Talita does surgery on some medium-voltage cables.
Transcript
The temps are messing around and loading a dumptruck with a pile off loose scrap. The view cuts to the Runaway in the empty building foundation, with a freight elevator set up in the corner. A light is coming from inside the hole torn in the side of the habitat capsule. Talita is busy working on the bus lines. First she strips off the torn insulation, then tidies the wire ends, strips the smaller wires, joins them with cable splicers, and wraps them with polymer heat shrink tubing and an infrared lamp.
66 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 103”
Stitcher
Well, at least Bip isn’t effectively stuck on the mentl equivalent of a rickety life support system anymore.
evileeyore
Yup, BipClone’s memories will be downloaded and added to BipReal and BipClone gets to be erased…
c_rowles
the detailed sequence of Talita repairing the cables is so wonderful. It’s great to not just be told she’s an engineer, but actually be shown her skills in action at so many opportunities, and with an accuracy (according to the comments) that people with modern-day equivalent skills and knowledge can appreciate. I don’t know a single dang thing about repairing power cables, but even I’m looking at those panels with the folded-back pieces of wire and the little IR tool and stuff like, “yeah.. yeah! That looks like it makes sense!”
creetur
Completely agree. It makes me happy to know that Jay researched it and/or talked to someone who was knowledgeable in the skill or attribute that they wanted in Talita (I’ll also say this for the other characters, too). That, or they’re knowledgeable in it themself (don’t know for sure).
40
Getting an engineering degree just to make sure one’s worldbuilding is accurate.
Chakat Firepaw
You joke but I’ve encountered people who have audited university classes for that very reason.
creetur
I enjoy how much detail gets drawn in the pages (while I know nothing about fixing wires and cables, it’s still neat to see). Goes to show how much love is put into here.
JoB
Next page: Talitas “IT’S ALIIIIIVE!!” moment. 😉
But on a more serious note: She’s working on resurrecting *Bip* right now, but we know that when the Runaway actually leaves Dirtball, it’ll have a crew consisting of two species (centaur+human) on board, with it previously having single-species crews (first avians, last centaur) only, as far as we know. That means that Talita will have to establish separate mini-ecosystems for both from scratch, doesn’t it? Not the all-elaborate version that, in the center of Shivakiil’s habitat, covers an area FOUR TIMES the ship’s length in diameter, but still. And I’d guess that she can’t even *start* with that before the ship’s got an internal atmosphere again … (Last, she’ll have to somehow get Gillie and Idrisah to the ship, who seem not to have EVA suits issued to them, and I don’t see the habitat having any *docking* facilities, in addition to the airlocks …) We’re *nowhere* close to seeing the Runaway off-planet again, are we?
TauCeti Deichmann
There is something absolutely joyous about seeing a professional repair job.
Mar
I love this comic!! Enjoying every page! You put so much thought and care into the world.
Pathfinder
Love the infrared light used to hardened the connection, a neat touch!
Sen
Yes! Me too. Such a tiny detail, but so important in space.
Phasma Felis
I think it’s like IRL heatshrink tubing, where you slide the loose tube over the connection and then hit it with a heat gun (basically a small hair dryer) to shrink it to fit. Except a fan-driven heat gun doesn’t work in vacuum, so you gotta use an IR heater.
I love the detail that you can see the heatshrink off to the left in the next-to-last panel. Because, of course, you have to slide it on before you splice the cable.
Greenjoe
Oof, that damage was in a very unlucky point, directing hitting those cables.
evileeyore
Yes, “unlucky”. I have theories…
So much has just “been lucky coincidence” about everything… some of these things have to have been deliberate.
The “object” hitting the hab and cutting through the server power lines (which might also be the power cabling for the habitat areas).
The Runaway being brought to Ixiom where the local AI was just leaving.
There also just happens to be three bored people who are //perfectly// placed and of the mind to assist a rogue AI in illicitly repairing the Runaway and forging paperwork so said rogue AI can continue their life of crime without interference by The Authorities.
On coincidence is luck. Two is pushing the luck. Three is deliberation. So who is pulling the strings?
/gestures wildly at yarn conspiracy board
(Whom besides our author that is…)
Kataratakaran
Leaves me wondering how much slack they leave on the cable to allow a splice like that without adding new material. when we do underground fault-locates for the city (med/high voltage), we usually have to cut out about a meter either side so we dont have anything left in the damage zone, then do a double splice. Nifty way to make sure you dont need to cart around how many metres of specific cables in storage in case of emergency tho.
also, have to say, quite good detailing on that fixit job! arguably the neutrals could’ve been left longer in panel five, but thats totally nitpicky bc you got that foldback just right, and you even remembered to put the shrink sleeve on before clamping everything together. Ive seen irl guys forget and have to cut it open again, or cut the shrink itself, since our couplers arent screw-on (and presumably reusable?) xD
Jay Eaton
I actually did the art version of that fuckup by drawing the cable lines, then realizing she would have to put the sleeves on first, then erasing and drawing them back on. Much easier than having to cut open and redo the splice I think 😂
Veltzeh
I would like to express my appreciation for the impeccable way Talita holds both the wire bunch and the connection block as if with a thumb and forefinger in the penultimate panel. It’s such a good hold!
dediggefedde
I love how she uses an infrared light for heat shrinking the tubes. Very thought-through!
Also looks very clean and tidy. ^^ Luckily, the internal wires were color coded.
Phlosioneer
So is this version of bip going to power on, and not know who talita is or what’s happened? Just some random centaur repairing their centaur-ship. Or maybe the other bip is sending connection requests on repeat to a frequency they know they would be listening for, until the moment the ship powers on and connects, sending the all-clear and uplinking their memories?
Electrum_Leopard
So, what keeps these exposed wires from welding themselves together in a vacume environment?
Jay Eaton
Dirtball’s got a thin mostly CO2 atmosphere and the wires are all insulated, that’s what the wire stripper is for. The bare ends that fused in transit or from projectile melty effects are getting cut off here.
Pevel
Hey Jay I would like to ask you what christianoty,judaism,Islam,hunduism,buddism,shinto,taoism,confucianism says about non-human sophonts, did they have a soul, how they reacts to bright duns , and unisex, why god/gods created them and what each non-human sophont religion say of other sophonts including humans
Adrienne
That’s quite a loaded addendum to add to someone else’s comment lol
Jay Eaton
If you keep spamming this question I’m going to block your IP address. I’m not any more interested in answering it the sixth time you send it.
Pevel
Im sorry , I just wanted answer that much because i can’t imagine christianity snd Islam not being humanocentric, because they say only humsns have soul, Im sorry Im very sirry
JoB
> because they say only humsns have soul
… among the creatures *on Earth*. Extraterrestrial life, especially extraterrestrial *intelligence*, seems to be a potentially quite different matter:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exotheology
gnffs
>not spacing the joints
gggggggghhh
Tyrone the Miner
When the panels are back on and the new paint has dried, nobody will know =)
arf
Talita conducts some clandestine activity, secretly hoping all the temps will have killed each other off by the time she gets back to them.
malmo
“Can’t have been me, I was fixing wiring in electrical”
evileeyore
Ohoho… noice and sussy there!
Adrienne
Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime, so I repair the AI pirate’s spacecraft on company time
Emma H
🎼 I pirated that ship one phone at a time!
Ginkgosauras
I know it’s for the greater good but given the temps’ track record I’m very worried that Talita is now taking her eyes off of them for so long
Ruby
Maybe Bip is helping with that by keeping an eye on them and reporting to Talita
JoB
Hard to wreak havoc with one of those front loaders again when an AI can take them into remote control faster than you can say “uh”. 😀 And *relinquish* control again before you can notice the status display:
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/657822923875336192/bip-the-ai-will-take-remote-control-of-equipment
“What *is* it with this damn space truck that it ignores my steering every now and then!?”
“… wait, yours too?”
“Yeah, happens with mine as well. Let’s bitch at the boss once we’re back in the habitat, oughta have it fixed tomorrow!”
JoB
I suppose that the big panel extends onto page 104, where we will see what vehicle Talita has taken to arrive at the Runaway. Between her problems fitting into/onto vehicles made for humans, and the rather minor amount of materials she needed to bring to do the splicing, I was a bit surprised to see vehicle tracks on this page …
(I trust that over the course of Monday, Bip has had a look at the Runaway via some hacked Ixion equipment, and realized that they wouldn’t be able to drive any RC vehicle up the *ladders* and through the hull breach to become present in the ship themself.)
JoB
s/ladders/stairs/
cain
She might have needed to bring the stairs with her. Actually, I wouldn’t be surprised if the stairs were the vehicle that left the tracks. Stairs for small jet loading are often on small vehicles or towed by luggage carrier trucks.
JoB
No, the stairs – in fact, the entire launch loop slide the Runaway’s sitting on – were already present on pages 5 ff.:
https://www.runawaytothestars.com/comic/rtts-page-5/
Tumorhead
Props to Jay for drawing 10 zillion machines for the sake of a comic about cool aliens
Trees
Concur!
The perspective always looks perfect, too!
Hunter
This is the whole “reconnect power” thing, I imagine.
Pevel
Hey Jay I would like to ask you what christianoty,judaism,Islam,hunduism,buddism,shinto,taoism,confucianism says about non-human sophonts, did they have a soul, how they reacts to bright duns , and unisex, and what each non-hukan sophont religion say of other sophonts including humans
Asargon
I am not OP, but as a Buddhist we would think very little of it. Buddhism teaches that the Buddhist way is for all beings, and in our scripture even gods, nagas and dragons follow the Buddhist way. The presence of aliens does not negate the central teachings that all beings have attachment and desires, leading to suffering. It just adjusts the scope, though the scope is already very large.
JoB
So we’re talking about today’s *RL* versions of those religions, not their descendants in RttS future?
The Vatican is one of the few major organizations that admitted to having an “after first contact” plan in their drawers. Granted, it seems mainly focused on convincing the *humans* that the existence of extraterrestrial life (much less *intelligence*) does *not* invalidate Genesis (“made in His image”) and/or His claim to rule the entire universe, but still, it’d declare the aliens part of His creation. (Which still doesn’t yet pinpoint an answer to “do they have a soul?”, I suppose, but.)
Septemberdale
I suppose that if the aliens are capable of achieving first contact then they have a soul and if they’re just, like, critters wandering around forming an ecosystem on an exoplanet then whatever applies to animals on Earth incapable of understanding religion probably also applies there? I dunno, I’m not a Catholic.
BonesWizard
hehe, I assemble electronics for a living! so fun to see her (kinda) doing my job
JoB
You don’t splice and heat-shrink-wrap cables *in near vacuum*, though. 😉
(Which is relevant because nuts and bolts may behave differently once assembled in a vacuum
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_cementing
and because the heat-shrink tube, now having a vacuum sealed inside, will be exposed to the ship’s internal atmosphere later on -> gets compressed further, with a risk of tears.)
Phlosioneer
This feels like a solved problem in a setting like this. Make the heat shrink out of a stronger material, use plastic screws or screws of a different metal, etc.
Talita is probably using parts rated for vacuum->atmo transitions, like field repair kits for the equipment.
JoB
Oh, I don’t doubt that *Talita* is used to all that. Or post-Apollo NASA, for that matter:
https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19900014421/downloads/19900014421.pdf
Trees
Threads like these are why I read the comments section, spoilers be damned.
Where else but here would I ever in my life come across such hyper specific space minutiae.
JoB
[imagines @Trees flagging down an ET visitors’ shuttle, who, after being shown the above links, promptly blame NASA for “giving spoilers” on space travel] 😛
the Inmara
Watching Talita work, we’re realizing something about sophont species that have claws. If the quick is short enough, they would probably trim them to have a convenient flat edge, like Talita’s hoofy nails, instead of coming to a point. That seems much more useful for interacting with tech and manipulating materials and tools.
This is mostly relevant to our own writing, but we could also see certain individuals not trimming their claws because they are of high enough station that they don’t need to labor. And so we’re also scrutinizing those Avians.
Mica
I’m not so sure. I’ve had long nails for most of my adult life, and whenever I need to trim them short for some reason, I feel like I lose so much of my dexterity. There are limits to how long nails can get while maintaining dexterity, of course, but… I think if you’re used to a particular fingertip-configuration, the ability to work delicately develops as a skill and habit situation. And having fingertips that are too blunt can prevent a lot of fine manipulation— though in Talita’s case, her really wide range of motion, and the fact that she has the strong edges of her hoof-nails to work with, is probably plenty of compensation for that lack of specificity in grip-surface.
Sparky Lurkdragon
Funnily enough, this is my headcanon for why Mobians (Sonic the Hedgehog anthros) all wear gloves. It’s partially to keep their claws (which it’s unclear if they canonically have but it’s my headcanon and I’ll do what I want) from catching on things.
Translunary_Animus
OH SHE SOTERING HELL YEA TALITA
1d4Nadg
She is so meticulous, it’s impressive!
the nonyer
i wonder if you could hear large wheeled machinery in space through the vibrations they’d cause in the ground making their way up your space boots
JoB
The surface of Dirtball is said to be covered in regolith, which is a material that’s not exactly densely packed (unless it has specifically been treated, like, to become a solid foundation for a building of the former mining operation) and thus should be bad at propagating vibrations, so I’m not sure how much would arrive at the boots in the first place. Next, vibrations that you “feel in your stomach” in a normal atmosphere do not seem to contain much in terms of *audible* frequencies (or, in that situation, they’d probably be *deafeningly loud* in your ears). But animals specialized on sensing minute ground vibrations exist (elephants, snakes, many insects), so I guess that bets are off at least for bug ferrets and tailed spacers …
Spinland
From someone who builds and modifies electric guitars as a hobby, I approve of her tidy splices.
zwol
Some of those are high-voltage, high-amperage power cables. There are *industrial safety standards* for how to splice them (in real life, even!) and I’m sure Talita knows those standards to the letter.
Spinland
Yeah; the episode write-up specifies these are “medium-voltage” cables. I agree Talita would know exactly how to use the proper gauge connectors.
Brogy
giving bip a bandaid and big lollypop
creetur
Everyone deserves a little treat, even AI