Editing 1246: Pale Blue Dot

{{comic
| number    = 1246
| date      = August 2, 2013
| title     = Pale Blue Dot
| image     = pale_blue_dot.png
| titletext = Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity, in all this vastness, there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves. There is no road out of this oblivion; we must embrace it. We must join with the darkness. Ba'al the Annihilator offers us no happiness, no answers, naught but the cold embrace of the void. To imagine any other end is delusion. We must give in to the will of Ba'al, for he will one day consume us and our world alike. I therefore call on Congress to fully fund space exploration, and to join with Ba'al, the Eater of Souls. Thank you.
}}
==Explanation==
[[File:Pale Blue Dot.png|thumb|right|Earth is the "pale blue dot" halfway up the rightmost color band.]]
The {{w|Pale Blue Dot}} is a picture of the Earth taken in the year 1990 by the {{w|Voyager 1}} space probe at a distance about 6 billion kilometers (3.7 billion miles). It was part of the {{w|Family Portrait (Voyager)|Family Portrait}}, a series of images of the entire {{w|Solar System}} from beyond it.

The picture was taken at the request of {{w|Carl Sagan}}, a well known space scientist at that time. In 1994 Sagan wrote the book "{{w|Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space}}" inspired by this picture. In the book, Sagan waxed eloquent about the picture in a widely quoted passage. The complete passage can be found in [http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Carl_Sagan#Pale_Blue_Dot:_A_Vision_of_the_Human_Future_in_Space_.281994.29 Wikiquote], and you can hear Carl Sagan himself reciting it in [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wupToqz1e2g this YouTube video].

[[Cueball]] quotes from a condensed version of this passage until he is interrupted by several {{w|heckler}}s who begin  an argument over which speck in the picture is actually the Earth. Then, when Cueball cries out in exasperation that it doesn't matter, one heckler takes it the wrong way and points out that he just said that the picture doesn't matter. This pokes fun at the fact that the Pale Blue Dot picture has very little to no visual attractiveness, apart from the intellectual interest relying on the viewer's knowledge that the central speck is actually our home planet, Earth, seen from a very great distance.

Another Heckler says that the photo is a "lens cap". This is a reference to the missions where the lens cap was not removed and the resulting photos were black.

The first two sentences of the title text are also a quotation from Sagan's paean to the Pale Blue Dot picture, but then the text veers humorously into non-scientific mysticism that starkly contrasts with the attitude and intent of the original work.

The title text evokes {{w|Cosmicism}}, a philosophy developed and exemplified by the fictional {{w|Cthulhu Mythos}}. This Mythos is expounded in fantasy/horror works of H.P. Lovecraft and, later, August Derleth, and features a cosmology in which humanity is depicted as inconsequential within a greater existence that is unknowable and frightening. Cosmicism asserts that humanity is doomed to death and destruction through the workings of vastly more powerful supernatural forces way beyond our understanding. There are many instances in the fiction of H.P. Lovecraft of factions that embrace the destruction of humanity and actively work towards bringing about that end through the invocation of the unknowable and powerful forces that supporters of Cosmicism believe surround everything.

The text also references {{w|Ba'al}}, originally a Semitic deity that has been since associated with demonic or otherwise evil forces. The name Ba'al, and other variants of the same, has been included in many other fictional works often as a villain or antagonist – for example, the fictional System Lord {{w|Ba'al (Stargate)#Ba.27al|Ba'al}} from the television show {{w|Stargate}}. The title text supplants all of the supernatural forces associated with Cosmicism in the works of other authors with Ba'al. Cueball, who continues his discourse in the title text, may be acting as a Cosmicist and is calling on a Congress, to which he is speaking, to fund the space exploration program as a means to join with Ba'al, the Eater of Souls. The fact that a Ba'al cultist would be speaking in front of a government body in such a manner is absurd{{Citation needed}} and thus hilarious.

Ba'al, the Eater of Souls (sometimes as Ba'al the soul eater) has been mentioned later in [[1419: On the Phone]] and [[1638: Backslashes]].

The actual Carl Sagan (or perhaps a hapless namesake) was later seen reciting the words in [[2906: Earth]]. In that case he seems to be mostly uninterrupted, though his audience may have just run out of objections and recriminations by the time he resorts to the rhetorical flourish.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball stands in front of a pull-down projection screen, upon which is displayed a large gray picture of the ''Pale Blue Dot''. (There is no evidence that there is any blue in this comic). He holds up a stick with one hand towards it. He is interrupted by several hecklers from off-panel.]
:Cueball: Consider this Pale Blue Dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. Everyone you love, every human being who ever was, every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived out their lives on this mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam. All our-
:Heckler 1 (off panel): I think that's a stuck pixel. We're the speck on the left.
:Cueball: ...Ok, '''''this''''' Pale Blue Dot is everything you-
:Heckler 2 (off panel): No, you were right before. ''That'' one is earth.
:Cueball: '''''Look, it doesn't matter!'''''
:Heckler 3 (off panel): I ''knew'' it!
:Heckler 4 (off panel): I think this is just a lens cap picture.

==Trivia==
*At the time when this comic was published NASA did reveal two other pictures, showing our home planet from a long distance, [http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/whycassini/cassini20130722.html Saturn] and [http://messenger.jhuapl.edu/gallery/sciencePhotos/image.php?image_id=1228 Mercury] probes did picture the Earth at the same time. Earth appears as a tiny dot in these images as well as a result of the vast distance between Earth and the probes.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Philosophy]]
[[Category:Science]]
[[Category:Astronomy]]
[[Category:Space probes]]