Florence, Sam, and Helix: the crew of Mark Stanleys Freefall Freefall is a popular webcomic written and drawn by Mark Stanley. It is a humorous science fiction story detailing the misadventures of the starship Savage Chicken and its crew: Sam Starfall, a lovable two-timing alien con artist; Helix, a childlike robot; and Florence Ambrose, a genetically engineered "Bowman's Wolf". Stanley began writing and drawing the strip as a feature for the occasional furry zine Yarf!. He began the web comic with the intent of telling the actual story behind the characters, and the storyline began on March 30, 1998. The comic is updated three times every week. It celebrated its thousandth strip in August 2004.
Robots in the Freefall universe are programmed with the same Three Laws of Robotics that Isaac Asimov made famous in his stories, but their artificial intelligence is well developed, and they have a lot of autonomy.
A running gag thoughout the comic is the reaction of the robots when they first meet Florence. Since the Bowman's Wolf is a brand new species, the Freefall robots do not recognise her, and their first reaction is invariably to throw their arms out wide and shout "doggy!". The effect can be "kinda freaky" when a lot of them do it at once. But despite this childlike behaviour, the Freefall robots have developed a great respect for Florence, especially after she risked her life to rescue two robots from destruction during a hurricane. Because the memories of most of the robots on the planet where the comic takes place are networked together, all the robots on the planet are now aware of Florence's deeds and are desperate to help her in any way they can.
Freefall is noted as being one of the more scientifically accurate science fiction web comics available today. Author Stanley has stated he intends to keep the science in the comic as realistic as possible without relying on deus ex machina (or "magic") devices such as "warp drive," "artificial gravity," or "transporter beams."
External links
- Freefall home page: http://freefall.purrsia.com/
- Websnark on Freefall: here (http://www.websnark.com/archives/2004/12/you_know_that_d.html).
- Cross Time Cafe (http://www.whiteponyproductions.com/comicstrips/ctc/present.htm): Webcomic (updated weekly) based upon Freefall's fans and discussion forum members
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