All time travel is also space travel. What if one wanted to go to the spot they are standing on six months from now? Some sort of correction has to take place to account for the earth’s rotation around the sun. And that doesn’t even factor in the galactic rotation or peculiar motion of the Milky Way.
So, I figured that time travel would also have some built in “inertial dampening” to account for the fact that if a person was suddenly moved from a certain place in January to that same place in July, the change in forces acting on the person might end up in them getting squished.
It was on the basis of this logic that I figured that Frederick and Newton could get away with teleporting away from high-velocity death in this episode.
I’m not actually sure that this reasoning is correct. If a fly was buzzing around in a car that was moving at 60 MPH, and then the fly was somehow teleported out of that reference frame (to a calm field or somewhere otherwise neutral), what forces would be acting on the fly? Would it find itself suddenly moving at 60MPH? My skills in physics are inadequate for this task. Maybe the Count has some idea?
Anyway, it is a lot of wasted brain power to get to the same result. For our purposes, time travel holds up a big middle finger to the law of conservation of momentum.
The Power of Time probably just slurps up the excess as an aperitif.
Also, I wouldn’t worry too much about Peter. He is, more or less, the only one of our merry band that could survive a fall from a great height off a rocket train. Actually, come to think of it, that does sound pretty bad…
–Geoff
http://www.ftg-comic.com/2008/01/22/index.php
Frederick Douglass’s plan has been revealed! By launching the Thoremerson into Mexico, he hopes to destabilize the government and win its land as a free state for his people. Frederick and crew, meanwhile, entirely oblivious to this noble goal, have set about stopping him because, after all, a hat told them to. Peter versus the Thoremerson! Joule’s engineering versus Newton’s Mathematics! Frederick uses a crayon! Crazy stuff goes down, but only, ONLY, if you take a moment to gaze at our 95th Episode: Mistakes on a Train!
– Geoff and The Count
A part of me desperately wanted to art this up as a 1905-era movie train fight but I knew that allowing myself that indulgence would just lead to more until every panel of every comic came out like some D.W. Griffith still frame. Which WOULD be awesome, come to think of it… Damn.
Question: At this point, do Frederick and Company know what Douglass’s plan is?
Answer: No, they do not.
– Count Dolby von Luckner
Railroads!
I am firmly convinced that the path to victory in Civ4 (and every Civ game) is rooted in railroads.
A fun meta-game for me to play is to watch the Count’s wife whenever she is playing Civ and ask her how soon is going to be until she can build railroads. If she has discovered railroads, the game is to ask to either build railroads or build MORE railroads.
Every tile that lacks the life-giving iron horse is a wasted one.
When we started plotting out our 1840s American frontier arc, I quickly realized that a fight on the top of a train would have to be part of the proceedings.
So, welcome to train fight week.
–Geoff