The Nightstar Zoo

Time for a Para ex machina?

Schlock appears to think he has a card or two to play, but I don't think he can be prepared for what Max has in mind for Tarfeather.

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This too will pass

Did Schlock toss Dr. Bunning or she did a backward leap herself?

Howard, it's rather unsettling when you post lines like that. Especially when they're the last line in a particular update.

I think that's the idea.

I think Schlock pushed/tossed her back, but it's kind of hard to tell what happened.

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This too will pass

Am I the only one really, really hoping that Major Murtaugh survives this encounter and goes on to become a recurring character?

She sort of has to. Any explosion of that magnitude would definitely kill Schlock, and the one character we know absolutely must live on is Schlock. Therefore who must survive as a condition of Schlock surviving will also survive.

Next up, everybody falls into an actual meat-grinder. Schlock lives. Your logic dooms everybody else.

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Creator and Cartoonist, Schlock Mercenary

Don't challenge the author. Seriously, that's just begging for trouble.

A meat grinder isn't a situation where survival is linked to Schlock's. Schlock, obviously, can survive an actual meat grinder just fine, so if everyone is dropped into a meat grinder, Schlock obviously lives. Giant explosions, on the other hand, everyone is trapped in the same place as Schlock, with no individual exit. Schlock will be killed just as dead as everyone else, so therefore, everyone must live, because Schlock must live.

Of course, the kicker here is that you could still maim some or all of them, including Schlock, which has happened before.

Ah, but trouble for whom? It is not like I personally have anything to lose from this, even if the author adds me to the comic and kills me. I mean, what's he going to do, kill the entire comic? I thought he was doing this fulltime now. Trouble isn't so bad. It'll be entertaining and probably funny. I call this a win/win situation.

It looks like Tarfeather/Tarmeggeddon is interpreting Max's order to "answer to me and only to me" very literally. The lack of verbal response is what tipped Major Murtaugh off that something was wrong.

Max should have said "obey me and only me", and then ordered the robot to pretend everything was normal until it was time to go "BOOM!".

People who's reflexive solution to a problem is "blow something up and kill people" have a tendency to not think things out in detail before acting.

There still would have been the question of what happened to Max, who Tarfeather was supposed to have in custody. I think Tarfeather answering would have been at least as quick a give-away as Tarfeather's silence was.

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This too will pass

Hey, you just now invoked Murphy, not me. Those weasel-words are there for our protection.

Sorry, kinda had to

One reason why Tarfeather/Tarmageddon hasn't blown yet is that Max has not only not reach the safe distance, but he hasn't take over the ship and raise its shield. That means Max might have more subversion tools on him.

More nanny-spit is unlikely to help him the way it did with Tarfeather. Tarball and the as-yet-unnamed tarbot were already on guard somewhat, and they're going to be on full alert now that Max has tried to murder Ventura - somehow I doubt he can spit hard enough to breach unified shields, and less direct subversion methods are quite probably locked out given who just suborned the tarbots.

Proper tools...

Kevyn has them: http://www.schlockmercenary.com/2005-05-31
Kevyn is not present... but that's got nothing to do with saying that Max has or lacks other tools that may be properly applied here.
//Torrenal

Is it possible that Ms. Ventura is aware of the suborned Tarfeather?

The more I read everyone's comments, the more I think that possibility exists.

It's certainly possible and probably depends on the communication between the Tar-bots. If she tried to propagate her bot infection via a presumed bot-network, she might have become aware that one bot didn't answer.