I designed Keyla’s lab to be a bit isolated and away from the main hub of the village. Makes sense since she’d want to conduct her business in relative privacy. That also explains the heavy steel door and shuttered windows, which is a bit of a departure from all the other village huts so far with their more open window frames and curtained doorways.
BTW, I love little effects in the artwork like glowing lamps. They’re very easy to do but just add that tiny bit of visual “oomph” to a scene.
I get the feeling Cember would hock loogies to see if they freeze before they hit the ground.
Here is an odd point to me, story-wise: Keyla got the motivation, but despite others having access to, presumably, large government labs “there is no escape … yet”. The “standard cure is too expensive for backwater planets” gambit would have sufficed. (Maybe … crush dealing doesn’t seem too lucrative outside the kingpin organizations.)
Hmm… maybe Keyla’s species have a biological leg up others, so a cure is possible, or easier at first attempt, to provide them. Okay, I’ll buy that ticket for now, let me see where it takes me. Any better suggestions?
Speaking of biology, a drug that works cross-phylogenic trees must be very special.
Alcohol is about the only drug that works universally that I know of, IIRC it messes with cell membranes instead of cell receptors (so indirectly on pathways instead of directly). All cells “feels” that, and if you have a central nervous system the effects are … “centrally” … felt. So there are certainly biological forerunners to the Runners universe biology … so to speak.
I would theorize that maybe crush originates from some Ciceron mineral, flora, or fauna. Since the crew did not have much knowledge of Ciceron at all, it might support that the origin of crush is unknown to most people. Then that biological leg-up might come in as that she has direct access to Ciceron lifeforms and minerals, including the origins of the crush and related life, while everyone else in the galaxy is still trying to figure out what crush is because it is so radically complex that it has eluded even full analysis.
Point.
Uncle Ben and aunty May would be proud to know that microscope they bought for little Keyla did not go to waste.
On a bit of a tangent, considering how explosive crush seems to be when mistreated, there’s more reasons than just privacy to have an isolated lab.
On the drug debate, it could be that crush cures exist for other species, but no cure exists for the native’s biology, so she’s trying to work something out.
Another good point. [Good thing *I’m* not easily crushed. :-D]
My new happiness with the script coincides with the happiness of the New Year – it’s like it’s scripted!
Howdy, Here’s wishing all a Happy New year. I think there may be one problem with the steel doors and windows… if the other huts don’t have them, doesn’t this make Keyla’s hut stick out and more likely to cause people to ask… “Why are there steel doors on that hut?” …. it’s funny how comics mimic reality sometimes, that second panel makes me think of the Northeast coast right now…. Cheers, Mike
If the chief’s “little princess” wants a reinforced lab-hut with steel doors, she gets one. So the other villagers probably just think of it as a daddy’s girl bit of fluff. Though also, seeing as how females seem to be a minority, maybe her father thought, “I’ll armor her house to keep out the rapacious crush-heads!”