...it's like TV Tropes, but LINKED DATA!
Lightworlder
- 318 statements
- 59 feature instances
- 31 referencing feature instances
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Lightworlders are skinny, delicate people from low-gravity habitats, or orbital colonies without artificial gravity (see Space People). They aren't nearly as common as their opposite, the Heavyworlders, since such delicate creatures are unlikely to be Big Damn Heroes. Like their heavy-gravity counterparts, though, they may be either human or alien. Low-gravity characters are often female, fragility being more forgivable in women to many writers. Ordinary humans who visit low-gravity planets, and seem much stronger there than on Earth becoming Heavyworlders in comparison, are a Humanity Is Superior variant dating back at least to the 1912 novel A Princess of Mars. While this variant is common in vintage scifi, the natives of such worlds are seldom portrayed as skinny, fragile versions of this trope. That's probably because it makes for poor fanservice if the Damsel in Distress rescued by the "incredibly strong" human hero makes Olive Oyl look like Pamela Anderson. In real life, astronauts who spend significant time in low-gravity situations rapidly suffer health problems, especially muscular and bone degeneration, such that men and women who were healthy upon liftoff may have trouble standing up under their own strength when they get home. This is the reason why becoming an astronaut has such strict physical fitness requirements. Astronauts working without artificial gravity have to strenuously work out and alter their diets to reduce the effects of this; there's a reason why the International Space Station has a treadmill inside. For the opposite, see Heavyworlder. See also Life in Zero G, for creatures adapted to live in total freefall or zero-gravity environments. |
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| Lightworlder / int_1869a077 | type |
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Samurai Jack: "Jack and the Flying Prince and Princess" has a prince and princess from another planet crash land on Earth. As their home world has lighter gravity, they can barely move in Earth's gravity and need Jack's help to survive. Near the end, they manage to use a device to change the surrounding area to their home world's gravity. Unused to it, the mooks helplessly flop around and fly through the air whenever they try to move, while the prince and princess pick them apart, demonstrating great speed and strength. | |
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| Lightworlder / int_1bdeba5a | type |
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X-Men: Lost from Way of X and Legion of X is an interesting example, as she was born on Earth but has the power to negate gravity around herself, meaning she essentially grew up in a low/zero-gravity environment and therefore has the typical lightworlder build with an extended torso and limbs. When she was first introduced she had been depowered on M-Day, leaving her in constant agony under the effects of normal gravity. | |
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Endless Sky: The Quarg, a Higher-Tech Species originate from a moon of a gas giant, with much lower gravity and pressure than Earth. While humanoid in appearance, their bodies are thin, fragile, and three metres tall, with digitigrade legs, and their lungs are so delicate they can only breathe very thin atmospheres. | |
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Inside Job (2021): It turns out that when Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon they formed a prosperous space colony of sex addicts with prolonged lives from living in a low-gravity environment. Though overtime, said low-gravity also caused their muscles to degenerate and render them weak compared people on Earth, which helps Brett beat their soldiers up, as he is superhuman compared to them. | |
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Zone of the Enders Dolores, i portrayed people born on Mars as being weaker than those born on Earth. It's mentioned that it's a criminal offense for an Earthling to strike a Martian, as there's a good possibility it could kill them. Which is why they built themselves Humongous Mecha about six times the power of Earth models in their most mass produced forms. This is also mentioned when main character James Links is challenged to a fist fight by a Martian gangster. James figures the fight will be easy as he's a Earthling, only to get his ass kicked in record time. Apparently the gangster works out in heavy G, just so he can knock arrogant Earthlings down a peg or two. | |
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| Lightworlder / int_247422c7 | type |
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Honor Harrington also features a few lightworlder characters, such as Joachim Alquezar from the Talbott Quadrant world of San Miguel. They are described as being tall and lightly built. | |
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In a story in The Ship Who... Sang, Helva is told to adjust her gravity to half-standard for a passenger. Given how he visibly struggles in normal gravity, she wonders if he's a lightworlder, but it actually turns out that overusing mindtrap to help his recall has given him soft bones and chronic fatigue. | |
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The Space Odyssey Series: 2001 had a brief mention of kids born on the Moon, they're very tall for their age. Rather harshly deconstructed in 3001: The Final Odyssey. After being effectively resurrected in the year 3001, Frank Poole (the member of the original crew from 2001 that floated off into space in his suit) spends a long period of recovery in the lower gravity of a ring built entirely around the Earth at about half the distance to the moon. While he feels completely physically fit by the end of his rehabilitation, when he takes a trip to the planet himself along a Space Elevator, he ends up in a wheelchair due to the relative lack of musculature. |
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The War of the Worlds (1898): The Martians are massive, octopus-like beings who could walk on their tentacles on their home planet, but can only drag themselves on their bellies on Earth. | |
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| Lightworlder / int_30b4f7fa | type |
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All Tomorrows: The Striders were genetically modified from human ancestors by the Qu for life on a moon with one-fifth Earth gravity, being reduced to animalistic intelligence in the process and being given grotesquely elongated limbs and necks, becoming giraffe-like browsers of their world's skyscraper-high trees. | |
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| Lightworlder / int_31b1c820 | type |
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Dan Dare: The Mercurians fulfill this trope by being very spindly in build, but also subvert it by being superhumanly strong. The Venusians. Venus has a gravity of 0.9g, meaning they stand One Head Taller than the human protagonists, but are also slightly weaker, giving them an edge in a straight fight. |
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Flash Gordon (1979) claims that Mongo's gravity is a bit lighter than Earth's, so humans are stronger there than on Earth. Flash mentions this to encourage Dale when she has to jump across a wide gap to safety. | |
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The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress uses a related idea — the tendency of muscles to atrophy in lower gravity — as a major obstacle in Mannie and Prof's trip to Earth. It even goes to the point of saying that living on the Moon for more than a few weeks can cause "irreversible physiological changes", to the point that a person who has lived their whole lives on Earth will be unable to handle Earth's gravity after about six weeks in the Moon, unless they exercise regularly and "stretch time" by using centrifuges to keep their bodies adjusted to 1g. Even then, it's chancy. In the Real Life it's a quite large stretch, actually. 0G does have an adverse effect on the muscle strength and bone composition, but it's completely reversible, and can be quite easily mitigated by the special diet and exercises, though the amount of exercise is quite considerable (2 hours per day is usually seen as a minimum). The record so far stays at a year and two months (Russian physician Valery Polyakov during his '94–'95 flight, he also posted 8 months in orbit in '88) without any ill effects, though the cosmonaut in question could barely walk for a couple of months even with the exercise. Of course, all this is about 0G/microgravity; even lunar gravity, while much weaker than Earth's, is substantial (0.165 g) would mitigate these problems to some extent. | |
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In Return of the Jedi, the Ewoks are a lot weaker than humans, not just because they're small but also because Endor is a low-G moon.note This is also how the Ewoks' primitive gliders (which at first glance seem to have wings far too small to provide sufficient lift) are able to function. This shows up more in the Ewoks TV special/movie where a 30' giant appears and can move around without suffocating under its own weight. | |
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Dream Park: Charlene Dula from The Barsoom Project grew up in the orbital colony Falling Angels. Her elongated frame reminds people of a Tolkien elf, and she has a hard time with Earth gravity despite months of intensive exercise before coming to Earth. | |
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Ben 10: Alien Force: Goop's species come from a world with such low gravity that his gelatinous form must be upheld with a small flying anti-gravity device on earth. | |
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In The Gods Themselves, Moonborn people have weaker bones, leading to slight sexual incompatibility with Earth people. And due to the metabolism being about the same, they need constant exercises to keep their bodies under the proper strain. A human from Earth who comes to the Moon must spend at least a week every two months on Earth, unless he wants to become a permanent resident. It is said they remember every Moonborn child whom their parents took to Earth without realizing they were signing their child's death sentence. | |
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The Expanse: "Belters", people who grew up on the colonies in the asteroid belt, have long, thin bones from the low gravity in the asteroids they inhabit. They have trouble surviving on Earth for more than a few hours without bone density enhancements or special water flotation tanks, to the point where exposure to Earth's gravity is used as a form of torture for them. Martians, similarly, grow up on a planet with only a third of Earth's gravity: while their physical differences from Earthlings aren't as stark as Belters, they also have trouble functioning under Earth's gravity and need regular doses of various medicines to reinforce their bodies. | |
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Childhood's End: The Overlords are speculated to have come from a low gravity world (once they reveal their appearances) as they're twice as tall as humans and have wings. They wear belts that seem to have anti-grav tech when on Earth. | |
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In the Green-Sky Trilogy, the titular world does have much lower gravity, so much that a toddler's fall from the high treetops will injure, but not kill. The Kindar are on the willowy and frail side, while the ground-walking Erdlings descended from Kindar Exiles have developed a sturdier frame from generations of living underground. | |
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In Dungeons & Dragons, the Astral Plane is a Void Between the Worlds with only subjective gravity, so the native astral dragons have developed into long, sinuous creatures with exaggerated horns extending from their skulls over their backs. While graceful fliers on their home plane, if astral dragons wind up elsewhere, they're considered encumbered, and the weight of their horns prevents them from making bite attacks. | |
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In the setting of The Integral Trees and The Smoke Ring, the inhabitants of Integral Trees are somewhat taller and slimmer than Earth people, but they are strong, tough Heavyworlders compared to people from the rest of the Smoke Ring. The tidal forces acting on the trees provides at least a little simulated gravity, but everyone else grows up in zero-G. One character, often referred to as a "dwarf", actually has an Earth-normal build; he's described as "monstrously strong" and is the only person who can wear one of the original spacesuits. | |
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Sector General again, this time with the GLNO Cinrusskin, a meter-long insectile species from a planet with 1/8 G. Requires an antigravity belt to survive, much less be able to move, in 1G conditions (if the belt failed it'd die of shock within minutes, assuming its exoskeleton didn't collapse first). | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Call of Cthulhu points out that the Martians of The War of the Worlds are actually this, and the fact that they can move relatively well unassisted on a planet that is triple their normal gravity means that, despite their vulnerability to Earth diseases, they are not the feeble beings that H.G. Wells portrayed, but immensely strong. This is reflected in their stat block. | |
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Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_73d7930f | comment |
The Star Trek: Deep Space Nine episode "Melora" gives a Lightworlder in Ensign Melora Pazlar, the only Elaysian in Starfleet. She is mostly bound to a wheelchair (or a quite clumsy "exoskeleton" harness) because of her difficulties in adapting to standard gravity. In her quarters, she turns the artificial gravity to that of her world. Dr. Bashir tries a strengthening regimen, but when told that it would be irreversible (thus making it impossible for her to return to her homeworld), she declines. Eventually, Melora beats some bad guys by turning off the artificial gravity and being the only one who can easily maneouver. She goes on to be a main character in the Star Trek: Titan novels. | |
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Halo's Covenant has two prominent light-worlders in its ranks. The Kig-Yar/Jackals hail from Eayn, which has 87.5% Earth's gravity. They are not physically strong or durable (being birdlike and thus likely having fragile skeletons doesn't help them either), relying on shields to protect them. However, even in Earth gravity they're pretty fast on their feet. There is also a subspecies of Kig-Yar that settled on the asteroid of T'vao, which has a much harsher environment and higher gravity than Eayn, and over generations the "Skirmishers" that resulted are much physically stronger, tougher and faster than their counterparts. Unggoy/Grunts come from Balaho, which has only 70.8% Earth's gravity, but are actually pretty strong judging by the weapons they've been seen carrying; in First Strike the ODST Cpl. Locklear has great difficulty hefting a fuel rod cannon over his shoulder, while Grunts carry FRGs with no problem. Some of the Unggoys' strength might be due to their homeworld being a Death World, with flame geysers and other hazards. This is also responsible for their rapid rate of reproduction, to the point where contraceptive chemicals are put in their gas and food while offworld to prevent overcrowding. |
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Steven Universe: Gems are an artificial race meant to travel all over space. One ability of their is automatically and immediately adjusting to a planet's gravity, so they'll have the same strength and movement wherever they are. They also have Super-Strength, but that's totally separate. | |
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In Avatar, the Na'vi live on the lower-gravity Pandora. They're in the range of ten feet tall and skinny as a rail. Contrary to usual, they're much stronger and more durable than humans, with the ability to use a hunting/war bow as tall as an average human man and their bones are practically natural carbon-fiber. | |
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In the Hyperion Cantos, Kassad is from Mars, which has a lower gravity than Earth. He's very tall and slender, but he keeps in shape (it helped that he had to spend a year as a menial worker in a 1.3 G environment). | |
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Gundam: Space colonies generally don't have this issue, as they rotate to provide roughly 1G gravity on the interior. This is not as true for the Jovian colonies though, in which a full 1G of gravity is rare, and most time is spent weightless, or nearly so. A couple of Jovians in Crossbone Gundam visit the Earth and are barely able to walk across a room without collapsing. While we don't see much of them in the series proper, Moon people also have this problem, the semi-realistic tech level of most Gundam shows not being up to the task of making the cities on the Moon spin fast enough to generate centrifugal force. The most notable example would be the original Mobile Suit Gundam's Zeon Sovereign and de-facto Big Bad Degwin Zabi, who suffers from various health problems due to spending most of his life on the Moon. Contrary to the popular depiction of lightworlders as tall and elf-like, he's abnormally short and dwarfish due to severe osteoporosis. It might be just Degwin, though — while living most of his life on the Moon, he wasn't born there, and his children subvert this. The younger kids, Garma and Kycilia, are of average height, while his two senior sons, Gihren and (especially) Dozle are tall, but not in any way elfish. In fact, Dozle is The Brute of the family, with 7' height and Heroic Build at that. Degwin's eldest son, Sasro, assassinated early on and not shown in the original series, is a bit of flip-flop. In the Tomino's novels he is said to look like an older Garma, while The Origin shows him as a younger Degwin himself, though not in the tiniest bit small and skinny in both cases. |
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Known Space: Two human worlds, Wunderland and We Made It, have low gravity compared to Earth. As a result, Wunderlanders and crashlanders tend to be very tall, often around seven feet in height, with slender torsos and limbs. Earth's moon, Luna, is also colonized. The people who grow up there, "Lunies," average around eight feet tall and are said to look like fantasy elves. |
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Lightworlder / int_8fda7950 | |
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Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_97160d12 | comment |
Planetes: Nono. She's two meters tall. She's twelve. She was born on the Moon. However, since the human body wasn't designed for this sort of environment, the effects of lunar gravity to her physiology lead to her living permanently in a hospital, both to monitor her health as well as to aid medical research into the effects of low-gravity environments on humans — which is vital for deep-space missions like the Jupiter-bound Von Braun expedition. There is also a subversion of the "Earthborn protagonists are stronger" aspect of the trope in that professional astronauts who spend too much time in zero-G will suffer muscular atrophy and a form of osteoporosis. This is shown explicitly when the elderly Harry Roland easily overpowers the 25 year-old Hachimaki because the veteran astronaut actually made a substantial effort to maintain his muscle mass and bone density. Hachi is inspired to do the same after the incident. |
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Lightworlder / int_97160d12 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Outsider: The Umiak come from a world about the same size and mass as Mars, which is a large part of how they can get away with being as large as their are with an arthropod's anatomy, and are consequently very poorly suited for handling Earth-normal gravity — on most inhabited planets, a unmodified Umiak would be barely able to walk. Consequently, almost all Umiak sent onto other species' planets are heavily genetically and/or cybernetically augmented in order to be able to bear their own weights. This is also why the Umiak have never used Space Fighters — even with liquid breathing mediums for cushioning, they simply can't handle the g-forces. The Lurs, one of the Umiak's client races, are likewise thought to hail from a world with about .5 G due to their extremely tall, lanky frames and their observed discomfort under standard gravity. The fact that their homeworlds are primarily low-gravity planets is thought to be one of the main reasons the Umiak took them over. |
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Lightworlder / int_9fb9bec4 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Star Trek: New Frontier: Brikar. Unusually, Brikarians aren't fragile; in fact they have some of the qualities of Heavyworlders. | |
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Lightworlder / int_a0219faa | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Book of the New Sun: The aristocratic Exultant caste are described as being very tall, possibly due to being originally from a low-gravity world and/or genetic engineering by their forefathers. | |
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Lightworlder / int_a9e19ff0 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Out of the Silent Planet: The low gravity of Malacandra has allowed its species to stretch out to huge, thin forms over the course of their evolution. It takes time for humans like Ransom to get used to creatures with such long, seemingly distorted faces. | |
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Lightworlder / int_aa639666 | |
| Lightworlder / int_ab715199 | type |
Lightworlder | |
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In Master of Orion II, races with the Low-G World trait suffer a penalty in ground combat, as well as production penalties on normal-gravity worlds in addition to the penalty most races have on high-gravity worlds. While the trait removes the production penalty most races have on low-gravity worlds, it is considered a disadvantage since low-gravity worlds are slightly rare and tend to be small and poor in resources. | |
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Lightworlder / int_ab715199 | |
| Lightworlder / int_ae29f65c | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_ae29f65c | comment |
In Pellucidar, another series by Edgar Rice Burroughs, gravity is slightly lighter on the interior of the hollow Earth than on the exterior due to tidal forces from the other side of the sphere. Which might explain how the surface-worlder protagonists often beat the crap out of natives. | |
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Lightworlder / int_ae29f65c | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Paradox: The Eldritch are from a planet with significantly lower gravity than Alliance average. They tend to be six-seven feet tall and thin, with noticeably elongated limbs, and they're notably fragile; in Mindtouch Jahir passes out from the strain that Seersana's standard strength gravity puts on his body, though he goes on medication to help strengthen his skeleton and cardiovascular system. | |
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Lightworlder / int_b2f2c6c0 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Artemis: The titular colony has no native-born residents. Pregnant women go back to Earth to avoid birth defects from the Lunar gravity and children under the age of twelve are not allowed to move to the city. Main character Jazz moved to Artemis when she was six, before the law was changed, and doubts she could handle Earth's gravity if she was deported there. | |
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Lightworlder / int_b695d208 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Warhammer 40,000: One of the Tau's subspecies is the Air Caste, Tau who crew the empire's spacefleet. As they have lived almost exclusively in a low-gravity environment for generations, they are described as having developed very fragile, lightly-built bodies. This may actually be an inversion; in some versions of the Tau backstory the tribes that became the Air Caste could fly under their own power even before the race moved into space and so has nothing to do with their environment. Voidborn are humans born aboard spaceships, often after entire generations live without setting foot on a planet, and as such usually not at home in stronger gravity fields. Depending on both the writer and of how much Artificial Gravity the Voidborn population in question uses, they may be tall and attenuated or no different from other people. The Longshanks are a variety of abhumans (officially recognized and approved stable Human Subspecies who diverged from baseline humanity through natural evolution and/or ancient genetic engineering rather than Chaos corrupted mutants) descended from colonists who settled low-gravity worlds in the time of the ancient, advanced human civilization tens of thousands of years in the past. As a result, they became extremely tall, thin and delicate. In older material, this is to the point that they're unable to endure Earth-normal gravity or the rigors of a spaceships' takeoff. Longshanks are effectively stuck on their homeworlds, so they, like many other varieties of abhuman, are essentially just background fluff that almost never appears in an important capacity. Modern lore has them able to survive higher gravity if provided with sufficient armor and support; they can be valuable recruits for the Imperial Guard due to their high vantage points and ability to cross difficult terrain at speed with their long strides, but they're also easy targets for enemy fire due to how much they stick out. |
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Lightworlder / int_bcadd7cb | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Phantom 2040's Sean One, who might not live on an actual world, but was born and raised on an orbital colony. He's much taller and thinner than the other characters, is weaker on Earth due to our heavier gravity, and is an absolute bastard. | |
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Lightworlder / int_bf3d385b | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Judge Dredd: The Lawlords turn out to be this. Despite being over eight feet tall and muscularly built, when they capture him, Dredd discovers that he's physically stronger than them. Then again, Dredd is also an expert unarmed combatant as well, which helps. | |
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Lightworlder / int_c2297a9c | |
| Lightworlder / int_c35747a3 | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_c35747a3 | comment |
The Jenkinsverse: Everything not from a Deathworld. Which is basically every spacefaring sentient being in the galaxy. Humans living among other races have to be extremely cautious, because a friendly slap on the back could kill most aliens. | |
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Lightworlder / int_c35747a3 | |
| Lightworlder / int_c399cd39 | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_c399cd39 | comment |
Eclipse Phase: Most post-Fall transhumans live on planets, moons, or habitats with lower gravity than old Earth. Though the only morphs that particularly fit the "lightworlder" profile are Bouncers and Titan's "Hazers". | |
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Lightworlder / int_c399cd39 | |
| Lightworlder / int_d2219b0a | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_d2219b0a | comment |
In Strata, archaeological evidence suggests that the Great Spindle Kings, a planet-building race which pre-dated humanity and its contemporaries, were tall, attenuated Lightworlder-types. Or would have been, had they actually existed; turns out their remnants were fakes, cooked up by the actual Precursors to emulate this trope. | |
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Lightworlder / int_d2219b0a | |
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Lightworlder | |
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Space colonies generally don't have this issue, as they rotate to provide roughly 1G gravity on the interior. This is not as true for the Jovian colonies though, in which a full 1G of gravity is rare, and most time is spent weightless, or nearly so. A couple of Jovians in Crossbone Gundam visit the Earth and are barely able to walk across a room without collapsing. | |
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Lightworlder / int_d2c74459 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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John Carter of Mars: The native Martians are considerably weaker than John Carter, who can easily make 50-foot standing leaps in Barsoom's low gravity. However, not many of the native creatures reflect this trope in their designs, often appearing as bulky as anything on Earth, and the Red, Black, White, and Yellow Martians all look basically human. Most illustrators - and the Disney movie - have agreed that the more alien Green Martians should be relatively lightly-built and wiry as far as 14-foot tall proud warrior race guys go, though, and it's worth noting that in the first book, Carter accidentally kills a Green Martian simply by punching him in the face. In the unfinished novel where Carter visits Jupiter and fights the skeleton-like natives, in spite of that world's greater size, the effective gravity there is even smaller due to centrifugal force or something. |
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Lightworlder / int_d6423831 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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In Meteos, Luna=Luna (two dwarf planets resembling Earth's Moon) and Arod (an Asteroid Thicket) have very weak gravity. In both cases, inhabitants seem to like jumping from one terrestrial body to another. Gameplay in these areas are more lethargic. | |
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Lightworlder / int_d67b1b80 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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In Mutant Football League, Alien players are said to come from planets with lower gravity than Earth, which may explain their agility and fragility. The home field of the all-alien Galaxy Chaos team, located on an asteroid Penal Colony, has low gravity, too — everybody moves a bit slower and jumps a bit higher. | |
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Lightworlder / int_de225c0a | |
| Lightworlder / int_e081af79 | type |
Lightworlder | |
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In The Inexplicable Adventures of Bob!, Voluptua has said she is more fragile than she looks because Earth has higher gravity than her homeworld. In fact, Fructose Riboflavin, a member of the same species, refers to Bob (a completely normal human) as a Heavyworlder while fighting him, commenting on how he had to punch him dozens of times in a few seconds to even affect him, while if Bob got one good punch he'd be done for. Of course, we don't get to see the latter happen due to Galatea intervening. | |
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Lightworlder / int_e081af79 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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MÄR: Although the world of MAR Heaven doesn't have gravity that is notably different from Earth's, in that the humanoids look no different, it does give Ginta and Nanashi an extreme power up in strength and jumping ability when compared to the standard occupants of the world. | |
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Lightworlder / int_e4853d12 | |
| Lightworlder / int_e5c5bc22 | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_e5c5bc22 | comment |
GURPS Terradyne: Moonbabies are humans raised in Lunar gravity. They're tall and fragile, as one might expect, and can't safely return to Earth. | |
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Lightworlder / int_e5c5bc22 | |
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Lightworlder | |
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While we don't see much of them in the series proper, Moon people also have this problem, the semi-realistic tech level of most Gundam shows not being up to the task of making the cities on the Moon spin fast enough to generate centrifugal force. The most notable example would be the original Mobile Suit Gundam's Zeon Sovereign and de-facto Big Bad Degwin Zabi, who suffers from various health problems due to spending most of his life on the Moon. Contrary to the popular depiction of lightworlders as tall and elf-like, he's abnormally short and dwarfish due to severe osteoporosis. It might be just Degwin, though — while living most of his life on the Moon, he wasn't born there, and his children subvert this. The younger kids, Garma and Kycilia, are of average height, while his two senior sons, Gihren and (especially) Dozle are tall, but not in any way elfish. In fact, Dozle is The Brute of the family, with 7' height and Heroic Build at that. Degwin's eldest son, Sasro, assassinated early on and not shown in the original series, is a bit of flip-flop. In the Tomino's novels he is said to look like an older Garma, while The Origin shows him as a younger Degwin himself, though not in the tiniest bit small and skinny in both cases. |
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Lightworlder / int_e89f120b | |
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Lightworlder | |
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In Captain French, or the Quest for Paradise, the planet Barsoom (presumably named after Edgar Rice Burroughs's novels) is a low-gravity world, whose people have grown tall and thin over the millennia since colonization. When French and his wife arrive there, the locals tend to view his wife as exotic, but far too... heavy for their tastes, even though her height is actually normal for Barsoom. French himself keeps a very low gravity aboard his ship (about 0.02G) by spinning it. In order to avoid muscular atrophy, he has a strict daily exercise regimen. | |
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Lightworlder / int_e8f15e5b | |
| Lightworlder / int_f01be35d | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_f01be35d | comment |
Gor: Inverted, as the planet is often described as having lower gravity than Earth but the men of Gor are far stronger. That's because they use the muscles they have — wind, water and muscle are Gor's only motive powers, so they get plenty of exercise. It should be noted that the occasional Earth exports — Tarl Cabot and Jason Marshall — benefit from their Earth-developed muscle mass, even though Jason takes half of Fighting Slave of Gor to find out how strong he is. Otherwise, the usual comparison is between Gorean men and Earth women, where testosterone trumps gravity every time. And though Gor's lesser gravity is, plotwise, doubtless a tip o'the hat to John Carter of Mars, Gor is much nearer to Earth in size than Mars. | |
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| Gor | hasFeature |
Lightworlder / int_f01be35d | |
| Lightworlder / int_f4fa693a | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_f4fa693a | comment |
In Quantum Vibe Spyders and Beltapes were designed for microgravity, they can't even take Martian gravity for long. Though Beltapes avert the usual lightworlder build by looking like six-foot gorillas. | |
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Lightworlder / int_f4fa693a | |
| Lightworlder / int_f7303747 | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_f7303747 | comment |
Red Mars Trilogy: Martians. There's a section where a second generation Martian travels to Earth, but is forced to leave because the higher gravity and air pressure are damaging his health. | |
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Lightworlder / int_f7303747 | |
| Lightworlder / int_fb9fefa6 | type |
Lightworlder | |
| Lightworlder / int_fb9fefa6 | comment |
In Hc Svnt Dracones Core: Extended Cogsune are designed for life in space stations with microgravity. Their "field agents" need to have augmented musculatures to survive planetary gravity and even then they have minimal Body: Strength and Resilience stats. | |
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Lightworlder / int_fb9fefa6 |
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