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Cassiopeia Quinn

The galaxy’s most popular outlaw (if you’re into that sort of thing). Cassiopeia describes herself variously as a “procurement specialist,” “irregular cargo transporter,” “astro-navigatrix,” “aerial speedster,” “heistologist” [sic], and “space explorerizer” [sic]. Her likes include adventure, pantslessness, and her pal Zeke. Her dislikes include foods that are hard to eat in zero gravity.

First Appearance: The Prize Cover

Archive

In space, nobody makes you wear pants.

The Prize Cover

Please brake for protagonists!

The Prize Page 1

I've always had a hard time getting up when it's dark outside.' 'But in space, it's always dark.' 'I know. I KNOW.'

The Prize Page 2

See, the world is full of things more powerful than us. But if you know how to catch a ride, you can go places.'

The Prize Page 3

We're pulling some major gees now.' 'I feel like I put on a couple hundred pounds.' 'I wasn't going to say anything.'

The Prize Page 4

A faith that cannot survive collision with the truth is not worth many regrets.'

The Prize Page 5

We have no guarantees, but we have a good ship and the best crew.'

The Prize Page 6

There's no mystical energy field that controls MY destiny. Anyway, it's all a lot of simple tricks and nonsense.'

The Prize Page 7

10 millimeter explosive tip caseless. Standard light armor-piercing round. Why?'

The Prize Page 8

I don't see how an article of clothing can be indecent. A person, yes.'

The Prize Page 9

I spent a semester in Africa harpooning giraffes, and giraffes are basically land space whales.'

The Prize Page 10

Captain, I wasn't expecting you here.' 'Neither was I.'

The Prize Page 11

Wealth is too precious to be entrusted to the rich.'

The Prize Page 12

You really want a robot for a friend?' 'Yeah. Ever since I was six.'

The Prize Page 13

They weren't satisfied with a bomb that could knock out a city. They finally built one with a cobalt casing, all in the sweet name of peace.'

The Prize Coda Page 1

Didn't I promise you fireworks?' 'Yeah.'

The Prize Coda Page 2

Fear accompanies the possibility of death. Calm shepherds its certainty.'

It learns fast, doesn't it?'

The Seat Of Your Pants Cover

I learned that if you're gonna have a general over for dinner, you better have turkey legs and beer on hand.'

Thanksgiving 2014

Exactly my point! Here are six thousand years of recorded history, a history that includes remarkable composers, astonishing symphonies! But what is the one song that half of them sing to their children generation after generation? You put your right hand in. You put your right hand out. You put your whole self in. And you turn yourself about. You do the hokey-pokey. You give a little shout. That's what it's all about! It doesn't mean anything! I have been studying it for seven days!

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 12

I have a sense of comfortableness in love; it isn't grand sweeping passions that I expected to feel.'

New Year39s 2014 Part 2

We send those men up into space to unlock the doors of the universe, and we don't even know what's behind them.'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 13

Attention, people of Earth! Attention, people of Earth! This is Krankor Exploration Force speaking!'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 15

I don't care what anything was designed to do. I care about what it can do. So let's get to work, let's lay it out, okay?'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 17

Do a barrel roll!'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 18

How could something as big as Atlantis just sink?' 'I'm sure the passengers on the Titanic were asking themselves the same question.'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 20

Don't Blink. Blink and you're dead.'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 21

Even dogs have dreams, but not you. You are just a machine.'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 22

Work is not an end in itself; there must always be time enough for love.'

Valentine39s Day 2015 Part 1

That's when we'll teach them something every human knows: payback's a bitch.'

The Seat Of Your Pants Page 23

But I've never stopped to look at clouds before. Or rainbows. You know, I can tell you exactly why one appears in the sky, but considering its beauty has always been out of the question.'

St Patrick39s Day 2015

If there's a spark of life, bacta will keep you going.'

The Seat Of Your Pants Coda Cassiopeia

Hey, you guys are good. How the hell do you do that?'

Robot Domination Part 3

There are five thousand forty-seven classifications of tables on file. Specify design parameters.'

Robot Domination Part 4

The universe is a big place, perhaps the biggest.

The warm, the richly coloured, the infinitely friendly world of soma-holiday. How kind, how good-looking, how delightfully amusing every one was!'

Quinn Ice Cream Ventures Summer Offerings

Sometimes you gotta run before you can walk.'

How Cassiopeia Sees Herself

All my life, I have been responsible only for myself. When I risked, I risked alone to avoid making others pay the price for my mistakes. They want me to show them another way. What if I show them the wrong way? What if they come to me not because of the lesson, but because of the teacher?'

Casinopeia Cover

Give a Martian woman a chance and death must take a back seat.'

Casinopeia Page 1

In life, unlike chess, the game continues after checkmate.'

Casinopeia Page 2

I was cheating. I was using my brain, which is something the average run-of-the-mill customer stopped doing a long time ago.'

Casinopeia Page 3

Nah, this is nothing. A little trigonometry, some minor wrist action.'

Casinopeia Page 4

First, you two let Scourge and Starscream steal one of Trypticon's eyes. And then you two allowed Astrotrain to be used as their escape vehicle. So Scourge is helping Starscream voluntarily, and you four were unable to stop them! Well, all I can say is...BWWWAAAAAAA!'

Casinopeia Page 5

Expect only what happens in the fight. That way you'll never be surprised.'

Casinopeia Page 6

The only gold is love, a coin that we have minted from the light of others who have cared for us.'

Marriage Equality 2015

The first nonabsolute number is the number of people for whom the table is reserved. This will vary during the course of the first three telephone calls to the restaurant, and then bear no apparent relation to the number of people who actually turn up.'

Casinopeia Page 7

Sometimes, in the dark of the night, I lie awake and wonder if different intelligences can communicate at all; or, if I've had a particularly bad day, whether the phrase 'different intelligences' has meaning at all.'

Casinopeia Page 8

Though my sentries may sleep and my ships may rest at anchor, our foes know full well that big guns never tire.'

Casinopeia Page 11

Winning isn't everything, but losing is nothing'

Casinopeia Page 12

Oh, uh- you put your hand in mine, and then up, and down. It's this little custom we have on Earth.'

Casinopeia Page 13

If a falling stone could reason, it would think, "I want to fall at the rate of thirty-two feet per second."'

Casinopeia Page 14

"Great and strange ideas transcending experience often have less effect upon men and women than smaller, more tangible considerations.'

Casinopeia Page 15

In spite of the opinions of certain narrow-minded people, who would shut up the human race upon this globe, as within some magic circle which it must never outstep, we shall one day travel to the moon, the planets, and the stars, with the same facility, rapidity, and certainty as we now make the voyage from Liverpool to New York!

Casinopeia Page 17

There is an old Klingon proverb: "Revenge is a dish best served cold." And it is very cold in space.

Casinopeia Page 18

Plain old human stubbornness, I guess. When something we value is destroyed, we rebuild it. If it's destroyed again, we rebuild it again. And again, and again, and again, until it stays.'

100th Update Special

Do you fasten and then zip, or zip and then fasten?'

The Pants Stance

The answer is don't think about it! It's not like we can do this every week anyways, we get three or four more of these, tops.'

The Big Leagues

I didn't know that similarity was required for the exercise of compassion.'

Complementary Angles

We once laughed at the horseless carriage, the aeroplane, the telephone, the electric light, vitamins, radio, and even television! And now some of us laugh at outer space. God help us... in the future.'

Technically It39s A Fajita

Blade swing with the force of a cyclone, cut crystal and bone, pistol and chrome, stand in my path, you're a dead man, I cut the whole world in half for the Number One headband.'

Personal Cattacks

This vast, vague personality seemed to have done him a terrible wrong, and to kill it in triumphant revenge was his paramount desire. In order to reach it, he said, he would soar through abysses of emptiness, burning every obstacle that stood in his way.'

A Periodical Purchase

I should've gone to law school like my old man wanted. This relativistic quantum pop-cosmology's such a mindwarp.'

Reflecty Glass Reflecty Glass

Like you said, who sleeps anymore?'

The Parent Trap

To recap those revisions: women are still worth 10 points more than men in all age brackets, but teenagers now rack up 40 points, and toddlers under 12 now rate a big 70 points. The big score: anyone, any sex, over 75 years old has been upped to 100 points.'

The Big Race Cover

Well, now, when you're a poor little orphan foster wretch, anything's possible. Or so we tell ourselves.'

The Big Race Page 2

Behold. The Ninja ZX-11.'

The Big Race Page 3

If we have souls, they're made of the love we share.'

The Big Race Page 4

This is Vultan. I read you. Where are you?' 'Flying blind on a rocket cycle!'

The Big Race Page 5

And in one split-second my tomorrows, every last one of them, are transformed from a single bolt of lightning. Now and forever I'm fast... I'm free... and nothing will ever hold me back.'

The Big Race Page 6

We do not have to adapt to the environment! We will change the environment to suit us!'

The Big Race Page 7

The thing that scares me most of all is that it burst out from the jungle directly in front of our ambush position. It had killed Jensen and Lucca before we knew what was happening. Nothing that large should be able to move like that.'

The Big Race Page 8

Many a small thing has been made large by the right kind of advertising.'

Talarion Rocket Shoes

All right, all right, and yes-sirree! A clean hit! A perfect hit! And no pain for the target. Too bad the guy was only thirty-eight; just two years older, he'd have been worth three times the points.'

The Big Race Page 9

Woah...it's like a postcard! 'Dear Sarge: Kicking ass in outer space. Wish you were here!' "I heard that, jackass!"

All The Air She Needs Is In Her Head

Keep driving like that, and you won't live long enough to win it. Not that that would be any great tragedy, but some decent people might get hurt!'

The Big Race Page 10

If you hide your ignorance, no one will hit you, and you'll never learn.'

The Big Race Page 11

Light of the light, strength of the soul, ignite this eternal power inside of me.'

The Big Race Page 13

We hear you have been training furiously.' 'I never get furious. As we say in fencing, "What's the point?'''

The Big Race Page 14

First was your firecracker, a harmless explosive. Then your hand grenade: you began to kill your own people, a few at a time. Then the bomb. Then a larger bomb: many people are killed at one time. Then your scientists stumbled upon the atom bomb, split the atom. Then the hydrogen bomb, where you actually explode the air itself. Now you can arrange the total destruction of the entire universe served by our sun: The only explosion left is the Solaranite.' 'Why, there's no such thing.'

The Big Race Page 15

On every world, wherever people are, in the deepest part of the winter, at the exact midpoint, everybody stops, and turns, and hugs, as if to say "Well done. Well done, everyone! We're halfway out of the dark." Back on Earth, we called this Christmas, or the Winter Solstice. On this world, the first settlers called it the Crystal Feast. You know what I call it? I call it expecting something for nothing!'

Christmas Eve 2015

Take my love, take my land/take me where I cannot stand/I don't care, I'm still free/you can't take the sky from me.

Her First Mechanical Accomplice

And as your mother, you will listen to me, young lady. There will be no leading of these ships and armies on a mass-murdering crusade! Or else!'

The Big Race Page 16

Like I always say - it's the rider, not the ride.'

The Big Race Page 17

Life, which you so nobly serve, comes from destruction.'

The Big Race Page 18

I figure this ship is going like, what, twenty miles per hour? Figure an hour, and that puts us twenty miles out, right?' 'Jake's a total mathematical genius. One hour at twenty miles per hour. Right away he figures out that's twenty miles.'

The Big Race Page 19

Pathetic earthlings. Hurling your bodies out into the void, without the slightest inkling of who or what is out here. If you had known anything about the true nature of the universe, anything at all, you would've hidden from it in terror.'

The Big Race Page 20

Guy named Otto Octavius winds up with eight limbs. What are the odds?'

The Big Race Page 21

I would say that perserverance number one aplitude...appitude...attribute! I people person, work good with children. People like me, because I force them to, with violence!'

The Big Race Page 22

The secondary gyrodyne relays of the propulsion field intermatrix have depolarized!'

The Big Race Page 23

We repeat: there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure.'

The Big Race Page 24

A planet full of people meant nothing against the dictates of economic necessity.'

The Big Race Page 26

Good work. Give me a moment with the human, and next timeÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ use a bigger needle.

The Big Race Page 27

Well, like the good book says: payback's a bitch!

The Big Race Page 28

I'll take care of the police. "Hey, wait! You swore!" "Trust me."

The Big Race Page 29

Science is magic that works.

The Big Race Page 30

I brought you something blue... me...

The Big Race Page 31

Kiazi's children. Their faces wet.

The Big Race Page 32

Embarrassment factor, 91%! Advised repair schedule; reboot startup disc, offline for 36 hours and replace head. Boy! What a night!

His Thinking Cap

You're no Superman. "The ladies say otherwise!"

Questions You Mustache Yourself

That's right! I am no more or less than myself. I am me! I want to be myself!

The Most Important Favor Page 4

First you must ingest some fresh-squeezed blorg, or perhaps splut-wingx! And wait until you see the pordkins. They are as big as a florknock!

The Most Important Favor Page 5

All those agonizing philosophical-theological conundrums amount to 'Ask a silly question, get a silly answer.'

Guest Miss Melee Team

I thought it said 'liberate me,' 'save me.' But it's not 'me.' It's 'liberate tute me' - 'save yourself.' And it gets worse.

Weirder Dealies Pt 2

This holiday is yours, but we all share with you the hope that this day brings us closer to freedom, and to harmony, and to peace.

It Must Bee Christmas

She's got space. Lots of space in her house. What about in her heart?'

The Sting Of Parting

Whether we are based on carbon or silicon makes no fundamental difference. We should each be treated with appropriate respect.'

Let39s Bee Friends Again

Science, my lad, has been built upon many errors; but they are errors which it was good to fall into, for they led to the truth.'

It's always coldest before the warm.'

It39ll Make You Sweat

Life is not a malfunction!

No One Man Should Have All That Flower

You are the millionth human to look at a spark, a flea, a raindrop, the moon, and the first to see it. For anyone to say that this is less remarkable than what Newton has done, is to understand things in but a hollow and jejune way. 'Tis like going to a Shakespeare play and remembering only the sword-fights.

Past The Edge Page 2

I never get furious. As we say in fencing, "What's the point?"

Past The Edge Page 6

I can't even begin to tell you how fascinating this is. "Anthropologist fascinating, or actual fascinating?"

Past The Edge Page 15

Old age, she said, "is slower than a grenade, but a lot more thorough."

200th Update Spectacular

The past is past, the future unformed.

Space is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is.'

Guest Stargazing

People are being duplicated. And once it happens to you, you're part of this... thing. It almost happened to me!

The Body Snatchifiers Cover

We do not conceive of sudden, radical, irrational change as built into the very fabric of existence. Yet it is.'

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 1

I see myself standing with Kirk's head in one hand... and a tribble in the other.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 2

You must trust in others or success is impossible.'

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 3

Live fast, fight well, and have a beautiful ending.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 4

Cosmo apologize for unprofessional conduct.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 5

Out on the edge you see all kinds of things you can't see from the center.'

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 7

We make guilty of our disasters the sun, the moon, and stars, as if we were villains on necessity, fools by heavenly compulsion.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 8

Your Omega Force is nothing more than an... Omega Farce.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 9

May you always drink deep. May you never be thirsty.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 10

Life's full of mysteries. Consider this one of them.

The Body Snatchifiers Pt 36

Make now always the most precious time. Now will never come again.

The Trail To Tomorrow Pt 8

We've had a good ride.

The Trail To Tomorrow Pt 9

That's the way with civilized men. When they can't explain something by their half-baked science, they refuse to believe it.

And I Am Content

Well, they don't seem to be making me sick. You know, I think this will be a good way to build a tolerance to the humans' filthy food!

I have to be prepared to make sure that never happens. Somebody has to be able to stop you.

Opposing An Onslaught

I'm not a thing you can just use to fill emotional voids.

We may eliminate death someday but I doubt if we’ll ever eliminate taxes.

A Cold Case Page 2

The first nonabsolute number is the number of people for whom the table is reserved.'

Party All The Time Page 7

Whatever you do, do not let the past be a straitjacket!

Party All The Time Page 8

You're going all the way back to Planet Jackass, JACKASS!

Party All The Time Page 9

No one's a hero every day of the week.

Party All The Time Page 9 2

What is a man but the sum of his memories? We are the stories we live! The tales we tell ourselves!

Party All The Time Page 11

â€œThey used to talk about seeing only â€˜reflections’ of reality. Not reality itself. The main thing wrong with a reflection is not that it isn’t real, but that it’s reversed.â€

Party All The Time Page 12

We must know our enemy, at least a little. â€œThat’s dangerous." "Yes, it is. What you know, you cannot hate."

Party All The Time Page 13

You're so... consumed by your personal vengeance against life, whether it be its inherent cruelties or its mysteries, that everything takes on a warped significance to your megalomaniacal cosmology. "Scully, are you coming on to me?"

Party All The Time Part 14

Automatons know nothing of betrayal or honor. They know only what they're programmed to know. Only living beings possess the ability to change, and make new choices.

Party All The Time Part 15

The siren's call is beckoning us to embrace. We shan't ignore her.

Party All The Time Part 16

In others' eyes, I am part of the world. But when I look out at the world from my own vantage point, I am not in it.

Party All The Time Part 17

Guest Malefactor

Brian, your mother wants to know what kind of decorations you want on your cake. Robin Hood, Hopalong Cassidy, Archie, and Jughead. "Who are they?" "People mom and dad went to school with."

An Aunt Is More Likely

Sterling, tough, dependable, honest, brave and true.

Not The Beach Episode Part 1

No, it's not fair. You're in the wrong universe for fair.

Not The Beach Episode Part 2

They swim and they fish, but that's what I do all year round.'

Not The Beach Episode Part 4

I know what I know because I have to know it, and if I don't have to know it, I don't tell me, and I don't let anyone else tell me, either.

Not The Beach Episode Part 6

It's no problem, sir. Or should I say, it's no Beast at Tanagra?

Not The Beach Episode Part 9

Tough chick needs backup? Since when did she ever need a hand?

Not The Beach Episode Part 11

Oh, I'm sure we'll see each other again. "I'd like to think so, but one can never say. We live in uncertain times."

Shhh... my common sense is tingling.

Unusual Suspects Page 1

Love, like zen, cannot be learned, only felt.

He who dies pays all debts.

But how will you breathe?

Intelligent beings need no revenge. Punishment is necessary only where learning cannot occur without it.

When will that be? "Soon enough." "That's not soon enough!"

Happy Cola Days Ian C Samson

Hunger, prolonged, is temporary madness! The brain is at work without its required food, and the most fantastic notions fill the mind. Hitherto I had never known what hunger really meant. I was likely to understand it now.

Messages Pile Up

See? Vengeance won't get you anywhere.

Cassiopeia And Cover

I didn't steal my car. "Oh, I suppose you want me to believe that it drove itself over here and picked you up?"

Cassiopeia And Page 1

That means it's up to you to save the universe.

Cassiopeia And Page 4

That oughta do the trick. "And I will have a... GRAPPLING HOOK!"

Cassiopeia And Page 5

We have learned now that we cannot regard this planet as being fenced in and a secure abiding place for Man; we can never anticipate the unseen good or evil that may come upon us suddenly out of space.'

Cassiopeia And Page 6

In certain circles â€” middle-class circles â€” it was thought disgusting. Vulgar ostentation. Anarchistic. Shameful.

Cassiopeia And Page 11

You should never be in the company of anyone with whom you would not want to die.'

Cassiopeia And Page 12

But how does the butterfly know when to beat its wings? "It doesn't. I guess it beats its wings the best it can, and hopes it will all work out. It's a butterfly. It just does what butterflies do."

Cassiopeia And Page 13

Coming to wipe that silly smile off your planet.

Cassiopeia And Page 15

â€œHe’ll pay no mind to me anyhow,â€ MacRae answered. â€œThat’s the healthy thing about kids.â€

Casssiopeia And Page 16

Can you keep your head about you when you're confronted with mind-blowing weirdness at every turn?

Casssiopeia And Page 17

Loneliness, her arch enemy, never seemed content.'

Cassiopeia And Page 18

I have ever been prone to seek adventure and to investigate and experiment where wiser men would have left well enough alone.

Cassiopeia And Page 19

Don't jump a gift shark in the mouth.

Cassiopeia And Page 21

Scotch? "Aye." "It was invented by a little old lady from Leningrad."

Cassiopeia And Page 22

No one is as dumb as I appear to be.

Cassiopeia And Page 23

Why do I always think gettin' you home for Life Day is gonna be easy?

Blast their fleets from space, grind their armies to torn and ruined fragments. But their hunger? That is beyond our ability to slay.'

Takeout Order Page 9

Now, a headache I can get over. I'm not sure I'm gonna get over being dead anytime soon.

Takeout Order Page 10

His car is an invisible black lozenge, just a dark place that reflects the tunnel of franchise signs - the loglo.

Takeout Order Page 11

In the early twentieth century the problem of production had been solved; after that it was the problem of consumption that plagued society.

Takeout Order Page 12

But the 22nd Rule of Acquisition says, 'A wise man can hear profit in the wind.'

Takeout Order Page 22

In short, there's nothing mightier than the meek. A Merry Christmas to each and all.

Christmas 2024 Part 2

You, people down there, are you satisfied with the way the world is?

Battle For The Burger World Cover

That, uh, blew out the Heisenberg Compensator.

Observable Reality

Man has the hardest job of all, the job of making decisions on incomplete data.'

Battle For The Burger World Page 1

Hey, what about a bounty hunter?! "A what, now?" "You know, a guy who looks for a guy for money! My sister's dating one."

Battle For The Burger World Part 2

Ah, indigenous cuisine!

Battle For The Burger World Page 4

Symbols matter. Uniforms, flags, banners - even mascots. They're like pieces of your heart that you can see.

Battle For The Burger World Page 6

How can I beat him? Without an original thought in my head... how can I...? "He's behind me, isn't he?"

Battle For The Burger World Page 7 2

I can only conclude that I'm paying off karma at a vastly accelerated rate.

Battle For The Burger World Page 8

Thus Bradley reasoned - thus most of us reason; not by what might be possible; but by what has fallen within the range of our experience.'

Battle For The Burger World Page 9

It was a wonder that so strange thing as a number should exist in the first place, rivalled only by the greater wonder that they should perform so obediently the work of mankind.

Battle For The Burger World Page 10

Heavy misfortunes have befallen us, but let us only cling closer to what remains and transfer our love for those whom we have lost to those who yet live.

Battle For The Burger World Page 12

Cos we all end up in a tiny pine box, a mighty small drop, and a mighty dark plot, and the mighty fine print hastens the trip to our epilogue.

Battle For The Burger World Page 14

"Don't be mean. We don't have to be mean."

Battle for the Burger World Page 15

Battle for the Burger World, Page 16

Battle for the Burger World Page 16

"Dangerous Toys are Fun, but you could get hurt!"

Battle for the Burger World Page 17

"Dangerous toys are fun, but you could get hurt!"

Battle for the Burger World Page 17

"Apes together strong."

Battle for the Burger World Page 18

"Your men... are obsolete"

Battle for the Burger World Page 19