Tripping the Rift is the continuing comic saga of five misfits who live, work and play on the starship Jupiter 42, which is controlled by a neurotic A.I. known as Spaceship Bob. Bob's neuroses are kept in check by the verbally abusive pilot T'Nuk, and the ship's inner workings are tended by Gus, the depressive robotic chief engineer. No one's really sure what job, if any, is performed by teen slacker Whip, but everyone knows what kinds of jobs sexy android Six specializes in.
The captain, a walking purple blob of rancor named Chode, hates his crew and they hate him back, but they have bigger problems to worry about — namely, the corporate-minded Dark Clowns, who are bent on dominating the galaxy, and the hopelessly conformist Confederation, which will stop at nothing to bring our bumbling antiheroes to injustice.
The Dark Clowns and the Confederation, despite being more alike than different, clash constantly in their cold war to determine whose brand of oppression will dominate the universe. Each insists the other is the cause of all problems great and small, and their power struggle is basically a huge pain in the ass for sentient beings everywhere.
Chode and his crew — motivated by greed and survival instinct — have no desire to take sides in this pointless conflict, and so spend their time traveling (a.k.a. "tripping") the rift that separates the two great rivals.