Annotated 22-25
LOL you thought was Earth/Sepia World but was actually HR’s OTHER other universe, bamboozled again
In most stories, when a villain opens a portal to another realm in full view of everybody without safety precautions, it’s a mark of hubris. But Brother Tom knows just what’s happening and how dangerous it’s going to be. The complete lack of safety protocol isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. It’s part of the plan.
It was also part of our plan that we wouldn’t get back to the results of this portal’s opening for quite some time. That’s mostly due, again, to the lack of interconnectedness in Arkerra’s quasi-medieval world, especially before the sky elves start taking a more active hand. But it feels appropriate to our modern world as well, where the most dangerous thing often turns out to be something we don’t even think about much before it surfaces (cough, cough) [applies hand lotion].
First time around, I’m honestly not sure that we really had much context for what we were seeing here. I think “Escape from Cyberia” had been mentioned a couple of times which, given what HR said on the last page, would potentially be enough to put together what we’re seeing here. But this is still a long time before Wav shoes up and we can get the real payoff to this scene.
I just went back and re-read the old comments…I’m surprised at how many people not only pinned this as “Cyberia”, but also assumed Best was going to be in there as well.
Of course, others were surmising that this was the “code behind the game”, as it were…more of a 4th wall break than a true game-to-game portal.
Oh, shoot, I don’t think I get to edit/delete that comment…sorry…
What’s wrong with it? (I’ve got edit powers…)
I hope you’re applying hand SANITIZER, T… Unless the lotion’s to deal with the inevitable dry, chapped hands from more washing than usual.
Maybe he just meant he’s spending a lot of time home and it’s time to hit some adult entertainment, you know?
The dark world of the Countless! Also known as Cyberia.
I wonder if the Countless Limbs should be understood as an infinitely repeating fractal pattern. Seems appropriate.
They do seem to be depicted as fractally as the medium/style allows.
That is, five fingers, with each finger ending in a five-fingered hand, with each of those fingers ending etc
That’s a good point. Well observed.
Strange which details escape your notice. I just realised that Asok was blown into smithereen because of the bloodsplatter and his robes. I always interpreted last page that he sort of went “warpspeed” to create a passage. Re-reading is fun!
Is “Cyberia” an intentional reference to the actual real-world computer game of that name? Or did you guys just not bother to check?
I have my doubts that a callback to 1994 is intentional here, but what do I know? I’m just another reader.
We came up with the pun on our own. I was aware of Cyberia before Chapter 9 went online, but I figured it was too obscure to be a reference worth making. Had there been a big storm in the comments, we probably would have had HR’s legal department say, “Oh, the 1994 game was Cyberia, this is Escape from Cyberia, a totally distinct entity.”
At the time we came up with the game, we just needed another property to prove that HR’s dev company wasn’t a one-trick pony, but Phil quickly latched on to the idea of making it another “game reality,” either here or in the series Space Age.
Looks like Akerra needs a Guardian from ReBoot right about now.
That or a benign virus with trans-finite power reserves.
It’s also very Stargate. Which, you know, was also parodied by ReBoot.