Characters / Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire

New Hong Kong

Buck Godot

• Acrofatic: Granted he's a Hoffmanite so most of that is muscle and he grew up in four gees.
• Boisterous Bruiser
• Chaste Hero: He spends hours alone in a room with Louisa’s most popular and most enthusiastic girl and continually refuses her advances. It later turns out that non-Hoffmanite humans are too thin (and fragile) for his tastes unless they have pheromone genemods and put them on full blast.
• Combat Pragmatist: Despite being superhumanly strong and tough, Buck's first instinct in any fight is to end it by whatever means possible. Justified, since there are creatures out there tough enough to make him look like a 90-pound weakling.
• Guile Hero: Not that Buck is a slouch when it comes to fighting, but his life and pay-check are always ultimately saved by his ability to think on his feet and play the entities around him against each other.
  • Genius Bruiser: In addition to being very smart, he's still a Hoffmanite, so he's superhumanly strong.
• Heavyworlder: Hoffmanites are a Human Subspecies engineered for high-gravity environments. Their size and strength are part of the gene-tweaks used to let them thrive in these places.
• I Need a Freaking Drink: He spends most of his time at the bar, though this characteristic is played down as the stories continue.
  Green-Skinned Space Babe: Are you Buck Godot, the detective?
  Buck: No. I'm Buck Godot, the drunkard. Detecting is just my hobby.
• Kevlard: At one point his bulk saves him from a poison that usually kills in a couple seconds long enough to get the antidote.

Al

• The Bartender: His appearances in Buck's comics run exclusively around his position as the bartender at Buck's favorite bar.
• The Scrooge
• Gargle Blaster: most of his wares. Including the milk.

Louisa Dem Five

• Boldly Coming: Louisa Dem Five's preferred approach to inter-species diplomacy.
• Ethical Slut: She's a prostitute, yes, but she has a very strong personal ethical code.
• Extreme Omnisexual: She's a professional prostitute in a universe full of weird aliens. Being willing to do anything sexual with anything that expresses an interest is part of her job description.
• Hooker with a Heart of Gold: And one with a very strong opinion of hookers without hearts of gold.
• Love Is in the Air: She's undergone a genetic tweak that allows her to consciously emit arousing pheromones, strong enough that she can literally turn on practically anything - especially if it's a human subspecies (even Hoffmanites). One of the first signs that something is wrong with the humans on Gallimaufry is that she finds that people won't respond to her with arousal even when she has them on full blast.
• Silk Hiding Steel: Not much silk, but she's the one who conducts a "New Hong Kong wake" to honor and avenge Oort in the Gallimaufry arc.

Local Cluster

The Pistol-Packin' Polaris Packrat

• Alliterative Name
• Hypercompetent Sidekick: Smith and Wesson are obviously the brains of the operation.
• Talking Weapon: Packrat's guns, Smith and Wesson.

Director Fang

• Corrupt Corporate Executive

The Teleporter

• Adventurer Archaeologist: Oddly enough.
• Blue-and-Orange Morality: Does not consider species to be sapient (and thus worthy of conversation) until they have learned 'the art of true movement' (teleportation).
• Eldritch Abomination / Starfish Aliens: Most of its body is not shown: just an eye-and-mouth part that might be a head, and a couple of dozen hands, all sticking out of tiny, self-propelled, stargate-like devices.
• Planetary Relocation: Buck asks for its help in teleporting away all of the inhabitants of a planet that's about to be swallowed by a black hole. It then tells him that it'd be easier to just teleport the planet, and proceeds to do so.

Lord Thezmothete

• Eldritch Abomination: The most powerful being in known space. He's not seen much, and the one glimpse we have is... odd.
• Sufficiently Advanced Aliens: Thezmothete didn't think that a stolen black hole generator (with no labels, no instructions and no safety lock) was worth getting too worked up about.

He-Who-Must-Be-Watered

• The Dragon: Although Thezmothete seems to be more 'indifferent' than evil, He-Who-Must-Be-Watered fulfills this role.
• Plant Aliens: He looks a lot like a cartoony vase full of flowers, but is actually a sapient alien being.
• The Runt at the End: He-Who-Must-Be-Watered has a new bud with a semi-independent personality.

PSmIth

• Hive Mind: The entire reason why the PSmIth was engineered was to create one of these. Every single individual is part of a single massive group consciousness — which leads to trouble when some of its component bodies fall afoul of an unexpected alien Gargle Blaster and are sharply disconnected from the collective.
• Human Subspecies: They're an offshoot of humanity that decided to genetically engineer themselves into a Hive Mind.
• Me's a Crowd: As part of the same process that made them a Hive Mind, the PSmIth have a cloning-based reproduction system. As a consequence, every individual is physically and genetically identical.

Der Rock the Destroyer

• Phantom Thief: from Sufficiently Advanced Aliens, no less.
• Badass Normal: Implied to be a bog-standard human.
• Handicapped Badass: Fresh out of hospital, having had most of his body reconstructed from scratch, and still requiring a cane to walk, he still manages to fight 35 members of the PSmIth collective to a standstill.

The Gallimaufrey

The Winslow! (All Hail!)

• Cartoon Creature: It looks like a sapient stuffed toy alligator.
• Dissonant Serenity: "Hi!"
• MacGuffin: Lampshaded and deconstructed. Three-fourths of known religions revolve around Its importance; nobody can agree on why. Wars break out as various races/beliefs fight over It, and there are disastrous repercussions. Admittedly, a high-level alien race advanced enough to know such things says that it is important, but they won't say why.
• Nigh-Invulnerable: Nothing, but nothing, can hurt the Winslow. If you want to find the Winslow on a planet, the easiest way is to blow the planet into space dust; the Winslow will be the biggest piece left.
• Obfuscating Stupidity: Maybe... "No! Do not eat own foot! Could not be stupider if you tried!"
• Time Abyss: When the first sentients appeared in the universe, The Winslow was already there to say "Hi!" at them. According to its Secret Origins strip, in fact, it predates the Big Bang, and will still be around saying "Hi!" during the Heat Death of the Universe.

Frakkis Godot

• Boisterous Bruiser: More so than Buck, who is used to living around fragile little people.
• Heavyworlder: Hoffmanites are a Human Subspecies engineered for high-gravity environments. Their size and strength are part of the gene-tweaks used to let them thrive in these places.
• Meaningful Name: "Fracas".

Ambassador Ettarre Cabell

• Meaningful Name: Ettarre is the unattainable Most Beautiful Woman in The Cream of the Jest by James Branch Cabell.
• Reasonable Authority Figure: She's nothing but level-headed, pragmatic and reasonable.
• Token Wholesome: With Thad. They're pledged to each other, and take their vows of dedication very seriously. Even when it transpires that Ettarre has fallen afoul of a libido-inhbiting virus, despite having her permission to relieve his own pent-up hormones with someone else, Thad instead chooses to just borrow a medical officer's Porn Stash and relieve himself.

Thad Gizmot

• Dissonant Serenity: Most people don't calmly walk through a raging Melee A 30. Most people didn't grow up in New Hong Kong.
• Rank Scales with Asskicking
• Tiny Guy, Huge Girl: His lover Ettarre stands head and shoulders above him.
• Token Wholesome: With Ettarre. They're pledged to each other, and take their vows of dedication very seriously. Even when it transpires that Ettarre has fallen afoul of a libido-inhbiting virus, despite having her permission to relieve his own pent-up hormones with someone else, Thad instead chooses to just borrow a medical officer's Porn Stash and relieve himself.

Sergeant Anton Clisp

A cyborg asteroid pirate who attempts to sell state secrets to ambassadors gathered for the summit.

• Cyborg: Apparently most of his body has been replaced by energy weapons.
• Jerkass: Spends very little of his screen time doing anything other than be a massive tool. Godot Lampshades it when he notes the code word being used during while selling secrets to the ambassadors is one also used in slave auctions.
• Space Pirate: Who he works for and he's presumably one himself.
• Starter Villain: For the Gallimaufry graphic novel. Unconnected with the larger plot, he's just there for Godot to outsmart to establish for new readers that he's not just Dumb Muscle.

Rowan and Martin

A team of detectives. One happens to be a talking Aberdeen terrier with spectacles. The other happens to be a cat.

• Intellectual Animals: Perhaps they're uplifted Earth animals, but in this setting it's also possible that alien races resembling cats and dogs exist.
• McNinja: Martin the cat.
• Shout-Out: Their names reference the classic sketch-comedy program Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.
• Smart Dogs Wear Glasses
• The Nose Knows: Rowan the terrier.
• Uplifted Animal: Presumably.

Security Chief Parahexavoctal

• Da Chief: His everyday duties.
• Friend on the Force: Started off at this Then it turns out he was going to kill Godot for knowing too much.
• I Did What I Had to Do: Leading eventually to the slippery slope...
• Knight Templar
• Well-Intentioned Extremist

Hyraxx D'Mofiti

• Cute Monster Girl:
• It's for a Book: And one that her editor rejected, no less.
• Paparazzi: Quite proud of it, even stating she rather stick to tabloid stuff till Godot mention a cover up.
• Super-Strength: Her intro includes casually tossing Buck around with one hand.
• Weaksauce Weakness: If Buck had paid more attention during their first meeting, he may have learned that she's terrified of potato mashers.

Prime Mover

• Big Good: The representative of a species that maintains humanity (and the rest of the Gallimaufry) as part of their moral responsibility to the less advanced. In other words, a little stuck-up, but with everybody's best interests at heart.
• Porn Stash: It turns out that even a Sufficiently Advanced Alien can have one of these.
• Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Presumably ranking below Lord Thezmothete, but he's still a Reality Warper who seems to have transcended all tool use.

Pogs

• Cute Is Evil: They look like sweet little cartoony reptiles... it turns out they were willing to destroy Earth by using a bio-engineered plague to wipe out humanity so they could get their hands on the Winslow, which they worship.
• Token Heroic Orc: One was a very good friend of Loisa and Buck, and when he found out what his species done tried to warn them.
• Funny Animal: Look kind of like a cross between a bipedal lizard and a bipedal turtle without a shell.

Beemah

• Attack Animal: They were engineered to be this in the most literal sense; they're essentially animals that were vat-grown to be self-transporting laser blasters.
• Because You Were Nice to Me: Since there is a "shoot on sight" order for all Beemahs, Buck treating them with basic courtesy, respect, and honesty earns him this.
• Living Weapon: And rather pissed off about it; they were constructed using Kleg biotech, and it was massively illegal.
• Morality Pet: For the Kleg, in the end.
• Punny Name: They shoot energy beams from lenses in their foreheads. They're beamers.
• Servant Race: As they were created as Living Weapons, they were designed to be unable to do anything without aid besides sneak around and shoot things; their food comes from specialized machines, meaning they will starve unless they stay close to their owner Parahexavoctal, who makes good use of their unique ability to dispense hot anonymous death on the otherwise weapon-free Gallimaufry station. They don't have any hands to manipulate objects with, and their feet aren't useful as hands either.
• Waddling Head: They have fully-formed digitigrade legs, but otherwise qualify.
  • Deconstructed somewhat— they require assistance for basic life functions, such as eating, which forces them to serve others in exchange for survival.
• You No Take Candle: Are capable of more normal speech pattens when carefully considering things, but rapidly devolve into this when stressed (especially when pissed off).

Klegdixal

• The Atoner: According to the Kleg Ambassador, they regret selling the Zmouf the technology they used to create and enslave the Beemahs. Confronted with living Beemahs, the Kleg Ambassador breaks down and begs their forgiveness.
• Planet of Hats: "They're jerks." Relative to humans, at least, the Kleg are all irritable stingy jerks. Their other hat is biotechnology... though there's an early hint of their deepness when it's revealed that Klegs prefer to prevent people using bio-tech to cause harm.

Uligb

• Eldritch Abomination / Starfish Aliens: a good example of how hard it is to distinguish between the two. The Uligb exist in and perceive 17-and-a-half dimensions at once, including time; their physical forms resemble nothing so much as a cluster of eyes suspended in a hovering amorphous bedsheet. They are generally benevolent toward humans because they like popsicles: they stuff and mount them. They are respected as the most dangerous opponents in the known universe: they can destroy ANYTHING in a manner resembling a three-dimensional computer programmer "destroying" a typed character by hitting the "delete" key. Except it doesn't work on the Winslow. It's foretold that any Uligb attacking the Winslow is "the last sign". It's correct, as seconds later, the Prime Mover "deletes" them for aiding in a coup.

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