Schlock Mercenary

Schlock Mercenary is a web comic by Howard Tayler. It follows the humorous adventures of a mercenary company living in a starship in a 31st-century space opera setting, with the characters breaking the fourth wall every now and then. Despite the narrative following a band of military freelancers, it's family-friendly entertainment. Its title is taken from one of the characters, Sergeant Schlock.

It debuted on June 12, 2000. The artwork at the start of the series was fairly crude, but has continually improved.

Jean Elmore colored one series of comics in 2003. Tayler colored the remainder of the strips himself, but can't use shading like she did.

Template:Spoiler From here on in, all but the most recent plot developments will be laid bare. If you plan on ever clicking through the archives, you may wish to do so before reading ahead.

Characters in the Schlockiverse

Main characters

The Dramatis personae of the Schlockiverseare an eclectic bunch. Note that not all of their ranks listed here yet reflect contemporary events in the strip.

Sergeant Schlock

A carbosilicate amorph "everyman" who packs the plasgun with the intimidating thrum.

"He" normally appears as a large grey-brown-green cow-pattie-shaped mass with a mouth and eyes that comes up to about normal human chest height, though he can:

• mold himself into the shape of any like-volumed object (but he can't change his color or texture)
• pluck an eye out and look around a corner with it
• overeat to temporarily increase his own size dramatically
• reform with no adverse effects after being blown apart from the inside...
• and, due to the unique circumstances of his immediate ancestry, he is totally unsurpassed in the field of closer-than-mêlée biochemical warfare.

His mouth is normally his only orifice, with which he eats, breathes, smells, excretes, and conceals weaponry. He can apparently chew (very powerfully, in fact), and can refrain from digesting someone he has swallowed if the situation calls for it, which is good, because his digestive juices are the strongest known. His only specialty organs are his eyes, which, it turns out, weren't even generated by his own physiology. His 'brain,' such as it is, is in fact spread throughout his entire mass. He has as many arms as the situation calls for, and never any legs. Apparently he slides everywhere. It isn't specified precicely what texture Schlock has, but he is most definitely dry and un-slimy. In his default state, he has a cute little curlicue of amorph-biomass on his head that makes him look as if he has a forelock.

Personality-wise, the Sergeant is visophiliacally enthusiastic about his work, and his sense of humor can border on sardonic. He has absolutely no sense of subtlety, which is not to say that he can't have moments of extreme cleverness. He has expressed an admiration for Breya's personality traits, and, therefore, is interested in producing offspring with her.

He is addicted to Ovalkwik mix, and orders it in bulk. That's the mix, not the drink. He DOESN'T have a sense of humor about it.

"Step away from the tub of happiness."

OMMMMMINOUS HUMMMMMMMM

Captain Kaff Tagon

Leader of the mercenaries and namesake of the company ("Tagon's Toughs"). When Breya was around, he displayed a tendency to put his foot in his mouth a lot regarding sexism in the workplace, but it was just inexperience at tact and political correctness, and not a character flaw.

Tagon was killed in action in October 2004 during the almost-annual "Schlocktoberfest", when Howard's stories usually take a turn to the dark side and invariably end up with someone getting killed. After his death, Tagon willed the command of the company to Kevyn Andreyasn.

Munitions Commander Kevyn Andreyasn

Engineering ultragenius. He has more common sense and faster intuition than anyone as smart as that should.

He created the teraport, and dabbles with radioactive materials, explosives, corrosives, naked singularities, coherent emissions, high-voltage electricity, biologic agents, and, apparently, ghostbusting. He was promoted to his position due to "suspicion of extreme competence."

Upon the death of Captain Tagon and Kevyn's assumption of leadership of the Toughs, he was promoted to Captain by a unanimous vote among the other officers.

Ex-Admiral Breya Andreyasn

Former leader of the mercenaries and Kevyn's sister; she doesn't take any crap and eats male chauvinist bacon for breakfast.

She was collaborating with her brother on Project Get Filthy Rich Off The Teraport, handling the marketing end of things. She used the investment capital she was in charge of to stage a corporate takeover of Tagon's Toughs, which was apparently supposed to be step one in a devious PR tactic. When she was trying to decide what to rename the company, Sergeant Schlock suggested "Schlock Mercenary." But it turned out Tagon had already printed out business cards with the old name. She promoted herself to Admiral of the company by virtue of being the one signing the paychecks.

Ennesby

The Serial Peacemaker's artificial intelligence. He loves really bad puns, obscene gestures involving the finger, winning at chess, his own freedom, smartassery, and especially any conjuction thereof. He has a weapons-grade vocabulary.

The "flying maraca," his first physical body, has human-looking eyes, a speaker grille in front that moves like a mouth, and floating eyebrows (though Howard's art style is such that all characters have them, so whether they actually levitate is unknown). The maraca is capable of withstanding chemical explosives at point-blank range. Additionally, according to Kevyn:

In lieu of arms and legs, I'm giving you a suite of field effectors... You can fly using the gravitic polarizer, and by combining the particle tunnelers and gravitic waldoes, you'll be able to pick things up and move things around.

All the equipment, excluding the CPU, memory, and aforementioned face parts, are housed in the sci-fi "fiddly bit" sticking out the underside of the ball.
It's interesting to note that with the sheer prowess over energy and molecules that his equipment affords him, he can "eat," after a fashion; mashing up the food (in plain sight) and harvesting some of its biochemical energy. This reduces the ex-comestibles to something very much resembling... "Schlock-In-A-Cup," answering the age-old question of whether a robot can ever be taught table manners with a resounding no.

Ennesby started out as the "state-of-the-art vanilla-helix viral artificial intelligence" that brought the holographic New Sync Boys to life. After their exposure, he uploaded himself to the Hypernet in embarassment and infected the systems of the Kitesfear, demanding sanctuary. From there he was transferred into his first physical body: the "flying maraca."

Ennesby later transferred his primary identity into the new ship's computer on the Serial Peacemaker, but kept the flying maraca as a semi-independant secondary extension.

Post-Dated Check Loan (or "Petey")

The artificial intelligence of the ship of the same name (see below in vessels section). Driven mad by a gruesome mutiny that resulted in the flushing of thousands of carcasses into the ship's plumbing (from which dire threats mysteriously burbled, leading Petey to believe the ship was haunted), Petey existed in a state of total introversion (rendering the massive ship inoperative) until coaxed back to reality by Ennesby, Kevyn, and Captain Tagon. Petey's fear of ghosts made him suicidal, but he was ordered by Captain Tagon to never think about the haunting again; an act which ensured Petey's mental stability. As a side effect of this directive, Petey developed the ability to repress and deny anything he damn well pleased at any time, effectively allowing him to lie to his superiors.

In addition to controlling the ship's every function (in particular its vast army of "fabbers"), Petey manifests an avatar in the form of a floating hologram of an Ob'Enn, the koala-like race of warmongering xenophobes that constructed him. During the ship's career with Tagon's Toughs, Petey was eventually made "probationary special lieutenant" and granted authority to give orders and draft mission profiles.

Petey and the ship were destroyed when an Ob'Enn stowaway used Petey's hard-coded racial devotion to steal the ship; freed from Captain Tagon's authority (and the order to avoid thinking about the haunting of the ship), Petey promptly became ferally suicidal and killed himself and the Ob'Enn would-be reclaimers by overloading his annie-plants.

Recently, Petey has re-emerged in the story, explaining that an overhauled and non-suicidal copy of his personality was intentionally ejected into space in an Ob'Enn mini-tank by his original mad iteration. Petey has since created a physical Ob'Enn body to inhabit (using the "magic cryokit" he stole), which allows him to "give himself" orders, and has begun building a massive fleet to wage a war of containment on his zealously xenophobic marsupialoid ex-masters. He is now known to them as "The Rogue."

Master Sergeant Thurl

His job entails sitting at a console, and that, coupled with a tendency to snack and some genetic predispositions, meant he used to be obese. Because of a botched mission (during which Schlock ate everything but his head), his body had to be regrown. It was a lot slimmer than what he was used to, but he's working hard on remedying that.

Senior Mess Sergeant Ch'vorthq

A biological construct, engineered to be the perfect diplomat. The Creeth engineers evidently focused on that specialization to the exclusion of all other considerations. He looks like a purplish-brown human-height half-melted candle in a suit onto which Picasso was contracted to paint the face.

The truth about his purpose is revealed in the product codes that the Creethlings left in his gene sequence: Creeth Munitions and High Explosives, Exploding Embassador Version 0.95A, creating the perfect pun on "peacemaker." His protein-chain fuse would have set him off during the negotiations, killing many an innocent diplomat, if, after Tagon's Toughs were hired as the patsy to deliver the diplobomb, Sergeant Schlock hadn't mentioned that he smelled like he was burning. As a result of that ordeal and the one where Tagon's Toughs tried to bill the Creethlings for doing what they were, according to the contract, supposed to do, but not what the Creethlings wanted them to do, Ch'vorthq has a cybernetic arm on his left and a cybernetic whisk on his right. After that there was nothing for it but to enlist and become chef.

Doctor Edward Bunnigus

Originally hired by Captain Tagon for her well endowed figure (her gender-inappropriate name, sizable intellect, and absurd proportions the consequence of idiot parents and pre-birth gene therapy), she has consistently demonstrated an ability to deal with every situation Tagon's Toughs encounters. Less of a mercenary than many of her fellow officers, she concentrates on keeping the triger-happy mercenaries alive.

Corporal Ellen "Elf" Foxworthy

Elf began as a powered-armor soldier until a SNAFUed bounty hunt. Aboard the Post-Dated Loan Check, she became a tank pilot (her small size allowing her to fit into the O'Benn minitanks Petey had schematics for), and rose to become the head of her own minitank team. She has been decapitated twice and has had her legs blown off below the knees twice (once replaced with prosthetic feet an order of magnitude larger then her biological feet). Crew members she has had romantic attractions too (Captain Tagon included) have died in the line of duty, a streak of bad luck she has tried to hide from through abuse of super-soldier drugs.

The Very Reverend Lieutenant Theo Fobius

A "mercenary priest," Theo has shown considerable theological flexibility, ccording to the situation. An idealist and a gentleman, he prefers using a sharp epee over a firearm, and his heroics have led to his engagement to Dr. Bunnigus.

Sergeant Flib Sh'vuu

Originally the communications officer, Flib's function aboard the ship was rendered unnecessary by the presence of a ship-controlling artificial intelligence. Eventually, he became a part of Elf's tank force, but was killed in action against elusive dark-matter entities.

Supporting characters

These characters, though frequently present, do not play a consistently important role in storylines.

Massey Reinstein, J.D.

A human lawyer originally charged with defending members of the crew (their being unable, through emnity, to hire the attorneys of the Partnership Collective™), Massey joined Tagon's Toughs as their permanent lawyer after an attempt by the Partnership Collective™ to give him an implant that would make him a part of their hive mind. The plan backfired, and Massey is now able to access the Partnership's legal database (as well as remain aware of their plans) without being controlled by their hivemind. Though this makes him a potent weapon against the PC™, Massey has remained with Tagon's Toughs largely to remain safe from PC™-fired assassins.

Corporal Jeffi 'Brad' Bradley

He's a Corporal. He does Corporaly things. He used to be a twig, but because of a botched mission, his body had to be regrown, whereupon it was discovered that he had the genetic structure of a massive bodybuilder, but was stunted by malnutrition as a child. Though now much stronger, he is still very awkward, unused to his new mass. It's a dysmorphia party, and everyone's invited!

Lieutenant Der Trihs

Der Trihs' name is "red shirt" spelled backwards, a reference to the red-shirted and highly-expendable security personnel from the original Star Trek series. Though promoted to officer status, he has no particular competance or value, and is simply an officer because of his long-time membership in the company. He's found his way into a head-jar on no less than three occasions.

Doythaban Gyo

Originally, Doyt Gyo was an unintelligent bounty hunter and Haban was the very advanced articifial intelligence that controlled Doyt's powered armor and related gadgets and effectors. Doyt originally thought that Haban was in the armor itself, however, to ensure security, the shady organization providing Doyt with these equipments actually grafted Haban's hardware to Doyt's spine. After a serious enjury, Haban was reinstalled closer to the brainstem, giving him equal control over Doyt's body. Over time, the two have experienced a merging of personalities. Doyt's mental weakness is such that he has almost entirely been subsumed by Haban, existing to provide the "programming" to control the body's natural functions, while Haban handles the cerebralities.

Haban The Second

As a consequence of the F'Sherl-Ganni wormgate conspiracy, Doythaban was duplicated but managed (through biotechnical enhancements the "magic cryokit" had gifted him to keep him quiet) to escape his captors. One of the few survivors of Fsherl-Ganni interrogation. This "gate-copy" of Doythaban was "killed" by a head wound, completely destroying copy-Doyt's mind, but allowing copy-Haban to assume complete control of the body and a fresh, blank brain. "Haban the Second" is almost identical to Doythaban, and is married to Breya Andreyasn.

Corporals Burt 'Nick' Nicholson and Jaz 'Shep' Shephard

These two grunts, almost invariably in one anothers' company, are typical jarhead mercenaries enhanced with illegal super-soldier drugs and gene therapy. Comonly under Schlock's command, they are impulsive, violent, and thick-witted; in ther words, perfectly suited to carrying out Schlock's battle plans.

Lieutenant "Sensei" Shodan

Leader of Tagon's Tough's second strike team, Sensei is also responsible for training the mercenaries in hand-to-hand combat.

Private "Legs" Leelagaleenileeleenoleela

Legs belongs to a race of blue ostrich-like (minus the neck) creatures with very long legs and only vestigal wings to substitute for arms. Her weapons are mounted to her helmet, and she has proven an effective mercenary grunt, particularly when running is involved.

Private Andy

Andy belongs to a race with four arms. As such, he frequently accompanies Legs on missions, to put balance back into the number of limbs her squad.

Corporal Tchukk

A member of the Uklakk race, Tchukk has two bodies which communicate with one another via radio. Sharing one mind, the two bodies later have hypernet transmitters implanted, making them superb joint fighter pilots. He/they eventually become a part of Elf's light armor platoon.

Doctor Todd "Lazarus" Lazcowicz

Often referred to as "the old doctor," Lazarus worked as the ship's doctor or Tagon's Toughs until accidentally killed by Schlock while repelling boarders. After his death, it was discovered that he had been using his position as a cover for his true passion, the pursuit of highly illegal medical technology. He is responsible for creating the "magic cryokit," a device capable of remarkable tasks, such as building an entire healthy body around a severed head and giving said body a wild variety of nasty biotechnical weapons and countermeasures.

The Emergency Medical Hologram

Programmed to serve as a replacement in the event of a doctor's death and reprogrammed by Lazarus to ignore "morality programming," the hologram was Lazarus' repository of illegal medical technology as well as having imprinted some of the old doctor's personality traits.

General Karl Tagon (retired)

Father of Kaff Tagon.

Species (including subcategorical organizations) in the Schlockiverse

Mentally, all of the extraterrestrial sophont races basically have the same sensibilities and emotional makeup of human beings, in that they group together, love, hate, fear, scheme, complain, and make sarcastic cracks. Physically, the different races range all over the board, with some wildly improbable shapes at the far ends of the probability curves.

Humans

Human Organizations

Tagon's Toughs

The company of mercenaries that the narrative focuses on. Speciesism is not reflected in their hiring practices: they're an equal-opportunity employer. The grunts are all augmented with pharmaceutical soldier-boosts, powered armor with hydraulic muscle assists, and training in the principles and practices of unarmed combat by Shodan.
When on missions, they use code words and phrases for certain things with each other for the sake of discreetness, quick understanding, and brevity. For instance, "half-court playground ball" means "indoor voices, no shooty." Sergeant Schlock's favorite word in Galstandard West is "jungleball."

Intergalactic Health Care™

Tagon's Toughs' HMO. All you need to hear about these guys is in the medical technology section.

The Partnership Collective™

A hivemind of lawyers. Physically, any given Partnership Collective™ Attorney Drone is literally a large snake in a limbless business suit and tie, usually carrying a briefcase with the end of its tail. The Partnership Collective™ clones them by the millions. Mentally, they are completely conscienceless, with Hypernet nodes implanted in their heads granting them instant access to the collective legal expertise of every other drone in the universe.

Today [the PC™'s] attorney drones are found in the highest level of government, and in the lowest levels of criminal defence.

It isn't considered a problem when there are drones on both the defending and prosecuting sides. Each PC™AD has just enough of a spark of individuality to justify individual ties and their talking to each other for plot exposition, but just little enough not to justify having individual names.

No homeworld has ever been mentioned; just a Mother-Cluster ship.

Kreelies

Ice Kreely young don't grow up to be sentient unless they go through a certain mutation, which is technically initiated by a certain microbe, during a certain stage of their life cycle. The ones who grow up dumb are kept by some as exotic pets, and can still live to be one hundred years old, talk, obey commands, and play chess. They just won't be any smarter than Lassie. According to Sergeant Schlock, the babies have just the right amount of crunch.

Technology in the Schlockiverse

The futuristic technology used in the strip is much more detailed than the usual science fiction fare, and often accompanied by footnotes from Howard. Similarly to such authors as Larry Niven and in contrast to lighter sci-fi (Futurama, for example), Tayler is concerned with the feasibility and consistency of the items featured in his work and tends to follow real-world physics. Anything smaller than a ship, from ties to bouquets of flowers, has a cute little sci-fi "fiddly bit" on it, which seem to have a wide range of functionalities, giving the most ubiquitous of objects ulterior utility (i.e. the tie-phone).

Economy

All money in the Schlockiverse is apparently in electronic credit form. It is common practice to prefix "cred" with the conventional metric every-three-orders-of-magnitude indicators, like kilo-, to describe large amounts of money.

Information/entertainment

Hypernet

Hypernet nodes allow for instantaneous information transfer over any distance with a complete disregard for relativity. The Hypernet itself is a convergence of netsites, video files, and live broadcasts. The Hypernet is accessed by hologrammatic viewscreen or by Hypernet notepad.

Holograms

Hologrammatic technology allows for the projection of viewscreens (used for surfing the Hypernet and taking calls), in which case no effort is made to hide the distorted projective cone between the emitter and the screen (the screen already hides it, because if you're using it right the emitter is behind it), and for the projection of full-body 3D images that can be made indistinguishable from the real thing, used mainly for the avatars of ship AIs (and for fake boy bands).

Hologram disruptors

Holograms can be forced to FZZZZZZTHP out of existence easily, theoretically by jamming the emitters. Either HDs can be activated remotely with a Hypernet notepad, or hologrammatic disruption can be achieved by the sci-fi "fiddly bit" on the notepad itself.

Sports Lustyrated "1,000 Years of Swimsuit Editions"

It's a mystery why Sergeant Schlock owns the entire collection.

Artifical intelligence

Artifical intelligence is a reality of the Shlockiverse. Artificial programs are capable of full sentience and advanced ones control the functions requiring the thinking speed and reaction times of a machine in many (if not most) warships. Less advanced ones are often found in smart munitions, to the irritation of their sophisticated kin. The AIs not made for blowing themselves up get their opinions taken seriously, and the most advanced are treated as peers or even superiors. There is a fair level of discrimination against them in certain walks, however.

AIs are rated on a scale of 1 to 10, based on how fast various systems can think. Anything above a rating of three is rare, and legally, all must be licensed for their respective ratings, and it is illegal for an artifical intelligence to be rated higher than what it is licensed for. An 'illegitimately smart' AI will be 'fined' enough hardware to bring it back 'under spec.'

AIs are entirely capable of mental disorders. Having a sense of humor, for instance.

Travel

Intraplanetary (& intershipary) travel

Shuttles

Used for moving from the surface of a world to a ship in orbit, and presumably vice versa and from ship to ship. Thrust is provided by rocket engines. Is capable of evasive maneuvers, but has no offensive capability.

Sits three in front, the middle of whom steers. Whether there's enough of a back to seat more is unknown. The craft has a regular old window in front for visibility.

Interstellar travel

Sublight

It's not possible for corporeal objects to exceed the speed of light, and as such conventional travel over interstellar distances would take years at the very least, and is infeasible in comparison to the options detailed below. It may occasionally be employed by races that lack access to teraports or wormgates, or choose not to use them. The possible means vary from rocket drives and solar sails to gas giants with gargantuan motors (!)

Teraport

Teraport technology was invented by Tagon's Toughs' own Kevyn Andreyasn as a means to make himself rich, but he later released it into the public domain in order to start the first pan-galactic war.

Wait, that didn't come out right.

The teraport is basically a FTL teleport device that revolutionized interstellar travel (and warfare). The teraport device fits in a human palm, can move a starship, and has pinpoint accuracy and a range of up to 200,000 lightyears; the diameter of a large galaxy. It snags a random molecule from here or there out of what it's moving for power, and no receiver is required. Hopping a starship across lightyears takes about six seconds, and that's all dis/reintegration time. Having the teraport is not necessarily unto godhood, as the endpoints of a teraport hop are quite easy to detect and interdict. Disrupting a teraport in progress causes a rather spectacular event unprofessionally but fittingly called a tera-SPLAT.

According to Kevyn, the teraport functions by

Reducing the subject to gravitic standing waves, and then transporting them, and itself, through billions of nanoscopic wormholes to its destination.

TADs

Teraport Area Denial fields are the antidote to the teraport. TAD utilizes scanners and gravity or beam weapons to detect and intercept any unauthorized teraports. The interception tends to be highly lethal for the target. Both ground and space targets can be covered with TADs, and denial capability is a matter of survival for warships and installations if they don't want to be looking at an unexpected warhead on the bridge. Whole solar systems have created humongous denial fields, both to safeguard against a grand version of the previous example and to keep any invaders at a safe distance from strategic locations; that of the Sol system extends to at least the orbit of Jupiter.

It is possible to conduct miniscule teraporting through a field, given equipment to mask the traces and sufficiently low levels of scanning.

Wormgates

Until very recently, wormgates were the only feasible way of interstellar travel. The devices are operated by the seemingly racially diverse Wormgate Corporation, which in turn is controlled by the F'sherl-Ganni alone. A wormgate is an enormous ring-shaped structure that creates a wormhole-based bridge large enough for a ship to pass through in one piece. Most function by connecting to any one of the other wormgates found spread throughout the galaxy, though the really cheapo ones (relatively speaking, for something bigger than a space station) are only capable of serial traffic (back & forth between one specific other gate only). The wormgate system formed the backbone of galactic transportation and commerce until the introduction of the teraport system.

The most glaring con to wormgates is that more than one per solar system would be wildly impractical, meaning you could spend months flying through the Einsteinian space between points A and Wormgate One and points Wormgate Two and B at sublight speeds. Not good for vacations.

Power generation

Annihilation plants

Power is cheap. Power generators that operate by direct neutronium annihilation in a controlled reaction are common, and available in a wide range of sizes, from the marble-sized annie plants that power the human's armor up through plants hundreds of meters in diameter that power space stations hundreds of kilometers long. They're easily recognizable as teal-colored spheres, regardless of which species' technology any given plant is a product of.

Construction

Space stations are commonplace, and space elevators don't appear to be rare. The more advanced races can go as far as constructing Dyson spheres.

The economically well-to-do of the technologically well-to-do races have access to "fabber" construction technology. The specifics of fabbery technology are nebulous, but it involves mobile, german-shepherd-sized diverse-purpose construction robots, and having access to a fabber basically takes design complexity and (for projects smaller than a ship) construction time out of the construction equation. If you have the mass and a blueprint, you can make it. Even the most sophisticated fabberies don't seem to have the ability to make organic tissue from scratch that stays metabolizing long enough to be useful, though, so they'd have to be "fed" pre-existing tissue to be able to make something like an organic data-storage device.

Medicine

No diseases have been mentioned, though this doesn't necessarily mean that there are none. There are still HMOs, after all. Medical technology is highly advanced and can heal or regenerate (via cloning selected parts) any part of the body in a matter of hours, and even resurrect the recently dead if a viable brain remains. For less severe conditions, shots are still around as a legitimate application, and auto-burrowing implants have joined them. The pain caused by medical procedures is measured on the Ouchdammitometer scale. Known units: Hurtz and Kill-o-hurtz. Robotic "prosthetics" are available if one's HMO doesn't cover regeneration. An HMO's "best-efforts prosthetics plan" will only cover attaching the easiest-to-find device that will socket into the cybernetic stump (even a career mercenary is more likely to end up attached to electric kichen tools than cyber-weapons, or even power tools).

Medical devices:

• Cryokits: Devices for preserving the injured or (usually) dead in stasis for later healing. Inappropriately coffin-shaped.
• Portable nanny bags for collecting back up parts that have been blown off to be put back together.
• Head jars: keep a person's head viable and conscious, if often quite upset. If you lose your head, an HMO will pay for nothing further than one of these.

Long-supressed illegal technology lurks in the shadows, offering a much larger and generally nastier range of options.

• Soldier boosts: Various substances, legal or otherwise, used to enhance reflexes and other things a warrior specializes in.

"Did they give you anything for the pain?"

"What's pain?"

Terraforming

Mars, Venus, Europa and Luna are covered in open-air cities. Unfathomable energies are so easy to harness in the future that "spinning up" a planet to shorten the day is common terraforming procedure.

Starship weaponry and armor

Despite the general advancement of warfare, the selection of weapons available fits into only a few categories. Note that the tech behind Hypernet links is apparently completely useless for scanning purposes, so targeting radar is assumed to be a standard feature.

Plasma lances

Scaled-up plasma cannons with power output measured in zettawatts.

Terapedo

An offshoot of the teraport, this is a smart missile with a teraport attached to it. These devices have multiple uses, including:

• being shot off in arrays as scouting devices used to map areas of space and examine scenes of battles
• delivering messages
• teraporting ships and space stations, whether they like it or not
• or just blowing stuff up.

Cee-sabots

When you're going over half the speed of light and you drop little cones of tin foil, the things they hit will, despite the literal meaning of sabot, be exploded very hard.

Personal weapons and armor

Personal firearms

• Gunfoam/gauss pistols, or G/G guns, contain lethal rounds. "Gunfoam" is a substitute for brass in shell casings.

The twentieth-century reader, mind poisoned by the fantastic science-fiction of television, might wonder why there are so many bullets, and so few blasters, phasers, masers, lasers, light-sabers (sorry, Mr. Lucas) or other futuristic weapons in this sequence.

The fact is, bullets are incredibly versatile. Stunners are often easy to shield against, and on board a space station or space craft heavy energy weapons have an annoying tendency to breach the hull. Bullets, however, are nearly perfect.

Their soft-metal design prevents them from penetrating modern hull materials, while ensuring that they transmit as much of their kinetic energy as possible into the body (soon to be corpse) of the target. Gunfoam propellant casings (invented by Crisco & Wesson in AD 2130) mean no more messy brass bits lying around (or flying into someone's eye--we would not want anyone to get hurt). Really, there are only three drawbacks to using bullets:

1. They can smash up sensitive electronics
2. They don't work on good body armor, heavy exoskeletons, or amorphs
3. They don't just stun people--they kill them.

Well. There are at least two drawbacks. That third is arguably an advantage, since a dead target usually won't try to sue you.

Gunfoam mode is used when electromagnetic propulsion is not appropriate; for instance, when the round you're firing has sensitive electronics that would be screwed up, like for autotargeting or for regulating something sensitive, like the stuff in explosive rounds. In gausspistol mode, the firearm is basically a handheld electromagnetic mass driver. One glaring drawback to this mode is that, in a protracted firefight, it will need to stop to recharge itself.

• Plasguns (syn. plasma cannons, hair dryers): models from the Strohl Munitions BH line, when primed and flipped from "safe" to "decidedly unsafe," cycle atmospheric gasses into their inner chambers and convert them into extremely-unreasonably-hot ions. This stage of the miraculous process produces the characteristic 'OMMMMMINOUS HUMMMMMMMM' that die-hard fans of the line love so much and makes anyone on the wrong end of the weapon reconsider their life choices. Quoting from the product flier:
  "The BH-209's variable mag-bottle aperture allows for full control of beam width, which can be dialed from a relatively narrow 1cm setting to a splashy 10:6 expanding cone (6-meter beam diameter at a range of 10 meters) useful for crowd control. Powered by a Striggs & Bratton 2-stroke microfusion plant, the BH-209 need never be recharged, provided it is allowed to "breathe" periodically... While [the aforementioned acoustic effect] is stealth-defeating, many law-enforcement agents have reported that it serves as an excellent deterrent."
  The outdated Strohl Munitions BH-209m model's internal circuitry, which prevents charge exchange in the ions, was subject to malfunctioning when the weapon was dunked in ethanol, resulting in the vaporization of the device, and also, most likely, the gibbification of anyone near it.
  The less malfunctional Strohl Munitions BH-209i, the model used by Sergeant Schlock, looks, in profile, like 3/4 of an XXL grey bowling ball with the grip and trigger where the bottom-left 1/4 should be, way too many holes covering the bottom-right 1/4, and a barrel a softball could fit in coming out of the right side.
• Shoulder-mounted microwave laser cannons fire weapons-grade coherent emissions.
• Goober guns contain jello-like ammunition that immobilizes its victims, and are used on civilians or when there is a clear advantage to leaving the target breathing (read: profit). This ammunition can be collected after expenditure and reused. Specialized nanomotile goober round variants can do certain things to their victims, not all of which are appropriate to discuss in public.
• Difference tone stunners (syn. magic sleep guns), according to Kevyn:

project two parallel, unidirectional, high-amplitude vhf audio streams, with slightly differing frequencies. When those streams intersect a target, a high-amplitude difference-tone is generated in the body of the target. This low-frequency tone interferes with the target's synaptic refresh, effectively jamming the nervous system and rendering the target instantly unconscious.
Stunners have absolutely no intimidative power.

Mini-nuke grenades

A fist-sized destructive device, presumably powered by nuclear fission. Only for use by those with really good arms.

Collapsar bombs

Also fist-sized. Only mentioned in passing.

Fullerene armor

Most members of human military forces wear powered fullerene armor. According to Howard, the suit is:

woven from 'powered fullerenes.' This means that the fullerene tubules (carbonan is a brand I've referenced in the strip, but I believe there are other elements than carbon that can make good fullerene tubules) have a power source that strengthens their molecular bonds artificially, and that offers a rigidifying field under impact. The best suits also have limited gravitics, which allow for flight and for compensation when you're hit by a projectile that throws you against a wall.

The suit can also contribute hydraulic assists to the application of brute force.

Low-profile tech

Powered armor uniforms

Fullerine armor that looks like a normal military outfit. Can respond to your thoughts for flight control and helmet deployment. According to Howard:

So what does it look like?

1. Skin tight.
2. Shirt can be taken off separately from pants (mostly for plot purposes -- I've needed to show characters 'dressing' without showing them stark naked)
3. The belt, collar, cuffs, and ankle-cuffs are stiff, and conceal gloves, helmet, weaponry, and the marble-sized annie-plants that power the fullerenes.
4. Boots are big.
5. Helmets are low-profile... little more than a padded cap (only loaded with future-tech that protects your head better than a full motorcycle helmet with a kevlar shell would today)
6. Epaulets hover.

Dorothy wire

Dorothy wire, alternatively known as a Dorothy system, is named after the heroine of The Wizard of Oz. This system is found in the boots of bipedal soldiers, and is activated by clicking their heels together, which allows a nanospool of carbonan-brand cable to unfurl tightly between the heels. This wire can cut through almost anything, and for acrobatic combat purposes functions as a garrote, though an over-eager one: skipping straight past the 'strangling' stage to the 'cleanup on aisle 4' stage.

Mystery Tech

Things only mentioned in passing:

• Chom transponder

Requires tweezers to recalibrate.

Vessels in the Schlockiverse

In Howard's narration, encountering more than one instance of one class of ship is rare enough to justify placing the class designations within the descriptions of the individual vessels themselves, rather than grouping the ships into subcategories based on them.

The Kitesfear

Dragon-class. Seen to have gigantic turrets stuck on it, as well as Auto-Maim Hatch Defense Systems.

The Partnership Collective™ Mother-Cluster ship

An amalgam of a variety of ships and space stations free-floating in deep space. Presumably "home base" for the PC™.

PC™ ships

Warrant-class battlecruisers mounted with lasers, plasma lances, and cee-sabots.

Notable locations in the Schlockiverse

Planets

Celeschul

Human UNS colony presumed to be the homeworld of Captain Tagon. Tagon did a tour in the Celeschul military (Oatmeal Peacekeepers). The mercenary charter for Tagon's Toughs is registered in the Celeschul system.

Celeschul is also the location of General Karl Tagon's retirement home.

Creeth

In a long-standing war with Golbweria. Tried to pull the old exploding embassador trick.

The Kelrik Hub

Home to some of the most hard-nosed, thick-headed, anal-retentive foodservice inspectors in the galaxy... the K.F.D.A.

Seriously, they use commandos as enforcers.

See also

• Chupaqueso -- a food popular in the Schlock Mercenary universe.

• List of web comics

External links

• Schlock Mercenary
  • The very badly outdated cast page
  • Information about Jean Elmore