History Webcomic / LeavingTheCradle

* {{Masquerade}}: From the alien's side of things, it's standard protocol to avoid making contact with another species if they aren't space-faring, so as to not interfere with their culture and cause mass panic. Humanity is no exception, but it remains to be seen if it will remain that way after Gharr gets stranded on Earth.

** A more egregious example happens when Dan, Val, and Mark witness the crash and rescue Gharr. In-universe, it took a little more over five minutes for them to move the alien to the truck. In real time, it took six months.

* SpaceIsAnOcean: Subverted. Spaceships have no clearly defined top or bottom, and there is no uniform plane of reference.

** Dan's [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/30 vivid imagination]] of what would be the consequence of Gharr falling in the hands of the government: Gharr's exposed innards are obscured by both the figure standing in front of the table as well as the TV static effect.

* GoryDiscretionShot: We don't see the full bodies of the alien security team when the general sees it, but from what [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/16 little]] we do [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/30 see]] after the missile hits the shuttle, it certainly isn't pretty. The soldiers [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/57 mention]] that they had found a total of six and a ''half'' bodies.
** Dan's [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/30 vivid imagination]] of what would be the consequence of Gharr falling in the hands of the government: Gharr's exposed innards are obscured by both the figure standing in front of the table as well as the TV static effect.

* GoryDiscretionShot: We don't see the full bodies of the alien security team when the general sees it, but from what [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/16 little]] we do [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/30 see]] after the missile hits the shuttle, it certainly isn't pretty.
* HartmanHips: Ahshu has quite a waist. Additional materials suggest that this figure is typical for Raharr females.

* GoryDiscretionShot: We don't see the full bodies of the alien security team when the general sees it, but from what [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/16 little]] we do [[[[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/30 see]] after the missile hits the shuttle, it certainly isn't pretty.

* NoodleIncident: When Dan is shown for the first time, he's in the middle telling Val and Mark a story about how he left somewhere undetected and did...[[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/18 something]]. We aren't given any details (other than his stunt was breaking a lot of laws and he would've gotten arrested if he was spotted) before he gets interrupted by the alien shuttle crashing near them.

* PoorCommunicationKills: [[spoiler: Gharr, wanting to explore the unknown, doctors the data in his report about humanity to increase the chances of Zane authorizing the landing expedition. [[GoneHorriblyRight It worked.]] Needless to say, when Zane realizes the deception, [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/50 he isn't happy.]]]]

* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Outside of the expeditionary fleet, the story takes place near the city of N on Earth and that's all the reader knows about the setting [[WordOfGod outside of it being "somewhere middle european-ish"]]

** On the next page, Quantum manages to gain access to our network and they grow worried upon seeing our stories on the subject of aliens, as it depicts them as malicious invaders and monsters. For the AC personally, they are especially concerned on stories with or about artificial consciousnesses being treated as either nothing more than slaves or as a threat that needs to be put down, and overall fears a potential repeat of the [[https://wiki.leavingthecradle.com/wiki/Lesser_species Vainur incident]]. [[ReasonableAuthorityFigure Zane]] is quick to call him out on his bias and points out that his species were making fiction similar to ours before the Space Age.

* WhamShot: [[spoiler: The [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/61 third page of Chapter 3]] shows that Gharr wasn't the only person who survived after his research shuttle got shot down.]]

The plot follows an alien xenobiologist Gharr, who crash-lands on Earth after his research mission accidentally gets shot at by the Earth's military defences.

* AllThereInTheManual: The webcomic has an extensive wiki that hosts a '''lot''' of the information about the setting, that most likely will never have chance to appear in the comic. It's [[NoExportForYou mostly in Russian]], though.
* AlienNonInterferenceClause: The Alliance have a directive that forbids contacting species below a certain development level, to not affect their culture and society. Guess if Earthlings qualify as advanced. Things get complicated when one of the researchers accidentally gets stranded on Earth.
* ArtificialGravity: of the CentrifugalGravity variety. Standard artificial gravity depiction is absent.

* AttackDrone: Takes up the role of a SpaceFighter in the setting, and usually being deployed in massive waves designed to [[ZergRush overwhelm]] the enemy's defences.

* {{Cyborg}}: Majority of the population of the Alliance, many have brain implants, and complete replacement of the immune system is required for those who actively travel the galaxy and interact with other species.

* HartmanHips: Ahshu has quite a waist. Additional materials suggest that this figue is typical for Raharr females.
* MirrorChemistry: [[BeePeople insectoid]] species are D-chiral, which makes them incompatible with other species biochemically, much like turians from Franchise/MassEffect. This sometimes causes some political problems, since their preferred method of colonizing other life-supporting worlds is to terraform them by blazing large patches of the continent to cinder and reseed it with samples of their own ecosystem.

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Majority of the Alliance is atheistic.

* StarfishLanguage: When shown from the human point of view, the aliens are speaking in... [[https://leavingthecradle.com/comic/38 something]].

* ArtificialLimbs: Hekaht have one of these.

* RubberForeheadAlien: Averted. ''None'' of the known sapient species can pass for a human even from a quick glance, save for Raharrs being bipedal and with upright stance.

* ScheduleSlip: The update schedule is highly irregular, and the author points out that at one moment it stopped entirely for a half a year, almost resulting in it becoming an OrphanedSeries

* OutgrownSuchSillySuperstitions: Majority of the Alliance is atheistic.

[[quoteright:350:https://leavingthecradle.com/assets/images/static/banner_jupiter.jpg]]

[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/ltc.png]]

[[http://leavingthecradle.com Leaving The Cradle]] is an science-fiction {{webcomic}}, attempting at bridging the gap between space opera and [[MohsScaleOfScienceFictionHardness classical hard science fiction]].

* AIIsaCrapshoot: averted - sapient AIs are present but are not threat to all living things. Some of them even provide translation services.
* AllThereInTheManual: Webcomic have extensive wiki that hosts a '''lot''' of the information about the setting, that most likely will never have chance to appear in the comic. It's [[NoExportForYou mostly in Russian]], though.
* AlienNonInterferenceClause: The Alliance have directive that forbids contacting species below certain development level, to not affect their culture and society. Guess if Earthlings qualify as advanced. Things get complicated when one of the researches accidentally gets stranded on Earth.

* AttackDrone: takes up the role of a SpaceFighter in the setting, and usually being deployed in massive waves designed to [[ZergRush overwhelm]] the enemy's defences.
* BeePeople: Zig Zagged. Insectoids have many similarities with ant society, but the differences are also major, with workers have full individuality and being the Queen, while prestigious, doesn't lend you any actual ruling power.
* {{Cyborg}}: Majority of population of the Alliance, many have brain implants, and complete replacement of the immune system is required for those who actively travel the galaxy and interact with other species.

* PostCyberpunk: cybernetic implants are heavy used through the Alliance, sapient AIs exist and there's strong indications that corporations have way more power than they should, but overall setting is not portrayed as CrapsackWorld.

* ScheduleSlip: Comic update schedule is highly irregular, author points out that at one moment it stopped entirely for a half a year, almost resulting in it becoming an OrphanedSeries

* SpaceIsAnOcean: subverted. Spaceships have no clearly defined top or bottom, and there is no uniform plane of reference.

* ScheduleSlip: Comic update schedule is highly irregular, author points out that at one moment it stopped entirely for a half a year, almost resulting in it becoming a StillbornSerial

* PostCyberpunk: cybernetic implants are heavy used through the Alliance, sapient AIs exist and there's strong indications that corporations have way more power than they should, but overall setting is not portrayed as CrapsackWorld. [[CrapsaccharineWorld Yet]].
* PrimeDirective: The Alliance have directive that forbids contacting species below certain development level, to not affect their culture and society. Guess if Earthlings qualify as advanced. Things get complicated when one of the researches accidentally gets stranded on Earth.

* MegaCorp: Science Corporation is ExactlyWhatItSaysOnTheTin, a huge corporation that holds monopoly on researching technologies left by Precursors and developing tech based on it. Naturally, it's actions are not always ethical or legal.

* The Federation: The Alliance.

* {{Precursors}}: The Ancients are both responsible for the existence of the majority of habitable worlds, and the physical possibility of FTL flight. They vanished from the face of the Galaxy millions of years prior to the webcomic events.

* ScheduleSlip: Comic update schedule is highly irregular, author points out that at one moment it stopped entirely for a half a year, almost resulting in it becoming a StillbornFranchise
* StandardHumanSpaceship: Or, rather, Standard Raharrian spaceship in this case...