Vinea
Encyclopedia
Vinea is a fictional planet that appears in the Yoko Tsuno
graphic novel
series by Roger Leloup
. Its native intelligent species, the humanoid Vineans, came to Earth in the distant past due to catastrophic changes to their home planet. At the time of the graphic novels, they are in the process of returning to their planet.
The main characters of Yoko Tsuno form a close bond with some of the Vineans in the very first volume - this is especially true of Yoko and Khany - and many stories either involve the Vineans or take place on Vinea itself.
for this extreme similarity of two species that evolved millions of years (and two galaxies) apart, and neither is this matter ever raised in the novels. However, it is understood throughout the series that Vineans cannot sunburn because their pale blue skin is more resilient than that of humans.
It is also indicated that some medicine will not have the same effect on Vineans as humans.
somewhere in the galaxy M33
. Millions of years ago, the orbit of one of the pair began to degrade. The Vineans decided to send out a series of spaceship
s containing millions of their people in hibernation
, so the planet could at least be partially evacuated. After a long journey one of these ships discovered Earth, but because a primitive intelligent species was emerging on the planet it was decided to move underground in order to not disturb the natural evolution
of humanity
.
Large tunnels and underground cities were built belowground, while on the surface the human species slowly developed. During this time the Vineans came into contact with Yoko Tsuno, Vic Video, and Pol Pitron, three humans whose appearance eventually led to the Vineans' overthrow of the corrupt central computer that had regulated all aspects of their underground civilization since arrival. At some point in the 20th century the Vineans embarked on a project to create an artificial continent in the Atlantic by diverting undersea lava flows, with the aim of creating an surface nation for the Vineans to inhabit. This plan was eventually given up in favor of creating a faster-than-light
technology capable of reaching Vinea in less than 3 months. The technology was discovered when a Vinean probe for the purpose of creating a wormhole
finally arrived in the solar system
, indicating that at least until the craft was sent, some 100,000 years after the Earth-bound Vineans left Vinea, there was still an advanced society in the Vinean solar system.
When an expedition was sent out to Vinea, it found that the local population had regressed to a relatively primitive level, and was currently governed by a conclave of digital personalities taken form great leaders from the Vinean past. The planet had entered a wider, tidally-locked orbit around its suns, with one side permanently scorched and the other forever frozen. The effects on Vinea's climate
were more or less compensated for by an artificial temperature regulation system, including large orbital mirrors acting as artificial suns for the 'night' side. A project for relocating the Earth-Vinean population was put into place, and the rebuilding of the planet's civilization began.
Later, the newly returned Vineans discovered that a species of intelligent giant insects had colonised a remote region of the planet. After clashes and negotiations in Les Titans, the insectile species eventually agreed to leave Vinea and settle elsewhere.
So far, no Vineans have ever been seen having spare time in the series. It is thus unknown what activities they engage in when not working, if they have spare time at all. It is also unknown what kind of government and political system they have, after the corrupt central computer was destroyed in the first album.
(album 20), Roger Leloup
had seen an ad of Nivea
cream when he was a child, misreading it as Vinea. Because the poster was old and discolored, only the blue had remained, a girl on the poster was all blue. Leloup thus believed that this cream changed the color of the skin into blue. He recalled all this when he built the Vinean universe.
"Vinea is a universe which could exist, but I have completely created it myself. Its origin stems from my childhood. In my father's barbershop, there was a poster ad for Nivea-cream - which I, dyslexic, misread as Vinea - that always caught my attention. Because of its age, the picture was decolorized and only the blue had remained. A girl on the ad thus had skin in that color. I was convinced that the cream would make your skin blue. And when I created these people from outer space, I remembered all that. It appears that, sometimes one needs to wait until adulthood to be able to recount one's childhood dreams."
Yoko Tsuno
Yoko Tsuno is a comic book series created by the Belgian writer Roger Leloup published by Dupuis and in Spirou since its debut in 1970. Through twenty-five volumes, the series tell the adventures of Yoko Tsuno, a female electrical engineer of Japanese origin surrounded by her close friends, Vic...
graphic novel
Graphic novel
A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...
series by Roger Leloup
Roger Leloup
Roger Leloup is a Belgian comic strip artist, novelist, and a former collaborator of Hergé. He is most famous for the Yoko Tsuno comic series.- Biography :...
. Its native intelligent species, the humanoid Vineans, came to Earth in the distant past due to catastrophic changes to their home planet. At the time of the graphic novels, they are in the process of returning to their planet.
The main characters of Yoko Tsuno form a close bond with some of the Vineans in the very first volume - this is especially true of Yoko and Khany - and many stories either involve the Vineans or take place on Vinea itself.
Vinean physiology
Vineans are of pale blue skin, but otherwise very closely resemble humans. No reasons are given in-universeFictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
for this extreme similarity of two species that evolved millions of years (and two galaxies) apart, and neither is this matter ever raised in the novels. However, it is understood throughout the series that Vineans cannot sunburn because their pale blue skin is more resilient than that of humans.
It is also indicated that some medicine will not have the same effect on Vineans as humans.
Planet & History
Vinea is part of a binary star system about 2,500,000 light years from EarthEarth
Earth is the third planet from the Sun, and the densest and fifth-largest of the eight planets in the Solar System. It is also the largest of the Solar System's four terrestrial planets...
somewhere in the galaxy M33
Triangulum Galaxy
The Triangulum Galaxy is a spiral galaxy approximately 3 million light years from Earth in the constellation Triangulum. It is catalogued as Messier 33 or NGC 598, and is sometimes informally referred to as the Pinwheel Galaxy, a nickname it shares with Messier 101...
. Millions of years ago, the orbit of one of the pair began to degrade. The Vineans decided to send out a series of spaceship
Starship
A starship or interstellar spacecraft is a theoretical spacecraft designed for traveling between the stars, as opposed to a vehicle designed for orbital spaceflight or interplanetary travel....
s containing millions of their people in hibernation
Hibernation
Hibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food supplies are limited, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate...
, so the planet could at least be partially evacuated. After a long journey one of these ships discovered Earth, but because a primitive intelligent species was emerging on the planet it was decided to move underground in order to not disturb the natural evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
of humanity
Human Race
Human Race refers to the Human species.Human race may also refer to:*The Human Race, 79th episode of YuYu Hakusho* Human Race Theatre Company of Dayton Ohio* Human Race Machine, a computer graphics device...
.
Large tunnels and underground cities were built belowground, while on the surface the human species slowly developed. During this time the Vineans came into contact with Yoko Tsuno, Vic Video, and Pol Pitron, three humans whose appearance eventually led to the Vineans' overthrow of the corrupt central computer that had regulated all aspects of their underground civilization since arrival. At some point in the 20th century the Vineans embarked on a project to create an artificial continent in the Atlantic by diverting undersea lava flows, with the aim of creating an surface nation for the Vineans to inhabit. This plan was eventually given up in favor of creating a faster-than-light
Faster-than-light
Faster-than-light communications and travel refer to the propagation of information or matter faster than the speed of light....
technology capable of reaching Vinea in less than 3 months. The technology was discovered when a Vinean probe for the purpose of creating a wormhole
Wormhole
In physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
finally arrived in the solar system
Solar System
The Solar System consists of the Sun and the astronomical objects gravitationally bound in orbit around it, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago. The vast majority of the system's mass is in the Sun...
, indicating that at least until the craft was sent, some 100,000 years after the Earth-bound Vineans left Vinea, there was still an advanced society in the Vinean solar system.
When an expedition was sent out to Vinea, it found that the local population had regressed to a relatively primitive level, and was currently governed by a conclave of digital personalities taken form great leaders from the Vinean past. The planet had entered a wider, tidally-locked orbit around its suns, with one side permanently scorched and the other forever frozen. The effects on Vinea's climate
Climate
Climate encompasses the statistics of temperature, humidity, atmospheric pressure, wind, rainfall, atmospheric particle count and other meteorological elemental measurements in a given region over long periods...
were more or less compensated for by an artificial temperature regulation system, including large orbital mirrors acting as artificial suns for the 'night' side. A project for relocating the Earth-Vinean population was put into place, and the rebuilding of the planet's civilization began.
Later, the newly returned Vineans discovered that a species of intelligent giant insects had colonised a remote region of the planet. After clashes and negotiations in Les Titans, the insectile species eventually agreed to leave Vinea and settle elsewhere.
So far, no Vineans have ever been seen having spare time in the series. It is thus unknown what activities they engage in when not working, if they have spare time at all. It is also unknown what kind of government and political system they have, after the corrupt central computer was destroyed in the first album.
Vinean technologies
The Vineans are much more advanced than 20th century terrans. Among the key Vinean technologies are:- Maglev trainMaglev trainMaglev , is a system of transportation that uses magnetic levitation to suspend, guide and propel vehicles from magnets rather than using mechanical methods, such as friction-reliant wheels, axles and bearings...
s, which form the typical transport between their cities - Interplanetary travelInterplanetary travelInterplanetary spaceflight or interplanetary travel is travel between planets within a single planetary system. In practice, spaceflights of this type are confined to travel between the planets of the Solar System....
at near-lightspeed with mature technologyMature technologyA mature technology is a technology that has been in use for long enough that most of its initial faults and inherent problems have been removed or reduced by further development...
spaceships of various sizes - Interstellar travelInterstellar travelInterstellar space travel is manned or unmanned travel between stars. The concept of interstellar travel in starships is a staple of science fiction. Interstellar travel is much more difficult than interplanetary travel. Intergalactic travel, or travel between different galaxies, is even more...
, with either stasis-ships or using wormholeWormholeIn physics, a wormhole is a hypothetical topological feature of spacetime that would be, fundamentally, a "shortcut" through spacetime. For a simple visual explanation of a wormhole, consider spacetime visualized as a two-dimensional surface. If this surface is folded along a third dimension, it...
technology for FTL travel - Artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, with sentient computers playing a substantial role in many stories - HibernationHibernationHibernation is a state of inactivity and metabolic depression in animals, characterized by lower body temperature, slower breathing, and lower metabolic rate. Hibernating animals conserve food, especially during winter when food supplies are limited, tapping energy reserves, body fat, at a slow rate...
/ StasisStasis (fiction)Stasis , or hypersleep, is a science fiction concept akin to suspended animation. Whereas suspended animation usually refers to a greatly reduced state of life processes, stasis implies a complete cessation of these processes, which can be easily restarted or restart spontaneously when stasis is...
, allowing people to be 'frozen' without harm for millions of years - ArcologiesArcologyArcology, a portmanteau of the words "architecture" and "ecology", is a set of architectural design principles aimed toward the design of enormous habitats of extremely high human population density. These largely hypothetical structures would contain a variety of residential, commercial, and...
built with advanced structural materials, allowing large underground, underwater or space cities - DisintegratorsDisintegrator rayIn science fiction, a disintegrator ray is an energy beam that destroys an object by disintegrating it to its basic components, which usually disperse into the atmosphere. Ray gun is the generic term for the weapons that fire disintegrator beams...
, usable at different levels of power for use as pacification device, lethal weapon or tool - 'Thermal Bombs' (similar to nuclear weaponNuclear weaponA nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission or a combination of fission and fusion. Both reactions release vast quantities of energy from relatively small amounts of matter. The first fission bomb test released the same amount...
s but without radiation) used as weapons, demolition and excavation devices - Artificial telepathyTelepathyTelepathy , is the induction of mental states from one mind to another. The term was coined in 1882 by the classical scholar Fredric W. H. Myers, a founder of the Society for Psychical Research, and has remained more popular than the more-correct expression thought-transference...
, allowing mental contact over long distances, often combined with universal translatorUniversal translatorA universal translator is a device common to many science fiction works, especially on television. First described in Murray Leinster's 1945 novella "First Contact", the translator's purpose is to offer an instant translation of any language...
s - Mind uploading, enabling the personalities and memories of people to be stored or to control machines
Key Characters
Key Vinean characters are:- Khany - close friend of Yoko Tsuno and one of the leaders of the relatively egalitarian Vineans
- Poky - twin sister of Khany. As she was awakened from stasis much later, she has remained a young child
- Synda - Khany's mother. Awakened from her stasis on Vinea only after the return of Earth's Vineans, she is now of the same age as Khany.
- Vynka - close friend of Khany.
Origin
According to the sixteen-page appendix of L'Astrologue de BrugesL'Astrologue de Bruges
L'Astrologue de Bruges is the twentieth book from Yoko Tsuno comic book series written by Roger Leloup and published in 1994...
(album 20), Roger Leloup
Roger Leloup
Roger Leloup is a Belgian comic strip artist, novelist, and a former collaborator of Hergé. He is most famous for the Yoko Tsuno comic series.- Biography :...
had seen an ad of Nivea
Nivea
Nivea is a global skin- and body-care brand that is owned by the German company Beiersdorf. The company was founded on March 28 1882 by pharmacist Carl Paul Beiersdorf. In 1900, the new owner Oskar Troplowitz developed a water-in-oil emulsion as a skin cream with Eucerit, the first stable emulsion...
cream when he was a child, misreading it as Vinea. Because the poster was old and discolored, only the blue had remained, a girl on the poster was all blue. Leloup thus believed that this cream changed the color of the skin into blue. He recalled all this when he built the Vinean universe.
"Vinea is a universe which could exist, but I have completely created it myself. Its origin stems from my childhood. In my father's barbershop, there was a poster ad for Nivea-cream - which I, dyslexic, misread as Vinea - that always caught my attention. Because of its age, the picture was decolorized and only the blue had remained. A girl on the ad thus had skin in that color. I was convinced that the cream would make your skin blue. And when I created these people from outer space, I remembered all that. It appears that, sometimes one needs to wait until adulthood to be able to recount one's childhood dreams."