Humans in this setting are the biohorror aliens.
Transcript
Gillie: (ASL) We’re going to watch something COOL.She selects a different channel. Onscreen a large human woman with scales and thick tail grapples a woman with fur, large cat ears, and taur bodyplan with a catlike rear torso. The border text reads: GMH Wrestling Galactic Cup, Round 4, Katya "Claws" vs. The Dragon.
Idrisah: (ASL) Ah… The girl-watching channel.
Idrisah: Well, if it works for Talita…
Talita: I’m not picky.
Announcer: KATYA GOING FOR THE FOUR-LIMB GRAPPLE!
Announcer: THE DRAGON’S DOWN! CAN SHE BREAK OUT IN TIME?
The cat-taur grips the dragon woman with her front four limbs and pushes her down to the floor of he arena.
Idrisah: You know, I’ve always wondered… is it weird, seeing human taurs as a natural hexapod?
50 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 51”
Nerv
This is SUCH a cool comic, and I’m so glad to finally see it come to fruition. Also the interesting questions…
Andrew
I love how us humans decided to basically modify ourselves until we’re legally an entirely different species.
Like you have the other Sophonts, who all look about the same across their species, with the Avians maybe having 1-2 different subspecies…
And then you have humanity, who just decided to say, “f*ck it, we ball” and make their own alien races by genetically modifying themselves into Eldritch Horror territory.
Zuorai
Ikwjdjjakxnsjkznsk girl watching 😍😍
Dr. Zhou lore on next page perchance?
Robin
I wonder what Gillie’s feelings are about the GMH process, considering it more-or-less resulted in her congenital deafness.
Origamigryphon
More or less indifferent: https://www.tumblr.com/jayrockin/713719768187863040/anonymous-asked-question-for-gillie-have-you?source=share
Redacted
I can’t help but wonder if some GMHs read as “uncanny valley” to people used to being around typ humans.
Guest
It certainly falls into the uncanny valley for me.
Jay Eaton
Oh definitely. GMHs are much more common off of Earth, and people from Earth tend to be less familiar with them (aside from Cetasers, in some regions). So Terrans often find them creepy, and/or think of them as an echo of pre-war Martian amoral decadence. Human cultural standards for what qualifies as an “extreme” GMH body vary wildly.
I’m deliberately pushing the uncanny valley element by giving them all strict design rules that include a humanoid skull. The vibe is sort of sphinx-like. This is partly because I like fooling around with uncanny designs on characters who are just like, Jeff from space Ohio, but also because realistically I think fucking with shape of the cranium and mouth (ala classic furry design, dog head on mostly human body) would very easily result in adverse brain development, non-human cognition, and severe difficulties with speaking human oral languages. The relative level of RttS humanity’s gene tech couldn’t safely accomplish it. (Not that they always safely accomplish the restricted GMH designs… the fuckup parameters are just considered more “acceptable.”)
Redacted
Cool, thanks for answering my question. 👍
Ana
“Jeff from space Ohio” completely cracks me up. (I used to date a Jeff from Ohio, so… ) I just was pointed to your comic this morning and I am really enjoying it!
Ruby
Gillie has good taste.
B
I know Katya doesn’t NEED a shirt on her second torso but I’m still like oh no she forgot her shirt
Also do they have to put claw caps on to avoid clawing the shit out of each other I wonder
Ruby
Maybe a good professional claw trimming makes them blunt enough to not be an extra hazard.
evileeyore
If their claws are like Gillie’s just keeping them filed and short would be fine. If they have actual claws… even blunting them could result in serious scratches or gouges. But then, both of these wrestlers have fur or scales, so it might also be a “wrestler class” thing, like weight classes, if you have claws, you have to wrestle in the “Clawed Division”.
Nitsua Leirbag
So do the other alien species also do genetic modification and have populations of “GMA’s” or is it a Human only thing?
Imp!
I think I heard Bug Ferrets have GMs, but it’s waaay more regulated that it’s hard to notice (at least to a non-bug ferret!)
Redacted
Scuds can modify themselves too, there’s a post about it somewhere on their blog
Jay Eaton
Bug ferrets do a variety of genetic and cybernetic augmentations but they are nearly always invisible or extremely subtle. Conformity is highly valued, they generally do not understand why humans had a designer baby craze to begin with.
Septemberdale
Wait, humans and the rest of the galactic community have made contact with scuds?!
Nitsua Leirbag
Will communities of “GMA’s” with genetic augmentations just as extreme eventually come in the other alien species?
anon
I had a question I thought of last night but I forgot it by the time I woke up
I did dream about being in a bug ferret colony though. *So* many ferrets and I clipped out of bounds to see this enormous root-like tangle of tunnels. That was fun
Rage
I also had a dream about going in a bug ferret den the other night… Cartoonish hole in the ground with a sign next to it with a picture of a bug ferret on it. I went in there and got overwhelmed and then left again. Truly the concept of bug ferret habitation is infectious to the subconscious mind.
hessian
i had a dream that, before becoming a webcomic, RTTS was originally a cruddy xbox 360 abandonware game. with a similar art style to spore and invizimals. i remember being bothered by the fact that proto-talita had an elephant-like trunk with two nostrils, instead of the cool mouth thing.
notanocelot
If we’re starting a comment thread about weird rtts-related dreams, one time i dreamt that Talita showed up at my mom’s house, but when I tried to talk to her she was being extremely rude for some reason. Eventually while I was distracted she ended up eating one of my mom’s chickens whole and the dream ended around that point. I think in the dream logic as well it wasn’t supposed to be the actual Talita because in the journal she’s listed as A-Talita with “not real” in parenthesis, but I have no memory of what the hell I meant by this.
Redacted
I mentioned it on an earlier page, but I had a dream that involved going to Actual Hell, and Cheevwut and Ohwitiil were there. They didn’t do anything, they were just kinda standing around.
Trees
A+ comments section. Would read again.
As someone who doesn’t remember dreams I thank you all for letting me vicariously enjoy yours.
Gigi
don’t think we wouldn’t notice talita’s little feather blush >:3
Thundarrow
Never been a fan of wrestling (or sports in general) but I would watch the heck out of this
Rubicon Art
Crunch crunch crunch.
I know it’s near impossible to even quantify them, but I wonder rhow it tastes to Talita? How good their taste buds are, too? Like is it the equivalent of us having a nice steak or a salami or…
Also, can’t blame Gillie for a bit of girlwatching! We’ve all been a girlwatcherrrrr before.
Jay Eaton
Comparing tastes would be like trying to imagine what a song would smell like if it was a different song, but the tactile experience is similar to eating a giant smoked turkey leg. Centaurs also have more sensitive noses than tastebuds but it’s not an extreme difference, they just eat a narrower band of Stuff than omnivores.
Joysweeper
yeahhhhhh girl watching! lmao a general round of blushes and feather-poofing huh.
oh fun, katya has chakat-y thumbed forepaws! I wonder if it’s a common temptation when designing gmh-es to make prehensile tails and thumbed walking limbs regardless of if the animal(s) they’re overall based on have those.
Jay Eaton
I think I’m just biased. I like designing grippers.
Mr. Son
Talita: “Maybe it would have been if I wasn’t raised by humans.”
Internet Stranger
Yo if that’s what Talita says next panel, you a psychic XD
Trees
If these two strong fighting ladies were to have children would they resemble their mothers, be a default human baby or some kind of third option?*
I suppose I’m asking to what extent GMH traits are inherited vs programmed into them by parents looking for a child who can, for instance, reign supreme in the ring.
*Reading that sentence back it seems much gayer than I intended. I mean have children in general, not necessarily with each other.
Zidane
I’m pretty sure since these two are different GMH “clades” one being a taur and the other a dragon, they wouldn’t be genetically compatible without the help of natal lab like one that created them in the first place. So I imagine if they went to one they would just be asked, “okay so do you guys want your kid to be bipedal or a hexapod and what other specific physical traits do you want them to inherit” . That being said I am also curious about how stuff is passed on within clades, like would a cat-ish centaur like Katya here be compatible with a proper horse centaur since they share the same overall body plan? Or are there separate types of centaur genepools depending on what animals they’re based on? Probably more specific than what the story ever requires though lol
Tiri
Speaking as an actual geneticist – yes a centaur taur and a cat taur would end up being two completely different clades. The hox gene fuckery that must be going on to make a hexapodal human is one thing (assuming it is, in fact, one thing rather than multiple different ways of achieving the same phenotype), but all the other modifications wouldn’t be compatible
Mica
From the world-information, it seems that lots of GMH are genetically compatible within their given clade, or even with typ humans in some cases. These two are probably too radically different to be compatible with anything resembling *each other*, though, and lots of GMH are one-offs that can’t really reproduce without the intervention of a genetics lab doing up a custom DNA job on their behalf. Even within a given clade, there’s probably lots of points of difficulty and incompatibility, especially if it’s a clade with fewer members. They can’t all be as populous and stable as Magpie Bridge, or Tailed Spacers, after all.
So, the real answer is almost definitely, as it always ever is: … It Depends!
Berri
“Girl Watching” is so real… like, me too, hello?
Maia
I’d watch that channel.
Claire
Certified Girlwatcher
Hunter
So humans are the ones constantly altering their biology, huh? XD
evileeyore
Humans Are Space Weirdos.
Maia
This makes sense narratively. The author is facing a lot of design work to make fairly alien looking aliens while also making them roughly readable and relatable in a compelling way. Centaurs, Avians, and Bug Ferrets are all unfamiliar to a reader, so expressions and body language needs to be carefully considered and taught. Note that every species of Avian still has a lot of common ground, you can tell which one is likely a bright or dun, you can read a shared expression language with them, and they have essentially the same body plan. Every time you see an Avian in the story, you’re going to have a building reference for how they act and look, and how they behave, and how they typically express. Individual Avian characters will be able to stand out when you’re able to better recognize their quirks and what makes them them and not just some everybody extra.
Humans on the other hand are already very recognizable. Adding new templates for humans and pushing their design out in new and exciting directions is possible because we already understand a lot of those base conventions. Notice that all the GMH designs have the same sort of face a human generally has allowing them to emote the same. Their bodies are pushed out in different ways design but it’s all stuff that more or less allows them to have similar body language as well. In universe there’s international convention about that which is cool, though I suspect that has less to do with speculative politics and more to do with design decisions and communication that the author is making. It’s like how cartoony characters and furry designs sometimes don’t really add up if you were to depict things realistically because there’s a lot of distorting to make it so that you can read them easily.
Honestly you’d likely see a lot more modification like that if you were to encounter another civilization for similar reasons why you’d see it with us. However throwing that in would clutter things up a lot.
Tiri
Fun analysis, thank you!
AnormalADN
I have to wonder how would fight sports be categorized when the participants have different body plans like this? Irl we have weight categories mostly but if someone has extra limbs that’s gonna amp that up plus make it harder to balance fights depending on individual morphology- anyways WOOOO girl-watchinggg
Uh
Yeah fr. Imagine wrestling someone who can just pull the four-limb grapple on you, plus they have the musculature of a big cat (safety regulations must be crazy when you’ve got tails and claws and long ears that could be harmed in the mix, too)
Teod
In wrestling the fights are largely performative, so they don’t need to bother with the finer balancing. In more competitive sports there’s probably a very, very strict classification barckets.
evileeyore
My bet is that GMH Wrestling is more like MMA than “sensationalized” tv wrestling shows are now. But a choreographed GMH wrestling is equally probable.
Jay Eaton
These two are the same roughly the same weight class, since ultimately weight still has a lot to do with deciding the winner in fights. Since Kayta’s a taur and the Dragon’s bipedal it means Kayta is a lot shorter than the Dragon when standing normally. This is tournament has mixed bracket fights (it’s considered more entertaining) but there are bauplan specific brackets, like taur-only.