CodyLabs

Average Human Christian Male. I write stuff and draw stuff, and sometimes both, which are called comics. My big fandoms are Gravity Falls, Metroid, and Bubblegum Crisis, but I also do original short stories and reblog funny things. Here lies the Forest of Daggers.

[codylabs]

Valley of the Shadow of Death

MASTERPOST

Links to Other Pages:

1-7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15-16, 17-18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23-24, 25, 26-28, 29, 30-31, 32-33, 34-35, 36-37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 70-71, 72, 73-74

So this is the first part of a pretty large current project, a (roughly) 50-page-long comic about a lone mercenary exploring the ruins of a lonely space colony, looking for survivors, and trying to figure out what happened.

As an extension of the famous ‘show-don’t-tell’ philosophy, this comic will not contain any dialogue whatsoever. The only words that do show up will be those on screens and signs, and the title on page 7. There will be lots of action however, lots of story, and hopefully lots of emotion.

The comic is set in the universe of the ‘Metroid’ games, but if you aren’t familiar with those, don’t worry. None of the lore is relevant, and in due time, you’ll see for yourselves everything you need to know.

I hope you enjoy.

(All subsequent pages will link back to here, but not between themselves. This done for ease of editing on my own part.)

[voltoise-reblogs-rambles]

everyone needs a subpar piece of media to obsess over and have their entire brain chemistry changed by at the age of 12. mine was metroid other m. reblog with your subpar piece of media from when you were twelve

[codylabs]

James Cameron's Avatar. I drew a LOT of mechsuits and space shuttles and giant blue aliens at a point in my life.

[codylabs]

Twenty-Four Graveless in Tau Ceti

May their souls follow the healing lights, and endure the long journey home

No stars version

[codylabs]

jazz hands

[codylabs]

One of my all-time favorite scifi concepts is Roko's Basilisk. The basic idea is that you have a superintelligent AI which is able to backwards-calculate a large portion of history before it was created. Then it would take every person within that history who knew about its construction and did not help build/finance it, and then run endless torture on simulated versions of their brain. Thus incentivising everybody in history to help build it, out of fear for their own safety. Or, like, the safety of future simualted versions of themselves?

I love it because it is SUCH A STUPID BRAINDEAD IDEA HOLY CRAP. Literally 'doc-it-hurts-when-I-do-this'-'well-then-don't-do-that' type behavior. Torment Nexus looking ass. It is this perfect intersection of religion, science, and formalized thinking, but only the bad parts of all of them. Baseless faith, creating one's own destruction, blind following of machine logic... It's this paradoxical hole in the future of the universe that could be so EASILY patched over with the tiniest least bit of compassion or wisdom or moral backbone. Of course the stupid thing will never be built, the hole is just that easily patched over, but what if there were other factors? What if there was some socioeconomic force that was already driving to create a superAI and a basilisk cult was able to influence it? What if some all-powerful galactic emperor heard the idea and decided to finance it on a whim? What if what if what if...

I am 1000% going to have a Roko Basilisk somewhere in my universe. It's just too stupid and cool to not use.

[codylabs]

Hail Mary Redesign!

Pretty self-explanatory I think. There were a few problems I had with the movie version, in terms of it being much larger than its required by its crucial components (laboratory, crew, instruments, probes), its centrifuge not being structurally sound (and ROTATING ON THE INTERMEDIATE AXIS I COULD KILL A MAN GRRRRGHEHGAJ), it lacking any protection against interstellar debris, and it being made of modular components too large to be earth-launchable.

But as I was thinking about it I realized the book version had some problems as well, such as the centrifuge pivot not running through the habitat's center of gravity, some pendantic stuff regarding proportions and structure, and NEITHER version have a feasible way of ejecting fuel tanks, which is required for the plot. So I combined parts of both versions (with a few of my own additions) to make this. Pretty pleased with it.

Looking at it again, there are a few improvements to be made. Like the heat sinks should probably lie flat against the hull, but maaan I don't want them covering up the greebles, and I like them sticking out like wings. I also replaced the RCS spin drives with traditional monopropellant RCS (because throwing out ultra infrared beam attacks in every direction is the last thing you'd want to do while maneuvering near obstacles) but in retrospect I should have had both, since monopropellant has such limited fuel. Good to have options.

[codylabs]

Man I loved Project Hail Mary, book and movie both, now I feel the need to redesign and draw the spaceships because the movie did them both SO dirty.

[codylabs]

If I could make one change to Metroid lore (I mean aside from small things like hardening the science a little and letting the world expand beyond the immediate proximity of Samus's life and dressing up the art style with one or two or layers of dirt and grime) it would be to add Chozo children. In the manga they talk about the Chozo race being in their twilight years, genetically incapable of weilding weapons and having all become infertile, which is kind of intersting, but... Unlikely? They're an advanced race, surely those are solvable problems? And even from a meta perspective... Why? That whole plotline doesn't go anywhere or do anything beyond just handwaving away why the games never have any Chozo alive. What does it mean for the themes of the franchise? Or for Samus? No other piece of cannon ever mentions any of it or expands on it, so it seems like a waste of whatever it was, and now the Chozo are just the Weird Old Guy species.

So anyway my pitch is that one could get a lot of mileage out of the Chozo still being a diverse, lively, functioning species. Either by including survivors somewhere, or if that's a little cheap, by giving some substance to the world that Samus lost.

She had friends. Kids she played tag with, went swimming with, fought with, who teased her for having hair. They explored caves together, had inside jokes, favorite foods. Some were older, some were younger. Some looked up to her, some looked down. She had a mentor and a crush and a sibling. Maybe she had a best friend. Maybe she had a comforter. Maybe she wasn't special then.

Maybe she wasn't special for a long time.

What hasn't changed from canon is that the Chozo had been on decline in the centuries since the heights of their galaxy-spanning empire. There's been an overreliance of technology and a fading of spiritual understanding, there's been betrayal by warmongers, invasion by barbarians, colonies winking out in the wake of a hundred natural and artificial cataclysms, whole planets disappearing without a trace and rusty robots marching back and forth with dried blood on their claws... But a spark of life and health and hope remains on Zebes, where the memories of the old ways run deep, and warrior training is maintained for tradition rather than conquest. The Zebes eldership knows that the flame they carry could do much kindness to a dark and hurting galaxy, but they also know that a well-placed genocide or two could snuff it out for good.

The recent loss of contact with the Thoha was the final straw; they would send out new warriors fully equipped. Anyone with wisdom, a pure heart, a gift for athletics, and enough neuroplasticity to survive the enhancements, up to and including that one foreigh orphan, was eligible to endure the trials, bear the ancient weapons, and roam about the galaxy protecting the innocent and bringing justice. The duties and equipment of the greatest warriors of the long lost generations would be theirs in the present, and the plasma-hot olive branch of the Chozo would bring true peace in space again.

They were a class of twelve, who trained together. The central AI oversaw the tech, Mawkin defectors mentored, the elders tutored. Most of them were Chozo, two were Ylla, one was human. They earned their power suits the same day, then left Zebes to study abroad. She joined the Federation navy's human branch, they went other directions, and none of them realized they would never see each other again. She finds the remains of them here and there on her travels, some bodies torn open by dragon claws in the very halls of Chozodia, some left nothing but self destruct craters, some found hopeless and lost on the surface of some moon having taken their own lives, one severed arm cannon found adrift in deep space with a mangled chozo hand inside it; no other clue for a million miles.

Samus, and the armor she bears, are famous far and wide. But if all were right in the world, she wouldn't be; there would be more. If the pirates hadn't come to Zebes, if the central AI hadn't betrayed them, if the Mawkin had responded to the distress call, if the Federation comm channels were just a little faster... Maybe there could have been as many as twelve. Maybe in a few years the next class would have earned their power suits, and there would be twenty-four. Instead, there's a debris field and a naked core where a world used to spin, and a legend shining where a tradition used to glow.

Instead, there's somebody special.

[codylabs]

My version of Samus I feel like would enjoy a glass of wine every now and again.

[codylabs]

Wait I have so many more Sames actually

[codylabs]

My version of Samus I feel like would enjoy a glass of wine every now and again.

[codylabs]

A page full of aliens. (Many such cases)

[codylabs]

I drew a weird bug I found.

This was drawn hastily after my first session in this game, and you can kind of tell from the design decisions, many of which are just plain wrong. FOR example: I made her red thing be a cape instead of the turtle-necked conical poncho it actually is (though that's mostly because I drew her naked first and then just drew that on top of it) ALSO I drew her head being her actual shell instead of the mask that it actually is, ALSO I gave her insect feet instead of spider feet (which look nice and would probably work better for a biped, but she's a spider goshdarnit). Long story short, I like the look of this, but if I'm ever gonna put out a REAL fanart of this game, it'll need some rework.

As for her torso, that also turned out to be distinctly non-canonical, but I still stand by it. My goal was to make her be the spitting image of her mom, except that since she's an ageless demigod she'll never get massively fat and old as balls like her mom was. That means 8 limbs (with a distinct main walking pair and arm pair and 4 weird smaller ones inbetween) each on their own body segment. I imagine she uses the middle 4 for spooling silk and managing tools, freeing her other hands to operate the needle and do sick parkour.

Compared to real spiders (which are able to be so thin and spindly by gerymandering all their organs into a fashionable and sexy backpack) this version of Hornet has very little room for organs. But she is canonically built different.

[voltoise]

The Old Therebefore || Metroid AMV

also on my second youtube channel wouahg

samus aran I love you. this means i'm putting her Through It.

(Also, this specific mix was done by Louis Abery on Youtube. It's a mix of the acapella and the film score and it's peak)

[codylabs]

EMERGENCY ALL HANDS ALER SOMEBODY GETS IT

[codylabs]

The Serpents

The majority of the fauna found within Transverse Bearing Truss 286351 of the Garden possess an enlongated, exoskeletal body plan, consisting of a large number of segments, each with its own pair of limbs. Though the base structure of each limb and the layout of its plating and musculature is fundamentally similar, they have speciated out into a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and purposes depending on its location around the body. This is typical of evolutionary processes across worlds and ecologies, but on the Garden this is understood to have not occurred to quite the extreme degrees seen in other worlds, such that each body segment is still distinct and similar (compared to humans, for example, where segmentation is nearly invisible beyond the core bones, or even on insects, where wing and walking limbs bear no resemblance to one another.) Therefore, the Garden has been theorized to represent a 'younger' or less evolved biosphere, one in which environmental pressures caused sentience and language to arrive unusually early, before natural forms had attained the level of refinement and diversity of other worlds. However, this conclusion is largely unsupported, as only the small segment of biosphere which happened to be present aboard Transverse Bearing Truss 286351 has ever been studied. It's possible that greater 'refinement' exists elsewhere in the Garden, or that the documented forms are some sort of ideal soultion for an unknown environmental pressure.

In any case, the Serpents, rightful owners of Transverse Bearing Truss 286351 and the Garden's ancient tenders, are typical of this layout. Their ten largest limbs, located near the center of mass, are responsible for ambulation and the majority of dextrous tasks. The foremost and longest of these is specialized for groping and feeling with long, thin fingers, (to compensate for their poor eyesight), but can also help greatly with climbing, or handling of larger cargoes. The second is directly comparable to human arms, with shorter, stronger fingers and greater flexibility, specialized heavily for tool use. The third through fifth are the strongest, with the heaviest palm pads, and do most of the work involved in walking and climbing. The serpents seem best suited for swampy environments, in close symbiosis with a species of vast-rooted tree which they can either climb or swim/dig underneath. No surviving sample of this tree has been found aboard Transverse Bearing Truss 286351.

In front of the main limbs are the six limbs which compose the mouth; four clamshells for gripping/cutting/chewing, and a foremost smaller set between them: a ring of teeth specialized for swallowing. Their diet is omnivorous, and primarily consists of fruit and small animals. Their digestive system does not contain any muscles of its own, but regular motion from walking, moving, and breathing (combined with close-spaced bony plates) helps grind down food and force the slurry through a narrow, straight intestine toward the anus at the terminus of the tail.

Aft of the main limbs are a few specialized appendages devoted toward reproductive secretions. On males a single pair of claspers are used for delivering spermatophores. On females these are replaced by three pairs containing soft, fatty leaves which newborns can eat. However, the actual gonads exist at the forward terminus just above the swallowing limbs. On males this consists of a small hole which secretes the spermatophores that he grips with his claspers. On females this consists of the wider birth canal, and a pair of spikes (the thumbs of her swallowing limb,) which are used for implanting newborns into symbiote animals. A village of serpents will typically go into heat and birth around the same time, and use a shared cow-thing to host their young. The young will consume the animal from the inside over the course of about a month, until its death. At this point the young will dig their way out, and find their way to their mother by smell, an event often made a center of traditions and ceremony. The evolutionary reason for this parasitic life stage is unknown. Several now-extinct environmental pressures have been proposed, and the serpents themselves have offered religious explanations, but definite conclusions are difficult.

Just behind the reproductive appendages lie the most numerous limb; between 19 and 30 sets of feathery external gills. These are tyically kept elevated, and move and ajdust independently to match air currents and maximize gas exchange. Though the serpents have small movement-sensitive eye spots on every body segment, these spots become much larger and more sensitive toward the end of the tail, until the final 2-3 sections are actually able to focus pictures and discern some detail. It was these limbs, with their elevation, constant articulation, and complex eyes, which formed the basis for the Serpents' semaphore-like silent language system, wherein 'words' were formed as patterns of waves, that travel up the tail from the base.

A serpent 'brain' stretches the creature's entire length, with logic and higher reasoning focused forward near the dextrous limbs, but the visual cortex near the back, on the other side of the language cortex. This means that actual perception and understanding of images only occurrs with notable delay, after extensive postproceessing looking for familiar objects and semaphore words, as the signal passes through the language cortex. This gives the Serpents a rather abstracted way of understanding the world, and a strong need to touch and handle new objects in order to truly understand them; a common shock for foreigners.

The high complexity and flexibility of the Serpents' bodies make them the most intricate and beautiful dancers in the known universe.

CONCEPT ART:

[codylabs]

Hulkbuster Samus!

This was a commission I did for my little brother. Concept art and various WIP things below cut!

(Spooner is our dog)

[codylabs]

Markiplier does on the surface seem like an odd choice for directing and starring in a serious scifi horror movie, but in terms of getting scared at a computer screen and dying badly in space, his resume is remarkably stacked.

[codylabs]

That must've been a pretty neat sentence I wrote in 2 minutes that it got 5 billion notes. See you goons in the morning.

[codylabs]

Also, I'm perplexed by the people who tag this 'iron lung spoilers', as if our dear convict NOT dying badly in space (or, even perplexinger, NOT getting scared at a screen??) was EVER on the table.

[cass-phoenix]

Some of us were stupidly hopeful for a happy ending.

[codylabs]

....

ME TOO

[codylabs]

Markiplier does on the surface seem like an odd choice for directing and starring in a serious scifi horror movie, but in terms of getting scared at a computer screen and dying badly in space, his resume is remarkably stacked.

[codylabs]

That must've been a pretty neat sentence I wrote in 2 minutes that it got 5 billion notes. See you goons in the morning.

[codylabs]

Also, I'm perplexed by the people who tag this 'iron lung spoilers', as if our dear convict NOT dying badly in space (or, even perplexinger, NOT getting scared at a screen??) was EVER on the table.