March 20, 2009

This one needs some explanation.

Sunlanders were designed by the Gene Lords as a slave race: one of the controls built into them was that, while they could breed with normal humans, the offspring would be sterile. The idea was that, should they ever manage to get free of their overlords, they would (given the relatively small number of Sunlanders) breed themselves out of existence within a few generations.

The taboo against sleeping with -- and especially having children with -- normals remains strong across all Sunlander cultures; in the more conservative populations (like, say, Kieselburg's), where simply associating with a cangrejo can be grounds for a beating, it achieves the status of a religious mania.

(And if I'd actually gotten that article on Sunlanders written up as I meant to, some of you might have found this strip funny. Bah. I'll try and get it up over the weekend, guys, even if it has to go up without any pretty pictures.)