pietrisycamollaviadelrechiotemexity

I've just discovered that L. Neil Smith's The Probability Broach exists online in comic book form. This is nifty. I'd read "The Nagasaki Vector" ages ago (rough memory-indexing, I was maybe 12), and am sad that I seem to have lost my copy in one move or another.

It takes place in the same alternate universe, which just so happened to develop into a libertarian utopia for...some reason or other. There was this little episode in early American history known as the Whiskey Rebellion, and Gallatin sided with the farmers instead of the fledgling U.S., which led to the recognition of the sapience of chimpanzees and other great apes and giving them the right to bear arms. Really cool guns, too, since a libertarian society led to personal sidearm technology that's lightyears ahead of ours. One of the armed gorillas in the Nagasaki Vector had an honest-to-goodness railgun in pistol form. So obviously it's pretty serious stuff.

Don't ask me, dude, I didn't do it. But seriously, chimps with guns. I don't care what your political leanings are, I think chimps with guns is something we can all get behind.
posted by Gar @ 11:59 AM