So, the moral lesson of today’s strip? “A man who gives up dignity for security will end up having neither.”
Although the basic premise is sound – rather than having just a password, having a complex audio-visual signal markedly improves security. And of course the signal needs to be chosen carefully, so there is no risk passing ships could trigger the de-cloaking by coincidence. So it couldn’t be anything that might be involved in typical ship-to-ship communication, like waving and shouting “Ahoy, we’re dragging our anchor!” or waving and shouting “Ahoy, got any recent pr0n magazines on board?”.
And, yeah, that’s the reason the Island wasn’t visible on the postcard that was supposed to depict it: Aravanadi is protected by a cheap camera tric…uh, I mean, by and advanced, high-tech cloaking device. I mean, it can already be done with a small item with a lot of effort…so here they’re basically doing the same thing, just with a very big item, and without effort. So it’s not farfetched, it’s extrapolation…as in, it’s poled out of (latin: extra) the scriptwriter’s ass.
The island, of course, has a cliffside resembling a human skull…what the real estate agent called “a nice, original feature”, but made him filter his client addresses down to just those that had stated mad scientist or leader of a secret organization as profession. Niche appeal, and all that.
More on Thursday!