Vinea

Vinea is a fictional planet and associated intelligent species that appear in the Yoko Tsuno graphic novel series by Roger Leloup. The humanoids called Vineans have come to Earth in the distant past due to catastrophic changes to their home planet, and at the time of the graphic novels, 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, especially Yoko with Khany, and many stories take place either together with the Vineans or directly on Vinea.

Vinean physiology

Vineans are of pale blue skin, but otherwise very closely resemble humans. No reasons are given in-universe 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 sun-burn 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 a binary star system about 2,500,000 light years from Earth somewhere in M33 galaxy. When one of their suns was about to regress in an unstable orbit millions of years ago it was decided to send out a series of spaceships 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 of a primitive intelligent species emerging on the planet it was decided to move underground and to not disturb the natural evolution of humanity.

Large tunnels and underground cities emerged while on the surface the human species slowly developed. At some point in the 20th century a project was staged to create an artificial continent in the Atlantic by diverting undersea lava flows, with the aim of creating an aboveground nation for the Vineans to inhabit on Earth. 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 machine for the purpose of creating a wormhole arrived in the solar system, indicating that at least until the probe was sent, some 100,000 years after the Earth-Vineans left Vinea, there was still an advanced society in the Vinean solar system.

When an expedition was sent out to Vinea, it seemed that the local population had become rather primitive, being governed by a group of artificial copies of the minds of great leaders in the Vinean past. Due to the solar disaster, the planet had entered a wider, synchronous orbit around its suns. The effects on Vinea's climate were more or less compensated for by an artificial temperature regulation system, including large space mirrors acting as artificial suns for the 'night' side. A project for relocating the Earth-Vinean population was issued, and the rebuilding of the planet started.

Later, the newly returned Vineas discovered that a species of intelligent giant insects had colonised a remote region of Vinea. After clashes and negotiations in "Les Titans", the species eventually agreed to leave Vinea and settle on another planet.

So far, no Vineans have never 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 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 trains, which form the typical transport between their cities
*Interplanetary travel, at near-lightspeed with mature technology spaceships of various sizes
*Interstellar travel, with either stasis-ships or using Wormhole technology for FTL travel
*Artificial intelligence, with computer sentiences playing a substantial role in many stories
*Hibernation / Stasis, allowing people to be 'frozen' without harm for millions of years
*Arcologies built with advanced structural materials, allowing large underground, underwater or space cities
*Disintegrators, usable at different levels of power for use as pacification device, lethal weapon or tool
*'Thermal Bombs' (similar to nuclear weapons but without radiation) used as weapons, demolition and excavation devices
*Artificial telepathy, allowing mental contact over long distances, often combined with universal translators
*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 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 Bruges (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 tell one's childhood dreams."

Bibliography

Vineans and Vinea have been the subject of several Yoko Tsuno stories, such as:
*"Le Trio de l'étrange"
*"La Forge de Vulcain"
*"Les Trois soleils de Vinéa"
*"Les Titans"
*"La Lumière d'Ixo"
*"Les Archanges de Vinéa"
*"Les Exilés de Kifa"
*"La Porte des âmes"