The best part is: no matter how far back in human history you go, the earth is always 4.5 billion years old (give or take). I questioned Digger’s answer for a second, but then realized that. Shame on me for questioning Digger.
Still a moot point, jursamaj. Unless it was a significant fraction of a billion years (which seems unlikely for various reasons), the answer “4.5 billion years, give or take” would still be accurate.
Specifically, you’d need about 50 million years, which predates not only human history, but the human *species*. And yeah, that’s further into the future than any story I can think of either, too. (That looks awkward, but I can’t think of a better way to put it, so whatever)
Also, I should say how much I like how statue is trying to be all mysterious and cryptic (I would guess it’s a reflex to a god, since it doesn’t seem too respectful of Digger), but Digger is largely immune. Especially when he tries to recover after the first time; “OK, so you *do* know how old the earth is. The point is that it’s old, and there’s a lot of stuff in the past we don’t know about,” “Well yeah, unless you count fossils,” Just great.
Probably my personal record for stories read set later is one that is the last in a series of short stories. This particular one is set so far in the future that the reader (who is also the protagonist – the story is in second person), being from an earlier era, is a sort of superhuman as entropy has made it so that “Walls no longer have the strength that paper once had”. The story was short and ended with the inhabitants of the universe transcending it, I think. Regardless, I am hard pressed to come up with a further future story.
Well, Dr. Who did have an end-of-the-universe episode …
(Actually, so did Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I believe … with a restaurant and everything … )
Personally, in that final panel, I think the Statue looks really creepy. “There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio…” Like it’s implying that Ganesh was one of the Strange Things that walked the Earth in ages past….
4.5 Bilion years, give or take , right on Digger! Show her that good old geologist power! Silly Ganesh doesn’t he know the gods don’t stand a change against a geologist?
@Nifar I always imagine that the statue, if there was an animated version of Digger, would change expression everytime the camera focuses on him, whithout any kind transition frames, just suddenly it’s a statue with a different facial expression (A little like the Happy Mask Salesman from LoZ: Majora’s Mask, though much less unnerving, of course)
But to be true to Ursula’s work, the changes would have to be extremely subtle, conveying an change in emotional connotation while at the same time leaving you unsure that anything actually changed …
“4.5 billion years. give or take” I’ve said it before and I feel i need to say it again but this series just has consistently awesome writing. I so love the interaction between the statue and Digger
I now really, really want a chance to use potassium-argon dating on something strange and mystical which walked the earth in ages past.
Then again if presented with the true cross, by first though would be “where’s my auger? Must…get…to…dendochronologist…now…” Erica Guttmann, one of my former lecturers at Cardiff used to tell students how she once spent so long doing environmental archaeology sampling she had a repetitive dream where she found the Arc of the covenant, holy grail and the Turin shroud all together in a cellar in Israel, and then immediately begun to take soil samples and collect snail shells so she could reconstruct the microclimate for that patch of the Levant at the start of the first century A.D. It’s moments like those, she said, when you realise you’re far, far gone when it come to archaeology.
I really like how the statue manages to look resigned here.
Love panel three! 😀
The best part is: no matter how far back in human history you go, the earth is always 4.5 billion years old (give or take). I questioned Digger’s answer for a second, but then realized that. Shame on me for questioning Digger.
Ah, but who said the story was in human *history*? Could be future…
Still a moot point, jursamaj. Unless it was a significant fraction of a billion years (which seems unlikely for various reasons), the answer “4.5 billion years, give or take” would still be accurate.
🙂
Specifically, you’d need about 50 million years, which predates not only human history, but the human *species*. And yeah, that’s further into the future than any story I can think of either, too. (That looks awkward, but I can’t think of a better way to put it, so whatever)
I’m beginning to think that at the very least the statues eyes can change, if not the whole facial expression.
Also, I should say how much I like how statue is trying to be all mysterious and cryptic (I would guess it’s a reflex to a god, since it doesn’t seem too respectful of Digger), but Digger is largely immune. Especially when he tries to recover after the first time; “OK, so you *do* know how old the earth is. The point is that it’s old, and there’s a lot of stuff in the past we don’t know about,” “Well yeah, unless you count fossils,” Just great.
WJS, if you want a story that looks into the far future, look for Arthur C. Clarke’s _Against the Fall of Night_. It starts after the sun turns red.
Probably my personal record for stories read set later is one that is the last in a series of short stories. This particular one is set so far in the future that the reader (who is also the protagonist – the story is in second person), being from an earlier era, is a sort of superhuman as entropy has made it so that “Walls no longer have the strength that paper once had”. The story was short and ended with the inhabitants of the universe transcending it, I think. Regardless, I am hard pressed to come up with a further future story.
Well, Dr. Who did have an end-of-the-universe episode …
(Actually, so did Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, I believe … with a restaurant and everything … )
😉
Poor Statue. He looks so crestfallen.
Personally, in that final panel, I think the Statue looks really creepy. “There are more things on Heaven and Earth, Horatio…” Like it’s implying that Ganesh was one of the Strange Things that walked the Earth in ages past….
thisfox, that might just be the Statue trying EXTRA-hard to be mystical and cryptic in the face of wombat pragmatism 🙂
The last panel with Ganesh being black made me think that he could be thinking of his *own* mortality.
4.6 Billion years, give or take.
Not all the far in the future, is it?
Just 10 million or something like that…..
4.5 Bilion years, give or take , right on Digger! Show her that good old geologist power! Silly Ganesh doesn’t he know the gods don’t stand a change against a geologist?
@Nifar I always imagine that the statue, if there was an animated version of Digger, would change expression everytime the camera focuses on him, whithout any kind transition frames, just suddenly it’s a statue with a different facial expression (A little like the Happy Mask Salesman from LoZ: Majora’s Mask, though much less unnerving, of course)
But to be true to Ursula’s work, the changes would have to be extremely subtle, conveying an change in emotional connotation while at the same time leaving you unsure that anything actually changed …
“4.5 billion years. give or take” I’ve said it before and I feel i need to say it again but this series just has consistently awesome writing. I so love the interaction between the statue and Digger
I now really, really want a chance to use potassium-argon dating on something strange and mystical which walked the earth in ages past.
Then again if presented with the true cross, by first though would be “where’s my auger? Must…get…to…dendochronologist…now…” Erica Guttmann, one of my former lecturers at Cardiff used to tell students how she once spent so long doing environmental archaeology sampling she had a repetitive dream where she found the Arc of the covenant, holy grail and the Turin shroud all together in a cellar in Israel, and then immediately begun to take soil samples and collect snail shells so she could reconstruct the microclimate for that patch of the Levant at the start of the first century A.D. It’s moments like those, she said, when you realise you’re far, far gone when it come to archaeology.