Furry here to confirm that Freefall is underrated as hell. In terms of really philosophical sci-fi that makes you think, I would genuinely put it on the same shelf as Star Trek.

I’ll also mention that I would not classify Freefall as a furry comic. I read a lot of those, and Freefall ain’t one. Florence Ambrose (the genetically engineered wolf in question) is one of three characters in the entire comic that could even remotely be considered furry, the other two being Sam Starfall, the captain of the ship on which Florence is an engineer, who is an alien in an environment suit that makes him look a bit like he stepped out of Club Penguin, and one whose name is a major spoiler who is a genetically uplifted chimpanzee (and looks exactly like a regular chimpanzee but is able to talk). All of the other characters are either bog-standard humans, humanoid robots, or robots that look like construction equipment. The only other reason you could even theoretically argue that Freefall is a furry comic is that Florence gets involved with a human in the comic’s only romantic subplot. If that’s true about Wikipedia refusing to cover Freefall because it’s a furry comic, that’s bullshit on a number of levels.

Politics is boring though. The rest of this comment is going to be me trying to convince you to read it.

The central premise of Freefall is this: humanity, a spacefaring civilization with faster-than-light travel, has created robots with full human intelligence, and have only just now realized this. Now what? What are the social and political ramifications of that? Over the course of Sam, Florence, and Helix’s numerous adventures, Freefall discusses such varied topics as transhumanism, prejudice, the ethics of putting safeguards (restrictions on what an artificial intelligence is allowed to do and think) on what is, for all intents and purposes, a human mind, and how easily a suitably determined conscious mind can slip its bonds. (For proof of that last one, one need look no further than any place on the internet with a bad word filter.) Oh, and the author’s libertarian political views.

Artificial intelligences using Dr. Bowman’s brain design physically cannot disobey any properly qualified direct order from a human. There are virtually no limits on what these orders can do. For example, at one point, the mayor of the human colony where the comic takes place says to an artificial intelligence who disagrees with a political decision she recently made: “Direct order. You like me. You trust me. You want to make me happy. End order. Is that better?” The AI replies: “Emotionally, much better. Mentally, I think I’m screaming.” Later, that same artificial intelligence reminds a different human: “If you ordered me to chew my own fingers off, I’d do it! If I’m ordered to destroy all the turtles in the world, I would try to carry the order out! If you have a system set up where a single person can cause an extinction level event, it’s time to reexamine that system.” At another point, one of many vice presidents at the company that makes the robots gives a particularly powerful robot a direct order to “Make me the richest man in the solar system within 30 days.” The results of this can best be described as apocalyptic.

The comic also explores how well-intentioned safeguards programmed by humans can end up backfiring:

And how rule-based safeties can’t stand up to full artificial consciousness:

My favorite thing about the comic, though, has to be Florence, and not just because I’m a furry. She is an incredibly smart engineer (Mark Stanley does his research! Most of the science discussed in the comic is legit), incredibly kind and understanding even to the worst of people, but not afraid to use force when necessary. Honestly, she’s a better human being than any human being could ever hope to be. She is also, fundamentally, a dog. When there’s no one around that she has to be professional in front of, she enjoys infodumping about quantum mechanics and running around on all fours and playing fetch with a frisbee, often simultaneously. Speaking of infodumping when you don’t have to be professional, I’m not sure I’d classify Florence as autistic, but she’s definitely neurospicy. She’s completely levelheaded in crisis situations, she’s terrifyingly smart, she’s a self-taught engineer (when was the last time you met a neurotypical one of those?), she never hesitates to stand up for what she thinks is right and is willing to do anything necessary to save people she cares about (which is pretty much everyone), but she hates drawing attention to herself and prefers to fight from the shadows. (Okay fine I’m totally just gushing now but tell me you don’t get this way about your blorbos. Words cannot express how much I wish Florence was real. And before one of you jackoffs says it, not because I want to have sex with her. I don’t. I’m gay. I just have the biggest friend-crush ever.)

My second favorite thing about Freefall (after Florence, of course) is that it never fails to keep the tone upbeat. Even when discussing heavy-handed, uncomfortable philosophy, it ends nearly every strip with a joke. It never just says “this is an incredibly sucky situation” and leaves you on a downer. It always finds a solution that works out pretty well for everybody. Is that solution always perfect? No, but that provides a platform to explore its imperfections.

If you’re convinced and you want to read it, you can see it in all its Web 1.0 glory here, or via this third-party mirror that, unlike the main site, supports HTTPS (yes, Freefall and its infrastructure are that old). If you’d prefer, you can read the entire comic as one big almost-infinite-scroll webpage instead of as a series of pages to click through here. One other thing to note is that the story of Freefall is still far from concluded: Mark Stanley releases a new page every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at midnight Eastern.

Sorry my thoughts on this are a little bit jumbled. I put this comment together rather quickly and sloppily, which I tend to do about things I’m passionate about and want to just get my thoughts out before the comment section becomes irrelevant. Lmk if you have any questions!

LEMMY DOESN’T EVEN HAVE A KARMA SYSTEM,

WHAT ARE YOU PEOPLE DOING

presumably an original version of this meme that makes sense exists somewhere

i’m not convinced that shadow bans are actually beneficial

A random screenshot I had taken as payment

what does this mean

why would you call it anything other than the ternary operator

If apt-get detects that a package you told it to install is also available as a snap it’ll silently install that instead and you have to edit the Linux equivalent of the registry to get it to not do that

What did Jensen Huang do this time?

Wait, didn’t Zluda legally become a thing?

Zoophiles are disgusting, sure, but I think we were all happier not being reminded that they exist

i wish i sometimes loved organizing

Canonical wants to be Microsoft so goddamn bad they can taste it

That is the worst keyboard layout i have ever seen. Bravo.

It’s blindingly obvious to anyone with more than one brain cell that you’re a troll, so I’m going to do something I should have done a long time ago.

Later, moron.

The human, of course, flies anyway, because it does not care what dragons think is impossible.

He turned himself into a rule. Funniest shit I’ve ever seen.

the only reason i enjoy hug people as much as i do today is because when i was in high school showing physical affection was mandatory. that was how you told them they had succeeded in breaking you out of your shell, and could now stop trying.

wait, does this mean that dragons think about dragon/human romances the same way we think about bee movie???

i… i need a minute,

i love you too random internet denizen!! ❤️

when god programmed ADHD brains he forgot to merge the friendship degradation mechanic from the mainline branch and i’m really glad He did