Schlock Mercenary

This is one quotable webcomic.

I'd like to get

Unknown Troper wrote:

as a page quote somewhere.

Schlock Mercenary, because there really should be a link to the page on the first page of this thread.

I love this comicl in every way shape and form. Go semi-moral super-competent super-greedy protagonists!

I'm very near the end of a disjointed reread of the archives, and I gotta say, "mercenary warship Petey" was absolutely AWESOME. Way more fun than the current "responsible deity" Petey, or even "waging a war with an entire species" Petey. Also, those blurbs under the strips are still hilarious—my favorites being the eye fairy blurb and the Manual Operation Under the Influence one.

I'm a little confused on the current story though. Aren't they supposed to be operating on the assumption that one of the two ports is actually where they're supposed to deliver the stuff, and thus be trying to figure out which one before they start blowing up the defenses of what may be the people paying their contract?

edited 15th Feb '14 10:28:35 AM by Brickman

brickman wrote:

Tagon covered that with "Northport, then. If they can put together uniforms, they constitute authority." Like any decision of Tagon's, it was simple, to the point, and seconds after he made it, someone's head got vaporized. (Although with the expression on his face at the end of the 20th's comic, I think he's thinking "Let's take out the one which is a possible threat, and after showing off how badass we are, talk with the presumably intimidated locals, and if that's a false assumption, we haven't used enough violence yet")

Schlock is indeed massively quotable. My two favourites are:

"There is no 'Overkill'. There is only 'Open fire' and 'I need to reload'"

and

Union Rep: Hey is that a hair dryer? Schlock: If by "hair" you mean "plasma" and by "dryer" you mean "cannon" then yes, yes it is.

Is it me, or is the current storyline reminding anyone else of Isaac Asimov?

Also, I absolutely love LOTA. I wonder if LOTA will be sticking around after the end of the storyline, simply because so much work was put into LOTA? I wonder how LOTA's planning on catching all those boxes while sitting down though?

((PS: LOTA is too big for puny pronouns))

Anyone else still reading this? I am, and though most of this week's strips were pretty dry (last week's were decent), Saturday's◊ gave me a huge laugh. Mostly because I feel that way a lot lately, but I think anyone can relate XD It's certainly a better expression of the idea than, say, Cathy (Take That!!)

Personally I'm liking this story. Massey doesn't get good screentime often enough (not to say he doesn't get it, just not enough) and the situation's unfolding in quite an interesting way, the type that incites the viewer to think "How are they going to get out of this one?"

Also, it's become quite clear they should NOT have hired a mercenary group for this mission. That said, the antimatter pirates were also part of this mission, so without them the food would be gone (probably owned by the same guys with a current monopoly).

I think today's strip qualifies as a Crowning Moment Of Heartwarming.

A twisted, twisted CMOH, but a CMOH all the same.

The next one is a CMOH (at least from Schlock's point of view) with grenades.

edited Sun, 12 Oct 2008 14:20:35 by Dangermike

Added the last line of today's to the Quote Bin.

Which made me realize that there is a really excellent Pot Holing that doesn't happen often enough...

edited Sun, 12 Oct 2008 15:50:15 by Haven

Speaking of quotes, I'd like to nominate Howard Tayler's succinct description of political parties as "aggregate monsters of compromise" as a Crowning Comment of Awesome.

"You want to raid their stockpile."

"I want somebody younger and more foolish than I to raid their stockpile."

"That doesn't narrow the field down very much."

Poor Captain Tagon, he thinks Tag wants to resign. He hasn't caught up yet to the fact that Tag already resigned, so he could act without the Captain being responsible for Tag's actions.

On Tag, we'll see. Tagon has to accept his resignation before that works, after all.

• sigh* Wish this would hurry up and come out faster, heh. Schlock is one of the ones that I never miss a day on.

Anybody else miss the old 'off-the-shelf Karloff skin' text for Tag's speech?

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20090213.html

I do not like where this is going. Poor Tag...

http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20090213.html

I do not like where this is going. Poor Tag...

You know, I just had an odd thought; Howard Tayler mostly averts the What Measure Is a Non-Human? question quite thoroughly. Gateclones have exactly the same rights as their originals. And A.I.s... well, Tag, Ennesby, Petey... heck, even Schlock, if you know his origins... are all treated as being in posession of full people-ness by the storyline, the narration, and the majority of the other characters- even Kevyn who created Tag, and to a lesser extent Ennesby.

Yet Ventura, who, at least in theory, knows A.I.s far better than any of the characters to date, treats them like toasters.

I'm wondering if there's an Aesop coming about 'A.I.s are people too' (I hope not, Howard has mostly been far too good a writer for that kind of cheese), or some kind of revelation as to the nature of A.I.s?

On the other hand, there was that very quick resolution to the "can we execute a gate-clone for crimes the original committed?" thing.

I don't think there's an aesop upcoming. Just good old fashioned deletion-based psychiatry and all of that vaguely amoral pragmatism we love the Schlockiverse for.

edited Fri, 13 Feb 2009 12:57:18 by Haven

The gate clone had already committed the crime before being cloned, right? So there's no ethical dilema there, just a potential legal loophole.

As for Ventura, she's just too close to their insides, so she thinks of them as being "Ones and Zeroes", whether they are or not. And anyways, Ventura was drafted into this merry band because she is so effective at treating A.I.s in a pragmatic, non-human way. After all, like you said, Kevyn is also capable of making and poking around at very good A.I.s, but he treats them as people. Ventura treats them as dirt and can get away with it, so they're so scared of her they'll do anything she says. Ventura isn't "better" at robots than Kevyn; none of Kevyn's robots have developed the dangerous superiority complexes or reckless non-team-playerness of Lota, who shuns puny pronouns and feels it doesn't have to run its plans past ANYONE as the default rather than only in emergencies. And Kevyn's were all put in much headier and more powerful positions; if a robot built for moving freight let its "power" get to its head like that, imagine if she'd built something to control a heavily-armed spaceship.

It's kinda odd, when you think about it—we really should hate Ventura's guts for how she treats the robots, regardless of anything else, but it barely even crossed my mind at any point, instead focusing entirely on her personality when dealing with other people.

Checking back in the archives, Captain Tagon hired Ventura because she intimdated the AI ship yard repair chief just by reputation.

03/30/2008 AI: "Sweet mother of chrome... its VENTURA." (nerviously) "Captain, there may be one or two lose ends we need to tie off. I'll get right on them."

Tagon (to Ventura): "Welcome abord, ensign Ventura."

04/10/2008 Kevyn, explaining why he doesn't want a replacemnt for Tag: "Second, I liked Tag. He was spooky and aloof, and he was devloping a twisted sense of humor."

Ventura: "It sounds like you treat robots like they're people."

(after Tag reboots): "You treat your machines well. I think I may have to like you."

edited Fri, 13 Feb 2009 21:14:20 by LarryD

Hmmmm...

"You may use pronouns, but only occasionally."

HAH!

I suppose that's one way to deal with a civil war...

Bwhaha.

"I think Para's robot is broken."

"I think that is somebody else's problem now."

I wonder why the anchorman is being so nice to Tagon and Co now, considering this could also be blamed on them very easily. Is he just intimidated by LOTA, or does he secretly want to help Tagon (perhaps respecting him for actually having the guts to ask him questions, though that may be too much of a stretch)?

Anyways, I love Ennesby's line. Also, Lota's concession about pronouns. Yes, I agree, Para's robot is pretty broken.

Well, he's really being nice to LOTA, he hasn't said anything about Tagon's company. Yet. Probably going to be a bit distracted about that.

All hail King Lota! Somehow, it's not seeming likely that he'll submit to Ventura's repairs.

Yeah, Lota, rub their dependency in their faces. Maybe they'll rediscover their spines and a taste for freedom.

Capt. Tagon's spot on, they are their own worst enemies.