page 731 – RIIIIIIIIIP
One day, long ago in the distant future, a young child was reading through the Far Out There archives. “Gee,” she thought to herself “I wonder a what point the artist got tired of drawing that one space ship?” Then she gazed upon this page, and knew her question had been answered.
…also, angry Stilez in the bottom panel might be my favorite angry Stilez yet.
Anyway, by some miracle, we’ve got a new Voting Incentive today, but it is EXTREMELY likely it’ll be the last one this month. I’ve got a whole new book of Conventional Wisdom comics to draw before Animazement, and Animazement is very, VERY soon…
The fact that they hadn’t already done that is remarkable. Particularly with how apparently close to Stilez the pilots were.
Science fiction (particularly egregious on that Trek series) is utterly filled with ship operators/personnel who seem unable to take even the most obvious self-preserving actions unless ordered. Seems no initiative is allowed whatsoever in Space. Enemy attacks, they have to be hit several times and then Captain orders “Take evasive action. Full power to shields” – You’d think there’s be some sort of standing order to automatically take evasive action when under attack, but no. Ship with no shields or protection is sitting in front of star, star goes supernova, pilot will just sit there watching it until the captain orders “get us out of here max warp speed!”. Me, personally, if I’m ever a ship’s pilot, I’m going to risk court-martial if it gets me away from the supernova a few seconds earlier.
If it’s that bad, it’s likely that they are purposefully trained (*cough*tortured*cough*) to not have autonomy or concept of self-preservation. It’s entirely possible that the pilots in Star Trek are promoted Red Shirts. (I have never watched Star Trek, but have heard on the internet that Red Shirts actually rarely have Red Uniforms, despite the moniker given by fans).
I’ve assumed that the ship isn’t really rigged for high-altitude flight right now, just allowing the VIP occupants to float up above the common folks on the floor. Thus, the pilots wouldn’t think it take it farther up until it was already too late to do so. (That, and we keep getting contradictory glimpses of how much open space is even up there, so they may not be ABLE to go higher without hitting something)
The altitude the ship is set up for isn’t really an issue here. They’re inside a massive, hobbled together space ship that humans survive on most floors of. The highest altitude their ship can reach has practically the same altitude as the ground.
The inconsistent amount of space for said ship, however, could easily be an issue, as could the existence of a ceiling that Stilez could use to get onto the ship with.