Here's an awesome little webcomic that is criminally unknown. Although, "little" may not be the best word to describe it. Although it uses the three panel format native to most newspaper comics, Mark Stanley's Freefall already has over fourteen years of contionuous tri-weekly updates, during which it was able to explore many serious issues wrapped in a nice and well-thought-out hard sci-fi package.
The story is set in distant future on the planet Jean, still in its early stages of terraforming. Human colonists, living safely in the few habitable places on the planet (giant dome cities), are working on turning the hostile Jean into a more hospitable Earth-like planet, but also establishing their culture and improving their homes and lives. And in the middle of all this, we meet our main characters.
Sam Starfall is the "heroic" "captain" of the "spaceship" Savage Chicken. Well, he's more of a petty criminal who's already managed to teach most of Jean's population to watch their wallet whenever he's around. Sam takes the shape of a humanoid in a blue environmental suit, but he's actually a Sqid, an intelligent squid-like alien scavenger (a fact he often uses to justify his crimes). His sidekick is Helix, a none-too-bright warehouse robot and apprentice ne'er-do-well. Although there is a moderately tragic backstory to Sam, these two are mostly used as a comedic duo, and their wacky adventures usually don't have much impact on the overall plot.
The more serious plot threads are carried out by the third and final crewmember, gravitational engineer Florence Ambrose. She, unlike Sam and Helix, has a strong sense of morality and upholding the law. From this stems the early plot's main conflict, as both Sam and Flo attempt to convert each other to their way of seeng the world. Florence, as a part of her occupation, is very knowledgeable about technology, and thus is used to explain, or have explained to her, many of the background elements of Freefall's technology, from various details of Jean's terrafroming, to methods of interstellar travel, to theory and reality of artificial intelligence. Oh, and she's also a Bowman's Wolf, a specimen of red wolf genetically engineered to raise her intelligence and give her bipedal locomotion and hands capable of operating small objects. Her backstory, explaining why she is what she is, is revealed throughout the comic's long run, but the most important fact is that technically, she is classified as an AI, putting her at the same level as Jean's innumerable robotic population.
Oh, yes, the robots. Surrounding them is the main plot of the comic. Since Jean is still largely inhospitable, the planet houses over a hundred thousand times more robots than humans. Normally, this shouldn't be that much of a problem, since all robots are created as the stereotypical Three Laws Compliant, inherently logical and kinda dumb machines, but as Florence soon finds out, the robots start becoming more human-like in their character once they age beyond a certain point. And while Florence investigates the causes and ramifications of this bevaior and the robots themselves start establishing their culture and building towards their push for AI rights, certain humans attempt to undermine them in order to "save" humanity.
Of course, only a small percentage of the strips are dedicated to this main storyline. Most of the comic's run focuses on various episodes in the character's everyday lives. Sam and Helix try to return something they stole in the past, only to incite a hostage situation at the local museum. The crew gets a job deploying sattelites in Jean's orbit, only for Sam to accidentally have a video of him getting his scarf stuck in the toilet sent to other ships' captains. Florence goes shopping for ship supplies, while accompanying a friend to the mall. Sam steal some bread, which results in a fight in the Strategic Pie Reserve Warehouse (seriously). The thing is, the stories are not only consistently funny, they also flow into each other naturally, forming a consistent narrative all the way through.
There are currently over 2,300 Freefall strips published, so if you decide to pick this webcomic up, you'll have a lot to chew through, but let me assure you it's all worth it. You shall be entertained, and a bit educated, all the way through to the, well, today.
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