120 The Battle for Gobwin Knob, Page 108

[Helgraf]

Pastel colored teddy bears are heavy units and thus couldn't be brought to the tunnels.

He notes _most_ heavy units can't be brought into the tunnels. We don't know if the teddies are one of the case exceptions or not (though to be fair, you're probably correct).

[ericgrau]

By the way:
A Jacksnipe is either a type of two-person dinghy or a bird. Take your pick for the pun, 'cause I'm lost.

Jack snipe the bird is a bird that's supposed to be very hard to find. I'd stick with that one.

There's no such things as an explosive/chemical/boop designed to create CO, I don't think. CO will burn but it's not a major explosive as far as I know , certainly not compared to the stuff that burned to make the CO. CO is created simply from combustion in the presence of insufficient oxygen (such as an enclosed space). It weighs about the same as air; it isn't really lighter or heavier. CO2 is heavier than air. Death by either is essentially death by suffocation. But if that were the issue I think we'd see a lot of smoke as well. IMO the setting seems to fantasy-ish to see everyone start choking and coughing any time soon.

Boop is commonly used for making gunpowder because it is used as a source of potassium nitrate (KNO3), aka saltpetre. To extract it from the boop you compost it over several months, rinse and dehydrate the rinse. Urine on straw also works via the same process. Emphasis on "several months", which shows that Parson didn't invent Erfworld gunpowder in a day. More likely that burning stuff is some pre-existing Erfworld concotion or just oil. The commander seemed to recognize it. And it seems more like napalm or simple burning oil than a violent explosion.

[The Old Hack]

I immediately thought of a fuel air explosion or as seen in mine disasters, a confined gas or vapor cloud explosion.

Fuel air explosives pack more explosive capacity per lb, than most any other conventional bomb. The idea is to vaporize the payload and suspend it and then ignite.

Confined gas explosions in tunnels not only quickly process all the oxygen, but create a massive heat and pressure wave. This is why miners are always most worried about gas leaks. Its not just the fire of the explosion its the concussion wave as the explosion tries to force its way through the tunnels to find a vent point, often collapsing the tunnels along way. You then get a vacuum, which creates a return wave for double the fun.

Oh yes. Fun indeed. Hours of entertainment for the whole family. But please note, kids: Sizemore is a trained professional. Do not make fuel air explosives at home.

I suppose it makes sense a dirtamancer could produce some variety of petrochemical if given direction. That said, probably isn't a confined gas explosion as all allied troops down there (at least with any connecting air passages) would get whumped as well.

Hmmm. It depends. I suspect crap golems would be demolished or badly damaged, and ordinary living troops might be in big trouble, too. However, if closest units were of hard rock golem durability or better, they might be able to last through it mostly undamaged unless very close. I may be wrong here, mind -- you seem to know more of this than I do. Just how far would such an explosion propagate itself before it spent its power, I wonder?

[Doctor Zuber]

All fires generate CO and CO2. For the purpose of making the mine uninhabitable it is largely irrelevant what accelerant is used. the continuing fire will steadily remove all the oxygen from the area.

The fire certainly seems to be large enough to do the job. Seeing Redox as a sound effect in one of the panels reinforces this idea. The tunnels may well be closed for the time being until the area can gradually ventilate itself enough to be breathable again. With no magical or modern means of getting additional airflow in the caves, this may take a few turns.

[Fafnir13]

I noticed a lot of people thinking that gunpowder was being created in the first panel. How I'm interpreting it is that the golem puts the two powders together, creating a redox effect. You'll notice that the sound effect is coming from a pile of powder with broken container bits like those the powders came from. This kills the marbit scouts quietly and without taking a combat move or whatever on the golem's part. Or they were killed before by the golem, in which case I'm not sure why the redox was necessary. Anyways, the golem then proceeds onwards to unleash the liquid trap. Someone commented that they think its a different golem given the lack of shoulder spikes. I'd blame that as detail lost with distance. Plus the purposeful stride of the golem in the panel previous would suggest a strong link between the panels.
Also, I'm thinking that the "!" at the end of "...nnuncle" would suggest the mind is snapping back into place. Hopefully. As for what Parson intends, I don't think he's got any clever plans to trick Stanley. Just seems like that would only tick the guy off more than necessary. If Parson can get the foolamancer back up and running, mayhaps Stanley will be willing to listen to some tactical advice or, being in his own element with a working and powerful caster, be able to work some disray upon the locals on his own.

[DougTheHead]

What I'm wondering is, who are those people standing on top of the cliffs Webinar & Co. are climbing up?

[Zolem]

I thought it was pretty obvious -- the liquid was some sort of "Greek Fire" type trap that went up in flames. Some of the Jetstone units got caught, others managed to climb onto a ledge in the tunnel (which may be exactly where Parson wants them... ).

Huh, I was thinking it was oil and it was put to the torch off screen.

Now then, several people have mentioned what reox, and I just thought of something. He walks away from the mixture to open a door and let liquid through. We don't know that the liquid flowed over to Webiner, or if it was already there and they were inspecting it. If so, that means the liquid could have flown and hit the powder to ignite it.

Also, shovle weapon, nice. Haven't seen one of those since the 5th One Piece movie.

[SteveMB]

What I'm wondering is, who are those people standing on top of the cliffs Webinar & Co. are climbing up?

Hard to tell. They could be more Jetstone units () or crap golems ()....

[Name Lips]

My reading of the strip has a golem being sent to combine material (REDUX) in a passageway, then lumbering up and opening a floodgate at the far end of that same hall. The liquid is released and picks up the material from the REDUX and washes it downstream with it.

What specific chemical reaction got set off is anybody's guess. My guess is that it's not some fancy chemical reaction based on real-work chemistry, but rather something loosely based on real-world chemistry that a dirtamancer would be able to do and which would sound punnish or clever to us readers.

[ShinyBrowncoat]

What's the golem doing in panel 6? In panel 5, he's walking away from the redox and in panel 7, he's watching the oil/greek fire/whatever flow away from him, but in panel 6 he appears to have turned around towards the source and is crouching down to...do what?

[ReccaSquirrel]

Spoiler

Show

I'm thinking that this is going to end up in some variation of the following situation. Everyone in the stack is going to die, even Weibner's girlfriend/wife/whatever, EXCEPT Weibner who will barely escape with his life, he'll go back to Ansom and do the whole cliche' "It was a massacre sir!, everyone's dead...I'm the only one left!" leading to the coalition losing complete faith in Ansom's leadership and Ansom beginning to question his own philosophy on Royalty, couple this with Charlie positioning himself in Parson's airspace and I see the entire coalition just clusterbooping, leaving Ansom with a far smaller force and giving Parson/Stanley the chance to counter-attack and drive off the invaders

This all can be done with either a Hat Message or no message at all.

[fractal]

So will Parson know enough Shakespeare to go toe-to-toe with Jack and talk him out of his madness?

[Goshen]

What's the golem doing in panel 6? In panel 5, he's walking away from the redox and in panel 7, he's watching the oil/greek fire/whatever flow away from him, but in panel 6 he appears to have turned around towards the source and is crouching down to...do what?

He's opening a floodgate to let the scary liquid into the tunnel.

[Goshen]

Hard to tell. They could be more Jetstone units () or crap golems ()....

I think they are just some of webinar's troops who were lucky enough (so far) to be close to the tunnel wall.

[K2]

I love this comic.


HAha! Burn!

[Kraggi]

...I saw this just after reading my AP Chem textbook. NO MORE REDOX. Although redox reactions aren't that bad. STILL! IN PRINCIPLE!

[stupidface]

So will Parson know enough Shakespeare to go toe-to-toe with Jack and talk him out of his madness?

I like the way you think.

[Lamech]

I think that those units Wienber is climbing too are more Jetstone units, I can kind of see a head and a little cone hat. There is a little black line dividing the two. Also looks like quite a bit of damage to the Jetstone units from a single golem. I don't think this will end well for Jetstone

[iabervon]

So will Parson know enough Shakespeare to go toe-to-toe with Jack and talk him out of his madness?

I think Wanda should be good enough with weather control to turn the wind easterly.

[iabervon]

I hope Parson remembered that Sizemore will have to breathe down there, too.

According to klog 11,

"Each zone [tunnels, garrison, outer walls, airspace] has its own rules of engagement, but they're all considered parts of the city, so we can deploy and redeploy units without expending move."

So he could just redeploy Sizemore out of the tunnels to save him, even if the trap hits the whole system.

[Clintodon]

/delurk

Just emerging from lurking to guess at what's up with Jack.

Considering the potential ability of Jack at disguises (assuming he's FAQ Jack), perhaps he could Veil Stanley's stack as Archons, allowing Stanley to ambush the Transylvito forces? On the other hand, if this IS FAQ Jack, being ordered to help ambush a former superior (Jillian) combined with low loyalty from Stanley's treatment and the trauma of de-linkage might be enough to trigger treachery or disobedience.

One other, tinfoil-hatted theory: could Jack be faking being nuts? He looked fine while talking to Parson, then after the pause went back to looking deranged; combined with his (seemingly sane) response to Parson about not tempting a desperate man, it makes me wonder if Jack's already exhibiting symptoms of low loyalty scores by being passively disobedient, pretending to be nuts when he's not.

/lurk

[Aquillion]

One other, tinfoil-hatted theory: could Jack be faking being nuts? He looked fine while talking to Parson, then after the pause went back to looking deranged; combined with his (seemingly sane) response to Parson about not tempting a desperate man, it makes me wonder if Jack's already exhibiting symptoms of low loyalty scores by being passively disobedient, pretending to be nuts when he's not.

This is my guess. Jack's "tempt not a desperate man" quote is him saying that he doesn't want to be 'saved' -- he's deliberately fooling Stanley as part of some dangerous / unpleasant gambit of his own, and he doesn't want Parson tempting him with a way out of it. (The fact that this could very easily end with him dead, if he's betraying Stanley, could help explain why this is a temptation to him.)

He may look completely sane in the glasses because that's what he's been all along. (We know it's possible for him to fake it because Stanley immediately said "You better not be faking this, boy" when he started acting insane.)

'Why' is harder to say. It could simply be that he's in love with Jillian. But really, he doesn't have any reason to want to serve the megalomaniacal madman who attacked his hometown, killed his lord, and brutally kidnapped him away from everything he knows... and then forced him to risk his sanity and identity by putting him in a dangerous and soul-crushing link. He has more than enough reasons to want Stanley dead.

He could also be insane, but his insanity could be manifesting itself differently than the way he's been acting -- he might actually be sociopathic, or homicidal, or something along those lines, and dangerously sane otherwise. He might not even be sure himself -- he could be faking insanity, but still be only debatably sane. It would certainly fit with all the Shakespeare references... certainly, given all that, I think that the authors want us debating whether or not he's really insane at this point, and I doubt it will ever be explicitly revealed one way or the other.

Obviously, a commander's standard ability to see stats doesn't show names (unless you know them already), or Stanley would have known Jack's name on sight.

Apparently, ability to see stats works via Thinkagram (at least for the glasses, dunno about ordinary commanders). Ansom didn't note anything unusual about not seeing Parson's stats, but that could just be a matter of having more important things to think about (and to become enraged about).

It might not be possible to see enemy stats... or at least not by Thinkagram.

It might also only show a unit's name if you know that much already.

[Loscann]

Anyone else think Jack Snipe (bird) was a pun on Jack Sparrow (bird)?
Anyways! I can't wait to see where this funnel of traps leads. Fun, fun!

[Maerok]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Redox

Redox. Mostly associated with reaction with O2. Like fire combining free oxygen into other stuff. The key point being reducing the amount of free oxygen in the system. Side affects like heat, pressure (explosion), acid, poison may occur. The most likely results are CO2 and CO.

Fires in enclosed spaces are bad. Note that as O2 concentration goes down CO is produced in preference to CO2. Also CO is still flamable should the O2 concentration go up.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_dioxide
CO2 is toxic in higher concentrations: 1% (10,000 ppm) will make some people feel drowsy[citation needed]. Concentrations of 7% to 10% cause dizziness, headache, visual and hearing dysfunction, and unconsciousness within a few minutes to an hour.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide
Carbon monoxide is a significantly toxic gas and has no odor or color. It is the most common type of fatal poisoning in many countries. Exposures can lead to significant toxicity of the central nervous system and heart.
Carbon monoxide forms in preference to the more usual carbon dioxide when there is a reduced availability of oxygen present during the combustion process. Carbon monoxide has significant fuel value, burning in air with a characteristic blue flame, producing carbon dioxide. Despite its serious toxicity, CO plays a highly useful role in modern technology, being a precursor to myriad products.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_monoxide_poisoning

I think it's thermite: aluminim + iron oxide. But it wouldn't react without a fuse hot enough so that's probably not it. Also, "STAND BACK, I'M GOING TO TRY SCIENCE!" </xkcd>

[vrellum]

Um yes. I guess it's my turn to break out some HazMat-Fu. You're thinking of Hydrogen_sulfide[H2S]. H2S is colorless, essentially odorless, and highly lethal. However, this has little to do with caves and fire. The creation of H2S is actually a natural biological process. Common places to find H2S are sewers and oil wells.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrogen_sulfide

The problem here, is if H2S was present, everybody would be dead as soon as they enter the cave. It wouldn't just suddenly form mid comic on you, it's a slower process than that.

I just wanted to point out that H2S is not odorless. It is one of the main components of the "rotten egg" smell. According to wikipedia "Humans can smell the odour of hydrogen sulfide at 0.02 ppm"

[zippthorne]

I doubt the powder is either gunpowder or thermite. Both require a heat source for ignition, and this reaction appears to begin spontaneously. Personally, I thought the powder was a time-delayed ignition source for the flamable liquid - although there does seem to be an awful lot of powder for that purpose.

I agree. It definitely seems like a fuse to allow the golem time to escape the tunnel before igniting whatever the liquid was.

I'd guess potassium permanganate + glycerin. The wiki page on the former shows a black powder, and the latter is a clear liquid.

[Eraniverse]

But really, he doesn't have any reason to want to serve the megalomaniacal madman who attacked his hometown, killed his lord, and brutally kidnapped him away from everything he knows... and then forced him to risk his sanity and identity by putting him in a dangerous and soul-crushing link. He has more than enough reasons to want Stanley dead.

I don't believe it was ever explicitly stated that Stanely destroyed FAQ. In fact I'd say the description "a report of an overflight of dwagons and then I was a barbarian" is purposefully vague.

Plus we know Wanda was under no control spells... Why not Jack as well (besides the link which I assume was for the tactical benefit of "the board")? We only have barbarian chick's account of the attack and she wasn't anywhere near there. I'm willing to bet more went down there than was spelled out. Perhaps events central to the whole Stanley seizing power bit.

Looking for a third player I'd say either Charley or old IV himself being shown as a tad more... ahem... ruthless than we suspect. Perhaps the destruction of FAQ provoked Stanley's coup.

Or perhaps Stanley is the tiny homocidal cretin he's played up to be.

Win/Win really

[IronBear]

This is my guess. Jack's "tempt not a desperate man" quote is him saying that he doesn't want to be 'saved' -- he's deliberately fooling Stanley as part of some dangerous / unpleasant gambit of his own, and he doesn't want Parson tempting him with a way out of it. (The fact that this could very easily end with him dead, if he's betraying Stanley, could help explain why this is a temptation to him.)

It is equally possible Jack views the sudden appearance of the thinkgram...and the visual of a giant with funky glasses who knows his name and wants to help him…as a delusion. Thus the plea "tempt not a desperate man". Even through his madness understands a delusion/hallucination can’t help him despite how tempting an offer it is

He may look completely sane in the glasses because that's what he's been all along. (We know it's possible for him to fake it because Stanley immediately said "You better not be faking this, boy" when he started acting insane.)

I take his initial appearance through the glasses to be one of surprise. Wouldn’t you be surprised?

[Laurentio II]

This may well be Parsons dastardly plan to shut down the caves as a point of entry. remove all the oxygen. Although... Somehow I just don't see giant pastel colored teddy bears as needing oxygen to live. ;P

Page 50, panel 8. A Pink dwagon engulf a Cloth Golem (Bear), that react to the attack. If they are immune to suffocation, then the dwagon should know and use the special attack on a more susceptible enemy, or the Cloth Golem should not react.
Not conclusive (the Dwagon could not know, and the Cloth Bear could react just for the surprise or visual obfuscation), but likely.

[Vesilasi]

Page 50, panel 8. A Pink dwagon engulf a Cloth Golem (Bear), that react to the attack. If they are immune to suffocation, then the dwagon should know and use the special attack on a more susceptible enemy, or the Cloth Golem should not react.
Not conclusive (the Dwagon could not know, and the Cloth Bear could react just for the surprise or visual obfuscation), but likely.

It could be a pink dwagon breath weapon, something dangerous and not just a lack of air.