Dabbler’s Science Corner #2 (Finished)
So I finally finished the second page of Dabbler’s Science Corner, but there’s still more to tell about Harem, so there will probably be another one before too long. Click here to vote and see it. Thanks!
(I had to delete the first post cause somehow a malware link got into it, sorry everyone who had already commented, I’ve added some Q&A in the comments below.)
And it looks like that same malware link is showing up in the RSS feed again. Please don’t click it, it’s some India loans BS. I’m working to get it fixed, sorry for the inconvenience guys.
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.
Changes from the previous version of DSC #2: Added the head next to the word bubble in panel 9 to make it more clear that conversation was happening with another of her elsewhere in the room. Also made a few other minor fixes, mostly going on freckle patrol.
Castamir: If Harem’s powers are strictly stronger than Anvil, why is she listed as the same on the cast page? Especially that she doesn’t even consider physical strength to be a significant part of what she can do, and that’s Anvil’s only trick.
DaveB: Anvil can absorb kinetic energy which make it extremely dangerous for other supers with super strength to fight her. She can chanel that energy to make her own punches considerably more powerful, and while she is storing the energy, her own strength is boosted. Also she’s a marginally better fighter than Harem.
Castamir: Is there a reason Harem can’t chain her teleports? Instead of taking that taxi, she could have looked a few hundred meters down the road, teleport, then iterate as soon as her eyes focus again. As she teleports willy-nilly for little reason, there can’t be a significant exhaustion or energy cost.
DaveB: Yeah she could, but it’s easier to chill in a taxi. Also that would be less funny.
Can’t Harem just teleport one of her copies to where another copy is, thus saving her the taxi trip home?
Or just dissolve her copy and remake it whereever she feels like?
Yeah, this will be covered in the continuing Science Corner, cause it’s an important point that distinguishes her from other teleporters.
That would probably work, if she didn’t bring all 5 copies with her
Does harem have an “original body”? Not in the sense of “unmodified” but in sense of a primary body creating up to 4 extra bodies. Or are they all interchangeable as long as there’s one left?
…which makes me wonder what happens if harem de-instantiates all 5 of her bodies. What’s left? Not that I ever expect to see it happen for the same reason that harem probably will never get one of her bodies killed.
Yeah the unmodified one is the “original” as far as she’s aware, but she can still “un-teleport” it.
The limit to 5 body instances means she “only” have those 5 bodies to personalize or can she have a bigger pool of personalized bodies but only use 5 simultaneously?
I wouldn’t know if she can, but she only uses 5 different versions, that have been customized over time
Hmm, if her physical strength increases as there are fewer of her, what about her teleporting? If there are only two of her or one, could she take 30% of her body weight? Could she teleport farther or to a place she doesn’t know quite as well?
If she teleports while moving does she retain her momentum? Can she do Portal tricks?
If the answer is yes, that puts a sharp limit on how far she can teleport. A harem at the equator and a harem at the pole move at about 2000mph relative to each other, thanks to the rotation of the earth. Two harems at opposite points on the equator boost that to 4kmph…
And teleporting sans protective gear into Mach force winds is not considered healthy by many. But there may be tricks for her to use if she can exploit that. Or perhaps there’s an automatic syncing of the local frames that prevent her from catapulting herself to insane velocities.
Is it wrong to think Co-ed looks cute pouting in the backseat? :D
Is blondie holding a mirror? or a fancy magnifying glass? (looks like a mirror)
Precisely. Because Blondie is holding the mirror, looking through it at the top of the building behind her, another of her bodies can teleport to the top of the building.
Why does sh… ooo, hence the ‘trick shot’ comment
At 0% additional kinetic power charge, i.e. at the exact level we’ve seen her so far, who is the strongest Marvel universe character you can think of whom Anvil would be able to hold her own against in an arm-wrestling match?
I am thinking along the lines of Beast or Spiderman would be a match for her. She should be able to beat Tigra, Wolverine, Batman, Captain America and other top-level athletes (yeah I know I am switching companies). She would be outclassed by She-Hulk, Wonder Woman, Thing, Ms. (Captain) Marvel, Big Barta. Superman, Hulk, the other Captain Marvel and Thor all outclass her, even when she maxes out her Sebastian Shaw trick.
It would be up to another Dave to say for sure.
Dabbler’s actually isn’t wrong about the monkey brain thing. Humans are a subset of apes, which are a subset of monkeys, which are a subset of primates. All of which means that strictly speaking we are a variety of monkeys.
Cladistics is not the whole of classification, else all vertebrates would be considered fish. But I think we can spot Dabbler this one. The Doctor calls us monkeys too.
You know teleporting has some very huge risks. To begin with everything is moving, the earth is spinning it also orbits the sun and the solar system orbits the center of the galaxy, all at incredible rates of speed. So unless you compensate for all these vectors you could end up breathing vacuum and thats just the most likely scenario. Maybe one of those “shooting stars” was a teleporter reentering the atmosphere.
For this reason time travel has yet another problem. If a time travel machine moves through time but not space (as most static machines do), they’d end up in the void of space, or inside a mountain if they get lucky.
Teleporters travel through space though, and you have to remember they move instandly. Also she wants to be ‘on top of that mountain’, not ‘on these coordinates in space’, so the movement of the earth is relative nothing (mountain stays on the same spot relative from her position
Not if space is defined relative to a mass. (Of course, then you get into gravitics, and that’s substantially unexplored by modern science. The implications could get ugly.)
That’s usually why most are limited by line-of-sight; when going by familiarity, you are going to the place in whatever position it is in in regard to galactic movement, you still run the risk of someone having moved something into the space you are planning on occupying yourself, that’s why people/organisations who have access to PorTech tend to have designated ‘safe portage spots/rooms’ (Porting isn’t Time Travelling {although there are versions of Porting that in truth are a form of Time Travelling})
Another risk to deal with for a person with powers is involuntary use of that power. When people dream the body shuts down most arm and leg movements to keep them from hurting themselves thrashing around. If a teleporter is in a dream that triggers the fight-or-flight reaction let’s hope the body has a safeguard to keep that person from zapping around at random.
That would be a concern with any powers. For the most part, I figure sleep paralysis would govern powers. Though in a few cases like myself where sleep paralysis does not happen their powers would be kicking in left and right.
Fun and informative comic dude.
BTW, I can’t see any of the top row bio’s on the cast page. They are all obscured by the top title bar for some reason.
What browser are you using? Still using IE7 here and their details obscure the title bar when clicked for me
To explain Harem’s power-to-body ratio we have invited a special guest, a mister Sheldon Cooper from Pasadena California.
That’s Doctor Cooper, and to paraphrase Kirk, I’m from Texas, I only work in Pasadena. Heh heh.
Sorry. Very clever by the way.
Of course. And getting back to the matter at hand, her power diminishes geometrically, while her number only increases arithmetically. Hence we would have one at 16x strength, 2 at 8x strength, 3 at 4x strength, 4 at 2x strength, and 5 at 1x strength. And now that I have explained that trivial issue, I would like to get on with my main reason for coming here. I would like to meet the Flash. (Opens lab coat to reveal T shirt)
I’m sorry you are in the Dave Barrack, or ‘D.B’ universe. You want the ‘D.C’ universe. That is located one over to the right.
Before I leave, I believe there is the matter of my payment. (Hands him three Pennies). You, sir, are lucky I never got that sonic death ray working when I was 13. I will be on my way. (Gets back into his machine).
That’s very impressive.
Yes, it is an original prop from the 1960 movie ‘The Time Machine’ that I have modified to move dimensionally, as well as temporally. (Pulls lever and fades out)
Cute.
You describing Smelly Shelly as ‘cute‘? O_o
This was really neat, Dave!
But the how did she teleport into that ambulance when we first met her? It was a long way off and she couldn’t see inside even if it weren’t. or does line of sight include things visible on monitoring devices?
If she can see it, she can Portage there (like using the mirror/binocular trick shot)
That was sort of explained in the main comic. She was familiar with the location of the bank in general, and could see the specifics of the scene on the news feed. Getting inside the ambulance would be a little trickier, but if she knows how he interior of an ambulance is laid out, she can just aim for the empty space in the middle, with the only real risk being not knowing Maxima’s exact position within the ambulance.
Hey, is this one of those things where if you teleport inside a wall or something by accident, you glitch out, the screen freezes, and you explode?
Or it could work like DnD: She gets shifted to the nearest empty space and takes damage.
I hate to post on old posts like this, but is there somewhere to see old vote incentives like this? I only recently found your comic, and would love to see them.
I missed DSC 2 vote incentive.
Is there going to be a future “Extras” section. Because now, I am curious.
Seconding Gilhelmi’s question above!
Thirded!