An illustration for my work-in-progress novel Sailor for the Second Dusk.
Depicted is the interior of Alazir Station, a space habitat built into the tail of a comet in the Deltauri system, and the last free nation of the Hyades Cluster. Due to the overwhelming presence of water ice in the rock surrounding Alazir’s primary centrifuge drum, excess moisture has seeped inside and given the station a distinctly rainy and miserable climate. Nonetheless, Alazir is a city famed for its lively streets steeped in bright neon, casting gaudy rays to mingle with the colourful fabrics of merchant tents, dappled and wavering in a wet and heavy mist which carries every manner of culinary scent high into the cold air.
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Wait, built into a comet tail? But the tail of a comet is just gas and dust, it isn’t solid. Is this an oversight, did you mean inside the comet itself or do comets in your world have solid tails?
The art is gorgeous, I like how you’ve got the lights of the distant regions curving up and just barely visible through the fog.
The habitation section of the station is mostly buried inside the comet, while the rest of it extends into the tail. This way its inhabitants are shielded by rock and ice while its auxiliary sections (solar panels, radiators, docks, etc.) have easy access to open space (but are also hidden from radio telescopes by the comet tail that forms during solar approaches)
![[OC] Alazir Station(lemmy.blahaj.zone)](https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/pictrs/image/c787f878-326f-46f8-b953-82df3cce03f8.jpeg){kind=link}