Strip 1292 - Click strip above to goto the next strip.
First Seen: Fri 2016-03-04
Story & Art: Scott Bieser - Colors: Lea Jean Badelles
Sci-Fi Adventure Monday & Thursday.
Hu Iz Alyss Roaz?
Quantum Vibe
A thousand years in the future, humanity has colonized worlds in nearly 100 galaxies, thanks to Quantum Vibremonic technologies developed five centuries earlier. Other new technologies have created various off-shoots of humanity and extended life expectancies five-fold. The story begins with how a mad scientist and his plucky assistant, along with their robot friend, brought humanity to the stars, and continues with the adventures of some unique people in fantastic places.
Kickstarter Success! [ May 13, 2025 ]
The Not-Safe-Space 2 Kickstarter Campaign has ended successfully. Thanks to all who pledged!
Now we get to wait 2 weeks while Kickstarter transmits the funds, and Scott can order the books, and send surveys to backers to get current e-mail addresses for the .PDF versions and mailing addresses for the physical books.
All of this should show up in June.
Transcript For Strip 1292
Panel 1Alyss continues her presentation.
Alyss: Fresco and Joseph saw market-exchange economies, which they regarded as based on greed, as the prime cause of humanity's troubles.
Alyss: They proposed a 'resource-based' system, getting rid of exchange and money, and with an eye towards sustaining the material resources required for the goods people needed to live and thrive.
Sargon: This is what we've been taught in our classrooms.
Panel 2
Alyss continues, images of Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek are projected above the table.
Alyss: What they didn't teach you is that some economic theorists had already proved that without a free price system determined by voluntary exchanges, rational economic calculation is impossible.
Alyss: This theory was verified by the failure of another 'resource-based' system, known as Marxism, in the same years that Fresco and Joseph lived.
Panel 3
Alyss continues, as an image of a ca. 2000AD 'supercomputer' appears.
Alyss: Fresco and Joseph proposed that the 'calculation problem' could be solved by employing a vast system of record-keeping networked to a super-computer.
Alyss: Advancing technology offered the prospect that all mundane physical labor and manufacturing could be performed by robots, freeing humans to pursue 'higher' goals in arts and scientific discoveries.
Panel 4
Looking past Alyss to where Diana is sitting, looking bored.
Diana: Gee, sounds like quite the Utopia.
Alyss: Well, Utopias are never what they're cracked up to be.
Alyss: Anyway, while Fresco and Joseph didn't to see their plans brought to fruition, their ideas continued to be passed through the generations.
Panel 5
Several worlds imaged above the table as Alyss continues.
Alyss: With the Great Expansion, several groups saw their opportunity to establish their own 'Venus Projects' on new worlds, starting fresh.
Alyss: Over roughly two centuries, various groups founded 25 different 'Venus' worlds throughout known space.
Alyss: Your world is the 23rd such. My colleagues and I refer to it as 'Venus 23.'
Panel 6
Looking from behind Diana across to Alyss. The others are looking shocked.
Diana: And how are these colonies doing?
Alyss: Nineteen of them failed completely within 100 years.
Alyss: The others, including yours, have been declining more slowly. However, their eventual demise is all but certain.
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