Author notes

043 - Snug

El Cid

on Oct. 20, 2015

This page communicates a deep metaphysical message, and that message is boobs. Just one more page of space nookie left, and then back on track with the story. Enjoy it while it lasts!
 

 
The Drunk Duck Awards are still going strong! Be sure to drop by and comment, congratulate, complain, or whatever you want. It's a celebration of all things Duck!
 


 
Space pirates are a popular sci fi trope, and they figure heavily in this comic, but do they actually make real-world sense? Even in the more “speculative” space opera universes, the concept doesn't seem to work all that well. Like, if spacecraft can basically jump to anywhere in the universe almost instantaneously, how are you supposed to intercept them? Like, ever? It wouldn't make sense trying to cut someone off mid-voyage, because there is no mid-voyage. They're already there! Your only opportunity to pick somebody off would be while they're docking, I guess. Anyway, if you're making up the rules as you go along, I guess you can make up some loopholes for how the pirates are always able to swoop in on ships that just happen to be idly coasting through interstellar space.
 
It's even worse for a more real-worldy type of sci fi universe. Even though the two seem superficially similar, being on a spaceship is nothing like being on the high seas, or even being in a submarine, for that matter. There's no way for you to hide and sneak up on an unsuspecting freighter. Even as far away as Pluto, we can detect something as weak as a cell phone signal. Good luck exploding a thousand nuclear bombs' worth of thrust and not getting noticed. So even though you probably could hijack a ship in space and take it back to your pirates' den, the whole solar system would see you do it.
 
So does that mean space pirates are completely unsalvageable as a concept? No, not really. For one thing, they can get creative. Like, you could use a torpedo robot to threaten passenger ships; make them wire X amount of money to an untraceable bank account or you blow them up. But even old school piracy can work. It works fine today in Somalia. It doesn't matter if everybody knows where the pirates are coming from if the local authorities aren't going to arrest them, and the pirate militias are too psycho scary for anyone to even think about sending their military in to get things under control. I sort of seized on that idea for the pirates who will show up later in this story. They operate out of the Somalia of the outer solar system.
 

 
Oh right, you wanted an animation, didn't you? Okay, here ya go.
 

 
Gonna go now.