Editing 1684: Rainbow

{{comic
| number    = 1684
| date      = May 23, 2016
| title     = Rainbow
| image     = rainbow.png
| titletext = Listen, in a few thousand years you'll invent a game called 'SimCity' which has a 'disaster' button, and then you'll understand.
}}

==Explanation==
In this comic, the patriarch {{w|Noah}} from the {{w|Abrahamic religions}}, represented by [[Cueball]], talks to {{w|God}} after {{w|Genesis flood narrative|the biblical flood}}. He asks what the coloured band across the sky is, and God tells him it is a {{w|rainbow}}. According to the Book of Genesis, God placed a {{w|Rainbows in mythology|rainbow}} in the sky, giving it significance for the first time, as a promise to humanity that he would never again make a flood to cleanse the world of sin ([https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=genesis%209:2-9:17&version=KJV Genesis 9:2–17]).  A {{w|rainbow}} is an {{w|optical phenomena|optical phenomenon}} caused by reflection, refraction and dispersion of light in water droplets resulting in a {{w|spectrum}} of light appearing in the sky, one of many light phenomena caused by sunlight and precipitation.

Then Noah notices a {{w|Rainbow#Variations|double rainbow}} outside the original ''promise rainbow''. Secondary rainbows are caused by double reflection of sunlight inside the raindrops. When asked about this God seems to falter, but recovers and claims he made it to show that he will never again set the Earth on fire, an event which apparently happened long ago and for which God apologizes. This may refer to the early Earth being a liquid ball of molten rock (the {{w|Hadean|Hadean period}}), or later global fire catastrophes caused by asteroid impacts and volcanic eruptions. That God promises to never again burn the earth goes against the idea of {{w|Armageddon}} where everything will be destroyed in fire etc. The creation account in Genesis also says nothing about fire, and those who believe in six-day creation (a group that mostly overlaps with those who believe in the Flood) generally do not believe that the Hadean period actually happened, so most people who believe in the original Biblical account actually believe that the *only* time the Earth has been or will be destroyed by fire is after this event.

Noah begins to notice some other optical phenomena as he next spots a bow near the sun. God promptly claims 'that' bow is a promise to never again make {{w|raccoons}} {{w|Immortality|immortal}} as it destroyed the Earth's {{w|ecosystem}}. Although today these animals can be a pest, see [[1565: Back Seat]], they are luckily not immortal.{{Citation needed}} [[Randall]] is likely referring to an unkillable form of immortality rather than {{w|biological immortality}}, as, while that would likely cause some issues, the raccoons could still fall prey to predation and disease. Should raccoons have been rendered unkillable by predation or disease as well as by {{w|Senescence|aging}}, then the combination of an average gestational period of 65 days, a litter size of 2-5 individuals and an omnivorous appetite makes for a creature that could easily dominate any and all ecological niches.

If Noah can see it with his naked eyes it is most likely that the "third bow" is a {{w|Halo (optical phenomenon)|halo}}. Halos can appear in the direction of the Sun (as is the case with the bow here, and opposed to the two rainbows mentioned above) or the Moon. A typical person is most likely to notice the {{w|22° halo|circular 22° halo}}, which is a halo forming a circle with a radius of approximately 22° around the Sun, or occasionally the Moon.

It could also be that Noah has spotted a tertiary rainbow or even a higher order rainbow which are very faint rainbows circling the sun. These bows are discussed in the ''what If?'' released the same day. But they are very faint rainbows circling the sun and usually obscured by its glare, and only recently have they been photographed. Knowing Randall the joke could be inspired by this not well known fact (there are at least 5 observable orders of rainbow), and each could potentially represent a promise from God regarding a disaster.

Noah continues by noticing two {{w|sun dogs}} (or parhelia) which often co-occur with the 22° halo. These consist of a pair of bright spots either side on the Sun, intersected by the halo, thus making it most obvious that the third bow was indeed a halo, not a hard to see rainbow.

God gets tired of this and tries to stop Noah by saying that he has said sorry, and asks him to drop the subject. That is probably sensible because there are 23 different {{w|Optical_phenomena#Atmospheric_optical_phenomena|atmospheric optical phenomena}} listed on Wikipedia alone. Following the logic of the comic and the evasive answer of God, it could mean that there are some more skeletons in the closet.

The title text is a continuation where God tells Noah that in the future humanity will invent a game called {{w|SimCity}}. This is a strategy computer game in which the player creates and manages an environment wherein ''sims'' autonomously build a city (or in later versions a country, or a planet). The sims are simple AI processes that "build" residential, commercial and industrial structures within the game space, according to the topography and zoning choices made by the player, then use them to create more wealth to expand their city. The sims have to contend with traffic jams, social problems, ecological impacts of their own activity and occasional natural disasters ranging from earthquakes to Godzilla.

The player has God-like control of the world, including a [http://www.ign.com/wikis/simcity/Disasters disaster button], for when the player doesn't want to wait for a disaster to happen by chance. God suggests that it is too tempting to push the disaster button once a civilization has been built up, if just to see what happens. This can also be interpreted as a reference to the {{w|Simulation Hypothesis}}, which states that there's a high likelihood of us living in a simulated universe, with a fallible "God" who's simulating our Universe purely for his own entertainment/educational purposes.

Overall the comic pokes fun at the idea of explaining natural phenomena as messages from a deity.

==Transcript==
:[Cueball looks up on a rainbow band going through the top right corner of the panel. A black blob in the bottom of the panel right of Cueball with white text inside shows the reply from God to the questions. The blobs continue through the rest of the comic.]
:Cueball: Wow, God- What's that band of color?
:God: A ''rainbow''.
:God: It is a sign of my promise that I will never again flood the Earth.

:[A frameless panel.]
:Cueball: Oh, good! Hey, what about that second bow above the first one?
:God: Oh, uh, sign of my promise not to set the earth on fire.
:God: Sorry for doing that a while back.

:[Cueball points left.]
:Cueball: What about that third faint bow near the sun?
:God: My promise to never again destroy Earth's ecosystem by making raccoons immortal.

:[Cueball points even higher up towards left.]
:Cueball: And the little rainbow clouds on either side of-
:God: Look, I ''said'' I'm sorry. Can we just drop it?

==Trivia==
*This comic about {{w|rainbows}} coincided with the first release of a ''[[what if? (blog)|what if?]]'' article in almost two months. It was called ''{{what if|150|Tatooine Rainbow}}'' about rainbows if Earth had two suns like the fictive planet {{w|Tatooine}} from Star Wars.

{{comic discussion}}
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