Welcome to the second volume of Cosmic Dash Canon Notes. I will be doing this series of posts periodically to note changes and updates to canonicity in the comics and stories I write. I am doing these posts because, as the generally sole contributor to a lot of what is produced for the larger setting – sometimes I slip up.
In this second installment, I have a few small corrections previously listed in the series canon and timeline page over at the main Cosmic Dash website. I include them here to keep the focus of that webpage on the storyline order of the series.
Here are the previous notes.
Canon Notes
The following bullet points are canon notes to clarify or correct any errors in the series. As I mostly work alone, sometimes continuity errors do occur. Please e-mail me (hpkomic @ gmail.com) if you have observed any errors.
- Alix’s roaming implant: The implant in Alix’s arm for her cyborg connections has shifted from her right to her left arm. Here are two instances of the right arm, with the latest instance being the left. The intent is that I will go back and edit the novella to set up she has two implants.
- No other canon tweaks yet, but let me know if you catch anything.
Worldbuilding Notes
Cosmic Dash is set in a very vibrant and inspiring setting for me. As a result, I will fill these canon notes with little snippets of information published on associated pages of comics. One of the ways I have been adding to the overall comic experience is by including small notes. I’ll be compiling them periodically in these blog posts.
Each entry will have a link to the corresponding page with a copy of the material – I will likely make small corrections here and there: the latest version is current canon.
Cosmic Dash 4.3.4 – Kracker – Drunk Pilot
Kracker has been known to drink in the comic quite a bit, as his flask has been a bit of a common sight throughout the previous three volumes of the comic. He is likely an alcoholic, but he seems to manage it. Downtime tends to be when his drinking is at its worst, particularly when he is dealing with a personal issue.
We’ll be uncovering the origins of this soon.
As for how the drinking affects his job, he has managed to keep himself ready to fly. He does not drink to impairment unless he knows he’ll have downtime. When he is not flying, he does have a bit of a buzz, but some days are worse than others. Between energy stims, coffee, and koba, he can sober up fairly quickly.
Dorian does have some justifiable worries, though. This is the most drunk he has been in a while.
Cosmic Dash 4.3.5 – On Bucketbot
Bucketbot was never intended to be anything more than a gag in the first issue of Cosmic Dash. I hadn’t thought much beyond the fact that I love ridiculous unitasker robots as a design trope. Bucketbot was originally born as a gag and a little way to “humanize” the robotic staff of Shmoofyland in the first issue to give a little weight to what happens.
Something about him stuck, though. On a whim, I decided that Kimney’s parting gift to Dash would be the robot bucket he had in his employ for a while, and I just sort of ran with it. One of the things I thought about was that this was a robot that had been around for a pretty long time. Not as long as Blu, but long enough that maybe the robot had begun to develop something close to sentience. So, as the comic has gone on, Bucketbot has grown and developed, treated as another part of the crew, and it’s been interesting to see where he goes. He’s not as inscrutable as the enigmatic Blu, but he is a bit of a wildcard because he is so vocal and has a personality and desires he can express.
I am excited about where this new development as the Ship’s AI takes him. This is something we’ve seen developing since volume 3, but it’s nice to be able to write about it a bit more. We saw how important their new role was in the previous issue.
Bonus: Enjoy some sketches of unitasker robots when I was developing the comic’s first issue. Yep, that is proto-Bucketbot!
Cosmic Dash 4.3.6 – About Ferrow’s Hope
Let’s turn our attention to the colony of Ferrow’s Hope. We saw some of the colony in the previous issue while Dash went to the depot on his delivery. The colony is listed as Colony A, which is probably a records-keeping issue because it is a frontier colony. Definitely not an example of a retcon, not at all.
In truth, Ferrow’s Hope isn’t a long-serving colony; many buildings are pop-ups and basic structures used for colonies with generally agreeable climates. The colony has been up for a few years, and database information may not have been updated immediately.
As for the colony, this is an example of one of the current colony trends where if a habitable planet is found, a near-immediate colonial operation is established. It’s about claiming territory as quickly as possible. Still, that means support for these colonies is often limited by their associate factions, and they can be prone to space pirate attacks.
Ferrow’s Hope, in particular, has been claimed by the Cyclopasian Neutrality as a potential transit hub for the frontier. The Neutrality doesn’t have a standing military, and the colony’s success can’t be left to the goodwill of a ragtag delivery company.
Cosmic Dash 4.3.7 – About Fuel Cells
Fuel cells are a pretty important thing in the frontier of the galaxy. Energy is probably the biggest currency, greater than any money or credit. This is because access to energy is often the difference between life and death, and thus fuel cells can serve as the most valuable resource.
Fuel cells come in different varieties and forms, of course. There is no universal source of energy. For example, a starship like the Lucky Strike II uses multiple fuel types. The ship can collect solar energy in specialized panels on the hull to bank energy for some functions, such as lighting, heating, etc. This tends to be renewable energy that can prove reliable, especially when the ship is in a star system with direct access to photons from a star.
Another fuel cell on the ship is a chemical converter that collects stellar gasses and converts them to power. Starships often have fuel cell redundancies because the last thing any spacer wants is to lose power in the void.
However, the fuel cells discussed on this page are formacyte cells. Formacyte is one of the more essential energy sources in the Silver Spiral Galaxy. Formacyte is a form of radioactive crystal that can be processed into a crystalline matrix that reacts to ionic charges. These formacyte fuel cells are the basis for travel in space and are what allow any ship to reach a portion of the speed of light. The current speed percentage record, thanks to formacyte, is equal to 70% of the speed of light.
Formacyte fuel cells only power the photonic drive, however. There is more to such travel and acceleration.
Blood and Oil Pg 1 – 1980s Comics (The Fugitoid)
Anyone who has had an extended conversation with me knows I love the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and that applies further back to the other works of Eastman and Laird, including The Fugitoid. The character may be more famous as a TMNT side character, usually referred to as Prof. Honeycutt. He was a scientist using a mental connection through a helmet, and through an accident, his mind displaced into the robot drone he was piloting.
It’s a fun story outside the larger TMNT connections, including Triceratons. So, since the first issue of Cosmic Dash, T-wk’s whole story has had that “transported mind” element. His is just a hive-mind. We’re just now getting caught up with him on the junk world he ended up in “Reboot.”
As for the Heavy Metal connection I spoke of earlier… I will be playing with gore and violence a little more in this story, so I have been reading some of the 1980s Heavy Metal issues to get a sense of the violent adventure I hope to emulate here.
Blood and Oil Pg 2 – Silver Spiral Gaming
Our question this week is from Ghostforge, who asked whether the Silver Spiral Galaxy had anything comparable to MMOs. On that note, I am going to also go a bit broader here and talk about gaming in the setting. Gaming is very much an element of day-to-day life in the galaxy, and video games as we know them (and beyond) are things that exist in the setting. They’ve popped in a few times. For example, Dash is a big fan of the series Romance of the Three Factions which is a combat simulator series made of historical figures. It is also a game he plays with Mara. Kracker, meanwhile, plays Scream Speedway.
As for MMOs, the big challenge with online-style gaming is latency. Most games utilize local networks for live gameplay, and you’re more or less limited to your local network. Even gaming from ship to ship in the same system is virtually impossible with any form of live game. So MMOs tend to be played more regionally, and cross-system features tend to be more abstract to account for packet time.
With a game such as Romance of the Three Factions, however, that game functions more like chess in that you perform your turn, and coordinates are then sent to the opponent’s client to play out. So basically, any live gameplay on a galactic level has to be done with simple packet and it won’t be remotely live. Especially when you factor in proximity to GIN relays or jump gates.
Thank you for your time. I hope this series will prove interesting, especially seeing a complicated web of characters and stories play out in real time.