Grrl Power #693 – Someone forgot to file a flight plan
Sydney is one of those heroes who will probably wind up saving the world on the reg, but there is a price to be paid among the inhabitants. In the form of general collateral damage and surviving groan inducing puns.
Do starships have horns? Like, if they’re in the atmosphere, do they have some kind of airhorn for tooting at smaller ships? Or a bell? Or maybe they all have an open comm channel and the only thing that anyone can transmit on it is honks. That would work in space. That makes more sense.
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And her meds have completely worn off.
Is the ship that almost gets hit in panel 6 the same one in the viewscreen? If so I’m having trouble picturing both how that partucular gesture ends up with them in that configuration and how sydney got where she did in relation to both of them. Unless they are BOTH swerving around her? Maybe?
Yes, same ship, there is only one “Protector”
Both ships swerved, The Orville went high, Protector went low
Andromeda Ascendant & USS Orville sighting confirmed!
Oops, I mean’t Protector – shame on me for not paying more attention to my own fingers.
:D
https://youtu.be/cOfS-D0DWB4
So I didn’t read all the comment, but am I the only one that noticed that those guys in that ship are Human cause they probably shouldn’t be.
Go read the comments.
trust me. Its for your own good to avoid the oncoming onslaught of sci-fi series fanboyism you are about to receive for not recognizing those ships.
Basically they are cameos of ships that have human or human appearing crew respectively. The latter being especially appropriate as the holographic human disguises used in the movie referenced conceal squid-like aliens.
Why not?
Both series were based on what looks like a Mostly Human crew… one is Based on a .. . . Misunderstanding when the original Cast Galaxy quest originally found out that Aliens were real, and completely misunderstood what as going on with there show….
the Other is the Orvel, a Starship from a Earth based. . . “Parody-” Oxicaly on Star Trek
It Makes sense in Context.
whoops ment that to be a reply….
The Orville show isn’t a parody of Star Trek, it’s a fan-made homage to the original series
Looking at the first episode, I’d say “parody” still fits the bill pretty well. The Orville does not seem to take itself anywhere near as serious as Star Trek
Like said: it’s an homage to the spirit of the original series, not TNG or, worse, the STD
You owe it to yourself to watch the rest of it. Some great ideas and execution, and the occasional dick/fart joke.
it’s also Legaly a parody, which allowes them a kind of Get out of jail card. Note I did not add Free because Lawyers are very good at making you pay for it one way or another if they realy want.
Suppose it depends on how one defines ‘Parody’, and probably just getting that mixed up with ‘Spoof’
Sydney destroyer of worlds strikes back. I hope she earns some kind of kickname among the aliens after this chaos.
Why is the bridge crew of that ship human?
Because it’s a READ THE FUCKING COMMENTS!!!!!
This question may be getting to some people. Its been asked more than a few times, and you can’t even skim the comments without getting the answer.
The ships are the Orvil and the ship from Galaxy Quest. Most of the crew for the latter are actually aliens using holographic disguises to appear human. So would be a close match for the situation in this setting, as the ship is likely to be taking alien tourists to Earth (given that this part of the Dyson sphere appears to be a stop-off point for traffic to and from Earth – e.g. where Deus connected to a relevant gate).
Oh no, it is Halifax all over again!
Will Cora try to convince Sydney to give the orbs to her!?
Yeah, I am getting a bad vibe off Cora thanks to these rather…odd lines of questioning about the orbs. Like she has a vested interest for some reason. Starting to think Dabbler’s friend *qualified to go rescue a stranded recruit on a hostile planet under attack by even more hostile entities* may be a Xevoarchy scout ship captain or something.
These questions are starting to fall under the “we may end up considering you too dangerous to let back on Earth” even if she was willing to bypass the Fracture’s security to escort her home as a favor to her friend; she sees to be reconsidering that now.
Now how would Dabbler react to a change of plans?
I am picturing Sydney having to teleport around Cora to get off the ship back to the others, or Maxima punching through the ship’s forcefield damaging the forcefield drive/controls/engine whatever, and be like “Sydney’s not the most powerful being on THIS planet”.
I almost feel like its like someone came across Trunks or Goten, and were freaked out by how powerful they were despite their hyper personalities, but come to Earth to realize a half dozen MUCH more powerful individuals *their fathers among them* exist there.
Sure Sydney has a diverse set of powers and room to grow, but Sydney is also a glass cannon on a world with much sturdier supers.
And that’s including the villains, like SmugD’s henchies
A glass cannon with shields that she almost permanantly has up that would make a starship blush-at this point im pretty sure our fave nutball can tank more than Maxima so your Saiyan metaphor falls apart a little-Barring Maxima the rest of Archon is actually extremely killable-especially with alien tier tech-heck give me a well placed nuke and Im pretty sure I can reduce the staff to like 2-3 members tops myself.
You may have missed the point.
the fear being if Sydney is so powerful than no one could reign her in. However, she personally can be reigned in, both because she respects others on her team, and that they can defeat either alone or with team work. If she goes off the rails, refuses to take her meds, her planet has plenty of powerful individuals prepared to grab her before she can grab an orb or while sleeping ect…and lock some mittens on her, then she is just Skeeball lass with mentally making the orbs fly around her.
Cora has expressed a concern over her powers, but there are others with equal or currently greater destructive potential, even if not as diverse, who also have more durability and have both on by default and don’t need to go reach for an orb.
-you can snipe Sydney, you can’t snipe Maxima in other words.
Remember Sydney is a recruit still and Maxima said before the point of the training is the leashing. Sydney is just currently in way over he head/experience. She needs to get back around others with high level powers to lesson any head swelling she may be developing right now.
+1
It occurs to me, pilots might be trained to avoid small fast approaching projectiles…
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2008-05-09
Bad news often comes in small packages, and it can pay to avoid it. If you avoid making a bigger mess at the same time.
Very true
Since the question keeps coming up, despite the fact its been answered, and the reason is they are cameos to Galaxy Quest and Orville.
Let’s explore the concept in sci-fi of aliens that look human. Aside from being cheap special effects there actually are reasons given in some sci-fi.
Going from most human to least human.
1: Looks exactly like humans
and
2: Looks just like humans but wearing funny clothes
-both of these are typically either because, they are descendants of humans taken from Earth in the past, they are from the future, they actually look different but are disguised, robots made to look human for first contact, they are the progenitors of the human race.
3: cosmetic aliens: they either have different hair colors, lots of eye shadow, ect…and we the audience are supposed to take this as part of their body not make up.
4: Pallet shift: Ya’know, looks like humans but green, blue, red, pink, or other colors not normally found in humans. AKA: Body paint aliens.
5: Rubber Forehead aliens: humanoid, nearly human, but they have some odd dermal structures like pointed ears, forehead ridges, some bone protrusions, bumps along the side of the eyes, AKA most Star Trek races…extreme cases would be tentacles instead of hair but still like 90% human.
6: Non-human extensions: So this is where special effects have a harder time, where you have a humanoid, but it has a tail, wings, scales, feathers, freaky mouth parts, tentacle arms. You still are like mostly human in build and appearance but you have these extra body parts that peg them even from a distance and silhouette as not human.
7: Humanoid but clearly alien: Basically every Power Rangers monster, Xenomorphs, the male Scarans, ect…this is where you are looking at big costumes or CGI, heck could throw Godzilla in here *especially 1960’s Godzilla, and Gigan for an alien example*. Humanoid build, but getting alien enough that no way will you mistake them for human.
Now after this point you have the non-humans, “Sapient Gerbils (AKA: upright talking animals”, also somewhere between 5 and 7 you could argue where to squeeze in Uncanny Valley and glowy humanoid aliens, the “well it looks human but obviously not”; any further and we have the no longer linear progression from human ones like centaurian, ophidian, mermaidian, scyclla, shape shifting slimes with a preference for humanoid features, human face on non-human body, it has arms and legs but its body is like a giant slug or eel, ect…more alien or monstrous depending on which way you are going, but have that “some human quality is in there”.
before you reach the “that is not now, nor never was even possibly of this Earth”.
for grabthar’s hammer….¿how she hold his glasses when upside down?
Because her flight orb creates its own local orientation for her inside its own flight bubble.
Speaking of which, Her entry in tropes needs updating since she now has a top speed of Mach 16, is Technicaly exoatmospheric capable, and now has a limited pseudo FTL in the form of a portal to the fracture and maybe elsewhere.
I don’t know why but when they talk about anchient races in these cases I keep thinking of someone sending up some simple drone in space and it get’s trapped into an amonaly. (which sends it back in time) Next thing you know that guy get’s an encounter with a machine race that’s the 3rd strongest Empire in the Galazy and suddenly the races old directives start clicking in as they identify the guy who build that one drone as their leader. Ya let someone who probably has no idea what he’s doing and possibly with Hyperatie disorder in command of the 3rd most powerful empire in the galaxy. For some reason I can think Sydny is almost on the same boat as that it would be so amusing if other ADHD people also started to get these maga dangerous stuff as we watch the other characters groan as to now they have allies that their not sure if they should be scared of or not.
I have two recommended viewings that came to mind from that.
Star Trek the motion picture (first movie)
and
Odin: Photon Sailor Starlight (anime movie)
Not Sydney’s fault! The pilot of the Protector has a history of such incidents!
(BTW, that is my favorite scene of the entire movie. SKRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAPE!!!)
Except… it was the pilot of The Orville who swerved
I wonder how many people died in that little stunt anyway?This is why Syd being given so much power worries me,Her condition is so bad that shes a manic lunatic even when meth’d up to the eyeballs so now that her meds are running out(And im assuming shes still not smart enough to carry even a weeks worth of doses for herself) shes literallry a random word away from accidently killing people at any given time.
If stuff like this starts happening regularly on earth DarkArc would realistically be having to fill out reports on the most likely way of killing Syd off before she could possibly react so America doesnt have the humanoid version of a reusable sentient insane nuke flying around its borders at speeds normally associated with superman.
Two be fair if I was a busdriver and saw a rocketlauncher being fired straight at me Id swerve straight through 50 kids if i thought it would give me a chance of not being blown into giblets.Given that Syds gear surpasses starships dispite being pocket sized to any pilots she probably looks more like a missle than anything else so not going for instant evasive action is normally a massively suicidal reaction to something small and insanely fast being launched right at you.
A serious answer to the “spaceship horns” question:
Anywhere there is dense traffic, every ship will most likely be expected to openly transmit all of their current and planned maneuvers. This would be combined with utterly draconian traffic control, given how any space drive powerful enough to be interesting is also a serious WMD¹.
So Sydney better keep her head down for the next little bit.
1: For reasons, you can start with the First Law of Space Combat: Anything moving at just 3km/s packs its own weight in blam. You can then move onto what you can do with the drive itself, (e.g. a pokey little 1kN photon drive is also a 300 GW laser).
Y’all missing the biggest point ever:
WHERE
ARE
HER
WINGS????
Turned off. Quite a handy technique for evading blame, when authorities are looking for an individual with blue wings.
Pretty much all of the supernatural-friendly and positive science fiction will be generated by the Twilight Council (possibly even using means to implant it in humans, or inspire them, without them ever being aware of the outside influence). The rest of it will be down to individuals inspired by actual contact (direct or indirect) with aliens or supernaturals. And the odd one or two inspired humans who may have come up with stuff independently.
I’m thinking a spark-gap or other poorly-tuned broad-spectrum radio transmitter would make a pretty good space horn. Sure it’s essentially a radio jammer as a communications device but it will probably be heard.
I haven’t seen references to Andromeda (starring Kevin Sorbo) or Galaxy Quest in a long time. I like it.
Not the Andromeda Ascendant, it’s the Orville from the show of the same name. You got the NSEA Protector right, though.
See now, this is why space stations have tractor beams instead of making the pilots try to maneuver an entire ship into the dock.
They could use some kind of universal audiovisual semaphore that ships, planes, and hyperactive bipeds can transmit messages with.
Andromeda Ascendant?
Everyone has a plan until they get hit in the port nacelle.
I know this is a necro on a year-old panel… but I can’t help pointing out the parallels between Sydney and Ben 10. Found a weird alien MacGuffin that crash-landed on earth, it locked on to you and nobody else can use it*, it gives you multiple versatile powers that you can’t use all of at once, and you’re still unlocking stuff with it while also choosing to become a hero?
And besides that, both Sydney and Ben being kind of… loose cannons? Goofy. Irresponsible. Definitely using their powers for personal shenanigans and japery that doesn’t befit a galactic hero (but still doing the hero-y stuff as needed, because they’re not THAT bad). A meeting between the two would be /really/ fun.
*The omnitrix (original version) can be used by anyone else who takes it off Ben’s arm and puts it on their own (either by making him forfeit it… or disabling its failsafes and chopping it right off), but the Mk II is tied to Ben’s DNA. So kind of same case?
*meant to type yearS old, whoops