Editing 1630: Quadcopter

For this reason the US {{w|Federal Aviation Administration}} is now requiring any "drone" (unmanned aerial vehicle) to be registered so that it can find out whose fault it might be that a quadcopter interfered with commercial aircraft-or carried off a citizen to be devoured.

This comic takes place during such a lesson where [[Cueball]] is a teacher of such a class. He is standing in front of his students ([[Megan]], [[Ponytail]] and another Cueball-like guy), presenting the class. He has a quadcopter ready, lying on the ground behind him, and has already handed the remote control to the other guy so he can try it once the introduction is over.

But then the teacher is attacked by three rogue quadcopters flying in from behind him. They grab him and lift him off the ground (a very complicated maneuver) and fly away with him. Meanwhile, his students just stand there watching and do nothing to help him. Afterwards Megan asks if they should actually have tried to help him, but then Ponytail takes the view that now that the drones are sentient, they have become a part of nature, and that you should not interfere but just "let nature take its course". This is a common comment in nature programs about wildlife, where the speaker tries to explain why the team that was there to film the poor animals dying did nothing to help them - because they will not interfere with nature. This would not be possible in real life assuming they weren't using secret military technology as Cueball outweighs the drones by several factors. {{Citation needed}}   

This comic shows how hypocritical that comment is, because if a lion decides to kill and eat humans, that would be natural, but we would do anything in our power to kill this lion, and not just let it run off with our children or the old and weak people. So in such a case with Cueball being taken by wild quadcopters we would not just let nature takes its course.

There is currently a drone called {{w|MQ-1 Predator}} which is used a lot by the {{w|CIA}} and {{w|USAF}}. Although it's not a quad-copter, the idea behind this comic could come from drone names just like this. Here the comic takes the name literally giving drones predatory behavior. This comic thus takes people's worries to the extreme, suggesting that the drones become sentient and can cooperate together just like a {{w|Pack (canine)|pack}} of {{w|wolves}} and grab a human being and fly off with him like an {{w|eagle}} would do with a smaller animal.

 

Sentient quadcopters were part of the game in [[1608: Hoverboard]], where [http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/7/7c/1608_0950x1084y_Quadcopters_over_lava_lake_right.png one quadcopter is speaking to the other] over the lava lake in the Mount Doom crater to the left. How to solve the problem of too many drones was mentioned in [[1523: Microdrones]]. Just over a week before this comic was released another comic also had as subject a situation where our technological inventions begins to take control over us, see [[1626: Judgment Day]].

:[Cueball to the left talks to Megan, Ponytail and a Cueball-like guy, with a remote control. They are standing to the right. Behind Cueball, on the ground, there is a quadcopter.]

:Cueball: ...Uhh..