Latest blog post: Redraw of chapter 1 is happening (2024-05-11)
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Comments (6)
To my mind, this is a strange decision and a bizarre punishment. You have someone who demonstrated they are willing to report false information and did it to purposefully manipulate his superiors.
So why exile him to a developing civilization whom you have shaky diplomatic relations with already? Either he will be working for the Alliance as some consultant anyway (which, again, why would you want to have someone who will falsify reports), or you expect to allow him to work and live on Earth which can only complicate the diplomatic situation?
To me, this decision reeks of favoritism. The punishment from being exiled from his own civilization (and to a lesser extent, species) is hideously extreme. Yet the punishment still is done in a way that allows him to fulfill his dream of studying a new species. This is a terrible decision, especially because he is no longer accountable by the Alliance or his species even. It also sets up a situation where he will be a potentially hostile agent that has no motivation to maintain loyalty to the Alliance. It would have been better to remove him from the fleet command, but allow a contract with the Alliance diplomats as a consultant who can be sent home if he misbehaves or causes problems.
From what I know of this character, I don't know if he sees this entirely as a punishment...
Hmm, is Gharr completely at fault here? This seems... Rushed. Unless there's more information that we're not privy to.
Yes. That's something we'll find out later. This is too cut and dried. There's a secret behind this.
He completely lied in his report to Zane that Earth was so primitive it had almost no chance of detecting the Raharr and admitted he completely lied about it so he would get approval to visit Earth. Zane himself said that only he and Gharr read the report.
Gharr then went on to pick their landing destination and the shuttle crew followed the directive to land there with no knowledge they could face radar and anti-air ordinance capable of hitting them.
Zane is his superior and seems to have had a hand in getting him the position on the expedition, so its possible there will be significant repercussions for Zane himself when he returns to Alliance space and must answer for the actions of his subordinate which killed 5 Raharr soldiers/crew, his decision to break protocols and contact Earth together with his unique punishment of exiling Gharr.
....... say, would the way the first shuttle "landed" count, or could our experienced missile-attractor ... ?
I think it counts from the moment Gharr gets a 3-toed boot under the tail out the hatch, planet-side somewhere....
Will the Earth/U.N. be informed about this? Will Gharr need a refugee status?
And are those Hekaht & Nea on the right there?
Ouch...until now I had thought there would have been something (3 stooges?) that would have changed Zane´s mind but this seems final and a lot more sinister than the fairy tale in my head. This has a Klingon courtroom vibe to it...I was starting to look for a sparking sphere
And to Job , I believe a global spanning "Gharr´s Pizza Emporium" franchise chain is coming up !! He is going to be quadruple eyeball deep in money. Amongst other things...
To give an more serious input : Maybe Zane cannot afford to look weak or handing out favoritism. We have no idea what is going in the shadows as Real-politic between the different species and agencies in the fleet. I would think the amount of intrigue is gigantic.
But Gharr even in exile will lack nothing , everything he knows, says or will have been taught over the years will be utterly priceless and irreplaceable .
Any think-tank or University will shower him with consultation-jobs or professorship with unlimited funding and eternal tenure!
I still expect many more twists plot-wise.
The Alliance "Shining" (164 & 166) might still have a word to say about this, there might still be hope that Zane will be convinced to change his mind.
Yes, they will, though I dunno about a refugee status, Gharr isn't exactly fleeing...
No, they're generic raharrs.
I was also thinking, exotic animal import permit? As Gharr is not legally recognized as a "human" under most laws on Earth.
Exiled persons without a passport are classed as refugees I think. Not sure tho.
Per our legalese, a government cannot refuse taking one of their citizens back from another nation that insists on getting rid of them short of terminating their citizenship. Since to our knowledge, Gharr has no other citizenship, that would make him a stateless person, a result heavily frowned upon (towards the offending government) on our world.
Of course, with the knowledge he's carrying around in his noggin, he'd likely get deluged with offers of terran citizenships, so it's dubitable he'd qualify as stateless for long ...
It would be very, very foolish of any Earth nation at this point to not apply legal personhood to all Alliance member species, and of Zane to not see to it that they do.
I note that Gharr is back aboard the fleet right now. Dropping him into some woods planetside to avoid Terran authorities noticing his unlimited return seems ... gauche. I'd expect Zane to take him along for another meeting (likely with the UN from here on out, considering his last exchange with the PoPe¹) and go "oh, by the way, we're leaving him here" when he needs a distraction / "food" fight.
¹ President of Protagonistan, esteemed
Still no mention of him being given any kind of task during however long he might be the only (ex-)citizen of the Alliance on Earth ...
... not that the previous page's last panel wouldn't very likely be what his stay here will look like ...
With his "licenses and accreditations revoked," Gharr is becoming stateless and unemployed. I can't imagine either condition lasting for long on Earth, but he's probably going to have a huge bout of homesickness to fight through. I wonder if he'll get back in touch with the three humans who rescued him?
In touch, maybe. Meeting with them, maybe not, as he wouldn't be able to brush off the Protagonistani government's "suggestions" as (not-entirely-)easily as Zane did ... not to mention that the gvt. of whatever place he does wind up in would likely see that possibility, and want to "protect" him from that, as well.
By definition, an exile is going somewhere outside the formal authority of the exiling government. The Alliance doesn't get to give him any more orders aside from "And stay out!" In fact, even the rule about not leaving Earth's atmosphere is probably unenforceable outside of Alliance-owned hulls, unless the Earth authorities choose to back it... and one of many useful hats Gharr still wears is that he's an Alliance-trained astronaut.