Okay, time for Oak to take a sabbatical.

Return to Lynwood, Chapter 14

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7
Chapter 8 - Chapter 9 - Chapter 10 - Chapter 11 - Chapter 12 - Chapter 13 - Chapter 14

As Isengrim set Terra down, Pharazon spread out his arms to ward the others away, before stepping toward the staff. “Everybody stay back,” he said. “I don’t know what this thing’s capable of.”

Suhel’s ears were flat against her skull. “Pharazon, are you sure you know what you’re doing?” she asked. She hovered near the edge of the group, but a squeeze of her paw from Lexora seemed to keep the Werelupe from bolting.

“Either I take it,” Pharazon said, “or someone else does. I know what risk I like better.” He crouched down, stretched out a hand to the staff, took in a deep breath, and grabbed it.

 

 There are some questions science shouldn't try to answer.

 Life's been kind of crazy and stressful and weird, and I haven't had many opportunities to do more sketching at the Idaho Museum of Natural History, but today I managed to get over there to see my buddies from Hagerman Fossil Beds National Monument who were paying the museum a visit. They brought some fascinating Pliocene-era fossil casts, and I decided to try giving mammals another go because I don't feel good at drawing them.

Today the Borophagus skull stood out to me, so I decided to try a reconstruction. Borophagines, also known as bone-crushing dogs, are usually portrayed as pretty nasty critters, but their skulls were actually really cute. They had slightly upturned snouts that would have given them shorter-looking muzzles than most modern canids, almost like something trying to be a bulldog. It was fun to portray one looking not ferocious for once.

 I'd been wanting to make this graphic for a long time, and I finally was able to get around to it during a rare lull in scientists throwing ideas at me. :)

I know there's a lot of controversy surrounding the whole Pluto "demotion" thing, and I personally don't feel like the IAU's case was watertight*, but in the grand scheme of things, we should really stop and ask ourselves: is it a big deal? Dwarf planets are still amazingly incredible places no matter what humans decide to call them. So what if the IAU categorizes things into tidy little boxes with emotionally weighted labels? That doesn't prevent us from studying them, exploring them, and loving them.

So I made this graphic to encourage people to stop thinking of dwarf planets as somehow inferior to major planets. Dwarf planets are wonderful in their own special way. I think we'd all be better off spending less energy being angry about something inconsequential, and more energy finding ways to enjoy life.

My friend Chris Lintott is going to give a lecture on this very subject in a few weeks, so stop by (or watch the YouTube recording later) for what I'm sure will be a very elucidating take on the subject. Chris is a fantastic example of a well-grounded astronomer, which is a great oxymoron to be.

*Among other issues with the current definition of the term "planet", I'm not convinced by the argument that we need to keep the number of "real" planets in the solar system low so they're easy to memorize. Students are required to memorize much larger sets of data in most curricula--think about how many characters Chinese and Japanese students have to memorize just to be considered basically literate in their languages. US students have to memorize all 50 states and (theoretically) all the capitals. And who could ever forget those long hours spent with multiplication or periodic table flashcards?

Plus, just because a large set of something exists, doesn't necessarily mean you need to memorize all of the items in the set. When I was in school, part of the curriculum was learning the counties of California. California has 58 counties. We were not required to fully memorize all of them, but we were expected to remember at least 5. (I feel bad for students in Texas, which has 254 counties. Yeah.)

If I were designing an introductory astronomy curriculum, I'd require my students to memorize all the major solar system planets in order as well as their largest moons, and a handful of the more notable dwarf planets. Anything more than that would be unnecessary, but I would encourage them to keep learning about the solar system on their own time.

I'm not fond of taking actions that dumb down education. The human brain is capable of so much. Learning should be about stretching and enlarging your brain's capabilities, not checking off boxes.

 Seeing as Oak is also the one who does the introduction speech in Gen II, I had a lot of fun twisting his in-game dialogue to fit the character I established for him in these comics. 

Some of it may be slightly paraphrased. :)

 Seems like a very supportive relationship indeed.