#3869

Jesus, Dave! I know Terezi was getting on your case about not facing your own mortality, but this feels like a serious overcorrection!

I guess you already knew it was part of the Alpha Timeline, so you didn't really have a choice. But even so, what does it say about Dave's mental state that he was actually able to go through with this? To pretend to Jade that everything was fine, when his body's outline had already been drawn in chalk?

He can multitask!

Anyway, that's my theory solidly confirmed. Scratch is hiring Spades Slick to assassinate the universe, unwittingly summoning Lord English in the process. I can only assume that Scratch, for some reason, is unable to kill Snowman himself.

It’s still unexplained how any of this is possible in the first place, though. Why, exactly, was a Black Queen chosen to be the universe's detonation switch? What exactly is the nature of her connection to the Alternian Genesis Frog, and how was it forged?

EB: did she kiss him too? :O CG: YEAH. […] CG: HE WOKE UP ALIVE ON DERSE, AND MET WITH ROSE. CG: THAT WAS THE END OF THE LINE FOR ALPHA DAVE. TO MY KNOWLEDGE, HE DOESN'T TIME TRAVEL AFTER THAT, AND HE AND ROSE STAY ON DERSE WAITING FOR THE BOMB UNTIL YOU START THE SCRATCH. […] CG: REGARDLESS, HIS JOB IS TO PLOT A COURSE THROUGH THE RING TO FIND THE SUN. CG: WHEN HE DOES, EITHER HE OR ROSE WILL DELIVER THE BOMB. CG: I DON'T KNOW WHICH.

My money's on Rose.

See I don't expect either Derse kid to die for good here, and Rose seems to have the greatest chance of survival. Both the blondes have lost their Dream Selves, but Rose still has the support of the Horrorterrors, and, with their help, has temporarily resisted Green Sun energy before.

NGC 7090 \u2014 An actively star-forming galaxy

This image portrays a beautiful view of the galaxy NGC 7090, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy is viewed edge-on from the Earth, meaning we cannot easily see the spiral arms, which are full of young, hot stars.

However, our side-on view shows the galaxy’s disc and the bulging central core, where typically a large group of cool old stars are packed in a compact, spheroidal region. In addition, there are two interesting features present in the image that are worth mentioning.

First, we are able to distinguish an intricate pattern of pinkish red regions over the whole galaxy. This indicates the presence of clouds of hydrogen gas. These structures trace the location of ongoing star formation, visual confirmation of recent studies that classify NGC 7090 as an actively star-forming galaxy.

Second, we observe dust lanes, depicted as dark regions inside the disc of the galaxy. In NGC 7090, these regions are mostly located in lower half of the galaxy, showing an intricate filamentary structure. Looking from the outside in through the whole disc, the light emitted from the bright centre of the galaxy is absorbed by the dust, silhouetting the dusty regions against the bright light in the background.

Dust in our galaxy, the Milky Way, has been one of the worst enemies of observational astronomers for decades. But this does not mean that these regions are quite blind spots in the sky. At near-infrared wavelengths — slightly longer wavelengths than visible light — this dust is largely transparent and astronomers are able to study what is really behind it. At still longer wavelengths, the realm of radio astronomy, the dust itself can actually be observed, letting astronomers study the structure and properties of dust clouds and their relationship with star formation.

Lying in the southern constellation of Indus (The Indian), NGC 7090 is located about thirty million light-years from the Sun. Astronomer John Herschel first observed this galaxy on 4 October, 1834.

The image was taken using the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and combines orange light (coloured blue here), infrared (coloured red) and emissions from glowing hydrogen gas (also in red).

A version of this image of NGC 7090 was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Image Processing Competition by contestant Rasid Tugral. Hidden Treasures is an initiative to invite astronomy enthusiasts to search the Hubble archive for stunning images that have never been seen by the general public. The competition is now closed and the list of winners is available here.

This image portrays a beautiful view of the galaxy NGC 7090, as seen by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. The galaxy is viewed edge-on from the Earth, meaning we cannot easily see the spiral arms, which are full of young, hot stars.

However, our side-on view shows the galaxy’s disc and the bulging central core, where typically a large group of cool old stars are packed in a compact, spheroidal region. In addition, there are two interesting features present in the image that are worth mentioning.

First, we are able to distinguish an intricate pattern of pinkish red regions over the whole galaxy. This indicates the presence of clouds of hydrogen gas. These structures trace the location of ongoing star formation, visual confirmation of recent studies that classify NGC 7090 as an actively star-forming galaxy.

Second, we observe dust lanes, depicted as dark regions inside the disc of the galaxy. In NGC 7090, these regions are mostly located in lower half of the galaxy, showing an intricate filamentary structure. Looking from the outside in through the whole disc, the light emitted from the bright centre of the galaxy is absorbed by the dust, silhouetting the dusty regions against the bright light in the background.

Dust in our galaxy, the Milky Way, has been one of the worst enemies of observational astronomers for decades. But this does not mean that these regions are quite blind spots in the sky. At near-infrared wavelengths — slightly longer wavelengths than visible light — this dust is largely transparent and astronomers are able to study what is really behind it. At still longer wavelengths, the realm of radio astronomy, the dust itself can actually be observed, letting astronomers study the structure and properties of dust clouds and their relationship with star formation.

Lying in the southern constellation of Indus (The Indian), NGC 7090 is located about thirty million light-years from the Sun. Astronomer John Herschel first observed this galaxy on 4 October, 1834.

The image was taken using the Wide Field Channel of the Advanced Camera for Surveys aboard the Hubble Space Telescope and combines orange light (coloured blue here), infrared (coloured red) and emissions from glowing hydrogen gas (also in red).

A version of this image of NGC 7090 was entered into the Hubble’s Hidden Treasures Image Processing Competition by contestant Rasid Tugral. Hidden Treasures is an initiative to invite astronomy enthusiasts to search the Hubble archive for stunning images that have never been seen by the general public. The competition is now closed and the list of winners is available here.

ESA/Hubble & NASA Acknowledgement: R. Tugral

What is it with First Guardians and making Jade shoot her loved ones?

The deudlyest firearm at all.

I guess I shouldn't be surprised that Scratch is a SBaHJ fanboy. He is Cal’s son, after all.

CG: WE WERE TALKING ABOUT SOMETHING IMPORTANT. CG: ROSE, REMEMBER. […] CG: SHE IS WAITING ON DERSE FOR YOUR BOMB TO BE DELIVERED. […] EB: how do you know it gets there? CG: JADE TOLD ME. […] CG: I TALKED TO HER ACROSS PRETTY MUCH THE FULL SPREAD OF HER TIMELINE, UNTIL THE SCRATCH STARTS AND THE FEED CUTS OUT. […] CG: ANYWAY, SHE AND DAVE DO A LOT OF FROG BREEDING, ACCELERATING THE PROCESS SIGNIFICANTLY BY EXPLOITING TIME TRAVEL, WITH HELP FROM ME AND KANAYA, SINCE WE WERE IN CHARGE OF FROG DUTIES IN OUR SESSION.

Sounds like Jade is actually going to pull off the tadpole speedrun. I suppose she is being mentored by a frog breeding veteran, which must be an extraordinary rare privilege in sessionspace.

Interesting that Kanaya and Karkat were in charge of frog duties. Jade's getting help from Dave, but that's because he's a time traveler, and it doesn't sound like Aradia contributed at all. I did speculate that Blood could be the Aspect of genetics, though, so maybe I was actually on the mark there, and Karkat turned out to be particularly good at sequencing frog genes, or something.

EB: wait, which one is kanaya again? […] CG: OK, KANAYA IS MY OTHER BEST FRIEND, AND SHE WAS THE HERO OF SPACE LIKE JADE WHICH MEANS SHE'S THE STOKER OF THE FORGE AND IS BASICALLY IN CHARGE OF FROGS, WHICH SOUNDS RETARDED, I KNOW. YOU BREED THE RIGHT FROG TO MAKE THE UNIVERSE YOU WANT TO MAKE, WHICH IS A LONG ARDUOUS PROCESS AND I KIND OF FUCKED IT UP IN MY GAME, BUT THAT'S A WHOLE OTHER STORY WHICH I'LL GET TO LATER, OK?

That’s new.

Sure, the kids' session is a mess, but I we've been given no prior indication that there are issues with their universe as well.