The Long Way to a Small, Angry Planet

The Wayfarer is a heavily modified cargo ship that carries an interstitial bore capable of punching new wormhole passages, allowing ships to travel interstellar distances instantly. In form, the Wayfarer is bulky and not built to enter atmosphere. The original design of the Wayfarer is never mentioned; instead, it looks “as though whole sections had been cobbled together, perhaps originating from other vessels. A patchwork ship. The only reassuring thing about it was that it looked sturdy. This was a ship that could take (and had taken) a few knocks” (14).

The ship’s combination of haphazard construction and reliability is a representation of its crew. Just as the ship is composed of parts from earlier, unrelated ships, so too is the crew made up of members of disparate species, races, sexual orientations, and gender identities. These differences in background are not an impediment to the crew’s proper functioning as a harmonious unit; their differences are responsible for their resilience as a crew. The workaday appearance of the ship further embodies the crew. As spacers, they generally wear the same utilitarian clothing every day. They, like their ship, display no indication of importance and pass unnoticed through the Galactic Commons completing their jobs.