Grrl Power #503 – Manic loop
This page doesn’t actually explain a whole lot. It was supposed to initially, but Sydney kind of got away from me here. She’s a menace to both sides of the 4th wall.
I’m not sure Sydney has considered what’s involved in actually implementing her checkpoint ‘sploit. It would involve either dying a lot or at least hitting those acute stress levels Krona mentioned over and over. I enjoyed Edge of Tomorrow enough as it was basically the military version of Groundhog Day. I can’t say I’m interested in Before I Fall, which looks to be the high school girl version of Groundhog Day. Anyway, one thing I thought Day of Tomorrow might have done a little differently would have been if they showed the toll of dying over and over and over took on Cruises character. He didn’t need to descend into a quivering mass of overlapping PTSDs, just a line here or there about “I hope we figure this out sooner rather than later. Dying is not… most people don’t have to remember it.” Maybe one or two more traumatic events would make Sydney realize her plan has some significant drawbacks.
Given Pixel’s knowledge of artifacts, telling her your time loop is limited might sound a bit like “it’s just a tiny atomic bomb.” Presumably she’s not a fan.
This page colored by Keith.
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Well, based on the rabid back and forth debates about the latest and greatest ‘superpower’ being a bit game/webcomic/story breaking, and the sometimes vicious responses to some of the comments, by the more ‘rabid’ fans of the webcomic…then THIS post ought to break a few more brains.
The answer to how all of these increasing strange changes to the original story arc’s general pathing, and to ‘how can the creator POSSIBLY recover from what all us readers are screaming about, is both a simple, and brutal one.
The entire storyline, from the moment Sidney stepped into the bank and was caught up in the robbery, thru everything that has passed since then, is that Sidney *evil drumroll* is deep in a coma, having been shot in the head. She’s on some nice, deep life support. Will she ever recover? Who knows. But her brain, still functioning on same base level, is replaying information that she knows better than anything else in an attempt to keep functioning. And as Sidney’s an employee at a comic/gamer store…and we know she is an RPG’er who favors superpower based games…
Yep. The entire webcomic is just Sidney’s hallucinations/dreams.
((cue momentary pause, then cue wave of rabid angry ‘No, your idea is WRONG because it wasn’t MINE’ charge of angry fans.))
(note: I AM a fan of the webcomic, angry Lancelot-syndrome sufferers. I just happen to have ideas that are my own, about how/why things happen. Calm down. Take a deep breath. Enjoy the ride.)
That’s… an interesting idea, would certainly explain how Sydney seemingly knows things that she wasn’t around for, the little things (like that exchange when she was being introduced to the rest of the team between The General, Maxi and Ari) that those involved wouldn’t think to tell someone else
And, personally, enjoying all the WAT’s and WAG’s (yes, including the over-excited propeller-impressions from Yorp :P) because it shows the readers are attempting to understand what has happened and how, what do not enjoy are the ones who simply say “that can’t happen because in the real world that’s impossible”, no matter how ‘realistic’ and ‘grounded’ DaveB is attempting to keep this, this is still set in a world where Supers and Aliens and every ‘monster’ you ever heard of is fact, we have characters who defy the ‘laws of physics’ simply by existing (quantum entangled multiple bodies is fine, but the possibility of time travel is not? o_O)
Also the ones who are basically telling the Author to write the way they want, show things the way they want, or they will leave, people hating on Sydney for being the same Sydney she has always been or wanting the ‘fix’ to Kronachome’s ‘abuse of powers’ to be her painful and horrific death!!
Yeah, really need to start using more paragraphs and line breaks to make reading less of a wall
…+1, line breaks or not …
Agreed
Time travel is what we do. Though there is nothing in known physics that say one can’t travel in a retrograde way….and if you believe some reports some have traveled from the past to the future which suggests that they all exist as a continuum not as a blip of nows that only exist during each now and not in the past nor the future.
Have you ever noticed that those who travel from the future are so altruistic? Even though they know the results of winning the lottery, they still participate and donate all their fortune to the general populace?
though that isn’t possible because the whole webcomic except the first few pages is a flashback, including the bank part
The interesting aspect is what is the underlying setting like, in which case? Is she just a comic shop owner, in the real world? Or are there super heroes, but Sydney is not one, and is just projecting herself into the role of one of the most powerful ones, albeit in training?
Plus, if she is experiencing such a protracted hallucination, which surely cannot just be a momentary thing, in her base world, what is happening to her there? Is she in a straight jacket, in a mental asylum, to prevent her convulsions, such as on the above page, from harming her?
Will she snap out of the hallucination? If so, and she turns out to have no super powers, will much of the readership remain?
Personally I like Sydney for who she is, assuming she really is a gamer, at the very least. So I would remain loyal, unless her basic personality turns out to be a sham too. Then I would have to see what the ‘real’ Sydney is like. Assuming she is a she, I would be favourably disposed to her, mind, for even aspiring to be the heroine we see portrayed. Her dreams are interesting.
Sounds like a cop out.
Like it was all a dog’s dream or some out deus ex left field crap.
I like to think this writer is better than that.
It reminds me of a proposed ending to ASOIAF.
Prince Rhaegar wakes up, kisses Elia Martell of Dorne on the cheek and says “I’m not going to participate in today’s jousting. I’ll join you in the box with my father. ”
And just like that, Roberts Rebellion never happens.
Or something like that.
She already had the orbs before that time. Maxima was at the bank all shiny and mean looking. Joel makes a comment that a super few over his car that morning and nearly caused an accident. Occam’s Razor: this is all happening for real.
I doubt it. if that IS the case, we won’t learn about it until the writer decides to close off the comic, as it would seriously kill the komic.
Or what if the entire story actually takes place in a series of two dimensional images, with all the events therein orchestrated by some extra-dimensional being, some sort of “artist” perhaps, for the amusement of himself and other extra-dimensional beings that let’s call “readers”?
Really, the “it was all a dream” shtick really annoys me because enjoying a story means being emotionally invested in it to some extent, and the dream thing is just taking a huge contemptuous dump on that investment. Its like if in the third act of a play the actor playing the protagonist throws their costume on the ground, smugly says “Been enjoying the play? Guess what, assholes; its all just make believe and you are idiots for liking it. Welcome to the real world, jackasses!” before walking out of the theater.
Here’s a big problem to this the newest Wearing the cape book ‘Team-Ups and Crossovers’ with Sydney in it. The events are said to be cannon in both series. Even if it will be a few months in the comic time and years for us to see if Daveb wants to draw it.
I see the possibility of you being right but I hope you are not. Saying a big part of a story was all just a dream, and therefore not true, after all that you have gone through with the characters feels like a cop out. Unless the dream was about to end badly for the main characters. Then it doesn’t feel as much like a cop out to me and I don’t mind it as much/
Actually, what Krona did is theoretically possible. When watching a science programme about time travel, there was a scientist who has been studying the field. He said that, if you could get past the paradoxes, the most likely method of time travel would be one where your maximum journey back in time would be to a time when or after the machine had been switched on. How is that different from what Krona did?
Also, from what I recall, you don’t have to move the universe because the only thing that moves is the time traveller. It’s simply a question of travelling in the wrong direction in time.
Oh it’s certainly possible, especially in that setting. It’s just a feat of gargantuan magnitude, especially when you consider with which ease it was seemingly performed.
And your example differs from what Krona did because what we witnessed here was not time travel, it was time reversal.
Time travel takes an object/individual and relocates it within time and space. If I’d send to let’s say ancient Rome, I take you as you are now and send you to specific already existing point in time and space. But everything that occured up until that point when I send you back would have still occured. That is where those paradoxes come in.
What Krona did was REVERSE time, or, more specific, she UNDID events that took place. Pixel got captured, she was wounded, Sydney DID teleport down and she GOT (presumably) killed. And while that happened, every living being on the planet performed any number of actions and of course the planets (including Earth) did drift through space. These events DID occur.
And Krona just casually decided that once one of those three individuals experienced a certain level of stress, all of that would be deleted. Pixel never went into the factory, never got captured and Sydney never did follow her. And – sorry for the repition, just wanna make that point clear – every action on the planet that occured during those events, including the rotation of the Earth. would have to be undone as well.
Time travel is akin to a journey through history. Time reversal is akin to deleting part of that history.
But shouldn’t that be ok. It’s not like the same stress factors that lead those people to act are gone so the only people who can affectively change their choice are those who remember a time they possibly can’t (only possibly cause harem remembers) the larger future doesn’t get erased just a bump or stopgap allowing 4 people to revaluate their choices.
What do you mean with “ok”? Again, and I can’t believe people have such a hard time grasping that, it’s not that it can’t be done. It’s just that, given the casual way this power was activated, I’m not sure whether Dave or the characters – let alone the readers – are aware what an absolutely insane feat was accomplished here.
As for your other point, yes the larger future DOES get erased. Something happened – now it didn’t anymore.
And there’s not even a guarantee that no change outside of our few characters will occur. People might as well take different actions than “before”, they just aren’t aware of it. Think i.e. how easily spur of the moment changes take place.
Unless of course Krona casually – aside from potentially rewriting history and manipulating the cosmos – also fixed the fate and actions of every single living being on the planet to a predetermined state.
Krona is essentially a godlike entity right now. The only question is how much of a godlike entity.
‘Right now’? Kronachrome was set up to be a ‘godlike entity’ from her first real introduction when she ‘casually’ altered the state of a live grenade
Do you sincerely want to tell me that you’re incapable of comprehending the difference of magnitude between preventing a chemical/mechanical reaction to occur – something that could have just as well happened without her intervention – and reverting past events, possibly on a cosmic scale?
In which way did “altering the properties of inanimate objects within the realms of physics” telegraph “can determine, reverse and alter the fate, state and actions of sentient individuals, possibly the entire planet/solar system”?
Without employing massive lapses in reasoning, I don’t see the logical connection between the two.
And lastly, even if all of the above would be reasonable conclusions, what’s your point? That she was destined to be a plot-breaker from the moment of conception? That doesn’t really make it better.
The point is, you need to take a fucking chill and let DaveB tell his story
Even if I were agitated (another assumption of yours), I actually do not need to do any of that. Once more, you produce hot air.
You, on the other hand, should start processing your thoughts through your cranium, instead of your rectum. Might just produce an actual talking point.
Even a small act, like ‘parting the soup’ can reveal god-like power. The way in which Krona was able to both assertain the grenade’s state and change it, made it very clear that she was altering reality directly. With none of the usual process of having to open it up, examine it, look for booby traps or other complications, then carefully move the arming mechanism to a safe state.
So Guesticus was fair in making that point. There was no need to bite his head off. Albeit that I appreciate that is your raison d’etre, going by your avatar name.
It is all too easy, on the internet, for enjoyable conversations to degrade into unconstructive arguments. Which is a shame, as you were making very good points in this thread. Likewise with your counter about the magnitude. Parting the soup is of no great cosmic significance, barring revealing the presence of someone with divine power, to any observers.
But you are right that changing time is profound.
Not at all. She is destined to be a powerful character, who can serve as a very useful plot tool. This is the nature of super stories. The principles often have vast, and sometimes even cosmically great powers. It is simply a matter of the author balancing one against another, in an interesting way. Or providing other checks and balances. Both of which Dave does.
Every time he introduces someone with a significant power, we get claims that it will ruin the story. So far it never has. Dave knows what he is doing.
Speculating on the uses and results, and potential catastrophic results, of using particular powers is fun and we all do it. Elevating it from that to ‘this will break the story’ though both runs contrary to Dave’s track record and provokes those fans who trust his judgement.
Dons Top hat and white gloves, and taps fingers of left hand against palm on right hand politely.
“Well played sir, well played indeed.”
I watched while some said “OMG the big battle is taking too long, it’s ruining the story and V is so overpowered that bringing him down is going to take too long and be a total letdown”.
DaveB proved them wrong.
*I* was one of the “Pixel is a character who adds nothing to the story” mob, and of course:
DaveB proved me wrong.
Deep breath and trust the Author. Trust me, it makes sense. :-)
Oookay, long post coming.
First of all, I have to dispute that claim. Being able to alter reality does not automatically put you into godlike territory. In fact, “altering reality” is the most basic definition of magic in any fantasy setting.
Within the realms of magic there is a VAST difference between altering the properties of existing objects within the limits of what is already possible, basically just skipping – as you correctly pointed out – the actual working steps ordinarily necessary to achieve said change –
and reversing as well as effectively removing what has already happened, including all the thoughts, actions and material changes.
To put a more comprehensive point on it: Telling me that her manipulating of parameters of existing objects withing reasonable limits would be a reasonable base to assume that she could casually (and as we know now ACCIDENTALLY) alter, shift, halt and manipulate the laws of space, time and casualty…
is akin to observing someone performing the Tatsumaki Senpukyaku and concluding (“logically”) that this must mean he can fire the Hadouken as well.
So unfortunately, Guesticus’ sole “point” – if you want to call it that – is that he really, really doesn’t want anyone to criticize or even just scrutinize this webcomic because…reasons.
Further demonstrated not only here but also on page 2 on these comments, that he doesn’t even comprehend the point I’m making, instead repeatedly claiming I’d try to tell Dave what he can or cannot do.
And sorry, I don’t see a reason to be lenient to people who demonstrate such a lack of understanding AND self-restraint.
As to Krona being a plot tool instead of a plot breaker: Well, ultimately only time will tell, but my skepticism comes from observation, experience and that neat little ability called pattern recognition.
I never considered Krona “out of line” when her so-called “Reality Hacking” was introduced because that ability, believe it or not, was absolutely manageable within the setting established.
What we saw in this strip put her WELL beyond anything seen or implied. I think very few people understand the scope of time manipulation in a setting where you need to EXPLAIN how your powers work. It’s not just about how many arbitrary time units move forward or backward: Matters of physics, chemistry, biology and – in lack of a better word – “spirituality” all factor in such manipulations.
Again, for the – apparently numerous – reading impaired present: I don’t say and NEVER SAID that such manipulations are impossible within the setting, and just as with the user Swamp…whatever I will proove that statement if pressed.
My point was with the ease and pathetically little effort Krona pulled off what is – even in its now confirmed localized form – a mindblowingly complex feat. I dare you to consider what she could do a) once she actually mastered her powers and b) if she pushed her body/mind to to limit/exhaustion – even in her current state.
Pulling off such insanely powerful character dabbling in such an intrinsicly overwhelming field of power requires a horrendous amount of attention to detail in EVERY situation they are in.
And while I consider DaveB a very strong writer, especially for a casual webcomic – and I will easily concede his qualities anywhere, anytime – I don’t see anything in his works so far that would convince me even remotely that he’s THAT good.
And that a slam against him. I want to emphasize that. It just should demonstrate just how fucking dangerous the mindfield is that Dave just – and quite frankly needlessly – set up around him.
Entire writing TEAMS in movies, games, books and comics (ESPECIALLY in comics) tried their hand JUST at time travel plots, without even introducing a sentient, omnipotent entity into the mix and pretty much all of them failed miserably.
I might be proven wrong – that’s the whole point with falsifiable predictions and their main difference to prophecies – but I really don’t see a good ending with this.
So yeah, I do think Krona will be a huge stumbling stone for Dave in every scene she’s even remotely involved in. I predict in full confidence that we will see either a restriction to her powers inconsistent with what we’ve just seen, plot holes involving her actions and behaviour, deus ex machinas AGAINST her, a lot of fan-explanations with plenty of violations of Occam’s Razor, all of the above and a lot of similar problems I probably don’t think of right now.
In fact, we already have one such example: Why didn’t she freeze the mannequins during the council attack? If she can reverse actions, it’s fair to assume she can halt actions. And if she can define and halt a specific chemical reaction within a specific, moving object in the time it takes a grenade to fly (read: not much time), it’s also fair to assume she can halt all the actions of any object within a larger area.
So yes, that fight should’ve been over way before Max returned.
And while there might be something else worth adding, I’ll stop here because this is already enough material for a live debate.
Edit: among a number of typos: casualty was supposed to be causality.
Edit 2: “And that is NOT a slam against him”.
Give me a bloody edit function T_T
A)
Agreed. But consider the subtle build up that Dave made. It was such that I was calling her having god-like powers, even before Krona’s first appearance. The points being firstly that Krona was in the only faction which rated a single representative.
Secondly her Konami code banner gave a broad hint that she was hacking something, to achieve the status that her solo box implied. There were various valid suggestions, but ‘reality’ was one that fitted the bill well. Thirdly was related to a point you picked up on in an earlier thread. The very fact that even her silhouette seemed to be that of a young girl.
Given that we know the upper echelons of the Council are clearly stuffy and probably jealously guard their status, we can well imagine that granting high status to a school girl would not sit well with them, unless she could back up her claim to such a privilege with substantial power!
We have one faction with which we can compare what might be necessary to do that, as we have some numbers detailing their power. Namely the vampires. Their most senior members rate on a par with stronger super heroes. Not up to the strongest, but that is still an impressive level of power!
Plus do not forget that vampirism is contageous. Enough that there is a plausible section of the film market which covers end of the world scenarios just from vampire plagues. Regular vampires. Not the super-hero beating ones.
And Krona is considered, by the council, to be on a par with them. All of them!
At least enough that she can have a share of power equal to that of three vampire representatives. For instance when the current members of the main table are rotated out of their seats, the other factions get to take their place. And Krona will be one of them, at some point or another.
I freely admit that I was only speculating, but it proved to be born out by what we have discovered since she got elevated from being just an outline in the background. Importantly though all the above still remains valid, even after the reveal.
Dave did not build up Krona as a mere magic user. He has layered clue upon clue and, since her introduction, has only made her power all the more apparent, for everyone to see. The grenade modifying powers making more folks aware of her capability. And the time altering elevating it yet again.
With Pixel being the final stage in making sure that all readers know her role, just in case Sydney was not taken seriously enough.
B)
Guesticus‘s main reason is that we are guests of the author/artist. He has invited us into his virtual house and world, and Guesticus, quite rightly, feels that we should be respectful whilst here.
Most importantly creative people, especially those as empathic as Dave, can be very sensitive to criticism. And we know he tries to read all the comments here. He would not be the first to get so upset at negative reception, of his work, that he abandoned it. Hence why we champion him and the comic. Dave does not ask for it, but he does not need to. We want the comic to continue.
Really little needs to be said, beyond that. However, just so that you do not feel you are being singled out, I will proceed. If anyone uses either an insulting tone or makes unfair criticism, Guesticus will leap to the character, the comic or Dave’s defence. Sometimes to a flaw, in that he does not necessarily choose his battles carefully.
This is because Guesticusreplies from the heart. Personally I value that. And, to give him the credit that he richly deserves, he is not shy about apologising if he realises that he was either too pushy or called something wrong. Of course if somebody keeps up the insults, or refuses to retract such, he will respond strongly!
At times we do see a high incidence of criticism, some fair, some unfair, some rude. This gets highly frustrating to Guesticus, so he does tend to have a hair-trigger when such is happening. Get used to it. Just like Sydney, it is in his nature. Be rude to the comic, Dave or the community and he will gnaw your legs off at the ankles!
I too have born the brunt of this, such as when I got too critical of Harem. You will note that I no longer refer to her as ‘a traitor’ or in similar such terms. I had overplayed that angle, and Guesticus, fairly, picked me up on it.
Likewise, more recently, when I belaboured my dislike of females being pressured into breast surgery, through subtle, continuous negative portrayal of less-well endowed women, in the entertainment media in general.
This is a comedy comic and, if comments get too negative, Guesticus will get pissed off. Good for him! His presence enriches the community.
C) Sorry I have a very sick doggy to attend to, so cannot continue this in depth.
You obviously think through the implications of the story very carefully, and are not shy on expressing them. Please keep it up! Thoughtful analysis enriches the community. Especially when as insightful as various of your points are.
Although best done if it is in a slightly less abrasive tone.
Is Rohypnol ‘ok’? I mean, they don’t remember, only you are doing something to their bodies WITHOUT CONSENT. Full disclosure was needed before the time loop was set.
Well, we have what could be considered a time loop or time reversal, but what if the way it works is that a copy of Sydney’s memories, since she is the one who triggered the loop, is sent back to her at the beginning of the loop and a differential merge of her memories occur, basically, just adding the new memories, so she feels like she just experienced what happened with Sciona, but really, she just got a precognition of what might happen if she followed the path they were going to follow. I would think this would be a very low energy expenditure compared to reversing time. Post-conditional precognition.
While that approach would open its own can of worms on how and why that works, it would also be infinetly more approachable and – I have to admit – way more creative than this.
Unfortunately, given the course of events and Krona’s own statements here, this seems to be excluded already.
That is a reasonable interpretation. Do bear in mind though that the characters in this comic do speak from their own perspective. What Krona thinks she is doing and what she is actually doing may well be two completely different things. And not unreasonably so, if her way consistently works the way she thinks it does. But it still does not preclude her misunderstanding the nature of her own power.
Only that’s not what happened or Harem wouldn’t be having De Ja Vu.
Here’s my idea…
What we are experiencing here is a localized temporal klein flask. In effect, she took the local region, put a twist, set a condition to untwist it should anything bad happen. When it untwists, everything local goes back to ‘normal’ space. Otherwise, everyone would be effectively in a bottled continuum.
Agreed. If time rolls back it should undo Harem’s memory of the events. Distributed mind or not.
Looking for a way in which it could happen though, we can see that the power does grant the ability to remember, potentially to any of the members present at the checkpoint, but ultimately only to the one who triggered the recall.
Depending on how Krona programmed that, it might not work the way she planned. For instance a poor program would be ‘grant everyone present at the ability to remember, but delete this from all individuals except the person who triggers the recall’.
Using that method only the local Harem (the individual specified), would have her memories reset, whilst the more remote ones would still remember. A reason for doing this is that double memories may be disorienting (see Sydney’s behaviour above for circumstantial proof). So Krona was attempting to minimise the number of individuals who would suffer the confusion.
Of the two the former is the simpler solution. So Occam’s razor would point to that. Barring the fact that it fails to explain the circumstances, namely Harem’s deja vu. So the latter is actually reasonable, as the alternate explanations are equally as complicated, in their own ways.
Got a little mixed up there. Ment to say that the only ones who can change are the ones who remember. So largely the time stream would be largely uninterrupted.
Yup, sounds about right: everyone will continue what they will have done because, as far they are aware, nothing happened
We still don’t know how or why Bodie remembers what she had been doing, as her other selves were outside of the Sphere of Influence so they should have no memories of what happened (or didn’t happen), if anything, it should be those four having the Deja Vu (or maybe that’s were Bodie’s feelings are coming from: the other four feeling the Deja Vu which gets passed on to her resulting in a Deja Vu loop)
Well Dave, Marion’s kickstarter made it to the archron files level. I look forward to seeing the stats for Maxima, Dabbler, and especially Sydney in the book.
Wait, what if Pixelicious isn’t whisper-shouting in the second panel, what if she is screaming so loud she has gone… hyper-sonic
“Sydney kind of got away from me here. She’s a menace to both sides of the 4th wall.”
I love that.
I as well.
They did show the toll. He still panics over getting shot and tries to talk his way out of it.
Kenny from South Park’s the same way about his rebooting immortality :)
To quote him as Mysterion when Kyle says it would be cool to be unable to die….
“Pretty cool? Do you know what it feels like to be stabbed? To be shot? Decapitated? Torn apart? Burned? Run over? It’s not pretty cool, Kyle! It f**king hurts!”
It fits her personality perfectly. She is responding to extreme stress with a wild babbling episode.
As for the Time Loop, I am guessing no time frame can include more than 1 checkpoint. So if you redo today, that is it. You can’t time loop back to during this period, even if you recast the checkpoint.
That still makes it stupidly powerful, but not really exploitable.
As for why? Reality really hates being fucked with. Bad things happen to people who fuck with time.
so, looking at what Dave mentioned about similar themes in movies would one of the drawbacks of the time loop be that those affected start to go crazy the more they use it? also if that is true then in Sydneys case how would we be able to tell?
hm, time loops can be a really bad idea.
for instance – what is she sets up a time loop, and immediately gets shot.
so she goes back to the point of setting it up, and gets shot.
so she goes back to the point of setting it up, and gets shot.
so she goes back to the point of setting it up, and gets shot.
so she goes back to the point of setting it up, and gets shot.
so she goes back to the point of setting it up, and gets shot.
…
basicly for ever. time is not a thing to be frelling with!
… unless its funny.
This is why you put something like this in your code
{if (iteration > 5)
{
break
}}
or whatever the equivalent would be.
It’s not a hard contingency to prepare for.
In the right circumstance, getting shot repeatedly could be funny…
But really, you just maintain two save points, and if you trigger a save point inside of, oh say 30 seconds, you rewind to the older save point
Actually the Pixel seemed to be up for it after Sydney went into her bit on it, and to be honest I kind of agree with them since they can loop the whole thing like that. However what is time like outside the loop, does it move normally? Or is it looped as well?
No, Pixelicious wants Kronachrome to explain why it’s a Very Bad Thing
That’s one reading of the strip. I read it as Arious did: Pixel is seriously asking Krona why they don’t just Groundhog Day the bitch until they get it right. I expect Krona to explain on Thursday. Or for there to be very little forward motion and a lot more silliness from Sydney. Or perhaps Sciona will show up and make those explanations something best left for another….wait for it….time….
Krona looks like she’s about to smack a bitch in that last panel.
Umm, Kronachrome is the shorter one with the blue hair, Pixelicious is the tall one with pink (and white) everything
I’m with Pixel on this one.
brings to min the galxay quest comic. when they used the Omega 13 and rewound the 13 seconds it affected the whole universe, so wins turned to losses and vice versa and the antagonist had to fix one such situation. hopefully Pixel’s is more localized.
Kronachrome (why are so many people getting those two mixed up?)
Is anybody else both comforted and worried that Dave does not control her EITHER?
To all the people complaining about how broken this is, It was already explained in the blog posts that something like this is the very limit of her abilities. Considering we have a literal Superman-level hero (maxima) and had a supervillain with the ability to generate matter out of thin air because of the amount of energy he could gather, and neither of them was so strong it broke the comic.
I expect the maximum duration of these checkpoints is 24h, and each time the same checkpoint is used it has SOME sort of dire consequence.
in addition, I think you can only set a single condition which affect all persons involved.
Or possibly they are now stuck in that loop, and cannot leave the immediate area until they defeat the villain.
or each time it is re-used it costs a year of krona’s life, or of the person who triggers it.
Or it vanishes as soon as it is triggered and cannot be set again for a week or even month.
there’s a thousand different ways in which this character can be ‘nerfed’ to not be incredibly strong.
So please stop freaking out and wait for the next page or two, which I expect will explain exactly why this is not a comic-breaking character
Well typed
Savepoint is already reset. Sydney bounced back to where Krona had just set it, two pages back.
If it worked properly. But contemplate what happens if the coding for the checkpoint does not properly cancel it once the recall has happened. Every time any one of them gets stressed then they all get reset.
Now consider the even worse prospect of it being a different person each time. To illustrate what I mean, let us assume that Pixel is stressed out enough by Krona’s recklessness, that that alone triggers a reset. Now Pixel can recall the last few seconds, because she triggered the reset. Whereas Sydney did not. So her memory is reset to its original state (assuming a worst-case scenario, needless to say).
This then immediately risks a never-ending time loop, as Pixel is in a stressed state, every time she is reset!
However she may have enough presence of mind to realise that she can break out of it (thanks to remembering each prior instance) simply by calming down before she triggers another reset. Krona meanwhile will find that her log has overflowed, due to so many repeated loops, so will have difficulty finding anything useful in there other than ‘Pixel is stressed and has forced a reset’.
This is assuming that her log can even cope with being reset multiple times, of course.
And Sydney cannot help, as she is completely out of the loop. Harem might be able to, due to her deja vu. But if any of them get too stressed, in trying to help Pixel (for instance if Krona gets too fed up at being accused), then it loops again, this time with Pixel having no knowledge of the loop.
What we see above could actually be thousands of cycles into long and short loops.
Not that I think it is likely. Pixel is just getting mad at the ‘what if’ scenarios. With the worrying feeling that Harem’s deja vu might not be due to her distributed mind, but because she has been through this so many times before.
A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.
It has already worked properly, Sydney has bounced, at least once, to a point just after the loop was set. Krona was very irresponsible setting up a loop. She has put them all deep into paradox territory. It all depends on how Dave is going to handle event mutability. Does Sydney now HAVE to loop to avoid a paradox and so locking them into an inescapable trap? Can our heroes take a different path to avoid being caught in a loop and what then happens to the the initial bounce back which has already happened and then will not have happened. Perhaps the best course would be for Krona to immediately unset the loop, for the group to call in the heavy hitters (they now know that their target is inside) and watch from the sidelines hoping that reality does not collapse when Sydney does not bounce. Eh, time travel, wattcha gonna do, gonna do, gonna do, skritch.
“Yor” is in my name, whereas “what’s” in yours.
My thought on this is that only information (memories) was returned to the checkpoint (to Sidney as the prime trigger, and Harem because of her mind/body setup). Also it might be that this checkpoint cannot be used again and a new checkpoint cannot be set until they are past the trigger point (Sidney’s ‘death’). This would limit the usefulness of setting checkpoints.
Great, now shes bouncing off the walls like a loony toone again. I swear whatever medication shes on needs the dose doubled. There clearly not working enough.
On a more serious note I got to side with Pixel on this hole time loop thing. As cool as messing with space time may look in various media it has long reaching consequences and ends badly. Best leave the time stuff to professional time lords, and Delorian driving scientists.
So, you want to pump Sydney full of meth? Maxi already commented on he dosage was close to that already
What makes some quack loony ‘scientist’ (who got the idea after smaking his head on a wet toilet seat {and no one questioned why the toilet seat was wet?}) any more qualified than Kronachrome?
And as for your ‘professional’ time lord, most of the time, he simply stumbles along, lands somewhere he doesn’t belong, gets bored waiting for his broken down piece of shit time box to recharge, wanders around and interferes in the lives of the locals, 90% of the time (get it?) he doesn’t know what the hael he is doing, or why
Hey whatever works. Of course since she already acts like a tweeker she may want a second opinion.
And how dare you! Who are you to question the genious of Doc Brown. Arkamedies made his discovery in the bath, Sir Isic Nuton made his discovery after getting hit in the head by a apple. Makes sense that he would make his discovery as a combination of the two. And since he at least knows the consequence of messing with time unlike Karona that’s about to be lectured by her college.
And as for that stumbling time lord. He knows the in’s and out’s of time and space, and poses knowledge no one can even fathom. Hes stopped wars, saved galaxy’s, and kept existence from unraveling more times than most can count. And all with just his sharp mind and quick wit. You may think he doesn’t know what he’s doing. But he knows more about anything and everything than you can even fathom. Pudding brain!
Kronachrome believed she knew the consequences of messing with… what ever it was she did, but that was because she had never had to account for someone like Daphne
The Doctor has admitted, on numerous times, that he doesn’t know what he is doing most of the time. He may very well have stopped galaxy’s, saved existence from unravelling and kept wars (or whatever :P), but, he has also started wars, destroyed galaxy’s and unravelled more than a few existences
The point is: neither Doc “Crazy Old Coot” Brown nor Doctor Whodidyousayyournamewas? are perfect, and they make mistakes (remember Adric?), so why is Kronachrome not allowed to be imperfect and make mistakes?? o_O
You did not get it, you all… It is the introduction for the ‘Halomaniacs’ xD
Oooo, would totally watch that :D
The lead character in that version would need to be Sidney POIT!ier
It’s time for Halomaniacs! And we’re zany for the Max! So just sit back and relax. You’ll laugh ’til you collapse. We’re Halomaniacs!
– Apologies to Dot, Wakko and Yakko.
I did not know that Werejaguars could whisper-scream.
Hyper-sonic, just part of her Super-package :D
Messing with time is a BAAAD idea, every single book, movie or game that does it wind up throwing everything to hell, and if eldritch things exist in the girrlverse then messing with time is an EXTREMELY bad idea due to a lil something called the Hounds of Tindalos, seeing as they are a topic not fit for children i will leave you to look them up yourselves.
Let’s see, so Krona’s main ability is Lesser Wish (200 m radius) with no material components. She can cast at will, at most once per round.
Seeing panel 3, I am reminded of a sequence of manoeuvres that did not end well for Daffy’s bill.
Yup, that is what it is referencing, per our astute cartoon watching readers.
Oh my atheist god, Sydney, pop one of your damn pills. Sydney, no. Sydney, just stop. Sydney, you’re in a professional environment. Sydney, billions of lives are on the line. Sydney… Sydney… Sydney…
ಠ_ಠ
She just came down off the adrenaline response of a near death experience. Pretty much anyone would be a little loopy after that.
Also, ADHD meds are not like tictacs. If they’re going to work properly, they need to be taken on a schedule.
Time loops are bound to mess up anybody’s schedule.
And Fruit loops will mess up an astronaut’s schedule.
Sydney’s unknown orbs…could they be “Combo Orbs?” you know, if she activates the direct links between them and two or more of the five “active” Orbs, that orb combines the powers of the orbs it’s linked to?
Possibly, but it seems to defeat the purpose of the ‘two orbs at a time’ limit. If I am understanding you correctly, Halo could use the powers of the PPO and the shield orb by holding one mystery orb and the flyball and truesight orb by holding the other. In other words Sydney would only ever be unable to use just the one orb (in my example being the tentacle orb).
Whereas, if your intent is for them to unlock different powers, based on the pairs of linked orbs, then that does open up interesting possibilities. Perhaps using the green orb, in conjunction with the truesight orb and force field, to make a solid light hologram? Or the brown orb, with the same pair, to allow the lightbee to project a forcefield at its location.
Thus allowing an ally or hostages to be protected, at the expense of committing the lightbee to that location.
Likewise for other combinations. So interesting possbilies, that would be fun to explore.
Currently if Sydney is using two orbs, we see her holding them in each hand, so know what powers are at her disposal. But, with the mystery orbs used in this way , we would not know what linked powers were available, unless we had some visual clue. Which I suppose could be provided by having the linked orbs orbiting the hand and mystery orb, in question.
This does raise interesting dilemmas, in its own regard, as it means those orbs would be unavailable for Halo to use in her other hand. Likewise they could not be used by the other mystery orb. Not at the same time anyhow. But Sydney could have the PPO and the Force field linked to one, to produce a lightsaber effect. Whilst the other could use the Truesight orb and lighthook to grant truesight to anyone the tentacle touches.
The one fly in the ointment is that one of the skills connecting two orbs (the PPO and flyball) has already been selected. Seemingly without either of the mystery orbs having been involved.
Hey, if we stitch another arm onto Sydney, say at the hip, can she then use three orbs.
Or is it just hands that we would need. A couple more on each forearm and she could hold six orbs.
Giving Halo an extra arm or two or three has been suggested before. There are numerous arguments against it, but the most significant is that the author created the ‘two orb limit’ for the reason of making the plot interesting. It will give Halo the opportunities for moral dilemmas. For instance if rescuing a bunch of children from the burning Orphans and Puppies sanctuary, by flying them out in the Halomobile, she sees a puppy falling towards the fire!
If she had the extra arm, she could simply summon the tentacle orb to hand, and grab the puppy with a tentacle. Simple and undramatic. Having a hero who can do anything gets tedious very fast. Mentioning no names…
*coughsuper cough man*
But without that option, Sydney will have to think very fast. And the circumstances may be such that she would unduly risk the lives of the children if she were to try and rescue the puppy.
Whether she makes it or not, it will be interesting to watch, and will provide an important, and possibly character-shaping experience.
Dave wants characters who face tough choices. The stakes and interest are much higher that way. Likewise the rewards and potential repercussions.
Archon has a contingency plan for this sort of situation. In the event of Sydney displaying this sort of behavior a team member is to get out this diagram (or a similar one if this one has been used)
They must present it to her and ask for her solution to the question in order to decide if she is still capable of continuing on the mission. https://www.makeuseof.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/flow-chart-infographic.jpg
Somehow I found myself watching this in another tab!
Hedgehog, so cute.
Love the comic Keep it up DaveB <3
So, when you go back in time and prevent your former present from happening, what happens to the people who were there?
Did we just witness the deaths of 7 billion+ people?
The most prevalent cosmological theory is that an alternative reality is created. With the former conditions in one line and the latter ones in the other. Nobody in either is affected in any way that they would not otherwise have been, in the normal course of events, as appropriate for their particular timeline and accounting for whatever influence there may have been from the interchange between timelines. In this case that is apparently just memories, and only affecting the timeline we see above.
In the other one Sydney is being drained of her blood and may well die, if her teammates or Maxima does not get to her quickly enough.
The psychological toll of dying and reliving multiple times, and pretty much exactly what she’s suggesting, is explored really well in Re:Zero. (https://www.crunchyroll.com/rezero-starting-life-in-another-world-). Maybe Sydney needs to use one of those time loops to geek out on some anime a bit before she actually suggests this…
You don’t do that because the Hounds of Tindalos will be on to you for screwing with causality.