Rutabaga is one of the only adult members of his family to be unwillingly relocated to Earth for his own good.

His home planet, Mercury, is a near-inhospitable blue and white desert with networks of underground tunnels to escape the blinding sun. Runans are tight-knit tunnel-dwelling social animals who are born in clutches, those clutches often made larger when one parent is of Venusian descent; Rudy had never been separated from his family before his father sent him to Earth for college at the age of 43 Mercurial days (or around 21 Earth years).