Webcomic / Parhelion

This place is a little important.

Parhelion is a Science Fiction Webcomic, set in a fragmented, provincial galaxy and following a group of pirates, smugglers, bureaucrats, warlords, and more.

The World's Collective, the most ambitious plan to unite the galaxy, has just collapsed after a decade of stagnation. Cerril Tonsay, a former interpreter for it, comes across Peter Vonn, a rakish human smuggler. They hit it off over the course of a three-day trip, and decide to stick together on any job that comes their way.

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This webcomic contains examples of:

• Alien Noninterference Clause: New Sequa has a policy regarding intrusion on E-class planets (which are implied to be reserve/sanctuary worlds due to having pre-contact sapients), and Cerril and Peter are put on trial for crash-landing on one, Singniyhe-4.
• Art Evolution: Peter's hair flounders around awkwardly for a while before settling on a consistent set of simplified spikes.
• Asteroid Miners: Peter's ancestors, who promptly turned to black-market dealing when the minerals in question were found to be Made of Explodium.
• The Bad Guy Wins: Yima prior to the start of the comic, as things presently stand.
• Beleaguered Bureaucrat: Vinna.
• Cast Full of Gay
• Conveniently Precise Translation: Run-of-the-mill automatic translators can't do this, making designated interpreters so vital.
• Cool Starship: There are a few and it's fairly standard for the comic.
  • The 2019 Anniversary Special came with a diagram on two, and the second was Peter and Cerril's ship.
• Courtroom Episode: Part 7 in a nutshell.
• Cunning Linguist: Cerril, and interpreters in general.
• Deadly Gaze: Making eye contact with Basilisk is a bad idea that gets worse as they get more agitated.
• Drowning My Sorrows: The first introduction to Cerril, but he gets better.
• Dyson Sphere: Cerril grew up on one, the first of it's kind.
• The Federation: The Worlds' Collective, long since atrophied.
• Funetik Aksent: Sort of. Vinna's consonant-H sounds are rendered in her native alphabet, but there's no indication of what they actually sound like.
• Humanoid Aliens - Played with. Some aliens like Cerril (etc) are more standard humanoid, but it's not infrequent you see one that doesn't. One of the gangleaders that rejects Peter and Cerril is essentially an angler's lure.
• Interspecies Romance: Peter and Cerril, Vinna and Kroyzdt.
• Kangaroo Court: Averted as a result of New Sequa's dedication to jurisprudence.
• Knowledge Broker: Nikolai, at least in their imagination.
• Law Enforcement, Inc.: The Yima Cartel has its own security droids and giant prison ships.
• Long-Distance Relationship: Vinna and Kroyzdt, for the length of Vinna's job at this godforsaken outpost.
• Made of Explodium: Peter's homeworld gained independence thanks to some quality explosives.
• MegaCorp: The Yima Cartel. This goes to such a point that Yima is more or less the de-facto galactic super-power.
• Mind Hive: Litany contains a whole parliament of minds within one body, and consults them for advice and planning. Despite this, they don't speak with the Voice of the Legion, but they do insistently use plural pronouns.
• Motor Mouth: Alison.
• Multicultural Alien Planet: Most worlds tend to be like this. A number trend towards monoculture formation with Yima worlds being by preference.
• Non-Promotion: After years of hard work, Vinna is sent off to a distant outpost with no apparent purpose.
• Office Romance: Vinna and Kroyzdt both work for the Yima Cartel, at different-yet-unspecified positions.
• One-Word Title:
• Queer Romance: Central to the comic.
• Siliconbased Life: While Sawtooth's species hasn't been stated in detail we do know that they are on a level mineral based and could be viewed as such.
• Starfish Language: Languages neither of the protagonists speak are only depicted as this.
  • Basilisk speaks in jagged, distorted static that needs no translation.
  • The Starfish Aliens who are native to Singniyhe-4 have round speech bubbles.
  • The zlotl language (or dialect) "parangya mat" is one almost entirely made of slang, euphemisms, and more. The only word Cerril actually knows of it is "lobsterfucker".
• Ungovernable Galaxy: Coordinating across solar systems is a pain in the ass for any organization, so most of the galaxy is locally-governed or anarchic.
• Universal Translator: Generally subverted as while Cochlear Translators are common and get the job done they can't handle and nuances, and take a massive team of linguists pushing constant updates to maintain.
  • This is where translators and interpreters like Cerril come in. Knowing what not to translate, which often means leaving out details. He fully well admits this.
• What the Hell Is That Accent?: Vinna's accent is never given a pronunciation guide.