Grrl Power #514 – Concrete knuckles
Well, she is definitely holding its attention. Sydney could have probably flown away before he flipped the side of the building on her, but she has supreme confidence in her shield, and as we know, Sydney is easily distracted by spectacle. Like buildings collapsing on her or someone jangling their keys.
That shape the Super Husk carved out of the building is called a spherical wedge, like when you pull an orange apart. I was disappointed when I learned that. I was hoping it had a distinct geometric name, like a radium or spherelette.
#MakingComics: Let me talk to you guys about rubble. Wow, drawing rubble is tedious. You don’t think about it when you’re reading a manga. Those guys have assistants whose job it is to just draw backgrounds and presumably the lowest guy on the totem pole gets to do the rubble. (which incidentally I think is one of those incorrect idioms and actually the guy at the base of the totem pole was the most important – but you know what I mean.) There are a few cheats you can do when you’re working digitally, (and probably a lot more if you’re working in 3D) but I feel for those guys who for the last few decades did it all on paper with ink and rulers and zip-z-tones.
I mention this because as you can imagine, there’s a fair bit of rubble on the next few pages. :/
Wow I totally forgot to draw battle damage on that thing. :/\/\
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What battle damage? It regenerated! Duh! ;-)
Overconfidence never led to anyone’s downfall…ever.
her shields taken heaver hits and remained unscathed, i doubt the Mannekiller has anything in it’s Arsenal that can pierce it. though she doesn’t appear to have an Oxygen Tank on so she’s on a time-limit.
May not have an Oxygen Tank, but she does have her ‘Air Thingy’
unless that broke when she fell on it…
It is built to military spec by a company specialising in supplying equipment to super soldiers. Plus (unlike the HUD glasses) they would not have been handicapped by needing to do that with inherently fragile technology.
Sydney is slight enough that she is very unlikely to have damaged it
…in politics
To be fair, her shield tanked Maxima’s tank melting nuke beam… It’s not going to really do much to her shield in the slightest.
There’s a Sonic the Hedgehog joke in that title somewhere, I can tell, I just can’t figure out what it is.
That stupid Aussie wannabe hedgehog, the echidna
Don’t knock the Echidna, they get all the girls.
1989 TV ad for underwear featuring Rex the Echidna, Possibly NSFW.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xdoYLLNvbck
oh, yes, that is NSFW in every place I’ve ever worked.
Back in ’89 on australian free to air TV you could have that ad pop up in the middle of an episode of Scooby Doo. It wasn’t considered unsafe at all. Times change.
After this comic finishes it’s run,maybe Sydney should have a Charlie Brown moment?!?
Picture Sydney doing the football gag-who should be the one to pull the football away just before Sydney can kick it?
Sydney:AAAAUGH!!!
Maxima, of course. ;)
Harem! And she wouldn’t simply pull it away from Sydney, but teleport both herself and the football three feet to Sydney’s right!
There’s literally ALL the cheats you can do when working 3D. In fact, making rubble is one of the most FUN things to do in 3D. They still have people who’s jobs are just to do that, but I presume they enjoy their jobs much more.
And the UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, loves manhole covers. Much more placid a hobby than the adrenaline junkie sport of train-spotting. Nothing like an expedition to find a manhole cover, he has not seen before, and take a photograph to prove that he was there when it .. well sat there in its hole.
You never can tell when you will have the thrill of one being opened in front of you!
*wets self in excitement*
Can you tell me the size, shape, type, and smell of every fire hydrant you have… ventured across.
No. Your language does not have the words to cover the range of smells, nor your brains the ability to appreciate them, even if it did. Sorry.
Ya sure fine whatever i’m just gonna go off and watch some anime wITH A LIBERAL use of RED in the PALLETTE
Nope, not falling for it, I will not be seeing red.
I don’t see how her shield, appart from increasing air resistance, protects her from falling damage. Since it takes the form of whatever she is standing on, it seems to me that she should have had the full impact of her fall, colliding on the part of her shield that took the shape of the rubbles underneath.
I guess she just grabbed the flight orb mid-fall.
Do we even know how high up they actually are, or how low she falls?
I’m not even sure rubble doesn’t slow you down because things are falling on things that are falling and tumbling and rolling about in all possible directions… And we don’t even know how her shield works. It’s
(Tried to write “good enough to block lasers after all” with an a href tag to https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1630 but apparently I’m poor at understanding how to do html.)
It is not intuitive. It took me quite some time to get the hang of such tags. Use the following format for this one:
<a href=”Insert_URL_Here”>InsertDesiredTextHere</a>
So for your one, it would be like this:
<a href=”https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1630″>good enough to block lasers after all</a>
Appearing like this: good enough to block lasers after all
Or you can choose to add the inverted commas, in one of two ways:
<a href=”https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1630″>”good enough to block lasers after all”</a>
Appearing like this: “good enough to block lasers after all”
OR: “<a href=”https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1630″>good enough to block lasers after all</a>”
Appearing like this: “good enough to block lasers after all“
This is a sandbox where you can safely test such:
https://www.w3schools.com/html/tryit.asp?filename=tryhtml_links_w3schools
It is all too easy to snip off a character and have the formatting go crazy (or simply display nothing). So personally I keep that in a bookmark, so that I can create the tag in the sandbox, test it and, if it works OK, then copy and paste the code into the comic.
Whilst that may sound involved, use of “CTRL C” (to copy) and “CTRL P” (to paste) makes it swift. Especially when compared to typing it out, in full. With all the corresponding risk of a typo, and with no testing option, before submitting the comment.
I don’t know what computer you are using but I have always seen CTRL-P as the command to print, and CTRL-V the paste short cut, but I prefer the CTRL-SHIFT-V paste as plain text, which causes the text that you pasting to be pasted in the same font and at the same size as the rest of your document.
Yea, CTRL V. No idea how the wrong letter appeared there. Some gremlin taking … err…. giving the P, I guess?
Handy tip on the variant, thanks. I may well adopt that.
*Hands his gremlin some sweets for a job well done*
Bookmarked, & Thank You for the helpful tool.
*wags tail peacefully*
ditto
For anyone interested: Their mistake was to put the “good enough to block lasers after all” into the title attribute. The link is there but very (infinitesimally?) small. If you could click on it, it should work. If you could hover your mouse over it, it would display the missing text. (=
We do know that her roundish shield get flat on the ground and that she stand on that bottom flat part instead of floating in the vertical center. So when she reach the ground after a fall, her shield should stop and flatten and she then colide with the lower part like she would on the ground if she didn’t have the shield. So to me it seems like it should give her almost no protection agains’t falling damage.
It is possible that absorbing fall damage is a perk point that she’s already spent.
+1
Separately to that, if assuming that Nosurrender‘s conjecture is correct (and I am not implying otherwise), there is still some protection to be had, in the avoidance of falling on sharp objects. Sydney will not end up with a girder sticking through her, for example. Unlike the poor injured kitty!
Plus I agree with Lyru that the shield will be hitting rubble on the way down, some of which will be falling at a slower rate than the bubble (not having fully broken away from the lower sections of structure yet). So Sydney will be having her fall broken by a series of bumps, as she goes down.* Each of which would be less severe than hitting an immovable object (although she will hit at least one eventually, but probably not with deadly velocity).
Finally do note that the shield can deform in more ways than just becoming flat on the bottom (or possibly being an inverted hemisphere, where Sydney needs to be able to walk on the ground). We routinely see it take a torpedo shape, for example, when in high-speed flight. Plus have seen it shrink to fit confined areas, or even deform, from a hemisphere, to avoid overlapping a table.
Ergo it is possible that such deformation could be used, like a car’s crumple zone, to absorb some of the impact of a fall. Clearly, like a car crash, this would be of great use in a fall from a lower height, but progressively less the higher it gets. Being totally useless for jumping out of a flying aircraft, for example .** But, unlike a crumple zone, it would be able to reset to cushion against multiple consecutive impacts.
If this is correct, then it wholly accounts for Sydney getting no more than a bit of a bump to her bum, each time. I cannot offer any proof (other than Sydney not screaming in agony above) but can pose the two possible mechanisms. One being that the shields are responding to Sydney’s subconscious desire (she is expecting the shield to protect her, and it is responding to that) or it could be handled with relatively simple programming.
The orbs clearly must have collision avoidance, and thereby a means to sense the environment, in some fashion, so automating this response, to a fall, remains feasible (and the more likely than my alternative, unless Sydney is specifically thinking ‘the shield will deform to cushion me’).
* The net result is akin to those survivors we see reported (every year) who have ‘fallen down cliffs 60 foot’ (as an example, but sometimes much more than that). When you check out behind the headlines it is clear that they survived due to hitting parts of the cliff, on the way down. Bruised, maybe multiple broken bones, but still alive.
Although it is all too easy to be killed even with a bit of a slope, or ledges. But routine ‘climber dies’ stores do not attract as much publicity or attention.
Contrast those to the (very rare in nature,) sheer cliff falls (or much more common falls off intact buildings) which require landing in substantial vegetation, or some similar fluke, in order to survive.
** Mythbusters have tested analogous things and the ineffectiveness was compellingly shown.
I believe that the bubble shield stays in shape unless she lands on her feet to protect her, and the reason I say this is because when she ran through the sign on the way home from the diner brawl, she went right through it, leaving a roughly bubble shape corner missing and changing the sign from Treat her right, to Eat her right. Why would this situation be an different then running through that sign?
Comedy.
Or, if you prefer a psychological explanation, she had a subconscious desire to alter the message, on the billboard, and the orbs enacted that.
Importantly the shield does change shape regularly (and more than can just be put down to artistic licence). Check any high speed flight and that is always a different shape to the normal hovering type flight.
Except for when Halo had passengers, when it was sized suitably to hold them all. Despite clearly having to travel fast, to have crossed the country to New York (from a hypothetical city ‘somewhere in the middle’).
Not in the mood to track it down, but one of the restaurant fight scenes shows the shield bending to allow Sydney to stand closer to a table than the normal round shield would have let her.
Plus, logically, it must have gotten small enough for her to go out through a doorway (as she was under orders to stay bubbled up), in order for her to get outside (before massive holes were blown in through the walls).
So the shield IS shaping itself to match the present need. Most easily explainable by it complying with her mental desires (or conscious mental orders).
The most boring option, for the damaged sign, being that she was flying whilst almost asleep, and hence giving the shield no orders (by either method). So it just retained whatever shape it was in, and did not deform, having no orders to do so.
Sydney may be able to master this property if she works on it. Someday everybody may see an elephant-shaped shield in the room.
Although they may not mention that to anyone else present, if they fear that they are the only one seeing it flying around.
“The orbs clearly must have collision avoidance”
Except she clocked that one blond guy with an orb, so they don’t always have collision avoidance.
She has attacked with them several times. However collision avoidance is a separate issue to allowing attack with something. In fact real-life engineers have to deal with both when dealing with, for example, weapon systems which fire multiple rockets simultaneously. One solution being to very slightly stagger their firing sequence, to reduce the chance of a rocket hitting one of its neighbours.
Others though take inspiration from flocks of birds in flight (and fish swimming in schools). These are the more sophisticated as, in addition to avoiding each other, they also evade predators. Making the mechanisms ideal for evading counter-missile attacks and the like. Because it allows dodging attacks without the risk of hitting the neighbouring friendly missiles.
Further every weapon system needs means to avoid hitting the wrong targets. Usually this means the user has to make these judgements, based on direct observation of the battlefield. But as we build more autonomous robotic systems we are having to make them do both jobs.
Currently they are good at aiming, not so good at avoiding. Simply because identifying the difference between friend, foe and innocent civilian is a much more complex task. And morally I am a firm supporter that we should not be allowing machines to make the decision of who to kill.
You should spent some time thinking about what sort of people are generally making the decision of who to kill. It may convince you that giving this ability to machines wouldn’t be THAT much bad.
It is people who we have assigned to perform that role. Be it for good or bad that is the method we have used for thousands of years of civilisation.
Now, of course, once we have machines that are so advanced that we consider them people and if, as a society, we feel that we can trust them to both respect our values and make what we would consider to be common sense judgement calls, then I would be favourably disposed.
This does not change my argument, you may note though, when taking into account the distinction that a machine who is considered to be a ‘person’ is no longer just a ‘device’.
I remain adamant that only people should make the call. And if machine-based people can do so more reliably, and without a risk of humanity being disposed of, then that is the better option to take.
However politicians and generals will, without doubt, seek to make use of automated killing machines long LONG before we are willing to grant artificial beings the rights and status of being people.
Crumple zones only help because you’re tied to the car via your seatbelt, so the car’s change in momentum is passed on to you. Sydney is free-standing (floating?) in the bubble, so she won’t be slowed down at all, she’ll just slam into the bottom of the bubble at full speed.
Unless the bubble is smart enough to reshape itself to prevent that, of course. Maybe it wraps skin-tight around her, then extends part of itself downwards and uses that as a crumple zone? It would show a lot more intelligence than we’ve seen so far, though.
Most likely she just grabs the flight orb.
Good points.
And to that theory, I refer you to “Ow! My butt!” Clearly there is no falling damage being absorbed here, or the small amount of injury Sydney just sustained would have been absorbed.
I would beg to differ on your case in point, “Ow my butt! I fell on the air thingy”.
The bubble could lessen the impact of outside sources of damage, either force or inertia. Also it could decrease the force in proportion to the outside force applied on it, the stronger it hits the more it protects. (This could be trouble if a villain ever realized he only needs a slow moving knife to get through her bubble) Either instance would not protect her from hurting herself by landing on the “air thingy” as it is an inside source of damage. (Such as having a big rock in your back pocket and dropping on your butt on a trampoline.) The bubble didn’t hurt her the air thingy did.
That’s utterly illogical. She was injured on impact with the force field. What she happens to be carrying/wearing is completely irrelevant to the facts of the matter.
You might as well say “The fall didn’t kill him, the stop at the end did.” Without the fall, there is no abrupt stop applying lethal damage.
Your reply here is predicated on the assumption that your basic argument is correct. However if it is not, but the opposing argument is right, then Sydney is only suffering the equivalent of sitting down too fast. Which would not be painful, unless hitting something hard or with sharp edges. Which would match the properties of a metal canister.
In other words Sydney being harmed by the air thingy does not advance either case. It only goes to prove that Halo does not have 100% protection against damage. There is the possibility of incidental damage. Which is worthy to establish, in its own right mind.
Whether this extends beyond this, to the potential for serious damage, remains open to debate. I have not seen any clinching arguments, either way, yet.
Re-reading my post, my comment “..Sydney being harmed by the air thingy…” does sound like I have a prejudice towards one side of the argument. However that is a simple statement of fact, based on Sydney’s dialogue.
Obviously though the air thingy must have initially hit the force field itself.
Good argument from Oberon and counter-argument from CplDiablo. I had been trying to find a devil-s advocate argument, and had been thinking along those lines, but failed to find an adequate way of expressing the reservations I had.
So nicely done. Still probably not airtight mind. But easier to wait and see what Sydney;’s situation is, once we have another view of her. We should be able to narrow down the possibilities then (such as if we see her flying, in one extreme example).
Getting slowed down by rubbles wouldn’t justify her confidence. She chose to fall, with a smirk might I add, despite the fact that she has many options to prevent it. Whatever the way her shield work, there was still some kind of collision, cause she did hurt herself a little on her pony.
She doesn’t seem anchored in the limit of her own shield, but maybe the shield orb itself can be so she can put some of the stress on her holding arm.
I imagine the drag produced my the shield is quite impressive. If the shield itself is weightless then only about 1/12 the content of the shield has any weight. So she’d fall like a feather (ish).
Your point is good (in general principle, doggies do not do the maths).
Do avoid phrasing such as “has any weight” though, as you will get pedantic physicists’ knickers in a twist. Weight is determined by the amount of mass and the gravity acting upon it, so does not change with drag. Use ‘effective weight” (or physicist-speak) instead.
Or, if wedgies are desired…
*holds dewclaws up*
It is always fun to yank their tails!
Are you bored whit your old boring roof?
Want a sky window put in but dont have the cash?
NO worries, our Blood scanning war Golem will fix you up good.
Just call 555- tentacles now and we will be right over. Whit just FIVE easy payments in blood (4 gallons minimum) you can be the proud owner of your very own skywindow.
(warning: user might or might not suffer from severe blood lost and or allergic effects due to excessive construction dust. Golem R us are not responsible for ingeries or sudden death due to Golem use. Keep out of reach of children)
Blood Golem now comes with infinite length tentacles. Our Golem can now create tentacles who’s mass exceeds the total mass of the Golem body!
Magic makes physics sit at the kids’ table while the adults talk.
Remember, if the Veil is based on an arcane programming language, then magic is simply the process of hacking the universe itself.
I still say that the funniest way to handle that would have been to use the flight orb to stay at exactly the same height she was standing at. Just kind of look down at the rubble and go, “Ok, what was that supposed to do?” If a robot could sob inr age I think she could pull it off.
yeah. It would be pretty demoralizing if the robot thingy had morale.
Good thing it doesn’t!
Although Sydney… if you see what it’s doing… you know you aren’t a tree, right? You can… you know… move? Especially if you have enough time to say, “Aaaaaahhhh! Hah haaaa! I get it! I see what you’re up to!”… That’s a full 6 seconds you could have used to, I don’t know, sidestep the encirclement? Leap away from the falling edge?
Grab the flight orb and let the building fall out from underneath her while she hovers in mid-air with her ankles crossed?
Please to be remembering: Sydney’s meds ran out several hours ago during the dinner meal, before they went to see The Council, also, she is working on just a few hours sleep, many many hours ago
And, you know, she’s Sydney.
That as well :D
That’s when Sydney does her best work. The Golem likely has a logic tree to make decisions with, but Sydney doesn’t use any of that pesky, restrictive logic stuff…..
Sydney doesn’t have the tactical sense for this but, what if it she let herself fall so that the backstop for her blast is space instead of the horizon/buildings and forest. Of course with Sydney’s powers to quote Mass Effect, “Sir Isaac Newton is the deadliest son of a @$!#* in space.” If she fires that off upwards something somewhere is going to have a bad day.
It’s a beam.
Inverse square law applies.
As always, relevant xkcd:
https://what-if.xkcd.com/13/
The only thing I can say in defense of my comment is that neither you nor I know if here beam follows the laws of physics as we know them. For all we know there could be some deep code of the universe/science mumbo jumbo thingie about that beam that keeps it’s strength the same no matter the distance it travels.
Also: Like the xkcd reference.
Also also: I get that inertia probably doesn’t apply to an energy attack. The point is still the same though. If something prevents that beam from spreading out over any distance, it will hit something eventually.
More relevant xkcd in support of CrimtheCold: https://xkcd.com/1433/ (but not, of course, in support of of even basic physics)
Inverse-square applies assuming no self-collimating effect in the beam. That’s a safe assumption for plain EM radiation or a single neutral particle beam, but it is possible to set up combinations of charged-particle beams such that the magnetic field created by the moving charges serves to keep them aligned. Theoretically, at least; I’m not aware of any experimental tests either way.
And from this day on she got herself a Action cam strapped over her shoulders at all times.
Go with the adrenaline-junkie special… a helmet with a GoPro mounted on top.
She is a Super-Cop, cops wear body cameras as part of their uniform, so it will be a good chance she will be using one, eventually, except on times when she is basically in civvies
A fashionable Go-Pro pendant….
What Sydney does not know is that one of the ‘inactive’ orbs is in fact recording everything she says and does and is broadcasting it back to the orb’s creators on planet Xylodon 5. There it is edited and rebroadcast to their population as their top rated show “The Galaxy’s Funniest Home Videos: Earth Edition”.
“We secretly gave this dirt ape some ultimate power orbs. Let’s see what happens.”
That whole first season where she didn’t do almost anything just worked in a comic book store would have surely gotten the show cancelled before the god stuff happened.
I dunno, have you seen Sydney’s wacky behaviour even without using her powers? That may have missed the ‘ultimate power in use’ fans but it would have appealed to other channels, covering ‘when ultimate powers don’t go wrong’ and ‘dirt apes are funny!’
I can’t tell for sure whether the subtext is a deliberate or accidental disregard for the fact that demoralize is based on morale rather moral.
Lots of people get the two mixed up, even people who you’d expect to know better. There’s so many phrases that are used correctly when spoken aloud but printed with the wrong homophone nowadays… don’t give up though. I’m still working on the peaked/piqued thing.
I looked it up. Apparently it can be both, although considering that 2 out of 3 definitions/examples were about morale rather than morals, I’d say it’s more commonly used for the former.
I’m wondering when Sydney (and to an extent the bad guys) will realize momentum still applies inside her shield bubble and begin picking up the bubble and shaking her like a tomato in a tin-can? I mean it seems to well “Supress” momentum/ air pressure to a certain degree (Otherwise the shockwaves from all these explosions/beams/whatnot would have ruptured something by this point) but still I have to stare at this and cry “She Fell off a building! that would still hurt like balls shield or no shield!”
Sorry Inner Science dork/Vulcan needed to vent, Carry on. :3
Heck, even just violently shaking someone can kill, if not doing serious damage. I can’t Even shake my head too vigorously without causing a minor headache., so her bouncing around in her shield would do serious damage.
I wonder if this means there some sort of inertial damper in her shield? How high could she fall from and survive, provided she has her shield up?
Cue Sydney suffering from hyper oxygenation as the air thingy leaks it all out. (a pity higher pressure and high oxygen content isn’t THAT funny or even action-urgent, but Sydney doesn’t know that!!)
So, Viriin, are we doing this cupcake thing? I’d rather not post the recipe in public since that spoils the surprise but my email’s on my blog, just click my username.
Or not… Use the contact form I guess.
I’ve seen a ‘3-ingredient cupcake’ recipe at one time… i think two of the ingredients were:
1) ice-cream
2) cupcake mix
Isn’t cupcake mix meant to be just add eggs and maybe water? That doesn’t seem very impressive.
there’s another recipe that uses ice cream and cake flour, and i think the third ingredient is baking powder
it needs to be ‘full-fat’ ice cream, though
Ok. I probably missed this convo, buuut…
If Halo’s shield blocks rubble from coming in, how is it that it safely intersects with the ground beneath her? How is she not slicing it or the shield telling what is ok to pass through and what isn’t?
I assume the real answer is “artist’s prerogative” but I’m interested in creative excuses for this. :}
Speed.
My conjecture is anything approaching shield at a speed likely to be dangerous gets stopped.
Including the ground.
Of course, she has momentum. How the shield stops her momentum I don’t know.
If the shield stops her “dead” when it contacts the ground, it would be be pretty close to literal.
Maybe it links to the FlyBall enough to draw it’s ability a bit?
Clearly the shield is smart enough to know when something is being stood on and intersect accordingly. Interesting experiments I’d try 1: use flight to try to stand on a wall to test if that’ll intersect
2: try to stand on someone to see if they can be cheated into the shield
Or see someone get horrifically sliced in half…
Sorry about some of my posts being long, rambling, ones. They are helping me keep my mind occupied, at the moment. Plus points raised by fellow commentators, or the comic, have inspired lines of thought that I found too inspiring to want to severely edit them.
In due course though I will make a concerted effort to avoid such verbose responses.
No worries, My first year college philosophy professor could ramble on for 50 minutes and not say anything useful. You merely pad it out with extra words. I tend to do the opposite…
Message to Astronaut Grrl Power Fan.
Whilst paying homage to the comic, in such a high-profile (if covert) way is highly appreciated, please do not risk yourself, or your mission, to do so!
On the subject of things that can mess with Sydney’s ability to maintain the shield, would a radio beam cause her transmitter to buzz so loud she’d drop the orbs in an attempt to stop it? Or would it require some sort of decryption to work on it?
i would imagine it’s heavily secured, since it’s Military(or at least SWAT) grade hardware, but considering it’s on the arm holding the shield it’d be a moot point, as she presumably only needs one hand to fiddle with anything on it.
Would depend on which balls she is holding, and in which hands…
i feel like sydney learned an important lesson from achilles: if you’re indestructible and your teammates are not, be as annoying and distracting as is possible.
alternatively: this is what actually happens when the tanks use taunt skills in mmos.
… I remember the game your Avatar is from. I wrote fan-fiction about that game once in high school.
sydney stop acting like achilles
@yorp
Not sure about this sites etiquette, eg, should I post this back on a prior page?
Anyhow, was just thinking about the most recent orb powerup episode. I note the revealed ‘deep code’ of the universe, looks very much like different layers of cogs, clockwork etc.
Now, if you look at the central wheel of the skill tree, it does not really look like its on the same level as the rest. It looks like it is above/below the body. It really looks like a cog, that connects the main body to more ‘machinery’. eg its a cog that connects the skill tree to another level of the universes ‘deep code’.
Note, the seven skill slots could function a lot like ‘teeth’ in a cog, They are also filling in the main body of an axel. Note the triangle bits in the center. The only odd shaped parts of the tree.
once its full, it can engage with/connect too…..something. My impression is that the triangle bits are auto-filled, if the relevant skill point is selected on the outside of the central wheel.
Note, the main body of the skill tree is also circular. As you might expect of something that is turned by a cog. I am sure, just a co-incidence :)
A quickly googled image of the skill tree.
https://davebarrack.deviantart.com/art/Halo-s-Skilltree-Wallpaper-02-428874048
Folks usually keep the comments in the related thread. Just pick the particular comment you wish to reply to and click on the “reply” button at the top of their post. As opposed to filling in the (new) comment box, at the bottom of the page.
The latter option only allows you to specify which comic page to put a reply on, it does not let you specify which comments page. As a new comment it would always appear at the bottom of the most recent comments page (for the comic page visible at the time of posting).
But I would not say that we have a particular etiquette. If folks want to start a new comment, they are welcome to. Most of the time though commentators find it easiest to keep a particular conversation going in the same thread, just to save having to hunt around to find the earlier one.
Pawey tip:
If lots of people have already replied to a particular comment, the separation will still be quite a lot. In those instances it is worth quoting the part of their comment you are replying to. Just to save folks from having to scroll up and try to eyeball which comment is in line with your reply.
Normal quotation marks are fine. Or if folks want to use the fancy formatting, then they can do so this way:
<blockquote>”Text_you_are_quoting”</blockquote>
Which appears like this:
Do note the “/” in the closing tag. Missing that out is the single most common error we (myself included) make when using these tags.
Or, if they have a huge post, that would bulk out your own too much by quoting, then summarising it, in a sentence, to prompt folks memory of it (or help them check that they have found the right one), is a good alternative.
Not that I had any problems with yours. I am just taking the opportunity to point that out, to whoever it may be of use to.
As for the observations you make, they are very interesting. I will need a less sleepy head on though, before checking them out in detail.
* Sometimes new readers (not to be confused with new reader) do not spot that there are multiple pages of comments per comic page. These are accessible by clicking on the page number desired, at either the top or bottom of the comments.
“Imma tank, Imma tank, Imma tank!” But is it a demon-spawned reindeer from Hell?
If Sydney were to meet a were-snake,would she….
A.Freak out
B.Say to him;”Please say I was once a man!”
(Of course that line is from the animated G.I.Joe movie,but which character said it?)
When my wife see a snake in the forest, she dash to pick it up and give him kisses. Of course, we are in Québec, where nature is mostly innofensive. Our snakes are about as lethal as a velcro strip. We are natural (and geographycal) opposite of Australia.
Don’t you have eastern rattlesnakes out there?
No, their range is only in the south eastern United States.
or
C. Say “Snakes” Why did it have to be snakes?”
or more likely go “Snake? Snake?! SNAAAAAAAKE!!!!” then do ALL of the above
The guy “depicted” at the top of the totem pole is the most important. The totem pole is a giant pole, the base is, structurally the most important, but the idiom refers to the images carved on the pole, not the actual pole itself.
https://www.spunk.org/texts/prose/sp000212.txt
well, structurally they are important, but they are the least flashy, which actually works very well with this analogy.
My guess is that if Sydney were to bisect someone with her shield upon raising it, one of a couple things would happen:
1) They’d be trapped in the shield unharmed: their bodily fluids and such would pass through the shield where it intersected. The energy of the shield would bend around the molecules of their body. I guess this because of the whole ‘not slicing the ground’ when she erects her shield. This means a particularly gross monster could use such a person as a doorway into her shield.
2) As above, but they’d be able to move into or out of the shield at a harmlessly slow pace. Suddenly dashing at Sydney, for instance, would cause the shield to immediately halt their movement, which might cause internal damage (or if they were strong enough, they might bisect themselves).
My guess is that if Sydney were to bisect someone with her shield upon raising it, one of a couple things would happen:
1) They’d be trapped in the shield unharmed: their bodily fluids and such would pass through the shield where it intersected. The energy of the shield would bend around the molecules of their body. I guess this because of the whole ‘not slicing the ground’ when she erects her shield. This means a particularly gross monster could use such a person as a doorway into her shield.
2) As above, but they’d be able to move into or out of the shield at a harmlessly slow pace. Suddenly dashing at Sydney, for instance, would cause the shield to immediately halt their movement, which might cause internal damage (or if they were strong enough, they might bisect themselves).
R.I.P. Buffy.
She went well, after a lovely walk along the Sea Gardens and beach, in Varna, surrounded by loved ones.
“Scout the path for us, my friend“
So sorry to hear of your loss.
It’s just not fair that their lives are so short while ours are so long.
But they tend to live their lives well… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/564x/11/0b/12/110b12e02fbf9f2aba9180334519f52c.jpg
I once heard that the reason our pets have such short lives compared to how long ours are is it takes us that long to learn to love unconditionally. Our pets are born knowing how to do that.
That is rough, quadrupedal cuz.
Hope you are either at peace or in process to finding it.
Be well, Doggy.
Thank you all, for your kind words.
Anyone else notice Math hasn’t been seen since Max told him to go stare at boobs until he was tired of them? That might have been a death sentence.
+1 +1
If nothing else you can see that Sydney makes a good distraction until the big hitters get there, not that she couldn’t be a big hitter herself… Plus with her comic savvy as it tries to fight her she can take apart its attacks and figure out how to eventually destroy it.
She’s an apex heroine in training… https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2205
Like I said she’s a good distraction at this point, nearly indestructible in her shield, more powers than you can shake a stick at, she just needs to learn fine control of those powers, she doesn’t have that yet. Plus as we now know 100% for sure, she is adaptable and gets new powers as she levels up which means she is more powerful than they thought she was at first. Back when she was considered an APEX heroine in training they didn’t actually know that she could become even more powerful than she was by getting new powers.
Ok now I’m curious – how much weight could Sydney’s flight orb hold up if she were to stop goofing around here? Would she become essentially an immovable object locked in space until she wanted to move (essentially holding up the building with her shield) or would the weight of the building be too much for the flight orb to handle?
If she became “locked” under something’s weight I’d think it was the shield orb doing most of the negation of incoming force not the flight orb. Or it could be that the shield is designed to stop sudden dangerous levels of energy and would let a slow but steady powerfully building push move her along.
Well, she has easy escape at hand now that she knows about the teleport option.
Relatively easy. Halo does still have to guide the lightbee to a new location, which if she wants to make a clean escape, needs to be far enough away to be out of sight. Whilst she can probably do it pretty fast, it is not like Harem’s near-instantaneous ‘port. With one potentially deadly aspect, being that whenever Sydney is using the lightbee’s senses, she is oblivious to what is happening around her own body!
So even if it takes as little as a second to get the lightbee out of sight, that is one second of combat time that Sydney is deaf, blind and immobile. That second could be the critical one in which she needs to dodge or be crashed by a flailing limb! Even more likely, with an intelligent opponent, who is actively looking for any sign of distraction.
Clearly, if Sydney has managed to get obscured by a cloud of dust, then your point does become much more viable!
Plus I would say Halo does not need to switch to her mind’s eye ‘lightbee cam’ whilst it is in her own vision’s field of view. So it is only once she gets it around a corner, over the horizon or in a convenient hole that she need switch to remote viewing. But even looking away from the fight, especially if guiding the movement of something can be a dangerous distraction. Not as bad as being blind and deaf, of ocurse, but still better to try and ensure the enemy cannot easily attack her whilst indisposed.
When she accidentally teleported, she said “why can’t I see you any more’. To me, this implied she can see from both perspectives at the same time. She was not surprised to be suddenly able to see things inside the basement. Granted, she can probably only pay attention to one thing at a time, just like anyone else. Also, if she has to be in lightbee viewing mode to have the lightbee out at moving then she would never have been able to see her friend in the first place, while in lightbee mode.
I guess its possible she was just surprised to be viewing from the lightbee perspective,in that case, you would be correct, but its not how I read it. Granted, I seem to recall her eye’s were weird when she was in lightbee mode, which is ambiguous, but could support your case.
To me, if she suddenly changed perspective, i would have thought she would say ‘why am I in the basement view, rather than ‘why can’t I see you any more’
I was going by Halo’s conversation with Harem. However DaveB‘s blog, on the same page, does support your interpretation:
So tone down all my ‘blind’ remarks to ‘not being focused on things around her real body’.
Well deduced, on all accounts.
It is worth noting though that Sydney will be at a particular disadvantage here. Her ADHD will make the scene with visuals (where she is standing) far more eye-catching than where she is navigating the light-bee (because she is doing that with nothing more than a feeling). Which means that she will have to evoke ‘tunnel-vision’ to force her attention to remain with the light-bee.*
So an average person using this kind of “mind’s eye navigation” would be more aware of their general environment, in my opinion. But, as ever, I invite comment from those with ADD or ADHD, in case they have a relevant analogy that they can draw upon, from their own experiences, which may either corroborate or refute such conclusions.
Whilst I feel confident that people’s previous comments here have informed me enough to visualise things, from their perspective, I would want to be corrected if I get something wrong. Be it substantively or even on a subtlety.
* If she lost concentration for even a moment, especially at the kind of high-speed flight we are proposing, then she would be totally lost. Most importantly though with no means of reorienting herself. Just knowing that ‘there are no walls immediately adjacent to me’ would not allow Sydney to place where she was. It would require forming her projected image, and gaining sight and sound feedback, to be able to figure that out.
Mmm, looking at the page I linked, Sydney’s own dialogue is contradictory. She indicates she can only feel her way around. But after that she mentions not being able to see Pixel.
It is possible that Sydney had materialised her projection, in order to do that though. In the relevant panel the lightbee was out of sight. So we could take it that she flies ‘by feel and the seat of her pants’ until sensing an area large enough to appear in, does so, takes a bearing, then resumes lightbee flight.
Or she is just focusing on the extra ‘proximity’ sense that she gains (of particular importance in dark tunnels) whilst she does still have sight, meaning that her description is simply incorrect.
One final option being that the ‘proximity sense’ carries on working strongly, even when her attention is with her real body. This would explain why she is describing that aspect of it, whilst in conversation with Harem. In other words Sydney is still sensing what is going on around the lightbee, even whilst not focusing on that location.
Sydney also forgot about inertia. She’s lucky she didnt get seriously hurt falling off a building and landing on her invincible force field. Might as well be hitting the ground unless its got some sort of softening safety feature.
Wait, all those amazing technical backgrounds arent drawn by the manga artist? Shit! I could easily keep a schedule if I only had to worry about drawing the cool figures!
Actually I dont mind drawing rubble, it can be tedious a bit but its also kinda fun for me. I draw lots of kaiju commissions and there is a LOT of rubble involved when giant monsters fight in an urban area.
Check it: https://bracey100.deviantart.com/art/HY-EE-KNEE-AH-Saves-G-Fest-671893319
DaveB, you seem to be using significantly more arts than before! Good jerb! :D
Thanks! I was hoping I’d get better and faster as I went, and I’m slowly getting better… hopefully the speed will come along. It’s taking its time ironically.
Better art takes work. Even if you take just as long to do it, you’re now squeezing more into that time, which is faster art in my book.
I originally thought there was going to be a dramatic rescue by Max. Now I think ‘Team oddball’ is going to pull off a bizarre, but definite win. Of course by the time Max gets there, Sciona will have escaped through one of her secret tunnels. So the story will be ” So tune in same Bat-time, same Bat-channel”. I just hope Max introduces Sydney to the joys of paperwork with a full after action report…that’ll teach her…
“…that’ll teach her…”? To actually do her job and stop a rampaging behe-bot who just took out the rest of her team?
“Next time I tell you to do nothing Recruit Scoville, you damn well better do nothing!! Funerals are cheaper than paying for property damage!!!”
… Next scene : the lighthook comes out of the dust, wraps around the golem’s tentacle and yanks the golem to the ground head-first with Sydney going “Your Turn!”…
NEW INVOTIVE!!!
Whilecan understand having Sydney there for the laughs, having her their with the Mountains of Flesh Queen’s is just cruel (nice to see Pixelicious though), is that a pair of Daphne’s on the side un-finished?
Personally, would have preferred seeing the A-Team get a fitting, and could have included the Kronachrome and the human-Pixel, but having Sydney with Pink-Pixel, Anvil, Dabbles and Grumpy Maxi is just bordering on abuse
We only need one guess why Dabbles is sitting back there on the table, just follow her gaze to the Golden Prize ;)
…Why didn’t she fly? Lol