Freefall 3: Death Ray Byproducts

[sihnfahl]

„When it comes to heartbeats and breathing I like repetitive.“

It's that one repetitive beat you usually don't get tired of hearing.

[halfeye]

It's that one repetitive beat you usually don't get tired of hearing.

I don't much like hearing mine, it tends to do 3:4, or 5:6.

[Fyraltari]

„When it comes to heartbeats and breathing I like repetitive.“
And once more the comic speaks great wisdom.

About a subject it already talked about, appropriately enough.

[Anarchic Fox]

About a subject it already talked about, appropriately enough.

When a comic's this good, I don't mind if it revisits the same themes numerous times. The two comics are worlds apart, but I'm reminded of how often Calvin and Hobbes would return to its favorite subjects.

[Kantaki]

New comic

Unfortunately this seems to be a "upright ship at the bottom of the lake" situation.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

"And done really wrong, it's still at the bottom of the lake, but it's not upright, either."

[Rockphed]

"And done really wrong, it's still at the bottom of the lake, but it's not upright, either."

I feel like posting the video of jack and will walking across the bottom of the harbor with their sunken, upside down rowboat.

[tyckspoon]

Oh, hey, they're going to a factory full of under-occupied robots, with a human on board, to ask for a special project. They're going to get the most over-built reactor a ship has ever had.. probably get the ship's other reactor overhauled for free too just to give the robots something to do.

[Yuki Akuma]

Oh, hey, they're going to a factory full of under-occupied robots, with a human on board, to ask for a special project. They're going to get the most over-built reactor a ship has ever had.. probably get the ship's other reactor overhauled for free too just to give the robots something to do.

Depends where these robots were built. If they're from Jean, yeah, they will be rather eager to please. If they're from off-world they might have more restrictive programming and might take some more convincing.

[GloatingSwine]

Oh, hey, they're going to a factory full of under-occupied robots, with a human on board, to ask for a special project. They're going to get the most over-built reactor a ship has ever had.. probably get the ship's other reactor overhauled for free too just to give the robots something to do.

In space, no-one can hear a million robots shout DOGGY!

[Rockphed]

Counterpoint: explosives are dangerous. Edge can ignore human orders he doesn't like due to his primary job being dangerous enough. I give even odds that the robots are initially reluctant to entrust a human with any reactor that they could build.

On the other hand, I expect them to eventually pull the dead reactor out of the dead ship to melt it down for materials.

[theangelJean]

New comic: These are definitely Jean robots. Rover17 now counts as a person!

[Kantaki]

I just noticed Rover17 iz in fact wearing a verra nize hat.
And Yes. The attempt a Jägerspeak was necessary.

[theangelJean]

Someone on the Freefall forums just pointed out that Rover17 has been declared a person ... but the comms machine it's talking to hasn't claimed any such status. So maybe they're not all Bowman's design?

[Willie the Duck]

Someone on the Freefall forums just pointed out that Rover17 has been declared a person ... but the comms machine it's talking to hasn't claimed any such status. So maybe they're not all Bowman's design?

My goodness, a webcomic that still has a forum of its own? I am impressed!

[Rockphed]

My goodness, a webcomic that still has a forum of its own? I am impressed!

To be fair it isn't their own forum, they just have a dedicated space carved out on someone else's forum. I am fairly certain that it is the forum used by all the comics that Freefall does regular April 1 cameo/joke stories with.

[Fyraltari]

Existential crisises are best crisises.

[PoeticallyPsyco]

I love the little tail-antenna wag.

[Fyraltari]

Florence, sometimes (often, even) it's okay to just accept people's gratitude.

[DavidSh]

Florence, sometimes (often, even) it's okay to just accept people's gratitude.

But this would be giving people's gratitude away to Sam. Florence should get a fraction of the ship ownership for that. Has Sam ever paid Florence anything, ever? Or is Florence's status that of a stolen slave?

[Rakaydos]

But this would be giving people's gratitude away to Sam. Florence should get a fraction of the ship ownership for that. Has Sam ever paid Florence anything, ever? Or is Florence's status that of a stolen slave?

Was she included in the blanket emancipation of AI? or was that just robots?

She may have only recently gained personhood, and hasnt yet negotiated payscale.

[DavidSh]

Cross-over with Star Trek narrowly avoided.

[Fyraltari]

How far in the future is this supposed to be again?

[Rockphed]

How far in the future is this supposed to be again?

I don't think it ever says. But occasionally we get pointed social commentary about our day (like when they were talking about sparkly monsters and if turned of to be Hitler).

[Yuki Akuma]

Freefall is set an arbitrary amount of time into the distant future, but Mark Stanley has never been afraid to have his characters reference current events. He doesn't really seem to care how weird it is that characters only ever reference twentieth and early twenty-first century culture - but then again, no one ever really questioned why the characters in Star Trek almost never reference events and media from the past four hundred years of their timeline, but quite often talk about events that happened half a millenium previously.

[Willie the Duck]

Freefall is set an arbitrary amount of time into the distant future, but Mark Stanley has never been afraid to have his characters reference current events. He doesn't really seem to care how weird it is that characters only ever reference twentieth and early twenty-first century culture - but then again, no one ever really questioned why the characters in Star Trek almost never reference events and media from the past four hundred years of their timeline, but quite often talk about events that happened half a millenium previously.

I agree with the base concept but not the example. Characters in fictional series certainly do usually make a lot of references to things the audience would understand. My take is always that we the audience are only dialing in to see the times when they make references which would mean anything to us, and the other six days a week we don't check in on the characters is when they are making references to 23rd century sports stars and 22nd century movies and novels written in 2089 and such. However, Star Trek (with significant variation, depending on the series) had been fairly good about referencing non-current culture just offscreen or just before/after the camera cut. Sure Picard is fascinated with Shakespeare, but he also digs for pottery on such and such ancient planet. Data looks for the fairly-universally understood to be the 'most funny' standup comedian and learns it is a guy with a routine about warp physics, which he decides is too esoteric, so he picks one at random and gets Joe Piscapo. It's infrequent, but just enough to indicate there is a greater world of history and culture that happened between now and then, but we as the audience don't get to/have to sit through it.

[Fyraltari]

I'm just not sure a series called Star Trek would have much appeal when space travel is as common as it is in this comic.

[Kantaki]

I'm just not sure a series called Star Trek would have much appeal when space travel is as common as it is in this comic.

I dunno, there's plenty of TV shows that are essentially "normal* people living their normal* life"
At least it might've some appeal in a "silly ideas people back then had about the present"

*More or less

[TaRix]

Sure, it's nice to have a spare, but why does the crew want another reactor, again?

[Jasdoif]

Sure, it's nice to have a spare, but why does the crew want another reactor, again?

With only one reactor, they're limited to being an orbital shuttle. The second reactor was never actually theirs, they basically borrowed it to be able to deliver it.

So until they get another reactor, they don't have the ability to get the ship back to Jean.