Grrl Power #1081 – Airspeed velocity of an unladen Maxima…
I’m not actually certain if this sequence takes place slightly before Harem left her message for Max, or if relaying a cell message to that part of Africa has some technical challenges or if all the cosmic energies recently unleashed and portals and giant hot glass disks impacted her service. Probably a little from each column. I’d have drawn Max holding a sat phone, but those don’t exactly fit in the back pocket of women’s jeans without creating a bit of a lump, so I guess she’s just got her cell phone. Presumably her phone is some custom job with a titanium frame or something, but I don’t know if you could fit a military grade antenna in something like that without jacking up the rest of the internals.
Luckily the team has two supersonic fliers. Tactically, it’s probably unwise to have them both in the same place if they’re away from the base. Like, what if some super decided to knock over a bank in Seattle? Archon didn’t advertise this excursion though, so your average mid-level super thug wouldn’t know the optimal time to start causing trouble. Even Arianna is unsure about how to publicize this, as Deus seems to insist on being a controversial figure every time he gets in front of a camera.
The August Vote Incentive is still up!
Okay, so here’s the deal. I haven’t finished the new one, but I have a fairly good reason. My mom is having some health issues, so I’ve driven down to spend a week with my parents to help out and give my dad a bit of a break. I took all my drawing stuff with me so I can work in the meantime, but it’s a little tricky to work on certain types of art. I’m set up in the open very plan kitchen/living room so I’m close by if needed.
Everyone knows that anyone who can draw has definitely drawn naked boobs. Doesn’t matter if the artist is a tweenage girl, a gay guy… okay maybe not a 5 year old, but anyone 3 seconds after puberty has started has drawn boobs. We all understand this. However, there’s a big difference between intellectually understanding this, and me airbrushing areola detail zoomed in on my 27″ screen ten feet from my mom. So there will be a nudie vote incentive this month, but unfortunately, it will be another week. Also unfortunate that it’s not themed something serendipitous like “The Blue Ball Special.” Not sure what that incentive would look like. Cora could do the blue boob special. Maybe Sciona. Hmm, do I need more blue women in the comic? Oh! Detla! Yes…
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.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
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.
Yeah, you’re gonna have to wait to perv on that one, you eldritch bitch… and your pervy ass-istant
Yup. perving on maxima’s kinda a moot point. Her head’s so far down the feminist rabbit hole, not even the wall can save her. Which given she’s a golden super with alien biology might not even happen.
Uh
Are you ok?
Doesn’t sound like it. Probably one of those guys that’s ranting on youtube about GTA removing his ability to murder prostitutes.
Finally answering the question, “What did those poor prostitutes ever do to him?”, and the answer is, “Not a damned thing, not for any amount of money”.
What happened? Did feminazis steal your ice cream?
Completely agree Reynard. She comes off as major Feminist who pushes her feminist ways on everyone yet still ogles and makes sexual remarks about Hiro. Basically a typical hypocritical feminazi
I am pretty sure that DaveB has made that clear about Maxma a few times. And she is also aware that she comes off like that and has mentioned it in a self aware way a few times. Its a character flaw that the character legimately has, which tends to be played off compared to others like Anvil (who tried to temper that flaw in her friend), Harem (who makes fun of that flaw in her boss), and especially Dabbler (who antagonizes and completely counters that flaw in her polar opposite).
Wow, my sentences are really badly written when I’m writing from my phone. So much duplication.
Would someone care to translate this into plain English? Or is this one of those staring into the abyss sort of things, a basilisk, that once you’ve seen it, breaks your brain?
Reynard seems to think that perving can have a positive point, which apparently cannot be reached with this particular victim. I guess getting laid? If so, Reynard seems to think that getting laid is the kind of thing that perving leads to, and that perving is less damaging to society than the value added by a perv getting laid. I have no idea how that is supposed to work.
I have no idea what wall he is talking about or how a wall is supposed to make someone more perv-able. The only wall I can think of is the wall between the USA and Mexico, which was never finished. Though how an immigration control measure is supposed to make women more perv-able I have no idea. Maybe the idea is that inability to escape makes women more submissive? Or something equally fucked up.
I already feel like I have wasted too much time trying to understand this perv.
You have, but your style & aplomb are positively heroic.
Ugh. A little ill-advised Googling brings up Urban Dictionary… Which probably isn’t good. “The point at which a woman’s looks rapidly start to fade.” The implication being that women have unreasonably high standards while they are young and attractive, and can afford to spurn unattractive men, but become… appropriately desperate as they age. I could surmise it was something misogynistic before, just from tone and structure… But yeah, one of those basilisk-parrot things.
So what he said was that Max may have no biological time limit for attractiveness or reproduction — which is kind of a given in this media — and therefore may never have to relax her standards of physical perfection or her standards of social/behavioral constructs.
The latter part is made unlikely by the fact that Max has literally zero friends who take the stuff as seriously as she does, and likewise no enemies that transgress it significantly. Thus, there’s nothing reinforcing it socially at all.
I would posit that she has, as all women have, no reason at all to relax her standards under any circumstances. There are far too many relaxed standards as it is.
I can see plausible reasons for people to relax their standards a bit actually. If only because of basic math. I read a psychological study which said that an overwhelming majority of women tend to only be attracted to about 15% of available men. If you then subtract those men who are already in a committed relationship, those men who are also attracted back, and those men who do not have any other attributes which would not make for a good long-term committed relationship as you get further into that relationship, being EXCESSIVELY picky can lead to having no one at all. Especially given that a woman’s ‘prime’ years (for most women, at least) is earlier in their lives (20s usually, given men statistically tend to be more ‘visual’ in finding a partner), while men’s ‘prime’ years tend to be later in their life (after they are more established for starting up a family, as they are more financially settled).
And I know, this sounds very old fashioned, but I’m just coming at this from a statistics standpoint. Men tend to seek out younger and more attractive woman, women tend to seek out older and more ‘established’/’competent’ men when it comes to long term relationships, rather than simple flings (although men tend to seek out younger women for flings as well, statistically speaking).
Maxima’s an outlier, since she’s already likely one of the most gorgeous women on the planet, as are most super women (at least from a ‘human ideal’ standpoint of attractiveness), and it’s likely that she’d retain this level of attractiveness a lot longer than your average ‘non-super’ woman. So she can afford to be pickier for a much longer period of time for her ‘relationship window of opportunity’ (plus she’s also quite wealthy and famous, which may minimize her attempt to seek out a partner who is of a higher level of status. Although even so… she’s attracted to Deus, who is one of a very small amount of men who ARE of higher status in wealth and possibly equal, if not higher, in fame (admittedly likely because Maxima’s fame had to be mitigated by her top secret status for a long time, not to mention the Veil blocking some of that fame).
Whether women would benefit from relaxing their standards would depend on how important it is to them to have a committed relationship, which isn’t a given. And maybe women only find 15% of men to be attractive because men have depended far too long on the assumption that all women needed a man in their life so badly that men only needed to barely compete with other men, rather than meeting some minimum standards.
“Whether women would benefit from relaxing their standards would depend on how important it is to them to have a committed relationship, which isn’t a given.”
It actually was one of the primary focuses of the study in question. I’ll try to find it so you can read it over. It was very interesting actually.
It was mainly about satisfaction in lifestyle from a psychological standpoint. Most women (and men, for that matter) actually tend to want a long term committed relationship, although this is a LOT more prevalent in women than in men (since men are able to ‘play the field’ for longer without missing out on raising a family), mostly from an anthropological evolutionary standpoint, which has a huge effect on human psychology. It’s also led to a lot of women in particular becoming very depressed when they either 1) cannot find a partner to spend the rest of their lives with, including importantly when their career is over, or 2) find they can’t ‘marry up’ (socially and economically) – there have been quite a few articles by female authors complaining about this, which seems to be in stark contrast to the ‘wage gap’ concept (which has been disproven multiple times, at least for the last 40-45 years).
While it’s not a ‘given’ – like I said, I was using statistics as the basis for the reasoning. There are going to be outliers. But the overwhelming majority of women do seem to want to be in a relationship, especially as they get older and are either unable to keep ‘playing the field’ like they could in their 20s and early 30s’ or when the ‘biological clock’ starts counting down.
“And maybe women only find 15% of men to be attractive because men have depended far too long on the assumption that all women needed a man in their life so badly”
No, it’s because women from western countries – in particular American woman – tend to have much higher standards of what they want in a mate – and tend to see themselves as far more of a catch than they often are because of a culture (both pop culture and real culture) that is very positive for self esteem (sometimes to the point where that self esteem ignores reality when it comes to relationships). During most of third wave feminism, and a good deal of the latter half of second wave feminism, the scenario you’re describing simply doesnt happen for the majority of the time, except in fiction, outside of a small percentage of women who are at the top percentile of attractiveness where they CAN get that top 15% of men (assuming the men in question are not already taken, or interested in return, although it is far easier for a very attractive woman to ‘get’ those men than it is for someone who’s of a more average level of attractiveness or less.
And btw, this isnt only about men seeking women as partners – it even happens a lot with women who seek same-sex relationships apparently where the ‘more feminine’ partner wants to find someone who is at an at LEAST equal, if not higher, social and economic status. Women tend to be a lot pickier with mates than men are, as a general principle. Women in high economic cultures tend to ramp this pickiness up to 11, the more well off their nation is.
There’s a MUCH different standard for women from other nations like Russia, Japan, Eastern Europe, etc, – including nations where the women still have just as many rights as men do in pursuing careers.
“that men only needed to barely compete with other men, rather than meeting some minimum standards.”
Not that I know from personal experience, but I do have male brothers and cousins, and men have to compete tooth and nail with other men to succeed. It’s not a cakewalk and it’s not something that only women deal with. Employers tend to want competence and putting in above and beyond the minimum workload more than any externalities. In fact, if a woman does compete at the same level as a man on workload, competency, and ambition, they tend to be HIGHLY sought after by employers (at least from what I’ve seen in law firms, including the ones I’ve worked in). I know that I’m a bit of a workhorse, and being a woman has definitely helped me compete against other men who work equally as hard and as long hours as I’ve worked, who are definitely as competent and intelligent (patting myself on the back because I’m so modest arent I?) as I am in my profession.
Men who work at a minimum standard, by and large, get just as far as women who work at a minimum standard – ie, nowhere – unless they are INCREDIBLY lucky, charismatic, or have friends in higher places.
What in three kinds of fuckall are you babbling about, boy?
You sound like Zap Brannigan trying to talk through a stroke…
@ Reynard – i wouldn’t say she’s down the rabbit hole per se.
she sounds and looks more to me like a cafe feminist. she agrees with the ideas feminism propose without the negative aspect and hate towards men or “the patriarchy” I’ve seen on some part of the internet.
Dave made her claim to be a feminist but aside from the claim and her dislike of “old fashioned” customs, she’s pretty mild and isn’t pushy about it. she more of a humanist IMO with maybe a slight dislike of arabic customs probably based on her having fought a war in Afghan(?) territories.
So, a feminist, and not a right-wing-boogeyman-feminist. Feminism is poorly named, and something like “humanist” would have been better, but the majority of feminists do not hate men. Feminism is often described in “waves”, broad sets of ideas that have come to the fore in different sociohistorical contexts, which make it hard to ascribe many particular beliefs as common to all feminists.
@ torabi
yes.
There are admittedly many different ‘types’ of feminists, usually separated by ‘waves.’ (First Wave Feminism, Second Wave Feminism, Third Wave Feminism, Fourth Wave Feminism). The latter tend to give the former a bit of worse reputation, since it goes from an ‘egalitarian’ mindset with first and second wave feminism (and probably a little third wave) to the more ‘man-hating stereotype found more often in third and fourth wave feminism (in particular third wave feminism, sometimes seen as radfem feminism or radical feminism – whether deservedly or not).
First Wave feminism is basically the woman’s suffrage movement – from around 1848-1920. If was pretty much over by the ratification of the 19th amendment, which was the primary goal of feminism at the time.
Second Wave feminism was from around 1963 to the 1980s, mostly centered around ending sexist discrimination in the workplace and home life. Pretty much started with the book ‘The Feminine Mystique’ by Betty Friedman, which was mostly about saying women should not be bound by the roles of just being mothers and wives, and was more about women entering the workplace. This actually got a lot easier with the invention of more useful methods of birth control (ie, especially the birth control pill). This was where a lot of the political action groups and laws beyond just voting were put into place, like hte Equal Pay Act, the National Woman’s Political Caucus, and later on the National Black Feminist Organization (until that time, it was centered largely around white women).
Third Wave Feminism started around 1992 – it started mainly centered around sexual harassment in the workplace and more open sexuality, but sort of started getting ‘overly’ focused on ‘the Patriarchy’ as the be-all, end-all boogyman and cause of all women’s suffering, which probably led to the whole reputation later on during the Third Wave as more radical feminists being Man-haters (basically appearing to be more about supremacy than egalitarianism). Basically, as Torabi described it, the ‘right wing boogeyman feminist.’ Again, I’m just stating the criticisms, not whether it’s accurate or not.
Fourth Wave Feminism basically started in 2007 with the #metoo movement (which didn’t really gain traction until 10 years later with the revelation concerning people like Harvey Weinstein), and it’s sort of a continuation of third wave but with a lot more intersectionality (and later on trans-rights) and a lot less focus on an actual concrete goal (which first and second wave feminism had), or sometimes with conflicting goals.
Maxima seems more like a Third Wave feminist. Whether early or late third wave will probably depend on how people think of her as either a man-hater or not (she’s clearly not actually a man-hater, despite how some people might view her, but she’s sort of close minded to certain aspects about men (like when Dabbler pointed out in the restaurant the saying of ‘A woman should be…’ is only sexist if you let it be. She seems to be able to get along with men though and doesnt actively exclude them (Hiro, Stalwart, even Mathias, and doesn’t seem to go off on too many tirades about being subordinate to General Faulk, although he might have something to say about that:) ).
The main problem (arguably) with feminism is that too often, modern feminists do come off as being very ‘female supremacist’ instead of female egalitarianist’ – which is what made first and second wave feminism so successful – along with concrete goals in mind instead of generalized grievances, while still trying to claim that it’s egalitarian when specific goals (when they have specific goals) come under attack). Which is probably why a much smaller percentage of women today tend to call themselves feminists as opposed to 20-30 years ago when the term had much broader appeal.
Excellent description.
Since you mentioned trans women, briefly, allow me to append your list.
There is a sub variant the Third Wave, which at least of you will have head of before: Trans-Exclusive Radical Feminists. The short version is, these feminists not only see The Patriarchy ™ as _the_ source of All Evil, they take time out of their day to specifically target trans women (and is always trans women, they can’t comprehend trans masculinity) as being Agents of said Patriarchy, hell bent on the subjugation & oppression of women, by…Uh, being women. Yeah. -_-‘
Umm, any help with that ringtone?
smash brothers i think
There’s nothing of that kind in SMB; earliest I see is SMB3.
I believe Super Mario Brothers Hammer Bros theme
The tune in Super Mario Bros (or super smash bros) when you get the hammer powerup. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NYKxuS2dY4
Hammer brothers from Super Mario 3. They always come in pairs. My guess is Harem since she comes in multiples. https://youtu.be/0-INuS99s5Q
Knew it was Harem, just didn’t know the tune, thank yous
Hmms, wouldn’t a hammer song be more of an Anvil thing?
Also because “hammer” and “harem” sound and are spelled similarly.
““harem”, is pronounced Hareem.
when used correctly in its native Arabic(i think its Arabic at least) yes it does
in English its pronunciation has been garbled over the centuries so now it sounds more like Har-em
That still doesn’t sound like ‘hammer’
hammer, harem(m). it’s kind of like drum(m)er and murder, the only difference is one letter ‘m’, when you switch around the letters.
fuck has it been awhile since i thought about rhyming the centre of a word
never realized how similar drummer and murder sound
similar cadence and you only need to change one letter to really see it
I can read almost anything upside-down and/or backwards (reflected) as long as it’s in English, but even then, anagrams and acronyms usually get lost in the shuffle.
Yeah, there isn’t a hammer theme in the original Super Mario bros. It’s probably this one from the original Donkey Kong! https://youtu.be/dkXMkSYHfdI
It’s Max’s priority ringtone. It’s not specifically for Harem, though I do wonder how callers indicate whether it’s a priority call or not. Different number, perhaps?
^ My take has always been that the priority ringtone refers to Smash Bros and Max herself, not whoever the caller is – “time to bring down the mighty golden hammer and clear the arena.”
That makes sense
But, didn’t Daphne leave a voicemail on Maxi’s phone?
I really, really hope that Archon is making more efforts at communicating an attack on the base than just trusting Harem to leave a voicemail.
Oh this will be a Fun headache for the public works dept.
She should have asked Opal for a short-cut.
Absolutely, but this is likely another time when an author miss the time-distance equation. Even in Mach 5 it will take more than 2 hours for Max to get back.
Given that Opal has limited range, and Sydney is needed where she is, this would explain why Max is leaving immediately. It’s gonna be 2+ hours, so she delegated.
However, Sydney probably could have used the Aetherium Causeway to get Max there instantly (assuming Sydney actually has a check point at or near Archon HQ, as opposed to return to last location); an explanation for that *might* be that for the emergency going on back at HQ, it would be irresponsible and bad form to bring someone of Sydney’s rank into such a situation. Granted, this incident might make for further revisions to the standard operating procedure that has been based off of army or airforce regulations, because they do not fit supers as well as they need to.
I thought about that but the cause-way isn’t a pin-point transportation device like Harem or Opal’s abilities. Like moving a wheelbarrow’s worth of dirt with a dump truck! Would you use a 747 to go to the store down the road? Harem could get there using a live camera feed but she can’t carry Max with her, she’s at least more than Harem’s weight limit. I’d say Harem is maybe 125 lbs and Max is at least 145 lbs (the woman’s age and weight thing comes into play here LOL).
At 6’1″ and athletic, she would be about 180 pounds. That would be if she had normal flesh and bones, not whatever she is made of now. I estimated she would be about 220.
The author stated early on that Harem can’t carry other people with her, possibly nothing living. So I don’t think it’s because of the weight limit.
“Can’t carry anything living with her.” Huh. Does that mean that her skin, clothes, and cargo are completely sterilized and de-loused whenever she teleports? If so, cool.
People have pondered that question in the comments, but to my knowledge, the author has never addressed it.
Only if she goes direct at sea-level, if she goes sub-orbital arc… ?
Do we know if Mach 5 is Max’s top speed or if she can push it even higher? Especially if shifting all her stats for maximum flight speed? She can make for a straight line (or curved around the globe) without having to worry much about anything in her way while she is up there.
The only thing we know about her top speed is it’s over mach 4. :)
We havent yet seen if she is still faster than sydney or if sydney is now the fastest flier, but it was implied that sydney would become the fastest flier when she got her next fly pip, which she got on Alari Prime, which upped her top non ftl speed to mach 16.
So most likely maxima’s top speed is somewhere between 4.1 and 16.
Max’s top speed is classified. When Sydney’s top speed was shown to be mach four, Max stated that put her firmly in second place, but did not say a word about how far behind first place she was. It is safe to assume that Max’s top speed is ‘plot convenience’
Sydney can push mack 16 now after upgrades on alien death world.
That… might also be slower than Maxima’s absolute top speed. We know she instantly hit 750 and Mach 4 is 3069.08 which she personally declared is slower than her maximum. She also declared it casual flying. The distance is merely 9,234 miles to Mozambique so if Maxima hits Mach 14 she’s there in an hour. 30 minutes if she clears Mach 20. They flew here in under 2 hours. See grrl-power-1016-have-a-nice-trip-see-you-next-regime-fall and remember Maxima wanted Sydney to slow fly.
So if we give/take 10,000 miles travel time and 2 hours of flight then they easily cleared Mach 7 getting here.
On the other hand if we go by escape velocity of 40,280 Maxima arrives in 15 minutes. I doubt she’s going so slow. If she cracks out 78 she can be there in 10. If she declares *F* the laws of physics and gets there in one minute we’re looking at 470 times the speed of sound and no radar system on the planet can work that fast.
Theres a couple of flaws in using escape velocity to figure out top speeds.
First, when Sydney’s top speed was only mach 4 she was already able to go into outer space (on The Alari homeworld). So thrust is not an issue in how super-based flight seems to work, at least in how people like stdney and possibly Maxima, fly.
Second, we have not seen Maxima ever go outside of Earth’s atmosphere in the comic, and even when going high up within the atmosphere she needed a breathing apparatus to deal with the thinness of the atmosphere. Both she and Sydney were able to hover at a high atmosphere. No thrust was involved at all.
wonder which is faster, Maxima, or the Muppets travelling by map?
It has already been established that Opal can’t portal that far. She needed to do multiple hops to reach the ocean. Maxima needs to cross the ocean.
Just to Devil’s Advocate for a moment, Opal could have portaled Max across Africa, jumped the Mediterranean at Gibraltar, then skipped across to the West coast of Ireland, probably in under 1 minute. Which would have cut a significant chunk of travel time. But, even if Max had thought of it, there are other reasons why she might not want to hitch that ride, even if it is so quick that there wouldn’t be time for any conversation.
Deus said as much, so we can absolutely believe it’s true.
I don’t believe they can do that without a lot of diplomatic complications. Deus is certainly willing to ignore those, but Maxima isn’t.
Opal cannot make intercontinental portals. Deus already told Maxima that she has limited range.
If Opal warps her she risk her seeing what’s going on which isn’t good.
“you will give us the artifact or die”
“Brave words for a man in Maxima Range”
“Huh?”
“Boss, can you hear whistling?”
Funny thing, if something is coming at you at a supersonic you are not going to hear it before it arrives. Because it moves faster than the sound it creates.
Yeah, I bet that her punch will connect before they her coming.
Kinda like how you only hear the sniper’s shot After the bullet has already hit the target.
Why not ask Deus for a tp home?
And voluntarily owe him something?
The last person who did that got screwed, in more than one way…
I doubt D would try that with Max.
It’s pretty clear that – while he wants her – he also wants “her.” That is, her fully informed & willful consenting person, not just in the sack, but much more broadly speaking, as a partner & friend.
Having Opal portal her home would be a completely sensible thing to do, at zero cost, which would net both goodwill & some small respect.
SmugD doesn’t do anything for others that doesn’t benefit him in some way, something actually substantial rather than something ignorable like ‘goodwill’ and ‘respect’
And never said it would be an immediate payout for him
He’s aware of Public Image. He has gone to great lengths not to just control the territories he claims but to improve them and make it known that he has raised the quality of life for hundreds of thousands if not millions of people so far. Now obviously doing those things has an impact on many many facets of his plans. A motivated and educated workforce is much more valuable than ignorant wage slaves. And he is sewing the seeds of his popularity with the next generations. But he also recognizes that gives him a remarkable shield against external powers wanting to attack his motives and undermine him. Goodwill and Respect can be incredibly valuable. Machiavelli said that it is best to be both loved and feared but if you cannot manage both then it is safer to be feared. But Deus has managed both. His citizens know he has the power behind him to kill tyrants and protect them but that power can always be turned against them. BUT he has improved their lives immeasurably and he is not ruling as a tyrant so he is loved. People who didn’t have electricity or reliable access to food and clean water now have nice homes, good jobs, and money. I’m pretty sure most people in Galtyn would take a bullet for him.
Plus, it would be a great challenge to Deus to not try and orchestrate anything to do with Maxima and his relationship, outside of anything necessary professionally.
Imagine you could see so many moves ahead no one could touch you. True chaos would be an annoyance, and relatively rare depending on how fast you could grow your information network, but mostly manageable. If he can decide what he puts his super intellect toward, he could omit anything to do with Maxima personally and make it so he himself is attempting to shmooz on her instead of just directing things to have her fall into his lap.
Plus, its going to be so much fun when an additional super intellect shows themselves. He’s going to throw such a tantrum. When the world is your plaything, you’re not likely to want to share.
Yes, but goodwill and respect can both be lost, even for someone like SmugD (and in todays ‘cancel culture’ #metoo bullshit not even someone like him can survive long without doing serious manipulating)
Many people survive in today’s culture. Not being a terrible person helps significantly. It is true that many people will dogpile on someone without making any attempt at verifying whether the accusations are reasonable, but avoiding the kind of people who make false accusations also helps significantly. Be a good person, interact with other good people, and encounter minimal problems. Try to take advantage of other people, particularly vindictive people, and guess what? You’re gonna have problems.
unfortunately torabi, even if you area good person, all it takes is one person with less than good intentions and a poor timing or miscommunication and a whole lot of hell can be brought down upon you both socially and professionally putting you at great risk of suffering repercussions even if you didn’t do something illegal or morally wrong.
I would say that is primarily a problem of scale, and the diminished relevance of locality, brought about by the Internet. Before, it would be difficult to find sufficient people to form a mob capable of inflicting damage, because most local people wouldn’t care, or you would already have a reputation with them that moderated their judgment of you.
People are now overwhelmed by information, and rather than be more critical of it, they judge it by a simpler, faster heuristic, and accept many things without question based on the source, rather than the quality of the argument.
We are entering the phase of social development in which the rule of law becomes absolutely critical, while increasingly abandoning it in favor of tribalism and the rule of man. It shouldn’t matter how many people howl for your head, and we shouldn’t be trying to stifle speech in order to protect other rights. The problem with “cancel culture” isn’t with the mob, but with the people in power who bend to the angry voices, rather than sticking to principles.
I find it interesting how people come to drastically different interpretations of the same information. Or rather, lacking complete information, they inject their own biases, fill in the blanks in a way that reveals something about themselves.
Observe his actions, and consider his words.
He was being very accurate & forthright when pointing out that her real job isn’t punch superpowered bank robbers.
I very much agree.
I would like to say it’s obvious whose judgment I was impugning, but it’s possible I was too indirect.
“You don’t judge a book by its cover, or a person from the outside.”
“Oh, that’s a relief to hear.”
“You judge them by their actions.”
“…Well that seems kind of petty, don’t you think?”
Heh, that look ‘those idiots actually tried to raid them. They are as stupid as we feared’ question is, who owes who on that bet.
Or maybe it’s “uh oh, the others thought Darude would take longer and we can’t possibly stall her return any longer without causing suspicion.”
Max doesn’t need a titanium phone, just a really good Otter Box. She should turn off Location though; it’ll screw with the system every time she goes supersonic (also, security risk).
Otter Box is good, but IDK if it’s enough to deal with Maxima-level wear & tear. Still…
There may not be a satellite phone in our world with a military-grade antenna that small and a case that durable, but I bet ARC-LIGHT could make one. They’ve got supers, government resources, bits of alien tech, Dabbler hanging around, Pixel… I don’t think a somewhat better smaller phone antenna is much to ask.
(Sorry if this shows up more than once. Having some issues posting a comment today.)
ARC may have the technology to build such a phone but it would still have to interface with existing tech to be useful. Sydney’s glasses have the tech but so far we’ve only seen her communicating with Frix and only when he is relatively close by. Cell phones get away with being so small because they don’t need much power. The real power there is in the network that cellular phones connect to. A satellite phone needs enough transmitting power to punch out of the atmosphere and link up with the appropriate satellite. Using existing infrastructure means using current frequencies that even with the higher frequencies now in use, you still need a certain amount of antenna to broadcast and receive. ARC tech might create smaller circuitry but you still have to have enough antenna and power to be useful. In studying this a bit, it also seems that Sat-Phones are often proprietary. If you aren’t in range of one of your satellites you might be SOL. Max probably would have access to military grade equipment and its associated satellite network but its a fair bet that such a Sat-Phone would not be hip pocket friendly
Simply bring along a real, durable, satellite phone on the trip and program your personal phone to be able to talk to it. So the actual satellite phone is in a nearby equipment pack, and Maxima can talk through it as long as she’s nearby.
Things move fast and it takes some effort to keep up to date:
Direct cell-phone to satellite communication exists today, in RL, using today’s standard cell phones – no military grade required. Performance and coverage is minimal but this tech is new and is in its infancy but it will rapidly improve. Google Lynk and its Shannon satellite. Also the just announced collaboration between Verizon and Starlink for more of the same.
Now try to picture what would happen if someone who said “the internet is down” decided to optimize their own communications.
I recently heard rumblings that Starlink was partnering with T-Mobile, so a cellphone sized “sat phone” may be closer than you think for us, and presumably the Grrl Power-verse has that level of technology already, provided that “Reed Richards isn’t useless”.
Don’t google that, unless you want to fall down the rabbit hole that is TVTropes.
To be fair I don’t think TITANIUM could deal with Maxima level wear and tear. (Ok, more accurately, I KNOW titanium couldn’t. It’s not a some super-strong indestructible metal like some people think. It’s about the same strength as steel. Its weight – half that of steel – is what makes it special, not its strength.)
Why does she need a sat phone? They were in a modern city/base. They probably have cell towers nearby.
Before anyone mentions ATC, as long as maxima stays above 70,000 feet the only thing she needs to worry about running into is rocket or missile launches and the odd weather baloon or SR-71 style military asset, presuming this universe has one of those. Simple physics (air density) make powered flight over that altitude fuel inefficient unless separately design for. there is a huge 200,000 foot chunk of our atmosphere that is void of basically anything.
Uninvited UFOs need to watch for their own airtraffic as long as they don’t have marked landing areas.
Normal people cant breathe at 70k feet (without bringing their own O2). Do we have any indications that Maxima can do with little or no oxygen?
I think she had a respirator when they were checking Sydney’s flight ceiling. She probably has to stay below 12,000 feet or so. Really liked the “velocity of an unladen Maxima”.
I think it’s nice that Vale is supportive of her boss.
No, she’s just a perv who likes to watch
On your musings of cell coverage: it seems odd to me think of, but Africa has around 95% of its population centers, even the rural ones, covered.
And even if that weren’t the case, there’s no way Deus doesn’t have that modern convenience covering his neck of the woods.
That’s a good point. Even with Syd having melted several square miles, there should be something in range.
There may not be a satellite phone in our world that small, especially when it’s built with extra durability, but… I bet ARC-LIGHT could make one. They’re not limited to our tech level. Especially with Dabbler around to help.
Oof. Yeah. Sorry. I refreshed the page. I closed it and came back to the comic’s homepage and clicked over to the comics page to start fresh. I refreshed again. Nothing I was posting showed up, and there were no new comments. I clicked over to the RSS feed, and nothing loaded there. I double checked that there were no browser extensions that could interfere. I gave it a few minutes in case it was just major server lag. No matter what I did, my comments all vanished into the void. And now they all show up at once. Apologies for the clutter. It wasn’t even that important. I just wanted to get the thought down and out of my head instead of having it lurking there, feeling half-spoken.
There may not be a satellite phone in our world with a military-grade antenna that small, with a case that durable… But I bet ARC-LIGHT could make one. They’re not limited to our tech level. They’ve got supers. And Dabbler hanging around. And some bits of alien tech. I don’t think a better phone antenna is too much to ask.
There may not be a satellite phone in our world with a military-grade antenna that small and a case that durable, but I bet ARC-LIGHT could make one. They’ve got supers, government resources, bits of alien tech, Dabbler hanging around, Pixel… I don’t think a somewhat better smaller phone antenna is much to ask.
(Sorry if this shows up more than once. Having some issues posting a comment today.)
Unless you get an error message, your post got through, it just takes its sweet-arse time to show up, been happening for a few weeks now
I’ve never had any of my comments show up in under fifteen minutes. Just be patient, they get here.
“a few years now”. FIFY
There may not be a satellite phone in our world with a military-grade antenna that small and a case that durable, but I bet ARC-LIGHT could make one. They’ve got supers, government resources, bits of alien tech, Dabbler hanging around, Pixel… I don’t think a somewhat better smaller phone antenna is much to ask.
(Sorry if this shows up more than once. Having some issues posting a comment today.)
I’m sure with Dues’s upgrades to Gaylan’s way of life I’m sure he’s patched into the cell phone service areas by now, he did say they were making cell phones and all the subjects could now afford them. I’ve made calls to Alaska and the UK to talk to friends and they to me not really different.
Maxima is hours away from HQ.
She has to be heading for a teleport port ARCSWAT owns.
A U.S. Navy aircraft carrier?
Max covered miles to Archon in under a 5 second lag to jump Harem’s butt over the kiss marks she left on the guy’s face
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-70-punked/ and https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-71-punk-busting/
Max doesn’t have to worry about air traffic control or air space regs like SST planes do and as long as she can breathe travel in the upper atmosphere without burning off her clothes (not that anyone else would mind) LOL.
Yeah, I think the shortest circumnavigation (below orbit) is just under 32 hours. BUT Maxima can go supersonic, consistently, with almost no acceleration and no need to refuel.
If we presume she’s faster than some of the fastest bullets then she can circumnavitate the world in about 10 hours. If she’s as fast as the ICBMs then she’s down to under 5 hours.
For Africa to the United States it’d be between about 1.5 to 2.5 hours. Obviously she could easily be faster than supersonic ICBMs but I’d still be surprised if maxima makes it back before the fight is over.
Personally, I’d be curious if Sydney could have gotten her there faster with the gateway. The gateway might be set to go much greater distances, but she left and returned to her comic store so if thats in the orb history she could easily gate away then back to the comic store, getting Maxima to HQ in less than 5 minutes total.
They reached Mozambique in around two hours going slow
As for the causeway, that’s something they don’t want SmugD knowing about yet
Sydney gated right outside her comic store and back again, returning with information on how the alien station resists gravity and a bowl of grakz that she noted was an alien delecacy: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-784-how-to-lose-friends-with-alien-cuisine/
If the Aetherium Causeway WAS supposed to be a secret, it came out then.
But you’re correct that they arrived (or expected to arrive) in under 2 hours, apparently not going Maxima’s top speed, so Max is at least as fast as supersonic ICBMs and likely has a much higher top speed to get there faster if an emergency like this pops up.
Looks like Max has gotten word of the attack on Archon HQ…
Also,whose phone ring tone should be the song “Happy,Happy Joy,Joy”?!?
It seems a simple choice. Archon does have a member named Ren (you EEEDIOT!)
Max’s ring tone for Sydney is Napoleon XIV; “They’re coming to take me away haha!” pretty obvious lol!
Max is the second fastest member now, Sydney could get there faster but doesn’t have Max’s powers to deal with a combat situation at that level, at least not without causing A LOT of damage. One PPO blast would leave Archon a smoldering pile!
I believe Max could cover the distance in a couple of hours or less if she wanted but I suspect the situation will be handled by time anyone got there from Gaylen.
Fire guy was being handled, the beast guy was last seen wrestling with Hiro, the telekinetic guy was injected with X’s sleepy-time, and I doubt Ted(s) wouldn’t last very long alone.
This attack on Archon wasn’t thought out or planned very well clearly they expected without the A-listers gone it would be easy pickings… WRONG!
Actually we don’t know that – Max only said Sydney “might be faster someday”, knowing there were a lot of unfilled pips on the skill tree. But since then we’ve also seen Max move so fast it was visible in a stasis field and completely drained the power source in 10s of seconds. So for the moment all we know is that she moves at the speed of plot.
“Plight speed”, if you will.
I wish Dues would’ve said, “And it was assistance we neither needed or asked for. So no.” :p
Maxima looks so good in panels 5 and 6.
Yeah, they had it so in hand they didn’t show up until after the fighting was done
You mean, they didn’t show up when they had the two of them already there and fighting? Who had no authority and took matters into their own hands without even asking the foreign government if they could?
You mean, the two who were caught in the attack? You saying they weren’t allowed to defend themselves or others? o_O
I’m saying that doesn’t give them right to the prisoner taken in by the country they were visiting.
Satellite phones have gotten smaller. the Thuraya X5 is a satellite android phone less than an inch thick. Also you can get tiny satellite phone hotspot routers that let you use your off the shelf cell phone as a satellite phone, some even attach to the back of your cell phone.
So yeah, Arc-light is probably providing either top of the line sat phones, or someone on the team is carrying a satellite hotspot in a fanny pack.
That we KNOW of.
I bet that DARRPA or Area 51 has the next generation of Sat. Phones already built and tested, but have not “officially” acknowledge its existence yet. (Dam Spec. OPs, getting all of the fun toys before the rest of us.)
NORAD will soon pick up a missile sized object heading from Africa toward North America at high speed. I hope the collar has some sort of transponder with an ID code, or Archon has NORAD on speed dial.
That raises an interesting point, how well does Max show up on radar? She looks all shiny and metallic but does she reflect RF energy any more than ordinary human flesh? As she is zooming across the ocean at some multiple of mach, will the shockwave she is dragging along show up on the submarine listening posts. One would think by this point in the story there would be an algorithm for distinguishing a super from a ballistic missile. I can imagine some guy at a Norad console saying “No worries General, that’s just Col. Leander.”
The sonic boom says that she is at relatively low altitude. That boom would definitely be detected. 0% chance that NORAD’s computers are not directly linked to ARCON’s, however. This is the sort of thing that ends up in a log file somewhere that no one ever looks at.
The flipside would be building a missile that tricks radar into thinking it is a super.
In business news today web artist Dave Barrack recently made a style change to one of his main characters making her appear younger in an attempt to appeal to a younger audience. After complaints from his readership he has since changed the ‘New Max’ back to the original ‘Classic Max’. The internet is now looking for something else to complain about.
Honestly, I’m starting to feel bad for Deus.
Maxima, come gits yer manz!!
I am now 99.99% certain that D is not behind the Legion of Douches raid on Archon HQ, though he is likely aware of them, and more than likely doesn’t consider them a serious threat.
He’ll probably have useful information to share later.
If D is a genuine Super-intelligence, then I think he may be the best candidate for Nietzsche’s Superman problem. He’s positioned such that his perspective on issues of morality & ethics are going to seem alien and inscrutable to those who lack his scope of information intake & processing. He’ll be seeing so far ahead of the probability cascades that his action will be – in effect – impossible for normal intelligences to understand.
Of course, we should remain aware that such “big picture” arguments are used to justify all manner of cruelties & evils inflicted on people. Capitalists especially enjoy justifying their evil as “transient & in service to the greater good of all,” even as they keep coming up with new ways to exploit human beings for their own enrichment.
I’m not sure why everyone is obsessing over how far Maxima is away. She’s alluded before that she’s never shown her top speed, and on their way here she alluded that she was completely capable of matching Sydney’s top speed, which was Mach 20ish (or over 4 miles a second, 7 Kliksish if you like metric).
We all know she’s capable of superspeed. While there’s probably a functional limit on that, suborbital gives a lot of leeway, and invulnerability gives a nice tolerance for extreme braking.
My fair guess is she’s minutes away from HQ, not anything resembling an hour. If you’re fast enough, superspeed can be as good as teleporting.
yeah, she is likely to fly over the curve, go into low orbit and come back down, shaving even more time off the trip.
It was a debate in the comments some time back given her power give and take chart just how separate her super speed skill is from her flight, like does she have a separate graph for land speed vs air speed. You would think *flight* would be a default point and then speed and durability points add to detract from it.
She was capable of matching Sydney’s top speed before the upgrade to the orb, which was mach 4-ish (page 354)
Mach 20 is just shy of orbital velocity. If Maxima was going that fast, we wouldn’t get a sonic boom, we’d get a plasma trail.
I’m reminded of The Kingsmen (? a Bond-like spy movie), where the new guy gets all the Q-branch gadgets and then given a cell phone and he asks what the secret function was… and gets told that it’s just a phone and there’s nothing they could really add to it.
If a point of this discussion of an emerging nation is that it’s fairly well developed by global standards, it’s likely that Maxima’s normal cell phone will work normally there, assuming her carrier has the appropriate roaming agreements. (Obviously, their intelligence services will be intercepting and recording all traffic, but that’s just normal behavior for most governments.)
Something tells me a certain “Bad Guy Group” is going to have some Deus Ex Machina applied to their Org table. They have messed up Deus’ dinner plans, that shall not go unpunished.
It would be funny if they’d been below his notice before, a group he considered inconsequential, and this raises them to something worth dealing with.
This actually is way more scary than them having to face any superpowered retaliation.
“My name is Deus. You ruined my dinner. Prepare to suffer for the rest of your miserable life. And all those cancelled subscriptions are merely the beginning.”
*I must go now, my planet needs me*
Bear this on mind…a. Maxima said she’d be in touch. No yelling or real anger or anything. She was polite. b. Deus has been pretty cordial, polite, and non-maniacal. C. They came to an easy agreement.
He’s growing on her. Yeah, like a bad fungus, but still. Who knows what would happen if he remains a nice good benevolent dictator?
And I think with that, we can tell that Deus did NOT have anything to do with the invasion of Archon HQ. He wouldnt intentionally sabotage himself to ruin his own dinner date. And before anyone says that Deus wouldnt have known that he’d have a dinner date with Maxima, remember this is Deus we are talking about. He not only knew he would have a date with her, he probably knows exactly what she was going to have for her meal, her dessert, and has made sure that the restaurant has made the finest version of it they’ve ever prepared to give the best impression, in advance, for no waiting.
Also:
1) It’s not surprising if Maxima can’t get great reception, if she’s in the middle of an obsidian disk where there’s NOTHING around her for 10 km. Even if Galytn has good cell tower coverage (likely, given Deus had had 10 years to set up a good infrastructure), it’s likely that she’s far from those towers. Plus the sandstorm could have delayed cellular coverage as well.
2) I hope that DaveB’s mom will be doing better soon. Best wishes.
2) Seconded.
1) Or, Deus knew that Max was going to turn him down again for the moment, and he timed the coordinated raids to ruin the evening so Max couldn’t say no. Giving her time to think and Anvil & Dabbler time to speculate aloud about how much she might have actually enjoyed a date, thus lowering her resistance for his next attempt.
Aren’t the chokers supposed to have comms built in so they don’t need to carry cell phones?
I’m going to assume that:
1) The chokers probably get much worse reception across the world than a phone.
2) Harem couldn’t use the chokers anyway because the comm system was out at ARCHON, and the chokers use the comm system.
3) Even if the comm system wasnt out at ARCHON, Harem wasn’t wearing a choker as well – she used a phone to call Maxima.
Okay, but then they’re carrying cell phones anyway when the point of the chokers having integrated comms is to not need to carry extra items (particularly ones that can be used by bad guys to spot them coming)?
The point of the chokers is rapid communication with the team. No need to dial, wait for the other person to pick up, just push and speak. A cell phone is more flexible, but less convenient in the heat of battle.
Also redundancy. Archon should have a minimum of 3 redundant lines of communication at all times, possibly more for the leadership.
You just gave me the mental image of Sydney on lookout duty on a rooftop. She sees something, turns around, and starts waving semaphore flags to the team below.
That does sound like a sydney thing to do…
due to Sidney’s situation back with Concretia and the red hoods I doubt Archon’s intelligence division is doing a particularly good job and may be over relying on “they’re superheroes what could happen*, given that the second they removed Sidney’s choker, especially during a quick attempt to communicate should have set off an alert with a GPS. (a cut off communication should had someone on coms to try and re-establish contact, when not able to utilized a GPS function to locate her last position before communications were lost to send someone to investigate. Given there were at that time several redundant members of the team standing around, this should have been a quick check up and fix.
instead Sidney was saved due to access to alien technology via Cora that the enemy and Archon are not aware of.
Plus, the cellphone allows you to call someone not on the team
That’s plausible to have multiple redundancies available. And again, remember, the archon internet/messaging systems are down (as are all archon signals).
So Harem used a regular phone, which is probably less secure but also not currently down, since the cloak guys only took down signals from archon, not the entire city’s cell towers :).
Maxima has used a normal phone several times in the past, including:
1) to call sydney (during the nighclub excursion);
2) to get calls from sydney (over the grand canyon, although that was a misdial by Sydney)
3) to call harem (or archon hq) (after the bank robbery, to get her to come to the ambulance).
I think sydney can go a “wee”” bit faster since the evil planetary destroyer arc…
Still “slow” when it comes to interplanetary distances, but definitely ….Interesting… if you do that kind of speed in our atmosphere at sea level, or even stratospheric. Something, something friction becomes a Thing..
Or she could have bargained for a teleport from the portal woman that Deus employs. Which probably would have ended up with a date…
Just saying. If your trying to figure out how Max can get a phone call in the middle of Africa from America with good service…
Please remember that you have a SciFiMagical Scientist Warrior on your team who, while saying they won’t share their dangerous tech, may be willing to share a better phone service method with her new friends…
Also Deus is building up this country, pretty sure cell tower and satellite link was way up the list.
I can imagine Max might not have answered the phone or noticed it in the heat of combat and this is just the message repeating it’s alert after 5 minutes. Or at least my phone cries out every 5 minutes if I don’t acknowledge I got a text… There’s a setting for it and I imagine Max would set it to do so, particularly for the emergency stuff.
As for Signal, Deus would have ensured he had reception in the area around this facility. Heck, he got a call from Opal. I don’t see him bothering to make it a private network so with Roaming on Max gets signal.
Biggest question is if that look between Deus and Vale suggests they know whats up before Maxima does or are merely curious. I still don’t believe Deus is behind the attackers, but I’d easily imagine he’s aware of them… Unless they’re led by another superintelligence…
Only two Supersonic Flyers? I was certain Hiro was that fast. Suppose not!
Hiro can only go mach one with gravity assist.
Interesting that not only did Max not chastise Sydney for not calling for help with the fires, she is now failing to take advantage of Sydney’s aetherium causeway. Sure, they’re trying to avoid revealing their abilities unnecessarily, but either she’s going to take more than an hour to get back, or she’s going to reveal more speed than she wanted to on the trip to Galytn. If the situation isn’t dire enough to use either ability… I’m not sure she really needs to be headed back at all. The major has the situation under control.
We haven’t been told if Sydney can open the causeway to any location on earth, or just from the last point she departed from. If the latter is true, using the causeway would do nothing, as it could only deliver Sydney right back to Africa. Remember the fight in the pit? Sydney came right back to the place she left, and pointedly, she NEVER tried the last location the prior owner of the orbs used.
I don’t believe the causeway is even an option.
Sydney has used the causeway at least twice from Earth since her adventure.
Once, as charlesw81 mentioned above to get answers about the stations structure, and to bring Neil deGrasse Tyson some Gratz. (Neil deGrasse Tyson unfriended her after that.) Episode #784.
Second, in the sparring match with Vehemence, in episode #980.
Bud, I dunno what comic you’re reading, but in this one? Sydney implicitly asked for help with the fires /by mentioning she was having a hard time with them when Maxima checked in with her./ Maxima then did what a good leader /should/ do with a panicky newbie who’s in over her head and let her know that all she needs to do is hold it down until more qualified personnel arrive.
Also, as an aside, you seem oddly determined to pick apart the actions of these fictional female characters. You may think you’re trying to help make things more realistic, and I’m more than willing to admit that is a possibility, but that said? From where I’m sitting it certainly feels like you’ve got a much less benign motivation behind your posts.
I’m referring back to Max’s instructions during the parking lot fight: don’t get tied down with something you’re not well-equipped to handle. Hand off enemies or situations to a teammate whose abilities are better suited. She later criticizes Dabbler and Math for failing to follow those instructions, and reiterates them.
I’m not criticizing the characters so much as wondering at the inconsistency. Once Sydney discovered that she could adjust the Air Orb to help extinguish the fires, I realized that the situation was contrived for that purpose, and that the characters are acting contrary to expectations in service of the plot.
I am curious what in particular makes you think I have “less benign motivation” behind my comments. I suspect it’s from a few particular comments on these past two pages, and not reflective of my many prior comments over the years. I doubt there is anything I can say to assure you of the quality of my intentions, but I think my posting history speaks for itself. I am, in general, a critical, analytical sort of person, but I don’t think I have any particular bias in regards to women. People are people first, and things like sex or gender are of minimal relevance to me.
the phone structure wouldn’t be in titanium, titanium is used because it weights less than steel, but it’s not really that strong; since she doesn’t have the weight problem, the frame could be in tungsten or something like that
There are frequent comments, under various issues of this comic, that Sydney should use her Aetherium Causeway to jump, or otherwise connect, between points on Earth.
I would like to ask: what makes anyone think that should be possible?
I grant that there’s no evidence from DaveB either way (as far as I can remember), but the orbs provide a very practical method for moving around on a planetary scale – via the regular properties of the flight orb. Why would the FTL travel mode be usable at any scale less than interplanetary?
—————–
Let us also remember that there’s a branch off the flight orb that hasn’t seen any upgrades yet – it might provide teleportation abilities, rendering use of the Aetherium Causeway for intraplanetary travel unnecessary (although I’m not inviting speculation at this point, since it’s largely pointless. Fun, but pointless).
Link to (early) image of the skill tree/web: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/comic/grrl-power-181-power-up/
Because she has (repeatedly) been able to travel (back) to the specific point where she left Earth. It may be that the history only stores the most recent point on each planet, and does not allow multiple points to be stored for the same planet, but that would be an unexpected limitation, given the power and flexibility of the orbs.
considering the Causeway is designed for cross universe travel, and that the orbs come with a (currently) Mach 4 travel option for planet side travel, that 1 per planet drawback makes some sense
your not going to use a SR-71 Blackbird to travel to your corner store, your just going to walk or drive
there is also the possibility that because of what the Causeway is designed to do there is a minimum distance it can jump, like could it be used to get to the moon or are you stuck travelling that distance the with just flight
I’ve mentioned this before. For long world spanning jaunts Max and Sydney really go the suborbital route. It avoids annoying groundlanders and breaking windows with sonic boomers and it’s faster than endoatmospheric travel. Max has breathing gear and her skin acts as it’s own pressure suit. Really, at Mach 5+ I don’t even see how her clothes remain in one piece. Well, I guess the quartermaster tailor has a few tricks to prevent that. As depicted, Max is only at a few hundred feet when she goes supersonic, if she’s needs to get back to HQ in time to help, she’s got to use her top speed and if she’s that low in the thick atmosphere, she’s going be white hot with the friction. There’s a lot more reasons why going that fast that low is a bad idea, far better all around to go suborbital.
re Max’s clothes: She has two force fields, one which protects her clothing, and one which does not.
Obviously it’s a very effective force field, because the first time she goes flying with Sydney, she’s wearing a military hat and glasses unsecured, and they don’t even blow off. Clothing isn’t the issue. Obviously her force field helps out totally with wind resistance, drag, and the like.