it?
- Daniel Sharp
  
  It indeed potentially could. What leads you to draw that conclusion? ;)
  - Matt [in Middletown]
    
    Umm… Kinda hard to say.
    But that damage does look familiar.
    - SebasP
      
      Maybe, just maybe, the location of this secret base is pinpointed in the invasion map (among other undisclosed locations)
      - Matt [in Middletown]
        
        *Fingers in ears*
        I know nothing!
Dusty Coyote

Well, that was enlightening.
Michael Corley

Atmospheric.
melaredblu

Seba, Seba, Seba. Do we need to have another talk with you about showing off your mad skillz so blatantly? I mean, just look at that detailed machinery in the background. I guess maybe that would be acceptable once or twice, but then you go and combine it with a brilliant long vertical panel to emphasize the sheer height of the shot in the central panel? And that perspective shot is simply excessive. What are we going to do with you, man? You just can’t control yourself.
- NickDA
  
  He’s going to a support group lately. They say acceptance is the first step… “Hi I’m Seba, and I’m an artistic badass”… “Hi Seba…”
- SebasP
  
  :)
  
  Thanks a lot !
Adriano

Told ya he was an evil doctor !
Adriano

TDA dream : the last demon archive
Tonight I’ve made a dream about TDA. I was in Minerva school (maybe campus) and I was in the teachers room. I just had taken final examinations that day so I wanted to ask the teachers here about results.
Strangely because there was a teacher with blue skin (looked like Admiral Thrawn but with normal eyes) I rather asked him : “Why are you blue ?”.
He answered me, kinda upset : “Here we don’t ask people why they’re white nor black nor blue”
Then I said I wasn’t here for that and asked for the results. They said I wasn’t able to have such information now. So I leaved them.
Later I asked what seemed to me to be VIKI (but it was an AI as smart and cool as Jane but more like a public/school AI) about Tenzin. She kinda answered like Dan : “You don’t have necessary authorization to learn about it.”
Ah, I hate people keeping secrets away from me :P
Then I went to the school library to get infos but it was closed. Instead gymnasium was open. But I’m not the sportive kind so I leaved.
Then I woke up from a chicken shout. I’m spending my vacations in my grandparents house and they got chickens.
I’m starting to hate chickens. Let me sleep you evil creatures !

I’m just sharing my dream with you guys. And secretely hope that Dan will tell me : “Yes there will be a chapter about Minerva school, a blue skined teacher and an advanced school AI.”
I hope you won’t forget the sexy teenagers in school uniform !
- NickDA
  
  Did you ever watch the movie Kung Fu Panda? The first one… when Po tells his dad he had the noodle dream :D That’s kinda what this makes me think of… :D
  - Adriano
    
    I totally saw this movie, ahah. The difference is that I really had the “noodle dream” ;)
Honza Prchal

Not being a native Russian speaker, when I saw СОПКA, all I could think of was the literal meaning of that as lower-case … “volcano” - at least in several Western Slavic languages and, I think, in old Church Slavonic too. What you have below about table mountains makes sense (I’m pretty sure that volcanoes on the early Slavic borderlands were mostly flat-topped - deep Siberian geography/geology coming into Russian consciousness later), but doesn’t seem nearly as cool, and the other one is just silly, as Mr. Sharp seems to agree.
Xylas Incarnum

The latest version of Daleks can levitate/fly so fall damage doesn’t work on them anymore. That started from Doc #9 and onwards.
Also, River is a human Time-lord due to being conceived inside the Tardis during space-time travel.

That said, I only really know stuff about Doc #9 and onwards so before that is alien to me.
- DrCrazy102
  
  Hehehe, you said that it was ALIEN to you. Hehehe
  
  I haven’t really kept up with the newer doctors and their adventures very well, so I am a little out-of-date and using some (most likely) bastardised memories. Grenades should work if they get put into the vents, but I don’t think anyone has tried nor does there seem to be any precedent of explosives attached to the insides, but i may very well be wrong. If the grenades did work, D-Bots could kick ass since they are more maneuverable and could simply hold the laser-shooter of the Daleks while putting in some explosive dart-bullets.