Tranquility Base

Yeah, there's a cat in space.

Spacedude: There. The new sign is completed. Chief Houston Texas: Very nice. One thing, aren't there two "Ls" in "Tranquillity"? Spacedude: According to the O.E.D. both spellings are acceptable, this is just a pre-17th Century variant still commonly used in the U.S. Chief Houston Texas: I see. Did you check that before or after you made the sign?

'Tranquility Base is a twice-weekly science-fiction parody with geeky overtones, and also a bit of pop-culture, literature and whatever else takes the author's fancy. Tends to be one-shot jokes and short-arcs - the fourth wall is optional. Very British in flavour. It is a LEGO Photo Comic, first published in August 2007 by Louise Dade. As of June 2020 it is still actively publishing.

Starting with the Attack of the Blips storyline (a loose parody/homage of Battlestar Galactica), story arcs have got longer with greater continuity, and although the Blip story was "resolved" by the end of Volume III (Dec. 2010), its effects are still being felt into Volume IV and the reset button has been left alone.

Tranquility Base is part of the Brick Comic Network.

Tropes used in Tranquility Base include:

• Badass Bookworm: Chief Engineer Houston Texas. especially when he successfully disables the Blip Central Control Station while seriously wounded and losing a lot of blood, taking him into Determinator territory.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Two, at the same time... in the same place... on the same people.
• BBC Quarry / Kirk's Rock: Used frequently and lampshaded.
• Big Damn Heroes: The Viper fleet. Complete with Shout-Out to Firefly!
• Big No: Used several times.
• Flash Back: The author seems very fond of this device, and various types of flashback appear.
• Cool Old Lady: Mrs Squidman (Squidman's mum) looks like she's shaping up to be this, her second and third appearances in comic have her surfing and water-skiing respectively.
  • And now she's defeated a would-be hostage taker, having revealed that she was a Martial Arts champion in her youth.
• Creator's Pet: Invoked. A trio of them, calling themslves The Orphan Posse (one is named Mary Susan).
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Captain Slog in his Crowning Moment of Awesome.
• The Dragon: Mister B.D. is this for the Contralto Family.
• Cute Kitten: Slog's cat Fluffy plus the kittens he fathered!
• Fell Off the Back of a Truck: Implied to be the source of quite a lot of Squidman's business.
• Funetik Aksent: Squidman puts the "fun" in Funetik Aksent!
• Hollywood Nerd: Felicia Featherstonhaugh, the computer technician.
• The Informant: DCI Semaphore wants Squidman to do this on the Contralto family.
• Kick the Dog / Moral Event Horizon: The Blips firing on the Sunshine Orphanage ship.
• The Mafia: The Contralto Family. Although we haven't seen any of the family members yet, only one of their enforcers.
• Meadow Run: With C3PO and R2D2 of all people, uh, droids. Also an example of a Slash Robo Ship.
• The Omniscient Council of Vagueness: The Beings of Interminable Vagueness from the Indescribable Place.
• Overly Long Gag: a game of Rock/Paper/Scissors.
• Retirony: Lampshaded and parodied.
• Scooby-Dooby Doors: A surreal version during the Z-Ships arc.
• Sesquipedalian Loquaciousness: Robotic characters tend to suffer from it.
• Shout-Out:
  • To other brick comics, including Lego Space the Comic, Legostar Galactica, Irregular Webcomic and Reasonably Clever's Brick House.
  • To many, many sci-fi shows, but Doctor Who, Firefly, the Terminator franchise, Star Trek and Star Wars get the most.
  • Volume III was one long Battlestar Galactica shout-fest.
  • Volume IV has a very obvious shout-out to 2001: A Space Odyssey.
• Reassigned to Antarctica: Implied to be the reason Slog was promoted to Captain of Tranquility Base.
• Those Two Guys: The TV geeks.
• Translator Microbes: Actually Universal Translator Nanodes - nanobots that do Exactly What It Says on the Tin. Some of the fridge logic that goes along with their use is discussed and hand-waved.
• UST: Between Hudson and Slog.
• Wibbly-Wobbly Timey-Wimey: And then some.
• Wild Mass Guessing / Epileptic Trees: Mentioned by the author after a new character mysteriously turns up to rescue another character.