Rank Amateur - Television Tropes & Idioms

RankAmateur is a sci-fi webcomic by Red/Dwarf/IV. An alien starship commander, Mission Controller Renaza Talinar, is transferred to her new command - the HSDPS Kizantikiran, a Haikovan Stingray Lander Variant class troop transport - and she expects that this will mean a more interesting career path than the Pleasure Cruiser she ran previously. Things quickly become too interesting however, as a stowaway feline GELF is discovered on board; debris causes a hull breach while in hyperspace; a drifting shuttle is picked up - and its occupant holds a dangerous secret.

With a new mission no Stingray Lander was meant to undertake, can Talinar hold things together?

On hiatus pending the completion of a comic buffer.

The comic provides examples of the following tropes:

A.I. Is a Crapshoot: Averted, with Armathas Station's computer being a prime example, AIs have around the mental resilience of a normal Human.
Apocalyptic Log: The chapter introduction pages brought to you by Felix under dark influence. During his musings and observations a Stingray Lander-Variant with artillery Cauterisers is firing at the building he is in. A nearby console ominously displays the building's falling shield strength.
Art Evolution: From this◊ to this.
Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Cyan, one of the two comic mascots. Word Of God being that Cyan was programmed that way to complement the other Virtual Intelligence's [Shaun] personality so that she could answer questions he couldn't.
Genetic Engineering Is the New Nuke: All GELF, and genetic engineering is also used to make healer bacteria and 'indirect bioweapons'.
Faking the Dead: Teal is officially deceased, according to Earth Authority records. EA doesn't want the wrong people finding out her secret, and they saw that as an easy way of doing it - Who would look for a dead person? They were at least Genre Savvy enough not to try turning the Dimension Cannon into a usable weapon.
Funwith Acronyms: The TADPOLE drive - Tachyonic Acceleration Direct Propulsion Over Lightspeed Engine.
- Tal'Ryth often have overly long acronyms for their spacecraft classes.
Humanoid Aliens: The Haikovans qualify because of their height - being much taller than humans, their faces being not flat but snouts [short muzzles, not pig snouts], and the four prehensile tentacles that emerge from their backs. Other aliens will be similarly unlike Humans while retaining humanoid form.
Humans Are Special: One of three races to develop FTL drives on their own makes humans pretty special. Then again, when you consider that the other two races are Halcyons [which evolved able to utilise a form of dark energy to matter conversion which looks a lot like magic] - and the Tal'Ryth, who can understand a form of physics way beyond anyone else, which was the basis for the Aristotlean non-relativistic warp drives they used before developing the faster, more useful dimension jump engines [hyperdrives] that Earth Authority spacecraft use. Again, they developed them independently.
Majorly Awesome: Group Commander Kalanra
Mission Control: Tesanaza, the Armathas AI, Tycho, and Teal's Sapi-Nav.
Mission Control Is Off Its Meds: The Sapi-Nav does this when left on its own in the shuttle.
Petting Zoo People: The GELF. Whilst some, especially Combat-Type, are something close to nothing like either humans or animals, the majority of Genetic, Surgical and Combat GELF are near the human end of the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism
Shout Out: Human owned vessels tend to be named after interesting words, or even characters, from John Wyndham's The Kraken Wakes.
The Battlestar: HSD Savager warcruisers, EM Siberia class Light Assault Carrier, Tal'Ran Mi'Raia Interstellar Attack Craft Carrier (ISACC)
The Engineer: Ops Tech Vasenra
The Captain: Mission Controller Talinar
The Professor: Dimensional Physics engineer Hannah Teal
Time Crash: The purpose of the Dimension Cannon.
Token Human: Hannah Teal and later Liam Jericho. All other main characters are Haikovan or GELF. Or Indirect Bioweapons.
Transhuman: Surgical GELF are named such because they became GELF through medical processes, not from being born as one.
Unusual Euphemism: "Bull sharks", "Horse burgers", "You boomerang"
- Whilst the first and last of these are there simply because they sound like they could be used as insults, the middle one is actually justified - horse burgers look like beef burgers, and were passed off as beef burgers, but aren't beef burgers - they're a lie, and one that caused a media storm. The idea of it being used as an alternative to, say, "that's sheer bollocks", isn't too far fetched.
Unusual User Interface: Several.
- Virtual Intelligence programs are given the form of Petting Zoo People, which is how they appear over holographic projection or on screens.
- Tal'Ryth computers come with what looks like a bog standard keyboard and mouse, but also a Theramin-like electomagnetic interface which can be used to control a cursor or give greater functionality than a simple mouse because of it's inherent 3D capability.
Wagon Train to the Stars: Stingray Lander-Variant vessels like the Kizantikiran have no fixed destination until they get used to land troops. Many of them spend their entire operational life-spans in space because occasions when their landing capability is needed are so rare.
We Will Not Have Pockets in the Future: Averted, the Haikovans all wear utility belts, as does Professor Teal, and both Guardian and Felix have pockets in their trousers/baggies.
Word Of God: The distinct overabundance of humanoid aliens is explained by the comic's creator as 'non-humanoids find it difficult to build spacecraft.' It has also been mentioned that this doesn't rule out non-humanoids - it only means that the majority of them are living on planets. This allows the readership to more easily identify or emphasise with main characters.
Your Answer to Everything: Dustbins. Trash cans. Refuse hoppers. Haikovans have a facination for using rubbish bins to solve a large number of their problems - this ranges from use as a melee weapon to 'urns' for the ashes of dead people.
Command Roster
- The Captain: Mission Controller Renaza Talinar
- Number Two: Flight Engineer Tesanaza Halizan
- Mr. Fixit: Operations Technician Vasenra Kyaria, Felix [TTK-212]
- The Scientist: Dimensional Physics Engineer Hannah Teal
- Communications Officer: The Kizantikiran is "too small to have one." In any case, most of the Drive Room terminals have comm's uplinks. Why should the ship carry someond dedicated when the Mission Controller can talk to Ground control herself?
- Security Officer: Guardian [RSL-428.] The Kizantikiran is not supposed to need one, but this is not an average mission.
- The Marine: Group Commander Kalanra Fekisazan
- The Medic: Medical Technician Farikyna Lyzaritan, Tesanaza also doubles as this.
- Ace Pilot: 1st Pilot Sataria Myzarian
- Navigator: 2nd Navigator Sikanti Ferosalitan
- Red Shirt: Closest thing to this are Kalanra's soldiers. The crew aren't supposed to get into firefights, and the soldiers are supposed to keep the crew safe if one does erupt.