Throw the switch! Do it! Is Escher space named after M C Escher?

It is indeed, Steve. There's a little introduction to the concept in an interlude at the very beginning of Westward: http://westwardcomic.com/comic.php?itemid=22

Oh, it gets even more interesting. If Wes dumps that much raw power into the Escherspace Engine (yes, it's named after M.C. Escher), the Westward could end up anywhere in the galaxy. Of course, no one is in their protective tubes, so everyone's brains will be "escherfried".

We'll have a ship lost in space, with all the passengers and crew acting like stand-ins for "Night of the Living Dead".

That's why Marsha is so wary, James. These folks understand nuclear energy well enough, but Escherspace is a mystery to everyone but Phobos.

I remember now. I read every strip so you can forgive for forgetting a thing or two, can't you?

Yeah, yeah, no problem, uh...what was your name again?

"Jim. Your name is Jim." ;-D

I'll have to fess up to a narrative failure of some kind if your next quote isn't from "Spock's Brain," James. ;)

"Star Trek III: The Search for Spock". After dying from radiation poisoning, having successfully fixed the Enterprise's warp drive (not unlike the task Wes is about to undertake), Spock is launched in a torpedo to the newly created "Genesis planet" (as seen in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan). In "Search", Spock is regenerated by the Genesis wave and ages in rapid surges, along with the planet. Kirk and Co. kick some Klingon booty, and after the Enterprise is destroyed, steal the Klingon bird of prey, the get the now appropriately aged but mentally vacuous Spock to Vulcan, and get his "katra" (Spock's immortal soul, which he transfered into McCoy's brain right before entering the reactor chamber in "Wrath") put back inside Spock in an arcane Vulcan ritual.

Spock lives, but his memory is full of holes. The first person he recalls is Kirk in the now famous (and hopefully, now recalled) line, "Jim. Your name is Jim."

I once heard Nimoy talk about that scene at a Star Trek convention. As a gag, he wanted to walk down the line of the Star Trek cast after he recited the line to Shatner, and tell each one of them individually, "Jim. Your name is Jim."

I wish he had.

If I had to choose between dying in a nuclear blast or risk going insane in Escherspace, I'd pick the big explosion. Seems like a great way to go, even beating dying from old age and disease.

It's that sense of cheery optimism that makes me feel okay about how all this is going to end up, Gillsing. :)