Privacy
Eventual headline: 'University Researchers Create Life in Lab! Darkness, Faulty Condoms Blamed.'
Eventual headline: 'University Researchers Create Life in Lab! Darkness, Faulty Condoms Blamed.'
This comic is about Cueball and Megan attempting to find some privacy to "hook up", which is slang for engaging in sexual activity.
They start at a dormitory, which would offer some privacy. Unfortunately, the door is locked. They go to another dorm, but it is occupied by someone playing a MMORPG who is "in a raid", which means that the gamer is teaming up with others to "raid" something, probably an enemy, and loot their items. This also pokes fun at the fact that some raids may take a very long time to execute, in this case apparently taking on the order of 24 hours. (This comic was published on a Monday morning.)
In the third frame, the two try to go to the library's rare book collection. Such a place would usually be deserted, making it usable for sexual activity. However, it is currently occupied by a visiting Nelson Mandela, who is on a tour of the school.
Moving on to more bizarre places, they next try an accelerator tunnel, another place that would be private. However, the particle accelerator is in use and the door is sealed tight. This would be a normal safety feature to protect researchers (and their genitals) from being exposed to potentially dangerous ionizing radiation from the particle beam.
The couple then try a beaver lodge, which, despite being private, is too tiny to fit in, and the only entrance is underwater. What makes it more difficult to get in is that it is winter, and the ground is presumably frozen solid.
The last place they attempt to go to is hyperspace, science fiction jargon for an ‘alternate dimension’ that starships supposedly use to travel faster than light. The word is frequently used in the Star Wars movies. However, there is no evidence that anything like hyperspace exists in reality, and in fact current theories of physics do not allow it.
An inverse proportion is a relationship in statistics where one value decreases when the other value in the relationship increases. In this case, the caption posits that the more you want to make love, the less private space there is available to do so.
The title text indicates that the two eventually found privacy for sex in a laboratory, but inadvertently got Megan pregnant. This is a parody of news articles discussing whether scientists can create synthetic life in a lab. This eventual headline appears in a few 1037: Umwelt frames as "Scientists Create Life In Lab", with a similar secondary headline/caption as the punchline.
The comic 658: Orbitals is similar in nature to this comic.