laser-2
Original: laser-2 on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1: A presenter stands at a chalkboard, gesturing toward a diagram of a beam aimed at distant points. Narration/presenter: "...and thus, for only 4 trillion dollars, give or take, we can construct the interstellar cannon, giving us the power to direct powerful energy beams at distant exoplanets."
Panel 2: The presenter continues at the board. Presenter: "By choosing a precise surface target, we can either raise or lower their albedo, effectively giving us the ability to mark any object in the milky way with an up or down state."
Panel 3: An audience member responds enthusiastically. Audience member: "Wow! So maybe we could use this to communicate with aliens or something?"
Panel 4: The presenter, a bespectacled man, replies flatly. Presenter: "Why would you want to do that? What would be the point?"
Panel 5: The audience members, shown as silhouettes, are at a loss. Audience member: "Well then, but if not that then... then..."
Panel 6: The presenter, also a silhouette, delivers the punchline. Presenter: "We can run DOOM on the galaxy."
Votey: A close-up of the presenter, eyes wide and intense, continuing his pitch in a large speech bubble. Presenter: "It will encourage the survival of civilization because you'll want to get to a good save point, which will take millennia."
Panel 2: The presenter continues at the board. Presenter: "By choosing a precise surface target, we can either raise or lower their albedo, effectively giving us the ability to mark any object in the milky way with an up or down state."
Panel 3: An audience member responds enthusiastically. Audience member: "Wow! So maybe we could use this to communicate with aliens or something?"
Panel 4: The presenter, a bespectacled man, replies flatly. Presenter: "Why would you want to do that? What would be the point?"
Panel 5: The audience members, shown as silhouettes, are at a loss. Audience member: "Well then, but if not that then... then..."
Panel 6: The presenter, also a silhouette, delivers the punchline. Presenter: "We can run DOOM on the galaxy."
Votey: A close-up of the presenter, eyes wide and intense, continuing his pitch in a large speech bubble. Presenter: "It will encourage the survival of civilization because you'll want to get to a good save point, which will take millennia."
Alt text
A six-panel SMBC comic. In the first two panels, a presenter stands at a chalkboard explaining a plan: for about 4 trillion dollars, build an "interstellar cannon" that aims energy beams at distant exoplanets, changing their albedo to mark any object in the Milky Way with an "up or down state." In panel three, an excited audience member asks, "Wow! So maybe we could use this to communicate with aliens or something?" In panel four the bespectacled presenter responds flatly, "Why would you want to do that? What would be the point?" In the final dark panels the audience (shown as silhouettes) stammers, "Well then, but if not that then... then..." and the presenter answers, "We can run DOOM on the galaxy." The joke: the grand cosmic engineering project's real purpose is to play the video game DOOM using stars as binary pixels. Votey (bonus panel): a close-up of the wide-eyed presenter adding, "It will encourage the survival of civilization because you'll want to get to a good save point, which will take millennia."
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.