relativity
Original: relativity on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Narration (caption): When antimatter production became cheap, so did powerful propulsion.
Woman with dark hair and glasses: WE CONTROL THE MOVEMENT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM NOW!
Panel 2:
Narration (caption): Relativity says that time slows down for you when you accelerate relative to someone else.
Woman: BY CONTROLLING SPEED, WE CONTROL TIME!
Panel 3:
Narration (caption): We decided to accelerate Earth close to light speed.
Woman (off-panel/caption speech): TIME WILL HALT FOR US WHILE OTHER CIVILIZATIONS GET HIGH TECH! THEN THEY'LL SHOW UP AND MAKE US INTO IMMORTAL SEX-GODS!
(Visual: Earth attached to a rocket, blasting through space.)
Panel 4:
Narration (caption): It turns out every civilization does this at the same point in their development.
Alien speech (in alien glyphs): [untranslatable symbols] IMMORTAL SEX-GODS!
(Visual: another planet attached to a rocket, blasting through space.)
Panel 5:
Narration (caption): We're not alone.
(Visual: empty starfield.)
Panel 6:
Narration (caption): We're all just waiting.
(Visual: a four-panel grid showing the woman and three different aliens, each waiting expectantly.)
Votey:
(Caption text, hand-lettered): (YES, THIS IS HOW IT WORKS)
Narration (caption): When antimatter production became cheap, so did powerful propulsion.
Woman with dark hair and glasses: WE CONTROL THE MOVEMENT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM NOW!
Panel 2:
Narration (caption): Relativity says that time slows down for you when you accelerate relative to someone else.
Woman: BY CONTROLLING SPEED, WE CONTROL TIME!
Panel 3:
Narration (caption): We decided to accelerate Earth close to light speed.
Woman (off-panel/caption speech): TIME WILL HALT FOR US WHILE OTHER CIVILIZATIONS GET HIGH TECH! THEN THEY'LL SHOW UP AND MAKE US INTO IMMORTAL SEX-GODS!
(Visual: Earth attached to a rocket, blasting through space.)
Panel 4:
Narration (caption): It turns out every civilization does this at the same point in their development.
Alien speech (in alien glyphs): [untranslatable symbols] IMMORTAL SEX-GODS!
(Visual: another planet attached to a rocket, blasting through space.)
Panel 5:
Narration (caption): We're not alone.
(Visual: empty starfield.)
Panel 6:
Narration (caption): We're all just waiting.
(Visual: a four-panel grid showing the woman and three different aliens, each waiting expectantly.)
Votey:
(Caption text, hand-lettered): (YES, THIS IS HOW IT WORKS)
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. Panels 1-2: a woman with dark hair and glasses speaks excitedly. Captions explain that cheap antimatter made powerful propulsion possible, and that relativity means accelerating to high speed slows your time relative to others. She says, 'WE CONTROL THE MOVEMENT OF THE SOLAR SYSTEM NOW! BY CONTROLLING SPEED, WE CONTROL TIME!' Panel 3: Earth, strapped to a giant rocket, blasts through space. Caption: humanity decided to accelerate Earth near light speed so time halts for them while other civilizations advance and then arrive to make humans into 'immortal sex-gods.' Panel 4: another alien planet, also strapped to a rocket, blasts through space; an alien declares (in untranslatable glyphs) the same goal of becoming 'IMMORTAL SEX-GODS.' Caption notes every civilization does this at the same point in development. Panel 5: an empty starfield, captioned 'We're not alone.' Panel 6: a grid of four faces -- the woman and three different aliens -- all waiting expectantly, captioned 'We're all just waiting.' The joke: every civilization froze its own time hoping others would advance and uplift them, so no one is advancing and everyone is stuck waiting forever. Votey: a single hand-lettered line reads '(YES, THIS IS HOW IT WORKS)'.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.