Strip 635 -- First Seen: 2011-02-11
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

What Comes Next

The war is over, but This Means War has a ways to go. Novo Paolo/Bubbleopolis is still in a nebula/stellar nursery, no one knows what happened to the planet Sharen (center of the Intergalactic Council), and the status of the now-surrendered Invaders is yet to be resolved. What will they do when they learn their homeworld is basically destroyed? Will Alyss and Li be re-united? How about Diana (the real one) and Otto?

These questions will be resolved in the next few weeks, before This Means War part 3 wraps in late May.

After that, I plan to go BACK in time about 400 years, to when Alyss and Li left their home in the Sol System to colonize a new world on the far side of the galaxy. As one might expect, hijinks ensue. New subtitle yet to be determined, start date sometime in around the start of July. Stay tuned!

A Little House Cleaning

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The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Bert and Ed at the Chez Trief.
Bert: So, what's their game plan?
Ed: A pretext.

Panel 2
Focus on Ed, picking up a bite-size of fried meal worms with his fork.
Ed: Every war in the last three centuries has used some pretext on behalf of various puppet masters and their hidden agendas.
Ed: The Reichstag fire, the Tonkin Bay Incident, the Twin Towers, the Paris dirty nuke.

Panel 3
Looking over Ed's shoulder at Bert.
Ed: Some were lies, some were accidents, and I think some were 'false flag' operations.
Bert: That's depressing. What sort of pretext to you see here?

Panel 4
Ed is holding up his wine glass, about to take a sip, as he speaks.
Ed: How about, 'UW tourists attacked by Cererean thugs?'
Ed: There could have been a fatal conflict in the Iron Rock, had things gone differently.

Panel 5
Set camera between Bert and Ed, so we can see out the Chez Tief window at the Hôtel de Crillon, across the plaza.
Ed: That didn't work, so this business at the hotel is plan B.
Ed: They're going to hoist us on our own petard.
Bert: How so?

Panel 6
Focus on Bert, eyes widening as Ed describes the scenario.
Ed: Ceres has no immigration control, no weapons restrictions.
Ed: So they can march right in and do what they want so long as they use no aggression.

Panel 7
Focus on Ed, wagging his fork to emphasize his point.
Ed: As soon as these 'tourists' get their pretext, they'll take 'defensive action' to protect the lives of UW citizens threatened by us cutthroats.

Panel 8
Two-shot of Bert and Ed at the table, finishing their meal.
Ed: It's a replay of how the old United States gobbled up the Kingdom of Hawaii.
Ed: Look up The Committee of Safety, Hawaii in the Tanglepedia. It's an eye-opener.