Grrl Power #1036 – The unseen… tentacle?
Well, I’m glad everyone enjoyed my math screw up on the previous page. I’ll have to come up with something a little more sensible since what I actually came up with was a number large enough to include every protein molecule from every single strand of DNA on Earth combined. Not just every human. Everything currently alive. Possibly everything that has ever been alive.
Crypto8536 commented “Out of curiosity, I found a big number calculator online and ran 4^(64^3). I put the result into a Word document with font size 11 and, because of the calculator, every 3 digits has a space behind it. It’s 65 pages long.”
It’s not googleplex, but it’s a pretty big number. Well, I have to own it. I borked that one hard.
I kind of feel like this page should have ended with Dabbler being shocked at Sydney’s statement there at the end (not quantum field encryption shocked, but still) and called for a mandatory lady orgasm class when they get back to base, but… sometimes the space constraints on a single comic page are the only editor I get, and it’s not always a terrible thing.
Book recommendation time! I just finished one I found fairly amusing, called Skyclad (Fate’s Anvil Book 1). It’s your basic isekai novel, except the (primary) main character is a young woman, and through no fault of her own, upon arriving at the new world, gets stuck with a class with powers that only work when she’s nude.
Now, I know this sounds like a setup for a salacious sex romp, but the book doesn’t remotely go in that direction. I’d say it’s almost a missed opportunity, but it’s not like the author didn’t realize what the premise was. I think it was more of an excuse for him to heap some pretty reasonable bonuses on the MC for surviving “naked and unequipped,” but even that stuff falls by the wayside as the story progresses. Anyway, I thought it was quite a bit better than the average isekai book, so I’m telling you about it.
The other series I want to recommend is probably something you’ve heard about if you’re into the sorts of books I tend to pimp. Dungeon Crawler Carl. It’s pretty popular, but it’s still easy to miss books if Amazon’s recommendations are screwy because you share an account with someone buying outside of your usual genres or if you don’t hang out in LitRPG Facebook groups or whatever.
Anyway, I actually didn’t like this book at first, because I didn’t feel that the setup didn’t really match the fairly casual attitude of the characters. The setup is, Carl is out chasing his ex-girlfriend’s cat, when every structure with a roof on the entire planet, buildings and cars, etc, is instantly flattened into the ground. So like, what, 85% of humanity just dies in that instant. Then the announcement comes out of nowhere welcoming all survivors to “The Game” which is your basic every-level-is-different/Smash TV dungeon dive. Basically alien youtube meets gladiator games.
Now, I don’t want to read a book about someone suffering from crippling emotional trauma/survivor’s guilt/whatever, but I also can’t deal with books where something horrific has or will happen, and the characters don’t seem to care about it. Characters need to react appropriately to their situations, IMO. Call me crazy. Carl has a few moments early on where he’s like “OMG, everyone I know is probably dead.” But otherwise he doesn’t seem terribly broken up about the near total genocide of his species and the functional erasure of the entirety of human history and accomplishment.
At least, at first. I quit about 2 hours in on my first try, but after finishing up several other books I had a brief dry spell and gave Carl another shot. The books are well written, faintly humorous, (which I found to be at odds with the premise initially) BUT, after pushing through, I was more entertained than annoyed, and Carl does eventually start fighting back against the genocidal producers. I won’t spoil anything, but by the end of the 4th book, he does fuck them pretty hard. It’s fantastically satisfying, and I’m hoping for more to come. I’m awaiting the audiobook (all of which have been excellent) for #5, but I think it shouldn’t be too long. I think it’s just getting edited/approved but I can’t say for sure.
Huh, two non-harem non-sexytime books in a row. Weird. Now go support the Tamer 8 Kickstarter, hah hah.
The kickstarter for Tamer 8 is up! It has already comfortably made its goal, I think it did that in the first few hours, but I’m letting you know so you can get the book and extra goodies if’n you want as soon as everything is available.
New incentive is up! Dabbler decided to get out of the pool, in slow motion (see the bonus comic at Patreon), possibly with added “physics.”
Cue Mele Kalikimaka.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Yay, one of my recommendations got through!
Anyway, if you’re still in a ‘fantasy w/ female protagonist in a sexist world’ mood, I can (now) recommend Beneath the Dragon Eye Moons. It’s been recommended before, but I hadn’t read it then, and now I have.
Audible: https://www.audible.com/pd/Beneath-the-Dragoneye-Moons-Audiobook/1039402259
Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/Beneath-the-Dragoneye-Moons-6-book-series/dp/B08NWL5J8S
Royal Road: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36299/beneath-the-dragoneye-moons
Anyway, it’s a pretty good example of what you wanted, I think, and the author actually did a cross over event with a bunch of other female led fantasy stories, although the ones I’ve read aren’t focused on sexism.
I’d expect A Journey of Blood and Black to focus on it ( https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/26675/a-journey-of-black-and-red ) as it’s set in fantasy-ish past, but I haven’t gotten to it just yet.
Azarinth Healer ( https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/16946/azarinth-healer ) doesn’t really focus on sexism much so far (although I’m, like, a quarter of the way through because holy shit is it long).
This Quest is Bullshit ( https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Trilogy-Broken-Comedy-Adventure-ebook/dp/B08S29SNMY ) doesn’t focus on sexism, but is pretty fun, reminding me of your own work a bit, particularly the dialogue and genre savvy sass.
I can also toss out a recommendation for Defiance of the Fall ( https://www.amazon.com/Defiance-of-the-Fall-5-book-series/dp/B0916H6FBX ), while it’s male lead, it fits snugly in the classic shonen harem protagonist setup, where the female side characters find him attractive, but he’s too busy murder hobo-ing to pay attention. Also, points for not going spell sword variant, favoring a full zug zug build with most of his ranged attacks being finishers.
Also, obviously I have a bit of ADHD, I read only so much and then hop to a different series. As I’ve probably mentioned, I’ve been enjoying the RPG apocalypse sub-genre more than Isekai/Portal Fantasy.
I tried out Beneath the Dragoneye Moons, and… I actually liked it quite a bit up until… I don’t want to spoil it, oh, wait, the spoiler tags should still work. Anyway, it was that point about a third of the way through the first book where a major event happens that presumably focuses up the main character. When she gets her first rank in “Poisoner.” I get that bad stuff usually needs to happen to galvanize the plot and/or character motivation, but it was such a jarring tonal shift and at the time I wasn’t in the mood to jump from slice of life to crushing despair. (Presumably it only lasts a chapter or two.) I’ll probably jump back in like I did with DCCarl, cause I did like the rest, but probably not till I work through my existing audiobook queue.
I read (listened) to the first This Quest is Bullshit and mostly enjoyed it. Didn’t feel a burning need to dive right into the second book but it’s an option for the future.
Yes, your guess is absolutely correct.
Oh, I also missed the Tower Of Somnus ( https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/36983/tower-of-somnus ) if you want more genre mashup. Female lead, and there’s sexist males in positions of power (if you view that as different than a sexist culture). Also, a very interesting mix of cyber punk and fantasy litrpg, as while the litrpg elements are from a game (with perma-death for your character), the abilities translate over to the ‘real world’ cyber punk section.
I can’t do the game stuff. It’s frustrating, because I like LitRPG as a genre, but I can’t wrap my head around the ultra low stakes of characters in a book playing video games. Even if the character’s brain is uploaded in the computer and death means real death, I can’t get past the idea that whatever drama the author concocts, in the “real world,” there’s just a computer server sitting there with some blinking lights on the front.
Also, the real threat to life in Sim-Dungeon-Land isn’t the evil necromancer, it’s the company going out of business. Additionally, I can’t seem to ignore the idea that if the players are there involuntarily, which happens in a lot of books, or if the NPCs are sophisticated enough to experience true suffering, then the idea of a company profiting off of that, while totally believable, doesn’t pass the “This company would be sued for human rights abuses” test.
From your taste in books you might like Stray-Cat Strut, once you get through your current backlog. It’s got a strong female lead, more a Dystopian society than a sexist one though. ( https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/33600/stray-cat-strut-a-young-ladys-journey-to-becoming ) I wasn’t interested in it at first glance, but read the first two chapters and I think you’ll like it. I just suggest having it on your radar.
If you like Stray Cat Strut (And I do) I think you’ll really like the author (Ravensdagger)’s other series, Cinnamon Bun. The isekai protag’s cheat is that she’s well adjusted. That’s it.
Try tower of somnus, I know it technically has a “game” world, but the action is split between the two, because the powers you gain in the dream world carry over to the waking world, and death in the dream world strips you of your powers and access to the dream world unless you acquire another subscription, which is hell to get in the cyberpunk dystopian earth.
If they are going to do death in the game equals death in real life they might as well go full Isekai with it and make it a world they were transported to based on the game like In the Land of Leadale .
But the drama in real life reminds me of one series that absolutely upset me, never got past the first episode of the anime. It was Phantasy Star the animation, I loved the old games on the Sega…and liked the dream cast, tolerated the later ones, and never played the latest
But any who, the anime was…a teen drama where they virual dive into the game…with zero stakes in game, it’s just a teen drama with window dressing, a pretend isekai. Just using the real world game for name recognition
It’s actually perma-death of the character requiring you to find a new subscription to the tower. Since the tower grants real world abilities, that’s a fairly major deal since the characters constantly enter and exit it. Also, it’s run by aliens interested in the advancement of all life forms and such.
The MC is actually spending a lot of time in real world life or death scenarios as it is a cyperpunk dystopia and she’s not rich. Give the first chapter or two a read and see if you like the setup, it’s not one I’ve ever really seen before. Wait… hang on, MSE did one vaguely similar where the abilities gained in the game translate to magical abilities in the real world: https://michaelscottearle.com/collections/lions-quest .
I will add for game based series for me, the trapped in the game and the NPCs have human intelligence and emotions is a deal breaker for me too if its still the actual game on the actual servers. If its a magical copy of the game world like In the Land of Leadale or Overlord *or its just a magical world that obeys game rules for some reason like So I’m a spider so What. its a bit more excusable.
-granted sometimes those turn out to be game worlds made by more advanced civilizations or bored gods copying what they saw on Earth, so AI to them can feel almost exactly human with some uncanny valley moments. But that’s sort of a different genre, I wouldn’t call Angel Beats for instance an Isekai game world series.
For a supposed to be on Earth more mundane setting it just feels wrong to have a company know someone is trapped in the game and try to kill them to cover it up, rather than research how its possible given this could lead to digital download immortality in the right hands; or have software capable of generating thousands if not millions of individual NPCs with human intelligence…may be a better market for that than video game space fillers.
If you haven’t, try the wandering inn! Or rather, don’t, I like being able to read Grrl Power, and TWI has consumed too many people I like already with its quality and size.
Hey Dave!
I’m the author! Thank you for giving it a try.
To be clear – she only got offered it, didn’t take it. And yeah, it’s one of those moments, I can see why you’d pause there.
Cheers, thank you again for giving it a shot!
Is Defiance of the Fall real big on the Cultivation trappings? I have limited patience for people eating pills, meditating, and kowtowing to honored elders.
Eating pills and other loot items yes, the MC kowtowing to honored elders no (except for not pissing them off, as they start running toward DBZ tier power levels). While there’s a lot of those features as part of the verse mechanics, the MC can’t access normal cultivation mechanisms, and basically uses pills as fuel for leveling up. It’s a lot more LitRPG than cultivation, the closest overlap is the Dao system which basically means your understanding of a concept grants stat and specialty bonuses.
Also, the author is a firm believer that happiness doesn’t come from contentment, but from numbers going up.
Isekai next, order up!
:P
The fun part of human genetics being the key to these sort of things you can kind of wonder what genes have been accidentally linked to it. Imagine if it’s something silly like detached earlobes or everyone who is a super has the gene that means they were born without wisdom teeth. Something so small and unimportant being massively important is hilarious. I don’t remember the RPG but there is one there gardeners ended up the most powerful people due to flowers being the language of angels. So you needed a nice floral arrangement to speak with god. That I also found hilarious.
If we’re recommending non-sexist worlds as well, I’ll go ahead and shill Vigor Mortis (https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/40373/vigor-mortis) for an interesting take on high fantasy with an occasional dose of cosmic horror, superpowers, and a fair chunk of wittiness. The main character is a necromancer, but it avoids becoming a murder-fest.
How is Defiance not a spellsword? His primary attack [CHOP] literally summons giant magical blades that slice through enemies? His secondary skillset is all poison/death based! Also i would give this one a pass personally, im 800 chapters in and its become such a slog to read, both story wise and level wise he’s still the universal equivalent of level 2
64^3=262,144 common log of 4 is roughly .60205
common log of 4^(64^3) = .60205 times 262144 =158,000 (approximately)
So the result is roughly 1 followed by roughly 158,000 zeroes
You may want to check the numbers. It has been a while since I took high school math. Most of the readers probably weren’t alive then.
Wolfram Alpha will be so disappointed that you haven’t heard of them …
https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=4%5E%2864%5E3%29
ie: 2.596370567831001e157826, it lies between 6^6^6 and 7^7^7 so it’s pretty damn big, but not immense.
The human race as a brute force attack? How very hitchhiker. The world being one giant computer to crack the Superion field. Does this universe have a backup earth just in case it gets destroyed to build a hyperspace express route?
My thoughts exactly. And if I had not been so worn out by the time (WAY past my bedtime) this was posted, this would have been the first comment.
Dave REALLY should have worked the number 42 into the prior pages…
You’re assuming it’s just the Earth that’s being used for the brute force attack. It could be that humans on Earth were just the first ones lucky enough to crack it out of millions of other sapient civilizations around the universe that were also being used. (First ones that we know of, that is.)
I’m thinking more a distributed attack. You know, like the way SETI@home runs on a million different computers at once, but an interesting discovery’s probably only going to be made on one of them? It’s like that, except it’s running on a billion different planets at once, and an interesting discovery in this case was only made on Earth.
As far as we know.
Apropos of…well, nothing… With the mention of Earth being some sort of “brute force attack”, I immediately thought of the “Brute Squad” in the movie “The Princes Bride” (and in the voice of Billy Crystal saying it).
Why is it that I /really/ worry about that water that Dabbler was given? Deus so often seems like he knows how to be nice, but I don’t believe him.
I like Skyclad, but something is up with that author. He needs a manager, editor or something. From what i can tell there’s an entire book ready on RR, but the last official release was years ago.
Book 2, Skybound had its latest chapter posted 2 month ago, with some 4 to 5 months between chapters lately.
Looking over trends in the comments,
What if the Orbs, Maxima symbiote, and the superion field are related, but not related at the same time. For simplicity’s sake this sort of thing usually comes down to the hyper alien species being just a few individuals (Chousin from Tenchi Muyo) or one organization (Yggdrasil super computer of God from Ah My Goddess),
but what if they are from the same species but not the same group, like a different culture, company, or just different friend group or however such beings may group up.
As I tend to lean towards the motive of such beings to be creating entertainment for themselves, toys, pets, interactive worlds with new experiences from different perspectives even ranging from not aware of it to fully aware of it immersions.
what if Maxima’s symbiote, the Orbs, and the Superion field are all different upgrade products to a base product, Like different Apps, and the superion field is a general full patch on the reality…same idea Maxima and Sidney’s power sources could be mods individuals made and the main company went ahead with a full patch.
or one product line hypothesis, NES, Super Nintendo, clear up now to one with a full upgrading network.
-Maxima’s symbiote could even be like a game genie with specific hack codes in place for certain super powers that bonded with one of the avatars, NPCs, battle dolls, whatever outlook there, to be used on humans that didn’t have the decryption key for the power network in them.
*on that thought process maybe supers should be worried about being scooped up as their populations increase to be taken off to be sold as compatible pets/dolls for some fourth or fifth tier civilization.
(or the network was never meant to be used by humans but only by custom build human analogous avatars by these beings and some group of hackers is trying to brute force hack the network and give these powers to all humans, a sort of “humanitarian rights, humans aren’t just pets/toys, they deserve to be treated fairly” group.
and Sidney picked up a game boy with its own skill tree.
could go on, so many possibilities, especially as they could easily mix elements together, and didn’t even touch on supernaturals and the other neo-quantum fields of this setting perhaps being earlier products or different ones.
-You loved Neo-Quantum 1 and Neo-Quantum 2 upgrades, not get ready for Neo-Quantum 3; now with more power, more speed, fewer vulnerabilities, and all the crazy action you’ve been asking for on the forums.
You lost me at apps.
Accessories, additions, and upgrades to the program and the NPCs , avatars, and or dolls within
well about the same as understanding that von nueman gives us the power of computing and the net. eg with ‘laws ‘ like moores law, t mathematics and physics.
thinking it over,
what if the universe or region of the universe at least, is a simulation/might as well be one,
and the superion field is basically the latest patch.
Saga of the Well of Souls
In a small universe the Markovian race mastered the equations of space and time, granting them the power to create at will, but felt dissatisfied with God mode. So they build a planet sized device to artificially recreate the conditions that the universe arose from. Creating a much larger universe sustained by the well world, using their race as seeds to transform into the base seeds of an infinite array of new races to try and find out why they mastered everything, but never reached a fulfillment as a race
Almost Sounds like a civilization scale version of what Washu did in Tenchi Muyo (OVA continuity).
Washu was one of the three Chousin that created the multiverse, they did so as an experiment to see if they could create conditions that could result in beings as high as or higher than themselves (ended uo with a bunch of admins of different dimensions),
well after a very long time of this the three decided to go separate ways on their experiments. Washu concluding that maybe she was overthinking it, so reincarnated herself as a baby with her memory and powers locked away, so she could rebuild her knowledge from scratch, a new perspective and new ideas as a result.
she did end up having some children who inherited a few higher being powers, and one of her sisters Tsunami based a whole civilization on her own nature.
what if the Nth created current creation or so on and were trying to fight against the squidwards cause they are like destruction incarnate. so the last Nth or so on warped to earth to escape but died due to heavy damage but earth and supers is the fail safe if they failed to defeat the squidwards. OR giving the galaxy the sword and shield to fight or give fair fight against the destruction. like the Ys game forgot which one but had dragon gods in it and they were the sword to give fair fight against the end of all things type stuff.
The squidwards didn’t come across as equals or even threats to these Nth. Sidney, a non Nth user using something she hasn’t fully unlocked was able to take out a small fleet of fighters and two Titan bio mechs. Their reaction to scanning her came across as a panic response. They may have encountered the source species for the orbs, and been at their mercy so went nuts detecting possibly just one
Adding to this, the squidwards may not have actually been a species but battle mechs like sentinel robots. Lambda had mentioned using war mechs if they came back to Earth. Heck given she had a stasis gun and her species are quasi ascended with bio frame bodies they make her people could be one of the higher end members of the Xevoarchy, and that may have been her people attacking the Alari home world.
Who can tell? Think about Stargate SG-1.
The Asgard are massively more powerful than most species. But a relatively new ‘species’ – the Replicators from the Milky Way Galaxy – were beating them.
Or in the Pegasus Galaxy, the Ancients themselves were essentially defeated by the Wraith, who are vastly inferior in technology and a much newer species. Not to mention the Pegasus galaxy Replicators, who the Ancients were not able to defeat despite giving a really good try at it.
Sometimes, even inferior opponents can really mess you up and bea real danger to you in a war. I won’t even get too into stuff like Russia vs Afghanistan or the US in VietNam as real life examples.
bad writing, sorry Star Gate was always rule of cool and humanity hell yeah; I never took it as hard sci-fi; pop corn entertainment. Fun to watch but seriously they could spend five minutes in an alien computer room and figure out how to hack it with a laptop; not to mention the power fatigue we got from said advanced aliens (presented as TOO powerful, so the show had to find ways to make it so they weren’t able to solve everything but at the same time make it so humans could. The Warf effect on a civilization scale)…it also irritated me, especially as it became clear the writers weren’t sure how to write something that advanced, implied the Ancients hit a platue of advancement that lasted for tens of thousands of years without any improvement, kept killing off or sidelining advanced civilizations so humanity didn’t have the deus ex machina button on hand, and not to mention like the computer example the laughable treatment of this advanced technology…zero point energy maodules that constantly run out of power, and even new ones barely able to take a few energy blasts to the shields…the we “barely have any power” drama sci-fi seems to love too much. and I could go on with the rants. The biggest mistake of the show actually was introducing these races directly; they went from mysterious ancient powers to smart kid with glasses getting beat up by the jocks so their friend “humans” who are less smart have to com and save them.
and the real world examples are usually more closely matched than expected despite military spending on one side on shiny toys that make big booms; tactical advantages, severe over sights *did the Russians think the exclusion zone was a hoax? are they complete idiots?*, who the hell digs trenches in irradiated soil? Ego plays a big part here as well; but I will digress on arm chair analyzing real world war zones; especially an on-going conflict.
I am about convinced though the war mechs remark by Lamba was a hint that what we saw were war mechs and kaiju; like RoBeasts.
and remember those star gate examples, Humans were using weapons and tactics the Asgard didn’t have or wouldn’t think of. even disregarding the writing limitations they were working under; Sidney didn’t shoot down a bunch of fighters and kill two robeasts suing Earth weapons or Earth tactics, she did it using Nth tech, not fully unlocked Nth tech at that while she isn’t one of them. So not exactly, oh Asgard energy weapons don’t affect replicators but slug weapons do. She is using the very tech of the species implied to have been on the losing side here and don’t so well despite the shortcomings that these aliens went full nuclear orbital bombardment and still missed. Her shield isn’t even fully upgraded at that.
honestly against something that can create its own quantum field, your only option is a war of atrision, but a Beta Ray Bill level.
-to try and defeat Galactus Beta Ray Bill commited mass genocide, destroying the planets Galactus was going to feed on.
in this case however, frustration may be the key, destroy any worlds of interest to these *higher dimension interlopers in this reality* and keep doing it till they just give up (screw this noise) and leave out of frrustration.
this is the best way I can think of something like those squidwards could try to fight such beings.
*I mean its the tactic I have the Croon Alliance using against the Amana, massacre humanoid worlds to try and push away the Amana…back fires constantly on them (humanoids of sufficient advancement to fight back and other left behind defenses); but only tactic available really is to keep kicking over the sand castles and running away hoping the bigger more powerful beings just get frustrated and go home leaving the beach to them.
To add, these theories are stemming from an unprovem assumption that the squidwards both A had anything to do with the Architects of the Suprion, and B were their enemies.
They were already on Alar attacking the planet for unknown reasons. Their reaction to Sidney could simply have been because of detecting an unknown but high or exotic energy signature or tech about a certain grade on a world they were attacking so sent reinforcement to destroy it.
On B we could just as quickly jump to the conclusion they are beholden to the Architects of the Suprion like their older project or allies of the Shadows scenario, saw the Alari we’re after Earth so decided to help their benefactors out by removing the interference to their latest project, and mistook Sidney for under their control given the situation.
People keep calculating humanity’s effectiveness as a brute force attack based on the size of humanity alone.
This is not needed as long the answers aren’t uniformly distributed or singular.
We define biological categories primary by the amount of overlap in genetic code.
For access to the superion field this basically means each biological unit is a shot at a different range of possible decryption keys.
Meaning that humanity only is the success story of a brute force attack that is at least as big as all life that has lived in the universe, since the appearance of the superion field and possibly as big as the total of all energetic interactions in the universe, since it appearance.
Probably not a perfectly efficient one mind you(some energetic interactions in the universe will be the same unless the amount of energy differential present in the entire universe or time or any other never repeating value is a used value, because than that value could corrigated for the repetition in these interaction), but still pretty efficient.
The other things to remember are (a) quantum computing is a way to explore all the solutions instantaneously without actually exploring any of the individual solutions, and (b) the number of ways that four people can interact is 6, five people is 24, eight is 5040, and one hundred is 99 factorial.
The number 6 billion factorial is …. large.
The number 7.5 billion factorial is even larger, and getting larger every year!
Hyper exponentially larger in fact :)
It’s what we’re good at! Think about it our weapons are nothing more than a better way to throw rocks and sticks at each other. Bullets are basically melted rocks and rockets are just sticks we strapped boom power to both ends with one end open so it doesn’t go boom lol! Yes, I said boom power I overheard some guys talking at a bar long ago and I’m repeating what I heard him call it. “That’em gun had soms good boom power in’nit!” true story…
(sudden face-palm)
I am loving the worldbuilding!
This is the best scientific explanation I have ever heard for supers. A super advanced civilization just added an encrypted field to reality. It explains why supers have powers that a borderline or definite violations of the natural order (like magic). It explains why only mature, sentient beings have them (it takes a minimum degree of processing power and a desire to access the field). It explains why this field did not leave its mark on the cosmos (like background radiation is too high or black holes require higher masses than predicted). It explains why the field doesn’t violate conservation of energy & mass (the field generator is probably pumping energy into the field).
My explanation for Supers is that somehow energy from a higher spacial dimension is leaking into our otherwise mundane three dimensional reality.
Like shining a flashlight onto Flatland and confusing the inhabitants.
this idea reminds me of the’ midnight at the well of souls ‘ books
the only intelligent species to evolve in a tiny ( a couple of hundred galaxies tops) universe who reach the N level and realize after millions of years of immortality they’ve reached a dead end, so they decide to start over by rewriting the universe.
they expand the universe 1000 times, and create a planet with 1000 different miniature bio spheres and each Of them set their tentacles about designing new and frequently deeply bizarre patterns for intelligent species,and then insert them on to their artificially aged and Engineered worlds and Place their souls into the new species, hopefully to involve to a higher level.
The laws governing physics in each biome are designed to test how would they would deal with worlds with greater or lesser resources.
The stories have the main characters discover a Gate to the well of souls design world which is still running with the last sets of experiments and Rewritten into various Different species Who then Have to survive and Try to escape
because all of the N converted themselves into new species And are all gone… or are they?
This reminds me Guyver bio-boosted armor……..alot
Skyclad’s a good one. Read it on RoyalRoad, and it was good there, so the edited, published version should be even better.
A thing to note about it, though, is that the main character is only “A” main character, not “THE” main character. Got a lot of readers salty when they thought it was going to be more focused throughout. Story’s all good, and it’s an intriqueing sort of Isekai, but it’s not “Follow this character with maybe a page or two every so often of another view” it’s “Follow this character to set up the world, then follow this OTHER character for a while, then follow this OTHER other character for a while, while they all intersect and set up a larger overarching plot that only tangentially relates to the initial character that you got to know and love.”
Yeah, the first shift make the book start to feel a little unfocused, but then it was obvious the author was building to a larger world and conflict which I’m all for. Plus the character who hung out with the dwarves was cool. I could have read a whole book about her, but a lot of isekai novels are about people reinventing modern hardware in a fantasy world, so I can see why the author didn’t make her the MC.
Dunno if you tried my Power of Ten novels there, since you’re quoting off Royal Road books so much. But if you like gaming, I go through different genres on each of the four novels there.
The first book starts out like a video game… but it definitely isn’t.
The second book should get your Warhammer 40k blood pumping.
The third books shifts focus to the Caster side of the equation, and answers all the reader’s comments as to why Forsaken aren’t invincible.
Book four is supersverse, and what happens when you stick a gamer into it.
I don’t do any stat blocks to speak of until book four, but you can find the many, many pages of Book Three’s MC on my patreon site, lol.
Well. the inconspicuous look at the reality bending orbs created by so advanced science that it looks like magic to an already advanced civilization did give the hint…
Digging the Infinity Stone buttons / cufflink on Deus’s suit, man knows how to dress for an occasion.
re: the book recommendations, I’m surprised no one’s mentioned this character whose powers also only work when he’s naked and stop again when anyone looks.
Looking at the central panels a suspicion comes over me.
Dabbler likely knows the theory the orbs are Nth tech. Deus shouldn’t, although thanks to Harem likely does; even if she just described Sidney’s portals something tells me Deus with his connections knows what an Aethereum causeway is and put it together himself.
So his response to Dabbler could be her first point that trailed off…or to her looking over at Sidney.
That said this could be seen two ways as well, either Dabbler (and maybe Deus) suspect the orbs are Nth tech…or they could believe *either hiding it or suppressed memory avatar& Sidney herself is one.
Honestly on that thought would not be surprised if in-universe there weren’t conspiracy theorist websites claiming reality is a simulation and supers are the avatars of higher dimension beings…among other weird ideas..the internet.
It’s nice to see the megalomaniac giving his impressive presentation and then admitting he doesn’t have ALL the answers.
A number that big deserves a name. The Deusplex. I think he’d enjoy having a theoretical mathematical formula named after him that relates to biology like that. It fits with his god complex.
Sydney under suspicion of being a representative of a hyperrace to which Nth technology is fit only for child’s toy could have amusing complications.
Now trying not to picture a Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiago’s orgasm
…Carmen Sandiego’s orgasm. Sydney scores.
We Are sure that’s Just water right? Her Eye Should be able to tell if he spiked it with anything?
I think what Deus has been talking about is something that humanity might have never figured out if it wasn’t for the advent of superhuman abilities popping up. As he’s implied that the DNA helix holds a key, a pattern if you will, right smack dab in the quantum level of existence…Which the quantum level, by definition, is unpredictable, fundamentally immeasurable & has no pattern to it. The existence of super powers has led his mathematicians to a whole new direction in the study of universal fundamentals that humanity has been lacking before that.
The other thing about it is that someone/something artificially made it exist (bespoke) & integrated it all the way to the fundamental of existence.
TL;DL – Deus is talking about a decipherable amount of ORDER within pure CHAOS that was made & inserted artificially. Could that someone/something also be the inventors of Sydney’s orbs?…
Yep, and this could even be evidence given the scale difference and usage that the orbs might actually turn out to be toys for their little ones compared to this project.
Or perhaps just the sort of thing one of the beings working on the project to produce the field would have viewed as comparable to a pocket knife; Useful, but if you misplace it, no big deal.
I would be inclined towards the multi purpose tool or star ship components theories if not for the skill tree; it is just such a strong game mechanic vibe that screams (toy) to me. Like maybe one of these Architects of the Superion, brought their kid to work and they dropped their toy in the ocean by accident.
So you’re telling me you actually invented the deusplex ! ?
The idea that Dabbler is legit just kind of bad at drinking water out of a cup amuses me.
I’m going to say something not about this page, but about this universe. Frequently, you will see a post on social media that states, “Would you like to live in the universe of your favorite author?”. For me, I would not. Whovians know that there will frequently be an alien invasion which will kill a good number of people in London or Cardiff. Potterheads wouldn’t know anything, unless you were a wizard or witch. Twihards wouldn’t know why vampires sparkle. The list goes on. I would like to live in this one. The idea that you might run into one of your charming and beautiful heroes (of either gender) during the day is something that I certainly could see myself enjoying. Keep up the good work!
nice touch the projector’s light in the background to hint at something divine
First – I wonder if the orbs give Sydney Admin Access to the super hero system (or if their code will let Krona figure that out – or, per a comment on strip #506:
“Krona may have root access, but it seems someone else has machine level access.”
Also….Dabbler maybe should have thought twice before drinking anything Deus handed her. It may have some additives…
Maybe… maybe they are also training wheels. Maybe you only get access to the field when you learned the available powers? Considering the complex upgrade system we saw, it’s possible that in the end she can not only use every power the orbs give Sidney in many variation, maybe understanding the powers is necessary to give people powers.
And looking where the orbs were found again, maybe there was an accident and the controller of the superion field got caught in the blast of an asteroid the controller called down.
I mean, people tat can construct the orbs and the superion field surely can calculate how to manipulate life on earth so that a sapient species develops.
If even a part of this theory is true, the questions and implications mount up.
Just a completely wild scenario:
“The people of the galaxy have come to stop humanity.” (I have an army.)
“Good luck. They are trying to stop 8 billion Maxima’s.” (I have 8 billion Hulks)
Another hypothesis comes to me,
let’s assume the Architects of the Superion *nice ring to that*, were actually being selective on who can access it, like the supers are player avatars hypothesis, or controlled experiments.
what happens when Deus starts to empower non-selected…especially in larger numbers.
Will it garner a direct reaction from them? Is Deus gambling on getting their attention to interact with them. Maybe pulling a “if the tier 2 Xevoarchy types don’t want to play ball and hide behind some prime directive type BS, then lets see if we can go over their heads to even more advanced civilizations and work with them, who don’t give a crap about any prime directive type stuff (for the most part).
… are you saying that the brown “UNKNOWN” orb is making the superion field and empowering all the super heros on earth?
no.
to clarify that (no), the implication here is that the same beings that made the orbs are the same ones that made this superion field.
carmin sandiago that takes me way way back my mom liked the PC games and I got to watch the cartoons every so often (ref: https://youtu.be/1P15l8fAJYw also it has a nice intro song) or the gameshow of it was hella young so I cant remember much of it but I remember the camen sandiago thing being pretty good (can’t remember but I think the reason for her becoming a villain was because being a hero was no challenge for her and so she became a villain just for the challenge of pulling off these crazy heists)
i would say as elusive as a working mc Donald’s ice-cream machine.
I would think somebody would say something to Xuriel about the water around her mouth. But then I kinda figure have fluid on her face is comforting to her, like a teddy bear.
For an Elusive thing, I nominate the Ghost of a Neutrino.
I think some perspective is in order,
some simplified explanations on the quantum field thanks to Kurzegasagt
what is something
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9otDixAtFw
string theory
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Da-2h2B4faU
For something to even directly perceive let alone interact directly with the quantum field/manipulate it is beyond insane. Assuming every sub atomic particle is an expression of the quantum field and these link up via causality fields and the forces that represent those building up like erector sets, you could if you could manipulate the quantum field directly litterally break the classical laws of physics, cause expressions and if you have quantum codes so to speak like blue prints for the expressions set off chain reactions to produce specific results, in short Q snaps his fingers an an apple appears is possible if you can make the quantum field express the particles and energy contain and arrange them as desired.
you could create an exact copy of a person down to their memories with zero ways to tell them apart; you could even insert an avatar or make a body in reality that is invincible simply by controlling the interactive expressions to just “turn off” interactions to everything but the desired expressions and specific intensities there of (Achilles), fire a planet busting Kamehameha…well the quantum construct has an expression limit build in so no energies above a certain level are interacted with, redirecting the unwanted particles.
now to go even further and have something able to make its own quantum field, we just jumped from a tier 4 to a tier 5, even Q would be humbled.
no telling how something like that even perceives reality around it.
using my own stuff as an example, in the story where a school of baby Amana (higher dimension beings from beyond the multiverse), descended upon a fleet of alien ships; aside from the ones that were more malicious because they were ascended from physical bodies, all the ones born at the cosmic scale *its complicated* have no frame of reference for “life”, and in truth didn’t even percieve the ships or their crews as “alive” what they percieved were bouncing bundles of causality bunched up in arrangements they’d not encountered before; there is no real world way to compare that, even *child sees a hologram* there would be more relation between a human child and a hologram than between external to reality children and living beings; they would need to learn to dull their senses and even dive into reality with limited forms to actually get the experience needed to percieve them as alive or sapient or anything….being all percieving and powerful from the start is like having an amoeba with the power of a singularity and even less restraint.
Which makes the Star Trek episodes with a a new Q being limited and brought around humans to learn perspective a pretty good example of this.
but in the end, yeah, any aliens this powerful would be cause for pause, and anyone with an intimate understanding of quantum physics *let alone beyond what Earth currently knows, to include supernatural physics like magic and psionics* and knows how gravity relates and so forth would have a comprehension of reality that could be maddening for the average person to really think about; then tell them there is more and something out there not only can manipulate the framework of reality but build their own. Well I;d say Dabbler had a very tame response, I could see alien physicists having a full mental breakdown at the prospect.
to add, just finished this thought piece, a more sci-fi attempt to explain the tier 5-7 civilization of the Amana and their relationship with quantum fields, as magical and cosmic eldritch horror as it is to say, “their very presence and words warp the fabric of reality”, I wanted to explore a possible *why* that happens.
https://www.deviantart.com/rhuen1/art/Amana-relationship-with-quantum-fields-911935914
You used to add little chibi omake in the lower comic margin, that would have been a good place to put the Dabbler’s Supplementary Education gag.
I just realized Dabbler freaked out so badly about bespoke universal constants that she developed a “drinking problem” like the protagonist in “Airplane”.
Probably already said but I just noticed this on a re-read. So could the passive on the “Makes Air?” ball be generating this field?