I had to get creative in order to make visually interesting what is essentially just two people talking on a train, thus the wild flashbacky backgrounds and sudden inexplicable cyber nudity.
I'll call myself on this one in hopes that the Writing Police won't fine me. It's bad practice in writing to have events or decisions in a story hinge on things the audience has no way of knowing about. It's sort of a cousin of the whole deus ex machina thing. I don't think it was a major offense, but I'm still guilty of it here.
On page 78, when Kai kills the already-immobilized assassin Nina Drake, she shoots her twice at close range, once into the torso and once into the head. To Jetta, this would have been immediately suspicious based on her knowledge of cybernetics. There shouldn't have been any reason to shoot Nina in the head, and a highly trained and disciplined bodyguard like Kai wouldn't spray more bullets than necessary, especially in close proximity to her client who she's supposed to be protecting. Since the readers aren't experts in the totally made-up science of cyborg power supply design, they can't be expected to pick up on something like that. I tried to come up with some Easter eggs or hints to plant leading up to this point that would foreshadow the “big reveal,” but I couldn't think of anything that worked and wouldn't add too much to this already bloated chapter. So this comes in as a “cold” reveal, which feels a bit cheap.
Could people really live on a moon like Triton, without experiencing the same debilitating effects astronauts suffer from prolonged exposure to weightlessness?
We don't really know, because no one's done the experiments, but my guess is the answer is “no.” Vanderbilt University did publish a report where they estimated that bone loss and muscle atrophy for a lunar scientist would be about one fourth as rapid as for an astronaut in open space. On the other hand, some optimists in the field like Robert Zubrin don't seem to think low gravity would be that big of an issue. There is a (completely unproven) belief among some that, as long as you have some gravity, your body should be able to adapt.
One of the more novel (and insane) ideas I 've seen is the possibility of building surface centrifuges on a moon. Unlike the orbital versions, these centrifuges would be shaped more like an Indy 500 race track than a doughnut or cylinder, so as to take advantage of the already existing lunar gravity.
Personally, I don't think it's a very feasible idea to build an entire city on one of those, because it would take a ton of energy to keep it spinning. Rotating a space colony is fairly easy, because once you get something spinning in outer space it just keeps spinning on its own. But a spinning city wouldn't have that luxury. Your moon people could have their own private centrifuges to sleep in, and that may be enough to hold off the negative effects of low gravity.
Our moon also has what some believe is the bare minimum amount of gravity for us to still maintain some sense of balance and not feel constantly disoriented. On Triton, which has half the gravity of our moon, this would be a serious issue.
As for this comic, the people who live on Triton are able to do so because their bodies have been artificially modified, whether through cybernetics or genetic engineering or a combination of both, to function under the conditions. Many of the less extremely modified humans don't actually live on Triton; they commute for work and for pleasure from orbital colonies (those blue glowing things you see orbiting Neptune in the environment shots). And then there are the mooners, who are extreme examples of biomodification. We'll be meeting the mooners (finally) in the upcoming chapter.
Next week should be the final week of Chapter 2, as the last two pages go up. I'm looking forward to a nice, long break after that! See you soon! (I hope)
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