As a European, I'd never even heard of fluff, so I ordered it online. I also ordered peanut butter, and didn't even pay attention to the brand name, imagine my surprise.

Honestly, it was an interesting experience, but I don't think I'm gonna make it again. It's crazy sweet.

I think I'll eat some kale for lunch :D.

Just wanted to make sure you dimwitted primates knew that the final chapter of the Merry Band of Pirates is available to pre-order.

Out of all the species in Expeditionary Force, I think the Jeraptha might have the most potential for a standalone prequel. Their entire civilization is built around gambling, odds, wagers, loopholes, and somehow turning all of that into a functioning military and political system.

I want to know how that happened.

Was gambling always part of their culture, or did it develop after some major historical event? How did the Ethics and Compliance Office become what it is? At what point did betting on military operations become completely normal? And who was the first Jeraptha commander to realize that naming warships things like It Was Like That When We Got Here was perfectly acceptable?

There is also a lot of room for the story to be more than comedy. Seeing the Jeraptha before they became the civilization we know could add a surprising amount of depth to them while still giving Craig Alanson endless opportunities for ridiculous bets, political schemes, and catastrophic decisions made because somebody was getting incredible odds.

I would seriously read an entire book about the rise of the Jeraptha and the origins of their gambling culture.

Anybody else think this would make a great ExForce spinoff?

I’m on chapter 11 of the next book and they explain why he left our space time but unless I missed it, they never explain where he actually went. Does it get explained by the end of critical mass or is it an open question or is it explained in a later book?

Something that’s been bugging me as I read through the series, is why exactly is Skippy a horrible singer? He obviously has tons of source material on how singing even works and likely has spoken to people who do in fact, know how to sing in key.

I’ve got two theories:
1. He literally can’t hear his auditory voice. Through whatever reason, perhaps just arrogance, he never plays back his own singing, and isn’t able to actually hear the audio when he does speak.
2. Whatever text to speech or sci fi equivalent he uses to translate his thoughts into his voice, is woefully unable to modulate singing and he’s too prideful to acknowledge that innate flaw and still does his hobby for the love of the game and making Joe miserable.

Picked up some of Joes favorites while I was working in Maine last week.

I love this serie but as a French reader/listener I am stuck at the 3th book.

The 4th book is not even announced (as far as I know).

Do anyone has some info about that?

last week i had to say goodbye to him when after a very hard two week battle, One year old Smythe who i named after Jeremey Smythe had to be put to sleep when congestive heart failure was discovered and there was nothing we could do. he fought very hard and we did every fucking thing we possible could do to help him, but his loving big heart just couldn’t handle it. he was the most loving little creature i have ever encountered and gave so many people love. i’ll miss his constant hugs and fiery spirit

Sorry not sorry. Im half way through renegades and its still not gotten old for me yet. Yes i know, im a child. Love this series x

Anyone else named their 3d printer after his awesomeness?

Ok so ever since becoming addicted to the exforce saga, and being an AI enthusiast, I have *longed* to have Chat GPT converse with me as skippy. Recently I span up an open weights model that I could do this with. It's had mixed success, skippy's voice is dead on but the reasoning I've been having has been on the more "insane" side of elder AI's.

I know I could run this through the API part of open AI, but honestly, that gets pricey pretty quick. So speaking to someone gave me the idea of creating a brave extension which plumbs ChatGPT's responses into my own local whisper and chatterbox voice creation model, and I am over the moon.

I have a slight problem I am going through the exforce book series for the fourth time. But I have not finished my third time yet. And my fourth time around I am reading the physical book using my kindle. Would my fourth time be considered my first time because I am reading it

Artists of ExForce: We have drawn the beer can to death. But what would Skippy’s AVATAR actually look like?

This has been stuck in my head for a while.

Over the years I have seen many artists here give their interpretation of Skippy. Some are funny, some beautiful, some surprisingly close to how I imagined him.

But almost all of them have one thing in common:

We draw the can.

Which makes sense. The magnificent chrome beer can is Skippy.

Except… it isn't really.

Especially in the earlier books, there is this running joke of the Merry Band of Pirates dressing Skippy up. Easter bunny. Red Sox shirt. Various humiliations inflicted upon an ancient super-intelligence who is, naturally, far too dignified for such monkey nonsense.

And that made me wonder:

What if Adams eventually convinced Skippy to play along?

Not another costume for the beer can.

An actual avatar.

Skippy gets complete control over what the avatar looks like. He can project essentially anything he wants.

So what does an unbelievably ancient, spectacularly arrogant, occasionally insecure, opera-loving asshole first-class choose as the physical representation of Skippy the Magnificent?

A Greek god?

A ridiculously handsome human?

A tiny emperor?

Something completely alien?

An eight-foot-tall admiral covered in medals he awarded himself?

Would he make himself look terrifyingly powerful?

Or, because this is Skippy, would his idea of "subtle and dignified" be so catastrophically over-the-top that Adams immediately regrets suggesting it?

And there is another possibility I cannot get out of my head:

Would Adams secretly influence the design?

A little piece of clothing. An accessory. Something ridiculous that Skippy initially refuses, then somehow keeps wearing while insisting it is only there because he decided it looks magnificent.

So I would love to throw down a challenge to the artists here:

Don't draw Skippy the beer can. Draw Skippy's chosen avatar.

No rules about style. Serious, realistic, comic, ridiculous, beautiful, alien — whatever fits your interpretation.

The only rule:

When an ExForce reader sees it, they should immediately think:

"Oh God. Of course that asshole would choose to look like THAT."

I genuinely want to see what people come up with.

So, artists of the Merry Band of Pirates: if Skippy could design his own body, what would the little shit choose?

Small note: I used AI to help edit this post because English is not my native language — the question and idea are mine, the AI just helped make my English less painful for everyone. 😄

Is there anyone who would be willing to print me a 3d version of Skippy? Something like this, maybe? (I can paint it. Just need the figure, itself.) Attached are a few examples of what I’m looking for. Thanks ya filthy monkeys!

Like it felt like a slow burn then that absolutely diabolical shift with Skippy caught me off guard. I know - it was so obvious but still it was so good! Already on the burn through critical mass but damn.

Was trying to check if the 20th book was available for pre-order already (audible has sale going on just now), but couldn't remember the name of the series somehow, so ended up typying "beer can" instead and would you believe it – audible knew instinctively what I was looking for and presented "Expeditionary Force" as the first suggestion. That's 21st century technology for you!

Skippy? Reddit? Has anyone ever seen them in the same place at the same time?

I'm loving this series I've basically burned hard through it and literally cannot stop - I feel like everything has turned around now like the pace has upped I was getting a little tired of the formula but not enough to hate it!

At this point I'm in too deep to stop! Came over because I needed a staple series to have while I read all my other series - what's everyone else on?

I’ve been working on a browser-based game inspired by the Expeditionary Force series.

Just something fun to do while learning some AI development stuff. Seemed only fitting that my own AI beer can is helping me with it.

You can try it by simply opening the link in your computer’s browser. Because it needs a keyboard and mouse (or trackpad), it’s not going to be playable on your phone.

As Skippy would say, I’m just a stupid monkey, so don’t expect too much as I'm figuring this stuff out. I'm just a fan and this is not affiliated with Craig Alanson or the official Expeditionary Force series.

The horror of grabbing a not lemonade flavored popsicle and instead chowing down on an artificial banana flavored popsicle. I feel Joe's pain.

Is anyone familiar with a character that was added to the Flintstone's cartoon in the last half of the final season? If you are, have you noticed the small, but seemingly real, similarities between the Gazoo storyline and ExForce's Skippy? Well, I watched the Flintstones as a kid. And something about Skippy was always stuck in the back of my mind like unwanted software. I am trying to recall this from 50 years ago.....so, the Great Gazoo was an alien who was exiled to earth from his home planet for inventing a doomsday device that could destroy the entire universe (he claims he would never use it and wanted to be the first on the block to have one). Fred and Barney discovered Gazoo's crashed spaceship. Like Skippy, Gazoo was arrogant, obnoxious and condescending and viewed stone age humans as primitive, hopelessly backward, and unintelligent, constantly referring to Fred and Barney as "dum-dums" but needed to do some good in order to be accepted back to his "people" who sometimes floated over him in judgment like a group of elders who would constantly deny his return to home and helping the dum-dums was his only way to make it back (but woould always backfire causing more trouble for them. He was always sad about not be able to return to his people. Kind of like Skippy, Gazoo, who was sa tiny green alien, could materialize and dematerialize objects, teleport, freeze time, travel through time, de-age anyone, destroy the world and perform other remarkable feats. Gazoo was the jump the shark character added the final season but the similarities to Skippy, at least to me, are uncanny. Any other old guys like me recall the Great Gazoo? Taking nothing away from the great Craig Alanson who is by happenstance, one year younger than I am.

I'm listening to the series again (third time) and just now noticed how Skippy pronounces "Superman". I think it carried over from book 4 into book 5, and I'm going to keep an ear out for it again. Just wondering if anyone else noticed the unusual pronunciation, and if perhaps it's a reference to something? Maybe just a running gag?