Endtown by Aaron Neathery for August 13, 2014

Lunch!Sarah, meet your new production floor co-workers.Please don’t mind the locking of the door behind you.

They are the egg men.

Women, then. Okay.

I have a feeling we’re about to get Lizard Sex Ed 101…

So, there is a nursery after all, the lizards have their own “Lebensborn program”. Perhaps the source of the eggs they eat are unfertilized eggs from this nursery.Piotr is right, they do have an ace in the hole, The reptillians may be born the same way in the wild. Nearly fully mature and with instincts intact.Just one problem, that pesky thing called intellect. It may be a hindrance if the young ones start questioning the wisdom of their elders like so many generations before us.Instead of blindly following and taking orders form the elite.Perhaps they have an (almost) foolproof method of indoctrination.The only monkey wrench is self awareness and free will, we may see some unrest eventually. Maybe Chick was just a random mutation after all.More may be revealed, once we see the scale of their efforts.

Lay, Baby, Lay, by JennerTo the tune of Cry, Baby, Cry by Lennon and McCartney Lay, baby, layLive another day.You know we’ve got to eat somethingThe king of Underbelly gave a welcome to the new arriving queen,Who turned up unannounced with her three pets, a cat, a mouse and a raccoon.Lay, baby, layLive another day.You know we’ve got to eat somethingSo lay, baby, lay.The cook was in the kitchen, making breakfast for the queen who came to stay.The queen was in the nursery, telling no-one of her plan to run away.Lay, baby, layLive another day.You know we’ve got to eat somethingSo lay, baby, lay.The cat was in the corner, sitting waiting for the cook to off his headFor stopping him from punishing the little boy and thrashing him instead.Lay, baby, layLive another day.You know we’ve got to eat somethingSo lay, baby, lay.The tutor told the queen that ev’rybody there was sad and hungry too.He hoped that she would stay because a woman has to do what she can doLay, baby, layLive another day.You know we’ve got to eat somethingSo lay, baby, lay.etc.

Could it be that in the same way that people can mutate into something of greater or lesser mass, against the laws of physics, and mutants can heal rapidly, against the laws of biology, maybe egg-laying mutants can produce more biomass than they consume? That starving female lizards can still grow enough eggs to feed themselves and others, in some magical way? Endtown is a deadly serious story that adheres to The Law of Funny.

Y’know, we don’t know that the eggs in question are lizard eggs…they could have a bunch of captive mutant chickens laying them. (Or any other bird.)

Piotr hasn’t been comfortable explaining just about anything, for that matter. (It’s why I figured he wanted to escape).From what I can tell, he had only one bright spot to show Sarah, and it blew up right as he walked in the door. And the stuff he showed her before, well, if Fearless Leader knew he was going to show that, why didn’t he pick someone other than Piotr to show it..Piotr’s comments today have shaken my belief in his character. I had thought he was an independent thinker and, given the chance, he wanted to leave, as well..But I guess he really has bought into this “unified identity” and “species war” stuff..The only mystery now: Why has Sarah stuck around with him this long?

This may not be a food source…..think nursery…..which is why Piotr is pitching Lizardtown to Sarah.To win the “Species War” you have to have numbers especially when all you have are “wooden” swords as Piotr said.

Yeaaaah, I knew the subject of the eggs were going to come up sooner or later…

I suggested earlier that the lizards might be culling non-lizard eggs to make sure only lizards hatched. Maybe they’re using culled eggs for food. Chic may have been from an egg intended to be food but because he was the leader’s son, the egg was allowed to develop and hatch, causing some political awkwardness.

ok, they basically screwed themselves over for a war that may never come. They exterminated all non reptilians Nazi style, then proceeded to rob anyone who passes by their colony, but they are too weak or cowardly to actually GO out and scavenge or rob other colonies, which is particularly bad for them since their colony is nowhere near self sufficient (Endtown is at least on the path to self-sufficiency, assuming they don’t destroy themselves with civil war.) Though now that I think of it, this reptile colony is basically showing the extreme consequences of Mr. Bunny’s “identify as your animal type” politics, one of Endtown’s potential futures.

And now the reason the REALLY want her. Also, I hope she can leave after the tour.

Hmm well if its a food supply, very shortly the female lizards are going to have some Serious health issues. I raise chickens, if you don’t feed them enough calcium, protein and other nutrients very shortly you get hens who lay ‘rubber’ (shell-less) eggs. Then shortly after that you get hens with serious bone loss, egg binding, disease, then dead hens. While you can indeed feed your hens eggs (they love scrambled eggs btw) you absolutely can’t make a solid diet out of it, they’d die of malnutrition rather quickly since they also need the calcium, protein and etc to support their own bodies as well.

Mr Sherman,The question is whether the rules of science that we are accustomed to apply in the “Endtown” reality. As Jenner noted, the mutation process can radically change the size and shape of the characters. Most mutants wound up being much smaller than their former “human” selves. Then there are some like Maude the “quarter ton cow” and Gustine, the 700 pound rhino who are much larger. The closest analogy I can think of in our world is the caterpillar to Butterfly transformation and that doesn’t even take place in a day, let alone an hour. In our world, any animal that produces food products (like a cow or a chicken) is required to consume enough extra nutrients to cover the extra output. Given that the “Endtown” reality breaks the other rules we are familiar with we shouldn’t be surprised if egg laying lizard females are able to provide enough sustenance to feed themselves and the rest of their colony.

For the record…goo goo gajoob.

I don’t think the mutations are breaking the laws of physics. It’s more likely there are laws we don’t know about, or applications of the laws we do know about that never occur to us. It’s like stage magic. It looks like real magic until we know how the trick is done, and then we smack our heads and say, “Of course!”We already know matter and energy have been passing between this universe and others. Size and mass differences can be explained by interdimensional transfer, but it could be something else, too.

I suspect that aliens from “outer space” may be a slide into a different dimention. This will be very interesting about reptile sex. I have no idea who does what with what.

@Wabbit – depends on the species, I think. Among birds, some species are well-hung (mostly water birds, which is why Leda does it with a swan and not an eagle) and some just press cloacas together. Among reptiles, many (most?) are double-hung (insert window joke here) – one hemipene for each testicle.