This is one of my favorite pages simply because it speaks to the real dynamic and the ability of Darvin to sort of pierce through the Captain persona. This scene in particular speaks about their past history. It also makes me ship them REALLY hard xD

(So consider me in the likely minority. I think most people are interested in Darvin and Aria, but I want Darvin to make Fusella eat her words about how she can’t have a relationship. One of the things I hated most about Voyager was Janeway’s similar stance. It was kind of ridiculous. I felt that a person who is mature enough to be a Captain could figure out how to make relationships work , even if it was with her XO . heh. )

If I were reading a World War II story, I would expect cross-service rivalry to come across in ordinary conversation. If that banter weren’t there, the story would not be believable.

In short: Great scene, Tara!

At any rate, I expect that the reason for the ribbing is two fold. First, Fusella and Darvin are old friends, so she feels perfectly justified in ribbing him, and secondly that IP has stricter regulations and discipline than Tersa. Said disciplinary differences are probably due to the people running IP actually thinking ahead and designing their ships with systems for battle and demanding that their crews be ready to man the guns. Poor discipline is probably really, really deadly. Tersa, on the other hand, doesn’t want their captains getting into fights, so no guns, so standard orders for battle are something along the lines of “FLY YOU FOOLS!”