Grrl Power #1009 – Does Sydney have accident insurance?
The title of the page is a joke, but… seriously. Wouldn’t supers probably need to have some sort of insurance fund set up in case they accidentally elbowed someone through a wall, or turned them to stone, or extincted an epoch/era?
As it sometimes happens, speculation from the prior page’s comments could be selectively snipped and used to write this one. The proximity to the Chicxulub crater didn’t escape some of you, and that’s half of this page. I’m not saying that event and the orbs are necessarily related, but it might be a Chekhov’s Extinction Level Event.
If it happens that Sydney was involved in wiping out the dinosaurs, could it be considered retroactive species-level self-defence, given that human civilization probably wouldn’t have gotten very far if we tried to evolve alongside dinosaurs, or that any common ancestors we might have could have been eaten by a disagreeable theropod?
I like the Chekhov’s Gun trope. I don’t necessarily agree with it, because it can make plays/movies/stories incredibly predictable, but I like the idea of it, because I can say “Oh, look, Chekhov’s restaurant.” if I’m planning on eating somewhere later. Seriously though, the idea that every scene or thing that the camera focuses on early in a movie needs to be there in order to pay off later is obnoxious, because if you’re paying attention it’s almost like watching a movie with pop-ups saying “The Main Character is giving the love interest a silver amulet. I wonder if that will come up later in this Were-Vampire movie? What do you think, audience?” Of course, if you have no setup, then stuff happening at the end can feel deus ex machiny, so I guess the balance is to set up too much stuff so the signal gets hidden in the noise? I don’t know. “The Main Character is giving the love interest a silver amulet, and a ring with a cross on it, and a broach made of mysterious metal that came from a meteorite, a lucky charm for her keyring, a flask to keep in her inside jacket pocket, and is taking her to the gun range and teaching her offensive driving, Latin, and how to fly a helicopter. What do you think is going to happen now, smart guy?”
I will say that Archon needs to be a lot better about closing doors and drawing blinds when discussing classified things.
Unrelated, I saw Matrix: Resurrection, and no spoilers, but I’m shocked that it has a 64% on Rotten Tomatoes. I kind of figured the 4th time the movie self-awarely brought up the idea of an unnecessary sequel to a trilogy then said in the movie “Warner Brothers is making us do this.” I assumed it was an apology. I don’t think they tried to make a bad, unnecessary movie that added nothing to the lore (in fact it detracted from the lore, IMO), I just don’t think there was a way to extend that storyline any further.
If the movie had been about the remnants of humanity living in a Matrix-esque world while they traveled to another planet, having abandoned Earth to the machines, that could have extended the universe. Or if it had been about a post-trilogy ground war to take back the Earth like the future bits of the Terminator movies, then that could have been something, but neither of those stories require Keanu, and that’s just not how Hollywood works.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: Getting Proofed!
Still getting proofed. Didn’t make much progress over Xmas break, but I didn’t think the book would be out before the new year anyway. Definitely January though.
This month’s vote incentive guest stars Lana of Spying with Lana. One of my own secret agents, Pixel, is trying to assist, with various levels of success and… nudity. Well, in the Patreon versions. The Vote Incentive will give you a pretty good idea of what might go down. Here’s a dedicated post in case you want to comment.
Check out Spying with Lana. Their current vote incentive features a certain gold-plated glamazon. Also it’s a funny comic with tons of skin.
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Honestly it would be kind of funny if the orbs ARE somehow related to the extinction-level event that wiped out the dinosaurs.
Maybe the K-T event was caused by a huge spaceship that held the orbs within, so they got buried deep within the crust, only coming to light now due to erosion….
This is exactly what I was talking about last page the first panel on page https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-94-the-step-mother-of-all-origins/ clearly shows Sydney digging up the orbs with some debris on the ocean floor. So again I’ll say it, wrecked space craft not asteroid and she also said that she didn’t want to have to live in Mexico rest of her life.
Daniel here. I’m thinking less space-CRAFT, more “spacecraft”. Previous operator takes severe injury, attempts to land on a nearby planet to heal, has to switch to Medical (? Unknown) Orb to try and survive long enough to get down, releases Flight Orb to do so, rough landing, dies anyway…
Cora said she felt it was nth tech who knows they might of had exploration city-sized ships with the high-ranking officers each having a set etc… (plot building point) lol which brings up another point: who would of been strong enough to damage such a ship to the point of a crash? (shiver)
Daniel again…
Themselves?
Arrogance can be a dangerous thing to acquire too much of. It’s possible they had their own Titanic moment – didn’t think their unsinkable ship could be harmed by “such a thing” (joyriding too close to the puny star, going through the Mars/Jupiter asteroid belt, another of their own ships, etc), ship takes fatal damage, ship itself/wounded Orb user crash on Earth…
A possibility that came to mind…
You know that’s a superb opportunity for Earthy entrepreneurs — you know, the ones with big Xs on his face… WE outfit our aircraft and seacraft with autopilots, some of that equipment can actually land the big airliners with almost no pilot assistance.
This could be worth $quillions!
I *just* now noticed that Dory from Finding Nemo is in the background. Thanks for that fresh look at an old panel!
LOL yeah I meant to add that in too
LOL yeah I seen her too it pays to reread the comic from the start now and then.
HMM. You look familiar.
They do, don’t they?
It hit the fan but doesn’t look like it will splatter too far
Everyone know Chuck Norris did that.
He went back in time to see if there was anything who’s ass he couldn’t kick.
Turns out there wasn’t.
Turns out that kicking a comet out of its orbit came with consequences. It started off small but then the whole thing kinda snowballed and in the end it had a huge impact.
Yeah, kinda like that, right?
73 million years ago…
https://www.schlockmercenary.com/2018-07-25
… eight million years later…
Chuck Norris on his best day would have been whipped like a rented mule by Saenchai
How dare you, you perfidious peon! You mendacious malcontent! You Janus-faced jailbird! I’ll think of some more alliterative insults after I’ve checked a thesaurus.
Everyone knows that Chuck Norris is the only man who can fight Chuck Norris and win. Is Saenchai Chuck Norris? No!
We live in an expanding universe for a reason. All of it is trying to get away from Chuck Norris!
When Chuck Norris was born, the only person who cried was the doctor. He should NOT have tried to slap Chuck Norris.
In the Beginning, there was nothing. Then Chuck Norris roundhouse kicked nothing and told it to get a job.
Thank you Chuck Norris.
I heard Chuck Norris was still fighting with Segata Sanshiro.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-eDSt8OHkx0
Bruce Lee, was his teacher!
It’s a well known and completely indisputable and scientific fact that during their fights on screen, they had to keep cutting so Bruce Lee could cry after each kick made by Chuck Norris, and take a few weeks to recuperate. :)
Chuck Norris is 81 years old. I doubt he is roundhouse kicking much of anything these days, except for the Grim Reaper.
That sounds like the words of someone looking to be roundhouse kicked by Chuck Norris, sir!
I will point and laugh as he throws out his back! And then I will call an ambulance.
Chuck Norris does not throw out backs. He recycles them.
Well, there is one ass he possibly can’t kick.
https://youtu.be/-eDSt8OHkx0
This is blasphemy, you cantankerous cur!
Do not let Chuck Norris know that you are espousing such viciously false claims.
This is CHUCK NORRIS we’re talking about after all.
Chuck Norris once had sex in a semi truck. A few drops fell on the seat.
Today, that truck is known as OPTIMUS PRIME.
When Bruce Banner gets angry, he turns into the Hulk. When the Hulk gets angry, he turns into Chuck Norris.
I once played a game of Scrabble, and spelled out Chuck Norris. So I won. Forever.
Chuck Norris once had a heart attack, and his heart lost because it tried to attack Chuck Norris.
And finally, in keeping with the holiday season:
Before he forgot to bring a gift to Chuck Norris, Santa Claus was real.
You want to know a Chuck Norris fact? Bruce Lee kicked his ass. :-D
Incorrect. Obvious hollywood trickery and deception. Clearly you do not realize that there was a stunt ass which was actually kicked, as kicking Chuck Norris’s ass will result in a broken foot. :)
Chuck Norris… No, throwing Norris never solves his problems — or mine… Wait, something about fu… Ah yes grasshopper, this karateka wishes to learn from you. I forget his name, something like beef steak… Be nice to him.
It’s probably for the best that he never met Naruto. That kid had enough problems.
Eh, Saitama could take out Chuck Norris just by breathing on him. He ain’t that much.
Popeye beats them both without spinach.
Spinach only exists because Chuck Norris once glared at a few leaves which infused it with a tiny fraction of his power.
Yes, but was it *those* leaves which found their way into Popeye’s cans? Or, alternatively, did this power-glare happen around, say, 1AD or earlier in ancient Persia?
:)
“Yes, but was it *those* leaves which found their way into Popeye’s cans?”
All spinach, real and fictional, are descended from those leaves.
“did this power-glare happen around, say, 1AD or earlier in ancient Persia?”
On the Seventh day, God rested. Then Chuck Norris took over from there.
So yes.
So… Chuck Norris is Nth-tech?
What did you THINK the N stood for in Nth Tech?
Oh, I KNEW for a fact that it represents an unknown integer in mathematics :P
And you just tricked me into using the past tense :[
It’s for your own good. You do not want to upset Chuck Norris. There is no time you are safe from him.
Because Chuck Norris does not sleep. He waits.
Before Chuck Norris, there was Charles Bronson.
With Chuck Norris, there was Charles Bronson.
After Chuck Norris, there will be Charles Bronson.
No, the power of spinach was discovered in ancient Gaull. Popeye is the descendent of a mehnir deliverer who overdosed on a spinach concoction. This is why he have godlike powers.
Yes it was discovered in ancient Gaul. But it was created by Chuck Norris.
Saitama from One Punch Man is a made up anime character, loosely based on a low-powered version of Chuck Norris and his exploits during one year that he told his hair to take a break from existing.
…. they’re going to need to add a whole new layer to that map just for Sydney.
Chekov’s Gun: I tend to agree, I suspect it’s from a time shortly after they realized that Deus Ex Machina were lazy writing. I suppose a comparative might be if something includes a montage? Blarg.
Anyway, DaveB, you recommend a book series that featured… some dude getting flung into the future, getting attached to a VRMMO, and messing with the meta and I’m hoping you can recall it. The example you used was the character completing a quest that lets them fast travel through a forest, something no one had done before or similar.
Anywho, I was also curious if you’d checked out the books I recommended last time on your request for female led Isekai’s.
It’s from theater which follows different conventions than novels. And there is a whole long conversation there about parsimony, reactions to needlessly ornate writing and a whole bunch of other senior lit seminar stuff
it was more a stage thing, like having a gun or rifle sitting in the background of the first act if you don’t intend to use it later, because things like that draw the audiences’ eyes
forcing this in imagination based storytelling can be awkward because the writer has to describe something in the background despite it not being relevant currently, over emphasising it and thus losing any surprise or twist it has.
*basically one of those things that works so much better in a visual medium. Show don’t tell as a character receives among their gifts on christmas a strange necklace that they then wear throughout the movie, but low and behold it was planted on her and had inside it a micro-chip for the doomsday device.
in a none visual medium you may have to keep bringing up this necklace to remind the audience she is still wearing it, this can be kind of subtle like mention her putting it on in the morning before the fated train ride alongside other morning activities, or a page here or there where she is admiring it in a mirror or fiddling with it as someone talks.
but do this too much and the audience is just *what is with the damned necklace already? you keep talking about it”
where as again a visual medium can slip these things into the general design of a character or the background and be a genuine surprise, even causing rewatches or re-reads like a where’s waldo book and a big (ooohhh…its been here the whole time..) maybe add a subtle man in background who is later revealed to be the villain in every other scene is looking at the necklace…something the audience before may have thought was the actor checking out the actress or whatever, but was intentional.
Take for a big example of this Judge Doom from Roger Rabbit, now try putting into writing how he never blinks, reacts to a hand buzzer the same way a toon does, and his cloak moves about as if in a breeze even indoors (subtle things that were clues to him being a toon, that you could miss, but in writing your choices were to either not mention them at all *so no clues* or focus in on them (writing pretty much has to by its nature focus in on everything brought up).
-PS I am aware this movie is based on a book, but it is based on and not a direct adaptation of it.
I like more the idea of someone or something throwing an asteroid to the previous owner of the orbs and the extintion event is only colateral damage.
Also….
1) Sydney, you’re a time traveler. You can’t be sure that you didn’t (objective-frame-of-reference past-tense) have anything to do with that.
2) They BETTER keep this confined to this room, or Sydney isn’t going to be able to get accident insurance from ANYONE.
They better keep it confined or the DIA is going to yank clearances and ruin lives. They DO NOT mess around
You are assuming Sydney hasn’t already been denied accident insurance.
Pretty sure ARCHON and Uncle Sam are her insurance now, officially for anything on the clock and probably by default and lawsuit for anything she does with the orbs as a private citizen.
Theory that Sydney’s orbs make her a spaceship + revelation that orbs were found in the impact site of the metorite that killed the dinosaurs = plot picking up
The thing is, if you look at the orb’s skill tree, some look like they could allow her to hold/use more than two orbs or might not have to touch them at all. It’s pure speculation, but what if at one point she could use all of them at once without having to touch them?
And who knows what the upper limits of the orbs are?
I totally agree she’s a beginner level user so far just the few upgrades shes done have shocked everyone as to the results I have no doubt at some point she need only think of which power is needed or combination of powers are needed and they happen her feather fall passive is the best example it’s always on she doesn’t need to hold the flight orb to use it.
Of course the previous owner could have been an explorer who wanted to just look at the crater. That would fit the time line better. Or maybe a prospector looking for the material from the meteor.
“Or maybe a prospector looking for the material from the meteor.” “He” could get it much easier, and use less energy, getting them from the OORT cloud, or an asteroid.
The base material, sure, but studying impact effects or collecting byproducts would require sampling a major impact site directly. There might have been some rare mineral created by the event, similar to Trinitite*, or maybe the impactor was primarily iridium and smashing it into aerosol was a form of Nth-tech resource mining.
Or maybe the formation of the orbs required a huge quantity of kinetic energy, and the Earth was just the backstop target in an Nth super collider that slowed and dispersed the orb substrate, leaving behind the orbs. Which just haven’t been collected yet because the researcher’s funding was cut before the experiment results could be analyzed, as in humanity’s crossing of the teleportation threshold required for galactic contact in the Xenotech series.
* Primarily green, but with some rare red and black samples found. Personally convinced it’s the inspiration for the various forms of Kryptonite, but radiation of all kinds was a big pop culture thing at the time so hard to say for sure.
I thought kryptonite was just a way to get the radio actor a vacation.
As DaveB says, for a military organization with lots of cut-your-throat-and-burn-before-reading secrets they need better training in handling classified and compartmentalized data. That starts with “Before you say anything lock the door and turn on the keep out light.” And having a security clearance of the right level doesn’t mean you are cleared for a particular project or compartmenred data. You have to be read in, sign the forms, and be authorized for that particular set of stuff.
Not only, but also keep the parents out of it. They need to know Nuffink.
They need to know not to blab about a certain vacation.
They are going to have a long conversation with Arianna or some other DoD employee about what they can and can’t say, who it’s safe to talk to and the basics of handling classified information. Forms will be signed. Receipts will be given. It will be boring and serious
Which leaves me again with the question, what are two goddarn civilians doing in the room?
Anyway, whatever Sydney is going to do 65M years in the past, she’s going to die then and leaving the spaceballs there… Which are created by no-one in this closed time-loop… Which means that no, there is hopefully no time-loop involved, just a real ancient alien crash-landing on Earth.
And probably intelligent dinosaurs at some point.
And speaking about the civilians, how exactly do you keep the parents from Big Revealing to a lucrative journo? Or a nosy (naturally undercover) SS investigator?
The parents are in the room to corroborate Sydney’s story, given they’re witnesses to the events surrounding it. They didn’t know it was going to end up being a diplomatic incident and state secret before they were invited.
They’ll probably be “asked” to sign a hefty NDA before they’re allowed to leave.
“And probably intelligent dinosaurs at some point.”
We all know the end-point of the V’straki/Igraen conflict.
Jenkinsverse, right? (No spoilers please, I left that story half-read)
I posted a link to the schlockverse earlier, I know of the delta-quadrant dinosaur spaceship in Voyager, and I guess there are one or two dozen dinosaur stories which I missed.
You need to pick it up again. I know it’s painfully jingoistic, but the ideas are good. Yes, even I was yawning a bit, but it is worth struggling through.
A fun universe with some fantastic ideas and good writing. I’m still following the main story and a few of the side ones (the suggested reading order page is very useful), but long ago started skipping all the
testosterone-poisonedspace-magic body-building sections. Especially a few of the very out-of-tone Tengewek scenes, which thankfully haven’t been referred to again.I actually was losing interest in it and about to stop reading earlier this year, but there’s some long-overdue character development appearing again on the HEAT team and the rest of the galactic civilization.
Funny coincidence, I just started working my way through those stories.
That’s Leon? I’d say he’s off model but that would imply this look has anything in common with previous versions.
I understand Sydney’s concerns around an international incident, and why she lied about the origins when she was being interrogated by group of military officials she barely knew, but this seems like the sort of thing you’d discreetly mention to someone at some point so everyone is on the same page. If Archon got publicly called out for it before they knew the truth, I wouldn’t put have put it against them throwing Sydney under the bus for it.
You’re forgetting that the orbs make her probably the second most powerful single entity on the planet. Third if Vehemence has had time to power up. From what we’ve seen so far, even Maxima would need to put non-trivial effort into a takedown attempt, and Halo is functionally GETTING STRONGER thanks to the skill tree. She is, functionally, a sapient WMD.
One does not simply throw such a person under the bus unless VERY sure they can be defeated.
With the currently enabled pips, Sydney can already open an Atherium Gateway. How many pips until she activates the time travel feature set?
*Remembers the Lost in Space reboot and a plot point involving the hyperdrive there*
There’s a reason you shouldn’t open interstellar wormholes on inhabited planets.
Not really a Chekhov’s gun, but there was a book I was reading where a very minor character was introduced, basically a harmless “the end is nigh” guy. My initial reaction was ‘he gonna die.’ He is in 2 scenes in the book. He doesn’t survive the second one.
“… if you have no setup, then stuff happening at the end can feel deus ex machiny, so I guess the balance is to set up too much stuff so the signal gets hidden in the noise? I don’t know.”
My own feeling about Chekhov’s Gun is pretty well “m’eh”. It seems to be a clumsy construct created by critics, maybe possibly to make casual readers like me feel inadequate. I certainly never bother with things like that, it takes all the peasure out of the read.
So cliche it’s a trope. Advanced alien tech from before the human race etc etc. GUYVER!!!
and now I totally want to see a crossover, so that we get an anime called McGUYVER. (no matter what the junk, it always comes out as some sort of alien suit?)
I’d watch that…
So would I. Guyver was actually one of my very first anime as a kid. And I meant he original one that was badly animated.
“The Main Character is giving the love interest a silver amulet, and a ring with a cross on it, […] and teaching her offensive driving, Latin, and how to fly a helicopter. What do you think is going to happen now, smart guy?”
If Love Interest has the slightest sliver of sanity, she dumps Main Character right then & there. Subtle-whiff-of-danger music can be cool and romantic. Drowns-out-the-carpet-bombing-danger music? Not so much.
I am super impressed with every person who predicted some tie in with the extinction of the dinosaurs.
I completely did not expect that and dismissed the possibility because of how Fracture Station was the last place visited before Earth in the orb’s browser list, because I assumed it could NOT be 65 million years old.
Apparently it might be 65 million years old after all :) :) :)
Alternate theory:
Something in the Yucatan Crater CAUSED the orbs to malfunction when the last user came to Earth, ending in their death or separation from the orbs/disappearance.
Alternate alternate theory:
At some time in the future, Sydney will go to the past and be at the site where the meteor hit to wipe out the dinosaurs, or somehow causes the meteor to hit Earth in the first place.
But I’m pretty sure that I’m right about there being a legal salvage claim to the orbs, either based on how Mexico is not the original owner or based on it, or it being over 12 miles from the coast (or both, especially since there’s no way for Mexico to claim what the distance from the coast was, even if they are to find out that it was in that area), OR the whole ‘eating a fish’ argument from last comic strip.
Alternate alternate alternate theory: The people who made the orbs might have also made Fracture Station, which later civilizations just used without knowing much, if anything, about the origin (ie, Precursor technology, like in Master of Orion or Stargate stargates or Mass Effect Gates or Babylon 5 Hyperspace Gates). And maybe that’s why the original owner was separated from the orbs. He/she/they/it found a limit to the shield, being a 10 kilometer asteroid slamming into the Earth at 45,000 per hour, hitting right near where the orb-user had been standing/swimming/flying.
Alternate Alternate Alternate Alternate theory: The image was not of Fracture Station, but was of the magnetar which Fracture Station was later built around. Although that seems unlikely because of the picture on the browser looking a LOT like Fracture Station, not just of a Magnetar (the picture had that hole on the side of the image and the line around the top making it look more like a casing)
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-637-beware-the-history-tab/
(panel 1)
I think it more likely that whoever previously owned the orbs was a samus level bounty hunter or marine ops or something who chased a dangerous convict/threat TO Earth, and their fight destroyed the dinosaurs. Perhaps install a high level time travel as one of the highest unlocks in the orbs, meaning the previous owner could still be alive and have a set of orbs somewhere else. And at some point soon that bounty hunter will come looking for whoever has the lower lever version of his orbs. Making a predestination paradox as he tries to retrieve the orbs from Sydney.
Or is that too much trope awareness.
Heck, for that matter the ‘bounty hunter’ with the earlier version of the orbs need not have time travel or even die. There just needs to be a problem where if the orbs aren’t sent to the past (somehow) – then earth will be uninhabitable. The how could easily be resolved any number of ways.
Correction: Babylon 5 Jumpgates do have an established origin in-universe, the technology having been developed by the Vorlons and other species being fully capable of building their own. It’s even mentioned that the Earth Alliance got their jumpgate technology from the Centauri.
Right. Vorlons are one of the precursor races.
The Earth Alliance got their jumpgate technology from the Centauri, but they got it from earlier races, who got it from the Vorlons.
Specifically the Vorlons are one of the four “Godlike species” that have been around since the early days of the universe.
Right. But actually there were SEVEN precursor races (The First Ones).
The Vorlons (Guardians of Order)
The Shadows (Guardians of Chaos)
The Walkers (of Sigma 957 – Guardians of Neutrality)
Those first 3 represent ‘The Triad’
The Mindriders (Pure Thought)
The Torvalus (The Gamblers)
The Krishiac Lords – (Youngest of the First Ones – Wiped out by the other First Ones in the Krishiac War)
There’s also ‘The First Born’ which were a small group of a species born to be naturally immortal. The first of the First Born was Lorien, and for some reason he’s also the last of the First Born to be alive (which makes me think that whole ‘immortal’ thing means only that he can live forever, not that he is immune to death by non-natural causes).
I think it is a complete coincidence since is it more likely that a 65-million-year-old coral reef would be found in the form of limestone on dry land, not actually in the water close enough to the surface that you can scuba dive to it. After all the orbs were found in the topmost layer of a still living reef.
other theories, its a red herring, and the orbs were left on the surface, in the reef by the previous owner accidentally. like all the theories about how they got to the Florida Keys way back when only now here. After all just because I found a ring of power near Chernobyl doesn’t mean it caused the nuclear disaster.
The chance of something being a red herring is always a possibility. :) I just assume it’s not because DaveB was talking about Chekhov’s Gun and it seems weird that he’d dedicate several pages to a red herring instead of a throwaway line.
there is also the Pink Herring,
there is a clue there but it is not the obvious solution, the relation is a tad different.
Never heard of a pink herring before.
it’s closely related to the white salmon, but not in the way you’re thinking
It is partially borrowed but reformatted for this purpose.
While a red herring looks like a clue it is entirely misleading.
a Pink Herring however contains actual clues and may be mostly factual, but is missing a few parts, or characters may be jumping to the wrong conclusion from the clues…but have most of the information they need.
-this is uncommon in writing because it can frustrate audiences who either want a *twist that is totally different from expectations* or to *feel smart because they “guessed” it right*. So having a (well this part was related but the end result isn’t entirely the same nor is it totally different.
*comedies may do this more often with a “well…I was mostly right*
conversely you could apply this to something over emphasizing an element of the clue that isn’t as important as it seems and while there is a connection its not as vital as it came across…or even really relevant. Like if the orbs are there because of the KT boundary event crater, but not because they caused it but to observe it*
A war fought by the people of making Maxima and the Halo orb people. All that remains is two artifacts. A conversion pill and a single pilot craft.
Okay, Fracture Station was identified as a bookmark when the orb got its aethereum causeway functionality.
The obvious problem with taking this as evidence of anything’s age is we don’t actually know how long Fracture Station has been there. Here on Earth we have cities seven thousand years old, and we haven’t actually been building cities for much longer than that. It seems like even human cities can last as long as people keep using them.
The less obvious problem is there’s no indication that the ‘bookmark’ means that any previous owner of the orbs had ever been there. The aethereum causeway functionality was not available when Syd got the orbs. So it’s entirely likely that Syd opened the first aethereum causeway that those orbs have ever been used to open.
She’s probably not looking at bookmarks because nobody’s made any. She’s looking at the orbs’ built-in navigation assistance. The orbs’ navigation assistance thinks Fracture station is an interesting possible point of travel. It doesn’t mean they’ve ever been there before, nor that the station existed when the orbs were made. For all we know these things get downloaded from some intergalactic network in the process of starting up the aethereum causeway functionality.
In theory, the next step would be a full on salvage exploration of the area to determine if there are any other traces left of the original owner or the source of the Orbs.
Problem is, this is the Mexican Government. Would they even allow it? Would Archon even be allowed to ask?
Depends on how far out from the coast Sydney found it. If it’s more than 12 miles, Mexico might not have a lot of choice in the matter, plus Archon would likely use a cover story for it and a fake deep salvage company, because then they would be able to perform salvage operations within the contiguous zone without drawing suspicion (since it wouldn’t affect fishing rights or economic routes)
If it’s within 12 miles, honestly the best thing is to just not say anything, even though Mexico doesnt actually have more of a claim to it than Sydney has anyway. For the reasons that Maxima mentioned. Mexico could create a protracted legal fight even if they would lose anyway. It would be costly (not actually a big deal – the US has soooo much more money than Mexico for such things), but more importantly it would be a public relations problem.
Hokkaaaay.
Progreso (sort of) to the middle (sort of) of Scorpion Reef is 83.3 miles (sort of).
And now we get technical. The center (yes it’s Yanklish, they have better English than the Poms) of Chicxulub Crater is NOT on land. The chord between Hotel XiXim (temporarily closed) and pretty close to El Islote is about 112 miles (Google Maps). The data is estimated from , and .
This indicates Scorpion Reef formed OUTSIDE the impact crater,which (obviously) happened some Mega-years AFTER the impact.
Mexico has no say in this matter.
“The data is estimated from https://www.nasa.gov/missions/earth/chicxulub.html , https://chicxulubcrater.org/ and https://www.nationalgeographic.org/photo/crater-chicxulub/ “.
I hate wordpress.
Never heard of Scorpion reef, but the Chicxulub crater is buried pretty deep under 65 million years of geologic buildup, not sure how the orbs would have migrated to the surface anyway.
To be fair, the K-T event distributed a layer across the entire planet, and 65 million years ago, that area might not have been underwater in the first place. So that might have had something to do with it being so close to the ‘surface.’ Because it’s not close to the surface, it’s by the ocean floor, which is definitely not ‘surface’ since there’s a lot of water above it. :)
Thanks for that info! :)
Then yes, the salvage argument is a good one. The orbs do not fall under anything involving the contiguous zone.
Scorpion Reef is just off an island that is a national park of Mexico, so maritime laws would not apply here.
If the Mexican Government gets to have their guys along on the salvage trip and has at least a half-interest in anything that gets discovered, they’d go for it in a heartbeat. So the US got the orbs, but who knows what else is down there?
And there’d probably be some agreement about ‘don’t be too damned obvious about it,’ too, which depending on various people’s security needs could mean that no surface ships go within a hundred miles of there, the submarine crews involved mostly don’t know what’s going on, the ones who do know what’s going on or who interface with the salvage teams have orders not to talk to anyone else, and nobody at all gets shore leave within a thousand miles of there while the operation’s ongoing.
Is Sydney wearing lipstick? Or was that a drawing mistake?
That, was her tongue!
Compare Sydney’s lips in #1009 with her lips in #1010. The lips are redder and bigger here than in the next one.
Not that it matters al that much.
So the event that made it possible for humans to evolve on this planet came from space… Gee I haven’t seen this is 70% of sci-fi ever ^.^ No actually the 70% is probably an exaggeration but the sentiment is meant.
Aaaaand, guess what! It’s Real Life!!!!! It actually happened!!!!
Im not sure if Maritime law holds up in Sydney’s favor but it does bring up an interesting conundrum. Taking the orbs is like finding an artifact and deciding to take it home as a souvenir. That is stealing and you should put it back. However, these orbs cant be put back nor be separated from the host. They were artifacts when they were found but as soon as Sydney touched them, they stopped being artifacts and started being apart of Sydney. According to her, she controls them like how we move our arms.
Maritime law and salvage rights dont really apply here, but human rights and rights to ones own body probably would. Mexico would complain, but they cant exactly force an American citizen to stay in Mexico forever against their will nor can they treat someone like property for obvious reasons. Actually, its not as big a deal as they are making it. The bill might be high when Mexico asks for compensation but it would be worth it. Also, they might just ask for assistance with dealing with the organized cartels in their country than anything else. (I.E. We get to run into Sciona again).
*isn’t
“Taking the orbs ISN’T like…” mistyped
Ummm. Prior to discovering the bond between orbs and Syddles — so insidious she never noticed it happening — what exactly was the difference between the orbs and a Christmas decoration? Artifacts (Objects made or shaped by human hand or labour) can be “rescued” from the seabed by anybody, without fear of penalty. Of course, if it looked like a 20 carat diamond ring, I would run it past a jewller to suss the truth, and maybe turn it over to the police to find the owner if the jeweller thought it was genuine.
Methinks there’s too much orogeny taking place here. we need some erosive events. The trouble with supers is that molehills are so uninteresting.
And what value would Mexico place on a set of sea-water-logged Christmas baubles?
No stealing involved.
“Yeah I took it but it didn’t look valuable.”
Is not a valid, legal argument in this case.
Actually, super powers are considered a natural resource in the Grrl Power Universe. Those “Sea-water-logged Christmas baubles” are a highly destructive, extremely powerful (and EXTREMLY rare) resource. They are not the equivalent of finding a diamond ring. This is the equivalent of finding an oil field and somehow transporting it to America, or at least something to that extent. They also would have known they were valuable sense Sydney said that the flying orb activated when she grabbed it. Also, see DuffenBlaster above me for my response to “they didnt look valuable” argument.
I was thinking about Mexico asking Arc to ‘help’ them with the cartels as repayment for the Orbs too. Obviously the subtext would be to slaughter them, which Sidney could never do. But Dabbler and Goose on the other hand would have no problem with that kind of black ops mission.
And the run in with Sciona is obviously inevitable.
Fuck ya! Story progression!
So, I’m not a maritime salvage legal expert, but I do dive, and because I’m trained by BSAC there’s a part of the course that is Basically ‘what to doing you salvage something’ from the perspective of the diver. You can insert any joke you want about BSAC divers going down with industrial cutting equipment here, if you want. Laws are obviously different depending on jurisdiction, but British maritime law tends to be similar to international maritime law, because we were the ones on top of the pile when this stuff was first being formalised.
The gist of it is that salvage belongs to the original owner of the ship or cargo – if they’re known and still around -then the government – if you’re inside territorial waters – then the salvager. Even if you salvage something in international waters, the government of whichever contributor land it in maybe has a claim, and in any case the original owner always has first claim and the laws of wherever you land it are where that claim is adjudicated. Therefore, if you salvage anything, which in this context is being anything up from the sea floor, you have to report it to the Reciever of Wreck upon reaching land so that an assessment can be made as to whether you own it or not, or whether you’re going to have to surrender the property in return for a salvage fee. Or, possibly, go comparison if you were diving on a war grave site or something.
I have no idea what the Mexican equivalent of the Reciever of Wreck is called, but I am 100% certain that they have one, and that because she didn’t report her salvage, Sydney’s ‘legitimate salvage’ claim will fail.
The problem being, of course, that salvage law is not intended to deal with technomagical artefacts that cannot be separated from their wielder, and which apparently bond to the first person to touch them if they are currently unowned. Like the lady says, what was she supposed to do, never leave Mexico? Possibly, the answer from the Mexican government would’ve been ‘Yes, actually, you work for us now.’, but press ganging foreign citizens is a bad look nowadays.
G’day Screwball, nice run-through. Um. Doesn’t the word “salvage” imply something large and of a certain value? For example, a truck which may have been poorly restrained and fell off the side of the ship one night?
WOuld the word “salvage” apply to a collection of glowy balls nicely ensconced in the surrounding coral? Or a Swiss Army Knife™?
And also, looking at Google Maps (see above) it could be that due to the small island in the southern end portion of the reef, complete with buildings and a jetty, it could be that there may be a 12-mile nautical or otherwise region around the small island which could possibly cover the entirety of the reef?
People say a Chekhov’s gun is bad. But like any trope it depends on how it is used. My favourite is The Hunt for Red October. If you look it is loaded with those guns and they do all get used. But you don’t see them till you go looking.
Ryan not sleeping on a flight because turbulence bothers him. He was a Marine that went down in a chopper accident and had to learn how to walk again.
Visiting a friend in a ship yard. He teases about him working with models. Find out it is a DSRV and they are fitting it with a universal docking collar. Sounds like throwaway dialog till the end of the movie where they use that rescue sub to get to the Red October.
Even a line from Mancuso earlier is in play. He rattles an order off about a torpedo. “I want full safeties. I don’t want this fish coming back at us.” What happens to the Alpha again?
Everything had a gun but you do not see it till it comes back. And so nothing is deus ex as it was stated.
How can this relate to Sydney? She and the orbs do not have to do a thing with the crater directly. But someone may have tried to follow a crashing something and the orbs ended up there. IE just because a fireman showed up at a fire does not mean they set the fire.
Chekhov’s gun is a theater trope/rule. the effort put into sets is significant. the reuse is less than television/movies. (SG-1 uses the same corridor sets for how many years?) I believe it was intended to help the producer reign in the rampant creativity of the director/set designer. don’t put a gun on the wall if you’re not going to use it.
It was about both set design and writing and can be summed up as “keep it useful/relevant.” These days we tend to focus on actual use in the plot, but things that inform us about the character or set the mood also count toward the point Anton Chekov was trying to make A gun does not have to be fired if the character loading it and putting it on the mantle is the important part (say, to show that they’re anxious and expecting danger). If something grabs the viewer’s/reader’s attention, have a reason for that attention.
If your’e writing a series of books (or a RPG campaign) it pays to plant a lot of hooks (setup) that you canuse later even if you have no particular plans for them.
..just don’t do what they did with Galactica and throw out all the setup because ‘it’s too obvious’ after getting near the end without having made any plan for the climax
I agree that the Matrix Resurrections was…. really bad. I’m not astounded it managed to still get above 60% on Rotten Tomatoes though. For the last several years, Rotten Tomatoes is not a very accurate assessment of even audience views of the movies anymore. The movie was just so very bad. Especially the third Act. And the first Act was mind numbingly relying on non-stop nostalgia and meta-knowledge. They probably should have just made prequels instead. After all, the Animatrix was pretty awesome.
But it was clearly because of Warner Brothers forcing them to make a new sequel where it was obviously not needed at all. Like DaveB said, it’s pretty much outright stated in the movie that they did not want to make this movie but Warner Brothers was making them make it.
Literal line from the movie – “Our beloved parent company, Warner Brothers, is going to make a sequel to the trilogy – with or without us.” So most likely Lily Wachowski made it only because she felt that if she did not, the studio execs would still make it anyway, without her being involved at all.
Sydney, I believe the line you’re looking for is: “it was like that when I got here”.
There is no way this does not result in a tense, “Now think very carefully, Scoville, because your future depends on it: Are there any other little things you may have neglected to mention, or perhaps modified a little, that you would like to mention now? This is a once in a lifetime, expires in five minutes, chance to fess up.” scene.
“That’s going to take more than five minutes…”
The problem is Sydney may have neglected things and not be aware of it. Like has she mentioned the targeting array in her glasses yet?
That she tried to interact with aliens on the hub before she found the food stall?
Every action she did against those eldritch beasties? Sure she held back she could teleport. But did she mention how the fight went or how she got nailed by spawl because her shield came up after some stuff was in the shield with her?
There are things she absolutely cannot say around her civilian parents. The magic council and its activities. Some of what she was thinking at times could be very useful or just plain bizarre.
She might need more than five minutes to think of everything she needs to tell her friend Max let alone her CO.
The glasses are definitely intentional. She’s well aware that Archon will take them away from her, if for no other reason than to prevent some “other” group from potentially getting ahold of alien communications & targeting tech and said tech’s power source. And likely for a LOT more reasons (many less than benevolent) besides.
Radio and compact energy sources are two of the major stumbling blocks of current technology. And here’s a superior iteration of both that fits in the tiny frame of her glasses.
I really don’t think Maxima would say that to Sydney. She has a bit of a soft spot for her. Plus Sydney is… very distractible. She doesnt pay attention to a LOT of things. She’s forgotten that another person was in the room when she was waiting pre-interview for example. She gets distracted even after a major battle about things like how ‘pop spelled backwards is pop.’
On Matrix, they could have done a “Keanu travels around the Matrix getting people used to the idea that the world they know is coming to an end, and recruiting scientists and engineers to learn the truth, and figure out how humanity is going to survive being decanted.” movie.
Because it’s not like they could just shut the Matrix off tomorrow, and 99% of humanity doesn’t die. Earth has been ruined, remember?
The real takeaway from this is don’t party on fracture station and the do complex hyperspace math equations in your head; even if you’re advanced enough brain can handle it normally. (Call back to comic #673)
Wait…Admitted Nerd Maxima didn’t immediately know what the Chicxulub crater was? Or was that Arianna’a voice bubble? I hope so, or Max will have to turn in her Nerd card.
Is that a gold card?
Keep in mind the Chicxulub cater causing the dino’s to die is just a theory no real proof besides the cater is known it is just the most likely series of events giving the shear size of it.
“Just a theory”
“No real proof”
Putting those two phrases in the same sentence lets me know you do not know what “theory” means to a scientist
Yeah, a lot of people think that “Theory” means it might not be true. Like the “Theory of Gravity” or the “Theory of Evolution” or the “Theory of Relativity” – All fairly well established, and we’re pretty sure they’re fairly accurate, but just because it’s called a theory doesn’t mean it’s not true, just that very very little is actually “proved” in science, because scientists’ main job is to TRY to disprove theories so they can improve our knowledge.
Yeah. For it to rise to “theory” it passed “WAG” and “hypothesis” a long time ago, explains the observed data without contradicting much of it and offers insight into the underlying mechanism, preferably with predictive power.
To clarify, a “theory” is an idea or concept, by its self it carries no claim of proof or lack of proof. A “hypothesis” is, specifically, an unproven theory. Thus there is the “theory of flight”, the “theory of plate tectonics” or the “theory of special relativity”. All of these are treated as proven facts even if there is an out side chance something new will pop up and blow them to pieces. As an example, Force = Mass x Acceleration was thought to be an absolute fact until The Theory of Special Relativity prove it was not correct, or at least incomplete. However, an object has to reach about half the speed of light before the effects become noticeable. When scientists use theory, unqualified, they, usually, mean a theory has been prove or is, at least, accepted as fact. If they are referring to a hypothesis they will, almost always, say unproven theory. The Chicxulub crater its self has been verified by seismography. The K-T barrier (K-T = Kretazisch – Tertiary where Kretazisch is German for Cretaceous) marks the transition from the Cretaceous era to Tertiary period. It is notable for the lack of “dinosaur” fossils above the layer and many “dinosaur” fossils below the layer indicating a mass species die off of dinosaurs. The layer its self is dark line of sediment found all over the Earth at the same depth, a depth corresponding to 65 million years ago. Its thickness varies from about a meter in the immediate area of the crater to a few millimeters on the other side of the Earth. This points to the epicenter being the crater. It is further set off by a thin layer of iridium rich material along the bottom that indicates it is the result of a meteor impact. All this data points to a massive meteor impact at that point triggering the die off of the dinosaurs. Occam’s razor’s principal of parsimoniousness makes it extremely difficult to come up with another explanation that covers all the observed data. Thus, the K-T extinction is proven fact barring the discovery of dramtic evidence to the contrary.
Just as important, the existence of coetaneous impacts does not detract from the significance of the Chicxulub impact.
Calling it now the orbs interface with a pod/ship that has been buried for some time. The pilot/navigator sits within it and the orbs slot in and power up systems. They work as both a field kit so person shield etc, or if in the pod they become actual ship systems. While in the pod only they bypass the two orb limit.
That would either make the ship enclosure just an accessory to the orbs as the master system, and thus of minimal extra use aside, or make the orbs a very stripped-down version of the full Nth-tier system, at which the mind boggles.
Sheesh!!
I could travel to Gettysburg without retroactively participating in it.
The Orbs Of Power are way after the K-T event. (Because Fracture Station is in the bookmarks)
More likely the previous user was checking out impact craters.
WHERE THEY SHOULD GO NEXT is Meteor Crater in Arizona.
(I’d prefer Tunguska buuuut…..Putin.)
How do we know fracture station isn’t 100 million years old? For the record, I don’t think it’s that old and I don’t think the orbs were part of the K-T. But I don’t see any reason it couldn’t be extremely old.
There’s old and there’s old-old.
It would have to be old-old-old-old-old-old-old-old-old-old.
Carved out of a Celestial’s skull old.
2000 to 5000 years seems reasonable even if it was an abandoned artifact from The Precursors.
Heck, it could be reasonably new. 300 years.
I mean, even at 100 million years old, it would still be less that 1/100th the age of the universe. If we evolved 200 million years ago and had spread all over the galaxy, we might not think twice about something that old. It may just be part of our daily commute to work to jump through the nigh timeless portal station before getting on the subway.
not really much of a crater at Tunguska either. IIRC the trees at the very center were still standing but stripped of branches because it was an air burst detonation, while everything around them was flattened radially around them.
The analysis was somewhat complicated by the fact that it was over a decade after the impact before any scientific investigation expedition went to the site. It’s about as remote as one can meaningfully get on any continent other than Antarctica, not to mention the distractions of a World War, Civil War, and two Revolutions in between.
So the unknown orb is the Time Travel Orb? And when she goes back in time to prove that she didn’t wipe out the dinosaurs she totally wipes out the dinosaurs.
“Pay up Max, I returned the T-Rex Sciona was riding to the past, and made it back to the present without messing anything up!”
“What? When was Sciona riding a dinosaur? And what’s that on your boot, Private?… A dead butterfly?”
Looks like Zephan has joined this discussion….wonder what his views of this are?!?!?!
Is Leon eating freebirds? Or maybe Chipotle to be less Texas-centric. Actually, this is grrlverse. It’s probably some chipotle-hooters crossover where all the servers wear nothing but tinfoil bikinis.
The only real connection between the orbs and the crater are that they most likely weren’t put there until after it was formed, otherwise they’d be under it ;)
The thought of the huge alien arkship crashlanding then the reactor overloading in a huge explosion that atomized the iridium hull and spread it all around the planet along with a boatload of alien DNA fragments is fun to contemplate though.
…under it or thrown so far away from it by the explosion that they’d be in a different time zone ;)
Chekov’s Gun is amazing because you can weaponize it to mess with genre-savvy D&D players. Over-describe a nice tapestry and watch them obsess over finding the secrets of a piece of loot that doesn’t do anything except get sold for 400 gold if they can find some way to get it intact to an auction house.
Great thing about a government sponsored team is that government can handle some lawsuits about damages sent their way so long as the super in question can justify the damage. There is a reason why lots of supers in comics have secret identities, and one small part of it is to avoid being sued during course of duties.
Still funny that it took so long for Sydney’s orbs took this long to be investigated, but I guess you can say that her bosses were more interested in getting her through basic first and then there was her space adventure… Basically there was a lot going on. Better late than never now.
I can totally see the previous holder of orbs crash landing on prehistoric earth with such force it caused a major extinction event, especially if they couldn’t stop it like they were dying/running away from something bad. Advanced enough aliens can do that just by pushing an actual asteroid just right, so a super advanced one certainly.
heck, we could do it now in theory…either using an Orion drive or slower NTRs [Nuclear Thermal Rockets]. Its all a matter of orbital mechanics. Sure, the Epstine Drive is handwavium, but the Inaros attack on Earth in the Expanse is exactly what you are talking about… and an Orion drive is a feasible stand in for the Epstine Drive in the equation
Geee, did the owner of the orbs cause it? Or, given the impact center is significantly south of the Scorpion Reef, did the orb wielder attempt to stop the impact or even have been the target of an orbital strike from whomever dropped the impactor? Another theory, maybe the “Proto Halo” was trying to stop the rock and rode it all the way down, the impact having enough force to kill them, leaving the orbs to be found millennia later by The Mighty Halo.
The thing that gets me about Matrix Resurrections is that… people seem to think it’s empty nostalgia bait? When it seems extremely obvious that the entire movie is an allegory *criticizing* empty nostalgia bait. I don’t completely understand how those wires get crossed in people’s minds.
because they didn’t go into it with an open mind. They saw what they wanted to see, or expected to see. I caught some of the nuance.. Mer’v’s rant about “We used to have conversations, now its just ‘beep beep beep beep’ ” while pantomiming a cell phone in his hands along with the elevator scene from the trailer where Keanu looks up at the mirrored ceiling and sees everybody except him looking at their phones for instance…talk about a “yall have WILLINGLY jacked yourselves into a Matrix” moment.
And it turns out that Sydney is the one who created the orbs in the first place. After fully unlocking all the options, and after scattershot research, she creates her own version. And accidentally sends it back in time, causing the death of the dinosaurs. Well, eventually, after going through whatever it did beforehand.
Would even explain why there aren’t any descriptions/manuals in there. Because really, do you expect Sydney to sit down and write down all the explanations? Even fits in with the fact that leveling up required her to mentally connect the concept to the orbs.
1) Dave, for the love of all you hold dear, do not ruin your comic with time travel. Instantly all plots have holes in them that you can sail a Super Dimensional Fortress through.
2) “Miss Scoville, can you verify your whereabouts the night of January the 15th , 65,997,979 B.C.
2): Answer: ‘Not yet’
Don’t you mean “Thunderhead-class Superfortress”?
you’ll have to ask again yesterday
Yesterday might be too late :P