Another fun thing about the Flip Book story: it gave me a chance to show what a typical Survey Contact Team mission was like. In the “Galaxioverse” (I will borrow this term from Nate’s comments on the last page ^_^), 99% of the planets the Galaxion’s SCT survey look like this– a big, barren rock (though most probably have much more challenging weather patterns…?). This is not to say there are no planets with life, but those more prestigeous survey missions are usually assigned to other ships.
It’s clear to me now why Aria dislikes Zan so – she sees too much of herself in him. No wonder she likes hyper-smooth Darvin, he balances her out! :p