So, today’s kinda’ a “big reveal” strip. Something to change the shift of perspective of a lot of things. There will be another couple of strips giving more detail, but today’s is one to pay attention to and think about in terms of the Spacetrawlyverse.
Soon enough the exposition will be done and we’ll get back to the fluff which is Spacetrawler — cute outfits and shooting aliens. Rock on!
In webcomic news, congrats to Axonite for having reached 8 years of his SciFi webcomic Station V3 , sweet! And congrats to everyone who had a stellar weekend at TCAF. Although I know you all secretly wished you were at:
LepreCon
LepreCon was an excellent time. I did a panel on humor with Mel Tatum (filkist) and Gini Koch, who was a total hoot and whose “Touched By An Alien” series is loads of fun. I got to meet Seanan McGuire (author and musician), who was as smart as a frikkin’ whip (and used to read Bruno in high school, that was SO nice to hear), and Marcy Rockwell, who was so nice and thoughtful and fun and I’m really looking forward to reading her book “Legacy of Wolves.”
And I tabled beside Ashley Barnard, who was excellent company, and writes urban fantasy — I bought her book “Shadow Fox” which I’m looking forward to reading. I had some really interesting conversations about SciFi conventions and traveling with t-shirt printer extraordinaire, Scott Dennis. And of course, it was fun chatting with SS Crompton, a delightful fellow, who does comics for all your very-NSFW comic book needs.
And that’s it! And so I’ll leave you with a fun picture of my new hot friend, Gini, and me:
Glad you’re feeling better!
And it’s starting to sound like the Eebs didn’t want to be Galactic Overlords and took matters into their own hands (so to speak).
It does seem impossible for an entire species to be born without will. I don’t know why they’d chose to do this to themselves, but based on some of the stupid self-mutilation we humans have done to ourselves over the millennia, I can come up with some possibilities. I look forward to learning the answer.
Self-preservation, perhaps? Other species would consider full-power Eebs to be an existential threat; it’s possible that the combined might of all the other sentients in the galaxy would be able to overpower the Eebs and wipe them all out. Particularly if the other sentients had access to very powerful long-range weaponry.
Thus, the Eebs lobotomized themselves so the other sentients could exploit them–better to be slaves than to be extinct.
I agree with Red9’s assessment of Yuri.
Interesting, though with what was implied about how space trawlers are made, you wouldn’t think they would have done that to themselves too.
About the history, I can’t say any more without saying more. Next strip will clear it up a bit though.
In the meantime, I’m totally enjoying all what you’re all theorizing. 🙂
Fascinating, brain clamp and sterility. But the best BESTEST part is that it is self inflicted. How awesomely self deprecatory can it be to be the potential overlord rulers of the universe, then to rip that capability away for … well, we dont know yet.
Here’s a theory that will not cut the mustard – the historical zeebs realised that they could be massive rock stars if they combined all their talents together, taking their plan from Douglas Adams’s ‘Dont Panic’ they tried as a race to follow ‘DISASTER AREA’ and muck up their characteristics as best as they could – and fXXXed it up. Volia – dull boring brain clamped clones.
I expect some thing a bit more convoluted, maybe involving booze. Being able to move heavy things around, harm others and give on your major secrets (spacetrawlers) is not something you want to worry about if you’re thinking on getting drunk. The sterility part also makes sense. I take the loss of free will to be just a side effect.
You’re so cool. I cannot wait for the finale of this comic, I’ve been reading it from the beginning and it’s just a phenomenal story. This plot development makes everything make so much more sense . . .
Glad to see you up and about after being surged upon, Chris. Opiates no longer necessary? Hope all is well.
Oh yeah…. Great work Chris, keep it up.
There are a few reasons I can think of for the clamping. Cybereebs. Mutant Registration. Eebs = Ood. Psy Corps. Sith. Slavery. It’s narcotic. Religion. Forced allegiance. It’s like a “Limitless” pill. All of the above.
Wait wait wait… so Yuri has been brain clamped? She passed out doing the whole telekinesis thing, after all.
Bucky Fuller would be happy to know his geodesic Designs made it to Space.
The shadows over the speech bubbles are an interesting touch. I can’t quite put a finger on what effect it creates, though.
@Dogmeat: The clamp is in their genes. Yuri implanted into herself cells from an eeb who was very likely created from clamped genes, thus those cells have the “clamp”. Yuri’s human brain, however, should be unaffected –except for the obvious.
While I was reading this strip a business plan slowly dawned on me. I’m going to head into space and sell booster chairs to the Eebs. Just my small part to help them project height and power. Also, plushy Eeb babies for sterile Eebs. What? Too weird?
Rats. And I was looking forward to learning about the Eeb’s snappy fashion sense. I don’t suppose we could get a drawing of one in a nice comfortable Hawaiian shirt, maybe?
@Coyote, I like the way you think. The only reference I didn’t get was the “limitless” pill. (And of course, once you tell me, I’ll smack my head and go, “D’oh!”)
@War Pig, don’t be silly. Opiates are ALWAYS necessary. (Think “endorphins”. Unless you like swimming with sea mammals. Then think “endolphins”.)
@JKCarroll – I think Dimitry would be thinking “indolphins”
Maybe a lot of eebs thought that other eebs were too dangerous, so they made it mandatory to clamp everyone’s brain so that they could live in peace? Safety first, freedom second. And then they threw in some sterility too, because their planet was getting overpopulated? And then they met the rest of the universe.
Groundless speculation time! The Ebbs are in the tail end of a multi-century plan to take over the galaxy by having everything and everybody rely on them and their technology, before turning off all their tech, unclamping all the Ebbs now behind enemy lines, and activating all the tech they’ve been working on.
Alternatively, they lost a bar bet.
Oooo, plot exposition time! It’s almost sufficiently distracted me from wondering about Pierrot’s fate–ohwait.
Interesting.
Perhaps we’ll see Yuri forcefully downgraded to make her less self-inflictedly stupid, as well?
I kind of think the Eebs brain clamped themselves because of “Monsters from Id.” Anyone here ever see Forbidden Planet?
@evilmrhenry: if the entire eebian race was in it, it’s gotta be a pretty cramped bar!
Makes sense; it could be a viable means by which a socieity could come to control its own population and development problems on its own by subverting/ re-engineering its members to be more capable and less motivated at the same time.
Encountering other socieities that could exploit this condition was probably something that was not planned for after a number of generations of isolation.
I am not sure if they planned to encounter other species, but I can think of a variety of crazy religious and/or just crazy political movements that would do something like that if they seized power.
‘I kind of think the Eebs brain clamped themselves because of “Monsters from Id.” Anyone here ever see Forbidden Planet?’
Man, where’s Leslie Nielson when we really need him?
The eebs are just naturally good guys – they realize that if they weren’t clamped they would overrun the other races of the galaxy in short order – or someone else realized that and the eebs were forced to do it to avoid being wiped out.
Also, spacetrawlers are made out of eebs.
Glad to see I’m not the only one who’s wondering why the Eebs self-clamped themselves.
Why indeed?
I’m guessing that the brainclamping has something to do with the secret of the spacetrawlers. After all, what could be worse than brainclamping an entire species? And the secret of the spacetrawler is supposed to be horrible… plus it would tie everything up nicely from a plot point-of-view.
Bubonicon (Albuquerque, NM) isn’t on your list of appearances anymore! Aw! I was really hoping you’d make an appearance in the southwest!
@Kris, yes, I had to cancel my appearance at Bubonicon. 🙁 But I’m lookitithonus replace it with the “SciFi Expo” in early August it Albq. Hope that works for you! 🙂
@Metaphizzle, who needs Leslie Nielson when you could have Anne Francis! (who, sadly, died earlier this year.)
Self-clamped Eebs – Very interesting twist!
(And thanks for the Station V3 shout out!) 🙂
I hope brain clamps are never invented by human beings , a despot could clamp most of his population and only preserve the free thought of his elete, which would be a small group who could all die of the same cold. Then the brainclamped sterile remainder would only coast untill another master showed up.
Kind of reminds me of that bit from HHGTTG where Zaphod finds out who erased his memory… someone with the initials Z.B….
Self inflicted sterility to avoid the Soylent Eeb solution. 😉
@Galane: IT’S MADE OF EEBLE!!!
@Galane and @Herander, I had NO idea what you were talking about. Thank goodnesss for the internet.
I completely disagree with Red-9’s assessment of Yuri, but I love that he loves it!
Now that is a twist. Self inflicted but why? Is it because they were too frightened of what their species could do to the rest of the galaxy and beyond?