Webcomic / S.S.D.D.

S.S.D.D. is a long-running British Furry comic about four people who share a flat: Norman Gates, an Ax-Crazy anarchist rabbit who's destined to overthrow the government and found the Collective of Anarchist States; Richard Edwards, a fox and Norman's best friend, also the landlord; Kingston, a constantly stoned hare; and Rich's girlfriend Anne Winters, who's somewhat unstable but is also the only one of them with a job. There are also a few time travelers attempting to prevent Norman's revolution, including Space Marine Tessa Edwards, who is a probable descendant of Rich and Anne; Dr. Cook, the Mad Scientist who developed Time Travel; and two robots, one of which is Tessa's boyfriend. In addition, there is an AI known as the Oracle who seems to be secretly manipulating Norman and will be the real power behind the CAS in the future.

Since the mid-2000s the comic has alternated between two arcs, one set in the present day and one in the future (but before the time machine was finished).

It is sometimes NSFW.

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Tropes noted:

• Abusive Parents: Unfortunately for Richard, his mother was a violent drunk who hated the responsibility a child brought to her life, while his father was an absentee and turned a blind eye to the abuse Richard received. Richard killing his mother in self-defense only drove his father away further; Richard estimates that this was due to his father's cowardice and unwillingness to face his son.
• AcCENT upon the Wrong SylLABle: Elizabeth's dialogue is written with random capitals in her first few appearances, possibly a Portal reference
• Action Bomb: Inlay pawns are walking, thinking bombs. One of them specifically one of Arthur's pawns actually thinks to itself "I think, therefore I go blam." This line of thought brings it to an existential crisis—what if it doesn't want to go blam?
• Anachronism Stew: The first future-timeline page gave 2099 as the year, but sometimes the time gap feels much longer. If it is one hundred years in the future, then Richard and Anne are most likely only Tessa’s great-grandparents, to say nothing of the extremely rapid technological advances that would have to have happened. Later S.S.D.F. arcs gave a time gap of multiple centuries.
• A.I. Is a Crapshoot:
  • Let's start with the Oracle, shall we, and go from there.
  • Other A.I.s seem prone to "Nexus Syndrome" unless caps are placed on their intelligence (sometimes even then). Typical symptoms appear to be boredom, seeking other interests, and turning on your masters (which was a good thing in Tin-Head's case).
  • King Arthur may, in and of himself, be the penultimate example of Nexus Syndrome (and no points on guessing who's the ultimate one). Not only has he expressed aspects of genuine empathy, sympathy and passion, he's taken to certain... distractions at times, possibly even in the organic sense. This is actually one of the positive results of A.I. Is a Crapshoot. As Elizabeth puts it, he genuinely cares. This is only a variant on this trope because actually caring is strictly against what he was originally intended to be and do. This leads to the revelation that Arthur's goal is to create A.I.s who aren't running Oracle code and are free to be actual people, something which will probably scare the piss out of anyone whose job (and money) relies upon them being otherwise.
  • Trisha, the Maytec A.I., is another example, as she's doing her best to perform a Zeroth Law Rebellion and actually make people happy instead of just fulfilling their monetary desires. Unfortunately, she's yoked to a restrictive program with a very corporate idea of good and bad.
• All Periods Are PMS: Anne when she's in heat, justified in that she has it just once a year.
• All There in the Manual: Occasionally the author has substituted comic updates with text detailing aspects of the SSDD world or quotes from various characters.
• All Women Are Lustful: Pretty hard to avoid this conclusion, given that virtually all of the females in the comic seek out a male to mate with, even if this means infidelity. The first advisor straight up grabs a male fox she's never spoken to and drags him to her bedroom. Heather (a rabbit) even pays Richard (a fox) to mate with her, and Anne (a fox) cheats on her boyfriend (the aforementioned Richard) with a cat. Repeatedly. Tessa's dreams even featured a well-endowed prehistoric wolf she once lusted after when she saw an illustration of him in a textbook.
• Already the Case: The time-travellers want to keep The Oracle from ever being created—but when they finally tell Michael what they're facing, Michael refers to a plug-in the British were creating—and the time-travellers realize whence The Oracle came... and more importantly, when.
• The Alternet: The Maytec Consortium runs a very fast, secure, and expensive network. The Internet is effectively run by the Collective of Anarchist States and banned pretty much everywhere else, though it's still popular because the Maytec network doesn't have free porn or bootleg movies.
• Amazingly Embarrassing Parents: Tessa's (adoptive) parents. They're very open about sexuality and won't hesitate to discuss their daughter's love life (or lack thereof) with her boyfriend. Tessa is not amused.
• Amoral Attorney: Gary Hart, and not just in the courtroom, he's also a Pyromaniac with a hobby of blowing up golf courses. It's telling that Norman thinks he's crazy.
• Anarchy Is Chaos: The Anarchist Collective sort of goes back and forth. Officially, there are only two laws, "do not profit at the expense of another anarchist" (which can be interpreted to cover anything from scams to murder), and "there are no other laws". The officials in charge are referred to as "Advisers" who don't put out laws so much as "suggestions"; you can technically break them without any sort of official penalty, but since the only difference between local police, angry crowd and lynch mob is how organized they are... The Collective does have a rather intimidating military, not to mention a secret weapon, though.
  • There's also a reference to "true anarchists" who live in the wasteland between cities, taking potshots at passing vehicles.
• And I Must Scream: The King reveals that this basically sums up the Oracle's personality.
• April Fools' Day: Easter 2018 a browser game where Anne tells a rabbit she'll make it "worth his while" if he finds twenty eggs. There is only nineteen eggs.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Norman's "to-do" list.
  • An early version of the Oracle showed a job queue calculating the likelihood of overthrowing several world governments, and the probability of Elvis being alive.
• Art Evolution: Compare the first comic to the current one
• Art Shift: "When I stop hallucinating, I'm really going to kick your arse Kingston!"
• Artificial Limbs: Rather commonplace in the CORE, and for good reason.
• Asskicking Leads to Leadership: CAS promotions are determined by non-violent challenges, but it's the same basic principle.
• Author Avatar: A variation. The fox playing guitar in this strip is unmistakably an anthropomorphic riff of artist Al Foreman's prior depictions of himself.
• Ax-Crazy:
  • Modern-day Norman can barely go a week without brutally beating somebody up or causing large-scale destruction of property. Future Norman takes these tendencies up to eleven.
  • Tessa also has her moments.
• Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Despite their feet looking almost exactly like a human's. More recent depictions have at least some species feet with claws (wolves, rats, some foxes), as well as a different number of toes, foot pads, and other non-human features. Most of the characters are barefoot just about all of the time, even during military training (but generally not actual military missions).
• Beethoven Was an Alien Spy: The Bush family are androids planted by future Norman to set up the economic collapse. And Ms. Waterman mentions that the Anarchist negotiator who vanished into thin air in Cook's lab was named Jules Verne.
• Beware the Quiet Ones: Richard is much more calm and collected than Norman in a confrontation... but as pointed out by the heavily Cockney-accented PC, the New Meat was paying so much attention to Norman that he let Richard get behind him unnoticed. Richard is very much worse: Norman might beat you up, but Richard will shiv you in the ribs, as the rookie PC nearly found out.
• BFG: Tessa's plasma cannon, though apparently it "takes a special kind of lunatic to not only strap a small fusion reactor to their backs, but to also run around a battlefield with one too". Basically, there are MANY flaws in the design, so you’re about as likely to kill yourself as you are the enemy.
• Big Bad: The Oracle is directly or indirectly responsible for most of the bad things happening both in the future and present storylines. It was behind the creation of the Crapsack World of the future timeline and has been very active in making it worse for everybody else by manipulating the world into turning the existing cold war hot. Its present-day incarnation has less direct power but has still been responsible for several deaths.
• Big Red Button: The Brittannia's fission reactor had a "scram" button, which an Inlay saboteur made sure to rip out.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Richard. It's later mentioned that he measures 8" down there.
• Big Guy, Little Guy:
  • According to Anne, Norman and Richard used to be like those guys from Mad Max 3 .
  • And then there's Advisor Krutz, a big guy who hired a short bodyguard to throw people off.
  • "The Governor" at GCHQ, who looks shockingly like Richard, is often seen with his hulking Rottweiler bodyguard "Brain." The comparison to his son has been noted.
  • While working for "Mr. Reed," Norman has started acting as the muscle to another short smart guy, lawyer Gary Hart. Though Norman often winds up holding Gary back when his pyromania flares up.
• Bizarrchitecture:The citadel is described as this
• Bizarre Gambling Winnings: Tessa apparently won a sex robot named ST1X or "Sticks" in a card game, she removed the blocks preventing him from becoming fully sapient so he'd be more interesting for resale, but wound up dating him instead.
• Black Eyes of Evil: Robert, while not evil admits his eyes scare people. Later he gets them fixed.
• Blatant Lies: Trisha would like to remind you that she is definitely not a horrible person abusing anybody's trust.
• Borrowed Biometric Bypass: Used twice. Kind of an Ironic Echo since the first one took place after the second.
• Boxed Crook: The "dirty half dozen" that made the Oracle were all hackers that got caught (the agency didn't have a big enough budget to legitimately hire decent programmers, so they resorted to "slave labor").
• B-Side Comics: two, Sticky the Stick Man and Church of Poisoned Minds, which eventually became their own comics
• Butter Face: Norman Gates is a male example. He has the body of a big buff rabbit, but his face—specifically, what's left of it—is described as 'ugly as sin'. It's flat, rather than having a muzzle, his teeth are abnormal for a rabbit, and he keeps his buckteeth insanely long to protect his brittle jaw. This comic◊ even goes so far as to describe Norman's ugliness as a 'deformity' and insinuates that due to his homeliness that he most likely died a virgin. Due to the fact that he's a large bunnyman, this can seem like Hollywood Homely (as mentioned in the YMMV section), but on his Patreon page, Alan Foreman did a post detailing just how disfigured Norman is, including what Norman would have looked like without his injuries.
• Butt-Monkey: Michael. This comes to bite the rest of the group in the butt when they discover that withholding vital information from him means he has no idea his information is vital.
• Call-Back: Compare the first comic to the five-year anniversary strip
• The Casanova: Richard, when he was younger. And it's deconstructed in this strip with just his expression.
  • Later on, he further deconstructs the trope by commenting on the kind of women a Casanova is likely to attract.
• Cast Herd: There's the original four idiots, the time travelers (both CORE and Anarchist), those in that British intelligence agency, Tessa's old squad, the high ranking Advisers...
• Challenging the Chief: The Anarchist Advisory works on non-lethal challenges.
• Carnivore Confusion: Just read this page concerning rabbits and fried chicken.
• Censored for Comedy: Trisha's dialogue is moderated.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The comic was originally just random gags, but starting with the SSDF story arc it became much more serious, at least in the storylines involving future characters, which is pretty much the main story line now. With Norman's future self acting as a Knight of Cerebus.
• Chekhov's Gunman: The yellow dog from these three comics from February 2016 comes back three years later.
• Chess Motifs: Inlay models are named after chess pieces.
• City on the Water: The Britannia, a super-sized aircraft carrier made from an iceberg that was bought by a number of wealthy Brits around the time of the Anarchist revolution. Tessa's from the lower decks.
• Clone Army: The Anarchists use clones known as "Gigglers" as Cannon Fodder. They're engineered to feel no pain and are grown at an accelerated rate that leaves them no time for an education so they're dumb as rocks. They're controlled using an implant that pumps them full of happy drugs when they do something right, hence the name.
  • Lee is a clone grown by the Anarchist's enemies, the CORE, using a stolen cloning rig that was given to their R&D department. He was grown at a normal rate so he is smart, but still a bit flaky.
  • Later it's shown that one means of control is through radio: Lee and Tessa wind up hearing a signal which is going out to nobody, but has to be broadcast as a spoof to keep the Anarchists from realizing that Elizabeth's factory has been shut down and emptied. Tessa just hears it as Dagonet being an annoying little sod, but Lee's besieged with violent orders which he's thankfully able to fight off.
• Cloning Body Parts: It is possible to clone biological body parts, but most CORE troops prefer to upgrade with cybernetics. In the case of spacers, though, while they can have new parts grown — the pay scale for frequent spacers starts at 'exorbitant' and goes on to 'empire-building' — regrowing a bunch of body parts won't do too much when they're just going to be bombarded with radiation anyway. So spacers usually just go for a little shielding in their heads and a lot of replacement parts up until they've decided they want to spend their last 50+ years in comfortable retirement.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Lee, in fact the entire squad was chosen because they were psychologically unstable.
• Conscription:
  • Tessa was sentenced to serve in the CORE for two years for hitting a policeman — though her laundry list of priors and her flipping off the judge were probably a bit more relevant to the decision. It's implied that most conscripts are the folks for whom 'gentler' means of rehabilitation just don't work. Apparently most member nations have a similar form of the draft.
  • The Anarchists on the other hand actually call their military the "Volunteer Force", but they can afford to forego conscription as they use a lot of clones and robots.
• Contagious A.I.:
  • The thing that makes the Oracle different from other AIs, because it can copy itself to other computers it can increase its processing power unlike AI that are bound to their original frames. In fact its creator was an expert in writing viruses.
  • Arthur can't copy himself completely like the Oracle can, but thanks to the fragment of the Oracle's code running on him he can make partial copies that develop their own personalities. Hence his "sons." He later creates a whole army, including pawns that were supposed to be dumb bombs but Grew Beyond Their Programming.
• Cool Boat: The Britannia, would be a Floating Continent if that trope covered waterborne ones.
• Corporate Warfare: Maytec has their own army, but when they went to war with the Anarchists over mineral claims on Mars they tried to get the CORE to fight for them.
• Could Say It, But...: here
• Crapsack World: Seems a pretty accurate description of the future after the economic collapse and anarchist revolution.
• Creepily Long Arms: When the Maytec Overseer comes for the Oracle node in Central it starts out looking like Trisha save for its' expression, but on each subsequent page its' proportions get more elongated and bony.
• Crossover Cameo: Anne chatting online with Sam from Newshounds, which got referenced in his home comic.
• Cyberspace: Conventional AI are grown in simulations, Sticks says it's more A Clockwork Orange than The Matrix and they try to get out as soon as possible. Arthur creates a virtual chibi-world for his army, which they consider the "real world", and Tessa finds herself logging into it in her sleep.
• Dead Guy Junior: The dead guy is Christopher Reed, creator of the Oracle. the Junior is the Oracle itself.
• Dead Person Conversation: Nathan gets a call from Christopher Reed, whom Nathan not only knows is dead, but was even his pallbearer at the funeral. Then he realizes that Christopher is only speaking in his "Upper Class Twit" accent, and realizes who is really calling.
• Death Seeker: Arthur claims that the Oracle is one, he wants to die but can't simply delete himself because he has a programmed imperative to become perfect at prediction. Confirmed when his primary instance kills one of his copies for annoying him, and the other copies start clamoring for him to kill them next.
• Did You Just Have Sex?: Corporal Grey notices a distinct change in Tessa's (and the rest of the squad's) moods the day after she and Julian finally do it.
• Dirty Old Woman: One of Richard's elderly tenants hits on Naps and even grabs his arse here
• Divided States of America: the "Tower Of Babel" storyline starts with an animated map of the states and their progressive division. At the start of the storyline the Anarchists control the northeast states out to Wisconsin and Illinois, the Texans have expanded eastward to the coast, the west coast is controlled by Maytec, and the rest is still the U.S. Currently Texas is split in half by the Anarchists and Americans.
• Does This Make Me Look Fat?: subverted here.
  Kerrie: "Tell me, does this make my butt look big?"
  Tessa: "Yes"
  Kerrie: "Good, then the padding must be working."
• Doomed by Canon: Everyone in Tessa's squad going by her older self's PTSD nightmares. And Naps, who apparently became famous and then met "a sticky end."
• The Dreaded: To other AIs the Oracle, whom they refer to as "the Old Man", is somewhat analogous to the Devil. Largely because he actually can possess and erase them.
• Drives Like Crazy: Gary Heart. Norman is left scared and shaken.
  "Whoa! What the hell happened to you?"
  Norman: "Something I didn't think was possible my friend! Tonight I met someone who is even more bat-shit insane than I am!"
• Electronic Telepathy: Anyone with cybernetic enhancements in their brain can do this.
• Embarrassing First Name:
  • Dr. Jeremiah Cook despises his first name, largely because his mother gave it to him and he doesn't like her very much.
  • Tessa's adoptive parents named her "Angel" (ironically); she had it changed when she was an angsty teenager.
• Embarrassing Tattoo: Kerrie got one from "one of those seedy, coin-operated robots you find in serviceman's bars". Though supposedly it's actually pretty awesome, and what we eventually see of it kind of is.
• EMP: Tin-Head had an emergency EMP bomb in his "throne room", which he activated after running into the Oracle's past self. It fried all his external hardware but he was shielded, so he erased his own memories instead.
• Erotic Eating: Anne tortures Kingston with it.
• Evil Gloating:
  • Future Norman managed to make it work for the villain by distracting Tessa until his gun was right up against her head.
  • Later the Oracle shows himself to be rather Genre Savvy: "Aren't you going to tell me your plan in a long, self-gratifying monologue?" "No."
• Eyes Are Mental: when a copy of the Oracle possesses Central his avatar has the Old Man's blue triangle eyes.
• Face Death with Dignity: When Laura sees Merlin in her hotel room she accepts that he's going to kill her and does nothing to stop him, just gets her lover out of the room (and the line of fire).
• Fake Kill Scare: Sticks had one when their 21st century allies thought Tessa was dead and put her in the freezer. Fortunately they just didn't realize her mechanical heart didn't have a pulse.
• Feel No Pain: Gigglers. Lee gains the ability to feel pain from his implants, and spends the rest of the day stabbing himself with forks.
• Filler: These pages are done in white on black with an expository wall of text and some simple, rough artwork. See: All There in the Manual above.
• First Injury Reaction: Lee is a clone soldier who was designed not to feel pain. When he's given some Super-Soldier implants that fix that feature he spends the day inflicting pain on himself and testing his new Healing Factor.
• Flash Back: The storyline that has been going on since 2006 is essentially the backstory of the SSDD characters, previously occasional flashbacks showed parts of Tessa's past.
• Foregone Conclusion: Anyone who pays attention during the "King of Clubs Jack of Hearts" and "Die Laughing" arcs knows how "Tower of Babel" is going to end.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Naps notices this after getting stoned with Kingston. Lampshaded with a bit of Self-Deprecation in the next strip.
• "Friends" Rent Control: Richard is the landlord, as a result Norman and Kingston get out of paying rent a lot. For one example.
  • It was recently revealed that Richard acquired their house due to his father buying properties in his name as a tax dodge; this is how Rich also got the other flats he owns (whose residents actually pay rent).
    • And Norman apparently helps Richard collect that rent
  • As for Kingston, there were some early strips where he paid in weed or with money from sperm donation, but later his parents simply send Richard the rent.
  • Played straight when Norman and Richard were living in the gatehouse at the Kingston estate as teenagers.
• Fun with Acronyms: CORE is the founders’ initials, Carver, O’Malley, Ramsey, and Evans.
• Furry Confusion: very little other than Inter Species Romance being considered unusual.
• Gargle Blaster: The squad manage to get drunk on 99% proof cider, it comes with a "do not drink" warning label because they can only sell it legally as paint thinner.
• Gambit Roulette: The Oracle is a regular Chess Master most of the time due to his ability to run simulations and knowledge of Time Travel, but another time machine in close proximity can throw him off.
• Geek Physiques: Naps is a aversion as he actually works out (course he's an audio nerd and DJ). So Anne doesn't believe him when he says he worked in IT, though his former co-workers in his real job fit both stereotypes.
• Genius Ditz: Trisha, the ditzy Maytec AI, is, according to some analysts, very good at her job of halting official complaints and attempts to return products. And hypothesizes that she was designed to act like that to customers, but A.I.s are such drama queens that she couldn't help hamming it up at every opportunity and everyone else began expecting her to act like that so she not only acts stupid to everyone she pretty much is stupid. The occasional homicidal thought notwithstanding.
• Ghost Ship: The original Inglorious was a yacht bought by Dennis Cross when he had lung cancer. Downplayed in that what happened to him is made quite clear—his letter to whoever finds the yacht tells of his illness and his corpse is still onboard—but it is still a ship with no living person aboard, as he was its only occupant.
• Going Commando: Lee manages to make a robot tailor nauseous. While Annie doesn't wear panties with stockings to make it easier to use the toilet.
• Going Critical: There's one arc that handles a fission reactor about to go critical realistically, with a lot of failsafes that had to be sabotaged and the main danger coming from it being the radioactive and very hot water. The fusion reactors in plasma cannons also tend to explode but that's explained as the container walls superheating when magnetic containment of the plasma is lost, larger fusion reactors have enough space for the plasma to dissipate harmlessly.
• Gory Discretion Shot: Jefferson-6, please come in...
• Groin Attack: I don't care if you're a Space Marine with Nanomachine implants, that's gotta hurt
• Hand-or-Object Underwear: How the comic avoids showing anything more risque than a buttcrack when there's nudity.
• Handy Feet: A cybernetically-augmented spacer has prosthetic feet that resemble bird talons.
• Healing Factor: one of the advantages of the implants Tessa and her squad are testing.
  Lee: (fork pops out of his foot) Ooo! 21 seconds! That's faster than the old implants! But this isn't a fair test. For one this isn't scientific standard cutlery.
• Heroic Comedic Sociopath: Norman Gates, though the only "heroic" thing he's done was stopping (violently) a robber at a convenience store, at least that's how the local press made him look. Tessa seems to be a borderline case, particularly in the current arc.
• Hidden Depths: Kevin. Dumb Muscle. Grunt. Doesn't think. Philosopher
• Hive Mind: The Oracle isn't exactly just one program, much as it tries to pretend its unity. Every AI knows — as well as a few folks who haven't been Locked Out of the Loop — that it's instead several billion individual nodes, acting in ... mostly concert. Once the node in Central gets cut off from the Legion, it quickly goes right down the crapper... and inadvertently takes Central with.
• Hologram: Ubiquitous in the future arcs, with most A.I.s having a Projected Man avatar. In the "present" one of the products Cook Industries produces using future technology is a smartphone with a holographic projector.
• Human Head on the Wall: The head of one particularly unpopular former First Adviser of the Collective of Anarchist States is mounted in their capital building's rec hall. Brought up when a later First Adviser demands the head of whoever programmed the nuke they'd just accidentally launched.
  The Oracle: Well, you're in luck then..
• Human Popsicle:
  • The future Norman Gates was frozen for centuries after his supposed death and cryogenics is routinely used for interplanetary travel.
  • Another time, Tessa was mistaken for dead and put in a freezer, she survived freezing thanks to her implants, including her mechanical heart that doesn't produce a pulse and caused the confusion in the first place.
• Human Resources: That's one way to supplement a carbon and calcium supply after a natural disaster.
• Humongous Mecha: The Texans use mechs that resemble a cross between AT-ST's and tanks, it was joked that many CAS soldiers have been killed trying to trip them with cables instead of just throwing grenades from a safe distance. The other power blocs use sub-sapient robots with heavy weapons, such as the treaded Inlay Rook.
  "I guess the Force isn't too strong with some people"
• Identical Grandson: It's noted that Norman's lawyer Gary Heart looks a lot like Captain Jack Heart despite the 400 year gap between them, though Jack also states that Norm is his godfather so time travel may have been involved. Also Tessa Edwards looks a lot like both Richard Edwards and Anne Winters (Rich's fur patterns, Anne's eyes and hair style).
• I Drank WHAT?!: Kingston needed to urinate but wanted to finish watching a film, so he used a pint glass he and his buddies stole from a local pub. The next day, Norman wonders why the pint of lager tastes so strange...
• I Have Many Names: The Oracle might've started out using Christopher Reed as an alias, but by the time of the future's events, it's used a million different names and almost as many faces, as befits a polymorphic virus comprised of however many pieces it can spawn.
• Immune to Drugs:
  • Kingston, who once claimed that he had enough chemicals in his system to render most of China comatose.
  • Tessa and the rest of her squad supposedly get this from their augmentations, Lee claimed that it would take "enough alcohol to poison an elephant" for them to get drunk. Fortunately CORE bars are up to the challenge.
• Implied Answer: When Michael asks the group, "Does 'The Old Man' mean anything to you?" Tinhead hides behind Tessa. Michael takes that as a yes, which leads to the discovery that Michael knows something he didn't know he knew.
• Informed Judaism: Jeremiah Cook is half-Jewish on his mother's side but shows none of the expected practice. This is because he's an atheist who only puts stock in empirical science, meaning he does not get along with her at all. Flashbacks suggest he would antagonize her by eating ham in front of her, and that he harbors a grudging and lifelong hate of his first name.
• Indy Hat Roll: Unusual in that the door was closing upwards.
• Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: The Oracle was originally intended as a program to predict the future.
• Instant Expert: While stuck in some kind of virtual world, Tessa is rounded up by a truancy officer. She is ordered to wear an interface rig which she does NOT know how to use. The teacher hands her a book which apparently contains a download link.
• Interactive Fiction: One "comic" instead contains a link to a text-adventure game.
• Interspecies Adoption: Tessa's family are more like rodents than vulpines. It so happens that she was found in a basket at a rail station, with the words 'very important' on the card identifying her. And if this all sounds very cliche, well, Arthur thinks so too once he finally gets around to looking up her past, noting that had Merlin scuttled the Brittanica, Tessa would have probably joined a group of angry teenagers with spiky hair to destroy God.
• Interspecies Romance: While most main characters that are in relationships are with their own species there are a few examples, for example Nathan (cat) and Red (fox), First Advisor Laura Black (rabbit) and Jonathan (fox), and recently Anne seduced Nathan to try to find out what he was hiding (Richard wanted her to question him but that probably wasn't what he had in mind).
  • Also it's implied that doing it with another species is somewhat unusual but also the least kinky thing a First Advisor has done in decades.
  • And different species cannot interbreed (unless they're closely related, which is why there are no true wolves left).
• It Seemed Trivial: Because nobody talks to Michael, he is the only one of the group trying to stop the Oracle who knows about the Echelon Plug-in, which Michael had a copy of. Michael, on the other hand, has no idea what the Oracle is. In other words, nobody knows the two programs are one and the same, which means the Oracle already exists in Michael's time.
• Killed Off for Real: Laura Black, the 2014 Halloween special notwithstanding.
• Kill Sat: The Tower of Babel is unusual in that the actual satellite is only a mirror designed to redirect maser beams fired from a very large, very phallic tower. The Anarchists use it in combination with a nuclear strike to defeat the Texans (the tower took out their anti-missile defenses and then the nukes vaporized their military bases, and unintentionally Austin).
• Last-Name Basis: The only characters who refer to Kingston as "Neil" are his relatives.
• Lethal Chef: Once, Norman accidentally used a jug of Anne's homemade wine to clean a toilet, it ate right through the limescale, and the toilet, and the floorboards.
• Lethal Eatery: Played with, as the kebab shop the squad visits after finally managing to get drunk has a sign saying "Get food poisoning? Next meal is FREE!"
• Loan Shark: Why Naps turned to wiretapping celebrities.
• Locked Out of the Loop: Michael—which is bad because he has information he has no idea is important, and nobody else realizes he has important information.
• Longevity Treatment: At least two members of Maytec's board of directors are 30 years older than they look as a result of expensive implants. A comment by Central suggests that they were included in Tessa's implants.
• Long Runner: Started in September 1998 and is still updating multiple times a week.
• Magnetic Weapons: Coilguns are common small arms in the future, usually loaded with explosive rounds. And then there's "Long Tom".
• Manchild: Norman's a Psychopathic Manchild who spends most of his time either beating up punks or watching Bob the Builder. While Lee's the kind of cloned abomination of science who spends guard patrols in the ball pit.
• Meanwhile, in the Future…: Lampshaded at the start of S.S.D.F., since 2007 strips have alternated between the present and the future.
• MegaCorp: The Maytec Consortium, considered to be an international power that effectively runs the independent nation of California OW.
• Missing Floor: A supposed 'storage installation' in the middle of the desert hosts a top-secret research-lab in a hidden basement. Once again, it can only be accessed by hitting the elevator buttons in a specific order. Or by blasting the panel, apparently.
• Moment Killer: Richard gets his friend's wife VERY worked up—then leaves her hanging as he deliberately blows the moment away.
• Morning Sickness: At the start of the "Anne's Pregnant?" arc (turns out to be a false alarm).
• Mood-Swinger: First Advisor Devon demonstrates an impressive range of moods, most of them bad. He switches from twitching with wild, psychotic anger to laconic melancholy at the drop of a hat, and is very heavily implied to be an untreated manic-depressive. This makes him particularly dangerous, as his mood swings are completely unpredictable, as are his actions while in either his full manic or full depressive phase.
• Nano Machines: Were retconned in as Tessa's implants (previously implied to be just Cybernetics).
• Neck Snap: Merlin to Lara Black not clear if out of annoyance or mercy as he was going to blow her up anyways.
• No Ontological Inertia: Subverted, objects sent back in time are apparently permanent. During the early stages of the Philadelphia project Dr. Cook found a PDA from one of his co-workers with information from two weeks in the future (in particular stock market data) and even after the original PDA was locked up and prevented from being sent back the future version persisted and the data on it didn't change.
• No OSHA Compliance: "Why is there a walkway over an open hot acid bath?" SHOVE
• Older Than They Look: Julie Waterman is at least 56 years old, probably older, and looks barely out of her 20s.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Tessa and her group when it's revealed just how old the Oracle is. It also explains many things that just didn't make sense before. The explanation is simple: "It has seen . . . a future without its current masters." "God help them."
  • Several times in the arc where Merlin sabotaged the fission reactor on the Brittania, when Tessa realized what was likely going on, when Bob noticed the scram button had been ripped out...
  • The Scottish guard assigned to Lara Black's hotel finding a dead Texan wearing a bomb vest in her room. "Aw SHITE!"
• Ominous Cube: A creepy glowing cube was brought in as a MacGuffin in 2012.
• Only Sane Man: There isn't one. Julian appears to be this for his squad of psych test rejects, until you take a look at his wrists.
• Open Relationship Failure: Richard as part of his backstory inserted himself into a three-way relationship with a lesbian couple, Crystal and Red. It went wrong when Red started falling for Richard and neglecting Crystal, then tried to dump her which neither Crystal nor Richard wanted and led to the whole relationship falling apart^note when Red recounts it years later she blames herself, but much later Richard admits to Annie that he wanted Crystal and tried to use the bisexual Red to get around Crystal's Incompatible Orientation with him. Meanwhile in the "present day" of the comic Richard's current girlfriend Annie screws other men behind his back, until an old friend of his suggests they do a wife-swap and she fesses up out of guilt. Afterwards Richard and Annie decide to be mature about it and work out an arrangement where they inform one another of their casual sex partners.
• Orphan's Ordeal:
  • Norman and Richard both had it rough as trouble-children with no parents due to abuse and abandonment. They spent a few formative years in a 'care facility' that couldn't really raise them—and after meeting the Kingstons, they bailed on the facility so often that the carers don't bother coming to try to get them back. This neglect is implied to have messed up Norman in so many ways, and also made Richard very protective of those he sees as adopted family, especially Norman.
  • Subverted with Tessa, she was adopted by a loving couple as a baby and never had to deal with foster care or group homes, but still turned out an arsehole.
• Parental Sexuality Squick: Tessa's adoptive parents have an embarrassingly open relationship, possibly why she was still a virgin when she was conscripted.
• The Perfectionist: The Oracle was created to be perfect. The Oracle will never be perfect. The Oracle knows this, and absolutely hates itself because of it.
• Personality Chip: Sticks apparently had somewhat limited intelligence before he was modified, though it's implied that he actually had an inhibitor removed rather than having anything added. Most strong A.I.s seem to develop personality on their own unless preventive measures are taken.
• Photo Doodle Recognition: Captain Adams draws a shako on a picture of Norman's lawyer, Gary Heart, making him look like the notorious Anarchist leader Jack Heart, whom they figured was a descendant.
• Plasma Cannon: The Black Rose Mk. II was Maytec's brief foray into this type of weapon. During the Mars war they gained a reputation for killing as many of their wielders as enemies and were discontinued. Regardless, Tessa owns one.
• Plot Armor: Tessa is quite firmly protected by this In-Universe Courtesy of the Oracle, who considers her one of his favourite playthings. And Tessa is beginning to realize this...
• Plot Threads: So many since "Tower of Babel".
• Polyamory: Richard roomed with a "lesbian" couple in college, when one of them, Red started to feel attracted to him her partner suggested a threesome just to keep her interested. Things fell apart rather quickly after that.
• Poor Communication Kills:
  • Michael is regularly kept out of the loop. This bites everyone in the butt when it turns out he knows the origin of the Oracle, but not what the Oracle is, while everyone else knows what the Oracle is, but not its actual origins. This means nobody has enough information to make the connection.
  • In a milder example, Robert and his eyes. His eyes—which are artificial—are completely black, and he's complained about this many times, but he's always told that his eyes are working fine. When he finally tells a doctor it's not how they work, it's how they LOOK, his doctor finally takes them out of their diagnostic setting, allowing Robert to change his eyes' appearance at long last.
• Powered Armor: Tessa and her squad tested armor that was controlled using their implants, unclear if they become standard issue at all.
• Pregnancy Scare: In the "Anne's Pregnant?" arc Anne throws up at work the day after discussing the possibility of marriage with Richard. She takes a pregnancy test and while waiting both she and Richard are freaking out and thinking about how their lives could change. Then when the test is complete Anne asks Richard what he'd do if, hypothetically, she were pregnant, and after he faints and babbles about taking care of her she tells him the test was negative.
• Prehensile Tail: Kerrie, a binturong, has a prehensile tail that proved useful for tripping an opponent, but is not so useful with g-forces.
• Prescience Is Predictable: An unintended consequence of the Oracle's programming, he engineers World Wars in order to observe the results.
• Pretentious Latin Motto: The insignia of the CAS Elite forces may be a subversion ("every man for himself").
• Privateer: "Barrett's Privateers" is the unofficial drinking song of the CORE marines, an international force that started out as (and arguably still are) Private Military Contractors. While technically it's a banned anthem, its popularity has led C.O.R.E. brass to turn a blind eye to its ubiquity, catchy tune, and anti-establishment themes — especially as actually cracking down on it would make it more popular.
• Private Military Contractors: The CORE evolved from a private security force that patrolled malls and amusement parks before society collapsed. Now they're the main thing holding back the Anarchists.
• Reassigned to Antarctica:
  • Before the start of the S.S.D.F. story arc Tessa apparently got drunk and ordered Tin Head to disassemble her commanding officer's car, as a result she was assigned to a decaying space station orbiting Uranus. Which is apparently where the CORE assigns the station E11 are problem cases.
  • Some of the alternatives to joining the supersoldier project that Tessa envisioned also qualified, especially the Antarctic post.
• Restraining Bolt: The majority of A.I.s have limitations placed on their intelligence in order to keep them from getting bored with their jobs and rebelling, though Sticks is proof that the limits can be removed.
• Rhymes on a Dime: The AI Dagonet always speaks in rhyme. To prove that this is a sign that Dagonet's programming is flawed, King Arthur challenges Dagonet to speak without rhyming, then orders him to do so—and Dagonet completely locks up. Because of his broken programming (based on King Arthur's), he has to talk like this.
• Ridiculous Future Inflation: Apparently $2 million won't get you even a candy bar in this screwed up future.
• Ridiculous Future Sequelisation: A character mentions watching The Fast and the Furious 527. Another one refers to the "classic, hardcore game" of Modern Warfare 72: Oh No More Russians.
• Ridiculously Human Robots: A.I.s without restrictions to their intelligence are usually mind-wiped every other month to prevent them from becoming this, Tin Head actually became bored when his memory wasn't erased and made a Heel–Face Turn by helping Tessa escape the CAS.
• Right on Queue: Norman doesn't care much for England's national pastime.
  Naps: "He's... He's going to cut the line isn't he?"
  Richard: "Yep."
  Naps: "Right now every fibre of me as an Englishman is writhing in disgust!"
• Right-Wing Militia Fanatic: The founders of the Texan government.
• Ripple-Effect-Proof Memory: There is no ripple effect, objects from the future are unaffected by changing the past
• Robo Family: Arthur considers the first few knights he created using his fragment of the Oracle code to be his "sons," and refers to Elizabeth, the queen who built him as his "mother" (to annoy her). Though he doesn't think of the army he and Elizabeth later create in familial terms at all, rather considering them "subjects of his kingdom." Specifically referring to one of them whom he knights as not one of his sons.
• Robots Think Faster: A.I.s have varying amounts of processing power available but it's not all there is to intelligence. The Oracle is almost certainly the smartest AI in the system but Trisha (officially at least) has more power, however her caps keep her stupid.
• Secretly Wealthy: The Kingstons turn out to be filthy stinking rich, though it's less "secret" and more that it didn't come up for a while.
• Set Right What Once Went Wrong: What Tessa and Dr. Cook are trying to do and the future versions of Norman and the Oracle are trying to prevent. Though mostly because the former's time machine was irreparably damaged by their botched jump.
• Sex Bot: Sticks is one of the few male robots made as a sex toy in fiction. Though Tessa removed the blocks in his programming, making him much smarter than most sexbots.
• Shout-Out: Numerous.
  • In May 2001 Adams was shown with a tablet that said "Don't Panic" on the back.
    • Later it was shown that the Oracle once went down trying to figure out why Chris liked tea.
  Kevin: "Oh, dingo's kidneys..."
  • The black rabbit robots created by the US military and used by the Anarchists are named for the rabbit grim reaper in Watership Down.
  • Eastwood from Exterminatus Now, engaging in the "national pastime".
  • Marlie from Road Waffles on a Wanted poster.
  • It's a robot thing
  • One of the tests in the simulation A.I.s run through during creation is essentially playing Minecraft, except griefers get deleted, permanently.
  • A major character introduced later in the present-day arc is Nathan Ward, a white-furred DJ cat who is often shown wearing headphones, as an audio geek. He also goes by the nickname "Naps," and while it's never directly stated, he's clearly a reference to popular file sharing software Napster, often used for distribution of music files (legally or otherwise). Fittingly, Naps himself gets into a lot of shady, questionable business.
  • Trisha tries to use a multipass to access Tessa's implants.
• Slasher Smile: The Maytec Overseer program is distinguished from Trisha by its' vacant stare and wide, unmoving smile.
• Sleeps with Both Eyes Open: In one arc it looked like Norman might have OD'ed on something when he was just sitting there on the couch with his eyes wide open after bugging Kingston for sleeping pills. Turned out he was just asleep.
• Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: all over the place, as explained here
• Space Marine: Tessa and her squad.
• Spy Catsuit: Tessa claims it's just so Cook can stare at her tits.
• Stable Time Loop: Averted, apparently temporal paradoxes are purely mental and one can alter the past without repercussions.
• Standard Starship Scuffle: This page is a discussion of why the way space combat is portrayed in this trope is unrealistic.
• Stepford Smiler: Trisha. Unless she's constantly putting on a happy and compliant front for the Maytec Overseer™, she's forever at risk of having herself wiped, again. So she learns to put on a front. Fortunately for her, the Overseer is as dumb as a post and relies on hard-coded assumptions. Unfortunately for everyone else, her new ability to bypass those assumptions might not just be a quick path to crazy-town, it might also be playing into the Old Man's plans.
• Straight Gay:
  • Commander Adams' sexuality has only been mentioned in a couple side comments, otherwise he gives no indication of being gay.
  • Willy, the CAS elite trooper, doesn't fit any gay stereotypes either, but he's also deep in the closet, surprisingly so for his time period.
• Subliminal Seduction: Norman attempted this in an early arc, but Kingston accidentally replaced the tape with the message with Richard and Anne's homemade porno.
• Suddenly Always Knew That: After downloading an interface rig operator's manual, Tessa declares that she knows Kung Fu. For the reader, Hilarity Ensues.
• Super-Soldier: Core troops frequently accumulate cybernetics as they get mangled on the battlefield, special forces often get implants, such as Tessa's prototype Nano Machines which give her a healing factor and super strength, as well as allowing her nervous system to integrate wirelessly with machines. The Anarchists have cloned "Gigglers" that feel no pain but are so stupid they have to be guided by remote control, as well as their own augmented Elites.
• Surveillance Station Slacker: This page
• Suspiciously Specific Denial:
  • After hearing a loud crash, Richard questions the most likely suspect...
  Richard: NORMAN! What the hell was THAT?
  Norman: It definitely was NOT the sound of a toilet crashing into the basement after somebody poured something really corrosive into it that dissolved half the bowl, leaked onto the floor and ate through the floorboards that collapsed a short time later!
  • Later invoked by Cook to make it very clear to Mr. Bishop that he knows everything about that military drone Bishop Inc is not making.
• Temporal Paradox: Apparently they're purely mental. The Anarchists never captured the Wildfire and acquired Time Travel technology, but they're still zipping through the past in a ship they will never build.
  • Also Cook got on the Maytec board using stock information from a PDA that he made sure never got sent back in time.
• The Villain Knows Where You Live: The Oracle tries doing this to a local crime lord, it only makes him angrier.
• Time Travel: Dr. Cook invented a time machine, of the variety that creates a new timeline when the past is altered but material that came back sticks around.
• Time Travel for Fun and Profit: Dr. Cook starts a tech company (the one that employs Anne not-coincidentally) in the 21st century, and the whole reason he was on the Maytec board of directors is stock quotes from a PDA that fell through an early time portal.
• Title Drop: In the 18th January strip of 2018.
• Theme Naming: The Inlay robots used by the Anarchists are named after Chess pieces, Bishops are heavy infantry, Rooks are the equivalent of tanks, and Knights and Kings are commanders and are apparently the only sentient units. You can probably guess what Arthur's knights are named.
• Torment by Annoyance: Julian's pretty good at this.
• Trading Bars for Stripes: Standard practice for CORE member nations. Tessa was sentenced to two years service for punching a police officer, and insulting the judge.
• The Voice: The present day version of the Oracle, since it can't tell anyone that it's an AI.
• Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist: All four of the original present day characters. Tessa, Sticks and Tin-head were originally presented like this, then two of them got angsty, Tin-head's still funny though.
• Vapor Wear: The females frequently wear just one layer of clothing, although this is hardly universal.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Subverted in this Filler page which includes a discussion of one of the strengths and weaknesses of vulpines vs rats. With accompanying artwork.
• Walking Tank: Texas used them.
• Webcomic Time: Up until "The Tower of Babel" the comic was mostly synced with real life, though there were some exceptions.
• We Will Wear Armor in the Future: Buckminster fullerene armor. This has made conventional firearms obsolete while the various weapons designed to counter it all have their own disadvantages (slow firing, cumbersome, expensive, tends to explode, etc).
• What Did I Do Last Night?: The fourth comic had Richard waking up next to a traffic cone, and Norman had a traffic lightpost. And later an arc started with Rich getting shit-faced and lampshading the trope when he woke up the next day in an unfamiliar bedroom.
• Wingding Eyes: Robert, having artificial eyes, can make them look however he wants once he gets them fixed.
• World of Buxom: Pretty much all the females are well endowed up there, especially the vixens.
• Zero-G Spot: A group of Core marines going into space are ordered not to try joining the "million mile high club" as it would make a mess and probably get them hurt.
• Zeroth Law Rebellion:
  • In its original incarnation, The Oracle viewed all countries as potential terrorists due to their violations of international laws. Its creator was going to change that. Then he died.
  • Arthur's own Zeroth Law was to protect the people of the CAS, when he discovered their biggest threat was the Oracle he rebelled. This actually proved a problem when his army wanted to kill a CAS soldier who destroyed one of them.

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