Grrl Power #1476 – Commute
Maxima can obviously move really fast, and inertia has minimal effect on her organs, at least when she’s providing the acceleration and vector changes via her own power, but there’s a limit to how tightly she can corner relative to her velocity. She has to drop it to right around mach 1 to pull the 3 dimensional S turn coming out of the hanger there, especially because she’s not planting her foot against something then kicking off, like you might do if you were trying to tightly maneuver in a swimming pool or something.
Max better hope that guy on the docks isn’t one of those proactive paranoids. Unlike your normal conspiracy theorist who just gets their marching orders from… I don’t know, Facebook I assume, the proactive ones might do something like check the dock security cameras. Now, on Earth, 95% of security cameras are just good enough to capture the broad strokes, you know, a truck pulled up to the loading bay, 3 guys got out, and maybe they were black or maybe they were wearing ski masks, but it’s too low res to really tell… actually I’m sure you could get “Caucasian” balaclavas if you went looking for them… anyway, the point is that very few systems record at 8K and 120 FPS. An alien tech security system most likely will still use the cheapest cameras available, but their Fischer Price camera might be something that captures video 64K resolution and 800K frames per second, because their computational, compression and storage tech is a thousand years ahead of ours.
Oh, look who it is in the vote incentive. And a not-quite-yet-but-it’s-coming NSFW version over at Patreon.
Vote incentive and Patreon updated with some shading. Not finished yet, but progress.
I think she would get in trouble for doing this. She’d mess up the… floor of the waterfall? Is that what it’s called? The receiving pool? No, probably not that. Anyway, she’d churn things up and cause a ton of weird erosion.
Since you might be wondering, Niagara Falls is about 165 feet high, so Babezilla obviously doesn’t have to be full sized. I’d say she’s about 175-180 feet tall here?
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. Feel free to contribute as much as you like.
I just hope Max doesn’t forget to get rid of her Max-disguise…
She didn’t forget to cloak so it probably is linked.
Seeing how the speedlines changes from gold to purple to blue, I think she remembered to turn off the Max-Disguise.
Her lines change from gold to purple twice, in panels 3 and 5, but I think that’s Dave’s mistake and that you caught the intent.
Purple is the hair, Gold is the body, Blue is the cloaked fight club form.
It’s gold and purple, cos purple hair and gold bod.
And it changes from that to blue, between panels 4 and 6, when she puts on the disguise.
A lot of security cameras record stuff in HD at least which is enough to get a good look at faces. News stations just dumb them down to potato quality because… trust me bro. I don’t think any exists that can clearly record Maxima/ Sonic/ Superman/ the Flash speed running reality.
You’d be amazed how many places still use the ‘Potato-Cam’ quality stuff that was top-of-the-line 15 to 20 years ago.
And it’s not just because the new stuff is expensive, there can be reliability issues, convenience, issues around placement or setup.
I know a store that upgraded from ‘potato’ to HD security cameras last year, and they wished they’d been allowed to keep the potato-cam system as it was easier to access and had a dedicated screen front-of store for them to watch for shoplifters. The HD system doesn’t have such a screen and you need to log into a PC to view what the cameras have recorded.
Best security is K.I.S.S. trust me bro’ imma card carrying hench and a veteran. I am withdrawing from digital life slowly… Because the usability and imho security also has utterly tanked. Also, most people I seen online wouldn’t make good fodder at Waterloo.
I think I know what you probably mean, i.e.
1. search engines are crap right now, so I just ask ChatGPT instead and
2. Windows 11 is crap with all its bloatware, subscriptions you can’t easily circumnavigate during installation and whatever else, so I switched to Linux because Linux has improved a lot and if you have problems ChatGPT will help you out without you having to phrase your questions in a human-friendly way like on Stackexchange.
I use linux on my home compyter since 2004 , but I’m an IT guy.
For windows user I advises the Linux Mint distribution , an ubuntu based one ( Ubuntu is debian based) with the Cinnamon graphical interface by default .
The Xfce lightweight graphical interface is also aviable.
https://www.linuxmint.com/
It’s free software
And if you have windows you can run it as second OS to test it.
The Internet of Things has been absolutely awful for security. Now you’ve got a Smart Camera that connects to the Internet so you need to go to the Internet to see its feed? Well, guess what, anyone else on the Internet can also see its feed.
Also, it’s most likely part of a botnet. It is functionally a computer that runs software, so it can be hacked and run malware. Look up Badbox Botnet. Over 10 million “SuperBox” Android TVs hijacked by a botnet and spyware.
Remember how Ukraine hacked into russian security cameras to do damage assessment when they attacked the Kerch Bridge with drone bots? Or how Israel hacked Iranian security cameras to track Khamenei’s moves and know when they could strike his home with him inside? Yeah, “security camera” and “connected to the Internet” are an oxymoron.
Potatoes also don’t phone home or send telemetry to adversarial parties you didn’t sign up for.
In my working life at a forensic psychiatric hospital I spent a lot of time reviewing security cam footage. Going back to the 90’s there were literally banks of VCRs and several employees to manage them. Unless there was an incident the tapes were archived for a month and then recycled. Then the facility went to digital cameras. The analog cameras and that first generation of digital cameras were pretty much potato cam quality. To get access to the recordings you had to go to a supervisor and make a case for why you needed to see the recording. Sometimes you had to follow a person across several cameras just to get a good enough view to figure out who they were. By the time I moved out of my direct care supervisory position there were cameras on every hallway and I could review the video from any camera in my building. That would have been around 2010. Early on I was a psychologist on an adolescent forensic program and many hours were spent just figuring out who trashed somebodies room or pissed in the corner when nobody was looking. When I became a program director on maximum security campus with an adult population the cameras took on a different level of importance. 99% of the time the cameras were handy for saving someone’s job after they were falsely accused of abuse. They also helped me send a few bad employees on their way. That is just a bit of context. In terms of security the video record went from an analog recording that could be physically locked away to a networked system with live monitors in the nurses stations and recording that could be accessed from an administrators desktop. Because the workplace was a hospital all there recording were considered to be a medical record and had to be as secure as the electronic medical record. (We also went “paperless” during my career.) The medical record went from paper, to an on campus server, to a central server at central office. The video record stayed onsite and required separate software individually installed on specific desk tops and unique passwords for each user. System access was logged as was access to the medical record. During my tenure we had several high profile patients and the security of the record was a concern but we didn’t have any known data breeches. I’ve now been out of the loop for the better part of a decade and with things like work from home I’m not sure that I would bet the house on that security.
I wasn’t really paying attention. Is Sydney in like the danger room? The matrix? A training room of a fighting game?
Looks like the holodeck on Cora’s ship, where Max recently did her sword training session.
I don’t think they are on Cora’s ship. I believe they are on a space station that’s partially owned by Dabbler. Cora’s ship is docked there.
I think it’s implied that they left the starforge, particularly since Max needed to physically arrive at the arena. Cora said that they “Holodecked the cargo bay” for Max to use for sword training, and it looks like that’s where Sydney has opened her Aetherium causeway.
You literally see Cora’s ship
Speaking of the causeway, have they fired a probe through it to see what’s on the other end of the futzed coordinates?
Also, a supersonic flyby 3 feet from Sydney would be rather unpleasant for her. So we know Max as absurd control over her flight speed and inertia and I’m sure Deus is idly crunching those numbers in his head as an afterthought.
Yeah she really should have had her shield up. If she had the shield up, the shield would likely be blown backwards. So she might have needed flight up. But that smashes her between the still air and Max’s wake.
Possibly being on the back side of the causeway would reduce this.
Low level flybys of fighters are dangerous because they kick up crap, which at least would cause a hazard to anything in its wake. Not to mention any bobble due to turbulence puts the plane in the dirt.
For camera resolution, Mach 1 at sea level means she’s moving about 3 meters between frames at 120fps. So she could be caught by consecutive frames but I suspect her features would be smeared out because the dots need a certain amount of light to fall on them and that light is from a fast moving object. Low light with cameras these days is better than it was because there’s multiple frames taken and the pictures averaged out.
From previous interactions with the shield, it seems pretty immobile, even to a superpowered nuclear fallout like Maxima’s demo or the world eater’s attack, why do you think a simple nearby sonic boom would blow it backwards?
I thought about that after posting.
Does this mean that you could make a net and use her shield as a skyhook? I wonder what mass it would be capable of supporting.
I’m assuming at least the 16 tons that her lighthook can support, but probably more than that. The mass of high-speed air from the explosion could provide a surprisingly high force.
Given that the thanks was (perhaps barely) understandable I am sure Max slowed to subsonic speed inside the ship.
Sydney? Next time you and Max employ this tactic, bubble up first. Just a suggestion.
I did not want to be that guy. Thanks for handling it!
Why do the sick workers look like the Citidal workers from Mass Effect?
it’s called a Shout Out
Perhaps Dave is a fan of Mass Effect like all people of class.
Does Max just phase through matter when moving this fast? You’d think the air would catch on fire or something.
It’s called PLASMA dude, might want to look it up. Sheesh what a D-list villain name…Ahem, indeed. (snerk) But I pulled a job with a jerk named “The STAIN” so wadda I know.
Not De STAIN? (Jamaican accent)
Lame >.<
Max seriously didnt need more glazing.
Her being able to dip out of a galactic tournament to solve a problem on earth, and then return,
pushes her even further into Mary Sue levels.
While also reflecting badly on Archon that they could not manage this on their own.
This tournament arc is going downhill fast.
Feel free to stop reading. Do us all a favor
So the big thing about kaijus is that you really can just “shoot the legs.”
or the cell phone with any basic projectile weapon[yes even projecting photons as seen by id10ts pointing lasers at cockpits during landings.]
What that means is you crit every time you bother to aim your weapon if you can get thru the DR (damage resistance).
And since this one shrinks back to human size you only have to toss a gerbil in their ear canal to critically damage their brain. [Superion field does not deal with foreign living things]
So obviously Max was not needed.
No she wasn’t really needed. But it’s not “only Maxima can save us”. It’s showing on live streaming that yes Max is totally here on Earth and ready to respond.
but who actually saw maxima respond, whoosh flash dash
I guess you could claim the cameraman was looking for the panty flash and caught a glimpse of Max.
I have seen a drive-by shooting take more time.
There was several seconds of dialog, where she slowed down enough to be picked up on camera
The real trouble must be slowing down intermittently when near people that die to sonic booms.
I’m wondering if, in her haste, she’s going to forget some aspect of her disguise. Actually, related to that, I was recently rereading the tournament arc as a result of an ill-advised late night archive trawl, and I remember the suit taking time to remove or stitch onto her, probably in part from how it has to be incredibly formfitting to be covered by her personal force field, so a rush job is likely to leave material that will get vaporized with high-power attacks, revealing some of her true nature.
Ah but she is also employing holograms which take a lot less time to change.
Right. She’s Max, wearing a hologram suit, which was projecting a “Max” hologram while she was back on Earth. It doesn’t eliminate the possibility of some kind of glitch or error, but it does make it less likely.
That’s General L. P. Noises, *sir*
A Mass Effect reference. Noice!
man.. i would love to know the kind of tech cora is running that masks the evidence of the N’gth (?) tech thats so old, and advanced its basically lost city of atlantis level myth, obscured to the authorities.
It might have to do with whether anyone is actually scanning for it at the tournament.
The problem is more likely to be on the Earth end. We know there’s a satellite scanning for shenanigans because they’re ostensibly keeping the space people from selling FTL tech to the primitive screwheads (us).
I suppose it’s how easy it is to insert an “aetherial causeway detector” into the satellite and whether they actually did that.
Do the ships around the tournament planet have that? How expensive is the tech, and did any of the ships buy that option when they installed their sensor suites? How well can it locate the near end, and what can it detect of where the far end is located?
For all we know, there’s a couple of other spectator ships with Nth tech drives. As long as one end isn’t in the arena I doubt the tournament officials care.
How did Sydney get outside, know what to do and open the portal for Max within 4 seconds?
She was probably notified as soon as the rest of the team was about the operation. She therefore had all of the travel time that the rest of the team took to get to the scene to set up. We just didn’t get to see that.
Max probably was kept in the loop on the whole thing, but only left the arena when everything was set up.
Harem is the one relying the information to Maxima.
They knew the possibility of having to go back for an emergency and have a plan though before hand.
Harem informed Sydney before informing Maxima to give her time to go deploy the portal.
Sydney went to the designated space, open the portal and wait till Max made the trip in and trip out.
Max didn’t leave the playing field until Sydney was in position and the portal open.
I find it frustrating that the entire Archon team was incapable of handling an oversized OF model and Max had to come back from “vacation” to do their job. What are they getting paid for again?
Be fair, it was a big problem and they were trying to non-leathel. That makes things harder, not easier in the moment.
I love this sequence, but I’m surprised there’s not like a stopwatch or countdown clock in hte corner of the framews that seems to be ticking down just a litlle too fast to build the suspense.
Those dock workers look like the Martians from War of the Worlds. Either the Tom Cruise one or the TV Series, they’re a bit small to fully identify them.
Is the nose ridge an accessory Babezilla can take off, only shows up at certain size thresholds, or was it just forgotten in the vote incentive?
I just want to know what property of Max’s powers let her go Mach 1 and “whoooosh” at the same time. She would have to have a built-in peristalsis field to avoid knocking everybody with in 20 meters on their arse, and security would *definitely* not be saying: “must have been the wind”.
Max’s “whoosh without carnage” may be related to the same zero‑range force field that lets brick supers hold a tank without sinking into the sidewalk. What looks to us mere humans like micro‑adjustments to unintended side-effects is really the field shaping local causality so her momentum doesn’t turn the area into a disaster zone.
It’s in sync with how Nathaniel treats the dimension of time like a flipbook he can riffle through for fun. If nTech can let someone skim through time pages, it can definitely give Max a reality‑management bubble that keeps her supersonic antics cinematic instead of catastrophic.
Cora described Max’s force field as being more like a “reality reinforcement event“.
This has been adressed in Dabbler’s science corner not far after Sydney’s introduction(before the restaurant fight)
Zero range telikinesis.
How is Sidney able to understand Max? Doppler effect would mess up her speech.
Why does Wile E Coyote have time to put up a sign before falling?
It’s a comic. Comic book physics Apply
I mean if you want to get picky, Assuming Max is traveling at Mach 1 (Dave stated she was super sonic when she hit Babezilla), and that it took 1 second to blurt out “GoodJobSydneyYouCanCloseItNow” (seems a little conservative), she would have traveled 330 meters in the time that she made the statement (Sound travels at 330m/s at STP), and would be out of hearing range pretty quickly.
to get even more picky – if she was still traveling supersonic the sonic boom of the Mach cone forming as she exited the portal would have drowned out anything she said anyway.
Who says she understood a single word.
Closing the causeway after Max leaves seems to be something she should be able to do without orders from her commanding officer
I assume they still have whatever mike/headphone combo, which can slow down/speed up speech enough to talk to Max when she has it dialed up. Possibly Cora or Dabbler contributed some tech, no doubt with anti-reverse engineering measures.
Balaclavas come in all colors, even ones with pre-printed features (usually burning skulls or various flags). So, you could fairly easily find one in any “skin tone” if you tried.
I like the ones sprinkled with white powdered sugar.
Also, if you need it to be white, there are Guy Fawkes masks. ;-)
(Literal *SKI* masks don’t favor colors that would help camo victims of an accident in the snow, I guess. And nightly less-than-legal visitors like to blend in with the *darkness* …)
Yeah I saw a video of a guy with a mask printed with a different face that ended up looking amazingly realistic.
Put a hoodie on top, along with gloves, long sleeves and pants, etc. and I don’t think you’re getting usable security footage.
And that’s with our tech level.
Confectioner’s sugar atop honey strikes me as “gilding the lily”.
Ok so if Maxima popping in and out was just to prove she is around and not in the tournament, wouldn’t it have been much easier to arrange Dabbler, Cora or one of their friends doing shenigans instead? They could’ve stuck around longer than just few seconds and considering Max didn’t do anything too outrageous, possibly even replicated her stunt as well.
Incoming sonic boo!
Babezilla is honestly one of the most powerful supers we’ve seen so far. She had some reason to think she was nigh unstoppable. Dabbler’s railgun is not common knowledge (and is obviously quite a few tech levels past ‘normal’ railguns), and the full power that Maxima is capable of is also not common knowledge… as far as Babezilla knows, Maxima’s power tops out at ‘can blow up a tank’. And Babezilla is much, MUCH tougher than a tank. Normal supers cannot hurt her. Normal military weaponry cannot harm her significantly… not without nukes, anyway. So as far as Babezilla was concerned, she had good reason to be confident. She was a moron… never assume you know what the enemy is capable of… but ‘supervillain for the views’ is not exactly what makes a Mensa membership. And as it was… the team had no real non-lethal tactics to take Babezilla down. That supersonic, super strong, super tough tap to the head was exactly what they needed to drop her non-lethally. Now that she’s shrinking, they can contain her… assuming her powers to alter the size of objects doesn’t work on extra durable jail cells. (Babezilla could TRY to burst a jail cell from the inside by growing out of it… but so long as the walls of the cell are tough enough, she’d just end up crushing herself), so she’s pretty much handled at this point.
Of course, we don’t know her power set is just ‘growing big and making things I’m wearing/carrying grow big with me’ and whatever ‘growth force’ secondary power makes that all work without physics killing her or making her phone useless. She might have full size/mass alteration powers… which would make her MUCH harder to contain. Guess we’ll see. (or not… if she just has the growth powers then her containment might as well be off screen)
If she has size-change powers, rather than just growth powers, she’d be particularly difficult to contain.
For example she might shrink herself enough to fit through the air ducts. Or she might be able to shrink a jail cell door into nothingness.
It makes me wonder how ARC power dampeners work against powers which ARC doesn’t fully understand.
Babezilla may be an anti-Deus. Where his power involves increased intelligence, at least so he tells us over and over, she may not have started at the peak of the bell curve and didn’t get any boost in intelligence when her powers came in. This could be a whole class of opponent. They aren’t particularly malicious, just ridiculously powerful and inconveniently stupid.
Dabbler’s railgun was used during Archon’s press event to display Dabs power.
It’s totally public knowledge.
I suspect that given the recent opening of a causeway at fracture station, and now this new one at the tournament, and the rarity of such an event based on Cora’s reactions from earlier, there may be speculation on Max having access to aetherium tech by someone not from Earth.
If a causeway is able be detected through an entire planet via scanners, they can probably be detected opening under a roughly 30-40 foot thick steel structure.
This’s the first time Max has been “spotted”(if that disguise is worth the sales pitch nobody knows it’s her) with the causeway.
There is already suspicion from fracture station security that earth and supers might have somsomething to do with it.(end of the Kevin training arc)
The star that “through”, which the causeway was detected is populated at both sides with a full little brother society.
She probably just queried a public database, send a drone or scrolled social media to detect it(this also works on earth it’s a lot harder to hide something in the sky than underground or in a building, because the sky is monitored from all sides)
Also this time she access to “advanced infiltration gear”, which should help hide whatever trace the causeway produces.
Didn’t Max go into space to set up a way to fox the satellite that is up there monitoring things for the space cops? That would keep them from spotting the gateway.
Babezilla’s idea of what Max can do shouldn’t be limited to knocking out a tank, unless somehow the carrier she one-shotted didn’t make it into the news.
Suzie reported it. “Goddess of Ash”
Lets just hope she remembers to put the disguise back on.