Editing 1747: Spider Paleontology
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==Explanation== | ==Explanation== | ||
− | This Monday comic was the first in a | + | This Monday comic was the first in a series of two comics that continued in the next release [[1748: Future Archaeology]] on Wednesday. Both comic in this series have titles of a noun followed by a field of research. It was a so far unused release schedule and it was the first time in six years two related comics were released in the same week. See more under the [[:Category:Time traveling Sphere|Time traveling Sphere]] series. |
− | A {{w|time travel|time-traveler}} (the black floating energy Sphere) visits the present day from the far future. {{w|Spiders}} are the Sphere civilization's current craze, just as {{w|dinosaurs}} are currently our craze. The {{w|Jurassic Park}} media franchise began with the {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|first film}} in 1993 and the year before the release of this comic in | + | A {{w|time travel|time-traveler}} (the black floating energy Sphere) visits the present day from the far future. {{w|Spiders}} are the Sphere civilization's current craze, just as {{w|dinosaurs}} are currently our craze. The {{w|Jurassic Park}} media franchise began with the {{w|Jurassic Park (film)|first film}} in 1993 and the year before the release of this comic (in 2015) the fourth movie {{w|Jurassic World}} were released with at least {{w|Jurassic_Park#Fifth_film_.282018.29|one more film}} in development. We also have {{w|Dinosaur World (theme parks)|theme parks}} and kids dressing up as dinosaurs. |
− | The time-traveler arrives in the presence of [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]], and tells them who it is and why it is here, to see spiders which they learned about through {{w|fossils}} (See the explanation of the next comic about the strange fact that it speaks English). Megan points it towards a spider sitting in its web; the Sphere is awestruck to see the object of its obsession in the living flesh | + | The time-traveler arrives in the presence of [[Megan]] and [[Cueball]], and tells them who it is and why it is here, to see spiders which they learned about through {{w|fossils}} (See the explanation of the next comic about the strange fact that it speaks English). Megan points it towards a spider sitting in its web; the Sphere is awestruck to see the object of its obsession in the living flesh - but seein it sitting in it's web the Sphere asks why it has been caught. And Megan realizes that it when only knowing about spiders from fossils, it could come as a big suprise that the spiders sit in their webs lige this. {{w|Spider web|Spider silk}} does in fact {{w|Spider#Fossil_record|fossilize in amber}} (and most fossils of spiders are also found in {{w|amber}} due to the soft body of spiders which do not easily {{w|petrify}}). But the reason we clearly know that these threads is made of silk would be the spider's web is because we can compare fossils with the spiders of today. If not for the fact that we knew about spiders webs in advance it would be hard to say if we would have made the connection from the amber fossils. The Sphere is thus surprised to see the spider in a web since they had not understood any possible hint of spiderwebs in the fossil records, from which the Sphere's civilization gathered all their knowledge of spiders. Spiders have been on Earth at {{w|Spider#Evolution|least for 380 million years}} and are still thriving and more than 40,000 species are known. |
− | + | We, with our current knowledge, know that webs are an essential part of a spiders life. Making sense of a spiders life is practically impossible without including their webs. However, the future-people have done so until now; discovering how wrong they are is bound to become an intense experience for them. | |
− | Megan immediately connects the fact that the Sphere did not know about | + | Megan immediately connects the fact that the Sphere did not even know about spiderweb to our current understanding of dinosaurs: If a future civilization think they understand spiders based on fossil, while missing something as essential as their web, what are the human civilization missing about dinosaurs? Cueball quickly catches on, and Megan asks if they can borrow the time-machine to experience their own revelations about dinosaurs just like the revelation the Sphere has just had about spiders. |
− | The title text calls back to one of [[Randall|Randall's]] favorite facts (see [[1211: Birds and Dinosaurs]]) - that {{w|birds}} are technically part of the {{w|clade}} ''Dinosauria''. Birds do lots of weird stuff - like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY starlings flocking], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo the dances of birds of paradise], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y lyrebird mimicry] or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii_w8og8RXg petrels puking stomach oil]. Randall says that for every time a | + | The title text calls back to one of [[Randall|Randall's]] favorite facts (see [[1211: Birds and Dinosaurs]]) - that {{w|birds}} are technically part of the {{w|clade}} ''Dinosauria''. Birds do lots of weird stuff - like [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eakKfY5aHmY starlings flocking], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W7QZnwKqopo the dances of birds of paradise], [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjE0Kdfos4Y lyrebird mimicry] or [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ii_w8og8RXg petrels puking stomach oil]. Randall says that for every time a birds does something weird then it is likely that dinosaurs would have had equally strange behaviors, and birds are only a small subset of all dinosaurs. So there would have been even more strange behaviors among the dinosaurs than among the present days birds. It is, however, basically impossible to tell from the fossil record. All we know is that dinosaurs had features such as display feathers (like on a {{w|Peafowl}} (a descendant of dinosaurs), {{w|neck frill|neck frills}}, and crests (like on the {{w|Dimetrodon}}, which lived before the dinosaur with which it is not related) which likely played a role in mating and territorial shows. |
− | It is unclear what the Sphere is. Since it states that | + | It is unclear what the Sphere is. Since it states that the spiders they know of is from fossils from your planet, it seems likely that the Sphere is neither human nor from our planet. So most likely they are a space traveling species. Hence it seems unlikely that they are humans. The appearance as a sphere may either be an indication that they did not travel in person but rather only looks out at the past through the energy sphere, or it may be that these aliens are actually spheres, floating as energized objects in space. In that case this is an actual alien floating in front of Megan and Cueball. The Spheres civilization did already have the spider craze before they invented time travel. It seems like the first the Sphere decided to use time travel for was to go back to see real spiders on Earth. This also tells us that they are from so far into the future that there are no spiders left. Of course with climate changes etc. going on, that may not necessarily be too far into the future. As long as the human race (or knowledge of spiders) has also disappeared from Earth. But since the Sphere it self tells us that it comes from a distant future, the setting is not related to how fast humans and spiders becomes extinct. As is seen in the next follow up comic, there is very little left of our current civilization, and no records of spiders and their web. |
This is the second comic with special mentioning of a science related directly to spiders, the first being [[1135: Arachnoneurology]]. | This is the second comic with special mentioning of a science related directly to spiders, the first being [[1135: Arachnoneurology]]. |