Grrl Power #506 – Square root access
Krona may have root access, but it seems someone else has machine level access.
So yeah, Krona may have some… well, not insight, really, but she might help unlock a piece of the orbs’ puzzle. As intricate as that big panel is, it’s about 1/10th of what I had pictured when I started it. I would have needed a full or even a double page spread and another week to draw it. Still, you get the idea. Just pretend a dozen people from WETA spend a month doing it in CG.
Apparently the orbs were all “Hey, time travel, or… sort of. Whatever that was. Sure, that’s worth a point.”
A related note for the prior page; Cartomancer is apparently what Izanagi is, with the card magic. Several people informed me in the comments. I’ve never actually seen Card Captor Sakura or Yu-Gi-Oh! besides flipping by it on a channel, and just happened to catch him speaking in a comically deep voice. Someone explained to me that he’s possesed or has a split personality or something that takes over probably for clutch dramatic reasons. Anyway it was jarring seeing a 13(?) year old talking like M. Bison.
Oh, also related to the previous page, by request I cut out the panel of Max flying and posted over at DA. Enjoy!
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like. Share the comic with your friends, then compete with them to see who can contribute the most!
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.
Now to see if Sydney remebers what Maxima said in comic….. 435? i think? Where she requested Sydney to pick a dot from the flight orb to see if the new branch becomes accessable?
Actually let’s see if Sydney can wait to spend her point – and let Krona do some sketches – she might be the only person to know how to pull up that HUD at will.
someone used to character builds and rules lawyering? Yeah. She is going to insist on hearing every detail twice before going through levelling up.
agreed, it’s too good of an opportunity to pass up. call in the big guns to take care of the boss, (Maxima could be there in like two minutes)
make that 20 seconds… considering her top speed is enough to break Mach 1 and still have plenty to go on
She can go much faster than mere Mach 1
Twice?
She’ll wait for all the details in writing so she can write her own strategy guide with multiple paths. (And at least one of them will probably be named after food. Because she had to stop to eat while writing that one.)
:-D
Wow if Krona can see all that, then maybe their powers are tied together somehow? I mean it sounds like the two are tied together like their powers co-opt in some way.
Possibly. But to play Devil’s advocate Krona can see the stats for everything, be that a person or a chair. We know that the Orbs are far more advanced than any other known artefacts* and can do things like control gravity in weird ways. So we can tell that their stat screens will be far more complex and reveling of the nature of the universe than anything Krona will have come across before.
Therefore we would expect her to find Halo’s orbs to be enlightening.
Mind you her reaction is so profound that it may well go beyond that. Likewise the matching colours and number of elements within their respective power interfaces do match. Plus they have personal similarities (such as physique and being geeks). The latter potentially being significant if there is some link between the two and they therefore might share methodology in how both individuals came to gain the powers.
* That have been revealed or hinted about to us readers anyhow. Bear in mind that Dabbler is well-travelled off-planet, and has been exposed to a lot of things humanity has not. Yet she was both flummoxed by her inability to detect them with magic or super-science. And likewise had her species illusions seen through with no effort. Something that was clearly unprecedented. Noting that this is for (as far as we can infer) the most widely spread species in the galaxy.
A very good point Yorp, a very good point indeed. We will wait and see what happens, but why do I feel this will lead to something bigger?
It’s time for reverse-engineering the universe!
Before you can reverse engineer you have to actually understand what it’s doing. Right now they are at the level of an aborigine using a cellphone, they don’t how it actually works, but they know how to push the buttons…
I guess I’m the only one who thinks that Krona’s extended view of sydney’s power panel looks like so many bags of potato chips loaded into a vending machine, when seen from the inside.
“Why do all these functions keep returning 42?!?”
And why the ‘fish overflow error’?
#Out of Cheese Error#
Reset Universe?
Abort? Retry? Fail?
So Krona set a time loop with conditions but as long as Sydney remembers she keeps her experience allowing the orbs to level up? So it would seem that krona would be the perfect person to team up with Sydney to power level.
Sure as long as the universe is still going to be there tomorrow.
Krona isn’t sure it’s a time loop anymore, but it’s definitely some type of regression. In programming you set break points so you can go back to the last functioning code, then figure out what went wrong….
I’m a 37 year old man from Los Angeles, California.
Seeing that made me fangirl so hard that stereotypical Japanese schoolgirls would be jealous of me.
Heh.
It’s quite amusing when you consider how this conversation sounds to Maxima, she’s probably face-palming quite hard by the end of this page!
Indeed.
Mind you Maxima will be aware of who is on each team, and can probably pick out who is saying what. The Sydney bits she will be used to. Krona’s contributions though? Knowing that someone with godlike powers has just received cosmic enlightenment? That is actually more important than the rest of their mission!
Cue the sonic-boom and Maxi’s arrival: “Okay, just what the hell is going on over he…! You levelled up? Have you selected the point we discussed? Why is Krona crying and scribbling in crayon?”
And why is it always green crayon! Couldn’t you have picked out something more credible, from your arts and crafts pouch?
My assumption was that Maxima didn’t hear Krona’s comment, only Pixel and Sydney. But if she did, her mind will be well and truly boggled :)
Damn it, this was supposed to be a reply to Yorp’s previous comment.
We’ll find out tomorrow how big a WTF moment Max is having. I figure she ain’t going to let Sydney out of her sight again…
Oh come on be fair now. Maxima should only be expected to make so many sanity checks per day!
Metroid-New_Swag_Acquired.mp3
You know, it seems that these level ups come whenever Sydney figures out something important about her existing powers, whether she is consciously aware of it or not. She figured out the ‘safety’ on the PPO last time, and got that level up. This time, she figured out how to teleport using the comm ball, and got another level up. We know she experimented a little before the team found her, but only enough to get a hand on the basics (she hadn’t even discovered her top flight speed, after all). So as she more thoroughly explores the true limits of her powers, she’ll level up more. At least, that’s what I’m thinking.
Yup, that is a strong line of reasoning.
Mind you we should not underestimate just how much experimentation Sydney did. Showing that she tried to control the orbs with her butt cheeks does show that she went well beyond just ‘the basics’. For instance she did reveal that she knew she could lift a car with the tentacle. And is adept enough to write a web address with the tentacle.
Likewise Halo can get her orbs to create the pattern of an atomic structure. And she is so practiced with them that she uses the orbs as if they were part of her own body. Albeit that she does have super technomagic helping her, that is normally the sign of a master martial artist, rather than just a beginner! And we saw her take down a world master,* in just that field. Not to mention parrying and countering Shadow Boxer’s earnest attempt to kill her, through a sneak attack.
Your example of Sydney not knowing her flight speed is very fair mind. But that was down to the constraints placed on her experimentation through fear of ‘being whisked away’. Her burning-the-forest-down incident showed her that she had to be cautious in her use of her more visible powers. So her flying practice has been indoors Hence why she can fly aggravatingly well inside, yet got lost within a couple of blocks of her own home!
* Math’s denials do not hold water with me. OK he was taken by surprise, and it will not happen again. But I think Math was just trying to save face by claiming that he let her hit him.
Yeah, Math was caught unawares by a Fly ball to the face, because he got cocky (and ended up getting cold-cocked), but, as you said, it won’t happen again (at least not that way)
Not sure if I’m the only one that noticed this or not but krone can’t see (at least by looking at the 5th panel) any extensions that are possible to the skill tree but can see how it works. To me that says she isn’t ment to see it all but that she can help guide Sydney to someone who can possibly.
Also yorp nice birth back there on #16 way to pick the perfect name for yourself
Thank you kindly. I enjoyed doing that.
*wags tail contentedly*
When writing code for a gui, you’ll have a snippet of code attached to button, menu entry, etc that the user sees. The snippets mostly don’t do much, except to envoke (invoke?) library functions or switches on objects that actually do what the user instructed when clicking the menu or button. I take it this is what Krona’s seeing. If so, too bad – it may be that she’s mostly just seeing “teleport.level +=1” and the like, and hasn’t yet realized it.
At this point I suddenly find myself wondering, just why would someone build power objects like this? HOW would you build power objects like this, that are just like video game items that level up and have skill trees and points you spend?
For technologically advanced races this might just be a cell phone. . …
OH NO!
THAT IS NOT A LEVEL UP SKILL TREE, ITS THE APP STORE, STOP SIDNEY, YOU WILL WASTE ALL YOUR CREDITS!
I mean… It would be funny if some advanced entity “dropped” their smartphone in the ocean and could not retrieve it because they are “allergic” to water. Or they simply are a non – adolescent of their race who wanted the newer version… or a different color set.
+1
Well that is Sydney’s interpretation, anyhow. The similarity could just be co-incidence. Here are some possibilities:
1) They are objects in a video game. As is everyone and everything we see around us. Halo just happens to be one of the principle characters (or, if she is lucky, players).
2) It has been observed that obsessive game players dedicate vast amounts of their lives to their hobby. More than one company, and educational establishment, has tried to harness this phenomenon.
Putting aside why an entity, or organisation, might choose to grant super powers to a seemingly random human, if they wanted to ensure that those powers were practiced and developed obsessively, by the recipient, emulating popular gaming features would actually be a very sensible route to take.
Of course choosing a dedicated gamer would be a necessary part of the process.
3) Sensible societies will require that users of particularly complex and/or dangerous equipment be properly certified in its use. By far the best way to ensure that this is complied with is to integrate the testing and certification process into the devices themselves.
This is not a ‘levelling screen’ it is a ‘user competency certification’ screen. Once a user has shown a satisfactory level of compitence with the basic features they are then allowed to pick which more advanced feature they wish to practice next.
This may not simply be technical competence being tested mind. A truly moral society would also assess the ethical behaviour of the user too. If they are using the tools in abusive or harmful ways, which do not benefit society, then access to the device might be withheld. Plus the devices may be repossessed and law enforcement officials might be summoned, to investigate any criminal activity.
4) A manufacturer might release a very complex device that allows the user to customise it, on demand. To avoid them being overwhelmed, with too many choices at once, the device monitors the users needs. When the user faces situations which are more challenging than their current options can handle, it prompts them that upgrades are available.
Of course more advanced users could bypass this and upgrade at will. But they would need to have read the user manual, to find out about such options. Those who do not would need to seek the services of a teacher. Which, should a suitably literate individual be in the vicinity, the device might recruit to teach the more advanced options to the user.
Let’s hope that the things it might send those law enforcement officials to investigate don’t include anything that Sydney & co would consider non-ethical, such as [for example] “Failure to carry out human sacrifices at the correct dates”…
;-)
Zephan regularly worries about things like that.
The Last Starfighter
Should we be glad the game isn’t “PronQuest”? Most of the Player Characters are aware that it is a game, or at least very Meta (as in, they know who is a Quest Giver and when they level up and junk, usually by using their ‘junk’, like the ‘main’ character, had saved up her Sexperience points for so long, by the time she did use them, she instantly became a new WhoreLord and chose dragons as her specialty race)
I kind of got the impression Krona could type, and model, into that thing she pulls up. But if she needs a pen I guess she can’t make notes in it?
Odd.
But if she did that (especially not being gully familiar with the root language) might she not risk altering reality?
Humans could find it inconvenient if their maximum number of hands gets set to 0, due to a typo by Krona.
Not to mention making it difficult for her to correct the error.
Which raises the question of how many hands the orb-smiths have. Maybe they have eight hands and can use all the orbs simultaneously while still leaving one hand free for other things like scratching their nose(s) or holding their shopping.
Or perhaps they created humanity to have the optimum number of hands, to use their system?
It would also imply that they ensured that humanity could produce someone with a personality like Sydney’s. They must be remarkably enlightened!
We don’t know if she can type commands, or just hits buttons, and even if she does have a WordPress (or similar) there is no guarantee anyone else could see it, not to mention, writing on paper (or other surfaces) allows freedom to make extra notes and what-not
I wonder if she puts another point in the first ring, if she’ll be able to use three orbs at once. For a min-maxer like Sydney, I think that would honestly be more useful than any other option possibly could be.
Trouble is that the existing points are clearly associated with specific orbs. Whereas the two hand limit applies to all the orbs. So there is nothing to indicate that it would give the benefit you assume.
The other point being that it is a restriction designed to make the character interesting. There is no story benefit in giving Halo the ability to use three powers simultaneously. It would just make any danger boringly easy to overcome.
Maybe this has been said before (I don’t really follow the comments), but three exceptionally powerful individuals all had similar builds and personalities. I say ‘had’ not ‘have’, because Maxima evolved since acquiring her powers. Teen Maximillia (#414) appeared to be about Sydney’s height and build (and hair color) when the geode doused her. We know Max played D&D as well at some point, and that is most likely a hobby from before she acquired her powers.
Then there’s blue-haired Krona (#481), who also seems pretty close to Sydney in build and personality. Krona is the only one so far who could actually read the labels on the orb progression chart (#506). The dice bag reference tells me she played (and may still play) tabletop RPGs as well.
The most recent updates, where Cora tells Sydney about the Nth, led me to a theory. Or a cluster of theories.
What I’m thinking is that we may not be looking at one solitary example of Nth tech. We may be looking at two examples, and it’s possible that Krona was the intended recipient of both, only the Veil (#457) messed up target acquisition. The Nth (aka “space wizards”) may not be a collective species, but may instead be individuals chosen from amongst the plethora of other planetary populations because they demonstrate a specific potential.
The powers given to Maxima by the geode would provide natural protection and baseline combat ability, so that a novice “space wizard” doesn’t need to be on guard all the time. The orbs provide more complex (mostly “showy”) powers, which act as both an augment and teaching tool, developing as the “space wizard” learns how they work. This all ties into the subject’s natural talents, which they would need to evolve in tandem, probably using understanding gleaned from unlocking the orbs. (I’ve definitely noticed that Sydney unlocks points as she gains insight and learns new tactics.) Once their own powers sufficiently evolve, the “space wizard” could probably recreate the geode, and pass on the orbs to the next recipient.
Im really disappointed that we never come back to this idea that Krona can see the code behind the glyph chart. Seems like something rediculously useful for both krona and halo.
hummm… noticed now that the orbs are in the wrong position in the root access grid… like, one position off…
the point in the double branch is in the unknown brown/orange orb instead of the atmospherics green orb and the synergy Connection is between the red and pink orbs ( p.p.o. and lighthook) … instead of the blue and red (fly orb and pew-pew orb)
so is the grid in the wrong place or the orbs are?
or it was proposital and i have no idea i’m talking about?