My Latest Cartoon For New Scientist.

glass

The sun of Deslotair burned bright above. Stark white blended into yellow, infecting the sky around it. Rays of light stabbed the sky like burning knives, searing the air, cutting through that which crossed their path. Anything that stood in their way bled shadows, patches of darkness spreading from their touch.

The glass robot did not bleed shadows, ey did not feel the burning heat of the sun. Those deadly knives passed through eir translucent skin, shining off the machinery inside, swallowed by the burbling liquid that flowed through eir body. The tip of a spear was held low at eir side, its point gleaming.

No sun stabbed through the skin of the glass robot, but sharp gazes burned holes in eir back.

Whispers floated in the footsteps of the traveler. Suspicious words accompanied by fleeting glances trailed after the figure like wisps of smoke. The glass robot returned their glances with a blank curiosity, unbothered by the restless murmurs of discomfort. Ey simply observed, and walked.

The wooden doors of an old saloon swung open with whining creaks, announcing the presence of the traveler to those inside. Few heads turned, all new blood (the regulars were accustomed to the creaking of the doors, and to the uninteresting passerby they so often brought). Yet they started another round of whispers, and more heads turned to the glass robot, boisterous conversations morphing into a suspicious hiss at the arrival of the newcomer.

The glass robot turned eir head this way and that, returning the gazes of staring strangers with eir own gleaming eyes. Outside the eerie glow was swallowed up by the sun, but here it cast a white halo around the traveler’s face, surrounded by the gentle green glow of the vitrel  that flowed inside of em.

Ey walked.

The glass thudded against wooden floors, steps going unbroken as the small crowd parted to make room for the traveler. Ey nodded eir appreciation, and approached the bar. The bartender stood up straight. The robot she had been talking to, sitting on one of the hourglass stools with an untouched drink in front of him, remained perfectly still.

“Well,” the bartender started. She set down the empty glass she had been holding, put it upside down on the counter so its rim kissed the wood and left a ring of moisture. “What can I get ya?”

“Nothing to drink, thank you.” The glass robot spoke with eir hands, the fluid inside of them twisting and shifting with each movement.

The bartender eyed em warily. “Uh, sorry, I don’t know what you’re sayin’...”

“Nothing to drink, thank you.” The glass robot repeated the same motions as before, only slower, hands making clear arcs through the air.

“Ey doesn’t want anything,” the robot spoke up, nodding to the bartender before turning to address the glass bot. His eyes glowed a faint blue, piercingly contrasted with the hazy brown light that filtered through dirty glass bulbs above them. Tubes curled around him, jutting out from the fabric of his vest and wrapping around his joints. “What are you here for, then, if not a drink?”

Saloon

Glass and Sprocket's first meeting, way back when. Added a couple of ports for Sprocket's tubing to flow through, which makes a hell of a lot more sense than them just kind of sticking out at his joints or junctures in the plating. Better for consistency's sake too.

Tags: @glacierruler

Stages | Developing Nepenthes Pitcher plant by Steve Mackay

Challenge Day 276 of Year 9 Teb was a simple plastiform home kit robot that it's builder less than legally squeezed a grey market AI into. It was fairly sure that it hadn't been put together correctly, but didn't have the tech to do diagnostics on itself just yet.

What I used:  Muji Light Blue 0.7mm pen, and Muji 0.5mm Light blue pen on Karst Stone Paper Notebook. What this is: Daily Character Design Challenge, 2024-02-26 Year 9 - No276a, by Jeff Stewart

First Drop

On Deslotair, the storm cycle breaks every three years, clearing the skies for off-world ships to make a rare visit to the planet. But for every ship that can make the landing, another falls to the unfamiliar conditions and dust-laden atmosphere. Scavengers watch the ships as they crash, ready to strip them to the hulls for all their worth.

Taglist: @glacierruler

Rudolf Bauer Space, 1932

Hold my hand

Ooo baby it's a long way down

To the bottom of the river

Some scattered thoughts about Desmona's mask, why she wears it, and how she got it.

Taglist: @glacierruler

As the storms ebb and flow, those ships foolish enough to get caught in their swell drop down from the sky.

It's a good time to be a scavenger.

'Drop season' is the period of time on Deslocar when the storms start to cease, as the scavengers call it. It's both a time to trade your goods with off-worlders, and collect from the ships that aren't quite used to the rougher conditions...

Tags: @glacierruler

Planet Deslotair is super cool, tell me more about Desmona if you want

-g

I'd love to!!

So Desmona grew up in a vitrel harvesting town called Sagal, where vitrel is pumped from the ground and then shipped off elsewhere so it can be properly processed. Processed vitrel is still pretty toxic, but it isn't nearly as reactive as the raw stuff. Desmona's dad worked for the harvesting company, and when she was 16 she got a job working there as well. Nothing super dangerous, she was just behind a desk helping with paperwork and whatnot, but she was on site a lot. She was actually really fascinated with how vitrel was moved and gathered, and wanted to study material sciences when she got older.

But before she got a chance to do any of that, there was an accident. A vitrel transport truck crashes, and Desmona is right on the scene. Her dad is the one to pull her out of the mess, contaminating himself in the process. He would later succumb to his wounds and die, she would not. She wakes up, and runs.

Desmona spends about a week out in the wilderness mostly by herself. She lives in the plains region, Deslotair’s finest, but it’s still hard to make do, to survive. She drinks from rivers and chews sweet grass into a pulp between her teeth. The pain under her skin settles, but the energy does not. Eventually, she finds a fallen ship, and starts to camp out there. She meets a vitrel dog, names him Tak, and sleeps a little easier. She meets two bots, fails to push them away, and sleeps through the night. The vitrel that lashes out from her skin can't hurt any of them.

Outside of the scavengers group, she's very shy and withdrawn. The armor helps contain the vitrel, but it also acts as a shield from the world. She's very aware that the mask makes her look strange and off-putting, and she leans into that as much as possible when interacting with new people. Once she does warm up to people though, she's really sweet. Has kind of a smart-ass sense of humor with Sprocket, and immediately becomes really close with Glass. They cook together, and ey teaches her sign language while Desmona tries to teach em to sew. It takes a while for the group to find their rhythm, but eventually the three of them (four with Tak) are inseparable.

fanart of one of @eggnogo 's robots :3

link to og

I think it's funny when robots in fiction are just,,, super old and they outlive multiple generations of humans and are kinda treated as functionally immortal but irl tech is like "Your car is 20 years old???" or "I get a new smart phone every two years!"

Lemme see old ass bots who are mocked for being all ancient and outmoded and then when someone asks "How old are you??" it turns out they're like five.