Oh hey, Passengers!
As promised in a few newsletters back, it’s time for a deep dive into Space Boat’s inspiration and lore!
So keep reading for all our juicy secrets and a new graphic!!
Why would space travel be treated any differently than anything else humanity has been involved with?
The Space Boat universe was developed in the 80s and 90s, during a time when the thirst for Sci-Fi was at an all-time high. Franchises like Star Trek and Star Wars coloured the popular landscape, and though both have different ways of looking at humanity’s possible future, Space Boat takes a more cynical and satirical view of the future: If humanity had developed an easy method for interstellar space travel, it would capitalize and trivialize it, converting the miracle of space travel into commercial transportation.
Underneath the colorful, fun, and goofy exterior, there’s the beating heart of a true Sci-Fi.
While updating the I.G.C.L. Princess Andromeda, much care was taken to answer underlying technology that exists in this whacky universe. We came up with some ideas that we think Isaac Asimov would be proud of like: Artificial atmosphere. In most Sci-Fi shows, oxygen is treated simply like it is on current day space stations while gravity is thrown in like “future space magic”. Sometimes you get Babylon 5 levels of ingenuity where they spin a ship to create artificial gravity while sometimes you get the Wall-E treatment where people are somehow thrown around a ship depending on the ship’s orientation. Seeing that we wanted to allow people to vacation on the exterior of the ship while in space, we wondered if we could have a legitimate scientific approach to having an oxygen environment without being in an airtight structure. It turns out the answer was gravity all along. After all, the earth does not have a dome and somehow maintains it’s atmosphere from going into space. In the Space Boat universe, you can not only take a stroll on the outside of the ship while star gazing with the naked eye, but you can also swim in outdoor pools and take a ride in water parks.
Thanks for reading, and until next week!