History Webcomic / TheThrillingAdventuresOfLovelaceAndBabbage

As it turns out, RealLife sucks, so what actually happened was that Babbage and Lovelace built a [[SteamPunk Difference Engine that takes up an entire building]] and use it to [[TheyFightCrime fight crime]]. That is, if you [[BlueAndOrangeMorality define crime as street music and poetry]].

* BerserkButton:
** Don't remind Ada that she's Lord Byron's daughter. Except maybe on Tuesdays.
** Don't be a street musician within earshot of Babbage.

* LoveableRogue: [[AwesomeMcCoolName Isambard Kingdom Brunel]]. Being the Engineer - and FriendlyEnemy - to Babbage and Lovelace. In two of the tales, it's up to Brunel to fix what's gone wrong.

* EverythingsBetterWithMonkeys: The Organist.

* [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer Absurdly Spacious Hardware]]: The Difference Engine is so large that debugging code requires crawling inside of it. Creator/GeorgeEliot goes inside and gets lost in [[VideoGame/{{Zork}} a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.]][[note]]In a weird bit of RecursiveReality, Dave Lebling, co-author of VideoGame/{{Zork}}, is a fan of this comic.[[/note]]

* SeriousBusiness: MATHEMATICS!!! Whenever Lovelace gets into one of her moods, she's seen mulling over the P=NP problem. And [[SherlockHolmes firing bullets into the wall]] while mulling it.

* PoliceAreUseless: For a odd reason, why are Lovelace and Babbage the only ones doing actual crime-fighting? This was even discussed InUniverse by The Duke of Wellington and Sir Robert Peel(founder of the modern British police force) in the third part of ''The Organist''!

* [[DistinguishedGentlemansPipe Distinguished Gentlewoman's Pipe]]: Lovelace smokes like a steam engine, invariably from a pipe. Her combination of nobility and genius tends to create a general "I'm better than you" demeanour.

* {{Adorkable}}: Babbage, Babbage, Babbage.

* SeriousBusiness: MATHEMATICS!!! Whenever Lovelace gets into one of her moods, she's seen mulling over the paradoxical P=NP equation. And [[SherlockHolmes firing bullets into the wall]] while mulling it.

* {{Art Evolution}}: To some extent. While the entire comic has been good quality since it started (Padua is an animator after all), the first episode, "The Origin" was neatened up for a magazine publication. This had led to some changes in dialogue, though.

As it turns out, RealLife sucks, so what actually happened was that Babbage and Lovelace built a [[SteamPunk Difference Engine that takes up an entire building]] and use it to [[TheyFightCrime fight crime]]. That is, if you define crime as street music and poetry.

* [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer Absurdly Spacious Hardware]]: The Difference Engine is so large that debugging code requires crawling inside of it. Creator/GeorgeEliot goes inside and gets lost in [[VideoGame/{{Zork}} a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.]]
** In a weird bit of RecursiveReality, Dave Lebling, co-author of VideoGame/{{Zork}}, is a fan of this comic

* AsciiArt: In a desperate [[spoiler: but successful]] attempt to stop Babbage and Queen Victoria from [[ItMakesSenseInContext kicking the crap out of each other]], Lovelace gets the Analytical Engine to generate an ASCII picture of a kitten.

* BerserkButton: Don't remind Ada that she's Lord Byron's daughter. Except maybe on Tuesdays.

* InTheBlood: Ada Lovelace is taught mathematics to quell the poetical tendencies she inherited from her father, Creator/LordByron. [[spoiler:She succumbs to poetry after she separates from Babbage during his crusade against street musicians.]]
** The first part is TruthInTelevision, bizarrely enough.

* LoveableRogue: [[AwesomeMcCoolName Isambard Kingdom Brunel]]. Being the Engineer - and FriendlyEnemy - to Babbage and Lovelace.
** In two of the tales, it's up to Brunel to fix what's gone wrong.

* SeriousBusiness: MATHEMATICS!!!
** Whenever Lovelace gets into one of her moods, she's seen mulling over the paradoxical P=NP equation. And [[SherlockHolmes firing bullets into the wall]] while mulling it.

* SteamPunk: The Difference Engine is a giant clockwork. Their economy modeler runs on steam. Babbage's Harmonic Disruptor operates on punch cards. And on and on ...

* UranusIsShowing: A footnote to "User Experience" states that "generations of sniggering schoolchildren have probably left Uranus feeling that on the whole it was better off as George." [[note]]William Herschel, discoverer of this planet, originally intended to name it after his patron George III, but non-British astronomers objected.[[/note]]

In RealLife, Charles Babbage was an eccentric genius who designed the world's first computers while Ada, Countess of Lovelace, was a mathematician who wrote the first computer programs before any computers were actually built. Sadly, Babbage's computers were never built and Lovelace died when she was 36.

** In a weird bit of RecursiveReality, DaveLebling, co-author of VideoGame/{{Zork}}, is a fan of this comic

* [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer Absurdly Spacious Hardware]]: The Difference Engine is so large that debugging code requires crawling inside of it. Creator/GeorgeEliot goes inside and gets lost in [[{{Zork}} a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.]]
** In a weird bit of RecursiveReality, DaveLebling, co-author of {{Zork}}, is a fan of this comic

->''"It doesn't fight crime, it PRINTS LARGE TABLES OF NUMBERS!!"''

* [[AbsurdlySpaciousSewer Absurdly Spacious Hardware]]: The Difference Engine is so large that debugging code requires crawling inside of it.

* CrossDresser: Lovelace, who generally wears a man's shirt and waistcoat (US: vest) on her upper half and a skirt and petticoat on her lower half.