Grrl Power #1060 – Define “Trouble”
Four hours of flying and blasting is a pretty good workout for Max. It actually pushed her limits really hard at the time, and took her a few days to recover. Firing off about 900 energy blasts in that time frame really burned a lot of… superhero calories, or whatever they use. She had to eat a lot of Superion field afterwards. Or however that works. There are still plenty of mysteries left to solve.
Can Maxima get road rash? If she’s prioritizing flight and energy beams with her power pool and flying around in a 200 MPH sandstorm, then yeah. She can wind up not shiny for a few weeks. Also covered in little hair thin blue scabs for the first few days.
It really speaks to how distracted Max is that she’s just going to put “I trust you.” out there to Sydney. She does, honestly. Max knows Sydney isn’t going to intentionally cause an incident… probably. It’s just, when you’re in another country, and you are a weapon of mid-middle to lower-upper destruction, there are ways to get into a lot of trouble without meaning to real quick.
FYI:
Lower-Low Class Destruction is “You call that Destruction?”
Middle-Lower is “Woo Hoo! That Done Blowed Up Real Good Destruction”
Upper-Lower is “Oh Damn! Everybody Scatter Destruction”
Lower-Mid is “A Whole Lotta Destruction”
Middle-Mid is “A Heapin’ Helping of Destruction”
Upper-Mid is “Soooo, So Much Destruction”
Lower-Upper is “I’d Be Impressed if I Wasn’t So Horrified At All This Destruction”
Middle-Upper is “Despite My Horror, I am Super Impressed By All This Destruction”
Upper-Upper is “Mass Destruction”
I looked at Afghanistan on google world before drawing this page, and no joke, the country is like 90% sand and mountains. It’s like the western, tail end of the Himalayas. It’s like all low, sandy mountains, then one big blob of desert in the south. Really not an ideal place to fight a sand-based supervillain.
The June Vote Incentive is up! What’s that dripping down Sydney’s face? Uh… well, actually, clicking on the link won’t actually give it away necessarily, cause the thumbnail is from one of the, er, advanced pictures in the series, if you take my meaning. Yes, I mean there is a nude version of Sydney (and guest) over at the Patreon version.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Really hope she’s not going to try sucking him through the causeway, she’s been warned that Nth-tech is going to draw unwanted attention. But still has been using it casually for grakz runs and putting Kevin in his place.
Personally hoping she’s going to do a couple flybys at Mach 16 and scatter him to the 4 winds, sonic boom damage to the nearby buildings notwithstanding.
If I remember correctly, the Causeway doesn’t become an option until you are some distance into space… as in WAY outside an atmosphere.
Except for Destination Beatdown.
She used it on the ground against Vehemence in a sparring match.
She was able to open the Causeway within Earth’s atmosphere at least twice before.
Once when she went to get Neil DeGrasse Tyson some Grakz from Fracture Station, and once during the sparring match against Vehemence.
And such will likely make LOTS of people VERY nervous.
Anyone in the US who watched Robotech knows what happens when you mess up folding space in an atmosphere over an inhabitable planet. And even the SDF-1’s um, ill advised’ jaunt’ didn’t do as much damage as it COULD have.
I asked my physicist Uncle what could have happened and he just looked and me and said ‘bad things’.
’nuff said.
yeah but those are man sized quantum-tunnels or neutrino gates upscaled so humans can bypass *usually*,
and require insane magnitudes of energy to pull off or produce little event horizons so hot they can ignite the atmosphere like an energy pinch point exciting atoms.
there are ways around that, and a 4th tier civilization no doubt has ways in spades. The Aethereum causeway seems to be a cheat tunnel even by functional wormhole standards. Able to not only bypass physical space but also bypass quantum foam fluctuations *gravity wells and the like bending space its self*, so not just “bending space” but moving outside of it entirely.
so (beyond human comprehension) like imaginary light or computers that run on chronotons or something equally absurd to ordinary physics.
-after all if the orbs have the same source as the new quantum field in this setting, then its a species able to not only manipulate physics but create their own and overlay them into the substrate of the reality code…
tier 5 at a minimum *a high 4 maybe, but by definition there is a difference between hacking physics to produce results that wouldn’t naturally occur but still could -synthetic forces and particles- and something able to make their own quantum field with its own properties.
(of course the possibility of more than one high end species being involved in this setting is always possible).
that said, the gate is unusual regardless. As even imagining an external presence in reality would conclude pushing the quantum foam away from that space resulting in intense expressions (when thinking up my Amana extra-universal species and what would happen if they entered a universe that they were not part of its quantum field and in fact could push the field away from them as they moved through it, what could happen under such conditions.
but this causeway seems to have safeties in place, and its edges give off a prismatic effect so it could be cycling the multi-space around it. of course a general rule of “don’t touch the edge” should probably still be in effect.
I’m assuming Sydney’s Aetherium Causeways have similar safeties in place like a wormhole in Stargate/Stargate SG-1/Stargate Atlantis.
In Stargate, the atmosphere itself does not go through the stargate unless actively pushing through the event horizon of the stargate. This has been shown to be the case multiple times in both all 3 Stargate TV shows (SG-1, Atlantis, and Universe).
In Atlantis and Universe, there have been Stargates that lead into the vacuum of space – which the Puddlejumper spaceships are used for generally. Atlantis and SG-1 also both created a gate system between the Milky Way Galaxy and the Pegasus Galaxy by putting a series of stargates between those two galaxies using the Daedelus, and putting a ‘Midway Station’ in the center. The end stargates then lead to in-atmosphere stargates…. and there was no explosive decompression because the vacuum stays on one side of the event horizon.
In another episode of Stargate SG-1, the Russians open a stargate wormhole to a planet where the stargate is under water. The water does not go through the stargate, even when it’s opened from the waterworld side, because (as Samantha Carter explained) while there’s pressure on the event horizon, the Stargate is constructed to prevent casual crossover. It’s also why pressure differentials do not seem to effect the other side of a stargate. They need to be actively pushing through – the only examples where stuff goes through the stargate WITHOUT actively pushing through the event horizon that have been shown so far are:
1) Radio and video signals
2) The gravitational pull and time distortions caused from a black hole (only because the intense amount of gravity apparently overwhelms the Stargate’s safety protocols constructed by the Ancients). Sydney’s Aetherium Causeway seems to have similar safeties in place which CAN keep this from happening, although Altus showed Sydney how to ‘theoretically’ turn that safety off and on again.
Of course, if one wanted to modify a planet, say by adding water, then the safeties would just be in the way.
Those Causeways seem more similar to a Colony Wars Jump Gate, able to cover massive distances without endangering the local atmosphere or caring about nearby gravity wells, and would only let specific things through, like the ship that opened it. If you didn’t meet the criteria, you just passed through the gate as if it weren’t there.
In Sydney’s case the Causeway seem to have the criteria of, “No pressure or free-flowing gases allowed.” However, I can’t say I know if water would meet said criteria since we have yet to see the causeway opened underwater. But seeing as it didn’t create a giant vortex when opened in-atmo into vacuum, I’d hazard a guess d say it does not allow water either.
Of course Jump Gates also have a small chance of failing, which leaves you stranded in a sub dimension which is a horrible place to be until you can open another jump gate to GTFO. Might be something similar here.
The only thing the Atherium Causeway is missing is a local gravity field that suck you in if you’re too close, and it would be essentially indistinguishable from a Jump Gate.
Of course Jump Gates have a limited range and can’t accommodate any starship bigger than a small destroyer, useful for interplanetary travel but not system-wide, so it’s obviously superior in that regard.
it is worth noting the safeties are programmed into the dial up device (and the ring) and are modifiers the Alterans (AKA Ancients) added to their wormholes rather than an innate aspect of them. We even get to see different types of Star Gates from different time periods.
Star Gate command was able to bypass these safeties to get a lock (thus leading to a few disaster scenarios),
and we can ascertain certain things passed through as a programmed in exceptions (like radio waves). Although one would think a clearance was in place *after all burying the star gates apparently made them unable to be locked onto…yet the Iris didn’t activate this same safety feature causing multiple deaths *could be argued the gates won’t lock if something more solid than gas or liquid is inside the ring (although that doesn’t stop the sploosh from erasing anything it hits while forming…this effect seems to be a major oversight to be honest/ But given other Ancient tech is in keeping with their minimal safety effort history.
all that said the Aethereum Causeway aside from being a free floating portal does have another advantage, no distance limit. The Star Gates required more power to lock on more distant targets otherwise needing a relay of Gates *like the system set up between Pegasus and Milky Way*.
I would worry about sub-space entities given this Aethereum may be used for other purposes as well, “manipulate the Aethereum” as another form of sub-space or external space; like the Astral Plane having eldritch horrors and so on, as its not just a window from point A to point B.
-honestly any portal system where you spend any time inside this other dimension rather than just instant across space isn’t a true Einstein Rosen Bridge but a sub-space corridor, and no telling what may be passing by wandering what is traveling through.
-best case: Babylon 5 setting *which sadly wasn’t explored very often as the series ended, but we saw land masses and giant jellyfish that hump star ships inside hyperspace*,
-worst case: Nightcralwer, Event Horrizon, Warhammer….its a hell dimension. Of course when your series has demons already may have to amp that up from standard Hell to Bayonetta and above surreal nightmare dimensions…
-or the opposite and it goes through glowy super space where curious beyond reality celestial beings/life forms may hitch a ride into physical space and cause chaos (even if unintentional)
*Farscape had a worm hole worm, others have had reality bending small animals, trickster like gods, etc… or Deep Space Nine’s wormhole dwelling know it alls.
C’mon, you’re expecting there to be consequences for irresponsible behavior? ARCHON is all about irresponsible behavior, because this is perceived to be humorous, and there are never consequences.
That’s really your issue with the comic, isn’t it? The place it falls on the serious-silly axis seems to bother a number of people, but the problem is they don’t all agree on the direction it should go.
Those who do not realize that silly and serious are equal have never been in government service.
As a writer it’s up to the writer on what and where his or her plot goes not the reader. If a reader doesn’t like the story they should go read something they like instead of moaning about things they can’t change.
The causeways don’t “suck” anything it’s a door not a vacuum she’d have to have a way to force him into it. And for some odd reason I don’t think she could use the lighthook like she did with Kevin.
Hmm. what would happen to all that sand were it sucked into one spot? Say caused by a mach 20 flying woman whipping up a tornado vortex? Would certainly make for an easy target.
So of note, if she opens an Aethereum Cuaseway (still not sure why this wasn’t an issue in the sparring match with Dabbler and the new to the team alien mercenary there), with all these Alari and especially Demons around; she will be letting the glowing three eyed cat from beyond the multiverse out of the bag that she has Nth tech.
-the Causeway is what clued Cora to the orbs being Nth tech and not just magic orbitals (which we know from Zeph that magical orbitals exist as he has things like the orbs but not the orbs specifically in the sense of floating around the user and do stuff).
Additionally, this page does confirm that Darude is a sandkinetic specifically and not a full Silicokinetic as he can’t control the glass as well…and apparently can’t even grind up the rocks to make new sand…unusual that someone who seems to be an S class sand manipulator can’t do that…may have to downgrade that to A class as he may be more range than power.
“the Causeway is what clued Cora to the orbs being Nth tech”
Actually it was Sydney who surmised it might be Nth tech and Cora went along with the idea that it might be. :)
Cora lead her on, told her about the different civilizations tiers (as defined in this universe), and her statement about no body finding Nth tech before all implied she was talking about the orbs while also testing this person she never met before to gauge her reaction.
*honestly we the audience *sort of know* Sidney doesn’t know, but in-universe her actions, while clueless could easily be misread by any number of individuals as her being a Nth level being messing with them.
this page, pay attention to what Cora says, she is leading up to it, seems to be seeing how Sidney reacts.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-689-customs-conundrum/
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-690-gotterdammermcguffins/
PS: that second link makes me ponder if Dabbler has said anything or Sidney told anyone because her using that Causeway in the Vehemence sparring sessions, right in front of the alien mercenary still boggles me given the whole (intergalactic war over them possibility floating as an option).
That second link is the one I was thinking of when I posted what I posted.
Cora had not actually considered that Sydney’s orbs might be Nth tech until Sydney mentioned the possibility. There was a definite difference in her concern between panel 3 and panel 5, before and after Sydney’s theory about the orb’s Nth tech status.
Cora was already saying the orbs were doing stuff that no known tech could do. It seems like she was leading up it.
Oooh… Fly ball. With the wormhole generator. Suck him out into deep space. Max has a breathing mask…
Max is wearing a filtration mask clearly, but could easily outfly the causeway’s space suction though, so still good either way, but that’s obviously not an O2 mask. :-P
they do have filtration masks that have an O2 reserve.! and for Max it would make sense to have a O2 reserve..
Looks like Maxima’s and Daruda’s first battle was right here: https://www.google.nl/maps/@34.4524521,68.3495963,3a,64.9y,293.64h,95.48t/data=!3m8!1e1!3m6!1sAF1QipMtbet5fEawa7ZmV91OfJTBFb3LF24uUc1utHg9!2e10!3e11!6shttps:%2F%2Flh5.googleusercontent.com%2Fp%2FAF1QipMtbet5fEawa7ZmV91OfJTBFb3LF24uUc1utHg9%3Dw203-h100-k-no-pi-20-ya1.0000116-ro-0-fo100!7i4608!8i2304
You sir. HOW THE HELL were you able to find it?!
Afghanistan really doesn’t have much street-view coverage. Just try out some of the more remote bits, and you’ll find it easily.
How the fuck did you find that.
you win the comment section today.
I am impressed.
I bow before your googlejitsu. No clue how you chased that down in this lifetime.
I concur with the earlier commenters!
Now seriously, which method did you use to find the/this location?
I think many people would like to get an understandable/easy description.
Thanks beforehand!
Hells Bells, that is definitely it, right down to the clouds in the sky.
“Rises from seat. turns to face Vidar and applauds vigorously”
“Vidar, you are hereby presented with the Nobel Search Prize for outstanding use of google-fu, congratulations.”
“Approaches Vidar and loops Nobel medal around his neck”
“Vidar, the podium is yours.”
Yells loudly “Hooray, speech, speech, speech”
Nice.
/bow
Oh snap, I think we’re going into space guys!
If Sydney turns the land to glass, will that cause an international incident?
My thought indeed, but it doesn’t seem she is going for that orb
Why do I feel like she is going to try a very tight high speed flight, to do a vortex of her own?
Either increase the speed so he loses control. Or countering his vortex so everything wants to settle.
You know… the easiest solution would probably be to just flood him out.
link the wormhole to any large body of water, and just dump it all on him. The tricky part would be deciding whether to use saltwater or fresh…. Saltwater is easy. Europa or Earth has entire oceans of it. Freshwater…. biggest source is probably the great lakes, but it would be a little too risky that you might catch a civilian boat if you started to drain it.
Just go to the bottom. Lake Superior contains 2900 cubic miles of water, even a cubic mile from the deeps won’t disturb the surface much.
And she’d only need a few hundred cubic meters at most. A cubic mile, 27,848,400 cubic feet of water, is a lot of water.
A large cavitation bubble to ef up one area and a flash flood to ef up another.
Or if she can scoop or suction drop as much of him into the ocean. Less chance of causing an ecological disaster that way.
no, just no. that would kill people who cannot fly away and damage/destroy every building in the area. all that water has to go somewhere. it will also not go alone, it will drag the sand, dust, cars, dead bodies, bits of buildings with it at least for a while. I’m sure Dues has appropriate storm drains, but this is not a rainforest. they are not big enough for a sudden deluge of water on this scale.
Except Sydney can’t make wormholes to wherever, only those already available on the fly orb. (Well, she could try to set some new co-ordinates, but considering she doesn’t really have a clue how that works, the results might be… unpleasant? So far we’ve only seen her use the one to The Fracture.
Plus, as people have mentioned before, the Xevoarchy now knows somebody’s using Aetherion tech…
Not sure she can move environment with the gate. Or she would be sucking atmosphere every time she uses it.
Afghan truck drivers paint, or hire people to paint, forest and river valley scenes on their trucks.
It shows they know what they’re missing IMHO.
https://gocomics.typepad.com/the_sandbox/2007/05/the_most_colorf.html
https://www.fastcompany.com/3037627/a-jingle-truck-artist-brings-the-mobile-art-of-pakistan-to-america
Trap the bad guy and Maxima inside her force field (and her and everyone else outside of it, naturally).
Then he has a much more limited supply of sand to play with. Max glasses the desert under their feet… reducing the supply even further. Then the fight is over in minutes instead of hours.
Sydney can not form Mr Buble without her in the middle!!
the perfect plan, trap yourself inside a blender.
that is what she would be doing. She has to be inside the forcefield, and sand blasting around at high speed can strip your flesh off.
Max literally blew a limb of a powered up Vehemence.
And caught a bullet mid flight.
A doubt Darude is very resilient if he can not hide behind a Kilometer of sand and wind. He would be dead the millisecond the first grain was moving into Sidneys direction.
I like other’s thoughts on using the wormhole without safeties to get a gravity well, or vacuum that would suck the sand out of the sky.
The other, less complicated one, would be to simply fly in, drop then enable shield in it’s largest form, cutting off a chunk of sand and fly away with it before flying back. This would have to presume that 1. Darude’s control of sand can’t penetrate her shield (it possibly could since he apparently IS the sand) and 2. Sydney might actually get the concious portion of him and suddenly she’s trapped with him inside her shield.
A less risky way would be to simply get under him with her shield at maximum size and cut him off from the sand beneath, if her shield is large enough. It also allows Max to fire directly down, through the larger mass of sand at the shield without damaging the ground or nearby infrastructure. Sydney, in the meantime, is free to shoot her beam or the fireballs directly up.
That we haven’t seen in a while? Sydney’s legendary cussing ability…
I wonder just how much you can antagonize darude by using involving a space Woof.
“First glassing?”
That’s what just came to mind.
Upper-Upper is”Syndey forgot her pills” level!
Radioactive glass made by nukes is labeled “Trinitite” Would her purple glass products be called “Maxemite”? And would it also have any dangerous attributes? (other than possibly being knapped into glass knives for unholy magic rituals)
Careful, Sydney… while opening up a causeway from an atmosphere into space is probably a great way of sucking up supervillains, dumping a load of sand and a guy capable of controlling it within flying range of Fracture Station could very well cause an INTERPLANETARY incident.
Also noting that “I’d Be Impressed if I Wasn’t So Horrified At All This Destruction” is BELOW “Despite My Horror, I am Super Impressed By All This Destruction”.
Maybe one of the destinations she learned from her space trip was basically Arrakis?
Or she could just open to the Alari homeworld- it’s been trashed already.
“Hey, want some sand? Go get it!”
I just love Sydney’s expression in the final panel.
why am i reminded of the scene in american outlaws behind the wagon when they ask for a diversion and jesse smile, and the rest go,, is he smiling,, thats never a good thing
What is Parfait holding?!?
Which panel?
In the first it’s her camera, in the second last it’s her hair
a pondering.
The Xevoarchy now knows there is an Aethereum causeway that frequented Fracture station and caught that it goes to Earth.
no doubt they would then station a few space cops over Earth to then secretly monitor for when an Aethereum causeway appears on Earth. If Sidney opens one now they will detect it in Galtyn, an area that has demons, Alari, and possibly tech even more advanced that what the Alari had (Deus has been buying the latest stuff at Fracture, and the Alari were just over tier 1 and not a member of the Xevoarchy “alliance of worlds”. So chances are he is using stuff even more advanced than what they had.
the Xevoarchy may (this is conjecture) gotten wind of sales on Fracture of high end equipment on Fracture by a human, but no indication of the stuff passing through customs.
if this has been detected they may correctly assume the stuff is being back door portaled to Earth, but incorrectly believe Sidney is doing it.
granted that also leads to another confusion for them…if Earth can make an Aethereum causeway, why would they need all this stuff (someone may suspect Earth is like the Organians *advanced but pretending to not be)
or else conclude that some advanced species is trying to uplift Earth without the Xevoarchy’s knowledge.
(they may not be entirely wrong there, just looking at the wrong suspects).
“Nothing but sand and mountains” Also sounds like a fairly descent amount of western Texas, most of New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah.
I can think of two ways right off the bat for taking him down a peg or two, dabbler can cast a firestorm with the big guys help and turn the area to glass or summon rain to turn it into mud.
…Well, making Zs has gotten REALLY awkward lately. Zorro is quite annoyed.
If you want to bring real life physics in that fight – realistically the biggest problem after sand in the lungs is seeing for max – the mask should be completely opaque from all the sandblasting at this point.
There’s her tactile forcefield, remember. It extends to anything she’s wearing and it took a fairly high-yield explosive to even damage it during the restaurant fight.
I’m pretty sure she’s gonna seal him inside her shield to cut off his access to sand so Maxima can deal with him without the sand “regen.”
Like she did against Kevin at the restaurant. She has a rebreather in her utility belt as well to protect her lungs.
People need to stop suggesting this.
1: She has to be inside the shield, she is the center of it.
2: She can’t shield in the shield so Maxima’s heat would kill her.
and
3: He is made of sand, she would be trapping herself with him and his sand and…
cut to 52 seconds into this video showing someone carving stone with a sandblaster and guess how well Sidney’s flesh would do against concentrated blasts of sand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVGt1nIyN3o
is even worse here as this isn’t micro grains and in all directions.
She would effectively be trapping herself inside a blender.