595 | Grounded

I agree. My eyes kept trying to bring both sets of eyes into one set. ;)

thanks for 9 years of practicing!

I’m just gonna nominate Holly for captain. Anyone second that?

Also kudos to you on the continued improvements in your artwork. It’s one of the reason I love webcomics so much, it’s so great to read and follow along as the artists improves year by year.

thanks for reading!

Yeah you know the ship isn’t going to take this grounding.
wonder if she’s got an attackcraft configuration???

Efrem didn’t defect to the GEF. He defected to Gunner’s side. The Council is presumably treating Gunner’s group as “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” for the time being.

WHERE’S THE VOTE BUTTON!!??

*ahem* I mean..nice comic :D

they’ve never played Risk I take it…

haha! It is definitely not the best policy, but they are stretched thin and the generals just announced that they plan to eradicate them, so they kind of have to focus on that right now.

ah… so more of a “the enemy of my enemy is their problem, not mine” kinda thing

the Council seems like a bunch of short sighted, unintelligent idiots more skilled at bureaucracy than anything else.

maybe it’s because as readers we can see the larger story arc, but i really find their reaction to Reona’s experiences to be really disappointing.

first, they don’t seem to be at all aware that Excelsior is not a standard ship, and along those lines they also seem to be clueless that Excelsior could resist their efforts to select a captain (i mean, are they just unaware that Excelsior chooses her captain and does this not strike them as unusual?).

second, why are they not more concerned about Zap/Gunner/Efrem/Naveed? even if just working with the limited perspective of Reona’s knowledge, they should have a sense that there is something really serious transpiring with these four people. for example, somehow Gunner has managed to gain the loyalties of Efrem, and now he wants Zap, plus, doesn’t the Council know who Naveed is, she used to be a major assassin for the GEF and now she’s just magically working for Gunner? seems like a convergence of major forces around some mysterious axis that should be alarming.

third, i really don’t see what was so bad about Reona’s tangential return home. all the weirdness with Efrem/Naveed seems to be perfect motivation for pursuit. i mean, after what happened, i would think most people would be like, “okay we’re going after Efrem,” not, “okay we’re going home first and then after Efrem.” at that exact time, Reona and company are in a very elevated state of action so of course their going to react the way they did. they’re not sitting far away in a posh council room pushing papers around and making abstract decisions about policy.

fourth, so of course i dismiss the one councilor’s remark that Zap would never have been encountered had Reona returned home. well duh. but on the other hand, given the circumstances and Reona’s limited understanding of what was really going on with Efrem, her pursuit of him makes perfect sense and seems totally justifiable to me. thus, whether or not they should have encountered Zap is just an exercise in mental masturbation, something i suppose these councilors do a lot.

anyway, i clearly have a great deal of animosity for this council.

I’m expecting Holly to fly over any second in the Excelsior Duck, and beam up the rest of our ragtag crew.
Either that, or we’re about to see Reona singlehandedly mucking out the base’s bathroom stalls.