Grrl Power #897 – Hide and go document
Sydney has lost enough things to realize that when she comes back looking for the stasis pod, that “all those skyscrapers kind of look alike.” Sure, the tarps and the scaffolding make it more memorable than the other skyscrapers in the area, but I’m sure at any given time, 5-10% of buildings in NYC are having some work done on them. Of course, you’d think she would at least write down the nearest cross street, but she could be recalled to the fight at any moment.
Cora probably thought Sydney was going to just fly to the top of a skyscraper and dump it there, which Sydney considered, but also figured any villain flier could find and make off with it easily if she did that. So she flew around circuitously for a while before finding a place she could duck into, which is another reason she needs to document where she’s leaving the stasis pod.
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Construction workers the next day ‘Alright who left their lunchbox behind Again?!’
Going by the size, that would need to be King Kong. And they are in NY, so headcannon accepted.
looking back at older strips, I think DaveB is bringing Concretia back. What looks like a weird head could be her hair.
that said, she may also be a red herring, she shows back with Sydney, people in comments think she MUST be with the mercenary supers because her power is earth based; however even while influenced by Vehemence in the brawl she never displayed geokinesis, she displayed Petrimorphic Possession; as in her manipulation of earth was limited to forming a body around a spirit like form she took.
I can’t see any fins or gills.
I see that shadow, I’m onto you
Shh, my kennel needs an upgrade, to ensure a sound night’s sleep, despite all the caterwauling!
Shouldn’t that be dogerwauling?
Naa, I have 3 kitties. Who are actually very polite and not actually prone to screeching. But at night we do sometimes get neighbours’ cats kicking up a ruckus. My girls are all very well behaved though and obey their nighttime curfew.
@[DaveB]:
After a quick scan through Page_1 of these comments, I must point-out that in the start of Paragraph_2 of your commentary, you start by saying “Cora”, but it was Dabbler who told Syd to hide that de-powered stasis-pod, on Page_883, Panel_5.
Yep. My thoughts after reading this strip were that the idiot task given to Sydney by the supposedly super-intelligent alien (Dabbler, not Cora) was so mind mindbogglingly stupid that the author can’t even keep track of the details.
Note that while Sydney was away actual alien tech was stolen by someone. The kind of thing Sydney might have been able to prevent, if she hadn’t been diverted away from the fight where she could actually do something instead of playing “maybe I can leave this alien device unguarded and things will somehow work out ok.”
I’ll say it again: The issue with having a character who is supposed to be super intelligent is that they can never be smarter than the author. And this case really shows just how wrong that can go.
I suspect after finding out what happened Maxima should be chewing out Dabbler and Sydney. Dabbler being a civilian contractor giving orders and suspecting trying to keep alien tech out of human hands, and Sydney for following those orders and for not trying to contact Archon HQ once out of the combat zone for specific instructions or details on what the protocol would be in the “obtaining unknown/of interest technology from hostile forces” rather than trying to cache it like a squirrel.
“AHHH! It’s Candle Jac~
What happened to you? Where did you go?
NOOOOOOOO!
One would think she could use her wrist GPS thing she had when she first started flying to just waypoint it instead of needing to take pictures, but she might not have learned that functionality yet?
Depends on how precise that GPS is. ARCSwat’s equipment would probably be better than civilian-grade, and might even have some upgrades from Dabbler. But would it be able to narrow down the location to the specific floor she left the pod on? How about which side of the building?
I’m somewhat incredulous that during/subsequent-to her bat-belt montage she didn’t select some tiny GPS trackers for tailing people – that has GOT to be something she would have expected to find useful, whether tracking a person, vehicle or object… and they don’t have to be too terribly large, except to account for battery power, and aluminum air batteries are extremely power dense…
Sydney was pretty much limited to the pile of options that Anvil provided. Q must have been tied up in the UK for some reason.
Tied up in the basement, more like.
“She’s a recruit, NOT Batman, and NOT James Bond!!!”
GPS is one thing, but the barometer in my (3 generations old) smartphone can measure my altitude with around +-1 foot of precision. I sure hope Archon’s standard tracking kit is at least that good. If not, GPS error with a strong signal is only what, 15 feet? Who cares if the grunts have to check three floors instead of one?
Because she hasn’t been established as one of the fastest fliers on the team, meaning she could simply take it back to base and return to the fight in about as much as it would take to find a nearby hiding place, take a picture, etc?
To be fair, not being able to use the forcefield severely decreases how fast she can fly.
except she shouldn’t have that problem right now. We’ve seen she can form the shield around other people with her and fly with them sitting on the bottom of the bubble as she flies. While there was the air problem when they tested that, there is no such issue here. She literally could have sat the thing down, formed the shield and flown off with it sitting in the bottom of the shield no problem.
However Ron’s idea has some other problems, one being how busy the air space of the US is, how she’d have to climb high and drop down to move the fastest and cause the least problems for anyone below a mile in the air with her causing sonic booms and or having to avoid numerous obstacles *especially if you drop to a hundred feet or so*.
Honestly dropping the thing off on the top of a nearby building, or going straight up and chucking it through an Aethereum causeway to a back alley on Fracture, or *we don’t know if she has explored any other locations on the list the orb had so it may not be realistic to assume she could know some empty spot on some other planet to just hide it by some rocks and come back for it*, we assume Archon has a temporary station here but there looks to be no one available to guard it…
to be honest, smash it kind of feels like it was the best option after the power was removed unless they want to keep it to study it.
She can only use two orbs at a time. Using Flight and Tentacle, she can’t also use Shield.
re-read what I wrote.
I said she could SET IT DOWN, and then form the shield around herself AND the device at which point just like when she did that with people the device would sit in the bubble and travel with her as she flew, meaning she could then use shield and flight and just take the device along with her for the ride. She doesn’t need to be using the tentacle to transport it.
Lets be honest. The Plot demands she somehow avoids that limitation eventually. maybe there is something in her skill tree!
catching a bug in the face when riding a bike at about 20KM/H hurts. Imagine catching a bug in the face at mach 16. No supersonic flight without shield bubble.
They are currently in New York. Which took them several hours to fly to, in the Halomobile, when Sydney was introduced to the Twilight Council (also in New York). That did involve regular stops to let air in though, meaning she could do it faster now. However we are still talking flying from the middle of the USA all the way to the East Coast. So if Halo were to take the item to Archon HQ she would be out of the battle.
That said though Sydney is a very fast flyer. Just think back to her and Maxima doing flight trials over the Grand Canyon. Sydney is way faster than Heatwave (who is rated at one star flight on the cast list) and even beats Super Hiro (who is three stars). Halo having four stars. So only Maxima is faster than her on the team (at a full five stars, if she has her stats dumped into flight speed).
Remember, though, that Sydney got a speed upgrade while she was fighting Captain Cthulhu and the Worldstompers. She’s a lot faster now than she was then.
If she engages her stardrive, yea. Her raw speed has not been upgraded though. We have seen her nip to her comic shop using that. But would she be able to make a return trip as easily? Her navigation system uses waypoints and we don’t yet know what it takes to set them up, or whether she has one to spare for Times Square.
But, yea, those are quibbles. Your counter is sound.
No, she got an upgrade to her flight speed Author’s notes from #670 say mach 16.
I don’t think it matters though, because she probably can go that fast safely among civilian air traffic.
I just realized Sydney moving at Mach 16 also apparently has heightened reaction time as well, since she was able to avoid every orbital bombardment shot that the kaiju threw at her – which she would not have been able to do normally.
She took an upgrade to ‘normal-space’ speed with the first upgrade point that she got for the starfighters, spent while hiding from the first Kaiju. This gave her rather more of a boost than she expected, as well as unlocking the chain with the Causeway, and she started on that chain using the first of the points for the Kaiju. I’m not sure whether we have a new estimate for her top normal-space speed post-upgrade.
We do. It’s in the author’s notes of the comic where she first tries out her improved flight speed:
Thank you. I evidently missed that note when I was digging out those references, as I was concentrating on the on-page information.
Actually yes Yorp, her raw speed was upgraded as well. It’s now Mach 16, instead of Mach 4.
Unless you’re talking about reaction time, which is probably going to be somewhere else in the orbs that hasnt been picked yet, or a time dilation function, given we know that’s possible now in outer space and Sydney is basically a spaceship. :) Who knows – maybe the unknown orb IS for time manipulation.
Yea, forgot that. There are a whole bunch of comics around that time that I barely got to glance at, when job hunting/starting a new job, having returned to the UK. So not much chance for key details like that to sink into my grey matter.
Seems like Archon would probably have some kind of regional office in NYC? Surely that would be better than some random construction site.
Archon is still officially brand new and were under the impression supers were extremely rare (they thought maybe 600 individuals in the whole USA, an idea they started to re-evaluate after a bunch came out of no where; supers it seems had mostly been keeping secret. heck Sydney *while not technically a super* never hit their radar till the bank heist as she was afraid of being carted off if she was found. Which given the comparisons to the real world any supers in the real world would likely have similar fears thanks to media’s portrayal of things like X-men, X-files, a crap ton of anime inspired by X-men; and all sorts of government men in black anti-super powers; or heck the general degree of racism and likelihood of it projecting onto a witch hunt for anyone with powers.
that said they simply didn’t have enough staff; but as things are going it may be prudent to expand their operations to regional offices and have open enlisting for anyone who wants to be a “super hero” to have a safe non-criminal option for using their powers and helping others. Curb both those who feel they have to be criminals, avoid being caught, or may try to be vigilantes…and be quickly annoyed by how unrealistic Batman and Spider-man cartoons are at depicting actually showing up to stop crimes as they happen.
But yeah, right now, one office and one team.
All that said and granted – and I don’t have any delusions to think Sydney would readily have access to this information, so this is not saying Sydney should have dropped anything off in one of these places… – the Twilight Council probably DOES have locations all over the friggin place, if not safe houses, then social centers where supernatural people can “let their hair down” and drop their pretense for a time. Especially in New York City, I would wager.
Whether the Twilight Council or people they employ are generally any more trustworthy then the general population I will leave as an exercise for the reader
*sigh…*
…any more trustworthy than* the general population…
Wish I could edit my posts :-(
She did hit Archon’s radar. They didn’t manage to pinpoint it to her, but they have a database where they track unexplained phenomena that they think might be related to a super, and at least one of Sydney’s orb tests made it into their files. I’m not sure how a forest fire makes that list, when a stray cigarette butt or a lightning strike can cause that, but that’s what happened. Maybe the pew pew orb caused some physical damage that wasn’t hidden by the resulting fire.
yeah I did think of that but neglected to mention it. Thinking well, oddities will stand out and they say they usually can find the cause as something mundane or “other” (assuming known supers or supernaturals at this point being the cause). So she personally was never found although a fire whose cause was unknown was on their list. I would assume the damage in the fire like the signs of an explosion *secondary effect off PPO after the cutting beam is the area cut explodes* without any on site evidence of an incinderary device or chemical signatures…or signs of magic. Although yes if dry enough other possibilities stand out. It feels to be more a checking under every stone strategy.
Although speaking of that page; while never addressed I suspect the unknown radiation spike in the same area may have been from Jiggawat practicing her black lightning as she didn’t know till dabbler pointed it out that using that to cancel out electricity causes massive amount of radiation.
You are right, but it is not canon. However if you read back through the author’s blogs and replies in comments (probably to the first time they were in NY, but I couldn’t say which page), he indicated that there are two branch offices (one on each coast). Importantly though Dave has always stressed that although he makes such comments, that they do not become canon until they appear in the comic. As he may change his mind, especially if the rule of funny comes into play and only having the Archon HQ plays well for some scene or other.
However, if we run with his statement, the fact that Sydney has not been told about the branch office, nor shown its location, rules it out as an option for her to go there at this present time. Dave is always pretty good at keeping track of what characters know what information. As far as Sydney knows there is only the Archon HQ, hence her current strategy.
I’d thought that was in context of near-future, rather than current. The split into two teams with different areas of responsibility would come when they’ve built up the numbers and have a better picture of how their taskings will be distributed.
Supers wise yes. The USA decided that they needed to consolidate all the armed forces (et al) supers into one body, as they did not have the numbers to maintain separate groups for each arm. So I have oft speculated that Super Hiro could be put in charge of either the East or West coast branch, once they have the numbers to spare supers for there.
But the non-super infrastructure can already be in place. Especially for the co-ordination with local authorities, intelligence gathering and providing all the logistical support.
It is probably best just to wait to see how Dave chooses to play it, in due course. The key point being though that branch offices are (or, as you say, will be) a thing (subject to being confirmed in canon).
Or maybe another military base? It seems like the best choice of action would have been to contact HQ and let them direct her to Fort Hamilton Army Base or so, where it can be guarded for the time being.
after this is done sydney needs to be told of a few arc dark and arc light drop points (or be given a few sydney drop points just in case she ever needs something taken out of play until after a fight again as long as its not a bomb of some sort, the various branches can then decide what she drops belongs where) simply because sydney is nice and versatile she can evac “stuff” off-field while maxima is a showy high priority threat (since her fights would have the most potentially dangerous debris and fallout)
Good idea.
Maxima has said she wants the attention to be focused on the team instead of on her, but since all attention goes to her anyway they should change their plans and put Maxima in the spotlights, so they can exploit the element of surprise.
Confirm and deny all stories about her weakness to electricity with insulating clothing and an official statement she isn’t weak to it. Have Ariana invite the press to all Maxima’s non-classified fight. Have Ariana spread rumors about impressive feats of Maxima(She didn’t shoot down the main Fel ship, she shot down an entire fleet. She prevented an alien invasion all by herself. She ate a nuke.)
Always have some of the less showy team members accompany Maxima, have this team do mostly work outside the densely populated areas and watch the enemy enter your trap.
no need Maxima draws attention just from her presence, just hovering Maxima is a threat. her getting involved allows a non-engaged team member to slip off the radar and go for secondary objectives or aid team members that are not winning their matchup as the stronger combatants are going to attempt engaging Maxima (and the smart ones that don’t engage Maxima right off the bat open themselves up to getting sucker punched).
By the way what’re Dabbler and Cora doing.
They’re not really involved in the Hench Whench fight.
I only can find a worst case scenario.
Dabbler is out cold and Cora is doing nothing, because she’s not allowed to involve herself.
Who said Cora isn’t allowed to involve herself? Because Henchie is hyu-mon? So is Cora
Cora in #866
comment rules, man, you gotta comic tag your reference issues clickably
Sorry, https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-866-rooftop-rally/
I suspect in these few seconds to minutes (remember this long to us in real time but in universe we are seeing snap shots of seconds at a time), some characters are off panel because they need to secure their prisoners, ya’know, drag them off the battlefield, handcuff/restrain them, sleep spells, drag them back into Ray’s ship into secured bunks *no doubt Ray can lock the doors from the outside if need be* he is shady enough to have a feature like that on his ship.
Isn’t that Harem’s Job as shown in the Vehemence fight and don’t tell me she can’t teleport there.
It’s New York City she probably knows all the night clubs there, so she can thus teleport inside a night club and take a cab to the fight.
She can, once she’s got the message that she’s required, but she may still be en route. As you say, I’d be surprised if she doesn’t have a ‘bookmark’ in NYC, but she’ll still need to get from that bookmark to Times Square. Plus any time taken to draw equipment from the Quartermastery, as required for the developing scenario.
hm should just have kept it inside her shield.
doubt there are anyone that can punch through that.
True. But that also limits her tactical options severely.
Not being able to lower her shield, in order to let allies or innocent victims in, is to be avoided where possible. Plus don’t forget the time that she had to let an enemy in (Vehemence), in order to be able to protect everybody else from his widespread aura.
Shadow Sidney actually looks like her superhero name.
Halo the MIGHTAY!
Maybe Sidney is just looking for a bathroom.
And she wants to take a photo … for reasons.
“Hello instagram! I forgot to take a picture of this food on the way in!”
now… i don’t want to see links of that crap but someone has to have done this on Instagram.
I was going to make a joke instagram for “food-AFTER pictures” but then someone told me there are dozens of poop instagram pages and I lost enthusiasm for the project.
Why wouldn’t she just make a mark on google maps to mark her location?
She did that with the monolith she left in some desert, last week, and somebody has already whipped it away!
new one just showed up in Romania.
and now California, although I suspect the one in California might be the exact same physical one that was in Utah.
the Romania one looks to be of lower quality so copy cat syndrome for the freak out the public factor.
What’s weird is no one noticing someone hauling around a twelve foot plus *counting depth in the ground* solid steel obelisk and the hole digging equipment *which in Utah was into solid rock* going onto private property and putting it up.
Are its sides in the ratio 1:4:9, by any chance?
Not only that but hominids in the area found themselves compelled to throw bones in the air!
I don’t think humanity needs a new step in weapon evolution at this time, though we are way overdue for a new positive development. Like, a species-wide ability to identify bullshit when they see/hear/read it would be good.
The California one is in my area. Some religious youth group extremists drove into town and tore it down today…
I like the idea of that being Concretia, but what if she’s a construction worker now picking up something from work. That could be an ambush in progress or it could be an unlikely chance meeting.
It would be really bad for Sydney to think she’s under attack and react violently if she actually but luckily her training is to shield first blast after careful analysis.
Especially as Concretia, like most of the supers involved in the Fight at the Steak House Car park (TM), was probably a normal everyday innocent super, whipped up into a frenzy by Vehemence’s aura.
That’s some … interesting shapes behind the glass in the first panel. What sort of beasties are they keeping in New York these days!
Vampires, werewolves, tree ents, gorgons … you know … the usual.
The clever money is going for the shadow being Concretia.
So I am going to go for Krona. Because I should get waaay better odds. Plus she is cute and we have not seen her for ages!
Dude, it’s obviously Candlej-…
I mean this has nothing to do with the current story arc, but has Sydney ever tried to use both hands on one orb and see if it does anything like give her more finesse with whatever orb she is using. For instance both hands on the shield orb give her use of two shields connected like bubbles, or both hands on the molestorb give her two tentacles or anything like that?
Or you know doubles the power of what she has available. Just random thoughts I was having.
Doubtful, the orbs as far as we have been shown and told are tech, and each has to be snuggly in her palm to activate. So her putting one between two hands shouldn’t make any more difference than if you were to hold a flashlight with both hands, you won’t get double the brightness or battery life because the device exist independent of you.
*yes the orbs are tethered to her and go to sleep when she does; however everything so far suggests they have a strict method of operation.
That is why I was leaning more towards the more control over it aspect. As even with a flashlight if you put both hands on it you have more control over where the light is. Same goes with driving or using a computer, when you use both hands you have more control/controls available. These are very high tech items so having more controls available would not be too far out of the range of possibilities for them, I would think. Anyway, just something that popped into my head while reading the comic today is all.
Yesterday I found out that unicorns crap gold.
I had a lot more preamble planned, as a pertinent reply. But I think it stands well alone.
No, unicorns crap ice-cream
Heh. Not in ‘Kingdom New Lands’. I enjoy it, and the original, as being very simple games that are nice to play once in a while when I have been on a tough shift and my brain is too frazzled to do anything more complex. It is also fun to figure out what the new mounts do (such as the bear being able to attack demons).
But having come to the conclusion that unicorns were decorative but otherwise no better than the basic horse, it did rather surprise me when I discovered that if you stop long enough for them to graze* they crap gold coins!
“What the … did I just see what I thought I saw? OMG, it did it again! How do you like those golden apples?”
* Something I almost never do in the game, as I can usually find something useful to do, even when demon threats limit where you can go at night.
Sydney, here’s a suggestion.
Put a pin on this location in your map app, then take a picture from the pinned location.
There are various suggestions like this. Everyone (including Sydney) seems to have forgotten that her wrist thing (along with the various collars and torcs worn by other members) constantly streams data (imagery, location, etc) back to Archon HQ, where it is analysed in real time by the intelligence team.
There is probably a retrieval helicopter inbound to those co-ordinates already. Although the mysterious shadow may make that a fruitless trip.
Captain Cthulhu and the Worldstompers…..why do I get the vipe of a Fusion Death Metal/Rockabilly band?
is…is that a photo from Jurassic park that you photoshopped in panel ….3. Nice.
She’s… She’s using BotW logic.
That’s both adorable and hilarious.
I cannot figure out what I am seeing in panel 3.
She’s sticking the stasis tube up in the false ceiling with all the AC tubing and wiring.