1190: "Time"

[SinusPi]

Clearly, they are trying to avoid the Despair Event Horizon with their efforts to Screw Destiny.

She could have feigned accepting their fate, but gone solo anyway... ;P

[Valarya]

I haven't been this excited for the hourly ONG since... oh wait, since they spotted the Beanie Bunch, which wasn't too long ago. BUT STILL! This might be the most anticipated ONG for me, yet.

[lgw]

So who's to say that the Forty can't in fact build rafts and sail them to safety? If they're nomads, they're used to carrying food supplies with them. We already know they have "steam bottles" (ugh) so hopefully fresh water won't be an issue.

The problem I see here is that they can't land until the water stops rising (or at least rises only slowly). At 10m per day you just can't do it. The shore is receding so fast. So you need a couple of months of supplies. Water is the big issue. Unless steam bottles know how to desalinate the water. Then it might be possible. If the inflow is faster it recedes faster, but you have fewer days until it ends.

BTW, what DID Noah eat during the forty days and forty nights? He had plenty of possibilities, but likely they were ruled out by his instructions.

I am so not the expert there, but he was never told to bring exactly two of every animal was he - it was more of a minimum? Noah at least had a reliable water supply - The Megball Forty not so much.

[TimeLurker]

I find GLR's faith in us OTTers very special. We've had "Wait for it" for nearly 4 months now and he changes the alt-text knowing that one of his faithful would notice. Sure enough 2 minutes later

new alt-text?!?!?

[maletero]

So who's to say that the Forty can't in fact build rafts and sail them to safety? If they're nomads, they're used to carrying food supplies with them. We already know they have "steam bottles" (ugh) so hopefully fresh water won't be an issue.

The problem I see here is that they can't land until the water stops rising (or at least rises only slowly). At 10m per day you just can't do it. The shore is receding so fast. So you need a couple of months of supplies. Water is the big issue. Unless steam bottles know how to desalinate the water. Then it might be possible. If the inflow is faster it recedes faster, but you have fewer days until it ends.

BTW, what DID Noah eat during the forty days and forty nights? He had plenty of possibilities, but likely they were ruled out by his instructions.

I am so not the expert there, but he was never told to bring exactly two of every animal was he - it was more of a minimum? Noah at least had a reliable water supply - The Megball Forty not so much.

As I recall, he was actually instructed to bring more (seven?) of the "clean" animals. So maybe they munched on some of those.

[Zorin_75]

Was that change just on the current frame? (My browser doesn't differentiate the shades enough for me to tell.)

No, it happened at M2901...

[NetWeasel]

And what the chirp is this about:

Spoiler:

looks far too deliberate for mustard

Spoiler:

eyes.gif

Was that change just on the current frame? (My browser doesn't differentiate the shades enough for me to tell.)

Those "eyes" have been there since the first frame... I checked. Not sure of the change, tho.

ETA: Spoilering img

[CasCat]

POPE! Papal decrees: 1)Continue to cheer on M&C
2) I shall conviene a consistory. those present are cardinals. Should we change the criteria for page pope? perhaps whoever has the most posts on the previous page, with the tiebreaker being whichever has the most overall posts to the thread? Thoughts? I'm open to suggestions. It's a new era.

RUN!

If papacy is based on verbosity, then BlitzGirl will be permanent pope. I don't mind Blitzgirl being pope quite a lot, but I like the chaos of page-placement-popes better than loquacity-popes.

For what it's worth.

[ZoomanSP]

Papal decrees: 1)Continue to cheer on M&C

Spoiler:

It's ALL rhelated.

[CameronCat]

Edo wrote:

Should we change the criteria for page pope? perhaps whoever has the most posts on the previous page, with the tiebreaker being whichever has the most overall posts to the thread? Thoughts?

I vote absolutely NOT! It would only add to the clutter as everyone tries to increase their post numbers, possibly without anything to add to the discussion. We've all been pretty good and tolerant so far and there's no reason to change now. Such a structure would also turn the OTC into another forum like so many others where you get cute names or titles based solely on your number of posts.

When there's nothing left to be said, don't say it!

[pelrigg]

__----BlindPost of all blindposts----___

Last nip I coma'd on Megan's "Can the sea cover mountains?" question, on NP 1146. (Ok, that might be a paraphrase.)
Just got back from work^a and grocery-getting; jump onto The Site; and Cueball and Megan are running out?
Oh my Randall, have I got some ketchuping to do. Be live in a bit and a while. (No, you don't have to wait up for me^b.)

Somebody complained last nip that the OTC was going to get boring?

^a That other four letter word.
^b But you really should keep Waiting For It.

[Zorin_75]

2) I shall conviene a consistory. those present are cardinals. Should we change the criteria for page pope? perhaps whoever has the most posts on the previous page, with the tiebreaker being whichever has the most overall posts to the thread? Thoughts? I'm open to suggestions. It's a new era.

Above all that would lose us the ability to detect firstposts...

[sford]

You know how when you are reading a novel, and you're a slow reader (like me), so the novel lasts for days and days where you only spend maybe an hour a day with it so you can get the rest of your life done too, and then you hit a point where you just ... can't ... put it down?

That's where we are now.

Problem is, in spite of the new alt-text, it looks like he is still going to only give us a frame per hour.

DAMMIT! I want to put my life on hold and devour the rest of the story in one gulp! AND I CAN'T!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(And I'm not even from the "instant gratification" generation.) (Which is any generation which is younger than that of the speaker.) (Which, for this speaker, is most of them.)

ETA:

... Should we change the criteria for page pope? perhaps whoever has the most posts on the previous page, with the tiebreaker being whichever has the most overall posts to the thread?

As this is my first opportunity to be Page Pope, and as a low-rate contributor, I decree that popitude criteria NOT change.

I further decree that ... what? What do you mean only one decree per page pope? I was going to decree that I get infinity more decrees! NO FAIR!

I'M GONNA TELL BLITZ GIRL!!!

[TimeLurker]

__----BlindPost of all blindposts----___

<SNIP>
^b But you really should keep Waiting For It.

Actually, we're RUNning now.

[SinusPi]

And what the chirp is this about:

As far as I can tell, it's a simple effect of applying a glow to the stained glass panels. The "eyes" seem the only places where the black lines are distant and thin enough to allow for the glow to concentrate in an area.

[Zorin_75]

^b But you really should keep Waiting For It.

Negative. New orders.

[b2bomberkrh]

So who's to say that the Forty can't in fact build rafts and sail them to safety? If they're nomads, they're used to carrying food supplies with them. We already know they have "steam bottles" (ugh) so hopefully fresh water won't be an issue.

The problem I see here is that they can't land until the water stops rising (or at least rises only slowly). At 10m per day you just can't do it. The shore is receding so fast. So you need a couple of months of supplies. Water is the big issue. Unless steam bottles know how to desalinate the water. Then it might be possible. If the inflow is faster it recedes faster, but you have fewer days until it ends.

BTW, what DID Noah eat during the forty days and forty nights? He had plenty of possibilities, but likely they were ruled out by his instructions.

I am so not the expert there, but he was never told to bring exactly two of every animal was he - it was more of a minimum? Noah at least had a reliable water supply - The Megball Forty not so much.

As I recall, he was actually instructed to bring more (seven?) of the "clean" animals. So maybe they munched on some of those.

According to the Bible, God didn't give man the animals to eat until after the flood. The Ark was supplied with enough plant food matter to feed all the animals as well as all the people. I don't believe the Bible addresses what the carnivores among the animals were eating.

[jjjdavidson]

Overly Optimistic Prediction: The next frame will be dark, or white, or otherwise indicate a change of scene.

We need to take note of the alt-text(s)^m:

M1-M2919: Wait for it.
M2920: ...
M2921: RUN.

^m Until mscha starts doing it, that is.

Ximenez has the right idea. Whenever the alt-text changes, someone should post an updated list, with ALT TEXT HISTORY as a header (so we can search for it). For consistency, let's stick with mscha's numbers.

We've apparently reached this stage:

When as a child I laughed and wept, time crept.
When as a youth I waxed more bold, time strolled.
When I became a full-grown man, time RAN.
When older still I daily grew, time FLEW.
Soon I shall find, in passing on, time gone.
O Christ! wilt Thou have saved me then? Amen.

This is one of the reasons I object to splitting the One True Thread into many threads. Were we split, where would this lovely, haunting poem have appeared? Would I have missed it?

NOWONG

Spoiler:

Ninja'd ... and then put on top by saying so :roll:

Wait how does that work? I thought I beat you. No offence. :D

As far as I can tell, if two posts have the same time to the second, the order in which they appear on the page is arbitrary, and can even change over time. Someone else suggested they are alphabetical, but my own tests indicate otherwise.

[SinusPi]

According to the Bible, God didn't give man the animals to eat until after the flood. The Ark was supplied with enough plant food matter to feed all the animals as well as all the people. I don't believe the Bible addresses what the carnivores among the animals were eating.

... Nor how much dung the hippos and elephants produced. On the other hand, it may've been for the better...

[edo]

(Perhaps they are in fact a lumber camp? The fact that Megan finds trees "neat" doesn't mean she's never seen one at all. Or they could be nomadic scavengers, salvaging the numerous shipwrecks on the Med floor; the planks could even be some sort of artificial material salvaged from the dark past.

Shipwrecks! they should be all over the place! they had to know there was a larger sea, no? It could explain a lot. Nomadic people would find lots of stuff in the salt.

To alleviate concerns about missing firstposts, announcing the pagePope could still be the job of the first one on the page. Any more PagePope change Ideas?no longer pope, so I guess nothing changes.

[nerdsniped]

<snip> (If I was feeling mean, I'm sure there's a TVtropes link for this. But that's the last thing we need right now. Also I'd have to open the site myself to find it, and I don't dare...)

Clearly, they are trying to avoid the Despair Event Horizon with their efforts to Screw Destiny. <snip>

Well, there was also that -- I was pretty sure that if I just posted like this, someone would dig out the links for me. The OTT is like having your own personal research department. Although, one that consumes ruinous quantities of ketchup lately.

[Nilpferdschaf]

BTW, what DID Noah eat during the forty days and forty nights? He had plenty of possibilities, but likely they were ruled out by his instructions.

Don't you think unicorns look reeeally tasty?

[Chinchokmataa]

Well, I'm off the internet till sunday, and just when the action seems to be boiling up too. Hopefully this thing ain't over by the time I get back

[NetWeasel]

According to the Bible, God didn't give man the animals to eat until after the flood. The Ark was supplied with enough plant food matter to feed all the animals as well as all the people. I don't believe the Bible addresses what the carnivores among the animals were eating.

"Well that's it for the unicorns, from now on all the carnivores are confined to C Deck",

[Flado]

The best computer game is a compiler.

Aaand, he's back^%!
--
^% on my signature, that is

[Pfhorrest]

One thing that occurs to me:

Their sea will rise at whatever rate until it hits the height where it begins spilling over into the next basin, which will then fill until it begins spilling over into the next basin, and so forth; until it needs to rise further to spill over into the next basin, at which point the level of Cuegan's sea will pause again while that basin fills, and so on.

In other words, there will be a stutter in the rise in sea level. It may rush up a bit... and then stop for a while, and then rush up more... and then stop for a while, etc.

Can anyone with a better eye on Mediterranean and more time figure out where those pause-points would be? It looks at first glance like there might be one as the water crests the trough just south of Algeria, but I can't tell if that just continues uphill into Tyrrhenian basin or not; if not, then it would have to rise to the level of Edagi Valley just west of Sicily, where it would pause until it filled all of the eastern Mediterranian, but at that point it seems like it would have already filled most of the western Mediterranian, leaving only the continental shelf above some steep mountainous coasts exposed.

[maletero]

Regarding the change in alt-text. A thought struck me that maybe Randall has lost control of the OTC, and how he is, like us, watching the story unfold. He does still have access to the alt-text. His changing it to "RUN." is just his way of trying to communicate with Cuegan about what they should do. Maybe if he intervenes further, some of the forty can be saved. . .

Okay, probably not. but I think I'm going to entertain the scenario for a while.

[Lawsome]

I WILL GETT THIS ONG I MUST GET THIS ONG.



EDIT: I got this ong!

[pelrigg]

Running like death is right behind ONG

Spoiler:

Edit not surprised to be ninja'd. (Did the alt-text change last frame or was it before then. I guess I'll find out when I get back to here. Back to NP1146. OH, the humanity.)

[TimeLurker]

alt-text is still "RUN."

Edit to Add: Is Megan carrying her bag while the Cue Man put his on his back?

[Ximenez]

M1-M2919: Wait for it.
M2920: ...
M2921-M2923: RUN.

[a_s_h_e_n]

Aw, seems we're in for a few frames of running back through the empty fortress

[Selcouth]

Erm, hello people. Remember me?

Anyway, yeah, long hiatus and stuff.

As to comic: all I can say is whoa. This is freaking awesome. Does anyone see a bit of a biblical/zoroastrian parallel, with the floods?

[Fictioneer]

alt-text is still "RUN."

Edit to Add: Is Megan carrying her bag while the Cue Man put his on his back?

Megan's pack is in front while she stuffs the map into it.

[TimeLurker]

Aw, seems we're in for a few frames of running back through the empty fortress

Awwwww, I was hoping they'd push a pair of Beanies to the ground out of their way.

ETA: Well done Fictioneer. I see it now.

[ucim]

My pre-coma prediction: A few decapix of Cuegan running until they reach the sea with the baobabs halfway under water.
Then Megan will whisper "no". ;(

Oh shit... I can see this happening and it's already so heart breaking.

The next frame will be La Petite on a raft with three masts, an eye patch, and 38 others on board. She'll say:

"Aaaarrrrrrhhh! 'op on, ye maties! We're headin' for Fantasy Island"

I'm also wondering how old Megan and Cueball are. As this unfolds I'm unconsciously ascribing a younger and younger age to them.

I think they are adult, but innocent. Children would not be able to go on a hundred mile hike by themselves on a whim.

Jose

[yappobiscuits]

My pre-coma prediction: A few decapix of Cuegan running until they reach the sea with the baobabs halfway under water.
Then Megan will whisper "no". ;(

Oh shit... I can see this happening and it's already so heart breaking.

The next frame will be La Petite on a raft with three masts, an eye patch, and 38 others on board. She'll say:

"Aaaarrrrrrhhh! 'op on, ye maties! We're headin' for Fantasy Island"

With LaPetite voiced by jovialbard, obviously

[Ximenez]

It's not only Megan's injured leg.

They won't be able to run much because of high altitude (for them)!

[ucim]

__----BlindPost of all blindposts----___
... (No, you don't have to wait up for me^b.)
^b But you really should keep Waiting For It.

Oh, I can't bear to break it to him.

Jose

[Zorin_75]

Awwwww, I was hoping they'd push a pair of Beanies to the ground out of their way.

I half expect them to run into the original beanie bunch who will then join them...