I think this stuff would work better as a novel than as a comic strip. I threw together a bit of an intro.
Executive Star Captain (First Class) George K Hallett was having a bad day.
This tended to happen often to George K Hallett, after all the "K" stands for Kimberley. But today it was happening for an altogether new reason. Today was George's first day as an "expendable".
George couldn't help but think back on the events that brought him to his current predicament. He traced his thoughts back across the years spent as a telemarketer on Io, his rough childhood growing up on Proteus (living on any body where time zones are determined by gravity is never easy), back over his brief stint as a fetus, rapidly up through his father's urethra, and all the way back, years before, to the 23rd of June, 2078.
It was on 23rd of June, 2078 that a great ecological disaster shook the nine worlds. It was on this date that five very large, very automated intergalactic starships collided at the Vellex IV refuelling station which was in orbit around Jupiter. Each of the five starships was specially programmed to complete their docking proceedure in a precise way, that being to agressively head for the nearest unoccupied platform with the lowest pump price. The resulting explosion killed 11,000 people, destroyed 47 starships and the refuelling station itself.
The following day the Earth Senate convened. Following a lot of yelling by all concerned a law was passed, the details never really smoothed over. This was the legislation stipulating that from then on, all intergalactic starships must be manned at all times.
After the initial anger over this inconvenience the spacing corporations discovered 3 facts.
1) Given the infrequent event of catastrophic failure, the abundance of subterranean iron ore found on Phobos and the low cost of robotic manufacturing facilities, the cost of employing specialists for every starship (qualified in Starship Maneuvering, Space Vessel Engineering, Light Speed Astro-Navigation and Trans-Dimensional Calculus and willing to spend years alone in the great vaccuum) was vastly greater than the cost of employing unskilled laymen (also known as expendables) and putting them through a two week "starship captain" training course, and occasionally suffering the cost of losing a starship.
2) In exchange for a fancy title an expendable would actually agree to remain stationary throughout the majority of each voyage to conserve oxygen and food, and cut overheads by 0.83%.
3) Very few expendables ever read their entire contract. As a result many of them skipped over the fineprint that defines the concept of "one years employment" as being 365 standard Earth days spent revolving around a sun. Considering that the vast majority of time spent aboard a space hauler is spent in transit between star systems, the attractive $2million a year salary ends up paying less than a year waiting tables on Earth.
Thus the vocation of Executive Star Captain was born.
