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 (9)
And I've only just noticed to damage to her uniform, and the tearing on the body's tail. Very nice detail.
Is it deliberate that all expedition members are Raharr?
Do you mean the landing party? Generally yes, it's easier on organization and execution if everybody's "on the same page" and you don't need to, say, bring an extra food crate because one of your team is an insectoid. Mixed teams are a relatively rare sight for these kinds of missions - unless it is specifically required.
Imagine the logistical nightmare. And really, for what gained benefit? Lighter, and by that much, much softer scifi pulls the trick every once in a while, but looking at a story like the DeathWorlders where you have human sized racoons, and giraffe like and szied aliens, they might walk the same halls, but they shouldn't be equipped and being deployed together.
The Damned Trilogy also pulled it off I think, but with a set of aliens that tended towards commonality more than difference, similar needs, and sizes, and those who didn't conform didn't see action. Good books, would recommend.
The only benefit I see is that it would convey to the humans that aliens are a cooperative kind. But of course, this landing party did not plan to make contact at all.
Sure, if the intent was to open diplomatic contact, that's be reasonable. But it's moot.
it would be pull instead of pulled
Love the detail of the Major contorting to read her reaction
And a very human one at that. Cocktail of surprise, horror, dismay--and from our perspective, the locking of the logical facalties, as she hasn't noticed the absence of one additional body.
I can't wait for the next page or two where we get to see the major's inquisitive look in detail.