1 Yeti 1: We have a universe-threatening temporal crisis on our hands! Emergency Level One! Call Jane Goodall!
2 Yeti 2: Very good. I'll try calling her.
3 Yeti 2: There's no response.
4 Yeti 1: Emergency Level i! Unimaginable Disaster!!!!

I originally wrote this beginning with Emergency Level 4, and going up to Emergency Level 5 in the final panel. But someone I ran the strip by thought that Emergency Level 5 would be quite a low level, and Emergency Level 1 would be the highest level of emergency.

And then someone else suggested the result you see here.

Oh, and if you don't get it, check here.

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2025-02-27 Rerun commentary: I really should have referenced myself. Check here.

As an aside, my friends and I have long had the idea to invent some sort of sport or game where your score is a complex number, rather than just a real number of points. Or in fact a game that uses complex numbers in an interesting and non-trivial way as an integral part of the rules. We haven't done it yet, but I hope we do one day.