Grrl Power #164 – Stop! Hammerspace!
I need to go back through the comic and put little sparkles on Max whenever she’s out in sunlight. I have to say I’m fairly pleased with the art on this page. There’s always things that could be better, but when I loaded it up to post the comic my first thought was “Hey that’s pretty good looking.” Although I just noticed that Dabbler’s braids change color. :/ Something else for the fix list. Edit: Fixed the braids and I also boneheadedly reversed the colors on Maxima’s choker, which is also fixed.
Anyone who doesn’t quite understand what’s going on in the middle row of panels because you’ve just recently joined us might want to jump back to here and read the next few pages. Well. Dabbler is teleporting a gun to her hand. I mean the stuff about her looking like a purple demon.
Let’s see. To wrap up on some stuff I’ve mentioned over the last few weeks. Shadow Warrior was great. Wearing the Cape: Young Sentinels was a good read as well. Probably not as good as the first book in the series, but most novels are like that. That said, I did enjoy The Trials of Renegade X even more than the first one, for reasons I can’t really even hint at without spoiling stuff. Not that there’s tweests left and right, but… well even saying stuff like that can be spoilery. Are there twists? You don’t know! Bah. I need a forum for people who have read the same books as me. Or just more meatspace friends that read superhero novels.
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.
Hm. So most of Dabbler’s spell-like effects is actually tech concealed by her illusions? (Not actually hammerspace.)
Or does she conjure tech out of the air using magic? (This would be real hammerspace.)
I’d guess Dabbler uses magical hammerspace to store her techie gadgets.
Nope. We’ve got someone who is a succubus doppleganger alien mutant psionic cyborg. Oh and probably designed that weapon herself.
Nah. Per her history, she can do both. A regular “Jill of All Trades.” However this was already explained, in her Biography I think. She has a cybernetic lower arm with a device that can teleport in items she’s already built, though I assume they have to be built to respond to that device.
Yep, she simply transported the weapon from her ship’s armory.
That said I like her look in panel 7, half/half is kinda cute
Panel 8 is cuter, imo (had forgotten what she really looks like)
I think we’ve just learned a Succubus swear word.
I might say something similar if somebody tackled my leg when I wasn’t ready for it.
And will Syd’s training in Archon actually help reign in her ADHD?
There really is no reining in with ADHD. The best you can do is manage it. It will always be there.
Like a number of mental … disorders(and I hate to use that word but …) ADHD is always present, it never truly goes away, you just learn to manage and control it(mostly, we all have our off days in spite of it all). Though how severe it is of course varies from person to person. I’m on the mellow end of ADHD myself, borderline being considered more ADD than ADHD. I have my moments when I’m more hardcore ADHD, but I’m not a Ferret after five triple shot Espressos, more like two or three.
Therapy(being taught ‘tricks’ to focus on a single task and ignore distractions) and Medication(to help calm us down and reign in rampaging thoughts) is two of the biggest things that help us “manage” things.
The best we can hope for is find a way to make it work FOR us, not AGAINST us. That’s partially also a matter of therapy. I’m coping with it in my writing by writing a book that’s a series of short stories, that way if I get tempted to go off on a tangent, I can always “noodle incident” it, and then if its interesting enough, flesh it out in another short story. So in that way, I’m making it work FOR me, as it helps flesh out the characters of events that you don’t see and makes them far more believable as a result. It also helps create ideas that otherwise organically would not be as easily to develop or write in a “standard” novel format.
But yes, like Gamesman said, its always there, lurking under the surface, looking for a “shiny” to bring it out and ruin any sense of order you had going on at the moment.
They’re not disorders they’re perks!
I laughed at “DOLLY ZOOM”. It cought me by surprise. I assume that’s “dolly in” and “zoom out”.
A dolly-in movement performs a zoom with a different visual effect, because of change of angles to the background element, than a in-camera zoom.
In a perfect world, I would have animated that panel.
For anyone who doesn’t know what a dolly zoom is, it’s that trick where you move the camera in and zoom out at the same time (or zoom in) basically it looks like the background is moving when it isn’t.
https://oi51.tinypic.com/2dmfip5.jpg
An animated GIF embedded?
I totally get the zoom in the linked image, but are you sure the protagonist isn’t moving too? Like in a wheelchair or something? I would swear he’s moving past the bathhouse…
The character appears to move toward the camera because the camera is moving forward. Dollying has a greater effect on close objects than distant ones. The background, including the building to the left, appear to move away from the camera because the camera is zooming out. Zooming has the same effect on distant objects as on close ones. The diference in effects is what audiences call “really cool”.
It’s hard to explain why this works the way it does in one brief sentence. Here’s an animated diagram that includes what’s going on with the camera: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c7/Contra-zoom_aka_dolly_zoom_animation.gif
Why this works comes down to how zoom lenses work. Imagine you’re standing 3 feet from someone. If they stick their arm out so their fingers are almost touching your face, the difference between the foreground (their hand) and the background (their face) accounts for nearly 100% of the depth of the scene. Their hand looks much larger in comparison to their head – basic rules of foreshortening.
Now picture that same person standing with their arm out, only they’re 50 feet away. Now the distance between their hand and face accounts for only about 5% of the total depth of the scene (or the depth of field). If you zoom way in so they’re framed up the same as they were in the previous example, their hand is still only 5% of the depth of the scene, and their hand would look almost exactly the right size for a hand. By moving the camera and racking the zoom, you compress or decompress the background while physically moving in on the subject (also called dollying in, hence the name dolly zoom)
Tricks like this are how you prolong a running scene like the one at the end of The Graduate. You put the camera way far back, then stick a massive zoom lens on it, so the whole time Dustin is running, he’s still only covering maybe 1/5th of the distance between where he started and where the camera is, making it feel almost like that dream where you’re trying to run and can’t. It’s actually pretty clever cinematography: https://youtu.be/yRBNA27N0ts?t=2m17s
All that said, of course it’s possible that someone could cheat and actually move the subject while dollying the camera, but as you can see in the example from Jaws, that would be gilding the lily, as it’s quite effective on its own.
That image works perfectly for me, including the changing facial expression :D
AKA a “Hitchcock Zoom” after the famous director who first perfected it, for movies like Vertigo.
I feel like film nerd for getting that reference. Thank you for making my day!
Didn’t the glamour drop when Sydney saw through it last time?
Or did Dabbler drop it intentionally that time?
Dabbler drop it intentionally that time.
We’re seeing the glamour that Syd saw last time, aren’t we? It’s a good look for her. Is that what everyone else sees?
I asumed it was her base glamor
The last panel is your clue. Dabbler did not drop her glamour. Sydney is using the Truesight Orb to see through the glamour and see what Dabbler is really doing. It shows her the arms and the all the effects of what Dabbler is doing to summon the crossbow. The last panel shows you this because she is no longer holding the Truesight Orb and once again you see Dabbler in her Glamour form.
Right, but I meant is it the same glamour that everyone sees, or does everyone see what they want to see? I remember Syd taking credit for how good Dabbler looked at one point.
Yes, right now Dabbler is using a Fixed Glamour, gleaned mostly from scraps of what Syndey considers a cool looking battle babe (the result of a lifelong diet of comic books and anime.) The Beholder Glamour that shows each viewer their ideal woman is fun at parties, but it’s not a useful tool for deception as it’s too easy for people to compare notes and figure out they’re not seeing the same thing. “Wow that blonde is super hot.” “Blonde? You mean the lizard woman over there?”
That last sentence being sure to get odd looks from everyone nearby.
It was odd enough to remind me of an old StarTrek episode: The Man Trap.
“The Enterprise arrives at planet M-113 to provide supplies and routine medical exams to Doctor Robert Crater and his wife, Nancy, with whom Dr. Leonard McCoy was once romantically involved. M-113 has been home to the Craters for five years, during which time they have conducted an archaeological survey of the planet’s ruins. They are the only known inhabitants of the planet.
Kirk, McCoy, and crewman Darnell beam down to the planet and meet Dr. Crater and, apparently, Nancy Crater, but each of the landing party sees a different woman. McCoy, who says he is amazed at how little Nancy has changed since he last saw her, sees Nancy as he knew her 12 years ago. Darnell sees a completely different, younger blond woman who looks exactly like someone he met before. Kirk sees a woman similar to the woman McCoy sees, but more appropriately aged.”
It turns out that “the woman” is an alien, the last survivor of M-113, and can literally appear as a different being to each person “she” meets by reaching into their minds and drawing on their memories.
I meant being under that form of Glamor and basically admitting that you find lizard-women hot.
So you invite Gorns to your cocktail parties?
Or maybe Jim Morrison? (bonus points for getting that reference)
Ehhh my heating bill can’t handle Gorns, and only dug a couple of the Door’s songs.
Forget Gorns, K`Sel are were it’s now at regarding lizards (plus they originate on Earth :P)
Sorry mate, I’ll stick with my Terrans and Orions.
You make Lackey sad ;(
Sorry, I prefer recognizable anatomy. =P
You mean mammaries?
partly yes
Why did Dabbler pick Sydney’s image of a cool battle-babe? :3 I’m risking answering my own question: does she have such a great imagination she could impress an intergalactic being who came from places we couldn’t even imagine?(call me lazy, but I’m not going to try to quote her exactly)
Partially because it would be easier for readers to recognize her if I kept her disguise forms to a minimum. Plus I like the design. I’m sure Maxima would have liked her to wear a more sensible top in any case.
Dabbler must feel totally conflicted at Halloween. She could conjure up any costume at a moment’s notice, but the best costume would probably be none at all. (As in no illusion, not an absence of clothing. Although….)
If you’re counting Dabbler’s “birthday suit” as a costume, I’m all in for that!
She might enjoy Halloween since she doesn’t have to waste the energy on a glamour.
In that first panel it looks like Dabbler is wearing a pikachu-skin cape.
Ahahahaha! Wow, I think you’re right!
Someone actually skinned one of those electro-rats? Cool
Pikachu are too small, maybe one of his evolved brothers?
Only if you want a onesie, besides, the more skinned pikannoyance’s the better :P
INORIGHT
Saw a young woman wearing a pikannoyance onesie come in an order a pizza at a local Pizza Hut (and she wasn’t that young either, late teens/early 20’s at the youngest)
Actually, a “hammerspace” or “bag-of-holding” like power would be a nice power to have.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlhyPeXcNmA
Rightie-o!
Can’t stop this… Alien-magic-tech rifle from discharging in a random direction.
Eh.
What’s one more crater on the moon?
The “try to leave something for Halo and me” comment is interesting, seeing as Dabbler only pulled out what looks like a combat shotgun.
Might it be loaded with Washu-style ‘Goodfellow’ rounds? “Material casing, with a gel layer of the neutral material, with a filament core of the anti-material.”
Crossbow
I don’t think Dab’s weapon is a crossbow; I thought so at first too at first glance, because we don’t get a good look. A closer inspection of what we can see does indeed show similarities in design, but all the little metal nodes on the curved piece make me think it is some sort of energy generator weapon. Maybe using both magic & alien tech. Looking forward to seeing more next week…
I’m pretty sure that it is a railgun. The crossbow-looking arcs house magnets that propel the metal projectile at immense speeds. This would explain why Maxi warned Dabbs not to take all the fun. Railguns can do some crazy damage.
Regardless of what it is, she is demonstrating a *significant* lapse in firearm safety.
Finger *OFF* the trigger until you have acquired your target, and are ready to shoot!
Because of that failure, nothing but sheer luck (and maybe the artist being unfamiliar with a certain class of involuntary reflexes) prevented an uncontrolled discharge of that weapon.
The trigger finger should be held along the frame of the weapon *above* the trigger until you are ready to shoot.
Meh, it’s probably on safety anyway. Besides, she has a cybernetic arm
“Probably” on ‘safe’ means not on safe. And unless her cybernetic limb requires conscious effort and concentration to manipulate, it’ll act on reflex as well.
Maybe she’s just not into “safety” as a concept? (“Stodgy, boring humans, so concerned about accidentally blowing off the odd extremity…”)
Maybe that’s not the trigger. It is designed for a four-armed user after all. It probably is the trigger, but I’m saying not to jump to conclusions. Who knows (besides maybe the author); maybe she was about to fire right before Sydney jumped her.
What he said. In a four armed race, the safety and therefore the weapon may REQUIRE two hands to operate, maybe even 3 to change the setting once two have grasped the lockout control.
Well it is a higher tech weapon than earth. We have guns with fingerprint locks maybe her guns are linked to her mind and only fire when she thinks “Fire”.
We really need to stop saying “ready to shoot” and use “going to shoot”, you can be ready to shoot for an hour. Tho honestly my version of muzzlesafety is far stricter than what they might teach in class. As far as i’m concerned you shouln’t ever aim a weapon at someone unless you are going to shoot them right this instant. Because i assure you that if you point it at me, I’m not going to think you’re “ready to shoot” but that you’re going to kill me, and the best chance i’ve got is to kill you first.
Just incase there are still people who didn’t see this on previous comments section (and yes if Dave is ok with it I will put this under every page until KS is over :P)
I just want to get your folks attention for a split second for something on kickstarter. More information about it is in the link but I will tell the short story behind project if anyone interested. I am posting this here becuase well Super Hero business :P
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/missingworldsmedia/the-phoenix-project-city-of-titans
For someone so amused by disrupting the personal space of others, Dabbler seems ill prepared for Sydney leg glomps.
The first sign of the Apocalypse: Dabbler having personal space issues.
I think her reaction is more a case of surprise than offense.
No-one, not even Dabbles, expects the Halo Leg-Clamp!
And ….. Sydney-Crazy is b-a-a-ck!
Heheh, dang but I’ve missed that.
I’ve heard that line about being taller, but it was a tallish woman saying it to a man she admired as a compliment. I’m not sure if Dabby was being honest or ironic.
That split panel with the query mark and the Comm ball whapping into Syd’s hand is awesomely elegant. We know what that means, don’t we? Nice visual narrative.
I like the look on all the faces at the end. Dismay, chagrin, and outrage. Not to mention bug-eyed Syd breathing “Hammerspace”. Beautiful.
Thanks, DaveB. Good one. :)
Sydney’s TRUE POWER emerges! She is the anti-Dabbler!
O-oh, everybody knows when Dabbler and Anti-Dabbler collide, a massive explosion results!
Two characters with equal but opposite ADHD. :)
Heh heh, while Max is probably somewhat put off by Sydney’s freak out, I’m sure she’s at least a little pleased to see her giving Dabbler a bit of awkward to deal with! Gotta love those episodes of Sydney-delivered karma.
I realy like dabblers half glamoured hair
Me too, a nice contrast against her skin.
So…. when did the coloring on maxima’s neckband swap around? It used to be the M was lighter than the rest.
Crap you’re right. You’d think I’d remember basic stuff like that. One more for the fix list.
Hmm, Sydney’s ADHD and impulse control (lack there of) makes Dabbler seem sane. . .
Wait, Sydney knows how to WHISPER-SHOUT?!
Clearly this girl was a super before the keys incident.
Actually I need to fix that. It’s supposed to be a shout-bubble, but against the dark background it does look like a whisper balloon.
Let’s be fair.
If YOU saw somebody using Hammerspace or something alike wouldn’t you want to learn it from that person? This just has the Sydney-touch (gotta love it).
Also a fine piece: Max’ and Adrianna’s faces in the last panel.
By now you’d have imagined they’dbeen able to expect something like this.
And yes, I’d also store all kinds of stuff in hammerspace, including Thor’s Hammer.
Hmm… gotta try the kleptomaniac approach…
If you reread from the part linked in the description, you’ll see that they only knew her for a day, really.
Which is not enough for them getting used to her. It would be poor storytelling otherwise
I’ve been there from Day 1.
I know of course, that normally it isn’t enough time to get to know somebody.
But we’re talking about an experienced PR-Manager and a US-Colonel here, and the subject of their concern is a Sydney.
No-One can antee-cee-pate the antics of The Halo!!!
This is the first time I’ve heard someone call it Hammerspace.
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Hammerspace
Also known as the Highlander Trenchcoat ;)
Gawd, you’re making me nostalgic.
Always wondered how they managed that…
Maybe they got the idea from The Doctor.
Imagine the implications of Hammerspace/ Time-Lord pockets and every police search thereof.
If I remember right, the manga ‘Oh! My Goddess!’ had a nice explanation once about ‘bigger on the inside’:
See this box? At this very moment it has a fixed volume.
And the next moment it has a fixed volume as well.
Now, if you put the volumes of both moments side by side, you have double the volume.
Continue as above until you have the desired volume.
Hm, makes one wonder. How much space is there in Hammerspace / Time-Lord pockets….
As much space as needed (usually the limitation is what can fit through the opening)
Also very much like Jim Carey’s pockets in the movie, The Mask…
And also like various cartoon characters, like Bugs Bunny & how Wile E. could pull out signs to hold up, from behind his back.
“one rocket launcher”
“i have a permit for that”
lol,,, sidney would use hammerspace to store hammer allright,,,hammer missiles,, war hammers hammerhead ammo,,
I know this word. Have you read Zandar’s Saga?
:3
Aha! I knew I recognized that word from somewhere. Though ever since that comic stopped showing up on Drunk Duck I lost track of it.
https://www.dragoneers.com/crossovers/Zanderssaga.html
I find impressive that Sydney didn’t need to use her flight orb in that last panel, and still manages to hang on.
Going to need Anvil, Wart and Maxi to pry her grip loose :D
Halo needs a cape.
Seriously.
Perfect for hiding what orb she is holding behind her back. Makes the villains have to count the ones above her head and figure out which one(s) are missing.
“No capes!” –Edna Mode
A coat with big pockets, however….
Doctor: Would you like a jelly baby?
Does anybody else remember Adventures with Bill from The Red Green Show?
Seeing the Doctor’s age when he first gave out those jelly babies and his current age, I’d be very careful about taking anything from his pockets. You don’t know how long it’s been in there (or what state it’s in).
To my knowledge nobody ever stated the flux of time inside the Doctor’s pockets… or any hammerspace I know of.
Que awkward moment…
*Holds up a small bag*
This bag contains an egg that has been in Hammerspace for 7.49 years! Lets see what happens!
*Opens bag and gets a gout of ice-breath in the face*
… … … muufle!!
Oh, I see. It is a white dragon egg, which has subsequently hatched. So what has it been eating?
*chips ice from his mouth* Politicans.
Eugh. We should wash it’s mouth out with soap and get it checked up. Eating politicians CAN’T be good for health…. or most lawyers.
Junk food.
Politicians ARE mostly Lawyers. How do you think they get so corrupt and incompetent at the same time?
Man walks into a lawyer’s office: “I’d like to hire you, but first you have to answer me a question. How much is 2+2?” Lawyer answsers truthfully: “4.”
Man goes to next lawyer, the answer to the question here is: “5.”
Now, the third lawyer stands up, looks out his office door, locks it. Then he walks to the window, closes all blinds and sits back down. In a hush-hush voice, he replies: “How much doe you want it to be?”
How does Maxima not have more respect from her peers?
Definitions of peer seem to vary. Perhaps Dabbler shows respect by reminding Max that she’s holding herself back from the chaos she could unleash for the sheer raising hell of it.
Max’s definition of peer: Female super who doesn’t set woman’s equalities back 193 years.
Maxima has plenty of respect for her peers. Dabbler is just a habitual line-stepper.
I had to look up the term Hammerspace. I am so glad I did.
To be fare if I saw someone using hammerspace I would do the same thing.
I don’t think you need a forum for people who have read the same books… I think you need a forum for people who don’t mind spoilers.
Eala’ ! That’s an exclamation Zandar Skonk used when that comic (Zandar’s Saga) was on-line. Coincidence or are she and Dabbler related somehow? Dab mixing her Glamours looks really cool. She oughta do it more often.
Actually that was Sydney’s view through her true sight, allowing her to see through some of the illusion. Yeah, that version of Dabbler is quite striking.
Hmm, Sydney forms the Henta-orb into the Sword of Omens and then calls for “Sight Beyond Sight”, while grabbing a certain yellow ball.
‘ealá’ is Old English, not sure if it’s a greeting or an exclamation. Could be a reference to Tergerio’s Zandar Skonk, or just an indicator that dabbler has been around for a while.
I personally never try to surprise-tackle someone who has just been asked to unleash firepower that makes tank fire seem puny.
I also make it a point to smack anyone who does… I wonder what Max will be doing next…
I doubt Sydney even thought of anything or anyone after realizing the Hammerspace (even though it’s not even real hammerspace)
Max is holding Sydney around the waist, thrown over her shoulder as she walks back to the viewing area.
Max: Will you calm down? You could have caused Dabbler …
Sydney: [ Diminished ] But, … Hammerspace. I need to learn …
Max: Be glad nobody got hurt by that stunt. After this demo is over, you are going to go to Dabbler and apologize! Then you and I are going to have another long safety talk, Private Scoville.
Oops, I forgot to tell Max to put Sydney down before talking to her. In the meantime, the entire turret of the tank seems to transform into confetti and flow down the sides of the tank.
Nah, it’s more funner that Maxi is talking to Sydney’s butt :D
Dabbler can take a glare from Maxima, but a Squeeing Sydney on the leg is her undoing. :D
Dabbler is so self assured when dealing with everybody and then of course Sydney catches her off-guard and blows the whole thing. That last panel brought back a funny memory, my daughter was holding a baby squirrel and saying how cute it was then it jumped from her hand and started climbing the front of her shirt and she is jumping around yelling “get it off get it off”
Knowing Sidney she’d want to pull a Warhammer mech out of her ‘hammerspace’.
And pickles. and cheese whiz. and asbestos lined bottles of hot sauce.
Pah, baby food. Where is the Pure-Cap?
Foolish fool! The pure Cap IS her version of hot sauce!
Nah, that’s the regular sauce
Oh No! She found the container of…UNMAKER!!!!!!!!
Pft, mecha.
Knowing Sydney, she’d probably try and stash the odd starship in there.
Hm…
Wonder what the inside of Hammerspace looks like.
I like Maxima’s sparkle effects.
That’s because it’s a sunny day (and she is not a gay-ass Twitard vampire)
Waaait.. Maxima has elf-ears?I thought she was just “human turned sparkely”. When/why/how did she get pointy-little-elf-ears???
So that’s why she usually has long hair over em…. O.O
It is amazing how frequently folks comment on not having spotted her elf ears. Despite the fact that they have featured prominently in quite a few issues. And discreetly in many more.
Rather than people being unobservant, I think that it is an aspect of how human brains work. If she pranced around in green tights, carried a bow and wore a feathered hat you would expect the elf ears. As it is, she is dressed as a soldier and your brain completes the image with human ears despite the objections from your eyes.
Maxi is not ‘sparkely’, she is ‘shiney’
I’d prefer a fleet of spaceships ala Andromeda Ascendant, original battlestar galactica, etc just because they will be too busy looking up to see you running away!
The press doesn’t know she’s an alien though
I quite liked the design of the original Galactica, she doesn’t look as grimdark as the re-imagined one.
Then again, the original series was a space-opera and not an space-action series.
Original Galactica is cool and all, but give me a fully operational Eagle from Space: 1999 any day :D
Of course, that one would be stored in hammerspace as well.
Plus one of the original Galactica Vipers, one each of the re-imagined version, a Hammerhead from Space: Above and beyond, tons of ships from Star Trek, Stargate and Star Wars…
And of course people to fix them for me.
I remember that one stip in CollectedCurios, where one of the protagonists uses a (fully functional) TIE-Interceptor to go shopping…
Heh, yep. Would definetively do the same (and then sell the entire thing to NASA or ESA).
Actually, a Space: 1999 Eagle could be built using today’s technology, quite easily in fact, now that the government funding is back in place. The problem is that they are designed to operate in the relatively light gravity (1.6 N/kg) of the moon.
This page is kinda confusing for people who haven’t checked the cast page. Since Dabbler’s cybernetic arm is indistinguishable from the other three and hasn’t been mentioned in the comic itself yet, it’s not apparent why she’s using her invisible hand to summon the gun.
On another note (not sure if it’s been brought up before), Dabbler’s ancestry does raise some interesting questions, as you can’t be exactly 1/3 of a race when there’s only normal two-people reproduction involved, for that you’d need actual three-gender intercourse (or a multiple of three, but let’s not go there). You can of course get arbitrarily close with a long enough two-gender ancestry, but that’d imply that the aliens and doppelgangers have been screwing around for several generations.
The cast page says “roughly” ½, ⅓, and ¹/6; and I don’t think I’ve seen any claims of exactly ⅓ of anything.
well legend usually has Succubi/Incubi reproducing by sex with a mortal. (So technically a Succubus is at most a half-demon)
A 1/3 of a race means that the rest is made up of at least 2 other races, nothing to do with genders
Her parents don’t have to be pureblood of any kind of species though. You could be 1/8th something by having 1 grandparent be that something for example
(Also answering to Guesticus’ remark)
If you consider the mixed heritage by races only, you’d arrive at equal portions for all three, that is 1/3 succubus, 1/3 doppelgänger and 1/3 alien.
If you however track back through the family tree far enough for all ancestors to be pure-blooded, you’ll end up with fractions that are expressible as multiples of a power of 1/2, because you get 1/2 of your ancestry from your father and 1/2 from your mother. 1/3 can’t be expressed as an integer multiple of 1/2^x because of that whole prime number thing.
With enough ancestors, you can (as I said) get rather close to 1/3, like 85/256, but to get a fraction like that, your pureblood ancestors have to be more than eight generations away, and interbreeding between aliens and doppelgängers ever since.
How do we know that that is not the case?
Or… one or more ancestors (having not evolved on Earth) doesn’t contribute exactly 50% of their DNA to the child. Think Predalien. It’s mostly an Alien (like Xenomorph alien) but it also has the Predator spider mandibles. So it’s like 95/5%
Boom, deus ex machina to the rescue :P
a similar thing happens on Earth. the asexual Molly fish will still “breed” with a closely related male Molly fish. we used to think that it was some leftover behavior from when the asexual species of Molly fish was sexual. but it turns out that a very small fraction of the male’s DNA ends up in the asexual’s offspring. it’s therefore advantageous for the males to mate with asexual Molly fish because that 4% of DNA will remain unchanged in the asexual offspring for many more generations than his DNA would reasonably last in his sexual offspring.
That’s another solution, although it does feel kind of arbitrary, and also raises some interesting questions, like for example how you calculate the contribution ratio when one of the parents is already of mixed breed.
(Of course, that whole interspecies interbreeding past first generation is pretty much contradictory to modern biology, but I don’t think we need to open that can while discussing about aliens and demons)
Anyway, I’ll shut up now. It’s no use to speculate if the creator of the character joins in without a definite answer. I think we covered all possibilies so far as well.
Sydney’s reaction is COMPLETELY reasonable. Hammerspace is the best superpower ever, no contest.
Why does everyone assume that cybernetic arm means full replacement? It could just as well be a set of implants that give her additional abilities without interfering with the function of the original muscles (or just replacing some portion of those). After all the essence of the succubi race is the ability to “get nekkid” so why would they ever go to a mechanical version? That would become ho-hum pretty fast –pun intended. ;)
Aaaand before I forget. I wanted to point out that the truesight orb is _also_ the telepresence orb, so if she wasn’t tracking perfectly, someone in the press is bound to see (and record) a double image of Sydney leaping forward. The do the same motions, but there is no question in my mind she would lose synch if presented with working Hammerspace…
But the telepresence power only activates when Sydney sends the inner orb out from the outer orb. That takes a concious decision on her part. So no second Sydney to startle the press.
The one other instance of use the presence part didn’t kick in until she did so, yes. Who says the truesight did not activate the moment she activated the orb itself –before sending it out. So maybe all the orbs have a passive and active effect. Flight passive is the shield against wind. Pew Pew orb passive would be increased motion sensing (targeting buff). Molestorb gives one the ability to visualize highly stylized artwork without looking, despite obvious ADHD. And so on…