Endtown by Aaron Neathery for March 19, 2014

So there’s something beyond all that sand, hmm?

There may be more to this world than we know. Sounds promising.

Now the question is, does Jim know this for certain or is he just following a dream?

Second star to the right, and straight on ’till morning, Jim.

Jim is stupid, in a wordHe might have brought the pair aroundWith this new info, once they’d heardThey’d volunteer, and not be boundBut now Jim has revealed that heIs willing to employ brute forceAnd thus he’s still an enemy(To one resourceful cat, of course)=|====/ Level HeadVote for Endtown 2.0And for Doc Rat, tooThe Endtown ForumThe Endtown AuctionThe Endtown Books

Of course Jim’s memory might still be Swiss cheese and this is just some fervent hope that transformed into unshakeable belief…

which I doubt a certain Kitty would have allowed without some quid pro quo.Use the links to look at this week’s auctions, and maybe make a bid, go through the files to find prints you like, or just Donate to keep Endtown, and a certain mouse and cat alive. Apologies for the broken post. Please use the links Level_Head has posted to vote for Endtown and Doc Rat. Also, please visit the forum, auction site and book purchases.

Sincerely and Respectfully, JusSayin

I just noticed that going Anthro means losing digits. The topsiders had five fingers on each hand before they mutated and now they have four.

There’s an “out”?

Oh no, they’re going to trek across the desolate sands and into an impassable forest, where M. Night Shyamalan and a small crew are shooting the sequel to The Village!

In all the time Wally has spent trekking in the wastes he has never reached the edge. As resourceful as he is, I find it hard to believe he would have just been moving in circles, the sun still rises and sets in the same directions, so he would have been able to keep his bearings, unless the wastes only covers one continent. Since they all speak English we can assume they are in North America.

I guess the mousie is muzzled..

I wonder if there’s a few areas that weren’t hit by blasts? (after all, even A-Bombs have a maximum blast radius, and it’s possible that when everyone let loose with the zero bombs there where a few areas unaffected.

I’d love for there to be even a small grove of trees in this oasis….. Also, a quick logical fallacy on the Topsider’s part, if most of the world is like this, how much better (really) is it to try and clear the surface rather than allow yourself to mutate? I mean, sure some of it’s principal, but most, if not all, of the soil is useless. (afterall, ash is great for fertilization, not so much for just growing things in) and judging by the evidence, the virus is probably airborn, or even attached to the ashes I am legend style, meaning that the first person to take off the zero suit after all the infected were dead would mutate.

May I suggest ‘Jessica’ by The Allman Brothers for starters?

Wait…so there’s actually something on the planet that DIDN’T get disintegrated into oblivion?

Well, in the 5 years Wally was living out in the world, he was limited to how far he could walk.No powered transportation to increase his range of exploration.Meaning he most likely never left access to water, and would not likely have gone walking in a straight line to nowhere.Being on foot would have limited his wandering range quite a bit.If there is recovering ecology beyond the range a man on foot can walk…How would anyone have known?

The Earth—-well, our Earth—-has just under one hundred ninety-seven million square miles of surface area, of which it’s approximately seventy percent water and thirty percent land. I wonder how much wandering Wally, or anybody from Endtown, could have done through that kind of area in, what was it, six years?

The only anthro communications on the surface is face to face (with the exception of the phone in Dr. Mallard’s home). Who, once making it out would want to return to tell the others based on the high chance of not making it back alive?

The furthest anyone can see to the horizon is about 3 miles at sea level, 20 miles at 250 feet high, and 200 miles at the height of Mt. Everest. Plop someone down in the middle of Death Valley, and they may think that’s all there is, especially if they thought the whole world had been destroyed. The survivors of Hillside’s destruction can be forgiven for thinking there’s no Out.

Sarah’s confused by Wally’s gun. She may not know how to use it, which might be inconvenient if the zero guns no longer work for her or Jim.

The plot thickens…

I’m surprised Aaron Marx never mentioned anything like that when he had his fancy airship. But to be fair, everyone was still getting used to the idea of an airship in general. And Flask had taken the liberty of using it on a suicide mission rather suddenly.…So, there is more to this planet than a giant wasteland?This I gotta see…

It makes sense that there would be areas not blasted to dust. Moreover, if the survivors we know are in the middle of a previously populated continent, the area of destruction could stretch for a thousand miles around, giving the impression that “everything” is gone. But, as there would be only so many weapons, and areas not worth the attention of such weapons, non-dusted lands may well survive.

But if there’s something beyond the powdered waste, why wouldn’t the Topsiders’s writ run to it?

I still question the concept of these lands being “safe” from Topsider activity. If Clive is able to make it to the area beyond the great wastes, then other Transporters could make it there. Topsider command would have seen the place from their satellite (presuming they did not know of it before) and they would have sent an expedition to set up a small colony in this area to explore the new area, exploit any resources AND DESTROY ALL MUTANT ACTIVITY. The only advantages this new place would have is the ability to grow food and possibly undergrowth to hide in.

so the entire world isn’t a giant sandbox? great, I guess the Endtowners wouldn’t know that because they don’t have planes or satellites.

Nukes optimised for radiological effect would not nessisarily generate the same level of nuclear winter aerosols (or for that matter, megatonnage alone isn’t nessisarily the best measure, as target effects are actually the major contributor). I was actually wondering about post war climatic effects early on, as aerosols and vast areas of high albedo dust would argue for some form of nuclear winter. However, Amesworth radiation might have some weird chemistry effects, maybe pushing up CO2 or other greenhouse gas levels to compensate, perhaps? Certainly terrestrial plant life is out of the O2/CO2 cycle, and who knows what the seas look like.

Back to the issue of APEX control. Even if they do have full world-wide monitoring in place (and that is iffy with only one spysat up) the whole world is big, really big, and there may simply not enough resource to deal with every potential target. Even if the current level of surviving mutants is only .001% of the previous population, world-wide, that still counts for at least thousands of individuals.

Yea…..for those of us Unlucky enough to survive.It is curious however…..I have noticed a pattern going back over the entire story. Topsiders have never referred to a BASE.Its either “settlement” (Linda) or now “colony”Not one time have we heard a reference to what I would call a LEAD base of operations. A central facility so to say. So my take is these settlements, colonies are parts of a greater central area of Topsiders. Probably the place the drones originated as it would have to be a big place to fit all those massive drones. Just the location would be interesting to know, like Endtown is in the middle of the Great Waste could there be at one end large Topsider base of operations??

Oh on the issue of sending up their own bird the others could have been knocked out during the war between them and the Eastern Alliance. One of the first things to do would be to take out each others satellites before going onwards.I would imagine APEX provided each side the satellites and the capability to take them down. Good for business.

Veteran- I’d more wonder if APEX merely had survival shelters rather than any central base, least it got targeted as well during the war. Dispersing assets better insures at least some of it survives. The drones may have come from a site with enough manufacturing resources to grind them out in such numbers. Though keep in mind that there have previously been pretty big swarms of transporters as well, so even the previously “local” TSers had some substantial assets, just not the same emphasis as to type of product. But back to bases/colonies/settlements- any new surface site would qualify as such, with all previous population centers destroyed/uninhabitable.

The thing about the TS is that we don’t really have any idea of the scale of the abilities. Every so often, Aaron lets something slip that shows the Topsiders have resources far in excess of what I had imagined. The horde of transporters chasing Al, Gustine and Petey was one instance of that. The second generation rocket they launched in “Countdown” even took Flask by surprise. The drone attack on the remains of West Alboin suggested that Topsiders, have even more resources than I had imagined.I checked and Dr. Mallard referred to the settlement where the Topsiders were setting up the rocket as “an outpost”. http://endtown.sherri-alexander.com/comic/endtown-08-17-2011/If an “outpost” has the ability to assemble and launch a rocket (and a decoy to fool the mutants) maybe a larger colony has the ability to build all those drones. The question becomes. If the TS have this level of resources, how long can even Endtown survive?

Waste? of course it is…Great?…mmmm..not so much

Night, I think you have found a name that our country could be called ,,unless we are vigilant. Too many greedy for power, types out there

Where is Holly and did she have to be pulled off of his arm?