It's a bit of an awkward squeeze, fitting a whole AI onto several hundred kilograms of ridiculously overpowered expensive phones.
Apologies about how often the transcript has desynced from the comic dialog—I have been copying it from an old script document I made for the benefit of editors (normally I don't write one, I just draw thumbnails/rough pages) and since I typed it, I'd fussed a lot more with the dialog than I'd remembered. I'm making a bigger effort with this next batch of queued pages to check for discrepancies, but if I miss something I do appreciate people who point it out for me in comments. Proofreading is not one of my stronger skills. Thanks!
Transcript
Talita: WHAT ARE YOU? WHY ARE YOU ON MY TABLET!?Bip: WOAH, woah, calm down! I’m an AI, duh. My name is Bip. Thanks for asking. I’m on here because your security program suuucks. And I got bored of waiting for you to look in the boxes.
Talita: The boxes?
Talita looks wide-eyed at the eight boxes of quantum phones on the charging mat, then leans over them to get a better look. As she does, every single phone in the boxes lights up with a Bip avatar face on its screen.
Every phone simultaneously: Hello!
68 thoughts on “Runaway to the Stars: Page 60”
StrongerThanXem
Bip Army
They are coming
BipFan
Oh I can tell I’m gonna love Bip.
(I love them already.)
Rad Internet Stranger
All the Bip faves tho omg
Rad Internet Stranger
*faces
eden
every time I see bip on screen I here pacman noises.
Arcstone
Hey now, talita.
You could pick up way worse things than that fgom random derelict space wrecks like that.
You ever seen The Thing?
…come to think of it, this colony would be a perfect setting for one a those movies.
r
^^ ^^ ^^
(●●) (●●) (●●)
V V V LETSGOOOO
r
fukc
Trees
I know the feeling.
Comment sections everywhere laugh at user formatting.
Claire
The struggle is real… The formatting in the preview =/= the end result. Makes the ascii bips hard.
Ruby
“Who are you, people?!”
Ruby
Alternatively:
“General Keno-bip!”
waterfan2
OHAI.
Though to be fair Bip did answer her question.
Zidane
bip zooming in on their avatar’s face in the 5th panel is so unreasonably funny to me. Excellent little side joke
Teeth
I want to put Bip in a blender ☺️ /pos
Knux
Do centaurs have the ability to sweat, or does Talita get special sweatdrop permissions for comic expression purposes?
Apollo235
Jay answered the same question several comments down
to paraphrase, centaurs do sweat, but like in most comics, the amount is exaggerated
silverspoon
Bip infestation!
arf
Scared Talita is… scary.
Tyrone the Miner
BIP raised to a(m+n)-something. Is thats a=BIBS ?
I would faint there. Good thing 4 legs and a firm grip will keep Talita from keeling over!
K
Oh my goodness Bip has been here for a quarter of a second and they’re already scaring the snot out of Talita! (One question who was the AI that the big ferret’s wheeled away in chapter one? For some reason I thought the AI was Bip, but apparently not!)
(Also how do AI generally feel about sharing space with another AI?)
Tyrone the Miner
The “Big Box” AI was Calcery or Cal , the station AI but quit due to reasons not explained. Cal was Talitas boss, so when Cal left, she got promoted to fill some of the Admin vacuum I presume
Tyrone the Miner
My reply about Cal went the utterly wrong place. Sorry.
Delete if prefered
B
Bip be bippin but more importantly can talita use human scissors??
Trees
Hmmm… I do not like this glib triangle-face, no siree Bob!
I’m 100% certain an introduction could have been engineered without resulting in this much screaming, prying and trespass to chattel.
Spinland
Bippitty Boppitty Boo!
Hunter
And another shriek in 3…2…1…
Ark
While I was reading this page, my phone gave me a notification advertising an AI assistant… oh no, Bip has found a way into the real world
AnormalADN
Ohhh geez this is it
that last panel is so funny, you can feel Talita’s panic
Nethie
OH GOD.
Gar G
Cue her screaming again XD
Also I love the expressions you drew for her, especially with the eyes, and special mention goes to the first panel where she looks just like… well how you’d expect her species to appear when they feel threatened! Try to make themselves appear as biig and intimidating as possible with fur standing on end, trunk raised up high, and those *sharp* teeth getting shown off!
Kira
Good observations! And yeah she’s gonna scream again XD
Gar G
I could just *hear* the scream when I saw that panel! XD
And thanks! She looks so threatening honestly but that’s actually how you know she’s terrified. As I said, it’s natural for animals to try and appear as big and intimidating as possible when threatened, show they won’t go down without a fight in the hope that whatever’s bothering them will back off… So it feels great seeing a sophont act this way!
evileeyore
“Cue her screaming again XD”
Basically, my thoughts exactly.
Truther
Funniest panel so far
Gar G
Agreed
Teod
So… Bip didn’t actually need to go to the tablet, did he? The phones are right there, if he wanted to attract attention he could’ve just used them. And they had at least microphones, so the sensory argument doesn’t work either.
Claire
Of course they did!
Anything else wouldnt have been *peak drama*
TotallySomebody
^^
(●●)
V
Hi bip hi bip hi bip hi hi hi hello
notanocelot
[ Σ:>] [ Σ:>] [ Σ:>] [ Σ:>] [ Σ:>] [ Σ:>]
“Hello! :3”
bug ferret irl
REJOICE BIP BE UPON YE
Guest
Is that like… metaphorical sweat or are little feathers falling off her face. Anyway, these are gorgeous drawings, I loved freaked out Talita. The way you can see the musculature of her face and the shine of her feathers and the scales on her teeth. Really superb. She seems like a real life creature.
Jay Eaton
Talita can sweat but those are cartoon drops (most humans do do not sweat hard enough for droplets to rapidly come flying off either.) Her sweat can also lather into a foam like horse sweat. This has been your cursed knowledge for the day
Guest
Thank you for this cursed knowledge ^^
Apollo235
I just met Bip and I love them.
Any word on what they sound like? I’m imagining something kind of buzzy, processed, and high-pitched
Redacted
I’ve always just pictured Bill Cipher lol
Talita Fangirl :)
https://jayrockin.tumblr.com/post/658725873481039872/
^ This is an old tumblr post that may answers your question.
There was also a reply by the author in the page 17 comment secion that included comparing Calery’s and Bip’s voices:
“[Calcery] does have a very good voice synthesizer program though so he sounds pretty “real.” Bip (whoever that is) has much crunchier vocals.”
Well done to you and Redacted for accurately reading Bip’ vibes! xD And to theauthor for communicating them well in so few pages!
zaratustra
reminded of the defective turrets in Portal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QPrsZTWtjo
Apollo235
Oooohhhh defective turret sounds good for them, but going off what others said maybe an octave higher, in the direction of Bill Cipher
SIGSTKFLT
.M.
oo — on second thought, it would have been funnier to use the phone screens collectively as one big screen.
‘V’
Pathfinder
That’s a lot of Bips! Can’t imagine how loud that hello would be from 100’s of phone speakers at once.
Hi
M
●● B I P !!
V
Also kind of funny that the first person they meet again is another centaur XD
Claire
.M.
oo Bip…………
‘V’
westeast
She dropped the pitcher 🙁
westeast
That was originally an emoticon btw
Claire
(\.-./) Thank you for
\OO/ opening my eyes
\/ to ASCII Bip possiblities
Claire
Then the formatting borked…
Maia
Oh hon… You tried
Joysweeper
freaked out Talita! I love her in that third panel, the curves of her jaw and trunk and teeth. Beautiful!
Do centaurs open their mouths and bare their teeth with tongues extended when freaked out? instinctive threat display? Is it something she’s ended up copying from human body language, this is just what you do when yelling at someone? Some of both?
Jay Eaton
It’s mostly a baked in fear/submission response. An aggressive display would be less crouched, clench the teeth, and the trunk would flatten against the nose bridge in an S-shape (generally). Hanging open mouth is associated with fear and sadness, though Talita’s way more prone to it in other contexts as part of her human mimicry streak
Matt
She must look so strange to other centaurs! Imagine the buffest, most muscular woman you’ve ever seen, and she constantly looks like a forlorn/scared dog left out in the rain… What a peculiar combination, I love it.
Claire
This is JUST like going to dump your garbage in the dumpster only to find its suddenly home to dozens and dozens of raccoons! Soooooo adorable <3 <3 <3
Chrysalis
Also, panel five: The fact that Bip brings their digital face “closer” to the tablet screen to watch what Talita’s doing outside, despite the fact that the camera they’re seeing out of presumably doesn’t move at all, is a beautiful little detail.
Chrysalis
This is cute, hilarious, and terrifying all at once. The perfect introduction for Bip.
1d4Nadg
Bip Bip Bip Bip Bip Bip Bip Bip Bip…
Drawing all of those must have been quite tedious, even with a copy-paste!
Love the little critter
Synthaphone
Really love Bip’s face moving to fill the whole tablet screen between the 4th and 5th panel- their fun little visual gags with their display are so charming
DasGanon
So many Bips!
I thought I remembered seeing an earlier version of this page somewhere too.
Peter Jensen
Click the tumblr link, search “bip” in the tags, and earlier versions of this (and coming) pages can be found a few pages in.