Strip 397 -- First Seen: 2010-03-19
Escape From Terra is updated with new pages every Monday through Friday.

Indiegogo Campaign Has Begun!

Second times a charm. The epic QUANTUM VIBE: This Means War story concludes with Part 3, and we require funds to publish a print volume. To sweeten the pot a bit, a 3 pack of the print and PDF copies of all three parts of the This Means War story is a new perk. The stickers and magnet add-ons for the Project for a Free Cosmos concept (explained in the story) are available. And one final incentive for the first 20 who get there first, an add-on for a Free Cosmos Project coaster (1 per perk).

The campaign starts today, Sunday, November 10th, and will conclude in 31 days.

Click on this link or on the picture to back our campaign!

QV9 KickStarter Campaign Has Begun!

The epic QUANTUM VIBE: This Means War story concludes with Part 3, and we require funds to publish a print volume. To sweeten the pot a bit, we have added stickers and magnet add-ons for the Project for a Free Cosmos concept (explained in the story).

The campaign started Monday, October 7 and will conclude in 30 days.

Click on this link or on the picture to back our campaign!

The Transcript For This Page

Panel 1
Square panel, focus on Hollow Earth. It looks very much like a 1:12000 scale model of Earth, but there are cavities and structures at both poles for egress and ingress. Hollow Earth rotates at about one cycle per minute. There are also large mirror structures set up to reflect sunlight into the interior. We may see a few other conveyances in the frame but not our girls' Fokker, they've already gone inside.

Fiorella (from inside): I swear, this corn and squash dish is homemade. It's delicious. I didn't realize how hungry I was.

Panel 2
Another large square panel: Inside the Hollow Earth, looking toward the inside of the northern polar region, we see roughly the upper quarter of the inside sphere. At the pole we see various engineering structures, a pair of poles reaching out towards the southern pole, which are used by monorail-like conveyances to transport people directly from pole to pole, and causeways radiating outward from the polar area along the inner surface towards the equator. There is also a 'waterfall' running from the polar region towards the equator. It's a bit hard to see all this clearly, however, because of glare from the mirrors reflecting sunlight into the interior.

About 20 degrees out from the pole, there's a terraced structure encircling it. Along one section of the terrace sports a large sign reading, 'Mall of the Mountain King,'

Remember that as this hollow sphere rotates, the felt 'gravity' isn't outward in all directions, it's outward parallel to a line from the center to the equator.

Outward from the Mall terrace, the surface is covered with foliage – trees, shrubs, meadows with grass and flowers.

Doris (OP): Hungry and exhausted.

Doris: How 'bout we relax in the Spa for awhile before we hit the rides?


Panel 3
Third large square panel: Moving the camera back, we can still make out the Mall in the upper left background, while a broad equatorial lake arcs across the lower and right parts of the panel. We can see various one and occasionally two-story structures in little clusters along the riverbanks, connected by winding pathways . A stone bridge can be seen spanning a narrower part of the lake in the middle ground, and we can glimpse another in the right background as the lake curves up the inner wall of the sphere.

Doris (OP): Put me down for the Roller Rocket and the Human Cannonball, but not until I've logged some Big Hot Drop time.

Fiorella (OP): Yeah, me too and I want us to take a run through the Spiral of Doom.


Panel 4
High-angle view of a restaurant with an outside patio. We see Doris and Fiorella dining at one of the tables near the outer rail, overlooking the river. There are a few other tables visible most of which also have diners. We see three diminutive figures moving among the tables. These are robot 'elves' working as waitresses. We'll get a closer look at one of them in the next panel.

Fiorella: But a soak and a robo-massage sound heavenly.

Doris: No need for robots, I've taken massage courses over the years.

Panel 5
Wide panel, across the bottom. In the foreground are Doris (on the left) and Fiorella on the right.

In the background, we see some scenic riverfront: A robot gnome strolls along a path on this side of the river; across a placid expanse about 100 meters of water on which various light watercraft (small sailboats, small rowboats, paddle-boats, etc) move around; on the far shore is lush vegetation dotted with unobtrusive structures which are workshops, other restaurants, galleries.. The effect should look something like a hobbit shire, except that dwellings aren't built into the base of trees, they're smallish stone and wood structures which blend into the scenery.

In the middle-ground, we see one of the robot 'elf' food-servers walk by with a tray of food for someone.

Fiorella, on the right, is experiencing an unexpected sexual thrill at what she's hearing.

Doris: Nothing better for the body and soul than a hands-on Swedish and Shiatsu rubdown after a couple of decadays' rock wrangling.