Language

There's a good chance you think the language spoken by the crew of the Eclipse (and presumably by everyone else in the galaxy) is English. You probably think that because the words you see on the page are English. But while it may be true that the galactic expanse of humanity did speak primarily English as their common language when they took to the stars, the language they're actually speaking would be even more foreign to you as a Modern English speaker than proper Middle English is. The fact of the matter is that the words you see represented in the comic are a translation, and if you were to be presented with the words actually being spoken, it would look pretty familiar but read like absolute gibberish.

Language evolves, especially an elastic language such as English that seems determined to adopt all of the structures and vocabulary it possibly can. In the ten-plus-*hem*-odd centuries separating the Eclipse from yourself, things changed drastically. Sure, much of the vocabulary can trace its etymological roots back to a language you might be familiar with, but the grammar has become such a bizarre amalgamation of ancient linguistic traits haphazardly combined with slang as to be fundamentally unrecognizable.

On occasion there won't be a concise translation for a term used in the far-future of our setting, and the word itself will come through un-translated. In those occasions, we'll strive to get some kind of longer definition into a note below the strip in question. If you consider yourself to be an interested reader, keep your eyes peeled for those.