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 (11)
It seems like the most important part is whether they've already come to the realization that there must be other intelligent life out there, and we've got that at least.
I think the text should read "haven't studied", right?
Fascinating debate here in the comments section about the situation. And Hekaht Ruhane (Spexs) is really tall.
Gharr doesn't yet know that the humans have already achieved spaceflight, right?
Though I suppose that probably doesn't count as anything near a "Space Age" from their point of view.
Beginning of a Space Age is outlined by any consistent attempts to go beyond planet's LEO with manned missions, preferably attempting first interstellar mission of any kind. We're near, but not yet there.
Thanks!
A nearness probably measured in centuries, not decades. With functional examines of advanced materials though, it could propel humanity ahead of schedule.
We're technologically capable of building a moon base right now, and probably a Mars base once we'd cut our teeth on the Moon one. What's holding us back is willingness to spend the requisite huge piles of money.
As for interstellar missions, if you set the bar low enough we've already done that. At least one of the Voyagers has already passed the heliopause and is now officially in interstellar space. Of course, it's already visited all of its planned destinations and is moving aimlessly now, and if it did reach another solar system it couldn't accomplish anything there, so that probably doesn't count.
You could probably revise that to the inane stupidity that is a combination of deficit spending and a frantic pointing and hammering that the debt is a problem to get under control now ("dut da duh, let's give money to Pakistani gender programs. That's efficient" "Why would you do that?!").
The funding is only part of it, more a bureaucratic nightmare of getting the permissions to simply fly. Had the engineers stayed in charge, I would not be surprised to have a 2001 Space Odyssey future. Then there is the legal and like stupidity that makes the questions of arms, claims, and colonization all the more difficult, because of some hypothetical what-ifs.
It's just as glorious as I thought it would be. "So this is the weight of the world..."
As for his decisions, though... come on, Zane. This event has already told the humans that starfaring aliens exist and know about Earth, and that they are not invincible, and given them whatever cultural and technological information they can get by examining the wreck and interrogating its computers and any survivors (and if Gharr survived, he will be attempting a formal First Contact anyway). It's too late to avoid "culture shock" by hiding. Leaving now just means you can't exert control over the situation.
Gotta admit, though, if he thought he might end up doing this, he was right to exclude Ahshu. She would go berserk at this talk about leaving probable survivors to their fate at the hands of trigger-happy natives.
They're in the least bad field of options, and even that is shaded by a bit of a lack of forethought in advising how to handle various situations that could result. For example, the natives blowing a shuttle out of the sky, and capturing crew. Bit of an oversight. I get a real sense of "I need a superior to foist this upon" attitude from Zane, because damn does this situation suck to be the decision maker for.
Of course, he doesn't know that Earth militaries that are space facing, have considered the possibilities, are dealing with them as they speak, and aren't panicking. That gives options. Negotiated extraction is possible. But, it breaks the directive, which again seems too narrow a focus, especially when the situation is already busted open.