Thankfully is limited what they have in their cabin anyway...We have only seen Ahshu´s so far but I think I would only bring the Pin-up =) and leave the instrument. Im more of a guitar man anyway....

Zane has generally been compensating for his bad decisions with further bad decisions where Gharr is concerned.

Copy paste of a previous comment I made on this but it might be more punishing than it seems.

Zane notes it will take Earth 30 years to be a candidate for the Alliance, and Earth is possibly the furthest planet from the Raharr, with intelligent life, thats been discovered so far. Thus visitors from his own species and others in the alliance could be very few and far between. Even if the Fleet hangs around for a while it will inevitably move on. The scout ship said it would see them in a year.

Unless others elect to stay behind (likely requiring Zane's permission) it could mean Gharr is one of only a few Raharr or even aliens, on Earth and must deal with pre-space explorer technology and whatever Earth can provide for Raharran needs.

Its still the opportunity of a lifetime and I'm sure that when ships visit they will take copies of his studies and work back to Raharr space for publishing where it will be highly regarded in academic circles and studies... But he won't be attending Raharran conferences and lecture halls or leading departments and study groups in Raharr.

I'm sure he'll be quite the celebrity on Earth as well, but that will be more for his existence as an alien and such, rather than any of his xenopsychology or xenobiology work on humanity. Humans might be interested in how they compare to other races discovered, but anything else they would likely tell him their own psychologists and biologists have known for decades.

Regardless, Gharr will regard it as better than a prison sentence and Zane will still need to explain the deaths of 6 soldiers to their loved ones.

Maybe Gharr´s true terran purpose (unknown to himself) is to act as a decoy / expendable target for the Ghosts to lure them out of the wood-work while the Alliance waits in the shadow...

Would be very underhandedly of Zane and not high on my list.

I think Zane has just decided on the least painful "middle ground" : Permanent presence on Earth, Muzzled the civilian witness to the #1 contact incident, decoy for Ghost if they should be there, interaction and study of the local wildlife (us), pacing the speed and building up an bond with Terrans to make them leap into the alliance. And Nea out of strangling reach of Gharr , unless she is ordered to remain as security . Now there are NO eye-witnesses to tattle in contact with Harr...

I think I know 3 people who will get a surprise when the doorbell rings in the middle of the night one of these days...That couch is still vacant!

If Gharr was given some sort of covert orders, that would make some sense. A show-trial and a show-sentence to satisfy Gharr as exiled and no longer a member of the Alliance. Thus potentially approachable to the Ghosts or at least give him some freedom to investigate this without the Alliance given culpability.

The issue is that Gharr is no longer under any obligation to produce studies or anything. Not being an Alliance member anymore (or maybe even citizen) with no credentials to protect also means that he is no longer any obligation to be truthful and proper in his work. He can instead be obligated to appease his Earth friends (and host Earth nation) to make studies that undermine the Alliance's functions.

This is especially relevant in review that the problem with him is that he falsified reports and cannot be trusted to be truthful in his work.

No, if he fucked up, let the disciplinary code punish him to the fullest extent, if he got 6 people killed, he should be sent home and if necessary, put him in prison. He should have thought about the opportunity of the lifetime being wasted when he wrote false information.

The logistics issue makes this worse, not better. If Gharr was punished in a way where he obligated to write studied and be truthful to them, that would work. But this extreme of banishment means that he can actually undermine the process. If he does, logistics means an extreme delay to this process and a potential to make such a potential mess far bigger than it has to be due to delay by logistics.

If the Expeditionary fleet means to leave NOBODY behind, that is still preferable than to leave a known bad agent with a proven track record for unreliable reporting behind.

Everybody seems to be forgetting that it was Gharr's choice, and not the only sentence that could've been issued.

They're not leaving a known bad agent. Gharr is stripped of licenses and accreditations. He's no longer considered an agent of anybody.

Can Gharr falsify his studies of mankind? Sure and its very possible that any works of his which are taken and brought back to alliance space might be disregarded or ignored in light of his actions and demise. I could easily imagine that once word of Earth reaches Alliance space that several prominent Xenobiologist/psychologists will immediately seek passage on a returning scout ship and setup residence on Earth, probably taking Gharr's work and adding it to their own as they study mankind themselves and send back studies or return to take all the glory.

Consider with the punishment that firstly, Zane promised Gharr's father he would look out for him and is likely trying to inflict a lesser punishment than full confinement.

BUT to many in Raharran space, the punishment probably looks much worse to them. All other alien cultures encountered so far have been very different from Raharr culturally. Any other Raharran would likely consider being exiled to a pre-space alien world to be a terrible punishment. Zane (and we the audience) know its far less of a punishment because we know Gharr will easily fit in to the very similar Earth culture and the fact Terran's are close to space faring means their tech and capabilities are not so primitive as to be appalling to someone accustomed to Raharran tech. Eventually, that will probably all come to light but it'll likely be 3-5 years away, until then, to anyone not aware, the punishment looks pretty severe.

According to page 52, Zanes own career is at risk of becoming the equivalent of "crimping cables in Alaska" if any Alliance authorities above him investigate the events too closely. I don't see what motivation beyond that he'd need to make sure that Gharr never gets to talk to those anymore.

Gharr turning into an outright enemy agent ... ? A very remote possibility IMHO, if you consider his behavior while he was with the terrible Terran trio. Also, note the statement that "you are forbidden to leave [again]" ... that means that while he's being exiled, the Alliance / Zane still reserves jurisdiction over him to some extent. Somebody will address the enforceability issues if he chooses to outright counteract the Alliance.

There's a question of whether being exiled includes loss of citizenship in the Alliance. If so, and Gharr gains citizenship of some kind on Earth, will his freedom to leave the planet's atmosphere fall under Terran authority rather than the Alliance's, at least until Earth is given membership? Would letting Gharr go into orbit around Earth as a "civilian consultant" jeopardize Earth's candidacy? I guess that's something for the diplomats to argue about.

After pondering this complex some more, I'd guess that the Alliance actually will NOT revoke Gharr's citizenship.

Granted, that means that if the Terran authorities decide to oust him as well, the Alliance has no legal grounds to refuse him being returned to them. But how likely are 'em humans to send that info source away?

On the other hand, if Gharr continues to be an Alliance citizen, it's possible that his actions on Earth still (co-)fall under Alliance jurisdiction. Doing law enforcement on your own nationals (and per your own legalese) for deeds commited outside your formal jurisdiction is a fairly recent (and still limited) concept in human jurisprudence, but it's here to stay IMHO, and I'd expect it to exist in even "better" (broader) definition in the Alliance's.

_{(In the case of Germany, the principle was adopted on the specific occasion of German child molesters doing vacations in a certain other nation where sexual abuse of minors was technically illegal, but largely ignored by local police and courts, and same were easily bribed out of it in the few cases they did take an interest. Granted, "left his individually assigned area, called 'exile'" is neither universally (pun intended) a crime nor a felony, but that's where my suspicion that the Alliance's legislators have honed the principle for far longer than ours comes into play.)}

The way I interpreted that monolog is that Zane's carrier is at risk if he does nothing about the report. By punishing Gharr for it as he is doing now and doing something about it, it sounds like Gharr's carrier is toast now and not Zane's.

The issue isn't Gharr turning into an enemy agent. Who is the enemy in this context? No, the issue is that Gharr is now a rouge agent in a delicate and unprecedented situation in the Alliance's history. He is a monkey wrench.

And since when does one have jurisdiction over an exile? Even if that is true, FTL logistics (as I understand them in this comic) means that if Gharr starts being a problem for the Alliance, it will take considerable delay to actually do something about it and allow the problem to get worse.

If Gharr is expected to be bitter about this ruling, he might be approached by agents who know or represent those "mysterious ghosts." What he can tell them about the Alliance could make him a real asset.

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.

Fair points, though unless I'm misremembering, earlier in the comic it was implied that the exact nature of Earth's technological capabilities wasn't known, not even by Gharr. They had speculations, but nothing concrete. I also have to ask about Quantum, given his capabilities, surely he would have known that Gharr was not fully truthful and/or underestimated the capabilites of Earth. To my mind, Gharr, Zane, and Quantum are all equally culpable, and the nature of the needed punishments ought to be decided back in alliance territory following a proper investigation.

In short, this feels sloppy and haphazard at best. Again, unless there's another factor we haven't been let in on yet.

I think Quantum wasn't involved in the expedition planning at all, e had other responsibilities and figured Zane and Gharr knew what they were doing.

Quantum is a funny one because although he's an A.I. and very capable technically, his primary role on the ship is as it's linguist.

So it begs the question, why would Zane be expected to ask his linguist to verify his Xenopsychologist's report?

Its possible that as one of the few (or only) other crew members besides Zane who knows about the "Ghosts" that Quantum has additional, secret roles and tasks.

But as far as analyzing humanity, he was really only tasked with intercepting the transmissions and deciphering the languages. Quantum hadn't integrated their relay satellite with the terran satellite and accessed the human internet until after Gharr had travelled all the way to Earth and been shot down. Thus, Quantum was likely providing Gharr with translated transmissions in an organised fashion for Gharr to then read and interpret in his report that only Zane ever read. Quantum had no idea that Gharr would lie in the report.

I think it counts from the moment Gharr gets a 3-toed boot under the tail out the hatch, planet-side somewhere....

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

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.

So ... you're saying that Napoleon was not exiled to St. Helena?

Certainly not the same way Gharr is being exiled. Napoleon was not only confined to St. Helena, but pretty much kept under house arrest there. Britain actually owned and inhabited St. Helena, whereas Earth is a foreign sovereign decades away from any possibility of becoming an Alliance member.