Ever does he kill them.
The Lydian Option
is a webcomic about a small group of human prisoners in the Eye - a prison in a hollowed out asteroid run by the Tha'Latta, a species that views any infraction as proof of inherent defectiveness. Located in a backwater system, the Eye is far from human influence and houses a small group of human prisoners. When the prison is thrust into chaos, the humans attempt to escape, confronted by a variety of other species let loose and hostile to humanity.
The comic concluded after six issues and a total of 124 pages.
This webcomic provides examples of:
- Alien Catnip: The blue fruit is an inversion of this: it's highly addictive to humans.
- Aliens Are Bastards: Virtually all of the alien races in the Eye are hostile to humans, resentful over their recent victory in the Spiral War.
- Blue-and-Orange Morality: The Tha'Latta don't have a concept of "being a little bad;" to them any crime, big or small, is a sign of defectiveness and therefore must be punished accordingly.
- Bizarre Alien Biology: Most aliens on the Eye have some pretty strange physical features.
- The Dog Bites Back: A while ago, the Eye was basically a dumping ground for the Tha'Latta's criminals and it's facilities would make a gulag look like a vacation home. One of the races imprisoned there were the Lydians, who weren't too happy with their living conditions. They managed to get every single convicted alien of dozens of species to focus the entirety of their hatred at the Tha'Latta and instigated the biggest uprising in the Eye's history. The Tha'Latta were forced to vent the atmosphere of the prison to regain control and afterwards made prison life considerably better for the new inmates in order to prevent something like that from happening again. This event was the reason why the Lydian Option exists.
- The Dividual: The Cotyorites (Proxenus, Clearchus, and Nicarchus) appear together, look alike, and speak together.
- Extra Eyes: The Carduchians have rows of tarantula-like eyes.
- Eternal Prohibition: Janta leaf, considered a "soft drug" and a minor infraction by humans, is punished by permanent imprisonment by the Tha'Latta.
- Fantastic Drug: Both the Janta leaf and the highly addictive blue alien fruit are examples.
- Fantastic Fruits and Vegetables: The cafeteria features alien-looking food of cross-nutritional value for multiple species.
- Fantastic Racism: Hodges is a member of the Terran Brotherhood, and espouses beliefs in a conspiracy to use human genes in the creation of human-alien hybrids and the inferiority of aliens to human genetics.
- Great Escape: The premise of the comic (that the humans are attempting to find a way to an escape shuttle).
- Hellhole Prison: The Eye, needless to say, is not a nice place to be; between the Tha'Latta wardens and hostile inmates, unless you are the meanest, toughest son of a bitch there is, you'd best make yourself as beneath notice as possible. And this is the Eye after things improved for the prison population, when it was little more than a kennel for criminals.
- Institutional Apparel: The magnetic cufflinks worn by each prisoner.
- The Old Convict: Doyle plays this role as the "welcoming committee."
- Penal Colony: The Eye is populated solely by prisoners and guards, with little intervention by the guards unless they're directly threatened.
- Prison: The comic is set in an asteroid prison.
- Ray Gun: Carried by pretty much everyone here.
- Space Clouds: The Eye is visible as an asteroid in the middle of a nebula, and described as similar to looking at clouds on Earth.
- Space Elves: The Cotyorites, a philosopher race who are "not dangerous to anything but your time."
- Translator Microbes: The Tha'Latta implant translators into prisoners, loaded with the languages of all species in the Eye.
- What Are You in For?: A "what are you in for" scene occurs when the human prisoners meet Hudson.
