FTL, Y'all! Tales from the Age of the $200 Warp Drive is a 2018 Science Fiction Comic Book anthology published by Iron Circus Comics, drawing inspiration from the stories of Jerry Oltion.
Six months from now, detailed schematics are anononymously uploaded to the internet, describing clearly and thoroughly how to build a working faster-than-light engine for $200 worth of easily-available parts. This leads to the rapid (and chaotic) public availability of space travel, and changes nearly everything about human life.
The stories in the collection, while varying in time period, take place well after this initial upload, instead showing the various possibilities of how society would respond to such an engine. They're sometimes serious, sometimes silly, and sometimes Slice of Life, but at heart always very human.
FTL, Y'all! contains the following stories:
- "Soft Physics" by Blue Delliquanti: In a world where the internet spans much farther then one planet, best friends Phoney and Mandy have gone viral with their videos of them playing with the strange physics of new alien planets.
- "Cabbage Island" by Cindy Powers and Mulele Jarvis: A young woman debates leaving an increasingly authoritarian Earth to potentially start a new life in the nearby system of Alpha Centauri, much to the disapproval of her husband.
- "M.S.P.I.P.S.P." by Kay Rossbach: A woman and her daughter head to the Minneapolis/St. Paul Interplanetary Spaceport to catch a flight to a newly-colonized Mars, but must first deal with the trials of airports in the future.
- "Lia" by Alexxander Dovelin: A woman reflects on her life spent making scientific breakthroughs with her work in neural networks, and along the way ponders human connection in the age of space.
- "Passing Through" by Jamie Kaye and Sunny: An Earth mailman calls his partner, currently on an expedition to a galaxy light years away.
- "Ignition" by Iris Jay and Skolli Rubedo: A team of alien salvagers are contracted by the US government to recover an ancient American space ship from a now-underwater Virginia.
- "Brilliant + Handsome" by CB Webb: Dimwitted Billy makes plans with his friend Bobby to head to Saturn (which Billy believes to be Mars), so that Billy can become King of Mars.
- "Space to Grow" by NN Chan: A recent astrobiology grad runs a blog documenting the flora and fauna of planets she visits, and learns to deal with cyberbullies along the way.
- "Failsafe" by Rachel Ordway: An unnamed man attempts to fly his ship into a black hole, but is stopped by the ship's failsafe mechanisms.
- "Finders Keepers" by Ahueonao: Three friends plan a heist of an abandoned luxury space station previously believed to have been destroyed.
- "Microwave" by Jay Eaton: A young girl in Glasgow heads to a warp center to visit her friend in Seattle, while dealing with her bickering uncles.
- "Prodigal Sunset" by James F Wright and Little Corvus: Five young astronauts all infected with the same virus (despite coming from five different species) realize they are related, and set out to find their father and (hopefully) the cure.
- "Story of a Rescue" by Nathaniel Wilson: A brother and sister set off to catch their stepfather, who left earth fifteen years prior with all their family's belongings.
- "Words from the Dead" by Jonathon Dalton: Two archaeologists travel from planet-to-planet, examining the ruins of an ancient civilization, and inadvertently stumble across the discovery of a lifetime.
- "Solitary" by David Andry and Paul Schultz: A prisoner is offered commutation of his sentence by the US government, in exchange for carrying out a mission on a distant planet.
- "Granddad's Second Wife" by Cheez Hayama and Earl T Roske: Young Sergio's grandfather returns to visit him after several years, along with his second wife: A larva-like creature living in his stomach.
- "The Senior Project" by Maia Kobabe: While the rest of her class chooses FTL-related material, high school senior Willow decides to research fast-growing crops for Earth for her senior project.
- "My Stars and Garters" by Ainsley Seago: A couple seeking to emulate a Victorian way of living decide to move to space in order to live their most authentic life without challenges from modern society.
- "Wayhome" by Evan Dahm: A couple and their daughter live isolated in a cabin on a heavily wooded planet, and debate using an FTL engine referred to as the "Wayhome" to return to settled land.
FTL, Y'all! provides examples of:
- Crapsack World: All of Earth in several of the stories. Once FTL travel became easily available, people started leaving fast, leading the remaining governments to take an increasingly traditionalist stance on space travel, including outright banning FTL engines in several cases. From what we see, Japan has turned to strict martial law to keep its citizens in line while America has become a far right-wing traditionalist state. In addition, the environmental problems currently faced are taken up a notch in the future settings of the stories, to the extent that several locations are fully submerged
- Driven to Suicide: Implied to be why the protagonist of "Failsafe" is flying his ship into a black hole.
- Henpecked Husband: It is implied Rutherford is this to Emmeline in "My Stars and Garters," reacting to her plans with hesitation but never outright challenging her.
- Precursors: The Taucetians in "Words from the Dead". They discovered FTL travel millions of years and proceeded to do what humans are now doing: colonize every planet possible.
- Settling the Frontier: A recurring theme across several of the stories. Once space travel became possible, Earth governments set out to colonize everything they possibly could.
