Hey, I know a joke! A squirrel walks up to a tree and says, "I forgot to store Fridays for the winter and now I am dead." Ha! It is funny because the squirrel gets dead.


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NCoID™133

"based on how long it took Oasis to travel"
Huh? When was that. And from what starting point to what ending point. And how does this take into account that Oasis was revived after dying in Canada. And Kusari can also be revived. And the mystery of the scan!
So many mysteries man!
Aside: since Oasis died in a hospital (way back in the day) did they not check her corpse's DNA against Fate Magic Author Younger Oasis (who may not have her DNA in a database and said database may not have existed back in the day). Also fingerprints.

And... we got a major 3-day cliffhanger anyway. D'oh!

From her rebirth point to wherever Chen has tracked her over the years. Remember, Dr Chen was the person who effectively discovered Oasis. He's the link between Orsintos and Dr. Steve. Nobody alive knows more about Oasis than Marcus.

That said, it opens up a lot of spec if he's bending the truth here.

At this point I feel like I'm going to need a week long explanation for context after this week long cliffhanger. Everyone is in on the secrets except the reader, making this a pretty hard conversation to follow.

Every new Oasis appears near where the old one died. That's why I have been baffled about her all these years. What Chen is saying doesn't match that one fact.

I don't know that that's accurate. Would have to do an archive trawl to be certain but with the exception of the Podunkton resurrection do we have any other proof she's been near where she died without the passage of time in between her death and appearance?

Edit: Hmm... apparently we do: http://sluggy.com/daily.php?date=010401

Though one could argue any amount of time may have passed between those two panels, but it sure does give the impression that she appears near her place of death.

Oh. This is bad. Very, very bad.

I still don't see why they're so interested in her fire. Everyone, Torg included. Who cares? Man-made technology can do that, and better.

The whole raising from the dead thing is handy though. A scaredy cat like Schlock should love that.

Could "any" amount of time have passed? Really? They were still outside the hospital. And talking about her. They definitely weren't there for a different reason. It certainly could have been a matter of hours rather than instants, but not much more than that. Also, not quite sure which panels you're talking about considering Oasis and Torg and co. are in the same panel.



In Schlock's case I think there's more to what he knows about it than the fire itself. It wouldn't make sense for someone with the military resources of Schlock to care that much about her pyrokinesis on its own. In Torg's case it makes some sense. The only other person who can maybe deliver that kind of firepower for him is Riff, and their on the outs. It still seems weird how much faith he places in this ability to end Hereticorp., but it definitely makes sense that he would see it as a valuable asset.

Also, the limits of her fire are unknown, so it's a bit presumptuous to assume man-made technology could do better. It's pretty hard to fathom that it could even have the potential to be equally or more devastating that a nuke though. Still, I doubt a nuke would be necessary to destroy Hereticorp. Torg has some control over her. It's much easier to use Oasis than to get your hands on a nuke or similarly devastating weapon and there would be less fallout from using her, literally, and probably also figuratively. The limits of what we've seen of her use of fire to date though are indeed....underwhelming. It is shocking to me that Torg just assumes she would have the ability to takedown hC with just her fire with only the displays of her power seen to date to go on.

Yes, a lot of time could have passed. Several weeks no problem. This is a reflection flashback, "I am telling you what happened".
There is no reason at all to assume that this conversation takes place right after the events.
Maybe Torg has been so emotionally affected that he needed time to open up before telling this.

I know it's crazy, but we're all under the impression that we know what Schlock is planning. What Chen thinks he's figured out could indicate otherwise.

Hopefully that's not too speccy, because it seems significant.

I think the point is that the fire is a paranormal trait. the presence to the fire abilities makes her "proof positive paranormal" and the fact that Oasis still has the trait after every death proves that she really is still oasis. We don't know how the immortality works, but we know that the pyrokineticism trait moves with her every time.

Yes. But the question is .....how is this useful?
Even in 4UCity, we saw Oasis. But she was nothing more than a drone. She didn't seem to play any important role at all there. The DFA rays, the REA suits, the drugs...all of these are man made and vastly superior. And got the job done better than some single immortal fire assassin could have done.
She can take out a few suits effectively? Big deal when compared to the entire city's power.

Who cares if he's reflecting? They are literally shown outside the hospital in the same panel with Oasis. You think they just went back to the hospital to reminisce? That's a ridiculous stretch. Well, I guess Torg was in the hospital for his own reasons, so it could have been awhile before he was discharged. Several weeks though? It's highly improbable he would be in the hospital for that long. It's pretty clear from what's shown in all the other panels that this is the point at which Torg is being released from the hospital. He wouldn't be kept there for long unless he had serious problems.