2016 art, a Starfarer named Chandra Reva. Later art of her has her a bit less lanky, I guess I was still figuring out her design with her debut appearance.
I've mentioned before that Tara, Moana and Hemera are all descendants of a nomadic spacefaring race that made colonies on many worlds throughout the galaxy.
When settlers find a new planet or moon to take up residence on, their bodies quickly adapt to the new environment, with useful mutations often appearing within the first generation of offspring born on their new home world. Body colors change to match the surroundings, and their physiology will morph to be better suited to the climate and resources their new homes have to offer. The majority of my artwork of this race depicts females, for the simple reason that the ratio of females to males within their species if roughly 4 to 1, enabling them to start and sustain a population with ease. After all, a male can impregnate several females, but each female can only carry one pregnancy at a time. It's simple mathematics, really.
This is what their original un-evolved and un-adapted ancestors looked like. Chandra Reva is one of a few remaining members of the Starfarers that has remained nomadic, her clan having lived aboard a large starship for generations. While fairly friendly, and making frequent stops on friendly worlds to pick up supplies and leave the ship for short vacations, this particular clan simply never found another world to call home and never really cared to. Captain Reva has taken on many roles in her life, including security officer, pilot, asteroid miner and engineer. Versatility is a virtue of the Starfarer race, after all.
Here we see Chandra with her sidearm drawn, perhaps searching for an intruder or hostile alien life form. With their primary source of tradeable and usable resources being asteroid mining, there's always a risk of pirates sneaking onto the ship or hostile, unknown creatures being taken on board along with the asteroids.
I've mentioned before that Tara, Moana and Hemera are all descendants of a nomadic spacefaring race that made colonies on many worlds throughout the galaxy.
When settlers find a new planet or moon to take up residence on, their bodies quickly adapt to the new environment, with useful mutations often appearing within the first generation of offspring born on their new home world. Body colors change to match the surroundings, and their physiology will morph to be better suited to the climate and resources their new homes have to offer. The majority of my artwork of this race depicts females, for the simple reason that the ratio of females to males within their species if roughly 4 to 1, enabling them to start and sustain a population with ease. After all, a male can impregnate several females, but each female can only carry one pregnancy at a time. It's simple mathematics, really.
This is what their original un-evolved and un-adapted ancestors looked like. Chandra Reva is one of a few remaining members of the Starfarers that has remained nomadic, her clan having lived aboard a large starship for generations. While fairly friendly, and making frequent stops on friendly worlds to pick up supplies and leave the ship for short vacations, this particular clan simply never found another world to call home and never really cared to. Captain Reva has taken on many roles in her life, including security officer, pilot, asteroid miner and engineer. Versatility is a virtue of the Starfarer race, after all.
Here we see Chandra with her sidearm drawn, perhaps searching for an intruder or hostile alien life form. With their primary source of tradeable and usable resources being asteroid mining, there's always a risk of pirates sneaking onto the ship or hostile, unknown creatures being taken on board along with the asteroids.
Category Artwork (Digital) / General Furry Art
Species Bovine (Other)
Size 750 x 850px
File Size 991.4 kB
Listed in Folders
Since it's sunglasses, they could just be made in matte gray. The lenses would just need to be clear enough to see without significantly altering vision, so it wouldn't be too hard to give them anti-reflective properties.
If the creature is not dependent on visual detection, then one would need a setup to help counter what it does use, if possible. Xer, for example, has no eyes and uses a combination of echolocation and electrosensory to sense the environment. Granted, he's fused into Rex-57, who does have more conventional senses. But it's hard for Xer to actually make sense of Rex's senses, and vice-versa. This is why neither typically tries to control the other. It gives them both headaches. It's easier to give Xer sensory overload than try to out-stealth him.
So, perhaps that could work. Shoot a flare gun (or plasma bolt) into a heat-sensing alien's face (or wherever their sensory is). Carry various types of stink bait to nauseate scent-based trackers. Have a music player with good speakers and Slim Whitman to explode the brains of sound-sensitive aliens and generally hurt the ears of everyone else. Something like an EMP emitter or other high-electric output device for electro-sense. Movement, have a few deployable drones to distract the whatever, so you can shoot them in the weak spot. Think a bit like how Batman typically caries a utility belt with stuff like kryptonite in it.
If the creature is not dependent on visual detection, then one would need a setup to help counter what it does use, if possible. Xer, for example, has no eyes and uses a combination of echolocation and electrosensory to sense the environment. Granted, he's fused into Rex-57, who does have more conventional senses. But it's hard for Xer to actually make sense of Rex's senses, and vice-versa. This is why neither typically tries to control the other. It gives them both headaches. It's easier to give Xer sensory overload than try to out-stealth him.
So, perhaps that could work. Shoot a flare gun (or plasma bolt) into a heat-sensing alien's face (or wherever their sensory is). Carry various types of stink bait to nauseate scent-based trackers. Have a music player with good speakers and Slim Whitman to explode the brains of sound-sensitive aliens and generally hurt the ears of everyone else. Something like an EMP emitter or other high-electric output device for electro-sense. Movement, have a few deployable drones to distract the whatever, so you can shoot them in the weak spot. Think a bit like how Batman typically caries a utility belt with stuff like kryptonite in it.
I do have an updated portrait of her here, where her design has been updated a bit to both reflect updates to the Starfarer species and her role as a jack-of-all-trades sort of adventurer, including goggles and a bandanna that can be used as in impromptu dust mask.
I do like the idea of a utility belt, especially for a character of a race that's already evolved to for lateral thinking and problem solving--less about having specialized equipment for every scenario, and more for carrying items that might be generally useful in whatever tasks she might find herself performing, combat or otherwise. I suppose in her case it would really just be a fairly standard tool belt, stocked with tools and commonly used small hardware items, the sort of things any resourceful individual could use to craft a variety of useful items provided the immediate environment can contribute some extra materials to work with.
I also made some updates to the design of the typical Reva blaster pistol, which can be seen here (second pistol in the top row, next to the Dominion infantry blaster). I find that plasma-based blaster pistols have some interesting potential in terms of damage-dealing and secondary attributes--their damage type would primarily be heat-based, probably considered "fire" damage in most conventional elemental-based damage classification systems, but I can also see it dealing a small amount of "electric" damage as a nifty side effect depending on how the plasma bolts are energized. Add in how plasma glows, and how the projectiles are generally larger and slower-moving than most bullets and other similar kinetic projectile, and the blaster can be used to distract motion-sensing and heat-sensing predators, perhaps distract those that tune in to electromagnetic waves to track prey, or she could simply shoot a hostile creature in the face (assuming she can determine what passes for a "face", it can be tricky to tell on some creatures) to blind and possibly kill it!
That, and I'm sure she knows at least three ways to convert the power cell for the blaster into an improvised explosive device, assuming she has a spare or two she's able to part with--use it directly as a sort of short-range plasma grenade, put it in a container with some screws and bolts to form a sort of fragmentation grenade, or combine it with a tripwire to make some sort of improvised mine. Most industrial settings also feature conveniently placed containers of flammable, explosive, or otherwise volatile substances that could be combined with the aforementioned "mine" configuration to deal some serious damage, too!
I do like the idea of a utility belt, especially for a character of a race that's already evolved to for lateral thinking and problem solving--less about having specialized equipment for every scenario, and more for carrying items that might be generally useful in whatever tasks she might find herself performing, combat or otherwise. I suppose in her case it would really just be a fairly standard tool belt, stocked with tools and commonly used small hardware items, the sort of things any resourceful individual could use to craft a variety of useful items provided the immediate environment can contribute some extra materials to work with.
I also made some updates to the design of the typical Reva blaster pistol, which can be seen here (second pistol in the top row, next to the Dominion infantry blaster). I find that plasma-based blaster pistols have some interesting potential in terms of damage-dealing and secondary attributes--their damage type would primarily be heat-based, probably considered "fire" damage in most conventional elemental-based damage classification systems, but I can also see it dealing a small amount of "electric" damage as a nifty side effect depending on how the plasma bolts are energized. Add in how plasma glows, and how the projectiles are generally larger and slower-moving than most bullets and other similar kinetic projectile, and the blaster can be used to distract motion-sensing and heat-sensing predators, perhaps distract those that tune in to electromagnetic waves to track prey, or she could simply shoot a hostile creature in the face (assuming she can determine what passes for a "face", it can be tricky to tell on some creatures) to blind and possibly kill it!
That, and I'm sure she knows at least three ways to convert the power cell for the blaster into an improvised explosive device, assuming she has a spare or two she's able to part with--use it directly as a sort of short-range plasma grenade, put it in a container with some screws and bolts to form a sort of fragmentation grenade, or combine it with a tripwire to make some sort of improvised mine. Most industrial settings also feature conveniently placed containers of flammable, explosive, or otherwise volatile substances that could be combined with the aforementioned "mine" configuration to deal some serious damage, too!
The exact nature of most plasma stuff in fiction is often hand waved, but yeah, the more serious looks at it is that plasma/fire is a conductor. As such, it wouldn't be too hard to use a lower-power EM/Railgun concept for delivery of plasma/fire bolts. Basically, magnetize the plasma shortly after creating it and use the EM/Railgun system to send it downrange. Typical reason it's slower moving is so that it stays cohesive. Too much force and you've not got a plasma bolt, but more of a cloud of plasma shot, which may dissipate faster and not be as effective. Logically, "shot, bolt, and stream" should be functions of any good variable use plasma gun. Shot would be good for your typical shotgun-type scenarios, or lighting a campfire. Bolts are typically your multipurpose round. Stream is typically overlooked, due to the fact that flamethrowers are considered a war-crime in our reality, but would be an effective method of dealing with swarms/boss monsters or destroying buildings.
As for utility stuff, thermite is surprisingly simple. Just carry a jar of aluminum powder from a hobby shop and find some rust.
As for utility stuff, thermite is surprisingly simple. Just carry a jar of aluminum powder from a hobby shop and find some rust.
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