1: The Saga Begins

Title: Title of the parody song “The Saga Begins” about Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace by “Weird Al” Yankovic (official HD video here).

Campaign Intro: The title (“The Phantasmal Malevolence”) plays on the actual Episode I title (“The Phantom Menace”). The opening crawl is otherwise the same as that of Episode I.

Obi-Wan: I have a bad feeling about this.
— This is the actual first spoken line in Episode I (also by Obi-Wan). It was an ongoing reference in the movies, with some variation of it being worked into each movie ever since Luke said “I have a very bad feeling about this.” on approach to the Death Star in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope. Also later in the same movie: “I got a bad feeling about this.” by Han in the trash compactor scene.

2: Not Negotiable

Title: Phrase meaning something is not up for dispute or alteration. Reference to Qui-Gon’s line in the last panel, where he expresses an inability to negotiate. Can also mean “not able to be accomplished”, which also applies to that line. Additional tangential meaning related to “negotiable” in the sense of negotiable money or currency, linking to the costs of purchasing equipment.

3: Whine and Cheese

Title: Pun on the phrase “wine and cheese”, a common pairing for food tasting and parties. Qui-Gon complains (whines) in panel 3, and mentions cheese in panel 5.

Obi-Wan: “Droid”?
Qui-Gon: It means “butler”.
— The first instance of Jim making up meanings for words, as he will go on to do many times. Of course, “Droid” is a shortening of “android”, meaning a human-shaped robot, but in Star Wars is used to mean any intelligent robot, regardless of shape. The GM’s notes shown in strip #206 show how he evolved the term.

Obi-Wan: “Jedi"?
Qui-Gon: It’s a type of cheese.
— Jim’s second made-up explanation, but in this case based on a mis-hearing of “Jedi” as “cheddar”. Such mishearings or misrememberings by Jim will be an ongoing joke throughout the rest of the comics.

4: A Touch of Class

Title: Phrase meaning sophisticated or tasteful in some minor way, used as the title of several media works. Punning on the different meaning of “class” as used in the strip to mean “character class”.

Obi-Wan: Energy? But energy is force times distance.
Qui-Gon: And “power of the force” would be distance times the derivative with respect to time.
— Here is the first inkling that Ben and Jim have a scientific background. In physics terms, energy (or work) is indeed force times distance, and power is the time derivative of energy.

GM: <sigh> You’re monks.
— Combined with the previous strip, this is why the term “cheddar monks” came into use to refer to Jedi in the Darths & Droids community. This was leant into with the Cheddar Monk Academy, a forum-run series of challenges for readers.

Obi-Wan: But monks can’t wield—
— In Dungeons & Dragons, at least, among other roleplaying games, monks cannot wield swords.

5: Search and Destroy

Title: Name given to a military strategy made infamous during the Vietnam War, and then became the title of several songs. In the strip, the characters search the room and simultaneously destroy the GM’s intended plot. (Also, the room may end up destroyed. And as we find out in the next strip, their ship was probably just destroyed.)

This is arguably the first time we see the current GM’s style, where despite exasperation with the players he accepts their choices and responds to them. (Although still somewhat forcefully and clumsily in this instance.) The opposite end of the GMing spectrum would be to force the players to go along with what the GM planned (aka “railroading”); that is the approach taken by the GM in DM of the Rings (the inspiration strip for Darths & Droids).

Qui-Gon: Oh god, it’s Tomb of Horrors all over again.
— Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Module S1, Tomb of Horrors, is an infamously unfair scenario full of deathtraps and monsters, in most cases not plausibly avoidable by even the most fanatically cautious. Written by Gary Gygax for the 1975 Origins I game convention, its sheer deadliness and unreasonableness has made it a surprisingly popular scenario ever since.

6: Jedi in the Mist

Title: A play on the 1988 film Gorillas in the Mist, a biographical film about anthropologist Dian Fossey, based on her book of the same name.

The joke here plays on the idea that in many roleplaying games talking is a free action, meaning characters can talk as much as you want during a combat.

7: Accentuate the Positive

Title: Less phonetic version of the 1944 song “Ac-Cent-Tchu-Ate the Positive”, by Harold Arlen and Johnny Mercer. In it, the listener is encouraged to focus on the positive aspects of any situation rather than the negative ones. It’s also a pun on the bad accent that the Trade Federation guy has.

Nute Gunray: {hologram} Guards, bling out the bodies!
— The GM’s penchant for (sometimes offensively) stereotyped Earth accents to indicate specific alien races is first shown here; the players rightly call it out. This is also the strip calling out the same use of foreign accents in the movies themselves.

8: Alea Jacta Est

Title: Alternative transliteration of “Ālea iacta est”. (Latin did not have a “j” character; instead the “i” does double duty as a vowel and a “j” sound depending on the word in question.) This in turn is a variation on the original phrasing “iacta alea est”, supposedly said by Julius Caesar when he led his army across the Rubicon river in 49 BCE.

The usual translation is “The die has been cast” (that is, thrown), indicating that the decision has been made and cannot be taken back. In the case of Caesar, since the Rubicon marked the boundary to Italy proper, by crossing it with his army he committed to defying the Roman Senate.

In the strip, this represents the player’s last chance to back down and avoid a very likely death in the face of overwhelming forces. But Qui-Gon commits them to conflict with a literal throw of a die.

GM: You should have thought of that before you went off my plot rails.
— The GM was still trying to get the campaign back on his envisaged track, but this acknowledges it is probably impossible. Players 1, railroading 0.

9: Right Back At You

Title: An idiom which indicates that the speaker reciprocates a sentiment just expressed to them by someone, either positive or negative. In the strip, this refers to both the deflection of the blaster bolts, and also the verbal sparring between the GM and Ben.

Obi-Wan: No... actually... that’s going to work. A laser sword has to be a magnetically contained tube of plasma. Anything else is clearly ludicrous.
Obi-Wan: The containment field would obviously work in both directions. A blaster shot is also plasma. Q.E.D.
— Another ongoing theme is first used here, with the players “outsciencing” the GM to justify something. More usually this will be done by Jim, but Ben had the first (and arguably most important) instance here.

10: Having a Blast

Title: An idiom meaning “having a good time”, punning on the acquisition of blasters that happens in the strip.

Qui-Gon: That was just random!
Obi-Wan: The blasters are clumsy. The swords are much more elegant weapons. And they serve as shields too. A blaster can’t do that.
— These lines are references to dialogue from Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope:
Obi-Wan: This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or random as a blaster; an elegant weapon for a more civilised age.

11: A Bridge Too Far

Title: Title of the 1977 film A Bridge Too Far, about Operation Market Garden, a failed endeavour by the Allies during World War II. Punning on the alternative meaning of “bridge” here as the place from which a ship is commanded.

Obi-Wan: It’s a field of plasma. It’ll slice metal like a hot knife through butter. Otherwise there’s no sense to this campaign—
— Ben seeks consistency, perhaps wielding it as a weapon to get his way following the success of his fast talk in strip 9. But the GM—in adversarial mode—is prepared for this, as we see in the last panel. This parodies the habits of some GMs who adversarially invent new complications whenever their players do something clever or that avoids some planned obstacle.

12: Tactical Retreat

Title: A military term for deliberately withdrawing from combat, as opposed to being forced into it by the enemy. Such a calculated withdrawal is in contrast to what Qui-Gon and Obi-Wan do, which is simply to flee for their lives.

GM: It’s a cutting-edge war machine and you expect it to have no defences against a laser sword you bought in a bar? Of course it’s not going to work. Otherwise there’s no sense to this campaign.
— The GM turns Ben’s phrase against him, with campaign consistency now working against the players. A salutory lesson, perhaps. This is also the first indication that laser swords in this setting are cheap and weak weapons that anyone can buy in a bar, very different from the elite, powerful, and rare nature of lightsabers in Star Wars. This characterisation of laser swords becomes an ongoing theme.

GM: <scribble scribble> Interesting.
{beat}
Both: Run away!!!
— An ominous non-commital phrase from the GM rightly puts fear into the players and they wisely flee.

13: It All Comes Out in the Wash

Title: An idiom (more commonly “it will all come out in the wash”) that can mean either that a problem will be resolved in the future, or some hidden truth will become known. Possibly originating (with the first meaning) in Don Quixote, by Miguel de Cervantes. This title is playing on Jim’s misapprehension about the ventilation ducts being laundry chutes.

14: A Cunning Plan

Title: Reference to the Blackadder TV series, in which characters (usually Baldrick) would claim to have a cunning plan, only for it to usually be revealed as unworkable and often asinine.

The joke in this strip plays on the fact that in science fiction, almost all of the planets that characters comes across are conveniently Earth-like enough for them to survive, in contrast to the fact that in reality most planets are inhospitable instant-death zones.

15: In Space, No One Can Hear You Shout

Title: Play on the tagline for Alien (“In Space, No One Can Hear You Scream”).

16: Terra Incognita

Title: Latin for “unknown land”, a phrase used in cartography to denote unexplored territory.

GM: You open the hatch, stepping on to Naboo’s soil.
Obi-Wan: We step on “tuna booze oil”?
Qui-Gon: It’s a beverage popular in isolated fishing communities.
— This time it’s Ben mishearing the words, but Jim continues his trend of making up meanings for things.

Qui-Gon: I befriend the fishermen in the local tavern and trawl for rumours.
— Jim obliviously carries on with his misinterpretation, and sneaks in a fishing pun at the same time. Befriending locals and attempting to learn rumours from them is a time-honoured means of gaining (more or less) useful setting and story information at the beginning of a roleplaying adventure.

GM: Do you want to explore an actual developed planet, or a hundred million square miles of blank graph paper?
— The diameter of Naboo is canonically 12,120 km (a little smaller than Earth’s 12,742), giving it a surface area of 461.5 million square kilometres, or 178.2 million square miles. So the GM’s statement is the correct order of magnitude, as one may use in casual conversation.

17: Sally Forth

Title: Phrase meaning to go confidently into a dangerous situation. Originally it specifically applied to besieged troops attacking the sieging army. It can be referring to Qui-Gon’s actions in this strip, but more obviously refers to the fact that Sally (the player) has been introduced to the game (brought forth).

18: A Rose By Any Other Name

Title: Excerpt from Romeo and Juliet (Act II, Scene 2): “That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet”. The acquired idiomatic meaning is that what we call things does not change what they are.

19: Dodge and Burn

Title: Reference to dodging and burning, techniques used in photography for selectively adjusting exposure in areas of a print.

20: Intelligent Design

Title: Term for the theological idea that the universe (or life) is too complicated to have developed by chance, and so must be the result of deliberate design by some deity.

GM: I’ve run Call of Cthulhu with less ghastly sounding monsters.
— Call of Cthulhu is a roleplaying game of cosmic horror based on H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos of horrible, unspeakable, sanity-draining, monstrous entities.

21: I Didn’t Vote For Her

Title: Adjusted line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail in which a peasant talking to King Arthur states, “Well, I didn’t vote for you.”

In this strip we see Sally first engage in the impromptu world-building that she will become known for.

22: It’s Better Down Where it’s Wetter

Title: Lyric from “Under the Sea” by Samuel E. Wright, a musical number from Disney’s The Little Mermaid (1989).

23: Why Did the Gungan...

Title: Reference to a standard joke form “Why did the <X> do <Y>? <Humorous answer>”, of which perhaps the most famous version is “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.” The ellipsis indicates the joke is incomplete; the punchline is given in the title to strip #29.

24: Gungans & Qui-Gons

Title: A pun on the role-playing game system Dungeons & Dragons.

25: Cunning Tarpals Syndrome

Title: A reversal/pun on the medical condition “carpal tunnel syndrome”.

26: This is Serious

Title: A simple reference to the generic phrase.

27: Orbilicious

Title: A portmanteau of “orb” and “delicious”; colloquially, using “-licious” as a suffix indicates that something is either delicious, or extremely characteristic of the word appended to. “Orblicious” would thus suggest either a delicious orb (perhaps the Maltesers mentioned) or something extremely orb-like (in this case, the Lost Orb of Phanastacoria).

GM: Sally, pass the Maltesers, please.
— Maltesers are a confectionery item consisting of malted milk spheres with a millk chocolate coating. Originating in the UK (although created by an American), they have been a popular confectionery item in Australia since 1954. The most similar American candy is probably Whoppers.

28: Finders of the Lost Plot

Title: Play on the movie Raiders of the Lost Ark, which also concerns the search for a long-lost artifact.

Qui-Gon: It’s.. um... it’s... an orb...
— For once, Jim flounders when coming up with an explanation for a term.

Jar Jar: And it protects us from da giant fishes!
[...]
GM: Hmmm. <scribble>
— Foreshadowing! Sally’s worldbuilding inspires the GM as it will so often do.

29: ... To Get to the Other Side

Title: Finally completing the joke format set up in the title of strip #23.

30: Unarmed and Delicious

Title: Pun on the term “armed and dangerous”, a police shorthand to describe a criminal (or suspect) who is believed to have a weapon and be inclined to use it.

Obi-Wan: ... “Padawan”?
Qui-Gon: A woven rug.
— Another incorrect explanation of a name by Jim. In this case, there is no obvious rug-related thing that he could have misheard “Padawan” as. It remains a mystery.

31: Through the Bowels of the Planet

Title: The idiom “the bowels of something” refers to the deepest, most inaccessible places of that something. Here it ostensibly refers to the trip through the core of the planet, but also more literally to what will happen to the bongo if the fish does swallow it.

32: That Sinking Feeling

Title: An idiom meaning a feeling that something bad is going to happen. Also referring to the bongo literally sinking.

33: An Even Bigger Fish

Title: Straightforward reference to Qui-Gon’s quote in the movie: “There’s always a bigger fish.”

Qui-Gon: Summon Bigger Fish!
— The origin of a meme, from which arose a song.

34: Road Trip

Title: A term for any long journey by road (although in this case, it’s by water).

Jar Jar: Are wesa there yet?
— Sally repeatedly asks the inevitable question for any road trip.

Qui-Gon: The Lost Orb of Phantastacoria could be in there!
— Jim gets the name of the Lost Orb wrong for the first time, but in the smallest possible way. This will snowball into ever more diverse and ridiculous wrong names, culminating in the final strip of this movie.

35: A River Runs Through It

Title: Title of a semi-autobiographical novel by Norman Maclean, published in 1976 and adapted into a 1992 movie.

As stated in the strip commentary, the waterfall scene is a deleted scene from Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace.

36: On the Edge

Title: Referring both to the physical position of Sally and the bongo, and also idiomatically to Sally’s emotional state.

Sally slips back and forth between Jar Jar speech and normal English here. The basic rule is that when she slips out of character she speaks normal English. The plot of the strip is important for Sally’s character development. She mixes reality and the roleplaying world to the extent that she confuses herself with the character of Jar Jar. The GM is sympathetic and wants her to have fun, so helps her out a bit. This is important set up for future events (such as strip #38).

37: On Multiple Levels

Title: Part of an English idiom: “That’s wrong, on multiple levels,” used to refer to some idea or concept that causes people to recoil in horror because it is so contrary to expectation or logic, often literally in multiple ways. It refers to Qui-Gon’s expression that summoning a bigger fish would “just be wrong”. Rather than Obi-Wan’s mild “I concur”, it would also be possible to insert “on multiple levels” as a more sarcastic response. The idea is to lead the reader to mentally using this response at that point in the strip. The title also refers in a more literal sense to the characters and the Queen being on separate levels of the palace building. So, the title has multiple levels of meaning...

38: No Dice

Title: A double meaning, referring to both Sally’s desire to play without dice, and as an idiom meaning that something cannot be done or did not work (in this case, the attempt to jump).

39: Scapegoatee

Title: A portmanteau of “scapegoat” and “goatee”, both applying to Sio Bibble as Jim has a very simplistic view of what it means if an NPC has a goatee.

40: Diplomatic Impunity

Title: Pun on the term “diplomatic immunity”.

In this strip we learn what the Jedi were actually supposed to be doing on the Trade Federation ship at the beginning of the adventure. Qui-Gon’s line about the negotiations never taking place is an almost direct quote from the film, after Bibble asks them what happened with their negotiations.

41: Situation Modifier

Title: In roleplaying games, a situational modifier is a bonus or penalty that affects the difficulty of a task based on specific circumstances applying. In this case, Qui-Gon gets a situational penalty for his impertinent behaviour. The title also refers to the outcome here, with Qui-Gon’s success modifying the situation that they are dealing with and bypassing the GM’s anticipated plan.

Qui-Gon: Have you seen the Lost Orb of Phantasmagoria anywhere?
— Jim’s mangling of the word “Phanastacoria” slowly starts getting more noticeable.

42: For Great Justice

Title: A reference to the “All your base are belong to us” meme from the opening cut scene of the video game Zero Wing. The final (poorly translated) line is “For great justice”, following an exhortation to launch all the space fighters from the ship.

43: My Diplomacies, Let Me Show You Them

Title: Alteration of another meme, “My pokemans, let me show you them”.

44: Fight and Flight

Title: Subversion of the phrase “fight or flight”, the common reaction choices to a dangerous situation. The PCs choose both.

45: Vessel Vassal

Title: Consonance between the words vessel (a means of transport, in this case the spaceship) and vassal (a feudal system serf or slave). Refers to Ric Olié’s role in this comic as what Qui-Gon interprets as his servant pilot.

46: Wherefore Artoo

Title: Pun on “wherefore art thou”, a quote from Romeo And Juliet (Act II, Scene 2): “O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?”.

Jar Jar: Mesa calls you Artoo!
— This begins a consistent habit of Sally’s characters always referring to R2-D2 as “Artoo”, in contrast to everyone else, who refer to him as “R2”.

The introduction of Pete as a player rounds out the four main player archetypes as laid out in a 1983 (possibly earlier) online document known as The Munchkin Files:

• The Real Man — The tough, macho player who likes to solve every in-game problem with force: combat, intimidation, bravado, and/or unreasonable demands. Embodied by Jim.
• The Real Roleplayer — The clever, cunning player who engages NPCs in conversation to learn their weaknesses and uses details of the established setting to their advantage. Embodied by Ben.
• The Loonie — The fun-loving player who enjoys the strangeness of a setting and often tries the weirdest possible action in any situation just to see what happens. Embodied by Sally.
• The Munchkin — The power-gaming player who is playing “to win” and will use details of the game mechanics to squeeze out every possible advantage they can. Embodied by Pete.

It was not a conscious writing decision to assign each player one of these archetypes. Rather, we wanted to make their personalities distinctive, and they just naturally fell into the four different corners of our own gaming experiences. They are not pure examples of the archetypes, each having some elements of the others mixed into their personalities, especially as they develop over time.

47: I Don’t Know, Fly Casual

Title: Quote from Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, originally spoken by Han Solo.

Jar Jar: There’sa bigger ships that fights these ones...
— A callback to Sally and the successively bigger fish from strips #30 to #33.

48: Hung Out To Dry

Title: An idiom meaning to abandon someone to danger, slightly referring to the players’ situation but also riffing off the ongoing laundry theme.

49: Champing at the Bits

Title: Pun on the idiom “champing at the bit”, meaning extremely eager to do something, but here reinterpreted both as R2-D2 being a “champ” (champion) at dealing with (mechanical) bits (pieces), and Pete likewise being a champ dealing with “bits” (the binary numbers on his dice).

50: The 23% Solution

Title: Reference to the “seven percent solution” of cocaine used by Sherlock Holmes in The Sign of the Four and The Seven-Per-Cent Solution, a Sherlock Holmes story by Nicholas Meyer, probably the best known Sherlock Holmes story by a different author..

Obi-Wan: So it’s Mad Max World?
— Referring to the movie Mad Max and its sequels.

51: It’ll Be A Character Building Experience

Title: Playing on the two meanings of “character building”: To develop an individual’s moral character, and to develop a (player) character in a role-playing game.

Obi-Wan: Hutts?
Qui-Gon: Big scary cottages.
Qui-Gon: {sotto voce} With giant chicken feet.
— Qui-Gon is referring to Baba Yaga’s hut from Slavic folklore, usually said to have giant chicken feet that it can walk around on. Baba Yaga’s Hut was an artefact in the original edition of Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and appeared in a few published adventures, so is well known to roleplayers familiar with that game.

This strip was the subject of an interminable argument between members of the writing team, which is still not resolved to this day, some 17 years later. The lead writer, with by far the most experience in traditional tabletop roleplaying games, insisted that “XP” is the traditional, accepted abbreviation for “experience points” (in the plural), while most of the other writers insisted that it should be “XPs” to indicate the plural. For example: “2000 XP” versus “2000 XPs”. While the argument has never been settled, and indeed continues to be resurrected occasionally, the lead writer exercised final authority and decided to use “XP” in the comic.

52: Zen and the Art of Spaceship Maintenance

Title: Play on Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance by Robert M. Persig.

R2-D2: I took Short. And Mute. 8 extra skill points.
— Here we see the first signs of Pete’s approach to character construction, which generally involves taking (ideally inapplicable) character disadvantages in order to obtain high levels in (what he sees as) important abilities. This also indicates that the GM uses a system which allows such tradeoffs.

53: Shmecond Law of Shmobotics

Title: A reference to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, as used in various of his stories. These are:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

The Second Law has been implicitly combined with the Yiddish shm-reduplication to indicate derision and dismissal of it.

R2-D2: <sigh> Fine. Beedle beedle boop, beep whirr squeeeeee... pop.
— The first instance of Pete using “beep language”, in this case quickly inventing some beeping gibberish when the GM insists. At this point in the writing, we had no idea how important Pete’s beep language would later become to the plot.

[Inter-player note]: Obi-Wan to GM: The next time anyone cleans R2, we’ll install an obedience chip.
— Players and GMs passing notes to one another is a traditional tabletop roleplaying game method of secretly communicating information with only select members of the adventuring party. It’s also useful as a device in our story. Here we had the idea of showing the actual note that Ben passes to the GM. One of us hand-wrote it and scanned it for inclusion in the strip. We assumed we’d be using this same technique many times, but it never got used again.

54: Wanna See My Tatooine?

Title: Pun on “Wanna see my tattoo?”, an invitation sometimes extended by bearers of tattoos who are keen to show them off.

55: Rubbing It In

Title: Playing on the literal meaning, involving Padmé cleaning R2-D2, and the figurative meaning of making someone feel worse about something they are already embarrassed about—in this case, the GM being overshadowed by Sally’s creativity.

56: My Kind of Town

Title: Title of the song “My Kind of Town” by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn, notably sung by Frank Sinatra in Robin and the 7 Hoods. The song is about Chicago, which is significant because Chicago is famous for being the home of many notorious gangsters during the 1920s.

57: A Line in the Sand

Title: Idiom for a point beyond which no further advance will be tolerated. In this case, what seems to be an ongoing personality clash between Ben and Pete leads Ben as Obi-Wan to insist that the party be split so that Obi-Wan and R2-D2 are not together. Also, there is literally sand around, as Tatooine is a desert planet.

R2-D2: {aside} By the end of the day, I hope to be charged with Drunk and Disorderly.
— This line takes on new significance when we learn (much) later what Pete’s profession is.

58: Take this Handmaiden

Title: This one actually has no double meaning. We used this title very early on as a placeholder because we had most of this script written ages ago. Over time we kept referring to the strip by the name “Take this Handmaiden” when plotting around it, so we didn’t want to change it.

59: A Jedi’s Progress

Title: Play on the series of paintings known as A Rake’s Progress (sometimes The Rake’s Progress) by William Hogarth. The strip was originally titled “The Jedi’s Progress”, which caused some confusion when it came to writing up these notes, as another writer assumed that the reference was to The Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan, which was never the intention.

Qui-Gon: I cast Detect Evil on that guy with the backpack.
— The guy with the backpack was the subject of a running joke among the writers after a reader posted somewhere online (now unfortunately lost to the mists of time) identifying him as:

Dib Foundway is a spice farmer from Kessel, who spent his last credit to come to Tatooine seeking a new start. But then he gets caught up in Jabba the Hutt’s criminal machinations—the backpack contains a new variety of spice he grew himself—and eventually winds up murdered in Mos Eisley by the father of Hojon Intigua, the cantina owner in Episode IV. It’s in one of the comic books.

We thought this was so hilarious that we added it without any comment or explanation to the cast page for Episode I, and later made Dib Foundway’s story an integral part of the the backstory of the NPC Arvel Crynyd in Episode VI (in strips #1421, #1437, #1470, #1493, and #1494).

60: Convergent Interlocution

Title: Pun on the biology term “convergent evolution”, which is when different species independently develop similar characteristics. “Interlocution” just means a dialogue, but it is similar sounding to the word “interleaved”, which evokes the overlapping threads of conversation being carried on here, which then converge in the final line.

61: My, My, This Here Anakin Guy

Title: Lyric from The Saga Begins, the Star Wars parody song by “Weird Al” Yankovic.

Watto: {in background, to Anakin} Coona tee-tocky malia?
Anakin: Mel tassa cho-passa—
Watto: Chut-chut! Ganda doe wallya. Me dwana no bata.
— Watto and Anakin are speaking Huttese. These are actual lines from the movie; the translations are:
Watto: What took you so long?
Anakin: I was cleaning the bin like you—
Watto: Never mind! Watch the store. I’ve got some selling to do here.

62: Blaster Economy

Title: A fairly poor pun on “Barter Economy”.

63: Going on the Naughty List

Title: A reference to Santa Claus supposedly keeping lists of naughty children and nice children. Invoked twice in the strip: Firstly Qui-Gon’s attempt to cheat Watto places him firmly on the naughty list, and linking to the strip due to the discussion of Santa and Life Day. Secondly R2-D2’s line about treading the “path of evil”—the “naughty list” can be seen as a very euphemistic label for the “path of evil”.

Jar Jar: Do theysa has Christmas here?
Qui-Gon: It’s called Life Day.
— A reference to The Star Wars Holiday Special, aired in November 1978, in which the Wookiees celebrate a Christmas-like holiday named Life Day. This special is generally poorly regarded, so much so that it has not been officially shown since.

64: A Calculated Withdrawal

Title: Declining to battle is often called a “strategic withdrawal”, and “calculated” is a synonym for “strategic”. Also playing on the meanings of “withdrawal” in terms of acquiring money, and in terms of leaving a place, along with copious calculations from Pete.

65: For Crying Out Loud

Title: A phrase used to express exasperation—as shown in the GM’s dialogue—and also referring literally to Jim’s attempted actions.

Qui-Gon: HEY, OBI-WAN—
— A callback to strip 15 and Jim’s belief that long-distance communication can be accomplished by shouting, regardless of the distance.

66: Salival Instinct

Title: Pun on the term “survival instinct” and referencing Sally deciding Jar Jar needs to eat.

Sebulba: {angrily} Chuba!!
— Huttese again: You!!

Jar Jar: It’sa okay! Five second rule!
— The five-second rule refers to a folk belief that food is still safe to eat if picked up off the ground in less than five seconds after falling.

67: Cugine Cuisine

Title: “Cugine” is Italian for “cousin”, and has acquired a slang meaning to refer to an Italian American. This ties in to Qui-Gon’s later conclusion that Anakin is part of the “mob”, a colloquial term for the Mafia, an organized crime group particularly associated with Italian origins.

Anakin: Chess ko, Sebulba... Coo wolpa tooney rana.
Sebulba: Tooney rana nu pratta dunko, shag.
Anakin: Oh da Hutt... cha porko ootman geesa... me teesa rodda co pana pee choppa chawa.
— The GM is really going to town here with using an invented language (that sounds a bit like gibberish) between various NPCs. Translations from the Huttese:
Anakin: Careful, Sebulba... This one’s very connected.
Sebulba: Connected?? Whada you mean, slave?
Anakin: As in Hutt... big time outlander, this one... I’d hate to see you diced before we race again.

68: Random Encounters of the Absurd Kind

Title: Pun on Close Encounters of the Third Kind. “Random encounters” is a standard roleplaying term to refer to fights or interactions with monsters or other creatures that are determined randomly, rather than planned ahead as part of the game plot.

GM: You can’t fight a sandstorm. The sand just gets in everywhere, inside clothes, armour, destroying electronics—
— A passing reference to one of Anakin’s quotes from Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones: “I don’t like sand. It’s coarse and rough and irritating and it gets everywhere.”

69: In Which Qui-Gon, Jar Jar, R2-D2, and Padmé Seek Shelter From a Sandstorm

Title: This title emulates the style of Victorian-era novels, wherein the chapter title briefly describes what will happen in it.

70: Dramatis Personae

Title: In theatre, the dramatis personae (Latin for “persons of the drama”) is a list of the main characters in a dramatic work, usually accompanied by either short descriptions of their role or naming the actors portraying them. And as we will see, Annie is nothing if not a person of drama. The title also alludes strongly to the word “dramatic”, which (hopefully) describes the surprise and drama of our choice to make Shmi a PC, rather than an NPC.

Here we introduce our fifth player, Annie. She embodies what in some circles has become known as the fifth roleplaying player archetype (after The Real Man, The Real Roleplayer, The Loonie, and The Munchkin; see notes for strip #46 above):

• The Thespian — The melodramatic player who writes novel-length character backgrounds and goes all-in on performing their character in a dramatic way for the sake of a cool story. Sometimes known as The Drama Queen.

Again, this was not particularly a conscious decision by the writers. We merely wanted another different personality and this seemed like a sensible direction to take. In this strip we also see immediately the beginning of a somewhat flirtatious relationship by Jim towards Annie, which will of course develop over time.

71: A Sudden Moment of Clarity

Title: No particular reference other than to the common phrase “moment of clarity”, referring to a sudden realisation or insight. Used ironically here as the sudden insight Annie has into the nature of the game, based on Jim’s behaviour, is completely incorrect.

72: Tell Us What You Really Think

Title: A phrase often deployed sarcastically when someone expresses an opinion more forcefully than usual. In this case, R2-D2, finally able to communicate at last.

This is the strip where we decided that R2’s beeps would actually be decodable into a sort of language. One of the writers had the idea to compile a lexicon and update it with assignments of different beep sounds to different meanings. Ultimately it grew quite large and complex. One initial constraint was back-forming reasonable translations for the beeps already included in strips 53, 60, and 69, which had been written before any idea to turn the beeps into an actual language.

C-3PO: I mean, here I am, brain the size of a planet, wandering around some one-horse backwater of a town with this party who wouldn’t recognise a coherent plot if it painted itself purple and tapdanced on top of a harpsichord singing “Coherent Plots Are Here Again”...
— The first part of this is quoting Marvin, the paranoid android from The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams).
Marvin: Here I am, brain the size of a planet, and they ask me to [do some menial task].
— The latter part is a modified quote from Blackadder’s Christmas Carol:
Lord Edmund Blackadder: Baldrick, you wouldn’t see a subtle plan if it painted itself purple and danced naked on top of a harpsichord, singing “Subtle plans are here again!”

C-3PO: [...] What kind of Bizarro World [...]
— A reference to Bizarro World from DC Comics.

C-3PO: [...] Where are the space dreadnoughts bristling with atomic missiles? Bring on the space dreadnoughts bristling with atomic missiles!
— These lines were deliberately chosen to not be something normally associated with Star Wars in our own universe. We initially had “exciting space dogfights” in there, but then realised that Star Wars essentially invented (or at least popularised) exciting space dogfights, so in a world without Star Wars it’s likely that nobody would even think of such a thing.

73: Postcards from the Outer Rim Territories

Title: Pun on Postcards from the Edge, a semi-autobiographical book by Carrie Fisher (who of course plays Princess Leia from Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope). The Outer Rim Territories is the canonical Star Wars region of the Galaxy where Tatooine is located.

74: Jedi Are Like Onions

Title: Adjusted quote from Shrek (“Ogres are like onions”), with the analogy being that they have layers. The implication is that Jedi have layers of complexity to their personalities—something which Shmi concludes in this strip (albeit incorrectly).

75: Perfectly Obvious in Hindsight

Title: This is a catchphrase that the Comic Irregulars like to use in our conversations, adding “perfectly” to the more common phrase “obvious in hindsight”. It’s used here ironically as the “obvious” conclusion from Jim’s roleplaying is utterly incorrect.

Padmé: No, seriously. Could I see some identification or something?
— This is an echo of the scene in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope when Obi-Wan uses the Force to suggest to the stormtroopers in Mos Eisley: “You don’t need to see his identification.”

76: The Force is Dangerous at Both Ends and Uncomfortable in the Middle

Title: Pun on a quote usually attributed to Ian Fleming: “A horse is dangerous at both ends and uncomfortable in the middle.”

Another example of the GM going along with strange world-building details that the players come up with, in this case Jim.

77: All that Glisters is not Blasters

Title: Play on a quote from The Merchant of Venice, Act II Scene 7: “All that glisters is not gold”.

78: The Wagers of Jinn

Title: Pun on the phrase “The wages of sin”, from the Bible, Romans 6:23: “For the wages of sin is death [...]”

Shmi: Gambling has been the ruin of this town. We live in fear of the gangsters who control the rackets. And Watto beats us whenever he loses a race.
— Annie is making up all of these details on the spot. She’s treating the game like an improv acting exercise, not realising that the GM is usually the one who makes up these sorts of details.

79: Shostakovich’s Symphony No. 5 in D minor, First Movement

Title: A direct reference to Symphony No. 5 by Dmitri Shostakovich. This has virtually nothing to do with the strip. The writers were struggling to come up with a humorous title for this strip and in desperation someone suggested this. Everyone laughed, so it was duly recorded in our writing notes on our private wiki site.

At some point, someone else edited the wiki to suggest changing the title to “The Rite of Spring, Second Movement, Les Augures printaniers”. This is the famous movement of Igor Stravinsky’s The Rite of Spring which includes the distinctive and memorable shifting accent theme that gives the work its primeval driving rhythm.

But then at another later time, before publication, another writer changed the title back, leaving the following note in the wiki to explain:

Changed title back to original suggestion of a Shostakovich symphony, since the second movement of Rite of Spring is actually about nubile young girls. Whereas the first movement of Shostakovich #5 is described in Wikipedia as:

The first movement begins with slow alternating sections of restlessness and serenity. [..] The development starts out with a battle between the high strings and the low strings, and is rather light until about the piano introduces an ostinato (the only time the piano is featured in this movement) based on the opening theme. It is indicative of something disturbing peace that cannot be stopped played by one brass instrument after another. [..] A farcical march based on the first two themes the lead way to the crashing climax based on the first theme and a crashing rendition of the second part of the first theme. What follows is again a peaceful rendition of the ostinato and an open ending leaving the audience in uncertainty.

While not explicitly stated in that note, the use of the word “farcical” and the conclusion that the audience is left in uncertainty was considered a better fit to the strip than music about nubile young girls.

Qui-Gon: A giant seed case used for breeding clones.
— This is a deliberate forward reference to Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones.

R2-D2: Oh yeah. I got a need for speed.
— Reference to Top Gun:
Maverick: I feel the need...
Maverick and Goose: ... the need for speed!

80: An Offer You Can’t Refuse

Title: Reference to a line by Don Corleone from The Godfather (”I’m gonna make him an offer he can’t refuse”)

81: Pedantic Droid Articulator

Title: A humorous suggestion for what “PDA” might stand for in the context of this strip. The fact that Pete uses a personal digital assistant dates the strip somewhat, as they were popular up to about 2007, but saw a rapid decline with the spread of smartphones. One may presume that Pete replaces his PDA with a smartphone with similar tone-generating capability some time after this strip.

This strip is also the first inkling that Pete may be assigning specific meanings to specific types of beeps and noises made by his PDA. As far as we know (via forums and other online comments), no readers worked out that this was becoming a full-fledged conlang until much later.

Watto: Mmm, nice ship. I hope you didn’t kill anyone I know to get it.
— This sentence is taken directly from the movie, but reads with a far more literal sense in the context of the comic.

82: The Worst-Laid Plans

Title: Inversion of the phrase “the best-laid plans”, adapted from a line in the poem To a Mouse by Robert Burns (“The best laid schemes o’ Mice an’ Men Gang aft agley”). The line was co-opted later by John Steinbeck for his famous novel Of Mice and Men, a tragic novel illustrating how well-intentioned plans can go terribly wrong.

The April Fool’s Day prank we pulled with this strip is explained in the strip annotation. Some things to notice: Plastic dinosaurs used to represent the banthas in panel 1 and the spoon as a model for the ship. The deliberate use of a car behind “Obi-Wan” to mimic the spaceship corridor. Our “Qui-Gon” is wearing black leather boots like the real one.

83: Pete’s in a Pod

Title: Pun on the simile “[like two] peas in a pod”.

84: Greased Lightning

Title: De-apostrophised version of the song title “Greased Lightnin’” from the musical Grease, in which the characters sing about the modifications needed to turn a car in terrible shape into an excellent racing vehicle.

85: Suspense is Worse than Disappointment

Title: Quote from Robert Burns, written in a letter to his friend Thomas Sloan in 1791.

Anakin: I scavenged the supercharger and air-intake scoops from a T-16 skyhopper.
— The T-16 Skyhopper is what Luke refers to in the Rebel briefing scene in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope when he says “I used to bull’s-eye womp rats in my T-16 back home.”

[SFX]: < bedoop tish >
— This sound effect (produced by Pete) is his version of a drum sting, to mark the punchline of a joke. This is (unusually) not a translation of the accompanying line by R2-D2 (“Not just a vanilla pod, then?”). Rather, we used this strip to establish that “bedoop” means “droid” and “tish” means “funny”.

86: Nights of the Old Republic

Title: Pun on the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic.

87: Thicker Than Water

Title: Part of the proverb “blood is thicker than water”, meaning that family ties are closer than those with strangers. Appropriate with all the discussion of blood in this strip, and by establishing a blood relation with Anakin, Qui-Gon has tied them closer together. The title could also be read as a minor insult to Jim, insinuating that he is thicker (more stupid) than water.

Qui-Gon: Don’t worry. I’m O negative.
GM: You put your blood type on your character sheet? Let me see that.
— Jim has recorded Qui-Gon’s blood type on his character sheet, as O negative. (The reason he has done this is because he’s played games with Pete before, and Pete has always advised him to make sure to specify blood type, so they can prove to any GM that they do indeed have the type they claim.) Unfortunately, Pete’s recommendation to take AB positive blood (since that makes the character able to receive a medical transfusion from anyone) has been forgotten by Jim, who has the donor/recipient thing mixed up.

88: Snap, Crackle, and Pop

Title: Slogan for the breakfast cereal Rice Bubbles (otherwise known as Rice Krispies), based on the sounds they make when milk is added. Referencing the breakfast that Anakin is exhorted to eat, and the probable sounds made by the shock prod. In hindsight, it may have been better to use the punning title “Nap, Crackle, and Pop”.

R2-D2: Since I can’t drive it, I’ve enhanced it so even one of you meatbags could win with it.
— “Meatbag” is what the hunter-killer droid HK-47 (from the video game Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic) calls organic beings.

This was an early experiment in strip layout, exploring ways in which the narrative flow could be made into something other than the standard left-to-right then top-to-bottom panel ordering. Note the use of panel border drop shadows on overlapping panels, but also on two panels that don’t overlap any others to act as a sort of highlight, indicating something unusual about them. We would go on to make regular use of this technique.

89: The Wrong Kind of Right

Title: No particular reference, just an interesting turn of phrase we came up with.

Watto: I can’t wait to hear it. That ship you gave me will pay for a very nice swimming pool. And a new mansion to go with it.
— We thought it was hilarious that on a desert planet the first thing that Watto thinks of to buy with a newfound fortune is a swimming pool. On a desert planet a pool is much more valuable and luxurious than a mansion.

90: Die Roll of the Fates

Title: Pun on “Duel of the Fates”, a John Williams composition used in a particularly climactic moment of Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace (and recurring in the other movies of the prequel trilogy).

91: Dice Another Day

Title: Pun on the James Bond film Die Another Day.

92: What Could Possibly Go Right?

Title: Inversion of the often overconfident declamation “What could possibly go wrong?” This is actually a bit of an in-joke with the comic creators. We often come up with insane ideas for stupid things to do, and the inevitable comment is a sarcastic “What could possibly go wrong?” Our contention here is that Qui-Gon’s plans are on a completely different level of insane, so that it’s inconceivable that any part of it could possibly go right. Well, we thought it was funny.

R2’s calculation implies that they need 7,853,625 credits to buy back the ship and the parts they need.

93: I Took the One Less Travelled By

Title: Line from the poem “The Road Not Taken”, by Robert Frost. The poem is about asserting individuality and freedom of choice, and looking back on the decisions not taken in one’s life. This is an ironic comment on what happens to the GM in this strip.

This is the first time we’ve changed the canonical name of a Star Wars character to something different. This guy’s name is Fode and Beed Annodue. We kept the last name, but changed the first names to Dan and Olaf, as an in-joke to match the announcer’s names on Irregular Podcast! #11.

94: Bad Line Call

Title: A tennis term for when a line judge makes the wrong decision. Or at least, one player (probably vehemently) believes so. Interpreted in a different way to refer to Annie’s choice of line for Anakin.

95: Just What I Choose it to Mean

Title: Partial quote of Humpty Dumpty in Through the Looking-Glass by Lewis Carroll. The longer version is: “When I use a word,” Humpty Dumpty said in rather a scornful tone, “it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”

96: Oneshadowing

Title: Pun on the narrative term “foreshadowing”, interpreting “fore” as the number “four” and lowering it for humorous effect. This ties in to probably only getting one chance to do things.

97: Ext. Mos Espa - Arena - Viewing Platform - Day

Title: This title comes verbatim from the Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace shooting script, describing the scene in question. This was inspired by the following fact:

This strip consists entirely of dialogue copied verbatim from the same scene in the movie. The different context of our story lends it a somewhat different (and hopefully funnier) meaning. Our writer’s notes in the annotation below the strip are verbatim from the same scene’s DVD audio commentary track, spoken by George Lucas (who recorded the commentary track with Rick McCallum, Ben Burtt, Rob Coleman, John Knoll, Dennis Muren, and Scott Squires).

98: It Sounds Even Better When You Explain It

Title: This is simply an imaginary extra line that Qui-Gon might say at the end of the strip, referring to the idea that he thought his plan was good, but when he hears R2-D2 explain it back to him, it sounds even better. (Contrasting with how stupid it really is.) So it’s essentially a second punchline.

At this stage of writing the comic, we were a little afraid that some readers might have thought that the players were having a bad time with all of the crazy stuff happening in the game. Our inspiration comic, DM of the Rings, was still fresh in people’s minds, with its group of players who suffered complainingly through a game being run by a railroading GM. We wanted to emphasise, in contrast, just how much our players were enjoying this game. This led to the idea of a strip where someone recaps how ridiculous the story is, and Pete exclaiming the punchline. We would revisit this formula a few times in future strips for further comedy effect.

99: Überstition

Title: Pun on the term “superstition” using the German prefix “Über”, which actually means “over”, “beyond”, or “super”—and which is known well enough in English that many people use it. The choice of “Über” might be because dice superstition is so widespread, or it might be referring to Pete’s excessive approach to this (as mentioned in the annotation).

100: Un-Forced Error

Title: A sports term (especially tennis) for a mistake made by a player that is not due to the skill or effort of an opponent. Also can be interpreted as Anakin undoing the error from the previous strip, with a passing reference to the Force thrown in.

101: Amaranthine

Title: “Amaranthine” means unfading, eternal, which may aptly describe the players’ feelings about the race at this point. (The term originates from Greek mythology, and the mythical amaranth plant growing on Mount Olympus that never dies.) It can also mean a shade of reddish purple, which might be appropriate to some of the desert hues (or perhaps even the mysterious bounty hunter). The title was originally inspired by the album Amarantine by Enya, although the spelling is different.

102: Sweet Sorrow

Title: Allusion to a line from Romeo and Juliet, Act II Scene 2: “Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.” This is a reference to Jim expressing his disappointment that Annie has not turned up for the next game session.

103: No Plan Survives Contact with a Jedi

Title: Play on the military aphorism “No plan survives contact with the enemy”. Variations of this have been attributed to various people, but appear to go back to Prussian field marshal Helmuth von Moltke the Elder. One translation of his original words is “No plan of operations extends with certainty beyond the first encounter with the enemy’s main strength.”

104: Automotivation

Title: Portmanteau of “automotive” and “motivation”. It can also be read as “auto-motivation”, meaning motivation that comes from within oneself—something like inspiration, or a good idea.

Shmi: Oh... well, yeah, but you guys are still more fun than “Godot”. This story’s really going somewhere.
— A reference to the play Waiting for Godot by Samuel Beckett, in which two characters wait for another named Godot who never arrives.

This strip gives us the first hints that Annie has a good working knowledge of cars and driving. Over the next two strips we see that her practical vehicle skills transfer into the game, allowing her to justify incredible feats of in-character driving, to the astonishment of the others. Annie’s experience with cars will become a significant feature of her out-of-game personality.

105: Burning Bridges

Title: The idiom “burn one’s bridges” means to commit to a course of action with no possibility of turning back. In this case the burning is literal, although the fire is put out.

106: Drag and Drop

Title: A term from computing, indicating the actions of using a mouse to “pick up” a graphical icon representing a file or other resource, then “drag” it to a location, and “drop” it there, in a way made intuitive by the affordances of the mouse and graphical user interface. This title also echoes the title of strip #19: “Dodge and Burn”—using computer graphics jargon in a literal sense within the strip.

107: Yub Nub, Eee Chop Yub Nub

Title: These words are the opening lyric from “Ewok Celebration” by John Williams, sometimes known by fans as “Yub Nub”. The song is sung as the Ewoks celebrate in the final scene of the original Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi. The English translation of the line is “Freedom, we got freedom”. This song was replaced in the Special Edition version of the film by a new Williams composition, “Victory Celebration”.

108: A New Hope

Title: This is the subtitle of the first Star Wars movie, retroactively added to it in 1981 to become Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.

In this strip we see Annie transfer from playing Anakin back to playing Shmi, depicted in the comic by a silent panel where the two characters embrace. This would be repeated later (in strip #118) when Annie switches back to playing Anakin.

109: Free, Shmi

Title: Playing on Shmi’s name while using Yiddish shm-reduplication (see also strip #53) to indicate Qui-Gon’s disdain for the idea of freeing Anakin.

110: Pray I Don’t Alter It Any Further

Title: One of the more memorable lines from Star Wars: Episode V — The Empire Strikes Back, in which Darth Vader says, “I am altering the deal. Pray I don’t alter it any further.”

Qui-Gon: We gambled for it. You lost the chance to throw the race. Ergo, the ship is ours.
— Jim’s use of the rather erudite word “Ergo” is a deliberate hint that he is not as dumb as he has appeared to be so far.

Watto: Would you like to take it to the Hutts? I'm sure they can settle this.
— Verbatim from the movie, although said by Qui-Gon there.

111: The Prodigal Master

Title: A reference to the Bible parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11–32). The basis of the idiom “return of the prodigal son” to refer to someone who returns home after being away due to exile or disgrace. “Prodigal” means wasteful or extravagant, which could apply to the returning Qui-Gon’s efforts to secure parts of the ship.

[SFX]: < whroop beep boop-ting bedoop, beedle boop beep whirr pop ding >
— Pete does not supply a translation of these beeps in R2-D2’s dialogue. This string of beeps translates to “The weapons can wait, I’m going to get another clean from the handmaiden.”

In this strip we see Jim’s habit of recalling past events in a completely different manner to what actually happened, usually to paint himself as the hero doing incredible things.

112: That Settles That Problem

Title: No specific reference to any other media, other than general use of the phrase. The title is used here in an ironic manner to refer to the future comic writing issue of having to come up with an original and amusing reinterpretation of the famous “Han shot first” scene in Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope, ostensibly by here killing off Greedo’s father in this strip before Greedo is even born. Even at this early stage of writing the comic, readers were furiously speculating on how we would handle that future scene, causing us concern that no matter how we decided to write it, many readers would potentially be disappointed that we didn’t do something different. By apparently killing Greedo’s father before Greedo is born, we hoped to set up expectations that whatever we did would be so impossible to predict that speculation would be useless. Whether we succeeded is another question.

This scene is a deleted scene from the Episode I DVD. The original intention of this scene, as explained by George Lucas in the DVD commentary track, was that this Rodian that Anakin fights be the same Greedo as seen in Episode IV.

Wald: I always knew that Greedo would come to a bad end.
— Wald’s line is taken verbatim from the deleted scene of the movie. There it was meant to be a foreshadowing prediction of the same Greedo’s later death at the hands of Han Solo. The comic annotation explains that the Greedo in this strip was later (after the movie came out) canonically retconned to be Greedo the Elder, the father of the Greedo later encountered in the Mos Eisley cantina in Episode IV. In Darths & Droids, however, as we eventually find out, the relationship is reversed—this is the younger Greedo (killed by Anakin) and it was the father who was later encountered in the cantina, still bitter about the murder of his son.

However, in 2010, two years after this strip was published, following the Star Wars: The Clone Wars episode “Sphere of Influence”, which also features Greedo, it was re-retconned that the Greedo in the deleted scene from Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace is indeed the very same Greedo of Episode IV. Fortunately that had no effect on our story.

113: Extra Baggage

Title: Referring literally to the bags that Anakin should pack, and figuratively to Anakin himself. The phrase has slight negative connotations as of something unwanted, reflecting Jim’s feelings.

114: The Making of a Man

Title: A phrase referring to those things that contribute to the transition from boyish behaviour to adulthood. Also playing on the meaning of “made man”, a Mafia term for a person who has been fully initiated into the Mafia, usually involving killing another person.

Shmi: You are lying!
Shmi: Make it not be true...
— Lines spoken by Maria (played by Natalie Wood) in West Side Story (1961) when Maria is reacting to the news from Chino that Tony (who she loves) has killed Bernardo (her brother). This is the beginning of Annie having a habit of using lines from musicals (either cinematic or theatrical).

115: What’s That on the Floor?

Title: No reference, except to the fact that all of the characters in this strip seem to be looking at the floor for some reason. If you gloss over the dialogue and simply imagine them all saying variations of “What’s that on the floor?” it comes across as rather funny in a silly way.

Annie has clearly comprehended Jim’s default playing style, slipping slightly in her otherwise good character acting when saying that Qui-Gon will keep Anakin safe.

116: It’s Nice to be Wanted

Title: Double meaning of “wanted” here, meaning both “desired” and “sought as a criminal” (or for a bounty, in this case).

Shmi: But it’s not us! It’s everything around us.
— Another quote by Maria in West Side Story (see #114 above).

117: It Has a Bibliography?

Title: Implying that Annie’s notes about playing Anakin are so copious as to need references. This is another “second punchline” title. It’s a line that you can imagine is spoken by the GM after the end of the strip, which adds further to his incredulity at the length of the character notes Annie has made for Anakin.

118: Best Actress in a Supporting Role

Title: One category of award for film and television performances, such as the Academy Awards. It’s also one of the several Oscars won by the film West Side Story, which is appropriate to Annie’s performance here.

Almost all the dialogue here prior to the GM’s comment is taken verbatim from the movie. The exceptions are:

Shmi: No Anakin. You are not safe on Tatooine. You can never return here. Promise me you won’t come back. Promise me.
— Inserted for story purposes.

Shmi: There’s a place for us, somewhere... a place for us.
Shmi: Peace and quiet and open air. Wait for us, somewhere.
— There are lyrics from “Somewhere” (Lyrics: Stephen Sondheim; music: Leonard Bernstein), from the musical West Side Story. This song occurs immediately after Maria’s line that was used for Shmi’s dialogue in strip #116 (see above).

119: Time to Go

Title: Reference to the Stephen Sondheim musical Into the Woods, whose title song includes the following lines, sung by Little Red Riding Hood:

Into the woods, it’s time to go
I hate to leave, I have to though
Into the woods—it’s time, and so
I must begin my journey

which matches sentiments that Anakin might plausibly have at this point (with the woods being metaphorical). And “Time to go” echoes the lines of the other Sondheim song Anakin is quoting, “Time to look, time to care.”

All of Anakin’s lines in this strip are also from “Somewhere” by Sondheim (see comments on previous strip #118). In this and the previous strip it is intended to be ambiguous whether Annie is actually singing the song lyrics or merely speaking them. Readers are free to interpret it whichever way they prefer.

This strip uses another deleted scene from the DVD. In the movie we never meet the character of Jira.

120: Fear and Loathing in Mos Espa

Title: Reference to Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, a 1971 novel by Hunter S. Thompson, adapted into a film in 1998.

Qui-Gon: I look everywhere.
GM: You don’t see anything suspicious.
Qui-Gon: Including the ceiling.
— In old school roleplaying games, like early Dungeons & Dragons adventures, there would often be dangerous traps or obstacles that could only be detected if the players explicitly stated that they were searching for suspicious details in the right areas. This led many players to be extremely cautious, always explicitly stating that they were doing things like carefully inspecting the ceiling as they walked down corridors.

This strip includes the first taste of non-rectangular panel borders that would become a feature in later strips whenever laser swords are used in combat. Here there is just a single non-orthographic border.

121: Hell’s Angel

Title: A reference to the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. “Hell” is a reference to Darth Maul’s demon-like visage, and here he rides what is essentially a space-motorcycle. The “Angel” part foreshadows that perhaps he is not as evil as he first appears.

The non-rectangular panel borders introduced in the previous strip explode into a careening arrangement of fractured panels here. We designed this effect to give the laser sword fight scenes a chaotic and dynamic visual look. These sort of strips were always very difficult and time-consuming to lay out, as the movie frames don’t lend themselves easily to non-rectangular cropping. So a lot of trial and error in the layout is involved.

122: Taken to the Edge

Title: A straightforward phrase that applies to Qui-Gon’s predicament in the fight against Darth Maul, as in he has been taken to the edge of defeat (but no further). Also a callback to strip #36 (“On the Edge”), where Sally has taken the GM’s lesson (figure out what else you can do) and applied it to Qui-Gon.

While writing up these notes, one of the writers wrote about the strip title:

Lyric from “Leap of Faith”, by Bullet for My Valentine. The song name references Qui-Gon’s leap to the ship, and the choice of lyric reflects how far he has been pushed during the fight.

While this sounds great, unfortunately it’s not true. The song “Leap of Faith” was released in 2018, ten years after this strip. Or we could claim it’s true and that we did it with Force Precognition.

123: Belated Introductions

Title: The belated introductions are both Anakin being introduced to Obi-Wan, and Annie being introduced to the readers.

That’s right, this is the first mention of Annie’s name, 53 strips after she was introduced as a player, back in strip #70. We wanted to not use her name while she was still playing Shmi, and we didn’t find a good place to introduce it until here. This is explained further in the strip’s annotation.

Qui-Gon: We’re never coming back to this planet again in this campaign.
— A tongue-in-cheek joke from the comic writers, as Tatooine will continue to be of ongoing relevance in both the movies and the strip. It appears in six of the main movies, and at least 17 times in other Star Wars media. It appears even more in Darths & Droids than in the canon.

124: Hot Air

Title: Referring literally to the heating situation, and figuratively as an idiom for meaningless talk. Thirdly, this title is a pun on Con Air, a movie about a group of criminals on board a plane, which echoes the group of reckless Jedi and Anakin the murderer on board the spaceship.

Anakin: I’m cold.
Padmé: {looking around} You’re from a warm planet. Too warm for my taste. Space is cold.
— These lines of dialogue are taken from the movie, with one minor change: in the movie it is “You’re from a warm planet, Annie”. Because of the potential confusion between Anakin’s nickname in the movie version, and Annie the player in Darths & Droids, the name was dropped.

We’ve seen strong hints before, but Ben clearly has a good understanding of physics.

125: A Priceless Gift

Title: A double meaning of “priceless”, which can imply either an object so valuable that it cannot be bought, or so worthless that it cannot be sold, either or both of which could conceivably apply to the Japor snippet.

Much of the dialogue here is also taken from the movie, with slight adjustments. In particular, there is added stress on Anakin when he says “I’m not sure what’s going to happen to me”. This shows that our Anakin is more self-centred than movie Anakin at this stage.

The Japor snippet will become a significant item in the ongoing plot, of greater importance than in the movies.

126: The City that Never Reaps

Title: Pun on “the city that never sleeps”, a nickname for New York City.

Ric Olié: Coruscant. The entire planet is one big city.
— More movie dialogue (“Coruscant...the capital of the Republic...the entire planet is one big city.”)

Ric Olié: Look, I’m just a pilot. I’m not the source of all the information here.
— The punchline might be a little subtle here. This is a reference to the fact that Ric Olié is considered to be a Captain Obvious character in the movie, and is in fact referred to by that name by many fans. Most of his lines are stating obvious informational things, such as “There’s the blockade!”, “That’s it... Tatooine”, “Enemy fighters straight ahead!”, and “We didn’t hit it!” Unlike in the movie, in a roleplaying game this actually serves a more useful purpose, as it provides the GM with an in-character way of providing information to the players rather than as third-person GM narrative.

We discussed the infeasibility of a planet-wide city at great length while planning this strip. We came up with a lot of material, but decided to restrict it to using what appeared in this strip. However those discussions did not go to waste, and were used as material for Irregular Webcomic!, as seen in strips #386, #393, #396, #417, #420, #428.

127: El Chupacabra

Title: The chupacabra is a cryptid from folklore in the Americas. Literally meaning “goat-sucker”, the chupacabra supposedly attacks livestock and drinks their blood. In the strip this is referring to how Chancellor Valorum describes the sand-flies, and punning on goat/goatee as mentioned by Qui-Gon.

Valorum: Buzz, buzz.
— A quote from Hamlet, Act II Scene 2, in which Hamlet is similarly dismissive of Polonius.

Chancellor Valorum would go on to play a much larger and more significant role in Darths & Droids than in the films. This was partly due to the fact that we had such a fun time writing his dialogue and displaying his eccentric personality. It seemed such a shame to restrict him to the couple of scenes where we actually see him in Star Wars: Episode I — The Phantom Menace. His Episode III reappearance was planned ahead at this stage, though not fully fleshed out, and his reappearances in Episode II and Episodes VII–VIII were not conceived yet.

128: Unrailistic

Title: A pun on “unrealistic” and “rails”.

Jar Jar: Oooey! Mesa stays away from da edge! Mesa doesn’t wants ta fall!
— Sally may still be a little wary of falls (see strip #36), but it sounds like she is handling the possibility better now.

The lack of safety railings near the edges of ridiculously high dropoffs is a consistent feature of the Star Wars universe. We understand that it’s an aesthetic choice that the production designers made, to make the world look futuristic and different, but in practical terms it makes little sense unless there’s some in-universe justification (such as the one the GM cobbled together here). Since it appears so often in conspicuous ways, we made the lack of railings a running joke in Darths & Droids.

129: 85-99: 1d6 Republic Senators

Title: The title has the form of a typical entry in a random encounter table in Dungeons & Dragons or similar games. In such tables, a random number from 1 to 100 is generated, and the result looked up in the table to find the encounter—in this case, a number of Republic Senators found by rolling a single 6-sided die (“1d6”). Often these entries are ordered by difficulty, so there is a small implication that entry 100 would be some kind of especially hard encounter (or “boss monster”) lurking in the Senate.

130: En Passant

Title: A chess move, allowing what might seem to be an unexpected capture of a pawn by another pawn, connecting to Chancellor Valorum’s comments about pawns in the strip.

131: Sour Relations, or “Tell Me More, Tell Me More"

Title: “Sour relations” here refers to the somewhat hostile relationship between the Gungans and the people of Naboo. “Sour” might also be suggesting that the humans don’t taste good without a sauce. “Tell me more, tell me more” is a lyric from “Summer Nights”, from the musical Grease, and reflects that Annie has asked to be told more about the events prior to her joining the campaign.

132: Dour Narrations, or “Like, Did He Have a Pod?"

Title: “Dour narrations” was chosen for its rhyme with the previous strip title (depending on one’s pronunciation of “dour”, admittedly), while reflecting the dismal outlook of the situation so far (as related to the Jedi Council). The alternative title continues with the lyrics from “Summer Nights” from Grease, “Like, did he have a car?” is one continuation line for the lyric in the previous strip. “Car” has been changed to “pod” to keep it appropriate to Anakin (and Star Wars generally).

This strip introduces the major characters of Mace Windu and Yoda. Mace Windu’s characterisation as almost completely clueless begins here, with him expressing that he’s never heard of the Lost Orb.

133: Nailing the Hit on the Head

Title: Reversal of the idiom “hitting the nail on the head”, meaning to get something exactly right. And taken literally, Qui-Gon is under the impression that a “hit” (an ordered assassination) is desirable on Valorum (the “head”).

Yoda: Master Qui-Gon, more to say have you?
— This line is verbatim from the movie.

Yoda: The Chancellor not himself... is. Decadent he has become.
— The GM is already struggling with the grammatical quirk that he has chosen to distinguish the character of Yoda.

134: The Royal Throne

Title: “Throne” is being used as a euphemism for “toilet” here.

Anakin: I need <whisper whisper whisper> before I go.
Queen Amidala: Oh! I see. It’s two doors down on the right.
— Roleplayers seldom, if ever, mention such bodily functions in games. Annie ignores this convention in her quest to play Anakin as realistically as possible. She is trying to highlight Anakin’s nervousness, and this is one way to show it. A second reading occurs at the player level. It may be that Annie herself needs to go, and wants to ask the GM where the bathroom is, but without obviously breaking character. The whispers could be interpreted as Annie saying to the GM, “I need to go myself, where’s the bathroom?” out of hearing of the other players.

135: Darkness Falling

Title: The darkness is both literal (the sunset) and figurative (difficult times are ahead).

The comic annotation explains the conceit being used here—that there is unheard description being supplied by the GM that fills in some of the visuals that we can see in the screencaps. This device is used in several future strips too.

136: The Devil is in the Details

Title: An idiom meaning that something which appears simple or easy actually contains significant complications once the finer details are considered. In this strip, the “details” are the embellishments that Annie adds to each image, and the “devil” is their negative nature, or perhaps more literally Anakin himself.

Anakin: A ship, carrying restless souls to their doom...
Anakin: A cup, containing the blood of pointless sacrifice...
Anakin: A speeder, racing blindly towards oblivion...
— Anakin appears to be undergoing something similar to a Rhine test for ESP using Zener cards, in which he has to identify images only visible to Mace Windu. Presumably the idea is that somehow the Force allows Anakin to know what Mace Windu is seeing. Anakin does correctly identify them, from what we see—the same series of objects as in the movie—but Annie adds ominous embellishment.

137: What Would You Know? You’re Just a Puppet

Title: An out-of-character reference to Yoda being portrayed by a literal puppet in the movies. Also Yoda is also a puppet of the GM in some sense.

Yoda: Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger.
— This is an excerpt from the movie. Yoda’s full line there is:
Yoda: Fear is the path to the dark side... fear leads to anger... anger leads to hate... hate leads to suffering.
— The strip parodies this by greatly extending the chain of consequents, as Annie and the GM verbally spar by (respectively) coming up with positive and negative outcomes for each previous step.

138: Some Have Knowledge Thrust Upon Them

Title: A play on a quote from Twelfth Night, or What You Will, Act II Scene 5, by William Shakespeare: “[...] some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.” In this case, it is Qui-Gon who has knowledge thrust upon him, not having been born with it or achieving it for himself.

R2-D2: Oh, you took player/character separation as a flaw, huh?
Obi-Wan: That’s not in the rules...
R2-D2: I meant in real life.
— The not-so-passive passive-aggressive sniping continues, as Pete and Ben have very different play styles.

139: The World Can All Be Mine

Title: Lyric from the song “I Have Confidence”, from the musical The Sound of Music. Indirectly references the vote of no confidence in the last panel. Also, the title reflects what appears to be a bad case of megalomania from Chancellor Valorum.

Queen Amidala: I will not let my people die while you discuss this in a committee!
— This is a slight alteration of a line from the movie:
Queen Amidala: I was not elected to watch my people suffer and die while you discuss this invasion in a committee.

Valorum: Cyborgs under my command! Kneel before Valorum!
— This is a reference to the line “Kneel before Zod!”, said by General Zod in Superman II. Both Chancellor Valorum and General Zod were played by Terence Stamp. Repurposing an actor’s quotes from a different movie is something that will be done more frequently as the strip develops. The references to cyborgs are also foreshadowing and setting up our future plans for Valorum in the comic, as by the time we wrote this strip we had decided that (ex-)Chancellor Valorum would return as a major character in Episode III.

This is the first use of flashback in the comic to show scenes that have occurred earlier in time. This allows us to show scenes from the movie that were skipped over, or could not be sensibly shown because they didn’t involve any PCs. Using sepia-toned images is a standard method for indicating flashback sequences, borrowed from other media. We didn’t realise quite how often we’d be using this effect as the comic story developed. And it caused some issues of consistency when we made our adaptation of Rogue One, which we had to handle creatively when we got there.

140: Home Delivery

Title: A term describing the act of ordering food (or other items) that is delivered to one’s home, playing on the suggestion that the Naboo delegation will become food for the Gungans. Another meaning is that the actions taken will have delivered Naboo (Queen Amidala’s home) from the Trade Federation.

Palpatine: As I was saying, Your Highness: Valorum is not to be taken lightly. You’re in danger now, I fear.
— This line was further deliberate foreshadowing of Valorum’s later role in the comic.

141: All In A Day’s Work

Title: An idiom indicating that an activity, usually something most people would find unusual or exciting, is regularly performed by someone (part of their daily work) to the extent that they do not find it unusual or exciting. Used humorously here to suggest that this is the sort of thing that Qui-Gon does all the time. (It will later become apparent that this kind of thing is, indeed, standard practice for Jim.)

142: The Source of the Force, Of Course, Of Course

Title: Pun on the theme song for Mister Ed, a 1960s sitcom about a talking horse. The theme song starts “A horse is a horse, of course, of course”. With respect to the strip, “the source of the Force” refers to midi-chlorians.

Qui-Gon: “Jedi” is just “Monk” in ROT13.
— ROT13 is a simple text encoding mechanism that shifts each letter of the English alphabet 13 places later (wrapping around to the beginning of the alphabet as necessary). Because there are 26 letters in the English alphabet, applying ROT13 twice returns the original message, meaning that the same process suffices to decode an encoded message. For these reasons it became popular as a means to obscure text, such as to avoid spoiling someone accidentally, while still being easy to determine the original message when wanted.

143: A Seismic Disturbance

Title: Colloquially meaning a very large disturbance (perhaps referencing the surprise that Jim is more intelligent than his actions in the game so far suggest), and also tying in to the discussion of geological matters in this strip.

Yoda: Bad this is. Created a vergence in the Force you have.
— In the original movie, Qui-Gon says this:
Qui-Gon: With your permission, my Master. I have encountered a vergence in the Force.
— It’s not clear what meaning “vergence” is intended to have in this quote. There are three meanings for the term—the geological one that Jim gives, a geometrical optics definition describing the curvature of wavefronts, and an ophthalmological one related to the movement of eyeballs. None of these seem applicable, so it is likely that the scriptwriter made this up as a variation on “convergence”.

Qui-Gon: The way I see it... a character sheet is like a box of chocolates...
R2-D2: Oh god, here we go again.
Qui-Gon: I mean, it’s... You never know what you’re gonna kill...
— This is playing on a quote from Forrest Gump:
Forrest Gump: My momma always said life was like a box of chocolates. You never know what you’re gonna get.

Qui-Gon: So why stress over it? The Tao’s principle is spontaneity.
— “The Tao’s principle is spontaneity” is (a translation of) a quote from the Chinese philosopher Laozi.

Qui-Gon: You know... um... We play dice with the universe.
— A reference to a quote from Albert Einstein about God and randomness, which over time has mutated to become “God does not play dice with the universe.” As Jim indicates, in this campaign the players and the GM do exactly that.

Qui-Gon: Chocolate dice!
— This line served to inspire several readers to actually make sets of polyhedral roleplaying dice out of chocolate. Some can be seen on the Fan Art page.

144: The Little Drama Boy

Title: Pun on the Christmas song “The Little Drummer Boy”. And Anakin is, of course, being very dramatic in this strip.

Anakin: Greedo started it! He punched first!
— A reference to the infamous “Greedo shot first” / “Han shot first” debate arising after the Cantina scene was modified in later releasess of Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope.

145: ... of Doom!

Title: This references another of the tropes that Pete mentions in the strip. The leading ellipsis also implies that it is a continuation of the previous strip title, leading to “The Little Drama Boy of Doom!” as the combined title, which is a decent description of Anakin.

146: Balancing Act

Title: An idiom relating to managing several possibly conflicting impetuses so as to avoid committing too hard to any of them (with probable undesirable outcomes if so). In this case, though, it is literally referring to bringing the Force into balance.

The discussion of how bringing balance to the Force would be a bad thing echoes the real world confusion over this issue among fans of the movies. Many fans initially thought the idea of the Chosen One “bringing balance to the Force” was backwards, as it seemed to be implying the promotion of the relatively outmatched Dark Side to be equal to the currently dominant Light Side. George Lucas later explained that what he meant was that the Dark Side was a perversion of the Force, while the the Light Side was the true Force, so that “balance” means the Dark Side is defeated and the Light Side is unthreatened by it.

In this strip we deliberately reverse Lucas’s explanation and explore the consequences of taking the confused fan interpretation to its logical conclusion.

147: I, Sensei: Great Disturbance

Title: Pun on a common misquotation from Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (“I sense a great disturbance in the Force”). The original quote by Obi-Wan is “I felt a great disturbance in the Force... as if millions of voices suddenly cried out and were silenced.” Later, Darth Vader says “I sense something... a presence I haven’t felt since...”. Over time, these two became merged to produce the version that the title is punning on.

Additionally, “sensei” is the Japanese word for teacher, appropriated by Western cultures to specifically refer to a teacher of martial arts. Here Qui-Gon is the sensei in question, with the Jedi arts being considered as a kind of martial arts. The form of the title also evokes the novel I, Claudius by Robert Graves.

148: Déjà Coup

Title: A pun on the term “déjà vu”, a feeling that one has seen something before. In this case it refers to how Qui-Gon comes up with a plan matching the GM’s original intentions for the campaign. The “coup” component is referring to Jar Jar being put in control.

149: Military Intelligence

Title: A phrase meaning both information of military significance and the branch of the military tasked with acquiring such information. Often used derisively to refer to the intellectual capacity of military people. Here, however, it is being used positively to refer to Jar Jar (and Sally) being capable military planners.

Obi-Wan: {aside to Jar Jar} Pete doesn’t know about the Sashimi Incident.
— A reference to a running joke in the Calvin and Hobbes comic strip, only ever referred to as “the Noodle Incident” with details left to the reader’s imagination. It is implied that Sally has a similarly embarrassing incident in her past.

[SFX]: < booop... >
— Readers who remember Pete’s explanation of some basic beeps in strip #81 will recognise that he is saying “Noo...” here. This is another intentional hint that Pete’s beep language is consistent and has rules.

150: Plumbing New Depths

Title: An idiom meaning to make things worse in some way than they have ever been before. In this strip, it is also literally referring to the new explanation for the “plumbing” (water flow) of Naboo, with the “depths” referring to the underground ocean.

This strip introduces another habit of Jim’s: using his expert-level knowledge of geology and geophysics to provide workable explanations for seemingly ridiculous geological features introduced by the GM (echoing all of the cool but physics-defying planetary geology shown in the Star Wars movies).

151: I Love the Smell of Plasma in the Morning

Title: Reference to a famous line from Apocalypse Now (“I love the smell of napalm in the morning”). This line is said shortly after a napalm strike on part of the Vietnamese jungle (and the Vietnamese forces there), somewhat similar to Pete’s plans for the ion cannons. The final shot of the spaceship over the jungle is also reminiscent of the fighters on their way to drop the napalm.

152: Miss Communication

Title: Pun on the term “miscommunication”. In this case, we have both “miss communication”—Ben and Jim talking about Annie (the miss in question) and miscommunication—Jim failing to understand Ben’s veiled references to Annie in the final panels.

Jim expresses his interest in Annie, although his failure to understand Ben means he won’t find out that she is single just yet.

Jar Jar: Mesa brungs da snacks! When da others getting here?
Obi-Wan: Any minute. Ah, there’s Pete now.
R2-D2: Hey guys. Oooh, jelly babies.
— This is a subtle reference to Sally previously stating that the Gungans eat humans (#25). It’s also revealing a personality trait of Sally’s, that she loves eating food.

153: The Will of a Mere Wisp

Title: A reference to will-o’-the-wisp, ghostly lights sometimes seen in marshes and believed to be caused by swamp gas. This is combined with the phrase “a mere wisp [of a girl]”, which refers to a thin young child. In this case the child is Sally, and so the overall title refers to her will, which is to say her intent in creating details of the setting.

Jar Jar: Wesa making explody soap bubbles for da big fight!
GM: What?
R2-D2: Using swamp gas, right? Totally workable.
Qui-Gon: Yeah, cool. The gas transfer equations support it.
GM: <sigh> Okay, fine.

The players, as ever, use science to justify outlandish things and the GM reluctantly acquiesces.

154: Du, Where’s My Kaa?

Title: A pun on the film Dude, Where’s My Car?, splitting up “kaadu” into its components to form the pun. The film concerns two guys looking for their lost car, linking to Boss Nass asking about the bongo that he lent the Jedi back in strip #29.

Obi-Wan: What’s a kaadu?
Qui-Gon: A small Russian motorbike modified with skids for snow travel.
— Jim is as eager as ever to confidently assert meanings for new words. It seems probable that he was thinking of a Ski-Doo, possibly then confusing the word further with Škoda (although Škoda Auto is a Czech company, not Russian).

Qui-Gon: What’s a bongo?
Obi-Wan: It’s a kind of fishing lure.
— It’s been five play sessions since they borrowed (and subsequently let be destroyed) the bongo, and Jim has forgotten what it was. This sets up an amusing reversal, wherein Jim is the one asking what something is and Ben supplies the ridiculous definition. However, Ben fully recalls what it is, and is alluding to the succession of fish that chased after the bongo in strips #30 through #33.

155: Queen’s Gambit

Title: A common chess opening. Here the queen attempts her own gambit, and is soundly rejected (or declined), leading to the even riskier gambit of asking Jar Jar for help.

Qui-Gon: We sold her to get weapons, didn’t we?
— Jim is misremembering the events of strip #91, wherein he wagered the Queen with Watto.

Qui-Gon: Oh, that’s right... it was her clothes we sold.
— This time he is misremembering the events of strip #65, in which he planned to sell those clothes but abandoned that idea when told they weren’t worth enough.

Queen Amidala: Help Us, Jar Jar Binks. You’re Our only hope.
— A reworking of Princess Leia’s famous line from Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You’re my only hope”).

156: Soylent Auction

Title: A pun on the term “silent auction” combined with a reference to Soylent Green, a movie in which the titular substance is a foodstuff made from people. Thus the title references both the price bargaining and the proposed people-eating.

157: Regina ex Machina

Title: A play on the phrase deus ex machina (literally “god from the machine”), a literary term referring to the abrupt resolution of a seemingly unresolvable situation by an unexpected and unlikely event. This Latin term originates with ancient plays wherein a literal god would show up and fix things (or make them worse, perhaps); the actor playing the god would be lowered from a crane (the machine in question) to make it seem like they could fly as gods would. In this case “deus” has been changed to “regina”, the Latin for “queen”, to reflect the reveal of the real Queen Amidala.

158: Queen As Mustard

Title: A play on the phrase “as keen as mustard”, indicating eagerness. The revised form implies that the queen, like mustard, will be eaten.

Jar Jar: {aside} Mmmm... Royal jelly.
— Sally also links the concepts of queen and eating to come up with royal jelly, a special substance produced by bees for the nurturing of queen bee larvae.

159: MacGeyser

Title: A reference to the TV show MacGyver, in which the eponymous character would inventively repurpose materials in order to solve problems. “Geyser” has been used as the pun, referencing Jim’s leap to using geysers to fill the bubbles.

Obi-Wan: Astromech droids should be back in the ship, not out here in a swamp.
R2-D2: Do you see any paper in this universe? Someone has to project this stupid hologram for you!
— Lampshading some of the sillier aspects of this scene, and Star Wars as a whole: the inappropriateness of R2-D2 being in a swamp, and the use of energy projection technologies instead of paper.

160: They May Take Our Advice

Title: A reference to a line from Braveheart (“[...] they may take our lives, but they’ll never take our freedom”).

Qui-Gon: You mean that Goatee Guy! We’ll rough him up until he tells us where the Lost Emerald of Castafiore is.
— Jim struggles, as ever, with the name of the Lost Orb of Phanastacoria; in this instance he has combined it with the Tintin book The Castafiore Emerald.

161: ... But They’ll Never Take Our Giant Dinosaur Ponies!!

Title: This continues the Braveheart line from the previous strip, modified to be about the giant dinosaur ponies that Sally invented in strip #153.

162: Mean Queen, Fightin’ Machine

Title: Pun on the phrase “Lean, mean, fighting machine”, used to describe a very good fighter. The origins of this phrase are unclear but probably military; it was notably said by John Candy’s character in the military comedy movie Stripes.

Qui-Gon: Right. If we're all ready, I'll walk up and Bluff the droids.
— A callback to strip #43, where Qui-Gon tried exactly that.

As stated in the commentary, this strip is parodying a tendency of roleplaying gamers to come up with overly intricate plans to deal with situations where a simple approach would work. The punchline refers to a feature of games like Dungeons & Dragons, which feature “character classes” that serve as roles or archetypes that define a character’s abilities; e.g. a Fighter who is proficient with weapons, or a Wizard who can cast magic spells. Up to this point the players have been tacitly assuming that Queen Amidala is simply a ruler-type (“Monarch”) with no other abilities. But here she starts sneaking around and using weapons, which would normally be the skills of some other class (such as a “Rogue”). Characters with skills from more than one class are referred to as dual-classed or multi-classed.

163: Hangar Bout

Title: The straight meaning refers to the fight (bout) in the hangar, but this is also a pun on the phrase “hang about”, which has two meanings: (1) To spend time in a location without actually doing anything; this aptly describes the situation of the pilots. (2) A synonym for “wait”, as a request for a pause in the conversation as you introduce a new line of thought, as occurs with Obi-Wan’s line asking about the pilots.

164: Beaten By A Sprue

Title: Sprues are the bits of plastic connecting the actual components of a plastic model kit to the surrounding frame, formed as the plastic is injected into the associated mould. Usually the components are removed from this frame and used individually, but the GM is cleverly using the entire frame to represent the droid army formations. The title is also a pun on the phrase “eaten by a grue”, which was a possible way to die in Infocom’s classic Zork text adventure games.

The droid army are chanting a version of a military cadence, used by military forces to ensure soldiers keep time when marching in formation.

165: The Narm Before The Storm

Title: Pun on the phrase “the calm before the storm”, meaning a period of quiet before a great upheaval. “Narm” is a TV Tropes term for when the intended seriousnous of a moment is massively undercut by the absurdity of its execution, becoming unintentionally funny instead.

166: Bubble’s Stubble, Foil is Double; Qui-Gon Learns that Maul is Trouble

Title: A play on a quote from Macbeth (Act IV, Scene 1: “Double, double, toil and trouble; fire, burn; and cauldron, bubble.”). “Bubble’s stubble” refers to Sio Bibble’s goatee (recall that Jim consistently misremembers his name as “Bubble”). “Foil is Double” describes Darth Maul’s laser sword (foil being a type of sword) with its two blades. And Qui-Gon does indeed learn that Darth Maul is trouble in this strip, although it’s somewhat self-inflicted (and Darth Maul’s name is not yet known).

167: Split Second Decision

Title: Idiom indicating a decision made very quickly. Jim is perhaps taking the common roleplaying convention of “talking is a free action” a bit too far.

The panels down the left side of this strip are six successive frames from the movie. At the standard frame rate of 24 frames per second, this represents a quarter of a second of action in the fight scene. The GM’s “That was five minutes ago” refers to an amount of real time elapsed playing the game while this quarter second of in-game action occurs. This is a common occurrence in many games: playing out a fight that would last less than a minute often takes half an hour, an hour, or even more of real time. Much of that time is used by players talking and discussing tactics, which they wouldn’t have time to do during the actual fight being simulated.

168: Sparring Partners

Title: Sparring refers to practice combat, and by extension can also refer to verbal debate or argument. In this strip we have both the physical combat between the Jedi and Darth Maul, and the verbal sparring between Annie and Pete.

This is a visually complex strip, deliberately designed to get the readers to slow down and examine each panel to see what is going on and understand the flow of the comic. Most of it is the background fight scene between the Jedi and Darth Maul, which takes place without dialogue and with only sound effects and visuals. Over the top of the fight is laid an out-of-character conversation between Pete and Annie. The idea is that while Jim, Ben, and the GM are busy rolling dice for the fight, Pete and Annie have nothing much to do, so Pete quietly makes the bold step of asking Annie if she has a boyfriend, figuring he has nothing to lose.

169: A Little Brunt-work

Title: A pun on the term “grunt work”, meaning work that is physically intensive, and usually repetitive and boring.

170: Maul, Interrupted

Title: Play on the movie Girl, Interrupted. In this strip, Darth Maul keeps getting interrupted by Qui-Gon’s atacks while trying to talk. Apparently, talking is not a free action for him.

Qui-Gon: Yeah, I know, that was a great move! Annie, are you watching this?
— This is a callback to strip #147, where Jim’s idea of training is to have Annie watch Qui-Gon fighting and copy his “cool moves”.

Qui-Gon: Talk to the laser sword!
— Variation on the dismissive phrase “talk to the hand”, used to indicate that the speaker does not want to listen to what is being said. (A longer version, which may make the meaning clearer, is “talk to the hand, because the ears aren’t listening”.)

171: The Goggles, They Do Nothing

Title: A common misquotation of a line from The Simpsons (“My eyes! The goggles do nothing!”), used here to highlight the pointlessness of goggles in a spaceship. The flight helmets, and the goggles in particular, are reminiscent of those used in early planes which had open cockpits and so some kind of eye protection was a necessity. They serve no purpose in a vehicle with an enclosed cockpit, and are arguably a net negative due to restricting the pilot’s field of vision.

R2-D2: Let’s do a spin, that’s a cool move.
— A variation on a line from the movie (said by Anakin) in the same scene: “I’ll try spinning, that’s a good trick.”

Anakin: What’s that R2? Timmy’s trapped down a gravity well?
— A reference to the TV series Lassie, in which the eponymous dog would frequently try to attract the help of an adult for some situation that Timmy had gotten into. Such adults were surprisingly good about interpreting Lassie’s meaning, and this naturally was parodied many times, with the most common version referring to Timmy being trapped in a well. Amusingly, in the almost 600 episodes of Lassie, the only character to have fallen down a well was not Timmy, but Lassie herself. The phrase (or variations thereon) is used to (hopefully humorously) imply that someone is having difficulties communicating clearly. In addition to teasing Pete about R2-D2’s communication difficulties, Annie has inserted the word “gravity” for an appropriate space twist on the meme.

172: Maxwell’s Force Field

Title: A double reference to Maxwell’s Demon and “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer”. “Maxwell’s Silver Hammer” is a Beatles song. This strip is about the force field figuratively coming down upon their heads, an allusion to the song lyrics. Maxwell’s Demon is a thought experiment about entropy involving a hypothetical entity (the demon) that can choose whether or not to allow individual air molecules to pass through a hole in a barrier, based on their speed. Under some (impossible, but figuring that out is part of the point of the thought experiment) set of assumptions about how the demon might function, the result would violate the second law of thermodynamics. In the strip, the GM adds these forcefields in order to allow Darth Maul a chance to talk. However, the justifications he provides become increasingly unwieldy and ultimately the forcefields, like the demon, have become magic rather than science. Additionally, there is an allusion to Darth Maul looking something like a demon with his horns and red and black facial features.

173: Utter Lunacy

Title: A straightforward phrase describing the sheer madness of the Trade Federation’s plan, with a double meaning of “utter” (meaning both “complete” and “speak”) and a pun due to the word “lunacy” deriving from the Latin word for “moon”.

Black-Robed Figure: Do you chumps think the Lost Orb is just some fancy MacGuffin? Look, do you know what they’re planning to do with it?
— In fiction, a MacGuffin refers to something that is essential to drive the plot and/or motivate the characters, but the specifics are of little or no importance and it may not even appear in the work as a result. For example, items like the Holy Grail, or the Maltese Falcon from the novel and movie of the same name, which are wanted by various parties but their importance to the plot derives from them being sought, rather than from being acquired. A common scenario in roleplaying games is for the party to be sent on a mission to find and retrieve some item (sometimes called a “fetch quest”). Ultimately, the item itself is rarely of much ongoing relevance beyond proof that the players have achieved their objective; it is the encounters along the way that provide much of the entertainment of the game. The Lost Orb of Phanastacoria was shaping up to be just another MacGuffin, but now Darth Maul reveals that it actually has plot relevance for what it can do, not just what it is.

174: im in ur bubble, killin ur gunganz

Title: A reworking of the Starcraft meme “im in ur base, killing ur d00ds”. The meaning is essentially that the speaker has greatly outclassed the listener (in the game), striking major blows without them realising it. While the Gungans in the strip are aware of the problems, they are still in heavy trouble.

Combat Droid 3: When are we gonna get a stand-up fight and not just another bughunt?
— A reference to Aliens, in which Private Hudson asks, “Is this gonna be a stand-up fight, Sir, or another bug-hunt?”

175: Grinding to a Halt

Title: An idiom meaning to come to a gradual stop, as the spaceship does in this strip. “Grinding” is also a term from computer roleplaying games meaning to repetitively fight low-challenge enemies in order to gain experience points or the like; now that the characters are about to leave the ship and its convenient weapons behind, Pete’s grinding of droids is at an end, at least for now.

Combat Droid 2: Join the Trade Federation, they said. See the Galaxy, they said.
— A campaign-appropriate version of the old military gripe about inaccurate enlistment promises: “Join the army, they said. See the world, they said.”

176: Strictly Maul-room

Title: Pun on the movie Strictly Ballroom, alluding to the dance-like fighting choreography in this scene.

177: Let Qui-Gons be Bygones

Title: Pun on the idiom “let bygones be bygones”, meaning to forget about past bad events. Taken literally, it suggests letting Qui-Gon become part of the past.

Obi-Wan: [...] Use the Force, you idiot!
— This is the first time Obi-Wan’s famous line “Use the Force” has appeared in the strip, albeit with an acerbic addition as Ben is getting a bit upset with Jim’s behaviour.

R2-D2: Should have pre-rolled the ones out.
— A callback to strip #99 and Pete’s strange superstitions regarding dice rolls.

178: That’s No Moon

Title: A line from Star Wars: Episode IV — A New Hope (with more context: “That’s no moon! It’s a space station!”). From a slightly contorted viewpoint this can be seen as announcing the lack of a moon (as it has now been blown up).

Combat Droid 2: Now we can all go back to the drop-ship for a pint of oil.
— A robot-appropriate pun on a “pint of ale”.

Obi-Wan: I don’t think droids eat sashimi, Sally.
— A reference to the “sashimi incident”, as mentioned in passing in strip #149.

179: The Cliffhanger

Title: In fiction, especially in television, a cliffhanger is a dramatic moment which is not immediately resolved; this could be due to picking up at a different scene (particularly common in soap operas), or going to an ad break, or even the end of the episode. The idea is to keep the audience engaged and eager to see the resolution of the scene, prompting them to watch the next episode, or keep watching after the ad break. Here the fate of Obi-Wan, as well as Darth Maul’s upcoming revelations, serve as the cliffhanger. And, of course, Obi-Wan is literally hanging from a cliff, or at least a suitably close piece of architecture.

180: Minus Seven and the Ragged Tiger

Title: Play on the album Seven and the Ragged Tiger by Duran Duran. The “minus seven” referes to Qui-Gon’s hit points, and “ragged tiger” is a possible description of Qui-Gon, who is certainly somewhat ragged at this point. And of course, the biggest hit song off the album was “The Reflex”, which refers to the reflex action Qui-Gon is claiming will allow him to punch Maul in the foot.

This is the beginning of Darth Maul being incredibly verbose, which will be played up to an extreme in the next few strips. This was a deliberate characterisation to contrast to the movie, where he says only a handful of words.

181: The Anagnorisis Begins

Title: Anagnorisis is the moment in a story where a character has a key revelation about information previously unknown, often casting events or motivations into a new light. This could be via a flash of insight, discovery of a clue, or—as in this strip—being told by another character. The title also references The Saga Begins, the title of the very first strip of the comic. This is shaping up to be a lengthy flashback, based on Obi-Wan’s comment, so the implicit reference to a saga is apt.

This is the second use of flashback to present some of the story that the players were not previously aware of. The GM will come to use this several times as a device to fill in the players on other events. Again we use sepia toning of the panels, with the significant exception of the strange purple orb which is visible on the Trade Federation’s bridge. In the movie there is no indication that this is anything significant, but given in our story we know that the Trade Federation are in possession of the Lost Orb of Phanastacoria, we made use of the presence of a glowing globe in this scene to hint that this may in fact be the Lost Orb.

Captain: With all due respect for the Trade Federation, the Ambassadors for the Supreme Chancellor wish to board immediately.
Nute Gunray: Yes, yes, of course. As you know, our brockade is perfectry regal, and we’d be happy to leceive the Ambassadors.
— These lines are taken directly from the movie, adjusted to play up Nute Gunray’s accent.

Nute Gunray: What? What you say?
TC-14: The ambassadors are Jedi knights, I believe.
Dofine: I knew it! They were sent to force a settlement.
— These lines are also directly from the movie, with the exception that a “did” has been dropped from Nute Gunray’s line to play up his speech habits and match the phrase “What you say?” from the English translation of the video game Zero Wing (origin of the All Your Base meme).

182: Looking for Trouble

Title: A common idiom, wherein “looking for” means “seeking out”, but in this strip it also ends up being literal looking.

Again we see the purple Orb in the otherwise sepia-toned flashback panels. This strip provides additional context behind the scenes of the opening scene where Qui-Gon decides to search the room. The GM has a bit of a habit of liking to show the players just how they managed to gum up the works.

183: Plot, Plot, Plot, Plot, Plot

Title: A simple reference to the plot-heavy nature of the strip, with possible shades of the Monty Python “Spam” song.

Rune Haako: They’re still coming through!
— This line is taken directly from the movie.

Queen Amidala: Enough of this pretence, Viceroy.
Queen Amidala: I’m aware the Chancellor’s Ambassadors are with you now, and that you have been commanded to reach a—
— These lines are also taken directly from the movie (although we have truncated Queen Amidala’s last line).

Nute Gunray: [...] Beware, Your Highness... the Naboo have gone too far this time.
Queen Amidala: We would never do anything without the approval of the Senate. You assume too much.
Nute Gunray: We will see.
— These lines are taken from the movie, with modifications to accommodate an inversion—the speakers have been swapped (in the movie it is Queen Amidala complaining about the Federation having gone too far).

184: And You Thought We Were Near The End

Title: A simple fourth-wall-breaking reference to the fact that we are near the end of the movie, but the flashback sequence is adding a number of extra strips that the reader might not have expected.

Sio Bibble: A break in communications can mean only one thing.
— A minor modification of his line from the movie (“A communications disruption can mean only one thing.”)

Sio Bibble: The Trade Federation is trying to apply more pressure over this embargo.
— In the movie, Sio Bibble’s previous line continues with “Invasion”, but in this strip he instead significantly underestimates how dire the situation is.

Droid: {reporting from the surface of Naboo} We’ve neutralised the planetary defence system. You can land the main invasion fleet near the capital city now.
— The GM has managed to work in a justification for the ships landing on the other side of the planet back in strip #21 (due to Sally’s runaway imagination)—apparently that is where the planetary defence system was controlled from.

185: On His Excellency’s Secret Service

Title: A play on the James Bond novel and movie On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.

Darth Maul: {hologram} My information comes from an impeccable source. Within your own organisation.
Nute Gunray: Very unrikery.
TC-14: {carrying drink tray} Would you like a drink, sir?
— The “source” Darth Maul mentions is in fact TC-14, foreshadowed here, although this won’t be revealed for exactly another 100 strips.

186: The Yellow Planet Black Cloak Blues

Title: A play on the classic Paranoia adventure “The Yellow Clearance Black Box Blues”. The “yellow planet” is Tatooine, and Darth Maul, of course, wears a black cloak.

Darth Maul: I work alone.
Palpatine: That’s not what it says on your card.
— Further foreshadowing of the fact that Darth Maul has a partner in his private eye firm.

187: Turncoats in Trenchcoats

Title: Just two similar-sounding words in close succession. The turncoat is literal and the trenchcoats are figurative, playing into the noir detective vibe that Darth Maul has.

188: We Now Return You to Your Regularly Scheduled Program

Title: This phrase, or a variation on it, was used in the early days of television at the end of an unscheduled interruption to coverage, such as caused by urgent breaking news. Specifically, this was written as a reference to Sesame Street News Flash segments, delivered by Kermit the Frog. Here it is used similarly, to indicate that the flashback is finally over and the action resumes.

189: The Root of All Chaotic Neutral

Title: A reference to the biblical quote “the love of money is the root of all evil” (1 Timothy 6:10), commonly misquoted as “money is the root of all evil”. This has been combined with a reference to the standard Dungeons & Dragons Alignment system, changing “evil” to “chaotic neutral” to better match Darth Maul.

190: Grinding to the Next Level

Title: As mentioned in the title explanation for strip #175, Pete has been “grinding” for experience by killing droids in order to reach the next character level. The title could also be taken to mean that he has been doing it excessively, losing sight of the time-critical nature of events.

191: I <3 My Little Dinosaur Pony

Title: A variation on “I <3 My Little Pony”, used as a slogan for the My Little Pony toys. This has been combined with “dinosaur” to reference the “dinosaur ponies” that Sally invented in strip #153 (and that Obi-Wan mentions in this strip).

192: Give in to Your Anger

Title: A classic quote from Star Wars: Episode VI — Return of the Jedi, where the Emperor tries to lure Luke to the Dark Side of the Force. In the strip, Anakin manipulates R2-D2 (or is that Annie manipulating Pete?) into giving in to his anger.

193: The Devil and The Deep Black Pit

Title: A play on the phrase “Between the devil and the deep blue sea”, meaning to be stuck between two undesirable alternatives. Here the devil is referring to Darth Maul due to his appearance.

194: The Devil Went Down the Gorge, Eh?

Title: A play on the song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” by The Charlie Daniels Band, still treating Darth Maul as the devil.

Darth Maul: It’s over, kid. I have the high ground.
Obi-Wan: You underestimate my power.
— Repurposed dialogue from Star Wars: Episode III — Revenge of the Sith (changing “Anakin” to “kid” to reflect the different characters).

Darth Maul: And to think... I was gonna retire after this case...
— A reference to the classic trope of a detective being killed on the last case before they were due to retire.

The ordering of the silent panels showing Obi-Wan leaping out of the pit, igniting his sword, swinging at Darth Maul, Darth Maul’s stunned shock, and then falling into the pit is deliberately tricky to work out. The idea behind this was to force the reader’s eyes to jump around and try to piece together the proper sequence, as a way to simulate the rapid and chaotic nature of the scene.

195: Dicing with Death

Title: An idiom meaning to gamble with death as one possible outcome, although possibly metaphorically. In this case the death is literal, as are the dice.

Obi-Wan: Force Jump.
Qui-Gon: Oooh! I’ll take that instead of Critical Pirouette!
— A callback to strip #176, where Qui-Gon mentions planning to learn Critical Pirouette on his next level up. Note that Qui-Gon already has Force Jump, as mentioned in strip #122, thus the GM’s reaction.

Jar Jar: Dice rolls issa important. Yousa has to not know what will happen. Otherwise it’sa no fun.
— Sally has taken the GM’s words from strip 38 to heart.

196: You’re Always a Day Away

Title: Lyric from the song “Tomorrow”, from the musical Annie. References the strip’s quandary of just how long ago a “day” really is.

197: The Rest is Silence

Title: Hamlet’s last words in the play of the same name, as he dies while held by Horatio like Obi-Wan holds Qui-Gon.

198: Reincoronation

Title: A play on “reincarnation”, with the adjustment to “coronation” referencing Queen Amidala.

Qui-Gon: “Off with their heads!”
— Quoting the Queen of Hearts from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, suggesting that Jim intends to be capricious and bloodthirsty when playing Padmé.

199: I Never Metagamer I Liked

Title: A pun on “I never met a gamer I liked”. A “metagamer” is someone who uses knowledge external to the game in order to achieve in-game results. In this case, Pete is relying on the Orb’s importance to the campaign meaning that it won’t have been destroyed by his actions.

200: Rush ’Em On

Title: A play on Rashomon, a movie which centres around the differing, and mutually inconsistent, descriptions of a past event by different people. In this case Jim is providing his alternate view of the past. Taken more literally, the GM is trying to rush Jim past this point so everyone can be reunited for the next scene.

Padmé: I use my Rogue skills and fire ropes to climb up to the throne room level!
— A callback to strip #162, where Pete describes Padmé as a multi-classed Monarch/Rogue.

201: Let Them Eat Cake

Title: The usual English translation of a phrase that is apocryphally attributed to Marie Antoinette, supposedly used in circumstances that indicate both a lack of understanding about and a lack of care for the concerns of the poor. Jim’s plan to immediately raise taxes shows a similar disregard.

202: Nine-Tenths

Title: Allusion to the phrase “possession is nine-tenths of the law”, indicating that as a matter of practicality the person who has possession of something is best placed to retain it, regardless of who notionally owns it.

Palpatine: He’s disappeared; we’ve been trying to find him, but he’s proving elusive as a phantom. I fear he may become a menace in the future.
— Name-dropping The Phantom Menace, of course.

203: Sith Happens

Title: A play on the phrase “shit happens”, meaning that sometimes bad things occur through no fault of one’s own. Modified to refer to the Sith, as described in the strip.

R2-D2: <chug!>
[...]
R2-D2: <hic!>
— Pete’s drinking game (see strip #145) often gets a workout when the GM introduces plot.

204: In The Dark

Title: A phrase indicating that someone lacks knowledge—in this case, Mace Windu is only just now learning about important events. Also can refer to the dark times ahead, as well as the negative associations of a funeral, and the fact that this strip is set at night time.

Mace Windu: They blew up the mother-frakking moon?!
— A bowdlerised reference to stereotypical dialogue for characters played by Samuel L. Jackson (who plays Mace Windu). “Frakking” is taken from Battlestar Galactica, which the annotation for strip #50 suggests could be the major science fiction setting for the Darths & Droids players.

205: James Bond will Return in: The Silence of the Clones

Title: A reference to the early James Bond films, which would announce the next movie in the series during the end credits. This reveals that the strip would continue with the next movie, using the title The Silence of the Clones. “The Silence of the Clones” is a reference to The Silence of the Lambs.

Padmé: And, thanks to the incredible bravery and cleverness of the Cheddar monk Qui-Gon Jinn, we’ve recovered the Lost Orb of Phantasmal Malevolence—
— Here in the last strip of the movie, we finally get the episode title drop, as Jim mangles the name of the Lost Orb of Phanastacoria into a version echoing “The Phantasmal Malevolence”, the altered subtitle we chose for Episode I instead of “The Phantom Menace”.

The GM, having put up with Jim’s mangling of the name for so long now, finally gets so annoyed that he blurts out that it’s not called that. He tries to give the proper name, but finds that he has also forgotten it! We’ve been very careful about this—in fact the only time the GM has mentioned the name “Lost Orb of Phanastacoria” was in #27. Obi-Wan echoed it in #28, and since then, the only character to have said the name correctly is Jar Jar, in #55, #74, and #123.

206: Best Waylaid Plans

Title: Play on the phrase “best laid plans”; in this case, the plans have been waylaid, indicating the very many adjustments that the GM has been forced into by the player’s unexpected actions.

[notes] Xagy Ceda Jedi
— Xagy is taken from the (reverse) last four letters of Gary Gygax. Ceda is “Monk” under an alphabetic rotation of 10 characters backwards in the alphabet.

[notes] Zod Valorum
— General Zod is a character from Superman II; both Valorum and Zod were played by Terrence Stamp.

[notes] “androids” <— not human! “aliendroids” thingdroids
— The evolution of the term “droid” can be seen here. Starting from the familiar term “android”, the GM realises that they are not man-shaped and experiments with some other options before settling on simply “droid”.

[notes] Greelo Splondos Ewoks Phanastacorians think of a better name later
— Origins generally uncertain; we can see that the GM never did think of a better name and resorted to Phanastacorians when pushed. Ewoks will get used later, and Greelo might possibly have inspired the name Greedo, but Splondos don’t seem to have made an appearance.

[notes] Peaceful tree-dwelling herbivores
[notes] 6 legs, no ears
— The chaos that Jim and Ben inflicted on the GM’s plans is almost overshadowed by that which Sally managed.

207: The Jedi Master’s New Groove

Title: A reference to the film The Emperor’s New Groove.

This presents an alternative version of part of the events of strip #35, using dialogue taken entirely from one scene in The Emperor’s New Groove.

208: Fish Fall. Everyone Dies.

Title: A reference to the classic role-playing trope “Rocks fall. Everyone dies.”, indicating sudden and inescapable death of the entire party. Originally it might have referred to an unfair trap, but is more often used to indicate that the GM has become sufficiently upset at the players that they would rather end the campaign than keep going.

Qui-Gon: I cast Summon Bigger Fish.
— Summon Bigger Fish is the gift that keeps on giving. In this alternate version strip the GM allows it.

Note the smashed flowerpot in the final panel; combined with the large fish, this is a reference to The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy which has a vignette in Chapter 18 involving a whale and a bowl of petunias falling to the ground from a great height. This is also alluded to in the comic’s commentary: “to avoid further stress and nervous tension, we will reveal in advance...”