Endtown by Aaron Neathery for October 23, 2015

Ah, an earthquake missile. Well THAT was obvious…

Hard to generate much of an earthquake in a pile of dust. ;-)

Thud indeed!And Kirbs, less talking, more running!

What did Clive know that was important enough for someone to launch an earthquake missile at him?

Earthquake missile. Nice thing. So the sand is going liquid in a large area and everyone on it will sink to the ground – whereever that is.

Why? What’s the point of an “earthquake missile” in the middle of the Great Nothingness"?

Tunneling missile with a nuclear warhead. This should look a lot like the U.S. military’s undersea nuke experiments. Release a huge amount of energy really fast, and then give it nowhere to go. If the radiation doesn’t kill you, the shockwave will.

Ahhhh. I love the smell of earthquakes in the morning.

Maybe this is what flipped over Sparkplug’s town.

They have earthbender missiles…

I’m somewhat surprised that Wally knows what it is. That suggests that this isn’t one of the Topsiders’ new toys (like the drone) but something he had seen before he came to Endtown. I think rickD may be onto something. This could be old Apex tech that the Topsiders have dusted off. That would explain Wally’s knowing what it was.

Al and Gustine might be looking at damage from anearthquake missile.

You should have been running two strips ago.

It looks like Holly is projecting her feelings for her lost baby onto Clive. Or, she’s just crazier than a sack of @$$holes.

I’m guessing the whole reason for an earthquake missile is the topsiders concluded there was an underground anthro habitat in the vicinity, like Endtown. The shockwave would presumably collapse the habitat and kill everyone – and with everyone left living underground, it’s about the only way to kill them without smoking them out.

okay Holly…get a grip!!! I’m losing my empathy for this Holly/ ‘I’ character!!! We want the old Holly back.

by the way Aaron…I love the ever so slight , not quite true lines to depict the earth moving under them….well done!

Holly, clinging to old territory isn’t helping.

As a couple caught on, an “earthquake” weapon would create a huge ground shock for any number of effects, usually to crush under ground structures or undermine surface structures. The best guess here is that the TSers figured that the targets disappeared at point X, so an underground site would be the likely reason. A liquifaction effect in the dust would be a reasonable side effect to threaten our heroes, but not likely to be the intention of the strike. A cratering shot would not actually make as much a ground shock, as most of the energy would be released up and out, creating the crater. A drilling weapon would not need to be fast, so our heroes would actually have a chance to see and react to it- compared to a simpler penitrator, which would rely on speed to punch its way into the ground

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barnes_Wallis creator of the original earthquake bomb.

After the increasingly strange behavior surrounding the missing unit, increasingly-heavily monitored by the Topsiders with zero ability to locate it, even dropping a MUTT pack on it for on-the-spot sensor sniffing, I’m not surprised that they decided to get rid of what could be a dangerous and growing problem. Anything that can so completely and blithely hide from their equipment sensors could just as easily waltz into their own Topsider bases and move around undetected, killing everyone — or worse, exposing them to the virus. Better safe than sorry.

You know, it’s kinda disturbing that Kirbee’s been the rational and smart one thus far.

We never directly saw Sarah being killed. Perhaps she was captured and is bargaining for her life with information concerning our protagonists. It would explain this careful search for them.

What’s happening?What’s that sound?Everybody look what’s going dowwwwwn…

What a field day for the heat4 little mutants are in for a treatLiquified sand around their feetIt starts when they’re always running away.Shock wave gonna come and scramble their brainsWe better stop, hey whats that sound?Everybody look here comes the end of Endtown..

1. The stolen “device” has been moving for quite some time, but we haven’t been able to locate it despite the tracking circuit.

2. The device has not moved in quite some time.

3. We are sure it is in the hands of mutants, but, despite locating and purging many of them in this area, we have located no lair or tunnel entrance.

Conclusion: The mutants who stole the device have been traveling deep below ground, and are now resting in some sort of lair. Send in a ground-piercing weapon and wipe it out.

Makes perfect sense!

How do we use the Irish pronunciation? It’s double dutch to me! Can you help?

From what I can tell, the Topsiders’ current mantra is, “there’s no kill like overkill.”

I’m guessing the earthquake bomb was intended to take out whatever was left of Unity? I’m guessing they didn’t make it that far away in just a day.

And given that the mutts had visual contact with Clive, for a short time, the TS can be reasonably sure that he, and whomever’s carrying him, are on the surface.

I had a strange vision. A bunch of TS going through the dust with shovels trying to find the colony they thought they just destroyed.I get the feeling that this couldn’t really happen in story. If they needed to dig through the dust, they’d send an automated excavator.They’d better hope their new tech doesn’t become self aware and decide that it doesn’t need a bunch of meat sacks in ziploc bags lazing around.

Darwinskeeper- I had a fleeting thought about perhaps some part of TSer activity might already be automated, either due to a “skynet” takeover or simply left on automatic with on one alive or on-hand to control it