Grrl Power #1016 – Have a nice trip, see you next regime fall
Is it rude to tell a succubus that teal might not be her color?
I thought it’d be funny to see Dabbler casually cosplaying as the 11th Countess of Abbingdon, but honestly the teal top doesn’t quite play well with her stripes.
I think a lot of epic, sprawling TV shows these days have the problem of too many main characters. That is to say, something like Game of Thrones around season 4 and on had so many stories happening at the same time that your favorite character might get five minutes of screen time per episode, and maybe an hour over the course of an entire season?
Having a large cast is handy for me because I can mix and match for whatever suits the story I want to tell, but it leaves a lot of characters in the wings. If I could draw 5 pages a week, then maybe the ex-vigilanties here would have more to do, but until then, they get to play the reserves.
I may have messed up the math (it’s all but a certainty) but it’s ~9,250 miles from Texas to Galytn, (which is on the southern tip of Malawi). Mach 6 (~4603 MPH) would get them there in just about two hours. Considering I said that Sydney’s new top speed is Mach 16, that means she could get anywhere on Earth in about 45 minutes at most. Yeah, the speed of sound is different at different atmospheric pressure, and you have to account for ascending and descending, because she’s not going to skim the surface of the ocean and cause a near tsunami wake behind her, but roughly, 45 minutes. That is pretty fast. The next time someone shoots a sidewinder at her, they’re going to be in for a surprise.
Tamer: Enhancer 2 – Progress Update: Getting Proofed!
Almost done! Seriously.
January’s vote incentive is titled “The Origin of The Might Halo.” Hopefully the reason is evident.
Nude versions available over at Patreon. Along with a bonus comic page.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
Guard duty is SOOOO boring.
Then the SAS visit you.
Ist quiet tonight, Ya Hans?
Ya Fritz, maybe too quiet.
Dont worry so much Hans. Soon it ist the weekend and I go to see my leibchen in Dusseldorf.
(Much sneaky-sneaky noises and knifey-knifey noises. Then quiet strains of Rule Britannia later)
Well that worked out well Rupert, they never knew what hit them.
I like Dabblers adventuring garb. It’s so ………. cliche yet appealing. But, to be honest, she could make wearing a burlap bag appealing.
And you just know she has cause she saw it as a challange
My issue with the Marilyn Monroe burlap sack photo shoot, is that the sack was clearly tailored to her, thus defeating the point. Sure, she *could* pull it off without cheating, I absolutely believe that, but she *didn’t* when challenged to do so.
She could give someone a burlap-dance. Though I think that might chafe.
This is my favorite outfit Dabbler has worn. She’s supposed to be super sexy, but usually misses the mark for me. This actually kinda works though.
Barring Tinkertech or other superscience, Mach 6 is plenty fast to avoid any sort of surface-to-air munitions. That’s assuming anything like that could properly target something human-sized, or even Mr. Bubble sized.
Sydney is muuuuuuuuuuuuuuuch faster than that. Like 3 times faster. The sonic boom she creates is probably epic.
A sonic boom doesn’t get louder. It’s more of a cone impacting the ground behind the jet. If you were mounted in front of the jet you would never hear it. You also don’t get more of them later it’s just the one.
a ground level mach 16 shock wave is a weapon in itself
One pair, to be precise. The first from the air being slammed aside by the leading edge of the vehicle, the second as the air slams together into the space its trailing edge leaves behind. And there may be multiple pairs from a single vehicle, depending on whether more than one element of the structure generates shockwaves. Nose/tail is the ‘main’ one, but wing roots are a common secondary source.
It looks like they are traveling on top of a large box. Maybe to have a better radar signature? Or just to carry the plot to the next page.
Don’t they bring a couch and co2 scrubber with them?
I guarantee that there’s something significant in that box.
I’m with Nealithi. Syddles can only use two Orbs at a time, and she’s busy keeping up with Maxi. So air replenishment must be done the old-fashioned way, with Chemistry. Fortunately, mankind is quite expert at this task, with the advent of subsea exploration.
She’s not ‘keeping up with Maxi’, she’s maintaining the same pace as Maxi, and Maxi is intentionally flying slower than even she can
The air problem is as simple as building momentum and swapping the fly ball for the air scrubber for a bit.
They probably dont need a CO2 scrubber, tho if they have one it would be to prevent Deus from knowing sydneys upgrades.
Sydney can change orbs to refresh the air and now that she has the featherfall passive effect on even when not touching an orb it wouldnt make them drop out of the sky when she lets go of the fly orb for a few seconds
I thought the feather fall only affected Sidney. Did she test that?
Wait, if everyone is in the forcefield… yeah, featherfall should help actually. Also I hope she uses her Truesight orb when they land! We know Deus has cloaking tech.
Yes ibmf everyone is in the fircefield then it makes sense that the shield would go diwn as slowly as Sydney.
Also, using the air orb would require Sydney to stop flying every x-minutes to settle into free- and/or feather-fall, with an impact on efficiency akin to that in play in a minivan full of twelve children and one heckled adult constantly demanding “why didn’t you take care of that when we stopped at the LAST gas station???”.
As opposed to an option where she DOESN’T have to do that, requiring nothing more than a piece of equipment already in her kit.
:)
Considering the rate at which the air orb functions, I think the impact on her flight speed is minimal. I don’t think she comes to a sudden stop the moment she lets go of the flight orb either.
That box is the staircase to the roof.
Box in panel four, top corner
The latest russian air-to-air missile, Vympel R-37, can hit mach 6. So might to just top that up a bit.
From what I have just read in some quick research, I dont think that the sonic boom sounds any different if youre hoing at mach 1 or mach 2 or mach 10 or mach 16. The sonic boom happens when you cross the threshold of the sound barrier of 767mph. There are no additional sonic booms after that. Which is too bad… it would be cool :)
“… sonic boom happens when you cross the threshold of the sound barrier …”
My reading indicates once you cross the threshold, the boom simply follows you until you slow down under the speed of sound at whichever altitude. From the enemy’s point of view, it’s not nice being told someone’s approaching AFTER they have arrived… But no, there are no more booms. Just the one at a time.
Yeah, my 5 minutes of research via google on my phone was apparently woefully less than useful. Mgnostic has a really good post though on what would actually happen.
The intensity of the shock wave is proportional to the square root of the speed ratio to sound. So after the initial shock wave from exceeding Mach 1 the knockdown power doubles at Mach 4.
I think this link is appropriate, especially for me right now, since this thread has taught me new interesting information.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zmvt7yFTtt8
It is possible for different points on an object moving at mach speeds to produce their own shockwaves. But the individual shockwaves would be so close together as to make little difference to human perception. The shockwave progresses along the ground at a speed consistent with the speed of the object but the amplitude of the shockwave varies quite a bit. Displacement matters, the crack of a bullet versus the boom of a fighter jet. Mr. Bubble would produce a more considerable boom than Maxima. A lot of high speed aerodynamics involves reducing/delaying the shockwave.
Are you describing the doppler effect?
Nothing written was even vaguely related to the Doppler effect. I don’t know where you did your research, but somehow you ended up just repeating the common misconception that people who don’t know what they are talking about have. Mgnostic’s description is correct, the shockwave is continuous as long as the aircraft is above the speed of sound. People on the ground of course only hear it once as the vehicle goes by. (Though some large vehicles have shockwaves at the front at back as mentioned that can distinctly result in a double boom sound)
I miss the “double boom” of Concorde that used to be heard in the late evenings when I was out walking my dog on the SW corner of the UK.
It’s a testament to the love & pride felt for the plane (At least in the UK & France), when flights first resumed (After the France crash) she was spotted in the air in the west London area by myself on a train heading into London & it was pointed out by a passenger all heads (With more audible comments in a carriage that had been noticeably quiet for the last two hours) turned to watch her flying silhouetted by the setting sun.
I badly misread thd post.
Reminder to self – do not post so much when on the phone. It leads to ruin.
Okay well my 5 minutes of googling is obviously insufficient research. :)
Ignore the doppler effect question btw. I badly misread his post on my phone.
“ I don’t know where you did your research”
Five minutes of apparently very badly done searching on my phone since I am not at my computer. :)
Now that I read it instead of skimmed it, Mgnostic clearly knows a lot more on this subject and it’s cool info to learn.
Never mind. I badly misread your post :)
No sweat, I’m just a geek with a lifetime fascination with things that fly and go boom in the night. Sometimes I like to ramble about the occasional odd topic.
I’m also looking above and seeing I said ‘I badly misread your post’ like 5 times as if I’m flagellating myself hehe. :)
You badly misposted your read. ;)
I think “able to reach mach 6” and “able to hit an evasive target moving at mach 6” are two different thresholds.
The squidwards were not able to hit Sydney on Alari either. Serpentine!!! :)
ok, the munition has to be faster than the target. see the target is already moving at or near mach 6. the munition is at a standing start. unless the munition is launched early enough to be in front of the target, which might be possible but that’s a lot of warning there. the munition has to catch up to the target. which brings up another question- how fast is the warhead?
Ummh, most air defense systems can fire at incoming vehicles. Firing the Nike-Ajax at the Tu-4 (yes, I am dating myself) after it has overflown you and given the gift that keeps on glowing to the city you were supposed to be protecting is not a good idea.
Yes, but the Russians never were able to attack the Blackbird, were they?
And, as I understand it, the Nike is ICBM-capable, which means it capable of flying faster than any bomber to date.
Having said that, you are of course technically correct on all points. It’s just only with REALLY modern cpus has the processing gotten fast enough for it to matter.
“Yes, but the Russians never were able to attack the Blackbird, were they?” no, by the time, the missile, arrived at the point at which, it was aimed. The SR71, had already passed that point, also the missile couldn’t fly that high.
While that’s a great “adventuring” outfit I’m not sure Maxima has that kind of adventure in mind.
Hey Deus could be leading his army from the comfort and safety of a ten-story mobile death pyramid temple full of traps that the team may need a scantily-dressed big-boobed adventurer to disarm you don’t know
I KNEW they should have brought Achilles!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
Or they could just fly in through the balcony.
Actually, she should be able to get anywhere on Earth a LOT faster than 45 minutes.
Mach 16 might be the speed she can maintain in the lower atmosphere, at the cost of leaving a sonic boom that qualifies as a weapon of mass destruction, but she’s expending a huge amount of thrust to maintain that speed against air resistance.
The fast route for her is to do a suborbital hop, and make most of the trip above the atmosphere, where there’s no air resistance to fight, and she can use all that thrust to avoid leaving Earth behind because she’ll be traveling faster than orbital velocity.
She could probably be in Gayltn in about ten minutes that way, at the cost of the US having to tell Russia and China that, no, we hadn’t just launched an experimental first strike nuclear missile.
Best to reserve that for dire emergencies, though, as Maxima points out. No reason to let people know how fast they can really travel if they need to.
“… she’s expending a huge amount of thrust to maintain that speed against air resistance.”
Ummm. I’m not sure Syddles is supplying ANY thrust for her flights. Unless I’ve totally misread all the explications, it’s the Orbs who supply thrust, and we have no indications of what limitations they have. And I’m not sure air resistance is a problem to the Orbs’ energy capacity.
I do agree a ballistic arc would be preferable in terms of time, but as you correctly pointed out, there’s no reason to let people know what they can do if they want.
It’s been a while and a half since I recall DaveB discussing the exact physics, but while the orbs have a max vacuum speed determined by the pips invested, I am confident that air resistance, plays a part in her max speed.
And the fact that she can go from super-mach to a dead stop without shredding her internals shows that the orbs are clearing messing with inertial dampening too, so that changes the whole god damn field.
Sydney’s ability to fly includes her having her own localized gravity, which apparently also affects inertia because her hair isnt swooshing around when she is flying forward fast. Or sideways. Or upside down.
I just had an image of Sydney coming to a sudden halt and her hair giving her an eye whiplash.
I think she has, in the past, gone from Mach 4 to nothing quickly and she did not even notice a change, when she tried to make a break for the moon of Alari.
Also, during initial testing with Maxima, Sydney literally did not even notice a difference in how fast she was going when she went to 400 mph from 0, most likely because she is not feeling any inertia while holding the fly or. The only time she seems to actually notice a speed increase was when she hit Mach 1 with the sonic boom.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-158-the-joy-of-flight/
(panel 5)
Other than that, she was basing how fast she as going on the gauge on the fly orb.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-353-the-handymans-secret-weapon/
Something about the orbs simply negates her feeling outside inertia or pressure when holding the fly orb. It might be related to how the fly orb also cancels out her vertigo, like some sort of safety measure for the orbs.
It seems the same with some other orbs as well, like the shield orb – where she can ‘feel’ that Maxima is punching it, but a lighter punch doesn’t ‘feel’ any different than when Maxima is starting to punch really hard to the point where it’s threatening to hurt people’s eardrums and crack windows in the interview room. Also possibly related to how harmless light and sound can go through the shield, but not dangerous light or sound.
This happens in other scifi/fiction as well, like Stargate SG-1. It lets radio signals go back and forth through the stargate event horizon, and apparently allows time distortions through when the gate opened up near a black hole, but when it opens up and the other side is in the vacuum of space, it doesnt start sucking atmosphere out through the event horizon, and when they open to a world where the gate is submerged under water, the gateroom does NOT flood with water. There are some sorts of ‘safety protocols’ in place that the Ancients designed into the stargates.
Sydney points out how her flight differs from Maxima’s because of how Maxima does NOT have her own localized gravity.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-350-its-localized-its-just-not-personalized/
(panel 6)
And you can see that her hair DOES swoosh around as soon as she lets go of the orb in the very next comic, Comic #351 (panel 2).
Speaking of Stargate, you will probably enjoy this: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/11158355/1/Stargate-Physics-101
It’s the story of the Ancient researchers who invented the Stargates and the various problems they had along the way. The Furling who was helping them kept freaking out about all the dangerous edge cases they were ignoring.
You had me at ‘Furling.’
It seems unlikely that Sydney’s flight orb utilizes thrust, or cares about air friction. It simply moves her through space at a set speed, much like the orbs themselves move around her.
“move her through space at a set speed” relative to what exactly? If you’re disregarding only the atmosphere and locking your reference frame to the position of the Earth, then add or subtract about a half kilometer per second, I think, to account for the planet’s rotation.
But when you say “mov[ing] through space” I can’t help but think about the solar and galactic reference frames, so you’d have to adjust by more like 30 kps or maybe ~220 kps (?) respectively. And goodness knows what you’d be adjusting for relative to all of existence.
More thoughts:
It’s apparent that the orbs are either aware of all of these adjustments intuitively (for the wielder) or else perhaps they are “anchored” by something that doesn’t need to take these things into account, but can still seemingly ignore wind resistance. Of course, we haven’t seen that level of detail as to how they work… yet…
Mach 16 is impressive by human standards for overcoming wind resistance at atmospheric pressures, but that doesn’t mean that the orbs can completely ignore wind resistance. It might simply be trivial for the orb’s underlying technology at such low Mach numbers or for moving through something as thin as a nitrogen/oxygen mix.
Maybe at something more like Mach 100 or 200 or perhaps if moving through something with higher viscosity (based on quick google search, I’m guessing it might need to be one of the heavier noble gases or possibly simply more highly compressed gases like you’d find around a bigger planet, perhaps even a gas giant) it would exhibit more strain on the orb “propulsion” system.
That is, the orbs’ system could be affected/taxed by moving through an atmosphere to an extent, but it’s simply not an extent that has been noticeable or measurable (or perhaps it would be measurable, but hasn’t yet been measured). Push it even faster (through upgrades) or try it out in some of the higher layers of Jupiter and it might start struggling a bit (?)
Yeah imma go with No.
When she reaches for her PPO and links with it her imagination describes having the power of an entire star (scale unknown) in the palm of her hand.
With that much energy output available on hand her speed is limited more by her reaction time and how much punishment Mr Bubble can withstand than any medium that she is moving through.
Though stated elsewhere her top speed of Mach 16 is juuuust about at the point where the speed of her passing turns air directly into plasma.
Or liquid water for that matter.
If these orbs ARE powered by an entire star(s) then punching a hole through (most of) Jupiter would not be so difficult either with a Maxed out Mr Bubble. At least until you hit the sold hydrogen layer…
“Punching a hole through (most of) Jupiter would not be so difficult” – if she could stay focused that long; even at Mach 16 it would take her just over 7 hours to pass through the entire planet. But your point stands, that much driving force isn’t going to even notice piddly things like atmospheric resistance.
I would actually be shocked if most other nations haven’t figured out the space adventurer who can make big air tight forcefields and travel Mach 6 can go orbital or just sub orbital and use the earth’s rotation and a ballistic trajectory to get a lot of places stupidly fast with a payload of supers.
Actually, she can get anywhere on earth in 10 seconds if she has Dabbler (or another navigator) with her.
5s if etherium gateways don’t have a minimum range.
It’s already been established that her etherium gateway exit point is accurate down to ~20m from the Kevin dunk.
It’s possible that, at current level of orb advancement, she can’t open a causeway between two points on the same planet — there’s a minimum range or something. Still, if that’s the case she can simply jump them to Fracture Station and then immediately jump them back.
Akshually, Halo would need just over an hour to fly to the opposite point on the globe (also known as her antipode). And would likely leave major destruction in her wake, so even with some altitude first she’d likely need to stay well below top speed, even over the ocean due to international air and shipping traffic.
Pretty sure that Mythbusters proved sonic booms are not actually dangerous.
A normal one is pretty harmless, yes, but Mach 1 vs Mach 16 is a very different case. Per this USAF fact sheet, normal Mach 1 ‘booms’ have overpressure waves of about 1-10psf (at normal flight altitudes), with a max of about 21psf at near ground-level flight, which will definitely break some windows. The strongest ever recorded was 144psf (1 psi), from an F4 going just over Mach 1 at 100′.
But Mach 16 is waay faster – just under 1/2 of escape velocity – and Mr Bubble has a sizeable cross section especially with any passengers. Sydney is definitely going to create a higher pressure wave. I’d love to see what PCBoom comes up with for it, if it even goes supports that speed – given that NASA and the USAF have both worked on it, I suspect it does support the space shuttle at launch. A large meteor just before landing is probably the best comparison, since spacecraft don’t hit those speeds until they’re at pretty high altitudes.
I can’t think of a simple way to estimate her nearby overpressure actually, too many assumptions. The higher power normal booms are enough to break glass, the 1psi record would start causing minor structural damage. 2-3 psi starts to knock down houses and rupture eardrums.. Sydney should never, ever fly full speed in a city (and neither should any other speedster without physics-cancelling powers).
Also I love Mythbusters, although I’m always hesitant to trust them as a hard data source without looking into the specifics and actual peer-reviewed research.
Her top speed isn’t Mach16.
Her top speed is FTL.
I think brichins means her top sub-light speed. :)
Also I’m astounded at the website brichins showed. Very very very cool and I just bookmarked it. Because I think I calculated wrong then. I thought her fastest speed anywhere on Earth would be 59 minutes 10 seconds (showed my math on the second page of the forum here)
Guys you seem to forget if she has the corrridnats she could just “be there” with 3 seconds travel time but then the US would have to cover up the “oho ya, we can just gate there” and the fact they have F.T.L. WAY ahead of the tech curve
oops, illy beat me to it ….
She’s already shown her FTL capability when she pranked on NDT with gractz.
Opened an etherium causway *in atmosphere* right outside her shop.
Just want to mention it’s ‘aetherium causeway’ and ‘grakz’ :).
I wonder if she CAN make aetherium causeways from one part of the planet to another part of the same planet actually, or if ‘close by portals’ would require an additional pip on her new line that opened up.
If she can make a portal in atmosphere, and arrive from somewhere else in atmosphere, then the only way she couldnt go from place to place on the same planet is if the wormhole shes making has a minimum distance required to be stable.
Right. I am wondering if there is a minimum distance requirement. That was what I meant by ‘close by portals.’
Sorry, not as verbose and exact in my wording when on my phone.
Even then she could hop to fracture station, and then hop back to a different place on Earth. I assume she can bookmark more than one location on Earth…
We’re not actually sure of that, or whether the aetherium causeway portal appears in one specific place by each general coordinate?
However we do know for a fact that she can OPEN the causeway on the ‘enter’ side anywhere she wants.
Also the exit side is at worst, a few hundred meters.
Because of where she came back after her two extra trips to fracture station.
Too bad we don’t know exactly where the ‘out’ portal forms, so we know if it forms in the same area each time until it’s reset from an outgoing portal. :)
This would probably make a really good Dabbler Science Corner.
If Sydney’s flight has thrust, we havent really seen any evidence of it. She was anle to go from mach 0 to mach 16 seemingly instantaneously on Alari prime. Her ability to fly might be different than Maxika’s or other fliers because Sydney has her own gravity when using the fly orb. The only reasons we have seen for her to need to keep her shield up while flying is the cold, thinner atmosphere the higher she gets, and potentially getting bugs in her face. I wonder if we will ever find if wind shear even matters to her while flying due to the licakized gravity Sydney has when flying…
Isn’t “licakizing” unlawful between consenting adults? :D
Believe Pander has been in the licak-cabinet early today
Usually when I am using the phone to type, my posts are very short because otherwise my stupid fingers write things like licakizing instead of localized and Maxika instead of Maxima.
Oops.
Im using a phone to type right now and virtual keyboards suck :). I meant localized.
Go with text-to-speech, I’m sure your legal peers and jury won’t mind. And the presiding judge has got to be used to hearing all kinds of nonsense in court, so you probably won’t even be committed to an institution for audibly arguing with yourself about which super powered tech could defeat the alien invaders without compromising local government regulations.
I usually don’t type while in court (most of my work means I don’t need to be in court because IP law tends to not be in court) but I also do a lot of per diem work (basically, other attorney hire me to stand in for them for stuff where it doesn’t pay for them to travel to New York City for 5-10 minutes of talking when they can pay me to do it for less than the plane ticket or gas+tolls), which means I have to be in the courtroom, although I usually sit in the very back, like one of the cool kids in school. And it is boring because about 80% of a 5-10 hour day in court (depending on how large my caseload is) is just sitting and waiting to get called to do about 10 minutes of talking to the judge or the court clerk, during which I have to be quiet and try to not look like I’m doing anything disruptive. :) Boo. And this is yet another reason to prefer to do IP law – mostly done on the computer at home or in my office.
So alas, I probably can’t be using text to speech. :)
With a micro to b size, adapter. You can plug a USB Keyboard ,you can use a full-size keyboard, or use a Bluetooth keyboard! Re: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bumW90kwQNo
I have an iphone so i dont have micro, just lightning, but I will keep it in mind when I eventually change to a samsung galaxy. Thanks!
From research I’ve done for one of my books, I’m pretty sure Mach 16 is pushing right up against the boundary where the compression wave in front of the object is compressing air enough to heat up and become plasma, sort of like how a diesel engine compresses air to self-ignite the air/fuel mixture in the combustion chamber.
I’m pretty sure her doing Mach 16 in mr bubble, especially if she’s carrying stuff inside, would give the appearance of a death meteor getting ready to strike the planet.
I never heard of that, and it does seem a lot of things Sydney can do with her orbs defy ‘conventional’ physics, but if what you’re saying is correct, it’s probably the reason that the 5th pip goes to Mach 16 instead of, say, Mach 80 or something like that.
That being said, we have SEEN Sydney go at Mach 16 in an atmosphere, and she did not look like a death meteor.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-670-orbital-bombardment-obstacle-course/
It did cause quite the shockwave on the ocean though.
And now that I’m looking at this page, I’m seeing even moreso how correct Mgnostic definitely is in his explanation because you can see in the final panel that the shockwave seems to be continuing even as she’s serpentine-evading the barrage of explosions from the Squidwards.
We can make a vehicle, travel at “Hyper-sonic” speeds, however you must fly high, As the edge of space, itself. To avoid causing ground or air damage.
For a military organization , their ‘uniforms’ sure are diverse.
And no, I’m not talking about Dabbler.
Maxima seems to flout the uniform rules the most it seems. She should be in uniform the same as Sydney. Dabbler is so flighty she probably alters her uniform on a whim.
The B team however depends. When I was in so many centuries ago. You could leave your blouse behind while working on the flight line. We had two uniform colors for the undershirt, tan and black. If they expanded the undershirt options then the B team may be fine. On a flight line.
I guess most of them do have a waiver regarding dress code due to their powers. At least at base. They may even have a very lax “at base” code in general in their regs, since it is also their housing. So they may be off-duty most of the time we see them in civvies.
Maxima is flying outside the bubble – wearing a sturdy leather jacket to brace against the wind and protect the proper uniform shirt supposedly worn underneath against wear and bug-splatters would be a nod towards practicability. Not going to impress if you fly somewhere and look like “the windshield” on arrival.
They may even have her uniform inside the bubble for her to change after arrival, so she is wearing her “civilian travel” garb.
Also, being the commanding officer on the flight, isn’t she the one to decide dress code for the mission?
They are far from a standard military organisation. A bunch of excentric supers with weird diverse powers won’t work as a standard military unit.
Honestly, the men’s haircuts make it clear that “uniform standards” are honored more in the breach than in the observance. At least to these old Infantry eyes. :-)
The only one above that would be totally non-regulation would be Achilles…and doesn’t he have the “totally invulnerable” waiver?
I’ve always wondered: does Achilles’ invulnerability apply to his hair? And if so, doesn’t that mean that his hair would be un-stylable? I’m imagining near-waist length hair, and the only styling would be to tie it back in a ponytail.
Please excuse me if this topic has been previously addressed.
From what I gathered his hair is invulnerable and stopped growing when he became a super, basically he hasn’t changed since the late 1970s
I think it was the mid ’80s, but yeah, it was explicitly stated at some point, either in comic or in DaveB’s author comments that Achilles’ hair does not grow and cannot be cut.
Dabbler is not a member, shes a hired consultant, and thus not as strictly held to the same rules as the actually military folk.
Got no excuses for the rest of them >.>
I don’t remember where it was said, but Dave mentioned that the whole “beating conformity into soldiers” thing doesn’t really work with a unit comprised of people individually more powerful than field artillery.
That was during the first press conference. Arianna was referring to why archon was a military organization instead of civilian.
Some of them have powers that destroy clothing when used and require tailoring the uniform away from parts of the body that are active when using said powers.
Her face in the last panel. Glorious
Now you know what “Caught in the cross-fire” feels like :)
For a military organization, their uniforms don’t seem very uniform.
And no, I’m not talking about Dabbler.
Sorry, Groundhog Day isn’t for another two weeks.
You said that 2 weeks ago
Discussion plugin did that thing where the post “vanished”. Refreshed several times and even left it alone for a while to no avail; posted again and old post immediately showed up.
The speed of sound depends only on air temperature, not air pressure.
…You’re going to have to run that by me again. I’m fairly positive that the speed of sound is majorly affected by how dense the air is, and both temperature and pressure are major contributors to that. There’s a reason PV=nRT is a common equation, as the two are very closely related.
You’re both correct-ish; the speed of sound in an ideal gas depends on absolute temperature which can be rewritten via the ideal gas law as pressure / density (note: in both cases there are also universal constants involved; I’m omitting them for simplicity). So the speed of sound does depend on temperature, pressure and density, but if you want a single input value, then that would be temperature.
Also: unit cancellation is weird.
unit cancelation… it was sad to see that show go…
untis are fundamental to calculations. Kps, Psi, N, and lbs are all different and will mess you up. (metric system is awesome but Newtons are a weak force.)
And Pascalls are friggin’ TINY. Most of the stuff I see is in bars or millibars depending on source, since it’s one atmo.
where are you that you are doing science in bars? and are you getting free drinks?
do I want to know where the slugs are?
The slugs are sheltering under a layer of leaf litter… in the garden…
STP, Standard Temperature and Pressure.
so we freeze to death while the 1 lb slugs crush us…
Why stay in the atmosphere? Considering the distance they should take a suborbital route. That way they would avoid sonic boomers and avoid thermal wake due to friction. Boost to low earth orbit, accelerate to about 18,000 mph, once over Africa brake to about 500mph for a frictionless recently. BTW how sturdy is Max’s outfit? If she’s going to hit Mach six on an endoatmospheric run the friction generated will make her look like a fireball, literally. Unless her clothes have the quality of thermal protection tiles she’s going to arrive in nothing but her shined hiney Glorious!
Max’s outfit is presumably no more durable than that of any of the others, but her personal field protects her clothing to some degree.
The last time Maxima was up very high in the atmosphere, she was wearing a face mask. She still needs to breathe.
Was it for breathing, or for talking?
Most likely breathing. It looked like an oxygen mask with some sort of rebreather apparatus.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-418-high-level-talks/
Wait.
I don’t think I’ve EVER seen a confirmation or even reference in the comic about where Archon HQ is established. And now Dave says it’s in Texas? I thought it was somewhere near DC. Though that does explain why there was a desert near enough to HQ to hold the demonstration.
At some point it was mentioned that they were somewhere in the middle of the country, and commenters have speculated that it was in Texas because of landmarks.
DaveB said it was in Texas long ago. I will see if I can find the comment on it or reference to it when I am back at my computer and have some time.
He never actually said Texas. He’s never actually committed to a single location yet. He simply said that it would be “somewhere in the middle of the country” so that they are equidistant from either coast. He said he kind of operated as if they were in Texas, but didn’t want to commit to any single city. Regardless, the great circle route from Denver to Africa isn’t going to be significantly longer than the great circle route from Dallas to Africa. According to the Great Circle Mapper website, it’s slightly less than 350 miles difference. Which isn’t squat when you’re going Mach 4+.
Well, I guess I should clarify, I used the southernmost Airport in Malawi at Blantyre as the end point, and the Houston and Denver airports as the starting points, so it’s possible that it’s slightly more or slightly less depending on exactly where they’re starting from and going to. But regardless, the difference between being in Texas and being in Colorado would be measured in minutes when traveling at 4k+ mph.
Dave lives in the Dallas/Fort Worth area so he uses that as his reference.
Orestes – nice to see I’m not the only user of the GCM website – for those playing at home:
this shows one view of the DFW-LLW (Dallas FW Airport to the only real International airport in Malawi) route, distance, and time. you can plug in airport codes, LatLong, or airport names to get your start/end/way-points…
http://gc.kls2.com/cgi-bin/gc?PATH=DFW-LLW&RANGE=&PATH-COLOR=red&PATH-UNITS=mi&PATH-
MINIMUM=&SPEED-GROUND=7&SPEED-UNITS=Mach&RANGE-STYLE=best&RANGE-COLOR=navy&MAP-STYLE=
My guard duty story. Guard a clinic for eight hours on a Saturday night with some guy I never met as a partner.
We were given a radio and a night stick. Half an hour in my partner says to me, “Did you know that if you grind up dried pine needles and smoke them, you get high?” I said, “You know what? Why don’t I give you the night stick and I take the expensive radio.” Five minutes later, he manages to break the night stick. It was a long night.
guard duty, this is one of those jobs that having a boring night might be a good thing. after all if someone breaks in or the building burns down and you don’t die, you’ll spend a few days doing lengthy paperwork, not to mention the bloodwork.
It’s the job of guards to keep things boring for everyone including themselves.
It’s just that that means things can get really boring if you’re acceptable at your job.
Lara croft called, she wants her outfit back and also wants to know why the breast buckles. :P
The question is: Who wears it better? R34 wants this answered.
Doesn’t Lara know the breast buckles because the bacon calls?
the bacon doesn’t call, it narwhals
The Bacon dances when no one else can
quit complaining. enjoy the scenery, the natural beauty. the huge tracts of land. just for the love of your nuts… don’t catcall.
Dabbler would be happy to comply. She’ll deliver in person. Without bringing a change of outfit for the return trip.
Why the breast buckles? Because sometimes a shapeshifter’s outfits have to be rapidly adaptable to different bust sizes.
Lara Croft called she wants her outfit back!
Does Sydney actually have a couch in her bubble bus? That’s awesome
22 comments, ima just slip in here
Miss “Adventures in Space …”
Do we see a little… jealousy… sneaking into the happy party? But yes, the cat is away… I think someone in Archon needs to find some, er, enemies? bad people? unpleasant wights? to beat up.
Not jealousy, more envy
I’m not entirely clear on the distinction
Allow Homer to explain it to you…
https://youtu.be/Tmx1jpqv3RA
Halo getting to any place, even at an appreciable fraction of her current top speed is not going to be stealthy.
And not for the sonic boom either.
At that speed she will create a plasma trail that will light up the sky Even at mach 6 Maxima should get hot enough that she sets ordinary people on fire immediately after touch down :)
While aerodynamic heating is definitely a concern for anything traveling at Mach 5 or faster, you need to reach temperatures in excess of 6,000 degrees (likely closer to 10k, but somewhere in the range of 6k-10k depending on the exact gas composition) Fahrenheit to heat air to plasma. That’s not happening at 70,000ish feet (where they would need to fly to prevent the shock wave from disturbing airline traffic), where atmospheric pressure is roughly 5% of sea level and the air temperature is roughly -69 degrees Fahrenheit.
But isn’t this exactly what is happening with rockets, and at a much higher altitude? I mean, from what I have heard, this is the reason why so far nobody besides NASA has managed to land an orbiting spacecraft, and even they with near unlimited budget, where ultimately unable to do this safely for the crew.
Mach 6 is close to the speed that a Falcon 9 booster has when it starts to fall back to the planet, and that needs a burn of three engines to slow it down enough that the heat will not destroy the rocket. There is frequent mention that signal with the rocket booster may be temporarily lost because of the plasma that forms around the rocket and that is well above the altitude of high flying planes.
At Mach 16 Halo would fly close to orbital velocity and would definitely create plasma even at the least dense atmosphere of 80km.
And to be honest, I do not see how the team can fly much above 20km (even that is really pushing it) since they all still need to breathe. Halo cannot drop the bubble safely even at 20km altitude, not without risking freezing and asphyxiating her passengers at the same time. She can stop moving and replenish the atmosphere inside the bubble, but she cannot do the same for Maxima. And that little breathing mask that Maxima has been shown to use will not work to give her air for several hours. Maxima would need to carry a sizeable scuba compressed tank with her. Or the little device that that Deus (had) made, compresses oxygen out of the air and vents excess CO2 from the exhale, but that will only work if there is enough oxygen around Maxima to begin with. That is not going to be the case if you go much beyond the 20km height (at 20 ft there is only about a third of the percentage of oxygen in the air compared to sea level and the air pressure has gotten lower as well. 20km is more than 3 times as high than that.
By the time you hit 50km in height apparently oxygen has become so rare that there may be meters or more between individual atoms. The amount of air you would need to compress to get enough oxygen to survive gets to be measured in the cubic kilometers.
So, my best guess is that they are restricted to a flight ceiling of 20km or less for extended periods of time, and at that altitude and mach 6 both Maxima and the bubble bus are going to heat up nicely from air friction. Though possibly not plasma temperatures. But Halo, coming down for a landing at mach 10 or more? That’s going to be the world’s biggest thunderclap ever as she creates a massive trail of plasma behind her.
They aren’t doing it stealthy, just speedy (without setting the atmosphere on fire)
And SmugD already knows company is coming, because Daphne just told him (and Maxi knows he knows because she told her to)
Offtopic: “The Fall of Doc Future” is the story of a speedster for whom physics actually matters. When she moves too fast she leaves a plasma trail, if she tries to catch someone while going Mach N then they will be harmed so instead she has to sculpt an air cannon with her hands, etc. The world is near-future but with superhumans and I enjoyed it a lot. Check out the first chapter, see if it’s to your taste: https://docfuture.tumblr.com/post/34152071413/flicker-phone-tag
This would be a great time for Marble Maiden to come back up. S-tier supers are away, and it would give the ex-vigilanties something to do and a story to tell on Sydney’s return. I don’t mean making a full story out of it, but like a few panels to show that the world does move on.
Hiro has the right of it in the last panel. Never tempt fate or draw Murphy’s attention. Seriously, they should teach people this at school, and in serious organisations.
Sydney vs Demon hordes a normal army, and an army or Supers? I pity her enemies. Seriously, she could just just across the area the enemies arewith one attack (like with the space ships) and kill them all. With her shield up they can’t do anything to her.
The only danger is if she can bring herself to knowling kill people. Most probably not, and that is their only hope for survival
She could skim them with the Aethereum causeway and dump them where ever. Like scooping them up and putting them out side.
The entire team seems to be pretty genre aware these days. Even so, “Officer training 101: don’t taunt Murphy.”
So does this mean that Sydney is the fastest flier in Archon now? Why else would Maxima tell her to pace her so as to not reveal her new top speed, right?
Syddles “may be” the fastest flier in Archon. I don’t believe we have been told Maxi’s top speed, only what she wants Syddles to “know”.
Yeah. I am just confused about the wording or wanting Sydney to pace with her in order to keep sydneys top speed secret if its not a reference to Sydney now being faster than Maxima. I hope she is… it would be cool for sydney to be legitimately superior to Maxima in something like that.
Yeah, nah. First panel, “… no need to reveal …”
Im not sure what you are meaning here. Explain please?
In security. we all make assumptions. We hope the assumptions are correct, but since we are all grown up, we think the assumptions are on the side most deleterious to us.
Allied with all this is a non-paranoid hope that the bad guys are still unaware of what we really can do. And therefore we see no need to unnecessarily educate them.
In short, if Deus et al think it will take some longer time for Archon to turn up, why spoil it for them if there’s no gain in it for Archon?
Except, with what we’ve seen from Deus so far, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he knew more about their powers and capabilities than they do!
That IS possible. Especially if my time travel information (like Xanatos from Gargoyles or Layla from X-Factor Investigations) theory winds up being correct.
Pretty sure that this means “Maxima is not revealing her top speed and does not want Sydney to reveal *her* top speed.” No implication of who is faster, simply that Max is going to travel slower than min(Sydney’s top speed, Max’s top speed).
Ahhh ok :)
Syd has a huge advantage a spere is WAY more aerodynamic then a person
reverse that a sphere is one of the worse shapes aerodynamically.
A sphere isn’t much better than a flat plate of the same diameter. it displaces a lot of volume and leaves a lot of turbulence in its wake.
I would like to see a wind tunnel demo of Maxima as she passes through trans-sonic speeds. At supersonic speeds the shockwave off of her head might mask everything else but at some point there ought to be shockwaves from her head, shoulders, breasts and toes. Anything that sticks out into the airflow could produce a shockwave.
I think FTL beats whatever sublight Max can do.
Now I’m wondering if the lightbee has an upgrade to the teleport that puts her illusion where she used to be so she can fake being in two places at once.
Max should also have done some very secret testing with the teleport to see who comes along with. Because it’s kinda important to know if the folks you’re protecting inside your bubble come with you when you teleport.
Isn’t Sydney keping her ability to teleport a secret, even from Maxima?
That wasn’t the power she used on Kevin.
No. She let Maxima know in secret when she was debriefed. Only she and Maxika know though…. and probably General Faulk since he is her commanding officer, but its probsbly being kept ‘off the books’ based on what Maxima said.
I was thinking Harem was present when Sydney teleported away, but re-reading that section I see that she had already left the rooftop, so she missed it. But Harem did have some deja vu due to her distributed nature, so she (and therefore Deus) could probably deduce (or at least suspect) teleportation given that Syd went from ‘on the roof with remote presence in the warehouse’ to ‘physical mortal peril’ when nothing changed for the rest of the team.
The deja vu was due to Kronachrome’s tampering with reality, she already knew Sydney had ‘ported because she had had been in the process of looking for her when she found herself back on the roof
Oooh. That does seem like something important to test, before the need to know one way or the other comes up, and she either accidentally leaves somebody behind, unprotected, in some horribly deadly situation, or unsuccessfully attempts to use it to escape from someone inside her shield.
I really do love the ‘testing powers’ part of the comic (as well as the Dabbler Science Corner parts). I think it appeals to our inherent comic nerdiness where we want as much canon facts as possible for our comic-based arguments.
Indeed, concrete data points are vital to such vitally important debates.
So Hiro is basickly captian america but bulletproof and trope aware. I see why hes the #2 field agent for ARC now
He’s closer to Superman than Cap. Don’t forget that he can fly too. Sure, he’s way down the power scale from Superman, but who isn’t? Max isn’t Superman power level, and she is/was (depending on where Sydney is now, and how/if you count her) the most powerful super in the world. But flight + super strength + super toughness = higher on the power curve than Cap.
I don’t think we’ve seen Max put EVERYTHING into her strength yet. Her passive powers are set more or less, but her active power is like a Gauge and she chooses where the pointer goes.
Like when fighting Kevin, she had to put it on defense for that first punch, that ended up breaking her nose (#258). In #270 she had to STAY in DEF and couldn’t put anything into STR or POW because if she did, Kevin would have bulldozed her. #273, he confuses using electricity as draining her STR but in truth, she switched to DEF. You get the idea.
In Superman’s case, he is pretty much ALWAYS in full DEF STR POW SPD FLIGHT, unless certain plot points are active like Kryptonite, Magic, because the author says so… etc. Guessing Hiro is closer to Superman than Captain America, just not nearly as powerful, but everything is always active.
I should have said “Put it on STR and not pulled her punches” rather than “put everything”. I mean, there’s a difference between being VERY strong, and consciously holding back enough so you don’t break people or things.
Nvm, putting “Everything in STR and not pulling punches.” Forgot it could be split between multiple allocations but less in each one the more she splits it.
She did put -everything- into strength once. Against Vehemence near the end of the fight when she shifted from everything in armor to everything in strength to punch him in the throat once he was no longer electrocuting her and was distracted from choking her.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-283-tectonic-uppercut/
(Panel 1)
Notice her arrow went waaaaay above the maximum. It was a full power nothing held back everything from everywhere punch.
Yeah but that is an S class punching an S class so how much force is really hard to measure that way
I wasn’t trying to measure how much force she was exerting. I was just pointing out that there was at least one time where she did use her strength dialed up to its maximum possible level, beyond it’s normal ‘top’ level in response to Xone asking/saying that “I don’t think we’ve seen Max put EVERYTHING into her strength yet.”
We do know, though, that that single punch was so extreme that the shockwave destroyed the parking lot and, even if it did not break Vehemence’s hold on the ground, it separated the ground from itself. :) It also allowed her to break Vehemence’s armored thumb even when he was amped up the wazoo.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-283-tectonic-uppercut/
This, yes. While she did allocate everything to strength, she was still hitting something akin to a super sandbag. Hard to judge how strong she actually is even with the surrounding collateral. We don’t know if she put 100% into the actual punch either. What would that be like though if it were say, When Superman fought Darkseid in JLU?
Or, a better idea, Saitama vs. Boros? Boros even realized at the end that Saitama was holding back and pulling his punches. Punches strong enough to clear weather patterns. Strong enough to purge the rain drops in a given street area as well as the rain the on ground (Deepsea King) that type of thing lol. Not saying he’s the absolute strongest, after all he failed to kill a bug in the very first episode XD
“While she did allocate everything to strength, she was still hitting something akin to a super sandbag. Hard to judge how strong she actually is even with the surrounding collateral. ”
“We don’t know if she put 100% into the actual punch either.”
I don’t understand this argument either. Why would she put 100% of her energy into strength…. then not use 100% of her strength in the punch? There’s nothing to imply that she did not go all out. There’s a lot that implies she did. Against someone who was in the process of trying to murder her, when she had a single opportunity open for a very small window of time. It seems pretty obvious that she put 100% of her strength into that punch, which wound up tearing through even Vehemence’s max powered up form enough to crush his throat (long enough for Sydney to use the lighthook so he couldnt re-heal it.
If Tom is back,then Max,along with Dabbler,should have a few choice words for him…!
Isn’t bringing Dabbler to a fight with Tom Thumb going to raise some eyebrows about security risks?
Or has Dabbler reassured everyone that the Succubi Matriarchs are *that scary* that as long as they don’t kill Tom Dabbler doesn’t need to worry?
it turns it into a Domestic Disturbance. this cancels out the Geneva convention and changes the types of forces sent to intervene.
Haha Tom Thumb. I just got that :)
Why would Tom need to worry? He is there because Deus contacted him, and he is not remotely in Maxima’s jurisdiction. She told him to not come back unless invited. He was invited.
because if he’s really behind this he is an opposing soldier, which means Max doesn’t need jurisdiction just a quick trigger.
NEGATIVE. Maxi is not in US territory. The only time Maxi can do *anything* offensive is if she or any of Archon are themselves attacked. And that would be a clear sign the the reconnaisance mission is irretrievably compromised and they need to go home.
“because if he’s really behind this he is an opposing soldier, which means Max doesn’t need jurisdiction just a quick trigger”
I was unaware that Maxima was a citizen or soldier of Mozambique. When did that happen?
Because from what I know, Maxima is a member of the military in the United States, and has to deal with international law, including knowing that her jurisdiction extends only to the safety of the United States. Not only does it not here, but Maxima even KNEW IN ADVANCE that Deus was going to be ‘carving a path to the sea’ for Galytin. Because he stated so to her during their dinner date. She was not ‘DONT YOU DARE!’ She was ‘the UN won’t like that’ and Deus was ‘I have this legal reasoning for why it will work until the UN closes the loopholes in the international law on the subject, and by the time they do, I will have already gotten a path to the sea and won’t HAVE to take any more land for Galytin.’
The United States is not at war with Galytin. In fact, they will probably be doing business with Galytin soon, in the tune of 300 billion dollars in military contracts. And based on the superhuman accords, of which the United States is a signatory, they are legally not ALLOWED to intervene in warfare with other nations using supers. Galytin and Mozambique are not subject to this law because they are not signatories to the law.
Galytin has also not attacked the United States or any interests of the United States. Because the United States has absolutely no use for propping up the failed state of Mozambique and getting into a war over it, demons or no demons. The only reason Maxima can even go to Galytin in the first place is she was formally invited BY Deus.
Umm, fairly sure they are referring to Tommy, who is an opposing soldier to everyone on the planet, specially seeing how he already declared his intent on invading and subjugating everyone already here
“Umm, fairly sure they are referring to Tommy,”
It doesn’t matter who they’re referring to. It does not change the limits on Maxima’s jurisdiction. It’s not like the US did not already know about demons and aliens, since they have one in ARCHON and have had decades-long dealings with the Council, which has demons and aliens as part of the council.
“who is an opposing soldier to everyone on the planet, ”
This is clearly a false statement, G. Tom is an opposing soldier to Mozambique and Mozambique only, since he is being employed by Deus and Galytin. He had left the US earlier in peace, and all it took was a bodyslam and a romp in the hay with Dabbler to convince him that any more threats on US soil would be a bad idea. Overall, Tom was a perfect gentleman after the bodyslam.
“specially seeing how he already declared his intent on invading and subjugating everyone already here”
No he did not, and you keep ignoring EVERYTHING that happened after the bodyslam. You need to stop doing that.
Did you forget the part where Tommy (or at least his valet) mentioned invading Earth with the intent of taking over command?
Not talking about just US soil, or are you okay with them taking over the rest of the planet as long as they leave the US alone?
“Did you forget the part where Tommy (or at least his valet) mentioned invading Earth with the intent of taking over command?”
Did you forget the part where he decided not to do that? Or where his valet mentioned that apparently it was all about a booty call actually?
“Not talking about just US soil, or are you okay with them taking over the rest of the planet as long as they leave the US alone?”
Stop with the strawmanning G. :) TOM is not taking over anywhere. Deus gave him a job, he took the job. He’s bound by his contracts. See, the reason you don’t understand this is you lack faith in he who is our savior and paragon of humanity, the light of the world, Deus, who like a wise father, sees the best of our futures when he does anything, from opening a school to making a contract with an extraplanetary demon. The world is perfectly safe. All praise Deus amen.
He decided not to invade the US, not that he wouldn’t invade anywhere else
He didnt invade anywhere else.
He’s not invading anywhere now. He is acting in a mercenary capacity for another nation on Earth. That’s not an invasion by TOM. Tom is not doing any of this on his own behalf. He is doing it on behalf of Galytn. Galytn is the one invading. Assuming Mozambique did not start the hostilities with Galytn back before Deus was even involved, given how they apparently lost almost all of their supers in an EARLIER conflict attacking Galytn, which THEN prompted them to sign onto the accords since now they have no supers left.
Oh also, even Deus has said as long as he does not mess with anything that intereferes with the G8, they wouldnt do anything about his actions anyway. Mozambique is already extremely unstable as a failed state – Deus coming into the area only winds up making it more stable for that entire region. And if Galytn becomes a trading partner of the US, then the US would actually SUPPORT this, most likely, since it would be good for the US as well.
This has nothing to do with Mozambique (may it be reformed immediately). This has to do with bringing aliens as mercenaries in a war.
Show me the international law that forbids using aliens as mercenaries.
Go on, I’ll wait.
It doesn’t exist. And if it did exist in the Grrlpower universe, which it does not, then the US would be in violation by having Dabbler in ARCHON, a military branch of the US armed forces.
The only thing we have that deals with superpowers in war is the superpower accords, which Galytin and Mozambique are BOTH -NOT- signatories to. You cannot enforce an international treaty on sovereign nations which have not signed onto those treaties, or that nation (ie, the US) would be violating international law, NOT Galytin. Even then, aliens are not the same as supers, so even if Galytin did sign onto the accords, which they have not done, aliens and demons would not fit into those conditions. They’ll have to make additional novations to the treaty and figure a way to entice Galytin to agree to it.
Possibly by telling them that they can keep all the land they’ve taken, as long as they do not take any more, and then the US would agree to Operation Cha-Ching as an economic incentive to signing onto the accords.
“… Galytin and Mozambique are BOTH -NOT- signatories to.”
Ahhh, no. Only Galytn. Previous page, panel 8, Suzie News: “Mozambique did not sign the accords either, until *after* a border skirmish with Galytn, rumored to…”
However, this does not take away from the fact that Archon Can. Not. Attack. They are not in, on, over or under US territory.
Archon is taking a shufti, taking a dekko, visiting, reconnoitering in a foreign land. Nothing more.
“Ahhh, no. Only Galytn. Previous page, panel 8, Suzie News: “Mozambique did not sign the accords either, until *after* a border skirmish with Galytn, rumored to…””
Good catch. I missed that. Fortunately that one mistake on my part doesn’t invalidate anything in my post.
It still means, like you accurately point out, that ARCHON can’t do anything about this though. Galytn isn’t a signatory, so they can’t be punished for using supers during war. And the only reason Mozambique apparently signed was because they lost all of their supers during skirmishes with Galytn. Which might not have been entirely started by Galytn, and could be a significant reason why Deus chose Mozambique as the best place to carve through to the ocean (in addition to Mozambique being a failed corrupt state which is abusive to its own population, just like Galytn used to be – just bigger).
Plus, like I said, even if Galytn HAD signed the accord, it would just mean they can’t use supers – it says nothing about using aliens, alien technology, or demons, until the accords are updated. If it’s updated at all.
Again – most likely Deus already know these possible outcomes or he would not have done something this blatant in the first place. He’s a big picture type of guy, being the paragon of humanity and savior of the future and all that, all praise Deus amen.
And the simple fact that he’s working for Deus now should make him a LOT safer from Dabbler&Co.
Big D. has so far shown himself to take good care of his subordinates and, unlike Sciona, he clearly values loyalty and trust – we’ve seen multiple occasions where his subordinates showed they appreciate him. And he’s VERY resourceful – the man plays people like a grandmaster. I think Tom’s safe while working with Deus.
Probably yes,
But then mr Affable Evil will point out that Maxima is supercop for the USA, not the world, and that she has no authority over Galthyn. He will probably then tell her that if only Maxima had agreed to his proposal right away all this … unpleasantness … could have been avoided.
Dabbler’s words with Tom may result in her having to make an emergency trip home to have a new owner arranged for her, which likely will put her so deep in debt with the matriarchs that she will need a couple of millennia to crawl out of it.
Halo is presumably only there because she is the pov character for most of this, though she serves as taxi of course and may yet provide her usual distract everything role through her antics.
Or maybe Anvil being present is indicative of Maxima planning for a situation where if the ‘diplomacy’ part of ‘aggressive diplomacy’ fails, Halo can create a hole to deep space and Anvil can one punch any demon through. To make a point that ‘more diplomacy’ might be less painful for everybody involved.
I once knew a person who was given “guard duty” by their boss. Well, when it involves a Bard guarding a monster of the opposite gender… you can probably guess how interesting the job was :)
Looks like Achilles is channeling his inner Chuck Norris for his appearance.
So, Dabbler’s “Adventuring Outfit” is the various bits of jewelry (including that chain around her waist).
The shorts and top (and gunbelt and holster) are obviously just decorative, and probably entirely for Max’s sake.
Oddly genre savvy there, Hiro.
Bout time dabber went Lara Croftian rather than Lovecraftian
That was monstrous, glad to see someone else adventurous enough to join Pander’s hitlist.
I don’t think that was a pun so much as it was clever wordplay.
So I can still focus the ninja hit squads on irredeemable pun-using reprobates like Ro and yourself, my friend.
… What do you think puns are?
A pun is one example of wordplay… the bad example of wordplay made by scurilous scallywags, but not all wordplay are puns.
For example, double entendres are wordplay too, but they are not puns.
Eurpemisms are wordplay, but are not puns.
Innuendo can be wordplay, but are not puns.
Phonetic mix-up can be wordplay, but do not have to be puns.
A joke can be wordplay, but does not have to be a pun.
I don’t consider L0wten’s post to be a pun, and since I pay the ninja hit squad’s salaries (not that they ever earn their paychecks since Ro and his crew of pun-wielding villains still persist, curse them!), they are not getting sent out for this one. :)
Someone else might have pointed this out, but it looks like Heatwave’s collar does a disappearing act in the last panel there.
Just like Sydney’s in the last panel of the last page (unless it’s been fixed, haven’t been back to that SmugD-lovefest to check)
If they were traveling as super high speeds and didn’t want to cause much disruption they would probably just travel in a sub-orbital arc. They would only have to reach speeds of 3600 miles an hour or so to do it which is much slower than they seem to be planning to travel and still only take about two hours to make the transit.
Actually, the teal-top works for Dabbles, it compliments her natural colouring
And it seems Maxi has started to loosen up a little, which is a good thing (no more brown diamonds each time she goes toilet)
Got the couch. Love to see it.
‘stoobad they don’t know Varia could add a couple extra hands, plus Dabbler would love that they would need to make skin-to-skin contact without using up any of their hands.
‘stoobad that that is just reader speculationing (don’t recall DaveB actually saying anything on the matter)
Trying to figure out what Dabbles has in her left holster, looks like a pair of wands of some kind
One wooden wand, definitely. The forward of the pair looks metallic – a sonic screwdriver?
I wonder if Kenya will want to visit her namesake while they are in the vicinity?
(P.S. I want to smugly, sorry politely, point out I called Sydney breaking out the bubble bus in the comments last time.)
Its about a 2000 mile distance between mozambique and kenya. With makawi and tanzania in between. :). Probably more since if galytin was part of zaire, then it would be located closer to the center of mozambique rather than the north of it. :)
don’t forget that flying from LA to china they come close to Alaska if I remember right. Spheres are funny things….
Ummm. Maybe our coordinates are not the same. I’m doing a straightline between Luabo on the northern bank of the Zambesi and Mombasa. Google says 1,016 miles.
I’m not sure how you got 1016 miles while I got 1962 miles, both of us using online map distance markers. Possibly because the Zambezi river length is 1600 miles, and the Zambezi is a very long river that crosses through six countries? That’s just a guess in the dark.
“I’m not sure how you got 1016 miles …”
I made an assumption the… battle… was in the vicinity of Luabo. I also stopped measuring at Mombasa which is about 80Km north of the Tanzania border. The only way I could get 2000 miles was to start ‘way down south right at the bottom near Eswatini (was Swaziland), and thence northish to near Marsabit in the Northern Frontier District. You may also want to check your units. Google is defaulting to Science and Popularity rather than Freedom.
I was trying to actually start at the most thin part of Mozambique that still is close to southern Zaire and where Galytn would be, taking into account it’s growth afterwards under Deus’s expansion efforts.
Hokay, I tried it in Science and Popularity units, starting in Cambola, Galytn and Northish by East to Ewaso Center, Kenya about 1,992.7 Km. There is a shopping center at Ewaso Center… and Google alleges there is a pub (“Old Fashion Pub”) about 1.7 Km Sou’West, but *I* think it is actually *in* Ewaso Center.
Aaaand, realised why I ignored what you said about Zaire… That’s off to the West, on the Atlantic shore along the northern boundary of Angola. The next nation upwards is The Democratic Republic of the Congo.
You may have been thinking about Zambia or Zimbabwe.
Galytn was part of Zaire though, which is why I can’t ignore Zaire (aka the Democratic Republic of the Congo, aka the Mobutu Dictatorship).
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-387-a-noble-investment-embiggens-the-smallest-wallet/
(Panel 1)
According to the Macroeconomics hostess, Galytn was technically part of Zaire. According to Deus, the DRC was not part of DRC because it was part of Zaire before the civil wars, during which Galytn seceded under General Indinge. Therefore, Galytn would HAVE to be near Zaire, at least partially, even if it’s grown since then.
Hah… Found it.
Look in:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-718-mundane-majesty/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-719-idiomatic-planetary/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-840-loopholio/comment-page-2/#comments
And: Grrl Power #1014 – The Zambezi high club
“I didn’t write this page intending to dump on Mozambique, but I had to decide where Galytn actually was, and based on other higher altitude maps I’ve drawn, it’s at the southern tip of Malawai and overlaps into Mozambique slightly. The country started off about a quarter the size of Rhode Island, but has expanded considerably. Mostly directly south so Deus can connect it to the Zambezi, and then to the ocean.”
We need to take DaveB’s origins history into account, and I’m having problems with that given the references I’ve included. The BIIIIG problem is, IF Galytn was carved out of Zaire, then expanded east to Malawi, this is a HELLUVA big territory. We’re talking something the size of Mozambique, taking territory out of Angola, DRC, Zambia and probaby Malawi. Honestly, if there is potential access to the Atlantic, why on earth would you want to establish an Indian Ocean port?
For these reasons I would take DaveB’s words in #1014 as canon. What he does with earlier work is his problem, but I would never object to a retcon in this case.
Galytn ‘was’ carved out of Zaire. I already pointed out where it was stated as so, in the #387 comic. But it has grown in size SINCE then.
Absolutely.
But get out your tape measure, and do the arithmetic.
My measurement — which is wildly approximate — gives me 1,559.58 mi from around Banza Quiôa in Zaire to Mbisa, Malawi. That really IS a Long March. (But you can nominate your own starting and finishing points if it pleases you.)
But check out DaveB’s own words in comic #1014: “… but I had to decide where Galytn actually was, …”
I am reluctant to postulate a GP universe where Zaire is NOT on the Atlantic shore. That would be DaveB’s job.
So I repeat: For these reasons I would take DaveB’s words in #1014 as canon. What he does with earlier work is his problem, but I would never object to a retcon in this case.
I tend to not retcon stuff that’s in the universe – I leave that to the author. I just take it as I see it in the comic if possible.
If he retcons it, then I’d concede to your argument.
But so far as I’ve seen, there’s no reason to retcon it. We can just assume that Galytn has grown under Deus’s stewardship.
Umm. It seems I misinformed myself. A good mate (from that part of the world) dryly observed that DRC used to be called Zaire among other things, and that it had nothing in common with the synonymic province of Angola. It seems the Congo River used to be known as “Zaire”…
However.
The Long March is not 1,559.58 miles, only 444.49 miles, taken from an area labelled as Galande in (what is now) the DRC, to Mbisa in Malawi. It is difficult to figure *where* in Zaire Galytn may have been located. Down in the South-East corner of the DRC there is a town, Lubumbashi, at the entry to a tongue of empty, unused forest stretching SE about 170 miles to the Demalisques de Leshwe, a wilderness park. Google shows various place-names in there, but no evidence of human habitation. OTOH, “a quarter the size of Rhode Island” DOES fit in nicely aroud Galande. Looking around, there is photographic evidence of a village/small town near the Luwombwa River in the northern reaches of the tongue.
I do not resile from my considered opinion that Galytn was and is centered on the southernmost extent of Malawi, because there is NOTHING mentioning or alluding to a Long March of Galytn citizens. And I still take DaveB’s words in #1014 as canon.
FWIW:
https://thetruesize.com/#?borders=1~!Nzc5MTc1NA.NzU2NTU2MQ*MjEwOTg5NTk(MjA3OTc2NTk~!US-RI*MTE4Njc0ODA.MjcyNjcwMDI)Mw
https://www.google.com.au/maps/@-12.9070663,27.0592955,2014766m/data=!3m1!1e3!5m1!1e4
Dabbler as Lara Croft. Gamers approve.
I think they should instead go with a show of force. Have Halo use a causway to portal across the planet. Nothing screams I have power to burn like using stellar navigation technology to do planetary navigation.
Remember that Galthyn is a sovereign country and Maxima is only supercop for the USA.
She can go there because she has a standing invitation by the ruler of Galthyn, but any aggressive action is an act of war by the USA and her chain of command will /not/ be happy with her if she drags the USA in a war involving supers, demons and other assorted nastiness.
True, and Max knows this, and so far she’s shown great respect for the chain of command so I don’t see her telling her superiors ‘Whatcha gonna do about it, huh?’
I look forward to the day she realises that she actually can rule the world, and can get any law passed that she wants, without needing to go through the bribary that that normally takes.
Deus already suggested that she might want to get “that women’s health issue” sorted out. She could do that in the USA simply by walking into the right room.
But then she would most likely instantly become the US’ number one enemy. And I’m pretty sure they’ve been doing a lot of thinking about how to take out Max if she ever went rogue.
Only in the same way that corporate lobbiests are an anemy of the nation.
She’d just be a *very* effective lobbyist.
The B Team wont fall for the banana in the tail pipe.
Didn’t Mythbusters test that among other car myths in episode 15? The pressure differential from the engine exhaust blew that things right out of there as soon as the engine started. That was the same effect for anything they put in the exhaust pipe of the car that did not involve welding, but I don’t think they did that.
That was awfully close to fourth-wall breaking. The only way it could have been more so would have been for Achilles to turn directly to the camera as he was speaking.
Is Major Hiro in uniform? In general, if you are not in uniform, you do not salute; you would come to attention instead. At least those were the rules I learned while playing soldier with the Royal Canadian Army in the 1980’s and early 1990’s.
Uniforms do appear to be decidedly non-uniform in this outfit. It may simply be that Hiro’s regular outfit accepts and anticipates his designated role of Team Beefcake, and doesn’t spend too much effort on a shirt that will not be in one piece by the end of the day.
Also, Special {Forces|Duties} commonly refrain fropm saluting just to make it a habit on the battlefield. No sense in identifying a senior officer when you don’t have to.
This is a command hand-over. That’s a big deal, and with no known threats within at least 100 clicks, the touch of formality works for me.
If Achilles really wants a fight, he needs to break into Harem’s stash of Plot Soda.
I totally want to see Harem drinking a soda named ‘Plot Twist’ now
I recently bought a friend a few ‘joke sodas’ from Rocket Fizz. I think one WAS ligonberry, and I bought it specifically because of this comic.
Look it up. They’re hilarious.