Grrl Power #1080 – Nitrogenerator
Sydney’s reaction here is because her Trope Savvy brain is starting to realize the potential of the Atmorb<sup>TM</sup>. There’s still a shitload to learn about it. Can it create just gasses? Can it create any element on the periodic table? Can it create isotopes? It seems to be able to create a mix of gasses, because presumably when she’s used it for life support, it output an Earth Atmosphere mix; roughly 78% nitrogen, 20% oxygen, 2% other stuff.
Even if it can only create… I almost typed in “Noble Gasses” then decided to double check, and realized that Nitrogen is not, in fact, a noble gas. It is extremely nonreactive though. I’d always assumed it was noble because of that. Apparently it’s just an “Other Nonmetal.” Honestly, the periodic table really tweaks my OCD. The column of Noble Gasses is nice, and next to it is the Halogens, but then there’s Hydrogen, which is an Other Nonmetal, but it’s hanging out way over on the other side of the chart from the regular wedge of Other Nonmetals. Next to that is sort of a diagonal line of Metalloids, but part of it is diagonal, and part of it is down one then over one, like a Bishop and Knight were taking turns leaving tracks for hunters to follow. If Aluminum and Polonium were Metalloids, it’d be a lot cleaner, but it’s like God got distracted halfway through organizing it. (Here’s a pic of the table so you don’t have to google it.)
I changed Sydney’s exclamation like six times while I was drawing the page. It started off as “Holy fuck tunnels” but while that’s about as funny sounding to me as the other things I came up with, I started to think that maybe it’s slightly too rude? Like, Sydney’s cursing is intended to be amusing, improbable and slightly non-sequitur, but “fuck tunnel” kind of sounds like something a dude would call a chick in a porno while he’s slapping her face. I dunno, I probably over thought it. But then, “fuck bubbles” sounds potentially a lot grosser, like, if you think about it too hard, and that makes it slightly funnier to me.
The August Vote Incentive is still up! As usual, the new one is technically finished, but I don’t have a clothed version yet. I should have it up with the Monday comic.
I’m a big fan of John Byrne’s run on “The Sensational She Hulk” and the imminent show looks very Sensational influenced. Therefore, I was inspired to draw some buff (pun intended) She Hulk, and threw in Red She Hulk for fun. Also, a wild Sydney for scale. Enjoy them posing in various outfits and lack thereof over at Patreon.
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.
Hooooly fuck bubbles indeed
Buck Fubbles would be a fun OC name
Hydrogen is only over on the left because of traditional bullshit and “top left is where you start”. Really, it should be above Fluorine. That’s the column with 1 unpaired electron in the outer shell. Excluding hydrogen from the halogens is just historical bias.
It depends on what you are reacting the hydrogen with. The halogens have space for one more electron, which they often do by swiping one from a metal. Hydrogen can do this, but more often than not the hydrogen is the electron donor, like the alkali metals it is often drawn as part of, but it really is not part of that group either as some other properties are different.
Hydrogen is a “yes, but no” case with that. One unpaired electron in the outer shell is actually the leftmost row, the alkali metals. The halogens all have one ‘missing spot’ in their outer shells. Because hydrogen’s only shell is the 1S orbital, both of those are technically true for it.
As the first electron shell only has 2 electrons Hydrogen swings both ways, it can provide (as in H2O) or take an electron (as in Lithium Hydride, LiH)
Not quite. Monoatomic Hydrogen has metallic properties. It can have a +1 or -1 charge. It is a pain in the arse.
And despite that, if you ask an astronomer, Hydrogen is the only non-metal in existence ;)
No, helium isn’t a metal either.
Ummm nope.. It’s exactly where it’s supposed to be the way the system is set up..
H has one electron in the shell. He the second, filling the shell.
Since the first shell only carries two electrons, that’s it for the row.
So H goes on the left, He on the right.
Simples.
To a degree, yes. Just like the alkali metals, it has one outer s electron, which is why it’s frequently placed over that column. But when you look at the properties, hydrogen doesn’t fit in either the halogens or the alkali metals, so having it standalone is probably the best option.
Though I agree that, if it’s shoehorned into the main table, above the halogens is better than above the alkali metals.
I’ve seen a version of the table that put H in the normal place, then had a dotted-line box over by He, with H in it as well, to indicate its dual-nature.
I’ve seen it with the H box in literally both places as well, but apparently that version has gone away in the last 40 years.
Hydrogen is a metal when placed under conditions that do not exist on earth
One wonders what a periodic table would look like if developed by aliens that live in high pressure, and/or x-low temperature.
well thats one helluvan extinguisher.
Also makes it one helluvan the opposite of that. She could as easily send a blast of oxygen or hydrogen. The question being, does the orb manufacture what she needs, or does it filter a ‘perfect mix’ from the available local atmosphere? Also, can she send out a cloud of methane (chemical compounds rather than just atomic elements)? Gasoline fumes? Powdered white phosphorus? Can she attenuate the streams, so maybe send a narrow jet at a target? How about generate two streams and create a giant welding torch with some pewpew orb mojo?
So many questions. Can she manufacture what she needs in space? Can she filter seawater for any element? Manufacture any element? What is the purity of what the orb produces? Because if it produces a something like 99.9999% pure or better, she can manufacture ultra-pure grade scientific research chemicals, some of which would have vast application in the various military sciences. And other benefits to Humanity.
If she just manufactured a blast of nitrogen, there should also be a displacement shockwave at one atmospheric pressure for an equal volume of existing atmosphere.
If she just filtered out concentrated nitrogen from the existing atmosphere, she would also be venting a nitrogen-depleted exhaust ,,, ummm .. somewhere? Locally, like right behind her, could be inconvenient if something was on fire behind her and suddenly got washed over with a wave of oxygen-enriched atmosphere.
So. Many. Questions.
Oh, yeah. And, speaking of weaponizing her orbs …. let us take a moment to admire the beauty of this thought:
> Accomplishment Unlocked :
> “flinging flash-point shrapnel all over the place”
Anywhere in the universe that Sydney is near sand, she can recreate this effect at nearly any scale (1 meter across, three miles across, who cares?). Then detonate the glass shrapnel around a target, or direct it at a target, with one of several possible combination of orb abilities. Imagine using the lighthook to embed itself with a ton of glass shrapnel, then fling it at a target, or wrap it around a target.
This has been a fascinating battle sequence to demonstrate possibilities. And now she’s more or less certain to get at least one pip as an upgrade from this adventure.
Very nice eye, in panel 6. Eyes are so hard. It’s a beautiful one. I like.
This feels like more of that intuition on the Orb’s operation taking place here. If that centre piece really is an upgrade to image knowledge of the Orb’s then I would prioritise it over even the Shield orb upgrades.
I’m Sorry, is that Obama as a farmer. Not trying to be racist, just thinking that would be peek wordplay.
Guy literally looks nothing like Obama apart from being of African descent.
They look about as much alike as Kevin Sorbo and Donald Trump.
Actually now that I read that, I sort of see a slight resemblance and cant stop seeing it now, dangit. :)
Donald Sorbo and Kevin Trump
haha :)
Just how the flock do I comment on the intuition of the Orb’s operation and get a chain of responses about the farmer somehow looking like Obama?
This place is just magical that way.
So not only did she figure out she can change the composition of gasses it emits, but also that she can direct it as a stream (since before in the swimming pool it just generated a bubble around her and I’d expect her experimenting with it within the shield would have let her know if it just refreshed the air around her or created wind inside her dome).
She was already able to direct it as a stream. Remember when she pranked Harem in the pool?
I thought that was just air rising in water like normal, not directed. I mean, it could have been directed in the same direction it would have went but would be hard to tell.
No, check it out. Here’s the link.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-543-elimination-speculation/
(last panel)
She’s directing it upwards.
But in the other time that she used it, it went around HER, apparently the ‘normal’ function for it, and didn’t rise.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-541-bubble-untrouble/
(last panel)
In short, she’s capable of directing it and has been since she first discovered what the orb does in general.
That has some unsettling implications
Indeed. If she uses her own oxygen mask again she could bubble people and suffocate them.
without them realizing it early enough to react. Time for ArcGrimDark?
That isn’t that giant an improvement in abilities given she already has the ability to deep space people TBH. I suspect with a proper diagnosis of what each symbol, she could do some scary chemical reactions.
Imagine using the atmorb as a flamethrower…
Flamethrower, nothing.
Flamethrowers are ‘pay attention to me’ weapons.
Someone who can fill an area with, say, chlorine gas? Or phosgene?
I mean, why go half-measures? How about pure Florine? Or dioxygen difluoride? (Not sure if that’s a gas – not sure if it matters either, as it reacts explosively to itself when treated roughly, like say heating it above 90K.)
Dioxygen difluoride is solid, and is so reactive that it will quickly decompose at room temp.
So Sydney would most likely have to be very close to ground zero to apply the solid before it becomes just free fluoride and oxygen gas.
Also, one method to make it requires temps < 100 Kelvin. Another involves almost 1000 Kelvin, then rapid cooling with LOx.
It's doubtful the Orb will allow anything like that to be made.
Isn’t that the stuff that sets fire on fire?
What is being referred to here, DiOxygen DiFlouride, also known whimsically as FOOF by those individuals who refer to it at all due to the molecular structure (technically it is (FO)2 or FO=OF, hence the nickname) is technically not combustible. No, that would be too easy. It’s an oxidizing agent, which is to say it really encourages combustion to happen around it, and can permit the combustion of things one would not normally think is combustible by lowering the flash point of the substance until it reaches ambient temperature.
There’s a series of articles called ‘Things I won’t Work With’, do a google search with that phrase and ‘FOOF’ and you should get the article he wrote on the topic. I believe the phrase ‘Sand won’t save you this time’ will also pull up the article. While there, look up another article in the series related to Chlorine Triflouride, which is similarly feisty and a better oxidizing agent than oxygen itself.
Because you generally can’t aim chemical weapons.
actualy there are alot of poisonous gas she could create to covertly taker down poeple,, or she could turn into a knockoff spleen :)
It doesn’t even have to be poison gas; lock someone in a room full of only helium, they pass out, then suffocate.
And sound funny while screaming for help!
Pray that Sydney never finds the “Things I Won’t Work With” blog.
Well since the Atmo Ball affects the atmosphere around it, wouldn’t that also include the humidity?
And if it does shouldn’t it also be able to extract water out of the atmosphere, which would at least help keep the user hydrated.
I don’t think it could pull enough water out of the air to put out a fire, unless it’s somewhere very humid.
Unless the Atmo-Sphere creates the gases. Even if it’s just limited to elemental gases, hosing down an area with Fluorine is pretty bad.
Still, Sydney got Airbending (sort of) out of it.
Imagine if she could generate ClF3 (chlorine trifluoride) as well. She’d be able to burn concrete, gravel, even asbestos.
Sydney’s sometimes smarter than me. Also, good luck setting it back to exactly Earth Atmo.
It probably has a simple reset to current atmosphere.
If nothing else, it already has an automatic “save my stupid user” setting that comes on automatically, like when she was in the pool trying it out long ago.
It may have been the last setting like with the FTL history
Doesn’t she still have the temperature problem mentioned in the previous strip?
If the area is blanketed in an (almost) inert gas, temperature won’t really matter, as there won’t be oxygen to burn.
Or breathe.
Yes but she’s not going to stick around holding that cloud of nitrogen in place. As soon as she walks away then regular air will start mixing back in.
Yes, though nitrogen only is denser than regular air. She could solve both problems at once if she made it cold nitrogen air or even liquid nitrogen. I’ve never heard of anyone putting out a fire with liquid nitrogen so I’m not quite sure what would happen.
The potential problem of that is rapid cooling of a vitreous material.
Ever see what happens to a ceramic cookpot when taken from a hot oven and dumped into cold water?
Now instead of superheated air, we have supercooled shrapnel! Isn’t science fun!
Not quite… The liquid N2 would just skitter off the surface in lots of very, very cold droplets due to the adiabatic expansion on the surface where the two meet.
It would drive off any oxygen eventually, but not after causing a bit of havoc
The temperature differential is just too great.. You already get it when pouring liquid nitrogen on a surface at room temperature ( pretty common classroom trick… ) , let alone glowing hot rock…
If you’d use enough of the stuff to let the mass overcome the pressure of evaporation… You’d get a rapidly expanding cloud of nitrogen carrying a nice collection of obsidian shardlets with it..
Letting stuff burn out and cool down naturally is a safer bet..
Following the liberation of Kuwait, there was an attempt to put out the oil well fires using liquid nitrogen. I think it worked, but turned out not to be very efficient.
Take holy water and add bubble juice.
Blow a bunch of bubbles.
Run around naked popping bubbles with your dick.
That would make you a holy bubble fucker, yes, but still wouldn’t involve a holy fuck bubble. Perhaps if a bukkake recipient blew a bubble with her lips while being blessed by a priest? Literally a bubble of fuck made holy?
Or if the value of the sex worker trade at the Vatican became artificially inflated. Or, maybe, pneumatic butt implants in a nun.
I think Mr Farmer has no idea what she is saying
I like his complete deadpan expression there. To me, it says: “You made this mess, you’re fixing it.”
To me it says “fuckin’ white people”, but I might be influenced by the news. Again.
Key point here, is that this is another spot where Sydney were moments from blowing herself up.
As she might as well have blown oxygen or hydrogen at the fire.
As someone who works in the field of industrial gases, I’ve been trained to be rightfully scared of breathing pure nitrogen (or even just high nitrogen concentrations). Sydney and her new farmer friend would be unconscious within 1-2 breaths of pure nitrogen, and so this new ability strikes fear into my heart (since it seems to literally substitute the existing atmosphere with the gas, rather than simply add to it).
Sydney can already kill people by:
Shielding up and ramming them at speed,
Dumping them in interstellar space (given appropriate coordinates),
Wrapping the lighthook around their neck, lifting them and letting them do the Tyburn jig,
The Forb (gratuitous conflagration is a no brainer),
And now the atmosphere orb.
Put a silver ankh around her neck, she is death incarnate. Somewhere the Grrlverse’s equivalent of Batman has stopped obsessing about how to take down Maxima, and is now working out how to neutralise The Mighty Halo.
Batman would just take his shirt off.
Meh, At the most basic, a large enough plastic bag would be effective. Mittens. rapid acting gasses. high velocity rounds. Cut off her hands. She’s powerful but far from challenging under any non-shielded circumstance. And even then you just bounce Dabbler’s tits at her until she’s tranced out enough she drops the shield orb/falls asleep and the orbs deactivate/runs out of air
Think three steps ahead
1) Smile and jingle your car keys
2) Drop your car keys
3) While she’s thinking about car keys, cars, dropping things, and what happens when you drop a car off of a bridge, and that she’s got to go back and see how that bridge they rebuilt after that big battle at the restaurant is doing, and by the way… you blow her head off. Problem solved.
Ah you misunderstood. This doesn’t change her deadliness. I’m commenting that very few people understand the true dangers of breathing non-air. This action of creating a bubble of pure nitrogen could kill her in a single breath. She knows that the PPO is dangerous, but I highly doubt she understands the dangers of inert non-air gases.
As for an interactive periodic table, I like ptable.com. I use it with a lot of my chemistry students, especially during distance learning, when my student is sitting in front of a computer anyway.
This one has the advantage that it shows the correct names for UnunTrium, Ununpentium, Ununseptium and Ununoctium. (113, 115, 117 and 118)
But it does not show the correct number for unobtanium. :(
√((π÷0)×∞)
Sydney could easily KO or kill people with that, depending on ventilation and whatnot.
I wonder if the atmorb can also absorb gasses as well. Could it absorb chlorine/tear gas to detoxify an area, or absorb CO2 to solve global warming?
Just to add: the nitrogen-only atmosphere is very dangerous to humans. Our body can’t detect oxygen levels in our bloods, it just detect the acidity created by the dissolved CO2, which causes us to want to breathe and the suffocation feeling if can’t get it out of our system. However, if you are in oxygen-free air but there is no CO2 either, then you can just casually breathe, feel nothing bad, and suddenly become light-headed, sleepy, unconscious and dead in ten-ish minutes. Without realizing anything is wrong. This works for every non-poisonous gas, too: you can easily suffocate in hydrogen, helium and so on. As long as your body can get out the CO2, you would suffocate without realising what is going on.
And this is another reason why CO (carbon monoxide) is very dangerous: it LOVES the haemoglobin in our blood. It loves it so much that once CO binds to it, it is extremely hard to get it out, making it impossible to bind oxygen. So you just casually breathe but do not get oxygen to your blood. All while your body has zero mechanisms to alert you to the fact that you are actively suffocating. Even if you realise something is wrong and escape to fresh air you still could suffocate not being able to get oxygen into your blood as CO already took all the good spots. Get your CO alarm guys, and check it regularly!
This. CO alarms literally save lives.
In my medical training we learned that response is only for those who are heavy smokers. The medical term is COPD. For smokers if you give them oxygen when they are having trouble breathing, they stop breathing because there is no CO2.
Sydney would do better to use CO2 because it would hug the ground better than nitrogen.
May I then recommend Krypton? Nobel gas, much heavier than air, so will collect in low places, even heated. Hmm, just the name should get Sydney excited.
Actually, your body can detect oxygen levels, that’s sort of a backup system to CO2 levels, but it only kicks in at dangerously low O2 levels, and is no help at all with inert gas suffocation because the response is to just breath deeply, which purges even more O2 from your blood.
Just to add:
Nitrogen-ONLY atmospheres aren’t just dangerous, they’re immediately lethal. As few as 1-2 breath of pure nitrogen will render you unconscious.
Sydney really just went and pressed some doodle hoping it might just reduce the level of oxygen, or increase the level of nitrogen I guess ?
What if she had increased the level of oxygen ? Or with hydrogen being part of “Air”, increase that one ? That could have become quite Booooom-bastig.
What if she started shooting about carbon monoxide ? Or with this being alien tech that could produce earth-type AIR in space, reproduce another worlds gas mix ? This could have gone toxic, or flame thrower, or bacterial alien goo quite easily.
It appears that one ability of her “uber society toy” is what she though of as “build in safety block” – some kind of intrinsical instinct, barrier or guide to prevent “Armageddon by toddler” !?
Yes. If memory serves, she upgraded what she thought was her ability to understand/interact with the orbs a while back. On that alien planet I think.
Either way, she’s getting a point to spend, or maybe two, from this. SHe def used the orbs in some new and exciting ways today, and that means the “ding” is going to “ding”.
Best guess is a combination of the theory that she has an innate or instinctual knowledge of the Orb functions (possibly enhanced by filling out the centre level up circle) or she just used logic and reason.
So if she’s guessing that something on the orb can adjust the composition of the air it emits and she knows nitrogen makes the biggest percentage, she just needs to find something that looks like sliders for different elements in the air and raise the one thats already highest to maximum.
To me, I can’t even tell if she DID press a doodle… all I see is hover writing, I don’t see any marked places to press….
Think touch screen interface. The writing? Sliders.
mmmmm, sliders….with pickles!
I was just thinking that it has been years (in RL time) since we’ve had a Sydney curse-out.
Although this doesn’t really count as a signature curse-out, it is a start.
Sydney has been getting training in Not-Swearing, more PG responses when faced with novel or upsetting situations. You know emotional situations.
Holy F’ck anything!
(I love how the man in panel 2 looks!)
Indeed, what caused the Atmo-orb to create a directed air stream? Just stretching the arm out and thus implying ‘Blow there!’ in a gesture? Also, thinking about it, now that Sydney can blow with it, maybe she can blow out the fires with cold but otherwise normal air? Not sure…
Also, I’m very impressed about the 3 panels in the 2nd row, Sydney can think quick and deep if she needs too.
I predict the next page has Sydney blasting out the fires while alternately yelling “kamehameha” and “hadouken”. Hopefully she keeps to short blasts and remembers to aim away from people and animals.
I was imaging her following Avatar Airbender poses.
The last time she went “Hadouken” was during THAT time of the month.
As for the other, that might very well happen. Maybe she’ll even reverse it for that occasion since it’s un-firing: “Ahemahemak” ?
Also, aiming with GAS is a bit of an issue because it’ll mix up again real soon.
And yes, Sydney can think and is quite clever, if only it didn’t take a mystery circle landmark and inhaling too much smoke for her to focus her mind on ONE SINGLE problem.
Ah. This is why Sydney is still involved in a situation she did not appear to be well-equipped to address. I should have known.
She’s the squirrel-on-the-spot, and as well as being creative, she’s one of the most powerful people on the planet.
Also, she made the mess, so she’ll stick around and either fix it or make it worse.
Worse…or better?
Regardless, she should have immediately called for help. But I suppose it’s already been established that she cares more about her own involvement in a solution than its effectiveness or efficiency.
Uh… She did call for help with fighting the fires on quite literally the previous page, dude.
My interpretation of the previous page is that Max called her. And at no point in that conversation does she ask for help. She just explains how she is ineffectively attempting to clean up her mess.
Hydrogen can act as a metal when in a liquid state and under high pressure, it’s what the gas giant planets use to generate their magnetic fields
If it can replicate any atmosphere, and some planets have constant acid clouds…. That’s gonna be messy.
Ah, Venusian weather. Lovely.
Methane atmo for the silent death of Oxy breathers anyone? Halo’s new nova AOE attack, Jupiter’s Breath!
Let’s not, considering the jokes that go with methane.
It’s not the methane, it’s the methyl mercaptan and sulfur dioxide that make farts smell like death, pure methane is a colorless and odorless gas that can also suffocate you by locally replacing the oxygen in the air.
The methane is not just displacing the oxygen, it will react with it to use up the oxygen.
CH4 + 2 O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O
Even at low temperatures (like room temperature), this reaction can slowly occur and just warm the air a little.
So the thing about Mendeleev table is that with each row there are more and more elements in the row. The way you should think about it is that on the n-th row we have the elements with n electron layers. Those layers start small and close to the core of the atom and can only fit a few electrons. But with each layer the amount of electrons that can fit increases. And increases pretty fast. It gets to the point that the elements just don’t fit on the page. In the picture example you can see that a bunch of elements have been moved to the bottom of the page.
As for why Hydrogen jumps between column 1 and the one before last, rows represent common behavior of different elements. In many other pictures of the periodic table Hydrogen is in fact placed in both first and last before the noble spots in the first row, because it belongs in both. The first row elements have only one electron on its most outer layer and tend to give that electron away, while the elements just before the noble column have exactly one “missing” electron in their outer layer and tend to grab exactly one unpaired electron from other atoms.
I got a bit confused and wrote rows instead of columns in a couple places of the second paragraph. Columns represent common behavior, the first column elements have one electron to give away.
The paragraph ws well written and correct, other than that typo. Thanks for writing it.
Makes me wonder what the passive skill of the Atmorb is. Maybe Sydney just has to think of what she needs and it forms without needing specific glowy symbol activation. But it also seemed to jump to her hand and activated when she had her foot tangled in the pool, so it could be a passive survival skill. But that is negated by it not activating automatically when in her shield (see after the defeat of Death Toll and her shuttle bubble to NYC). Gah! Too many unknowns!
The one slight issue with this technique is the fire tetrahedron: What Sydney has done eliminates two of the four sides of it (A self-sustaining reaction and oxygen).
What she is less likely to have removed are the rest of the required conditions: Heat and Heated Fuel (I know the diagrams only say fuel, but they’re not entirely right), which may mean that, as soon as the surrounding air replaces the nitrogen bubble she’s created, the reaction (and fire) may just restart as the rest of the conditions are still present.
If she were to significantly cool the material as well as removing the oxygen, that would eliminate the fire and conditions for it to re-ignite more reliably.
She should be figuring that out in three… two… one…
Honestly, the periodic table really tweaks my OCD.
That’s OK, we are all unhappy that reality doesn’t conform to our expectations.
why is OCD never in alphabetical order?
If it can do complex games. It can put out fart gases. Knockouts, via drugs or O2 displacement/ removal. It might be capable of making her food too.
She might have a replicator in her hands. Now she will have to master the sound effects.
Also potential pranks with this orb have gone up exponentially.
New rule at Archon HQ soon… No Testing powers in elevators.
Sydney “I have a new named attack. I call it Silent-but-deadly. Well if I want it to be deadly. It’s mostly…here let me show you.”
“Sydney, no! We are in the elevator!”
Just flashed on Sydney at a convention, in the elevator with Michael Dorn.
Huh, unless the atmorb includes it last orb is probably “energy control” such as gravity, heat and whatnot.
If it is it’d be harder to use than the PPO with the ability to either flatten or freeze the user if incorrectly utilized.
I like how everyone else is discussing the implications around the atmorb reveal. Meanwhile I’m all … /lookup keyboard shortcut for ™ because I know it exists but think Dave is just typing it out for effect …
Hold alt, type 0153, release alt (Alt-0153) gets you the ™ for anyone else curious
Also, Alt-0176 gets you a degree sign (°) in case you use it a lot like me.
That dude there is giving a really good “Did you really fucking need to” vibe
I’m picking up more “Hey dumb white person, do you even realize you’re assuming I should understand your language when you’re the one standing on my land?”
Nitrogen can be nasty.
Yea, it’s good for suppressing fires and innerting gas lines.
But have a leak of it in a confined space and everyone dies.
Nothing to see or smell.
Just pass out and die from lack of oxygen.
Due to the “simply pass out and die” feature, nitrogen gas has been suggested as a more humane (not to mention cheaper and easier) method to use for prisoner executions.
Seeing as e=mc^2 the Atmorb is using more power than Pew Pew.
Probably not as much as the Aetheric Causeway unless she uses it for a few minutes continuously.
That’s assuming it creates the products ex-nihilo, which I don’t think it does. If it were doing that the air pressure inside her shield bubble would be constantly rising until it hit dangerous levels. It seems more likely that it operates via elemental transmutation than creation ex-nihilo. Depending upon exactly how that’s accomplished it could actually have a net negative energy usage by generating power via fission/fusion.
That’s assuming the Atmorb is using energy-mass conversion, as opposed to, say, creating portal to the elemental plane of nitrogen or using some matter creation method that doesn’t obey conservation of energy (many things in Grrlpowerverse don’t).
I don’t think we know how much power the Aetherium Causeways need – maybe the orbs just have a very efficient method, or it’s not so much about power than control.
Here’s a thought. If the atmorb makes a livable environment for whatever’s in it could it make water for an aquatic being? That could put out a fire or even help relieve drought stricken areas.
But even if it can’t any gas that displaces enough oxygen will suffocate a fire, even things like hydrogen, methane, or even gasoline vapors. The problem is that if the item is still hot enough afterwards to combust it will re-ignite once oxygen returns. So while a stream of nitrogen could extinguish a fire it may just start up again once the stream stops.
I really love when Sydney starts to tweaking with the Orbs because this is litterally how she got power ups
So, a farmer at the edge of a desert just stands there as an idiot girl hits a fire with a pool noodle.
Yup, strangely, this is where my suspension of disbelief fails.
Farmers aren’t stupid. They know how to fight fires. They wouldn’t be standing around waiting for some little girl to reinvent the wheel.
OK, so maybe you’re thinking these are little tiny farms, not great big conglomerates (despite the tyrant Deus taking control of (oops, sorry, “industrializing”) everything).
But farmers still aren’t stupid. Lots of little farms means lots of little farmers, and they still know how to fight fires, which means working as a community to do it. Around here they call them “voluntary fire departments”. Still no standing around waiting for a little girl to reinvent the wheel.
But this isn’t just that. This is a farm in a desert. Farmers in deserts aren’t stupid, either. They know how to move water from one place to another. In one situation it’s called “irrigation”, kind of necessary in such an environment, and in another it’s called “firefighting”. They also own farming equipment, which in one situation it’s use is just called “plowing”, and in another it’s also called “creating a fire line”. Still no standing around waiting for a little girl to reinvent the wheel, even if you want to call it “waiting for a superhero to save them”.
Apparently in this world “leaders” (like Deus) create the farms, make the plants grow, and the “farmer” is just there to pick the crops at the end. They probably have to be told when to do it, too, or else they whither in the field. Because Facebook farms are tots real.
Dude, this is like a several-kilometer-long trail of fire, blistering & glassed land, and a hell of a lot of smoke in the air.
They may not be stupid and know how to carry water but those conditions are beyond the abilities of a bunch of untrained farmers.
It would, in fact, be the smart thing to do to stand back and let the people with superpowers handle it.
You’re making a lot of assumptions about universal understanding, resources, and application of farming and irrigation across very disparate cultures, climates, and economic levels. But none of that matters because Sydney stated previously that while she “tried to avoid farms and people” but didn’t actually do that well at going around them.
The stoic farmer is almost certainly cut off from his neighbors, whose farms are also on fire or glassed, and quite possibly cut off from any machinery he may or may not have. Any irrigation system that may exist has been glassed and broken up, so he can’t flood or pump any water he may or may not have access to. So no help coming, no equipment available until things cool down, even it still exists (or ever did).
There is a green field behind him, but they’re standing in front of a strip of bare earth (a road?) between that and the edge of the burning field, so there’s already a firebreak. So even if he did have access to a tractor, there’s a firebreak in place. The scale of the glassed area means he wouldn’t be able to reach much of it, and the heat coming off means he and the tractor likely wouldn’t survive long near the edge of it.
No point in even trying to save the remnant of the glassed field, he’s just watching her rearrange deck chairs as the second half of the Titanic slips under the surface.
Unlike you, this farmer is not mistaking Sydney for a “little girl”. Sydney is a force of nature, and one of the most powerful metas on the planet.
The farmer is right to just stand there. This is not a “fire”. It is a field of glowing hot glass, similar to a lava field. Not even an idiot is going to leave a safe zone and try normal fire suppression techniques on it.
And with Sydney right there, the “little girl” who made that lava field, he’s going to stand and watch. Especially if she’s offering to pay, assuming that he understood her at all.
Actually, farmers are more likely to plow a row, grinding the crop into the dirt, around the outer edge of the fire. It eliminates the fuel, preventing the fire from spreading, and is faster and quicker than trying to move water around. It alos avoids using large quantities of water that can be used for better purposes, like irrigation.
The way the comic looks to me is that the farmer has already cut a firebreak and is now just watching Syd faff around with the molestorb.
The crop behind him is green and standing, the crop Syd puts out has standing burnt stalks and where Syd and the farmer are standing looks flattened down i.e. ploughed to create a firebreak.
The farmer has done what he could to fight the fire. I would expect him to go and help his neighbour but then maybe his neighbour has already borrowed the farmers tractor to cut his own firebreak.
So she can make any gas? Holy fuck bubbles indeed.
Forget about life support and putting out fires. Instant KOs against even the toughest opponents just by making neon. Or get super nasty with flourine. Or even FOOF if you wanted to get even nastier (though I don’t think anyone in their right mind – or even remotely close to it – would want to be that close to those).
Out of curiosity: How would an instant KO using neon work? Neon is a noble gas, so just by displacing the oxygen?
Displace oxygen, people asphyxiate (not instantly; it depends on how long it takes to deplete the reserve in the blood). But argon would be a better choice than neon due to the more compatible molecular weight with the gases being displaced.
Are you telling me that- on top of a horrifyingly versatile energy weapon -Sydney ALSO possesses the world’s most powerful chemical weapon?
Oh. Oh no…
But fortunately she has a strong history of rational thinking and impulse contr- …oh no.
Fortunately, she _does_ have a fine sense of ethics, so….very slightly less “oh no.”
Re: fuck bubbles; hey Dave, my 86 year-old mother still uses “fuck a duck” and “bunny nuts”, so I’m pretty sure most of us are going to laugh whatever Sydney says, and it won’t be the most creative expletive that many of us have heard. I used to say with pride that I could curse in 15 languages, unfortunately old age and strong meds have reduced that to 6 or so. :-)