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Sillage (the English title is Wake, as in "the current caused by a passing ship") is a French science fiction comic written by Jean-David Morvan and illustrated by Philippe Buchet. The eponymous Sillage is a giant convoy of spaceships traversing the galaxy. The protagonist of the series is Nävis, the only human Sillage ever encountered. She was raised by robots on an uncivilised planet after a spaceship crash. After initial difficulties - due to her lack of psychic powers she is not recognised as a person at first - she joins Sillage as a sort of special agent. While there are bigger themes tying the series together - mainly Nävis trying to find out what she is - each album is mostly self contained. Often using different planets that are visited as settings, the feel of the series can change a lot from album to album. There are two spin-off series, one of them more humorous and dealing with Nävis' childhood.
Tropes- Action Girl: Nävis. In the first couple of stories she even qualifies as a Little Miss Badass; and if she no longer does in later episodes, it isn't for lack of badassery, but because she grows up into actual womanhood.
- Alien Blood: probably spanning the entire spectrum, and the artist even keeps in mind that it affects skin tones.
- The Alcatraz: One of Nävis's missions takes her in a space station used as a maximum-security prison.
- Anything That Moves / The Casanova: Consul Enshu Atsukau uses his superlative, unblockable telepathy for two things: the most delicate (and therefore lucrative) of diplomatic missions... and getting himself a huge harem of women from virtually every sentient, somewhat humanoid species part of Sillage. This changes after meeting Nävis (even he can't reach her telepathically), and he becomes a creepy(er) Stalker with a Crush for her.
- We later learn that his whole species used to be like that. Unfortunately, their psychic powers were much sought for by scheemers within the fleet. When they failed to recruit them for their cause, some of them decided the species too dangerous to leave out of their control and had it purged by a bunch of One-Man Army assassins.
- Arrogant Kung-Fu Guy: Navis' male clone.
- Awful Truth: At least one per volume. The Constituante has a lot of skeletons in its closet, and they're not the only ones.
- Badass: At least Nävis, Bobo and Enshu Atsukau.
- Big "NO!": At the end of the first book.
- Bittersweet Ending: So end many of Nävis's missions.
- Bizarre Alien Sexes: One alien species apparently requires two "females" and one "male" for reproduction.
- Blood Knight: Navis' male clone created by Atsukau.
- Blood Sport: In the penultimate book Navis is forced to take part in a series of extremely dangerous illegal races, a large event in which the racers are dropped on random planets, trying to get the best time while avoiding the local police and civillain traffic, with extra points for pulling particularly crazy stunts.
- Boxed Crook: Nävis finds herself working with those on occasion, including old foes and old friends turned bad.
- Cast of Snowflakes
- Catch Phrase: "Poukram!"
- Censor Box: in the US version of the first volume, in which Nävis was topless. Conveniently for the censors, one of the white bars tattooed on her body (you'll see a couple of others in the page image) just happened to cover her nipples. All they had to do was black it out, and instant Censor Box.
- Character Development: At first innocent and naive, Nävis becomes increasingly jaded and cynical as she matures.
- Cigar Fuse Lighting: One of the Armada agents does it while on a mission on an alien world, with the two fuses tied in front of his chest and a swivel gun under each arm. While riding a local equivalent of a pterodactyl.
- The Collector: Enshu Atsukau is a weird one. Fortunately Nävis is immune to his Mind Control power.
- Combat Pragmatist: Nävis. In one book she encounters a group of 7 hostile aliens. After quickly remembering what species and gender they are, she defeats them over a single page - each opponent with his\her\its equivalent of Pressure Point/ Groin Attack .
- Creepy Souvenir: Enshu Atsukau, due to the nature of the technology he uses to control his harem, has a collection of eyes in jars.
- Deadly Upgrade: the fleet agents use highly restricted and expensive implants to block unwanted telepathy. Terrorists need the same protection but can't afford implants... so some of them settle for a lethal brain parasite instead.
- Disability Superpower: Nävis's lack of psychic powers meaning her mind can't be read or controlled.
- Far East: One of the planets visited by the fleet is basically an alien version of early Meiji Japan, complete with samurais, geishas and badass martial arts masters. For added reference, the ships sent down as emissaries by the fleet are black (like Perry's "black ships").
- Gentle Giant - the prolls by default and Bobo in particular
- Graceful In Their Element: Ehme-Ciss-Ron in water.
- Gray and Gray Morality: Nävis becomes gradually aware that her employers' motivations are often as shady as those of the people she's sent against.
- Horrifying the Horror: From his first appearance Yiarhu-kah is an alien horror, cutting a bloody swathe through secondary cast and coming within inches of taking Navis' brain - what cements his reputation is when we see him pop into Atsukau's office, No Sell his Psychic Assisted Suicide and then lecture him about how he and his 9 clan kinsmen were the ones who wiped out Atsukau's entire species.
- Humans Are Special: Nävis completely lacks psychic powers (meaning she's the only person whose thoughts can't be read). It has been hinted it's the same for all the human beings.
- I Love You Because I Can't Control You: The core of Atsukau's unhealthy fascination for Nävis.
- Jerkass: Enshu Atsukau in his first appearance. Navi's male clone takes from him.
- Jungle Princess - Nävis in the first volume
- Karma Houdini - For all he did, Atsukau only got a small scar on his lip.
- Karmic Death - Princhard from book 4, Gearing Up. He recognises the trope and mocks it with his dying breath.
- Last Of Her Kind: Played with multiple times. She's the sole survivor from her planet, but we're pretty certain that she is NOT the last human being in the galaxy. In one of the spinoff's short stories, it is revealed that there was another human being who survived her spaceship crash. Sadly, he didn't last long.
- Latex Perfection: When conducting undercover missions, Nävis uses advanced symbiotic disguises that cover her entirely with fake skin and serves as Translator Microbes.
- Lean and Mean:
- The consul Enshu Atsukau takes this trope further than any human could hope to.
- Additionally, Most extremely skinny, named aliens turn out to be assassins of some sort.
- Lethal Harmless Powers: A protective power of radiating bliss, protecting the user by making anyone around him unable to perform violence activated in the middle of a vast fleet where all the pilots are telepaths and many engines are psychic-powered, causes a cosmic pile-up that kills thousands
- LotsAndLotsOfRaces: Several dozens on Sillage alone, and more besides on the many planets visited.
- Mysterious Backer: Atsukau later in the series.
- Mysterious Protector: Again, Atsukau.
- No Gravity For You
- Obviously Evil: Yiarhu-kah - a hunched, Lean and Mean alien with deep red skin and white carapace that makes him look like a cross between a ptaying mantis and a human skeleton, covered with Spikes of Villainy - which he can shoot at people.
- Off with His Head!: many and varied. Of special note is Yiarhu-kah, whose hand-mounted teleportation device allows him to Portal Cut his victims' heads open, sending their still living brains to his bosses' secret lab.
- One-Man Army: Navis under the right circumstances. Exaggerated for Yiarhu-kah
- Powers That Be: The Constituante, the secretive body that rules over the fleet and often seems to engage in murky schemes.
- Powered by a Forsaken Child: It is later revealed that most of Sillage's spaceships are actually powered by psychic powers from people basically used as living batteries. Guess who powers hers....
- Psychic Assisted Suicide: In one of the later books Atsukau intimidates a gangster into helping him by entering his office and forcing the gangsters that surround him to shoot each other. On another occassion he inverts the trope, using mass suggestion to turn a battle between natives into an improvised football game... calmly commenting that in his old days he would have forced them to eat their own guts.
- Raised by Wolves: Raised by a talking sabretooth tiger. (Not part of the trope, but earlier she was raised by a robot, before being subject to Laser-Guided Amnesia.)
- Reasonable Authority Figure: The Magister may be a politician with all that it implies, but he is honest and sincerely willing to do good.
- Retired Monster: Atsukau.
- Thank Your Prey: Right on the very first page
- The Revolution Will Not Be Vilified: One of Nävis's missions takes her to a planet that (superficially) resembles Russia in the early 20th century, where she infiltrates a group of idealistic revolutionaries.
- Robot Buddy - Snivel
- Schizo Tech - Nävis lives in a treehouse in a spaceship.
- Shark Pool: played with by Ehmte-Ciss-Ronn. His race is naturally aquatic and his shark-equivalents smart enough to recognise him as their master. So instead of activating a trap door, the panic button under his desk instantly floods the whole office.
- Shout Out - Marsupilami in book 1; various, mostly robots ranging from Maria to Bender in book 5
- Shrouded in Myth: Yiarhu-kah and his species.
- Space Opera
- Spinoff Babies - Nävis
- Suicide by Cop - Criscios in book 5
- You Have Failed Me - In the first book he appears in, Atsukau murders the last two of his Bodyguard Babes for damaging Navis without permission.
- Waif-Fu: Nävis
- Wild Child - Nävis
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