21 Responses to Chapter 5 | Page 154

  1. W
    Wyvern says:

    The Suez Canal didn’t open until 1869. Such blatant historical inaccuracy in a comic about an underground world inhabited by lizard people!

    Also, Philo’s plan is based on the completely unjustified assumption that his digging machine can burrow through rock at the same speed a ship can sail across the ocean, which seems highly unlikely. (Although it might still be faster than sailing all the way around the southern tip of Africa.)

    Also also, typo alert: subterranean.

    • mvandinter says:

      3 Responses to Wyvern:
      1) The image isn’t supposed to show the Suez Canal. The route to India for Brits often included travelling to Alexandria then various means upriver and/or overland by hoof to the Port of Suez where they would sail to India.
      2) Philo’s screw machine is utterly implausible. If The Author gave the impression that it was anything other than a McGuffin, He apologizes profusely.
      3) Thanks for the spell check, you’ll get your Proof Reader award as soon as I get the page fixed.
      THANKS!

    • F
      Frank says:

      Also, the drill (the S.S. Blender) isn’t the travel vehicle. It’s there to create the hole the travel vehicle will travel though.

      This could have moved the discovery of plate techtonics up 100 years.

      • mvandinter says:

        Have we settled on “S.S. Blender”? Or is that just an affectionate nickname?

        • F
          Frank says:

          You’re the only one who can name things in the comic.

          It’s a nickname. And it’s cuuuuute. 🙂

          In-universe, it can’t be a name nick or otherwise. They don’t have blenders.

      • b
        borb! says:

        But I don’t think it left a hole, either. How could it? Where could it put all of the dirt and rock that it burrowed through, to leave the hole open?

        • Scarsdale says:

          They would dig the main tunnel through bedrock and yes it would be necessary to clear debris from the tunnel, it hardly would disintegrate the dirt and rock the entire way. Just the hardest part would be done.
          It IS a SCiFi story after all, truth is rarely an easy comic trope…

      • t
        theReader says:

        That would have been a quite moving discovery.

    • mvandinter says:

      Proof-Reader Award
      FIXED thanks to Wyvern, Champion Proof Reader!

    • Maju says:

      He said “by land and sea”. Would the Suez Canal be, then that would be the innacuracy… because there’s no other land but the Suez Isthmus in that route.

      However I think in those days they mostly traveled via Cape Town, which had just been annexed from the Netherlands in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars (The Batavian Republic was generally allied with France, then turned into a province of Napoleon’s megalomania).

      • mvandinter says:

        I believe you Maju. My research is frequently faulty. I suppose I should go back and redraw that panel. Let me think on that.

        • mvandinter says:

          Ooookay… Refresh your cache and you’ll see the page has been updated with both routes to Calcutta.

          • Maju says:

            Oooh! I did not meant to correct you, I was just saying… the Egypt route seems real. Whatever: it’s just a detail and does not affect the story.

            But I still think it needs more land to match the phrasing “by land and sea”, so, quick!, draw us a bactrian camel doing the route from Calais to Delhi via Bakhmut and Samarkand. It’s totally not historical but will add a lot of land to the route, making Philo more correct. ;p

            • F
              Frank says:

              After they hit port, doesn’t stuff go by land all of the sudden?

              • Maju says:

                Both London and Calcutta are ports. The narrative doesn’t bother on how the network thins out after them. Anyhow a lot of navigable routes would be used, the Brits were very fond of digging canals in those days and the Ganges is surely navigable for barges at least for much of its length.

  2. F
    Frank says:

    I’m sorry, the French what now?

    I wonder this would’ve effected the creation of India pale ale.

  3. Y
    Yakumo says:

    Wow. Just wow.

    I’m the first to comment with a reasonably appropriate response from Philo (in this case, meaning both in character and even given his situation) to the Frenchman.

    *utter deadpan* “Touché.”

    Of course, he could follow-up with how that shouldn’t have been expected, but it’s a moral imperative to start with that. :/

    • mvandinter says:

      Oh. I see. I think I do, anyway.

      • Y
        Yakumo says:

        Oh my goodness. I just realized. A major difference in the Unearth world! In the future, if any of this goes public, Monty Python won’t have a Spanish Inquisition schtick. It’ll be “Nobody expects the French Army post-Napoleon!”

        And then a side-crack, “well at least Philo doesn’t.”

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