Nogg: This is the bridge of the I.A. Star Banger. As you can see, you are now in outer-space.
Dustin: A spaceship in space. You aliens are just full of surprises, aren't you?
Spacetrawler is a science fiction webcomic by Christopher Baldwin, maker of Bruno and Little Dee.Six humans from six continents get knocked out and abducted by a fish-like alien named Nogg. When they wake up aboard his ship, Nogg explains that he's shanghaied them into Interplanet Amity—a galactic activist group aiming to end the exploitation ofthe Eebs. It won't be easy: the Eebs are the only species capable of understanding and building the technology on which the entire galaxy depends, so attempting to liberate them will quite literally tick off every single government in the Galactic Organizational Body.In spite of the odds, five of the humans agree to fight the good fight for their own reasons... and the sixth sort of tags along anyway.Hilarity Ensues. As does some darker stuff.You should start at the beginning.
Provides examples of:
Acquired Poison Immunity: Dmitri is convinced that he can condition himself to be stun gun resistant... by repeatedly shooting himself with a stun gun. It works.
Alien Non-Interference Clause: The undoing of Nogg's Plan A. If the humans claim Earth's seat at the G.O.B., then Earth is no longer protected by the non-interference clause.
Always Need What You Gave Up: Yuri's therapist robot erases her memory of torture at Flineous's hand in order to bring her back to sanity. Not long afterwards, she runs into Flineous again, so the therapist is forced to restore Yuri's memories, causing her to revert to her scary, violent self.
Anti-Advice: Dustin thoroughly establishes himself as a dumbass, so when he tries to warn Pierrot against trusting Curn, it convinces Pierrot to do exactly the opposite.
Pierrot: Dusty thinks it's a bad idea, it must be sensible.
Anticlimax: Kuu-Drahc is played up as a major antagonist and personal rival to Emily, culminating in the Combat by Champion scene described below. A random rockslide crushes Kuu-Drahc before the fight even begins. Even Emily is disappointed by this.
Action Girl: Emily is one from the get-go, while Yuri and Martina evolve into the role.
Yuri seems sweet, but if you tick her off, she will mess you up. Just ask Flineous.
Martina is morally conflicted about killing, even in self-defense—but she's not afraid to stun-gun her own captain to insure that No One Gets Left Behind. And, when backed into a corner, she is willing to kill if it's the only way to save more lives.
Bio-Augmentation: In addition to having her limbs replaced with bionics, Yuri has a cat-like alien's ears and Eeb brain tissue grafted to her. The latter of which allows her to use telekinesis and understand Eeb technology.
Bishonen Line: Yuri's cyborg upgrades cause her to look increasingly inhuman—then her most powerful, "A God Am I" upgrade returns her to humanoid form, just with different skin color.
Black Box: Eeb-derived technology is this to non-Eebs, almost without exception. Even if another species could understand the tech, the Eebs are terrible at explaining it, and everyone else just relies on Eeb slave labor rather than bothering to learn how anything works. And in the specific case of spacetrawlers, the G.O.B. goes to great lengths to hide the truth of their construction and functioning, because this information is very politically volatile.
He's that nameless guy standing behind Kuu-Drahc at G.O.B. meetings.
Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Dmitri gives Dal many opportunities to sever her G.O.B. ties and prove her loyalty to him. Every single time, she uses the opportunity to try to kill Dmitri.
Combat by Champion: When Emily realizes that her side is outgunned in the space dogfight with the G.O.B., she goads Kuu-Drahc into halting the battle so the two of them can fight one-on-one and hand-to-hand.
Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Possibly more symbolic than literal, but Yuri's descent into PTSD is accompanied by her cyborg implants becoming less human and more monstrous.
Did You Get a New Haircut?: Some people take longer than others to notice Yuri's aforementioned transformation.
Nogg: He's kind of like a mascot, but can lift things.
Dying Race: The Harlzoids, who briefly appear in the backstory. Nogg and Choan try to save them; Kuu-Drahc gives them an improperly-calibrated food synthesizer which poisons them all.
Fake Weakness: Easy to pull off when one's torturer knows nothing of human physiology. "No! Dear God, don't make me eat chocolate! It burns!" Until they decide to start cutting off limbs instead...
Faking the Dead: Dmitri uses holograms to convince the G.O.B. that their assassin succeeded in killing him.
Fantastic Racism: In the Spacetrawler universe, grounds for legally declaring a species non-sentient include lack of willpower and bad fashion sense. (On paper, at least. Political expediency seems to be the real reason: non-sentient species are easier to exploit.)
When it becomes necessary to forcibly restrain Yuri, Martina uses a bomb that Yuri herself asked the Eebs to make.
Major spoiler
The Eebs invented the brain clamp technology, and they were the ones who started using it on themselves. By the time the rest of the galaxy decided to enslave them, only a half-dozen of them remained unclamped.
Klingons Love Shakespeare: Dmitri licenses his recipe for Russian tea cookies. It becomes wildly popular on multiple planets, and Dmitri makes a fortune.
Lampshade Hanging: Mr. Zorilla calls out Nogg for the way his narrative jumps between plot threads willy-nilly, and for the gratuitous cliffhangers.
Laser-Guided Amnesia: It's a relatively trivial procedure to erase (or restore) memories. The subterranean Mihrrgoots make liberal use of this to prevent the outside universe from learning of their existence. And the therapy-bot (who used to be a bar-bot) speeds up Yuri's counseling by erasing her traumatic memories.
The Man Behind the Man: Qwahntoo is the real brains behind the GOB, and Kuu-Drahc, the apex speaker is just the public face. Amusingly, in his first appearance Qwahntoo is literally standing behind Kuu-Drahc.
No One Gets Left Behind: The humans mostly feel this way. Nogg thinks this attitude will get them all killed.
Note to Self: Pierrot finds out some important information about the Eebs just before he's scheduled to receive some Laser-Guided Amnesia, so he writes himself a letter summarizing it. Post-amnesia, he reads the letter and almost immediately dismisses it.
No Transhumanism Allowed: Cyborg prosthesis is treated as normal, though not apparently common. But when Choan asks Yuri about her bioaugmentation, Nogg's indignant response suggests that bioaugmentation isn't well-regarded by some folks.
Oh Crap: Panel eight, here. Somewhat literal, in this case.
Eeb: As an example of our power, we will rain down fire on the nearby planet of Carpsellon and melt every last thing on the surface to slag simply by using our minds. From the information we now have, this "rain of fire" will be analogous to one's morning poo after enjoying a really satisfying spicy meal.
Powered by a Forsaken Child: How spacetrawlers work, and the real reason why details on their construction are so carefully guarded.
Power Strain Blackout: Eebs (or humans like Yuri with Eeb brain implants) will black out if they strain their telekinesis by moving objects that are too massive. Too much of this strain can outright kill them. It's later revealed that this limitation is a result of brain-clamping—we've yet to see an upper limit on how much matter an unclamped Eeb can move telekinetically.
Pyromaniac: The unclamped Eebs prefer to use pyrokinesis to kill their enemies. And they have a lot of enemies.
Raised by Wolves: Or coyotes, in Emily's case. As a result, coyotes are the only creature she feels any kinship towards, and she prefers a loner's life.
Recursive Creators: The Mihrrgoots mastered nanotechnology by building robots, who built smaller robots, who built even smaller robots...
Restraining Bolt: Brain clamps, capable of robbing the clampee's free will and reducing any psychic powers they may have.
Sarcastic Devotee: Krep has nothing but disdain for everyone around him, but he's 100% committed to the cause.
When it becomes undeniable that Dal is dangerous to Interplanet Amity and simply cannot be trusted, Dmitri kills her.
When the situation aboard the spacetrawler construction facility gets really bad, and all Martina's attempts to prevent further bloodshed fail, she realizes her best remaining option is to blow up the station, killing everyone aboard. So she does it.
Star-Crossed Lovers: Curn and Oohlooh are biologically incompatible species. Each of of them breathes gasses that are toxic to the other, and they can't touch each other without dying.
Stupid Sacrifice: Played for laughs when Gurf intercepts a laser blast to protect Emily. Emily then points out that it was a stun-ray, and that the now-unconscious Gurf is the heaviest member of their squad.
Taking the Bullet: Growp dies protecting Emily this way. Then Gurf gets knocked out, also protecting Emily this way.
There Are No Therapists: Zig-zagged. Nogg does have a Therapy-bot for his crew, but it's terrible at the job. Later, Martina recognizes that the crew needs a good therapist, so she replaces Therapy-bot with Bartender-bot.
is a science fiction webcomic by Christopher Baldwin, maker of Bruno and Little Dee.Six humans from six continents get knocked out and abducted by a fish-like alien named Nogg. When they wake up aboard his ship, Nogg explains that he's shanghaied them into Interplanet Amity—a galactic activist group aiming to end the exploitation of the Eebs. It won't be easy: the Eebs are the only species capable of understanding and building the technology on which the entire galaxy depends, so attempting to liberate them will quite literally tick off every single government in the Galactic Organizational Body.In spite of the odds, five of the humans agree to fight the good fight for their own reasons... and the sixth sort of tags along anyway.Hilarity Ensues. As does some darker stuff.You should start at the beginning
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