Comic Discussion > QUESTIONABLE CONTENT

WCDT 2116-2120 (6-10 Feburary 2012) QC in SPAAAAAAACE! Week 3

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jwhouk:
This whole thing about "wife cheats on AF spouse" is news to me. Of course, my step-brother wasn't exactly Mr. Angel himself when he was working on F-111's, but...

Long story short - unfortunately, I have pretty empirical evidence that if there's a case of spousal adultery in the service, it doesn't result in the service member being kicked out the door. They might find a nice, quiet, out of the way place for said service member to be stationed for a while until their date of discharge. But you don't get court-martialed and dishonorably discharged because your spouse nailed the civilian housing repairman and ran off with your three kids in tow.*

I suspect that the USAF assigned her to the Station for the express purpose of having her finish her five-year commitment after her Academy graduation. What would be interesting is how long she is into said five-year stint.

EDIT: Oh, and one other little thing for our ex-Military types - remember that this is an AI who's giving her the stocks. An AI that operates a very large space station. One that has LASERS.



* - In real life, it didn't actually happen that way, and I never really did ask (or want to know) how it happened.

jmucchiello:
There are two simple explanations for the "damage" the station may have done to the fair lieutenant:
1) Jeph had no idea what the mil-types are talking about and was just going for the laugh: nothing will come of it
2) Jeph had an idea what the mil-types are talking about and the complications are part of a "space won't just be ponies and puppies" story line.

We'll probably know tomorrow since Friday is generally shocker day.

EDIT: Oh, and my first strip was about a month ago. And it took me about 5 semi-sleepless days to archive binge the 2100+ prior comics.

Akima:

--- Quote from: Method of Madness on 09 Feb 2012, 13:05 ---
--- Quote from: NotsoAverageJoe on 09 Feb 2012, 06:49 ---kinda like how if an officer's wife is caught having an affair while he's on deployment, his career will suffer as a result.
--- End quote ---
Being punished because your wife cheats on you?  If that's actually happened, how the hell has it not created a huge scandal?  That is all sorts of horrible.
--- End quote ---
Oh, I'm sure the unfortunate officer would not be punished in the sense of being thrown into the stockade, but they might find promotion hard to find. This is far from being restricted to the military, incidentally, particularly at the "pointy end" of corporate hierarchies (which is what flag/field rank would be in the military, yes?). Typically there are many, highly-qualified, bums and only a few seats. Promotion decisions are often made on the basis of very subjective judgements of people's "soundness". Having a kid with a drug conviction? Having a marriage partner who is not "people like us"? Having a child with special needs who might "distract" you? Any of these can derail a career. There is no scandal, because it is normal and routine.

The "never off duty" thing applies to civilians too in practice. Civilans do not face the UCMJ (or its equivalent in other countries) but they do face "double jeopardy" in that they can certainly find their careers affected by things that happen outside the office. As is well known, embarrassing photos and opinions posted on Facebook, Youtube etc. can come back to bite you. Recruitment firms routinely trawl that stuff nowadays. Getting drunk at the company Christmas party was a Career Limiting Move for decades before the internet.

As the old sergeant in the cop-show said: "Be careful out there!"

Kugai:
Blink twice girl, blink twice.     :-D


Of course, such a thing would depend on how the Military would see it, and whether se would want to keep it, and that also depends on how seriously she takes her career in the Air Force.

FunkyTuba:
Jeph seems interested in exploring AI vs human ethics here... not The Consequences of the UCMJ For Potter

Station may or may not be trying to bribe her. My sense is that it's just an inappropriately-sized token of apology. Like flowers, only much more so (though the "blink once or twice" panel might show he's more clued in to the real size of the token than I'm describing).

I find it a little ironic that he was goaded into an attempt to correct a human-context social faux pas by Hannelore who's just come back to the station having learned how to do things like that from our buddies in Northhampton.

Consequences for Potter are still TBD because her reaction is as important as the fact of the situation in terms of how she'd be judged. We haven't seen the Lt's actual reaction yet, either, other than the exploding hair. Jeph may or may not go there depending on what he wants to say.

If she takes a "come clean immediately" approach then it'd be hard to justify making her responsible for what someone else did.
If she covers it up or somehow goes all conspiratorial, then yeah, game on for whatever consequences the qcverse has in store--the coverup is usually worse than the crime.

I think the more interesting question for the comic (and I hope Jeph explores this) is the ethical dynamic between Station and Potter... does it change their relationship? how will that affect the way either of them perform their duties, and if so what are the consequences there?

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