#6 Time Wars
The Book Cage: Episode 114 - Time Wars #6: The Khyber Connection
Once again it's Simon Hawke O'Clock. The tolling of the bell means we are at the halfway point of all the time Wars. And this is where things go truly off the rails and into other dimensions. Find out more, this Friday 5pm eastern.
Say what you will about Hawke's content but his covers always kick ass.
FUCK YEAH HAWKE O'CLOCK!
Lol I like that blurb on the back.
Little under an hour until Time Wars #6: The Khyber Connection. Here is your preview
"Wait, so we already failed?"
Our heroes, preserving the occupation of the British Raj
The city of Bombay will never financially recover from this
Sorry it took so long to get back, I just got up. It was one of my existing PDFs, some comic or other. After Book Cage ill hit you up if you like and see what I can do to help.
I can't remember, what happened in the last Time Wars book cage
ohhh yeah it was the Jules Verne one where Jules Verne didn't end up doing much
He went to the future and was very impressed with Doritos Locos Tacos Quantum Guac flavor.
He was an unstoppable fuck machine
The last half of the book was mostly Evil Admin and dealing with a dickhead who owned a slave colony?
He had an evil island where he was going to launch nukes throughout time
IT BEGINS!
TIME WARS
Hi Shark!
And so we start and begin again
Time to get connected
Hi, @Velo Martingale ! Hi, @Flippant Sausage, rebunned ! Hi, @gellaho ! Hi, @Tom Owns Diebel's Grave !
Like the Hawke in his widening gyre
Hi, @Brendan!™ !
Too late, Shark, I already registered the snub.
Dang. I need to snub faster
Brendan gets his own greeting, doesnt care. More like Brendan McUngrateful.
lets do this
(Quietly: Gottem.)
Based on the poem Gunga Din, with which I'm sure you are all familiar
is that lawrence of arobo-ia?
Gungan Dinner?
Never heard of it.
Gunga din these nuts
Gunga Din was the bartender in Mos Eisley, right?
Seems like a fun vacay
I thought "Hindu Kush" was a kind of weed, TIL.
#teamshamal
Big fan of the Mongol hordes of Tamerlane
Shalt the king thanke ye crowne for upon his brouwe most weary resting its weight?
Yes
I have three ideas for which part of time fiction they're about to fuck up and they're all real bad
I'm not saying we should behead Brendan. But that IS what kings are for.
"But enough of that. Let's go to Portland"
Anyway, Tommy here is hiding in a hole
We're about to Man Who Would Be King this
<snrk> The damned didn't scream in the final circle. They were all frozen. DUH
Fun jezail fact, they can fire just about anything that fits in the barrel, so Afghans would shoot nails and pebbles at the British. Second fun fact, they outranged the British weapons by quite a bit.
Tommy longs for the mustard gas of his past
Tommy was starting to suspect his CO didn't like him very much
Lol Bataan Death March survivor longs to escape Afghanistan.
Tommy was starting to wonder if he was the problem
He is accosted by a brownface doppelganger
"Dude. Not cool."
Ill be honest, Afghanistan seems nice. I dont know if its nice enough I'd invade it, but it doesnt seem that bad. Certainly no Bataan Death March.
Then they kill each other
Lieutenant Barclay, we need to have another discussion about appropriate holodeck programs
"Enemy Me" wasn't as catchy as "Enemy Mine"
Makes sense, I kill all my dopplegangers too
Oh thank GOD they're Army, the Time Marines would just start eating all of history's best crayons.
Fast-forward 800 years
Oh yeah, Colonel Cant Stab His Evil Son Properly.
Did he not burn to death?
Has anyone ever died in these books
That was the other guy. Half-immolated but still fine
I think they usually introduce side characters to fill out the death roster
Vargas would later tragically blow away with the next stiff breeze
In Baldur's Gate 3, Vargas can respec you for 100 gold
Fortunately he had a cord tied to his ankle for just such an occurence.
Now he represents America in the Time wars as the superhero The Fighting Kite.
He hits the "T" in "kite" very hard whenever he pronounces it
"It's the 80s, sir, this is how all teams are formed"
"I thought all terrible soldiers were kept in a single unit"
Future historian\brainweb funny interlocuter Seamuschild will refer to The Fighting Kite as "The most racist comic since The Final Trump: Apocalyptic Revelations of the God King."
Look at the demotion glass half full
"Have you heard the term 'loose cannon'?"
Delaney is trying to collect every medal
Loose jezail
He's the best Time Cop on the force. You may not like his methods, Vargs, but DAMN IT he gets results!
"And, trust me, he is a grade A cock"
"I mean we kind of do owe him one for recruiting Andre, who is actually competent."
Oh he actually did the " DAMN IT he gets results!" bit. Fantastic
"Yes, the chips do go down rather frequently when he's involved, but I don't see a connection"
"Ive told you before, your fucking prehistoric bird metaphors suck, chickens went extinct in the Sandwich Wars of 2030."
"Sir, if I speak very inappropriately: aaaoooogaaah"
"Hands where I can see them, Forrester"
"Yeah she is a real sexy........oh wait you meant her qualities as a soldier, right."
"I swear this is relevant, I'm attracted to her BECAUSE she's an integral part of the unit."
"I want to fuck the team."
The insignias were frequently vandalized by lowering the lemniscate
"these highly decorated military veterans get me so fuckin hard."
Black uniform with black armband, very not sinister and extremely trustworthy.
By stuffing his pants, I assume
Pleated pants always do that
Pants or butt, something is stuffed.
Potentially both! Such is the luxury of The Future!
he also finds military competency very arousing
Finn makes the ✅ Redhead really easy
oh you bad boy, iron that shirt
I'm conflicted. On the one hand, he's a guy. On the other hand, he's a redhead in an unbuttoned blouse.
I'm going to skip the history lesson that follows
His UNIFORM blouse.
"Physique and posture of a bear"
Also NOOOOOOO! How will we understand the story if we dont go into minute detail about the activities of the British Raj?!
Oh shit
It's a very complicated message
OF COURSE IT'S A RED HAIRED IRISHMAN THEY DON'T MAKE ANY OTHER COLORS
Hi, @Eerie Queen Mordred 👑 !
The black Irish are a myth
So are we talking clones or time clones?
They of course, did not notice this dead guy LOOKED EXACTLY LIKE THE OTHER DEAD GUY and do a DNA analysis based on that.
No, they had to decipher a dead guy pointing.
Certainly impossible in this world of time travel, mind manipulation, and perfect plastic surgery
I'm not telling
so in the autopsies of their enemies, their equipment is only capable of detecting their OWN implants?
It's the only way to avoid a Time Copping
You fool, it's clearly Kipling in disguise
Until proven otherwise, I will assume Time Cop rules and act accordingly
dangit, scooped
it's a very human-centric concept of time to assume that paradoxes can be sorted just because the person is dead
Considering the scoop was above the text, that is impressive
like he was still killed by himself from a different time
that's still a paradox even if his meat is going sour
A time split would be quite the pickle
Literally the darkest timeline
Hell yeah, time to contemplate the ethics of time genocide!
More importantly, did the other guy have a goatee? Are we dealing with a mirror universe/parallel time or a divergent timeline that is looping back on itself?
The Time Wars are now interdimensional
Fuck yes. Mirror Universe!
Sweet.
That is a lot of proper nouns
They call themselves horse breeders, but that's a misnomer. Do not let them near your horse.
Seems like a party town
Last paragraph could be read as implying that Mongolians have hooves and thinking of like The Hu as a centaur band made me very happy.
Sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll
Or that there's a paradox because the same entity comes back years later in their personal time. Seven years, cell replacement blah blah
I'm going to keep reading that word as Ferengi
$5 says that's where it came from
Alright, Simon, put down the encyclopedia
Zar, zan, and zamin -- nobody rides second hump for free.
wait which word is like ferengi?
This does read like someone sarcastically replying to a criticism about how military shooter games ignore and trivialize foreign cultures
oh yeah
Ah, the good old Martini-Henry.
Great way to get drunk
Making a gun that only fires olives was probably the main reason the British lost the Afghan War.
Oh, right, the characters
Finn's a Bengals fan, confirmed
Well, that's weird
Who doesn't love public buttchugging?
I have no joke that can compare to "He was taking in the water of the puddle through his anus"
oh, bear grylls did that once
I guess that's one way to get around drinking filthy water
your ass can absorb thewater without getting sick
Time to meet three British stereotypes
Oi!
Plays merry hell with your gut flora tho, you wont poop right for weeks after that.
Blimey!
Cor!
Ello Guvna! We're in afghanistan we is!
It's the past now, innit?
So, the second guy is every religious comparison and the third guy is every animal
oi luv, make us a cuppa, wouldjya? I'm gasping
I say, let's jolly well discuss this uncouth man and his anal imbibings
Time for Finn to be telling some porkies.
I think I made a bull with ape arms in Spore
This can't be blamed on Simon because they're from the poem, but Jesus, these character names
Learoyd
Learoyd
Ortheris was the Egyptian god of the sun
try rhyming learoyd with anything
lol fuck you Kipling. Who the fuck is named Ortheris in Britain?
Metroid?
Its probably Welsh and pronounced "Daryl."
Well this here's my mate, Ortheris, he's a bitta hell raiser an all that but he's a good chap deep down. This here's Mulvaney, 'e's oirish an can't be trusted. And me I'm Learoyd, cockney guttersnype but secretly the physical embodyment of an anthropomorphic lion with a crown and scepter.
I guess Andre was able to see Over the Top whilst in the future
Fuck him up, Andre.
She immediately beats him and goes for a second, while one of them literally spits his tea
Fucking gold, Simon
JINKIES
Learoyd semicolons
She beats him best of three and fucks his girlfriend.
Learoy grunted; Learoy strained
Takes his pay and buys whatever the Afghan equivalent of a hotdog is with it.
She is beaten by the minotaur, but his strength is from the gods, so it is to be expected
Let's pool our money and buy this man some consonants
Awww hes even concerned he hasnt damaged her with his freakish strength, hes a good beast man.
E don't need no consnans, E needs 'it o the fisherman's daughter an a ride on the clever mike to clear his 'ead
Andre continues to tell them to fuck off
hahaha
oi luv, you tellin me them wimmenfolk is hyuuuman???
Andre continuing to show she has the biggest balls
Kipling seems like a great writer, but I wonder what else he wrote
Oops
Sir Blood, indeed
Sir Blood was deemed "too obvious" a vampire alias
I think you could go more stereotypical, Simon. Where's the marmite?
That nickname plays hell with the rosters
MEANWHILE: Captain Blood is sweaty and erect
General Sir "Captain" Bindon Blood. Get it right, book, you made us read it
How many of these british soldiers are orphan pickpockets?
Brigadier-General Sir Captain Bindon Blood
He starts talking about historical shit
And apparently there were more than one Night of Long Knives
depends on how many took the king's shilling by mistake
Nevermind that. What about the Night of Swiss Army Knives?
Lance-Corporal Major Eugenius Stiffersquire
Admiral-Leftenant Duke Cardinal Finnius Hiltenshire
Now, when you see Simon raring up to repeat some Kipling songs, how much do you expect?
7
Major Digbert Aethelwulf Wharter Prescott XXIV
Ok. I think I've caught up. Some time cops are going back in time to the middle-east to do extra colonialism (didn't do enough first time around) and also destroy clones. Yes?
I expect the entire thing
Hi, @Vooster's Holiday Vacation !
I think so
I hope your answer was three pages
Starting inexplicably with 'If' set to the tune of 'What Do You Do With A Drunken Sailor'
Yep! They're trying to make sure history happens as it did and evil versions of themselves may appear
we also clarified that Andre is stronger than some men but not others
Don't actually read that, FYI. Just live in it
Hahahahha Simon Hawke doing a Tolkien but with songs he didnt write. Nice.
Common Hawke W.
Of the Blarthering Dale Prescotts?
I was at Oxknellton with him!
I can't help but notice the evil version had surgical blackface
ew they rhymed "fall behind" with "trouble in the wind"
savages
This book is on thin ice
No, the other branch, the Cockenton-on-Stratford Prescotts.
Sometimes Hawke really impresses with his ability to get editors to accept shit for a wordcount
Sudden Onset Tolkein Transcripting Syndrome can strike when you least expect it.
Ah, a shame what end their line came to. Hashashins abound.
Anyway, here's Gunga Din
Read that last sentence in Jar Jar voice
scooped me
Shame Digbert had his brains scrambled by that nail, who could possibly have known jezails outrange the Martini-Henry by 300 yards?!
Hell yeah
And now I must leave as mysteriously as I came
I can't imagine George Lucas stealing ideas
Hi, @sexdick jakesy ! Bye, @sexdick jakesy !
I will be around for like 20 minutes and then I have social life somehow
Anyway, he's an untouchable
Lame
Untouchables are part of the caste system, Simon. They're the bottom rung, but they're part of it.
Lol I was just typing that
This poem seems fun
I'm blaming Kipling for everything
Gunga Din speaks english in the same sense people from Cornwall do.
"His real name is Ron, but we call him Gunga Din because he's an unpaid intern and they're barely people"
Everyone knows you are solely responsible for dressing and equipping your party
What you want is a stout .303 long-bore muzzle eggscrambler wot wot! I slew 15 elefaunts with mine before the baby eleofayuntes had a chance to turn round, wot
Skipping over five pages of proper nouns
When do we get to talking about 28 inch Arabic pythons
Need to hear about some lats before we get in too deep
more to the point he speaks english THE SAME WAY GUNGANS DO
When does the plot start?
In comes Winston Churchill like the Kool-aid man
"I'm not a fat cigar smoking alco yet so I had to say my name"
Winston was never young. I refuse to believe this.
I missed the part where Blood's first name is Bindon
He was! And frequently naked!
Oh shit everyone run
He always looked like a geriatric bulldog tho.