I knew I wanted Ril to have the remote knocked out of his hand by a piece of thrown junk, but I needed to set it up beforehand that the Tedeskians would actually have that junk in hand to throw. So in the previous pages, almost as soon as they enter the ship, they started picking up bits of scrap to hoard.

Knowing that was going to happen actually influenced their costume design and some background culture for their race (that doesn’t even feature in the story but is fun for me, and now you, to know). Basically, the idea of picking up stuff lead me to give them each some sort of big bag, satchel, or pouch. I figured they’d have a rule where they get to personally add select pieces to their bags, laying claim to them. Of course their boss, Lennik Nisga, would have final say on what they get to actually keep, but they at least get to initially pick some items of interest as a perk of the job.

So that’s why a couple of them immediately start picking up pieces of junk, which is what I needed them to do to be able to throw it at Ril. Reverse engineering for world-building! Woot!

I also like how quickly this scene flips from Ril not being intimidated in the least by the Tedeskians to suddenly having the advantage completely ripped from his hands.