Grrl Power #1033 – Field of Supers
The universe is like a onion lasagna, see? Or a 7-layer dip. Actually, a 20+ layer dip. Except instead of layers it’s fields, and the fields all overlap and intersect. So it’s like a 20+ layer dip in a 4-dimensional blender, but they’re still discrete layers-slash-fields, except when they’re not as I think some of the fields can become other fields temporarily and maybe in the spaces that they transition is where all the left socks go. Clear? Everyone a science expert now?
Honestly I have no idea how the fields interact, or if the giant corn chip coming down to scoop up the field-dip is god or if god is the guy throwing the party. All I know is that a 20+ layer dip sounds like too many layers until you consider that some of the layers could be barbacoa or goat-cheese. But then you’re like “well, you’re still about 9 layers shy” and you’re thinking “what if one of the layers was sliced up hot dogs and another layer was just mustard, and the bottom layer is actually a 7 layer lasagna?”
If you can’t tell, I’m not sure what else to add to this page. Super powers in the Grrl-verse require a hitherto undiscovered quantum field and Deus might have a touch of megalomania.
New incentive is up! Dabbler decided to get out of the pool, in slow motion (see the bonus comic at Patreon), possibly with added “physics.”
Cue Mele Kalikimaka.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Tachyons are just Gluons that have not dried enough yet.
Sooo…tachyons are the contact cement that keeps time from getting all wibbly wobbly?
OK that one is a lot more funny than it seems the first time you read it. Well done sir.
No Gluons are wet tachyons./s
In the model of the universe I’m proposing tachyons are the mass of Dark Matter that we can’t see because they’re moving faster than light, so invisible to us.
I thought gluons were what alien gals use to keep their pasties in place.
Gluons are used in duct tape… Ya’ll know it. Light side , dark side, binds the unnverse togerher.
Or was that pink fuzzy hand cufffs? The kinky side of the force
So stealing this…
Tachyons go to Coventryon.
I always thought that Gluons were those that got in the GC buffet line and attracted all the good food to themselves.
But the question is even if all this is true: Why is Earth the only place with Supers? :o
Because everywhere else supers either don’t really stand out (Oh neat, I, a being made of living lava, can shoot flames a little farther than everyone else! I must use these powers to do… What?), stay in hiding (I can turn my body to water temporarily… In the middle of an interplanetary war. This is surprisingly LESS THAN HELPFUL), or get put down by the locals (Hey, anyone remember that one guy several years ago who could shoot fire from his navel? He was annoying until the local wizards imploded him).
Or plot reasons… But I like these three reasons.
Probably because harnessing this field require precursor or Nth level of technology to start harnessing it and centuries of testing on living subject to harness it completely
Perhaps the extra fields aren’t natural, but multidimensional machinery made out of folded dimensions by a Nth level civilization. Due to how advanced this is anyone living in the fields wouldn’t be able to tell them apart from natural forces. In some series this is where magic comes from, and magic may even differ in different parts of space as a result of different set ups and codes in place. So what if such a civilization was beta testing a new one on one planet, thus this new power only being found on this one planet, and if it works out and is fine tuned then they extend the field through out their territory like say the whole galaxy.
I wouldn’t say “machinery” as such, but interaction with any of those three fields requires using consciousness ( sub or active) to get an effect.
Magic and psionics are obvious, and as far as I can tell the super-powers here are (sub) conscious phenomena.
Earth, and “mankind” could simply be one of many seeder species where an Nth experiment actually worked, and some people have developed the natural ability to interact with the “superion” field.
As opposed to Max and Sydney, who can interact with it through Technology.
Quite different technologies ( but there isn’t *one* Nth species….) with different approaches, but technologies nonetheless.
That’s what the bronzish colored orb does
…WHICH part does Deus consider makes it gauche?
The word “ne” i am guessing. :D
DIDACTIC PEDANTRY WARNING! A warning shouldn’t be necessary since nit picking at details is a speculative fiction staple but mine involve grammar so light the torches and sharpen the pitchforks. In the first sentence of the first panel Deus says ‘comprised instead’ of ‘composed’. It’s a common mistake so don’t beat yourself up about it. That’s my job. The whole is composed of many things but many things comprise the whole. In the next panel down, Deus uses the singular contraction ‘there’s’ instead of the plural ‘There’re’ in referring to several things. This is also alarmingly common and I would have let it pass had you not used the proper contraction, ‘they’re’, twice in your post comic notes. Please grok my comments as trying to help and not as a sign of dislike. If I could read only one comic, it would be this one.
I tend to give speech bubbles a pass because they represent speech, not writing. I do correct myself when I speak glaring errors of number agreement but not often because it bores the listener.
Speech bubbles are written speech. Distorted speech to indicate accents or a character flubbing and such are fine. Wilful fucking up the spelling so it “reads leet” or similar, not so much. And mistakes are still mistakes of the author writing down what his characters are saying, so they get flagged for improving the medium, rather than the character.
John might be a bit less wordy about it, though. Just indicate panel and bubble and explain the problem.
In this case, comprised vs composed is a valid point, but Dave will have to decide if Deus would’ve said that wrong or if it’s an error in relating. Former, it stays; latter, it goes. Same with the plural contraction.
Hearing the spelling of others’ words is a curse.
Comprised of is fine.
The nit-pickers say the usage “is comprised of” is tautological, but really they mean it’s ambiguous which direction you intend one being made up of the other.
If you can’t figure that out in this context, then you shouldn’t be trying to ‘splain anything.
I want to know who Deus’ parents are, because their naming sense is either prophetic or problematic.
Personally, I think Deus is a shortened version of his first name and his mother was a big fan of Mozart.
People can change their own name….
Let’s hope Elon Musk’s kids sue their parents for emotional abuse, simply for the name they were forced to endure
Yeah, pretty sure that name isn’t on his birth certificate. Not his original one, anyway.
Might as well call him that Maxima, lol.
Yes, the woman whose name is “Maxima” is reaming someone else out because she thinks their name heaps too much greatness upon them.
Maxima, such a hypocrite! Why didn’t you go with “Minima,” or “Averagicus?”
She doesn’t need to be named Averagicus to be Mean.
Well it is her given name, whereas he apparently renamed himself.
The woman whose superhero persona name is Maxima. Lt. Col. Maximilia Leander, if she’s setting aside the branding. Admittedly, Maximilia is an unusual name, but it’s just as valid as the (slightly) more common male version Maximilian.
So where do Sidney’s balls fall under in this? And should she really be showing them off to him this closely?
He’s already seen them (when they went to him for the air tank for Syd to use inside Mr. Bubble for long periods), and nobody can scan/grok them in any way with any kind of tech/magic/what-have-you, so I think it’s kind of a non-issue…
Two conclusions immediately presented themselves to me when I saw this page.
1) Super powers and magic (superions and thaus) are mostly mirror images of each other. Super powers extend a bit into mirror psion/astral turf as well, but for the most part, magic and super powers probably act much like one another since they’re based on flips of the same basic forces (up/down, charm/strange, top/bottom, and so on).
2) Psions are based on electrons and neutrinos. Neutrinos are infamous for not interacting with anything, until they decay and interact, which may lead to astral activity seeming to be on another plane (if it was all just neutrinos, that could well be interpreted as something mostly disconnected from our common reality). The electrons might also give psi powers electromagnetic-like behavior, or make strong electric users (such as Jiggawatt) sensitivity to psi phenomena.
Let’s see now…
The ? field out from the muon is whatever allows Nth tech to do impossible things.
And it doesn’t always play well with the superion field… which is why ONLY Earth gets the full effect of the superion field (the ? field predominates everywhere else) AND why approaching Earth thru and Aetherium Causeway is BAD (bad enough that the Orb’s travelogue doesn’t even give a fully locked location – hence the blur and static).
That second bit’s not accurate. Sydney’s popped back and forth between fracture station and earth with no negative effects. We don’t know why that file was corrupted in the travelogue
Most likely it’s because she was sent weeks into the future and as a result the last location data was corrupted because now the time/space coordinates no longer matched properly. Once she’d returned properly things were updated accordingly and she no longer had the problem to worry about.
No, indications are that the problem with the Earth entry was that the transfer was made through an unstable wormhole. I’d guess that the ball was just too physically small to be able to see enough of the wormhole at the same time to get a stable reading.
Another indication is that the orbs have been on Earth for a while; this raises the possibility that the Supers are the effect of some sort of long term exposure to them, or whatever caused them to become “lost” on the Earth in the first place.
Wait, Deus is a US national (the Defense Department doesn’t DO contracts with foreign companies DIRECTLY – he’d know this). But Col. Maximilla Leander of ArcSwat DOESN’T KNOW his patronymic? It LITERALLY has to appear on every contract the man has ever signed..
True, but whether Maxima is privy to those contracts is a separate question. Or, for any that she is, whether she was paying more attention to the exact names signing or to the clauses they were signing onto.
She’s been dealing with Deus in one capacity or another for a while, it’d be fairly strange to never hear his full name mentioned by anyone ever.
Not to mention briefings and security dossiers on or about Deus, which Maxima also should have been privy to for a fairly long period of time, should list his full name, any prior names, any pseudonyms he’s ever been known to have used, etc.
I suspect Arriana was the one who dealt with the contracts.
Maxima doesn’t seem like a “writes up contracts” person.
Who said anything about contracts?
Or since Deus owns his own country he changed his name then named the field after himself… His Real name is Ronnie Burster and No one was scared or admired poor Ronnie…I assume Maxima wasn’t her real name either
It looks like Deus just enjoys yanking Max’s chain. I wonder if he’s participating in the various ARC games involving Max. I.E. Max Bingo.
Ok, it’s official-I read that last panel in Jennifer Hale’s voice.
ITYM discrete, although they may be discreet too. And “thaumatalurgical” looks like it has a typo in it.
OK, this one’s supremely funny.
I love Deus. I know he’s a villain, but he’s so unrepentantly egotistical it’s hilarious.
Max in the last panel seems a little out of character for her. She is more poised than that.
I was waiting for her to add in ‘scruffy looking nerf herder’.
No, no she’s not
She’s kinda pissy, it’s her pads that are Poised
That, ladies and gentleman, is a master troll at work. Truly a thing of beauty.
Always a fun thought experiment on where powers come from, many series will go in a dozen different directions to keep them separate, or have some unified field of super power origin (or five), sadly writer in-fighting can crop up and ruin this. After decades of exotic energy and mass explanations Marvel did produce a unified source of power regardless of type and how its accessed, an exotic energy that operates on a graph like behavior x axis, y axis, and so on and where you fall on that chart and combination affects the way that power enters the physical world…
but Marvel writers also like adding non sense like gamma radiation comes from satan, or magic is made of “un-rules” while also having other magic as explained as following energy channel rules ect…
and DC is just as wonky with the green, meta human biological somehow, speed force, and the floating question marks when how they try to explain kryptonians in a natural way but it falls short.
i think only manga and one author (or small group of friends) ever come up with a stable system when they want to introduce an origin for their powers *or its a game series and wants to keep it real simple, and not delve into any deep explanations).
As I am compelled to do so, I want to throw out my own series version of where powers come from…at least for Aesperians (the descendants of super human refugees who ended up in a magic based reality and thus were influenced by it, so everyone has some base level stat power *to the point unless interacting with humans from other realities they don’t even realize they have power…in short basic anime levels of strength and durability), but have other powers, a magic affinity and special skills.
the basic explanation without involving the sources of magic, just how people get powers from it.
Everything in the universe has an “astral imprint” AKA (Multidimensional imprint signature), if one as an astral scanner these imprints can be as vague as *matter, energy,* and work down to detecting the type of elements, isotopes, molecules, and states of matter with different astral signatures.
there is also the psycho-dimensional layer…psionic field for post 20 year old me to keep it short and simple (I loved big crazy sounding names back then), this field is a buffer between the astral field and the anima field *AKA the well of souls*, living things interact with both the psionic field and anima field, giving them a more complex astral imprint signature than say a hunk of iron, thus *life sign signature*, and can be scanned for down to the specific as well.
however the super power side of this and not just how scanners work side is that the combination of psionic and nima with the astral ripples the astral body producing two “mutations” one being a multi-dimensional distortion potential (AKA mana levels, how much you can distort the astral fields, it acts as an exotic force with a quantity and replishment levels within the astral field, and can be used to breach the astral and physical to produce strange phenomonon (AKA: magic),
now the powers side here is this all distorts your astral imprint, altering the astral quality which can in turn develop an alignment with other materials, energy, and such in the universe. For instance if your astral quality resembles the astral quality of fire, then its easier for you to use your multidimensional distortion potential to produce fire in the physical world (perform fire magic, thus a fire affinity, a natural pyromancer), however with training you can flex your astral body like your living body and align with the elements directly and treat them as an extension of yourself…thus pyro-kinesis. If its a strong enough or close enough alignment this can be done even without any multidimensional distortion potential because as far as the astral plane to physical plane connection is concerned you and the fire are the same thing so you have direct mental control over it as if it were just another part of your body.
that would be the basics of how that system works on Aesperia, and probably have this in some story somewhere as part of a classroom setting, but faster to just retype it out than hunt it down again.
In my story, there’s the Maelstrom, an infinite ever shifting mass of possibility. Our world is a bubble of finite possibility within it. After all, infinite possibility means that it must be possible to have limited possibility. So this bubble accretes layers of reality around it like heaven, hell, the faerie realms, fate, and other places. Sometime in antiquity, some genius cracked the barrier between finite and infinite and since then possibility leaks through. The problem is the more possibility smuggle into the world, the more those cracks spread and the more possibility spreads. Worse, there are beings which encourage humans to bust it apart from the inside with promises of ‘godhood’, which mean absolutely nothing in an infinite existence. So magic has to be covered up and controlled to prevent the world from dissolving in infinite possibility.
puts me in mind of Slayers and Madoka to some degree, the former that black magic exists as a gamble to help destroy the world and that the most powerful form of magic calls upon power directly from the Lord of Nightmares *who is the source of and is the sea of chaos and all reality, calling upon her power returns creation to oblivion*, and in madoka it speeds up the entropy of the universe.
Marvel movie writers, as limited by Marvel movie producers, are stupid.
“Magic is a high science that takes years or decades of study to use”, but magical plants and magical insects and magical animals instinctively know this “science… years… of study to use”. You might as well say humans had to study for generations to use tech X, but animal Y just knows this extremely complicated tech. Like television or steam power or metal forging.
I’ll tentatively add the other realms of the multiverse that likely lie outside of the 9 realms of Norse mythology, and the implication of the pre-Infinity gauntlet movie (that the realm of Asgard is actually just some distant point in this universe).
yeah the world building of the movies had some interference, especially early on with rules that while I know what they are and what they were going for, I don’t know why they had them in the first place. Those being that everything had to be sci-fi (why magic was nerfed to the point that Loki ends up so weak compared to wizards introduced in a later phase), gods become aliens, and those lines in the first two Thor movies and exposition that now are…ignored, rightfully so, but its still this inconsistency now.
heck they went out of their way when Thor came out to nix the early promotional material calling Thor the god of thunder to “Thor the mighty Avenger”…and then those lines about not being gods only for the third movie to lean into the gods stuff and now gods, magic, and such are just part of the MCU, and in a big way.
The comics have “too many chefs in the kitchen” while the movies have “what will the food critics say?”
but this is through Disney who had a cartoon about Hercules, fairy tales, magic…insisting there be no magic in the movies was…weird, and no gods…felt like an egg shell move (I think something else was going on in the news at this time for other series affecting this, but it was dumb).
world building gets really hard when you have these problems, but at least the MCU is finding some medium ground now and trying new things and seeing what sticks.
-honestly though the Thor and nine realms thing never even made since in the comics either as we had like twenty other dimensions through Dr. Strange, Fantastic Four, and others comics, aliens, etc…
*heck don’t think Shang-Chi’s magic world is one of the nine realms either (and like Asgard, even if it is rewritten that way it will just turn out to be another planet in space anyway like Asgard was*.
There are bacteria capable of plating single atom thick metals on surfaces, I forget the species but one I know of leaves behind copper or zinc.
Particle Man, Particle Man!
Does whatever a particle can!
yes, but he is at least a little…Plucky.
I wonder what Anvil is doing during all of this????
Mahogany Forklift (if Wingwoman didn’t scare her off by being too weird… :P )
As in her knee backs are just as sexy as Anvil’s? Just ask yellow glasses goatee guy!
The Superion particle is symbolized by a large X just like what is scarred right on Deus’s face.
Deus is the gift that keeps on giving!
Make sure you keep the receipt so you can return it!
The Superion Field being negatively charged would explain why Pander is so stuck on him. She’s positively glowing from the mere thought of contact.
I’m going to give you a slight applause for that subtle, brief pun instead of a ninja hit squad. Brevity is the soul of wit.
So excited!
Re Deus’s full name.
Somehow, I am not in the least bit surprised.
Just found this on Kickstarter. Thought about where I had seen “Tamer” as a title related to dinosaurs… Oh yeah, the side bar on this one comic I really enjoy! So… Here you go!
Tamer: King of Dinosaurs Book 8 — Ebook, print, and audio, via @Kickstarter https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/michaelscottearle/tamer-king-of-dinosaurs-book-8-ebook-print-and-audio?ref=android_project_share
Funny how quanum theory, which was supposed to describe particles, ended up being more complicated (electrons neutron s and protons.)
So, what’s next another sub quantum or meta field the describes what quantum packets are made of? From some of the experiments they’ve been finding particles act really strange when getting close to absolute zero and the expected feels combined strangely.
It kind of gives proof to the idea that God is a female. Oh no they’ve just about figured us out, let’s change the rules!
Saying “Deus might have a touch of megalomania” is like saying “Earth might have a touch of molten-hot magma.”
Re: dabbler vote pic.
You know in the ’80s shows, one of the things that women always did.
The toenail painting sleepover
Deus seems skilled at tweaking Maxima, and she keeps falling for it.
Says the one calling herself “Maxima”…
Blame her parents, and her last name is ‘Leander’
Is there a TIME-KNIFE?!?
We have:
enhanced physiques,
inertia manipulation,
motion manipulation,
gravity manipulation,
energy manipulation,
energy conversion,
alternate power sources,
temporal manipulation,
probability manipulation?
friction manipulation,
dimensional interactions/manipulation (1).
My idea for how this might work is: possibly each super is the 3-d aspect of a 4-/5-/6-d entity. In that case, then the powers are the range of effects that each “player” limits themselves to. (And, playing a super might be a reward for certain kinds of behaviors centuries, millennia, or deka-millennia ago. That would be hilarious – each past human’s player can earn super powers by playing “human” very well.)
—digression—
1 – that “key” item, that makes portals, acts either as a wormhole maker/maintainer (twice) or a cross-dimension portal maker (hearsay). In the both seen cases, it bypassed spatial distance constraints (either by design, or due to an extremely-folded universe (like the hyperbolic plane crocheting, but much, much more so; thus, making most points in their universe equivalent in some way).) Per the hearsay, the non-Prime planes are also accessible.
If each plane has that extremely folded aspect in some extra dimension, then their omniverse is an n-spatial trash compactor and each 3-space is a well crumpled ball. (Not 3 + time, but 3 known space and 3 extra space where ((oh, wow!) beyond crumpled balls) each 3-space is a point-sized object in a jumble of point-sized objects. I’m inclined to suggest 9-space, as I’m prone to requiring successive 3-spaces to have a defined length/volume/something, but 6-space may be all that’s needed. Like pages of a book, but each overlaying/”congruent with” the next (for a 4th spacial dimension). Take that to 3 extra dimensions, instead of 1, and you have something like grains of sand in a cup, with each grain overlaying/”congruent to” the next.
I like the idea of 3x 3-space enfolded by a 10th dimension, like triple points in a bubble, or wrapping up 3 crumpled aluminum balls and another sheet of foil and compacting the hell out of all of them. Gives support to the string/superstring theory component only holding true if there are ten dimensions. Also, look at the ancient “seed of life” emblem. It is supposedly either the graphical representation of the matrix of our spacetime, or a cross-section of DNA. Maybe both. As above – So Below.
Ah, yes, the “Dim Sum Special To Go” theory of the universe.
I think Max has been taking lessons from Sydney in cursing and has decided to make her version semi-logical.
Of course, that means she has now managed to successfully turn Zeus’ name into a curse without him catching on!
(Maybe without him catching on….un tres petit guache, n’est pas?)
I’m not sure Maxima should be judging anyone else’s name, considering her name is MAXIMA. :)
Also why was Dabbler acting like she told Deus that she won’t fill in the gaps, when Deus was the one to remind HER that she can’t fill in the gaps last page, and Dabbler was raising her hand begging on filling in those gaps? :)
She is a tease.
Plus Dabbler likes womansplaining.
True, but for her ‘Maxima’ is effectively a stage name – it may be the one most of the world knows her by, but she’s still Maximilia Leander on the paperwork. Deus is hinting that he discarded that separation, or that it never existed in the first place, and Maxima has taken his bait.
I keep getting confused on “are they working together” him going the “necessary evil” and maxima going the “lawful good” but in the end they are on the same page/project.
Quick question, has the big X scar on Deus’ face ever been explained yet? If so, where?
Not yet
Personal money on it being make-up
Punched by Max for trying out a Alpha male pickup line when he first met her.
It would be a helluva business card, but NGL, Apocalypse Dick as a surname kinda works. Also as a band name, I suppose.
And a highwayman to Hell.
The real reason Deus doesn’t call himself “Omni Super God Ultra Jesus ne plus Apotheosis Apocalypse Dick” is because his character creation windows didn’t allow that many letters.
Uhm, Deus “MIGHT” have a touch of megalomania?
I must admit my mind sort of got stuck on that statement/suggestion.
:D
A teeny smidgen.
Less than Sydney’s.
ITYM “Less than The Mighty Halo’s.”
The problem with this theory is that supers are supposed to be an Earth-only thing. And yeah, we’ve seen plenty of aliens with super-like abilities, but several of them used tech, and some of them could simply be alien and/or extraplanar physiology that seems pretty super to we poor hunams.
Given galactic population levels, Maxima blasting through a Fel carrier’s force field wouldn’t be a completely outrageous thing. And all those other pre-space flight planets would have their own supers which also qualified them for both ‘exception to the trade rules’ and ‘let’s exploit this’ status with the rest of the galaxy, or at least some rogue elements of same.
Oh, and supers wouldn’t be a new thing, either. They’d be scattered all throughout history. And not just a human thing, either. Plants and animals are in this field, too. And also rocks and oceans. You know, just like a plant or an animal can be killed by a lightning bolt, or rocks don’t float away unaffected by gravity? Any field that caused super humans would cause super other things also.
Because that’s the thing about quantum fields and universal laws of physics: They are universal! You won’t find supers only on Earth if being a super is enabled by some kind of cosmic field.
“Oh, and supers wouldn’t be a new thing, either. They’d be scattered all throughout history.”
They are. The difference is that they have become more common lately.
“You won’t find supers only on Earth if being a super is enabled by some kind of cosmic field.”
Fields do not necessarily have an effect on everything in them. For instance ferrous metals are affected by magnetic fields, whereas non-ferrous metals are not. So it is entirely plausible that there is something special about Earth, or humans, which allows some folks to have abilities which draw power from the field.