Behold, the portapotty wienermobile semi truck. Yes it's big enough to fit Talita in her suit (barely).
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Transcript
Bing bong. A new work day "dawns". Talita is standing at the mobile life support unit truck, exchanging the gas in her tanks. She leans an elbow on the side of the truck, helmet in her hand, zoning out with a thousand yard stare.
Phoebe: Something wrong, boss?
Talita comes back to the present and turns to Phoebe.
Talita: I'm… fine, Phoebe. What's up?
Phoebe: The old radio tower is having outages again.
Talita: Oh. Dammit. Well, we can deal with that later.
48 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 253”
Maria
Adore the visual metaphor here of Talita being both figuratively/mentally and literally/physically on life support lol
Also as always, yet another little worldbuilding item where I go “oh of course that would be a thing!” as is so often the case with this comic.
Yza
I just recently found this webcomic through a post by Sam Keeper, who you apparently know and I’ve been loving it. Really eager to read more, really frustrated to be on that real time wait. I love the main characters here and am so sad they’re going their seperate ways. I love Gillie and Idrisha so much. It’s been a delight seeing them get so close and watching Bip become a genuine friend to them.
I’ve really been enjoying the exploration of the outsider experience each other them is going through in their own ways. Understanding and embracing others who are different from us is so powerful, I think.
Thanks for the great read. I don’t expect I’ll be posting again, but I expect to keep on reading for a while yet.
Jackal
Is the waste from the porta potty mobile recycled in any way beyond extracting the water? If it is, does that mean centaur, avaian, and human waste need to be held in separate tanks?
Cugz Arui
what the centaurs doin?
Adrienne
Likely getting accustomed to their new digs
hurgaburga
and hopefully being told that their new boss is some defective, shredded, human-brained weirdo sunchaser who has species dysmorphia. or at least that’s what they’ll probably see her as.
cheerfulentropy
staring into the middle distance, struggling to accept the food situation is “bugs” the way we might if we heard it was “zucchini”
Oodl
The last place i want to store my oxygen is in the porta potty but you gotta do what you gotta do.
Eux
ooooooou…….another bing bong……round and round we go.
Apple-eating-goat
Bing bong <3
Mot
why is the transcript on this page specifically open by default? haha
Jay Eaton
Sometimes it does that by default after I paste text under it and forget to reverse the change
Gheesfellow
I’m preemptively getting pissed at Adam.
JoB
“The radio tower’s kaput again and Talita won’t deal with it before tomorrow” sure sounds like an open invitation for him to go squirreling all over some rickety chicken ladders again …
FuzzySpiderPawz
He’s gonna pull some shit I know he is
ilvos01
I choose to believe that she’s emptying her waste tank and this is the equivalent of someone walking up to you while you’re taking a piss
JoB
Welcome to the bright space-traveling future where you have to get quite close and see which suit valve the hose is connected to to know whether you just did that kind of faux-pas or not …
JoB
“Mélange & O2 Station”? Better don’t mix up those valves. 😀
eden
I bet they have different types of connectors or something to prevent that lol. that’s what my adhad ass would do at least. I have drunken way too much paint water to use mugs for art anymore
Felixscout
I just had a thought:
If the other Centaurs are here to work at this installation does that mean Talita will be expected to built space suits for some/all of them?
Archieve
Probably, at the very least I doubt Mel has even thought about paying Talita for use of her custom blueprints that will inevitably be required for the Clan. Poor Talita probably already feels suffocated bycthe unspoken expectations of her being the only one who can design custom Centaur work accommodations packaged as a gift.
Lezzlebit
Damn ………… If Talita decides she doesn’t care about not ‘souring’ their relationship anymore, I honestly wonder if she would be able to take legal action against Mel for that. I’m not a lawyer though… And I don’t think that’s actually gonna happen in the story. But using her design without her permission at all, regardless of consequences, is pretty crazy
JoB
That depends crucially on when Talita did that design. Even in our day, work contracts tend to include a clause that anything you created on the clock is IP of your employer. And unless she was already tasked with some sort of vacuum-side maintenance back on Nexus Jovia, her landscaping job on Dirtball is highly likely to have prompted the creation, or at least major overhaul, of her suit.
Also note that way back when, Mel asked Talita for the blueprints for her “apartment“, not her suit …
Oceanblue
Since they’re space farers they probably have their own suits. They might need to adjust them to work together with things like this vehicle though.
Vinemaple
This page is so me IRL right now… up to and including not being able to tell people about it. I hope Talita is getting plenty of hugs from Idrisah and Gillie and remotely-piloted front-loaders.
Lilac
its back to Oh God What Will Happen Next Literally Any Next Page Could Have Something Going Horribly Wrong Oh No times
Vinemaple
Exactly. I’m about to crash out here. Jay’s advancing the plot, with the book in mind, but this is the kind of pacing that’s pure torture when delivered page-by-page over weeks. I suppose we’ll see, in a page or two, where relations stand between Talita and the new temps.
Lilac
Well but its also fun cause when its finished we can reread it all and go “oh yeah I remember being soo scared during this part”!! So really it just means Extra Good Memories I think
foca
heads up there’s small errors in the transcript: page says “something wrong, boss?” and “well, we can deal with that later”, transcript says “you alright, boss?” and “well, we can deal with that tomorrow”
Bruce Mickelson
What is the lower right square symbol on the mobile life support truck? I get the medical, waste and emergency air symbols. Superb detailing of the vehicle! I have to assume that the new arrivals have customized spacesuits of their own in order to replace the previous temps doing outside work in vacuum?
1d4-nadg
It’s not any standardised symbol from present day as far as I can tell, but I assume it means “pressurised space” or something similar
MonstieMunchies
Mobile Life Support Truck I am your biggest fan.
Claire
Uh oh, this smells of foreshadowing…
Nickalart
Oh, good to know Adam, the walking liability, will have a safety net if he hurts himself and/or others. Sure would be a shame if they had to use that Mobile Life Support vehicle sometime soon.
Archieve
I’m half surprised Talita wasn’t getting informed here that Adam got himself killed running up rusted ladders again out of spite.
eden
I have a feeling adam is going to escalate and talita will have to fit into the air pod herself. I feel like it will be more scary than her getting hurt but I feel like adam will decide to poke her suit with a stick and mel is going to be confronted with talita almost getting killed
Nickalart
I personally think Adam is the one getting hurt (or worse), but I’m glad I’m not the only one thinking it’s a Chekhov’s gun situation. We shall see what happens next!
NotOkapi
The life support mobile can just barely fit Talita in her suit. So if she or any of the new temps have something happen to them that means they can’t get in on their own and care for themself they’re just fucked. Yet another way this can go wrong yayyy
JoB
It’s not like a humans-only crew would have an easy time getting a badly injured member up that ladder and inside in a hurry, either. Not to even think about an avian crew. In a sense, this truck seems optimized for a “Talita throws non-centaurs, including one injured, in and slams the pressure door shut” scenario …
Skadoosh
Maybe there’s a folding ramp or motorized platform that can’t be seen from this angle?
JoB
The ladder itself looks quite static, and if there were such a feature installed behind it¹ (from our POV), I would expect the “landing” between pressure door and ladder to offer more space; as it is, a human in a suit would have difficulties making a 90° turn on it, even when not carrying someone else.
¹ Yes, I noticed that the center of the pressure chamber’s front dome reaches up to the side of the driver’s cab, so the installations on the truck’s bed are clearly not symmetric; the chamber’s off its right and the cab towards its left.
Arcstone
Is that a big tank, or a big capsule with its own little airlock you can go inside of for emergencies?
Skadoosh
Looks like a big airlock capsule with small tanks outside. It would be difficult to use the toilet or treat injuries without a pressurized environment. (Not impossible, just a lot more complicated than just filling a person-sized tube with air.) And if someone’s suit gets damaged in a way that can’t be sufficiently plugged with some tape, you have to put them somewhere so they don’t suffocate or get decompression injuries until you get back to base.
JoB
For a moment, I wondered whether that truck mostly consists of its own rocket propulsion device. 8-3
… but yes, likely a decompression chamber. Or rather a REcompression chamber, given the Dirtballian environmental conditions.
bryn
bing bong!!!
gnome_artificer
Bing bong gang rise up!
bug
hai bryn !
bryn
hoiiii bug! Smiles and does incredible zoomies