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Pirates of the Coal Sack #24

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Pirates of the Coal Sack #24

Jul 01, 2023

Fifty-one pages and twenty-four issues. A new record. I had no idea this issue was going to go this long when I started it, but it seemed like every page in the second half turned into three or four. The pacing still seems good to me; hopefully it does to you as well.

Star Trek fans may recognize Elas and Troyius from the TOS episode “Elaan of Troyius.” It’s one of the episodes that convinced me I could do a 3DX series in the Trek universe, and yet there’s less sex in this issue than in almost any other. But the cultural impact of Elasian biology was something I couldn’t stop thinking about. So much of human history is about competition for mates by men; what if that competition took a different form? I kind of wish I could go back to first causes and re-work Elasian culture, but I’d dropped references to the one in “Elaan of Troyius” already, so I had to keep the form reasonably close to that.

I did re-work the technology shown by the Elasians in TOS; science fiction in the 60s wasn’t really comfortable with bullets and spaceships in the same tech level. As I fleshed it out in my head, both the Troyians and Elasians have atomic-powered spaceships (Orion-style nuclear pulse drives or similar), and ended up in a war over the dilithium-rich Tellun belt between the two worlds. The Terran Federation stepped in and conquered both before they could escalate to nuclear bombardment of each others’ home worlds.

This issue surfaces a lot of my thinking about how the Terrans occupy worlds. Gunboats are “littoral” craft, not really intended to operate outside a planetary system. They need warp drive to effectively engage intruders, but speeds in a system are limited so they don’t have to be as fast as a heavy unit. At least one gunboat squadron will garrison every system. The Legion ground forces aren’t numerous enough to actually be an army of occupation; it’s not practical for tens of millions of soldiers and their equipment to be shipped to Elas, let alone supplied from Earth. If an insurrection really takes hold, at some point the Legion will have to evacuate and let Star Fleet take care of it. (This creates the interesting protocol situation where a Star Fleet commander, OF-3 or OF-4, reports directly to a Legion Legate, an OF-9 or OF-10.) I may do a post just on the strategy of occupation if there’s interest.

The cave lighting was challenging. I had to keep it dark enough for it to seem, well, dark, without making the whole thing unreadable. I cheated in a few panels where expressions were really important, but hopefully it works for you.

Serjant-Chef London’s firing range was a few miles from the Ekeos Palace. The combadges have a subspace radio with enough range to cover the whole system, but subspace transmissions would draw the Legion’s attention. There’s a backup wireless datalink, but it was out of range of the palace. That’s why Aeysha says they can’t use comms and have to drive back.