Post Your Drive Questions Here

1.) I love both Sheldon and Drive and I read them daily. But I came late to Drive, and I'm a bit confused by the backstory. What, exactly, is "La Familia"? Is it the ruling class? Are they a species or race? I poked around for a page on your site that explains it, but all I found was stuff explaining Sheldon. Any help for a new-ish reader?

2.) Hey Dave, what ever happened to drivecomic.com? It seems like you announced this months ago and I keep checking back to it periodically to see if it's up yet, but still nothing but the "coming soon" banner. Out of all the many daily comics I read, Sheldon is by-far the most consistently on time, so this seems very un-Dave-like. What's up? If there's a blog entry somewhere that explains, feel free to just point me in that direction.

3.) The Enclopedia Xenobiologica refers to "The Alliance" with Veeta before it became part of the "greater Empire". Does this mean that Veeta is a tributary of the Empire, or should we take it that it's now an integral part? On a related note, Gustavo Cruz is referred to as "Proconsul on Veeta". Presumably he's the Emperor's direct representative there. Is he more of a viceroy or more of a high commissioner?

4.) In prison, is Nosh hearing the captain through a cochlear implant, or can everyone hear the captain speaking? Also, if La Familia understand The Drive only in an engineering sense, how have they developed superluminal communications for signalling when cochlear implants are explicitly referred to?

5.) Orla O'Malley is Junior Adjutant Imperial Xenobiologist. This implies that she might be on the Emperor's personal staff, but not that she's familia. We see her gesturing to Gustavo, but he looks on with contempt. Is she actually Familia (reporting back on Fernando) or is she just imitating the sign language for fun? In the former case, does Fernando actually realise she's familia, and if so, why has he not mentioned it? I only interpreted it that way when you showed her receiving the summons to the Grand Council.

6.) Regarding the Grand Council, if the last time was before the death of Conrado, who crafted the empire as he saw fit, why is the procedure well enough enshrined that a) it's "necessary" under certain circumstances, b) the cousin (will we learn his name?) knows about it without hesitation, and c) there's a button set up to announce it?

(On a really petty note, why does the cousin address the Emperor as "Sir"? If it's too formal a situation to address him as "cousin", wouldn't he need to call him "Sire"?

7.) When Fernando shows his position on the family tree, the tree seems to show that the youngest generation is about 9 generations from the patriarch, and seems to show only several dozen members. Is this supposed to be a representative portion?

8.) The fatality rate is 0.25% per use of the drive, or 5-6 per week. If there are 1,200 Familia working on the drive, and the war has been underway for 17 years (events take place around 2401, and the Empire was militarising in 2384) then there could well have been 5000 lost ships, each (unless a ship can take others with it) with a Familia member on board. I presume that the war has caused an increase in naval manoeuvres, and therefore the actual number of fatalities has been a bit under half that, but still, that suggests that, of those servicing the drive in recent years, two thirds have died. This explains Fernando working so young, but it does pose the question of why Famili@s (or whatever the neuter word for one of them is) of other roles weren't pulled in first. I would assume that all of the Familia are trained in The Drive, as it's the source of their power, and you haven't contradicted this in the forum, but why, then, aren't Familia being dragged away from other roles to help the war effort? Also, why do Familia have to serve as magistrates, trade legates, etc.? Those roles could be filled by loyal citizens without risk, as long as the Familia held the knowledge that gave them military power.

9.) It is mentioned that the Armada numbers in the thousands of ships, and the Emperor implies that the figure is 10,439. How are these manned by only 1,200 Familia? Do Familia engineers (should that be Ingeniurs?) not need to be present between services? Fernando seems to be attached to a particular crew... If they serve on particular ships and only go to others in the same squadron etc. as needed, I would wonder whether they would enable higher survival of the ships they're on relative to those they aren't, but even so, I would be imagine that (given the ratio between Familia serving as Engineers and the size of "La Grande e Felissima Armada" (apologies if I've misspelled that) the fatality during the present conflict would have been at least 200, not including those lost to enemy action, which has currently reached about 9 times the level of attrition by accident (56 versus 6 (or 8, that week)).

Yes I have a question that has been bugging me ever since it happened : How did they get to the Denny's ? One minute they are fleeing from pursuit, then half way through little guy with mohawks sentence, they are in Denny's sipping milkshakes. And ever since there has never been any mention or explanation of what happened. Please tell us, or at least tell us if there is an explanation coming.

how are la famillia assigned rolls, with in the the empire. do certain branches train for certain jobs or is it personal preference or random. and what are the dimensions of the ships we're seeing?

PS thank you so much for the awesome sketch of the emperor in my drive book.

Oh so many questions. I have faith that some of them will be answered in time, so I'll leave those.

Question the first: The term "Spirit" implies a greater signifigance than simply a technological construct. Also, La Familia, as specified in the letter, don't know how it works. Compound this with the Continuum's demands to Return the spirit, this leads me to the supposition that La Familia have not been replicating the drive ring, but stealing them from the Continuum. Is this the case? Is the drive ring, like other Continuum technology, given spiritual signifigance, or created through the use of left over bits of Continuum ancestors (Ashes, bones etc.) This thought is compounded by Industriaglobo being able to slap a ring on a luxury cruiser to create a battleship. The ring seems to just work and could probably be retro-fitted to a DeLorian.

Second question, what is the extent of the punk-rocking beaver lizzard's amnesia? He knows that there's thousands of ships in the armada, but isn't familiar with the term Familia.

Ooh, also, What does a Veetan ship look like?

Are there any exiled or banished members of La Familia, and what did they do?

What's the history of the war with the Continuum of Makers? How did it start? How has it progressed?

I agree, how did the war start? The Captain found that Veetan and Continuum ships passed in a friendly manner in the past. What did the Empire do to crank off the Continuum?

Also, you skipped ahead pretty darn fast from the Spaniard discovering the Drive ship and the full-blown Empire. How did it all come about? That would be a story worth reading, as well. His reverse engineering it, "inventing" it, how he managed to keep governments from taking it away from him, how his company became an empire, how they conquered earth, let alone other planets. Please don't make us wait for "prequels" like George Lucas did!

This harks back to the old weekly serials they used to play in the movie houses. One simply assumes that, through great skill and mighty daring, Our Heroes pulled through and enjoyed a well-deserved reward.

I'm curious about the pilot (little What's-his-guts); he remembers nothing of himself or his people, yet he knows what an Earth year is and that a 25-year lifespan is not very long, comparatively speaking. I wonder if, and how, this is connected to his origins?

I do have a question, even if it slightly generic.

My question: How far along is the story in your mind? Are you writing the story on the fly, or you have it ready months in advance? Do you already know the little pilot's story or are you discovering his background as we are?
Thank you in advance for at least reading this question.

Questions? Not really. I figure that you'll answer them in the story as it rolls along. Admittedly, there's the potential for a rich backstory, and various interesting secondary details which could be presented (and eventually used to springboard new stories), but as long as I can get the weekly installment, I'm good--I can wait.

1) Can this podcast be recorded and/or archived at least for a few days (in case any of us Drivers can't make the live showing?)

2) Why did you settle on 7000 members for La Familia? It seems awfully small to run a large empire.

3) Do non-La Familia members (or perhaps trust worthy members of the extended family) know the secret sign language?

4) if the Veetans are members of the Empire, then what were they before the Empire? How were they absorbed into the Empire? Why would the Veetan agree to be absorbed?

5) What's your favorite scroll/book in the Veetan Library called?

6) Are we going to see more Continuum-based comics in the near future?

What happened to Con, the former pilot of the Machito? He gives over his seat to the little dude and then BAM, he's off the face of the earth and everyone else is off for milkshakes.

Whate gives?

Hi Dave,

Thanks for lining up my questions to be answered! Anyway, there's another thought I had (which I posted elsewhere not long before you announced this post in the daily strip e-mail)...:

How is it decided which member of La Familia becomes emperor? I ask because Nosh says early on that the current emperor is nephew of his predecessor. In a forum post, you mention that Fernando his nephew (I can't remember if he's referred to as such in the strip itself). However, given that Fernando is the grandson of the previous emperor, that would make him the cousin once removed of the present one (although I can easily understand that he might address him as uncle in practice).

Anyway, assuming that they are indeed first cousins once removed, then if the Empire uses primogeniture to determine the line of succession (rather than proximity of blood, tannistry or intrafamilial election, say), Fernando actually has a better claim to the throne than the current emperor does! Does this explain why he was one of those accused of "Cavorting with regicide", and will this come into play later?

Not a question as much as an observation: I'm waiting for the moment when we see the little unnamed pilot guy in the background somewhere, reading a comic book ... with a picture of his earthling quasi-doppelganger, Flaco, on it. :-D

1.Nosh said he ran out of cab fare outside of Moscow. So he was stuck for six years. And he also said he has been in the Imperial Navy for many years. How old is he?
2.Also who killed the Emperor if it wasn't Nosh. Why is no one concerened about the murder of the last emperor?
3.November 7, 2009 Fernando says only the 1,200 members of Familia are allowed into a ship's ring.

i just thought of another question, what kind of aliens are in the background of the mess hall when the pilot and Nosh are eating and standing in line? Are they ever going to have entries in the encyclopedia Xenobiologia?

I am interested about the role of arts in their universe; more specifically the role of cartoonists/illustrators. Have books become all illustrated like Manga due to the progressively visually-held, word-adverse culture? Is there some type of ban on humor or mockery by La Familia and what kind of underground has developed as a result? Does techicolor exist (though I do like the blue and white of Drive)?

The person who killed the previous Emperor is the current Emperor, so he could steal the throne. Being the Emperor he could frame anyone he wished, so he framed Nosh.

Look at the strip from March 20, 2010 (http://www.sheldoncomics.com/drive/100320.html):

The Captain asks, "How is it that YOU kill your uncle, and I end up with the jail sentence for it?" The Emperor replies, "YOU have a jail sentence because YOUR VEETAN killed the Emperor. ...according to every official record on every planet you'll ever land on. Ever."

Reading between the lines, he is saying, "I fixed every official record on every planet in the empire to make it look like your veetan killed the previous Emperor. Because I can. Because I have absolute power."

When you have absolute power, you can make it look like anybody did anything.

Out of the 7000 members of La Familia (simply, "The Family" in Spanish), only 1200 of them are Engineers.

Your explanation of "only 1200 of them are Engineers," is what I expected to hear from Dave. But the point I was trying to make was he already said how many members of The Family there were. Obviously he had forgoten. Also he decided that to make the numbers work he need thousands of family members. About who killed the Emperor though, for some reason I can not view 2010 strips in the archives. I can view them one at a time, but not select a specific date. Also I may have missed the strip your refering to.

Are the characters speaking English or Spanish?

so when is the video podcast?