These trivia bits are generated randomly.
Raharrs are warm-blooded creatures and are accustomed to temperature range a bit warmer than Earth's.
"Dawn" class mothership and "Lake" class tankers are the only spacecraft in the Exploration fleet that can create artificial gravity while not under acceleration.
If a space ship accelerates at the same rate as it would in a free-fall under Earth's gravity (Otherwise known as "1G acceleration"), it can reach Jupiter from Earth in just under 6 days. It would need to flip in the middle of the travel, to start decelerating and enter the planet's orbit.
Insectoids in a lot of ways are the weird ones among the Alliance members. Besides having a completely unpronounceable name of the species, they have dextero amino acid biochemistry, which makes their food and biosphere to be inedible by the rest of the Alliance, and vice versa.
The names of every species of the Alliance (besides Insectoids) are words taken directly from their respective native languages that they use to refer to themselves. They all have same translation:
"a human".
Azinarsi relationship to death is different from the rest of the civilizations of the Alliance: they do not care about it. Death would mean loss of information and experience gathered by that instance of a person's mind, though, and these two things are about the only valuables for an Uploaded mind, so Azinarsi try to avoid it when possible.
A lot of backgrounds and other elements in the comic are actually 3d models. It helps reduce the time each page takes to make.
Raharrs descended from the evolutionary branch that can be described as "apelike cats" by their evolutionary niche. Although initially carnivorous and solitary, they were forced to become omnivorous and form persistent packs during the latest of the rare ice ages of their homeworld, approximately 30 million years ago.
It takes more than a year to cross the Alliance space even with the fastest FTL drive.
Prior to becoming a webcomic, Leaving The Cradle was initially developed as a modification for Source engine, back in 2007. It was vastly different back then, much closer to the usual space opera look and feel, and the plot had nothing in common with the webcomic version, sharing only exactly two characters and nothing else.
Many homeworlds of the respective species are still divided into countries, but freshly established colonies on other planets are almost always monolithic and basically independent, since they sprawled from a single initial outpost, and time lag involved due to interstellar distances making remote management of the colony from a homeworld to be ineffective and frustrating at best.
There's no way to communicate faster than light. If you want to send your message to another solar system, your best bet is to use a courier spaceship. It can take even a month for it to finally reach the destination, but it still beats sending it as a transmission and expecting it to arrive decades or thousands of years later.
So far there hasn't been a single instance of a massive interstellar war. Due to the vastness of space, there's no territorial or economic gain from it. The presence of armed spaceships is still warranted for keeping space travel safe and for peacekeeping or policing missions since unexpected events or rogue states can still happen and might require force as a solution.
The Alliance space stretches for an impressive 16 thousand light years along the longest axis, and contains approximately twelve billion star systems. Despite that, 99.99% of those star systems weren't explored even by an automatic mapping drone yet, and the borders of the Alliance space are defined mostly by the reach of spaceships from the nearest colony or space station.
Comments (13)
The scientist dropping his coffee cup... Well, at least it didn't break!
Pole response: I want to know more about all of them!
Hmm, first view of full tail extention under gravity. These creatures evolved from swimmers.
Probably something similar to an alligator, if I had to guess, actually - something swampy, without *really* deep water, but plenty of relatively shallow water over a moderate majority. Tail-propulsion is important, but limbs for locomotion also required regularly.
Think more like mangroves and lots of tree climbing and brachiating.
Yes, that environment would be great for that build - not overwhelmingly good at running, climbing, or swimming, but a solid second-tier at each.
The human form would be much better at running, probably a bitter better at climbing (arm size/number would be quite situational, but not having the extra tail mass would be a solid advantage), but MUCH worse at swimming.
"The human form would be much better at running"
But humans suck at running. Human's forte is stamina (which is also shared by raharrs, as they're persistence hunters as well)
I might want a flashback later, right now i'm fine with the way info is being given.
Dang! I'm caught up! Another entry in my "Monday" bookmark menu!
I'm really enjoying the artwork, the worldbuilding, and the story telling. Looking forward to more.
Yeah, I put it in the sunday folder...I have at least 3 tabs for mon mwf mt mf you get the idea. And yes, there is overlap all over the place. There are after all 7 days in a week and I ain't smarts enough to no all de permutations. Makes m'head hurtz.
This is a very thoughtful story and I like the perspective from the Aliens point of view. You're probably right (how this would play-out) although if it happened in much of the West there would be the rabid journalists and photographers to consider...
How they establish contact and forge a kind of trust with each other is off to a good start, at least so far, but in a real-life situation this would be where anything could still happen. Hopefully, the rationality we've seen on both sides of this equation can take charge to everyone's benefit!
He's all in on this gambit. She could kill him, his own troops could easily accidentally kill him, he could be court-martialed in any number of horrible ways, but all that matters to him is making that connection that lets him in, that lets him prevent the annihilation of the world by vastly superior technology.
Exactly what is needed, I think. I expect that the only way they will reward him will be further tying him into this - no good deed goes unpunished.
I suspect being further tied to the project would be fine by the Major. There is a certain prestige in that, though it may not be apparent at first. And given the limited window into the attitudes he's displayed about the aliens and the projects, he's probably a preferable person to have in place to play the political games that keeps things favorable, instead of stupid.