Wednesday Comics: Juliet

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Juliet (Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter III)"

Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: In Kansas, a family listens to reports of an alien invasion on the radio. Russia and China have fallen. The island of Japan may have been sunk by the onslaught. In the U.S., officials debate the use of nuclear weapons against the threat. Everything else the nations of the Earth have tried has been to no avail.

Juliet walks out into yard. Her mother worries about her, most of all: she's only 15. Juliet's grandfather reminds them all of Pearl Harbor. He's confident the U.S. can win this one, too. Besides, the aliens won't want anything in Kansas.

As if to mock him, an alien vessel flies overhead and blows up the farmhouse. On Juliet survives.

The craft lands and two Zygotean mercenaries emerge. They were scouting for locations to land the fuel fleet. The see Juliet and move to kill her. Suddenly, one of the mercenaries is disintegrated.

The other mercenary is quick and wounds Aknaton, but it doesn't do him much good. He's disintegrated by the Osirosan's next blast.

Aknaton builds a pyramid around them with his power to fly them off Earth. He explains to Juliet who they are. She feels bad about leaving her people. Aknaton explains that they are all going to die anyway. Her death would mean nothing here, but she has gifts that can help him stop the spread of Zygoteism.

He assures her that Earth is dead, but there are different kinds of death: Slow death under Zygotean enslavement--or a quick death that takes foe as well as friend. A death brought about by the simultaneous detonation of all the Earth's nuclear weapons:

Things to Notice:

• "Pulsar-sucking obstructionist!" is a alien insult.

Commentary: 
Starlin's opening with Juliet's grand-father and parents conversing contrasts the pessimism of the seventies with the post-World War II optimism. The story comes down on the side of pessimism. The dialogue doesn't allow Juliet to say much in her own story, though.

Aknaton's confrontation with the Zygotean mercenary serves to show him as vulnerable--and fallible. This is important because the first chapter portrayed him in a very mythic way and in the second he's in the role a god. His mortal fallibility gives us a different lens through which to see his declarations about what needs to be done.

Aknaton's destruction of Earth (and the rationale he gives Juliet) shows just what sort of conditions he's willing to count as victory and foreshadows events to come.

Elemental Planes Addendum

I would say I forgot the quasi- and para-elementals in yesterday's post, but I really didn't. I've never felt those were as conceptually pure as the primary elementals and so not as rich for turning into whole planes. Do we really need a whole Plane of Ooze?

After thinking about it a bit, I do think there is a little bit to be said. I do like the idea of elemental mixing; I mean, that is the source of the Prime Material Plane, after all. I just don't think we need whole plans of them. Maybe they're just the phase boundaries between the elements? I suppose you could still call them "planes" if you wanted, but they would really be the overlap between planes.

In any case, I'm pretty sure this is what the area of  Quasi-Elemental Mineral looks like:

I'm not convinced that currently list of para-elementals is complete either. It would seem to me that the more watery side of a water/earth mixing might be silt or sediment rather than ooze. The airy end of the air/water boundary would be mist (perhaps freezing mist) rather than ice.

Oh, and in case you were wondering about the Positive and Negative Planes that finish out the Inner Planes, check out this post from exactly 3 years ago.

The Finer Elements of Inner Planar Adventuring

It's not an uncommon complaint on the internet that the Elemental Planes are boring because they're featureless expanses of the same thingm, which is sort of like saying dungeons are boring because thy're just empty spaces underground, or wilderness adventures are dullsville because it's just a whole bunch of trees. Most environments are probably not in and of themselves terribly interesting. They're interesting because of (a) what you can put in them and (b) the additional challenges their nature presents to PCs. I would also say that the Elemental Planes can be an interesting cosmological element in a setting even if not viewed as a place to go adventuring, but it's "place for adventuring" I'm going to focus on here.

First off, the Elemental Planes as typically described are for the most part pretty hostile to human life. I don't think that's a bad thing, necessarily. High level adventurers have access to a lot of great technology (i.e. magic) to protect themselves. Guarding against equipment failure and avoiding changing conditions certainly creates a lot of tension in science fiction books and movies; there's no reason it can't be put to similar effect in gaming. It's resource management that's more than just counting.

Here are some brief ideas and inspirations for Elemental Plane adventures:

Air
This one's probably the easiest, with flying creatures, cities on clouds and the like. I would draw some inspiration from sci-fi imaginings of life in the atmosphere of gas giants. The plane of air should only be featureless like space is featureless: there should be pieces of stuff falling/tumbling through it. There should be air-dwelling Portuguese man o' war type things and air-whales like living zeppelins that one can travel or even live on. Reliance on the strongest air streams for travel would ensure that there were certain air caravan routes.
Inspirations: the Cloud City of Bespin in The Empire Strikes Back, the Star Trek episode "The Cloud-Miners," The Mysterious Explorations of Jasper Morello, Castle in the Sky (1986), Last Exile.

Fire
Fire is like a really big star, though it's surface is much cool. There would be islands of rock (and by islands, I mean things bigger that continents) floating across it, or great metal craft drifting through it's smoke-choked corona. It would, of course, be populated (though perhaps not exclusively) by beings (jinn?) composed of Fire who did very similar stuff to Prime Material humans but were fiery while doing it.
Inspirations: Any Adventure Time episode dealing with the Fire Kingdom, the neutron star life of Forward's Dragon's Egg, parts of Sunshine (2007), Secrets of the Fire Sea by Stephen Hunt.

Earth
This plane is a huge sphere (or block or tesseract, or whatever) of rock, riddled with tunnels and chambers. In other words, it's a dungeon in three dimensions. It's sci-fi asteroid mining and molerat sapients, too.
Inspirations: Dig Dug, the Star Trek episode "Devil in the Dark," Derinkuyu.

Water
Like Air, it's fairly easy to see what to put into the Plane of Water, but maybe difficult to see why you wouldn't just do that stuff on a Prime Material ocean. I would say it's like an extraterrestrial ocean planet: You can make it far more exotic than you would the oceans of your main campaign world. Societies would have vertical and horizontal borders. Different depth layers would be like different levels of a dungeon, except (depending on how science fictional you got) adventurers might need increasing pressure protection to descend to the next level.
Inspirations: Neptune's Brood by Charles Stross, The Abyss (1989), Finding Nemo, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Blue Submarine No. 6, Sub-Mariner, Aquaman, and Abe Sapien comics.

Archiving...

The Strange Stars Index is newly updated. Here's your chance to catch up on any posts you might have missed.

Have a good weekend.

The Soft Conquest

The traffic in Minga slaves is illegal in many jurisdictions in the Strange Stars, but the owning a being of such a famous genotype--fragile, delicate and ephemeral as biosophonts generally are--is too much a status symbol for the wealthy in the Vokun Empire and other polities to ignore. What the Slavers who trade in them and the collectors who acquire them don't realize is that their slow dissemination across the galaxy and their meek servitude in places of wealth and power is all part of their plan. 

Appearance and Biology: Minga resemble the baseline human type, and are considered physically attractive by most of that clade. They are gracile of build and have pale skins, ranging from a pink-tinged porcelain to chalk white. Their hair and eyes are in a wide variety of pastel shades. They tend to have large, expressive eyes.

Psychology: For autonomous sophonts, Minga are very submissive and complaint beings. They do disagree from time to time, but always do so in an indirect way best calculated not to give offense. They are nonviolent, even against personal attack, but will defend themselves if absolutely necessary. They are incredibly intuitive beings who seem to anticipate (and then serve) the desires of those they spend any significant amount of time with. Most who try to read a Minga's expression will find exactly what they wish for; only the particularly empathetically adept will note that the Minga are in fact exceedingly hard to read and generally just reflect the wants and desires of others.

The Minga are exceptionally skilled at reading the microexpressions and kinesics of other humanoids. It may be this ability is enhanced by some level of psi empathy. In contrast, they have a fine degree of control of their own nonverbals. They are skilled at manipulation, both through voice, body language, and physical intimacy. This ability is likely pheromonally and psychically enhanced. 

Slavery & A Secret: Minga emerged from a world in the Coreward Reach. It's exact location is known only to the Slavers and their thralls. The Minga were immune to Slaver psionic control, but their allure to other humanoids was apparent, and so they were spared from destruction. Slaver's take away shipments of Minga youth (never too many, so as not to saturate the market). Though the Minga are relatively long-lived, the Slavers have certainly not bothered to introduce any of the anagathic therapies common to civilized worlds. The Minga elders seem to rule their society but meekly acquiesce to demands of the Slavers for more of their people.

The Minga don't enjoy subjugation or their world's occupation by the Slavers, but their ruling cultural belief is in nonviolence and the spiritual exploration of sensuality. The Slavers and their thralls opened the Minga's eyes to the deplorable and iniquitous state of the wider galaxy. It was decided they would use the Slavers as a conduit in their mission to convert all sophonts to their way. The Minga are patient; slowly each slave is bending their supposed master to their view of enlightenment.

Stats: Minga require a Charisma of at least 14. They natively have an ability that works like the psionic ability Empathy (though there's is not purely psionic). This only works on humanoids. Minga also have the ability exert effect similar to Charm Person on a humanoid who fails a Mental Effect save with whom they have had intimate or extended (over 48 hour) close contact.

Wednesday Comics: Za!

Here's the next installment of  Jim Starlin's Metamorphosis Odyssey. The earlier posts in the series can be found here.

"Za! Metamorphosis Odyssey Chapter II"

Epic Illustrated #1 (Spring 1980) Story & Art by James Starlin

Synopsis: Za is a bestial Tyjorian on an inhospitable world around Alpha Centauri. He's not like his fellows, and as his knowledge and self-awareness grows, he's becoming less like them all the time.

Tyjorians are the only life on their planet and so are cannibals. Only their rapid rate of reproduction keeps them from killing off their species. Their brutal lifestyle never forced them to develop civilization or even empathy.

Za was born different. The meat of his own kind sickened him, so he had to subsist on his world's strange blue crystals. After his mother died, Za never joined a band. He lived alone, making him a target for groups of other Tyjorians:

He had the strength of 10 Tyjorian males thanks to his diet of blue crystals. None could harm him, but he was still alone.

One day, he met a female and that changed. He felt an emotion unlike the fleeting mating instincts of his species. He brought her meat and protected her. Then one day he couldn't. She was killed while he was away. Feeling a sadness his kind was never made to feel, he climbed high into the mountains intending to end his life. Instead, he met someon--and found it's purpose.

Aknaton apologized, for he was the cause of Za's pain. He had bestowed knowledge and given the ability to understand speech. Aknaton needs a monster with a mind and a soul. There is a darkness spreading across the stars, and it cannot be defeated, only destroyed.

So the two jump on the back of a giant, insect-like creature and head out to their next destination: Earth.

Things to Notice:

• Za looks a bit like a later Starlin creation, Skeeve.

Commentary: 
The hints dropped in Chapter I about Aknaton's activities when he was away from Aknaton begin to pay off. The next few chapters will follow the same pattern of character introduction

The improbability of Tyjoria's ecology just serves to accentuate its a symbolic nature. Tyjoria is the hostile universe in microcosm; it's literally dog eat dog. Za isn't just an everyman, he's all humankind, self-aware and adrift in a savage world, wondering why he suffers and why the world is the way it is. Only love makes it bearable for him, but then he loses that, too. Just when he's about to end it all, God shows up.

Za is a bit like Job, but at least the god Za encounters apologizes (somewhat perfunctorily) for the sufferinghe has caused and gives a reason for it. Still, Aknaton doesn't explain a lot; Za is forced to take things on faith. Given the world he was living in, it's really no wonder Za grabs hold to what Aknaton offers, however vague it may be.

When he does, we see the emergence of another sort of narrative, though one influenced by Biblical ones: the fantasy quest. 

The Futures of Howard Chaykin

Howard Chaykin has worked with a number of science fiction properties in comics over the years: Star Wars, a graphic novel adaptation of Bester's The Stars My Destination, and a Watchmen-ized DC science fiction characters with Twilight. He's also done a few original science fiction charatcers:

Ironwolf
The Hero: The tartan-wearing, outlawed lord of the planet Illium. The sort of guy willing to slap a Galactic Empress over a political disagreement.
Appearances: Weird Worlds #8-10 (1973), Ironwolf: Fires of Revolution (1992).
The Setting: The Empire Galactika in the 61st Century, a time of spaceships made out of anti-gravity wood, vampire legions, and swashbuckling. I talk about it more detail here.
The Look and Feel: probably Burroughs and Alex Raymond inspired. Futuristic guns and swords are in wide use. Most male characters dress a bit like Raymond characters, while the female ones seem to wear hippy or disco inspired outfits.

Cody Starbuck
The Hero: A space pirate. A guy who will charge a nobleman twice the ransom price to rescue his kidnapped bride-to-be then receive fellatio from the woman on the flight home.
Appearances: Star Reach #1,4 (1974, 1976), Cody Starbuck (1978), Heavy Metal (May-Sept., 1981).
The Setting: It seems to drift a little over time, but always a far future galactic society, where an empire has fallen to be replaced by feudalism. A corrupt future version of the Catholic Church is a frequent villain. The first story mentions wooden and crystalline spacecraft, but later stories show fairly standard sci-fi ships.

The Look and Feel: Initially this swashbuckling future is very Alex Raymond (probably by way of Al Williamson), but the later stories show the influence of Star Wars and probably other 70s science fiction film. The level of technology is increased in the later stories. Being in more adult publications, the series is more explicitly sexual.

Monark Starstalker
The Hero: A space vigilante, former rigger (a pilot with his nervous system linked to his ship), rebuilt by aliens and given a robot hawk that he's telepathically linked with. He's the sort of guy that's disliked by both sides in the war, but still manages to right wrongs and get the girl.
Appearance: Marvel Premiere #32 (1976).
The Setting: A space frontier in rebellion against the Federation that founded it. It has riggers that link with their ships and "terranizers" that are some sort of terraforming device.
The Look and Feel: It's sort of Western meets Science Fiction at a time of galactic civil war (a year before Star Wars and an over two decades before Firefly). The clothing and equipment is a bit like the Cody Starbuck stories this same year, but there aren't any swords.

Reuben Flagg
The Hero: An actor from Mars (who lost his job on Mark Thrust, Sexus Ranger to a CGI duplicate of himself) drafted into becoming a real-life lawman in Chicago. The sort of guy that likes to listen to jazz.
Appearance: American Flagg! #1 (1983).
The Setting: A somewhat dystopian, very 80s 2031, where the U.S. government and most major corporations fled to Mars during a crisis in 1996. A media-saturated, corrupted, and violent former America is controlled by the new corporate-governmental entity known as the Plex. Many cities have become arcologies called Plexmalls.
The Look and Feel: A vague hint of the pulp era (zeppelins, stockings and garters), filtered through a whole lot of 80s. Consumerism, pervasive media with subliminal messages, a bit of Judge Dredd-ian urban dystopia. A talking cat.