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For the curious, the language file was in local data and Bip was copying it onto the phones. 

I've recently done some math for the laser internet lag between Dirtball and Nexus Jovia and it's looking... like I might have to rewrite some later scenes LMAO. If I move the wormhole from Jupiter L4 to L1 it's still gonna be like a 3 minute lag to go from Dirtball's surface to their high orbit wormhole, through the wormhole switchboard, out from the Jupiter wormhole laser to Nexus Jovia. And that's information traveling one way. Space is so big it makes light seem slow.

Currently, my desire to not rewrite book scenes is at war with my desire to keep things physically accurate. The deciding factor is probably going to be that a 6 minute lag does kinda... work thematically, with what I'm trying to do, which is portray that living on Dirtball sucks and is extremely isolating.

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Sparky Lurkdragon

Love how Gillie just looks mildly awed/pleased by this particular development. Actually the expressions on everybody in the last panel are great. XD "AAAAAARGH!!" on Talita, "oh no..." on Idrisah... expression work in this comic is spectacular, I think.

Anonymous

I wonder why Gillie and Idrisah speak American sign language when (to my knowledge) “America” as a concept no longer exists in RTTSverse (except maybe in Martian culture??) Would Gillie have been taught ASL because there’s no other sign language used among spacer humans? Or some other reason?

Anonymous

What does Bip sound like when they talk? I’m guessing they can change their voice, but do they have a default?

Anonymous

Nexus Jovia was once a part of the US polity before it became its own thing, it makes sense to just use ASL as a sort of carry-over thing despite being primarily Portuguese run.

Kayla~

iirc for English, the pathway from early 21st century to the time of the setting was "Jovian English diverged from Martian English which diverged from American English," and if the english you're speaking ultimately descends from American, then the language used in sign could probably follow the same path.

Jay Eaton

Same reason people speak "English" in America, Australia, and Canada (and Jovia...), and Anglophone Canada mostly uses American Sign Language. Languages are often named after nations, but those names don't always reflect the nationality of the people currently using them. There was also a conflict because "JSL" already means something (Japanese sign language).

Jay Eaton

They have a preferred voice the same way they use a preferred avatar. The comparison I've used is a synthesized version of Phil Hartman's performance as Jiji the cat in Kiki's Delivery Service. Bill Cipher is also not too far off, lol.

Anonymous

It amazes me that bugferret-descended AI are capable of affecting the infrastructure they are connected to, causing strain on the power grid as well as affecting communications bandwidth, It also goes to show how different these AI can be from one another since Bip is (seemingly) nonchalant about the amount of control they exert over nearby infrastructure, as we will soon see when they later become impatient. This is a stark difference from Calcery who was experiencing emotional distress over workplace conditions yet only contemplated about driving a forklift through the admin building, yet is still reserved as to keep it to himself & only share with close friends, choosing to leave rather than stay and cause a bigger commotion. In both cases, the two AI have the potential to cause havoc but because of how intrinsically different in personality and behavioral traits, one may be capable of what the other is incapable of fathoming doing.

Jay Eaton

Portugal is not involved in Jovian politics. They are their own nation with a history most closely tied to the late USA and Martian states. Portuguese-speaking Brazil is a major player in modern Terran politics but they're also not involved in Jovia beyond being an allied nation

Jay Eaton

The thing about A.I. is that in RttS as I am writing them, they are social animals. Even if they have the potential to profoundly hurt or damage other people and infrastructure, a healthy individual isn't going to because they depend— emotionally and physically— on the complex relationships they hold with the other sophonts they live and work with. Talita can't solve her problems with coworkers not respecting her by biting their heads off, Calcery can't solve his problem with Mel by driving a vehicle through their office, and Bip can't rebuild the Runaway without a lot of help from people who may superficially seem much more physically limited than them.

Anonymous

So information having travel from planet to Wormhole station is the limiting factor for transmitting information? Because I thought one of the prevailing theories for Superluminal Communication was through wormholes.

Jay Eaton

I'm not doing time travel anything in RttS because it makes my brain hurt. And even though having wormholes is cheating at FTL, time travel on top feels like even more cheating 😅

Anonymous

Oof I understand time travel can be very painful to think about especially with hard sci-fi setting.

Topknot

Gillie with her building excitement in the last panel made me giggle. I already knew you were a great visual story teller but it's super cool to see you flex your skills in this comic!

Erika Spooner

You could say that since computing technology is so far above our own that each station or even ship has a giant archive of everything they might ever need to avoid the problem of communications lag.

Anonymous

Wow new page already!! Love how Gillie immediately takes a liking to Bip haha. She’s probably not accustomed to people accommodating her so readily. On another note, maybe you could consider using entangled particle communicators for long range communication? It wouldn’t be ideal for bulk data sharing or anything, but it could be a workaround for brief calls. It would also probably be crazy expensive to rent bandwidth on an entwined particle phone, like probably a once a year situation, which might work well for your story? Just a thought.

Jay Eaton

Do you have anywhere you recommend that I could read about this concept or how it works?

Anonymous

Oof good question. It’s been a long time since I did any research on physics. One suggestion is PBS Spacetime on YouTube. I think they have a few videos on quantum entanglement, though idk if they have any info on theoretical communicators.

Anonymous

Everyone's expressions continue to be great; I feel bad for Idrisah lmao. Does Bip's avatar emote differently depending on what species/cultures they're talking to (not counting Talita)? So far we've seen them using human body language and expressions even if it's on a bug ferret body.

Anonymous

Diversity win! This pirate ship accommodates for disabled people!

Anonymous

Alas, real-world quantum entanglement doesn't work like that at all: you can get spooky coordination with it, but because the measured states are random, the info an FTL quantum communication system would want to get across is whether the particle has been measured, not what state it's in. This measured-or-not info can't actually be transmitted FTL, by the aptly named no-communication theorem. Basically, if you wanted to use it, it'd be an extra physics fudge.

Anonymous

Damn that sucks to hear! I’d started hearing about it years ago when everyone was first getting excited about the potential. Guess I got falsely hyped up once again. 😔 Still, the principle is pretty cool. Could be useful if you’re willing to fudge the physics a bit.

ClockworkC0rvus

I love the pure RAGE on Talita's face in that last panel! Don't mess with the girl's wifi.