Grrl Power #481 – It’s basically just another kind of magic
I’m really bad about featuring new characters on a page without naming them. It’s on the next page so I’ll just tell you her name is Krona. That way you guys don’t have to refer to her as “hacking girl” in the comments.
I’m also really bad about controlling the firehose of new characters, but Krona is… I’m not going to say she’s the last one for a while, but it’s winding down. At least everyone seemed to like Clover and Ellie. :D
So yeah, Krona’s power is reality hacking, which, as suggested in the page title is really just another kind of magic. Instead of pentagrams though, her sigil happens to looks more like a soundboard. And instead of having to memorize complex spells before hand, she can just pull it up and start fiddling with the wires. Kind of like remapping a shader flowchart. This makes it significantly easier for her than most mages to alter things that already exist – unlock doors, change the color of a car, etc – but significantly harder for her to create things out of nothing, like fireballs. Still, she has some macros set up to do more complicated tasks, so it’s not like she can’t create things out of thin air, but outside of those shortcuts it takes her a while to do it.
Also, she’s not actually a mage. She’s also not a super, as you can tell from her physique. Actually no one knows how she does what she does, and she’s the only one who can do it to anyone’s knowledge, which is why she’s sitting all my her lonesome behind her banner.
Do grenade launcher rounds have a manual operation mode you may be asking yourself? These ones do, so don’t worry about it. :)
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All right, here’s my Grrl Power conspiracy theory for the day:
Krona is our villain in this act. It’s true. She has a god-like power that could have diffused the situation immediately: Select all mannequins -> deactivate (or unpower, whatever). The main problem in this arc is with the Veil slowly failing. She could easily do this with her power. The way DaveB portrays her reality hacking powers leaves a lot of room for interpretation. Can she do it on a macro scale? Select World:Earth and Delete? Or maybe Krona would like to see a red sun for the day and modifies the color spectrum? There are too many questions about her power.
And why is she even attending the Twilight Council? Anything she wants is already within her grasp. My only thought is that she wants friends (without just modifying their memory to be so already), so she’s created a situation in which she can really stand out. She’s clearly a geek with the Konami code being her symbol. And she’s the only one in her particular category.
She’s pretty much omnipotent, with the ability to hack reality. First thing I would do with such a power is give myself Achilles’ power. Copy/paste true invulnerability. She can be a shapeshifter or teleporter by modifying her appearance or location. Any additional mental processing power or memory can be added. The possibilities are limitless.
You’ve covered a lot of ground on that theory….
As a hypothesis it is interesting. What makes it a theory? Only after the fact shall we know how close you are if you nailed it or missed by a parsec or anywhere in between, I will be watching…\(o)
I’m guessing she has to build the “tools” she “hacks reality” with which requires understanding what she’s screwing around with which takes time so basically she has no upper limits in growth potential but she needs time and effort to grow.
I’m sure her sensory and analysis suite is fairly well developed since everything would start from there.
On the fly she just has to hope some “tool” she already has can be repurposed on the fly to get something useful done. She probably has a lot of hacking “programs” (whatever) set up for dealing with various types of guns and projectiles cause duh and they can probably be used on never before seen designs using similar concepts in a pinch.
Maybe there are energy-based constraints on her ability to make major changes?
I am not so sure you would want Achilles’ power if you knew what it was. Theory: He does not need to eat, drink or even breathe. His body is static and does not age. His hair and fingernails do not grow. He may well be a reconstructed likeness of his original form created by some person/entity and downloaded with his consciousness after something really bad happened to the original. To borrow a phrase from my screen name “He’s more mannequin now than man.”
Ah, but with her power, she can probably see a detailed description of the power. Her power is a debugging console for reality. She could probably give Achilles Bieber’s old hairstyle if she wanted to.
Dave, thanks for making my day with the Doom God Mode reference.
Not a very bright evil manikin. Throwing the grenade there only affects one person, the shrapnel would be contained by the rock walls. It should have thrown it in a higher arc so it explodes in the air. Hmm, unless she was the primary target of the attack?
Maybe Manny had tossed it so it would explode in the air: question- what happens to something that is thrown up but does not blow up?
Kronachrome may not have been the only one left in the Pee-Nuts Gallery, just because it landed next to an empty cushion simply means the previous butt on that seat had had the sense to leave Dodge
Manny the Manequin and his brothers. That is what we will call them from now on.
Manny, Mannie, Manuel, and Bob :D (Sydney has Bob tied up right now, and Manuel was taken outside by Maxi)
Well, it didn’t say “dud” until just before it hit the bench, so I interpreted that to be the time it was turned off.
is that a dragonball logo on that flag above the konami code?
That was hella astute there, my good chap. At first, I was going to say no, because the best known symbol on Goku’s gi was the Turtle Hermit symbol from his training with Roshi. Not sure if he got one from Kami.
HOWEVER.
It turns out the symbol on the banner above Cheater Pumpkineater’s is almost an exact match for a different symbol from Dragon Ball Z that was on Goku’s gi: King Kai’s symbol. It is “Kaio” and means “World King,” apparently. When Goku gets it, it appears on the back of his gi, while the Turtle Hermit kanji stays on the front.
https://blog.thetshirtcollection.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Goku_Kaio_symbol-1024×768.jpg
For assistance pronouncing “Kaio,” please see the following: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4uW5uIhjDU
Hah! Called it – before the page even loaded, I said “Kaio-what?”
So is that the mystically-enhanced martial artists’ seat? I think so.
Well, looks like we just found someone who could hurt Achilles. Just turn off his invulnerability and you’re good to go.
Archon will probably borrow her when they think he needs to FEEL a punishment.
Here’s a theory — a “reality hacking board” could be used to suss out Sydney’s mystery orb?
Interesting. As someone with software development experience, I can see how the mystery orbs could still be mysterious, even to a reality hacker.
I have seen programs where the interface is so far removed from the actual workings that, only after significant effort and peeling through layers of abstraction, I realize that the script I was debugging merely wraps a command and sends it to some other, general-purpose script on some other server, passing the original script name as one of several arguments.
Basically, depending on how “mysteriously” the orbs were designed, they might require a sufficiently high “reality hacker” skill level before their purpose becomes clear. :)
I don’t think I’ve ever heard Blender’s node engine called a ‘shader flowchart’, but I guess it kinda makes sense…?
Is it wrong that I assumed from the banner behind Krona that she was there representing the volleyball team?
Yeah she’s definitely a Blue-Per (son)
(due to lack of incriminating mug shot on the wall)
And being flagged with the Konami code?
In some instances, it gives you all the goodies.
In others… Instant death.
Oops!
hah! Elsbeth is a libriomancer?
If I had to guess, those kind of look like a digital era equivalent of D&D style psionic gears.