Grrl Power #166 – Dabbler will take her high tech ball and go home!
Taking a break from all the explosions for a second, this page establishes one important fact, which is that Dabbler doesn’t share her tech – not even with her teammates. Basically she has a prime directive kind of thing going on. Polluting an economy with tech that can be likened to magic has far reaching consequences.
In some ways, Dabbler represents the biggest threat to global stability of any character in the story, good or bad. After all, if you wanted to topple the world economy, find a way to power every automobile that doesn’t use established fuel sources and start selling it (along with conversion kits.) If it was tech that would take humans 20 years to reverse engineer, all the oil companies would go out of business (or be reduced to a handful of much smaller businesses – oil is useful for a lot more than just fuel after all.) Unemployment would skyrocket and the global economy would be turned on its ear. That’s one reason of many that Dabbler was under surveillance from Arc-DARK, but she has no interest in that sort of thing. She’s essentially here on a working vacation. That isn’t to say she’s the first alien to discover Earth of course…
Dabbler does actually have tech that she can release without it immediately disappearing. Live grenades for instance. :)
Edit: Fixed Pinkie’s hair in the first panel and played with Dabbler’s breasts a bit (hur hur) since people were finding the water balloon breasts distracting. Nothing too drastic, just making them look a bit more squooshier and attached.
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About this hypothetical future-tech- is it the kind of thing I can download off my computer and do myself simply, safely, and quick? You don’t exactly become a mechanic or engineer over night after all. And are we using the same techno-magic to produce whatever components it needs completely free of the need for workers to assemble it or resources harvested from somewhere? If you’re really looking to shake thing up…how about just sharing the TELEPORTATION TECH instead?
Does this super-tech only work in motor vehicles or can it be scaled up and down to replace power plants *and batteries) and benefit consumer electronics, space travel, medical devices, and probably dozens of other fields and industries? Frankly, it seems kind of short-sighted to just use it in cars.
A couple years back I read a comic (of the dead-tree, not-internet variety) about a woman with super powers, not set in any of the standard universes (marvel or DC); it was it’s own little stand-alone thing. She would fly around bring food to famine-stricken third would countries and turned the deserts into thriving farms (she basically had thought-driven omnipotence) infuriating all the politicians and CEOs who could no longer exploit all those impoverished peoples. Then she looses her powers for a while and we find out her biggest enemies are the oil-companies because she was threatening to do exactly what was talked about in the after-comic note: remove the world’s dependence on oil. But in the end she gets her powers back and goes on to make everything wonderful for everyone while the bad guys wail and nash their teeth in impotent rage.
So I guess the message we where supposed to get from the heavy-handed diatribe is that Oil companies, Western Governments, and capitalism are evil, and the entire planet could be a paradise if only we have a benevolent super-being to do everything for us….huh.
Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal did their own version of things where the world determined that best way for Superman to aid humanity was to power a giant electric turbine 24/7, providing free and pollution-less energy for mankind.
What I’m getting at is, the implications of super-powers in a real-world setting are INCREDIBLY far-reaching with what they mean for technology, society, the economy, and pretty much every aspect of our daily lives. Its the kind of thing that if you’re not careful with, can be *poorly* done (or at least leave you with some headscratchers). Would such an event alter things world-wide? Certainly. Would it destroy the entire world’s economy, plunging things into a horrific cycle of degradation and poverty? Eh, I’m doubtful. Think about all the undeveloped nations that received advanced tech from the developed ones- man of them did quite well (and the ones that have not frequently have other issues, usually political/racial/war, holding them back). Humanity has survived significant shakeups before; we’re pretty resilient and adaptable as a species.
Final thoughts: the more I think about it, the more I think that if you wanted to ruin earth with futurized technology (that wasn’t just blowing stuff up), you’d need to plan out and execute it how you did it very carefully.
If you want some good fiction built around the ideas of sudden massive technology increases check out Singularity Sky by Charles Stross.
The long and short of it is that a post-scarcity society doesn’t need governments or an economy so yes they would be ‘destroyed’ but in the long run it’s more that they’ve been left behind.
I agree with you mostly.
But I remember the birth of Atomic weapons. The technology was first used to destroy. Then it was adapted to create clean energy (not perfect, but a lot cleaner then coal and oil, and more reliable then solar and wind). But only because they people holding the technology were not crazy. Sure, Russia may have had it finger on the “Red Button” a few times, but they knew what the US knew. M.A.D.ness (Mutually Assured Destruction) would ensue.
The problem is that if a nation like Iran gets the tech to make an atomic weapon, they would use it. Part of the RADICAL sect of Islam that the leadership of Iran follows is that, To bring about the Apocalypse and bring about the new age, they must create as much destruction and war and instability as possible (note: I said radical, most Muslims do [u]not[/u] believe that).
I think the idea is not to take chances like that with advanced technology. I would love transporter and replicator technology. Create and transport supplies anywhere in the world, stomp out hunger and make poverty a moot point (would anyone be ‘poor’ if you could create anything that you needed or wanted?). BUT, that same technology could arm, supply, and transport an Army anywhere in an instant. Even creating a bomb and transporting it into a building would be disastrous.
I think with every new technology from the 1950’s onward, we have to be very careful. At no time in history before was it possible to invent a true “doomsday” weapon. Even today with advances in robotics and UAV technology, lies the possibility of someone abusing the power. Global 24/7 media, a great power to spread the word about world events. But what if the words are a lie? Sure, press has lied in the past but only today is it possible to change Wikipedia so that the truth is whatever you want it to be, or truth by popular opinion.
We live in ‘interesting’ and dangerous times. But you are right, Humanity will survive and move past this time into a bright future.
If I could add one caveat to the go-anyplace-anytime lifestyle of a transporter enabled world. To quote a line from Jurassic Park ‘life finds a way’. Anytime you send a box of food or supplies to a ‘needy’ area you run the risk of inadvertently sending a pest like fire ants, gypsy moth, emerald ash borer, etc, or any number of crop diseases. And one person with a suspicious cough could end up infecting half the world in under a day.
The Trek writing staff was careful to add a biofilter to the transporter for that specific reason.
Actually, based on popular support, the giving of money, and the actual holy book of islam, I’d say rather than most muslims don’t act on that belief, as it would highly disrupt their own life, just as many Christians don’t follow through on the more life-affecting aspects of their religion.
It’s a subtle but very important distinction.
The way the Kanamids did to Terra was to give them protective force fields a means to grow crops anywhere and the global military stands down. Then they started one way visits to their planet. Guess the story? “To Serve Man.”
There is more than one way to skin and eat a human.
Wow, way well done the edit on Dabbler’s boobs (er.. a GREAT edit?) Pretty simple and far effective. Now I really can fall for them, yum.
She would fail completely if she tried to seduce me in that form. Much better off using her illusions to copy Sydney.
Well, she can get ME anytime with just one look such the ones she use to throw to Maxima ;)
As for Syd, I can’t figure her seducing anyone at all. However I fell in love for her thrice at least so far :) she is just… adoryfing ;)
The prime directive stance is an interesting one to take considering that she’s apparently voluntarily remaining in the society. Consider for example all the possible medical applications of her various technologies (just the teleportation effect she used here, for example). I’m sure the maintenance of the status quo is of great comfort to the people who die from conditions she could easily have prevented / cured. Yes, they are spared from the discomfort of societal upheaval but then … they are also dead.
The problem is that the level of dedication she would have to show to the prime directive ideal to allow, by inaction, the deaths of thousands on a daily basis is a powerful piece of characterization. One that clashes glaringly with the mischief making imp persona she’s displayed so far. Would you want to pal around with someone who apparently cares so little about her fellow sentient beings that she is willing for the sake of an ideal to allow millions of people to die? The fact that she views such an action as a vacation is even more worrisome.
What about the simple fact of what would happen if she was killed or rendered unconscious? If the wrong people got their hands on that tech, it could shift the balance of power, and I doubt she would want to go up against her own tech if someone was able to take it from her and she survived.
No I agree entirely. Her technology is completely game changing, which is why she shouldn’t be using it at all, or more likely be present at all. Her presence, and the logical implications of it, should make her the sole focus of any well informed villain, and thus the action of any villain in the comic. If all they have to do is use mind control to get her to willingly surrender her tech, or some kind of shielding technology to block the transport, then that’s game, and they’ve won. From a narrative standpoint that can’t be allowed to happen, however. The technologies would so radically change the setting that it would soon go hard sci-fi, not the super hero comic that I believe the author wants it to be. That means that any time such a thing might happen, for some contrived reason it won’t be allowed to happen.
This is where the “Reed Richards is Useless” trope comes from. If he applied his genius intelligently to solve Earth’s energy, medical, food problems, etc, in a decade the world would be unrecognizable. And there’s NO REASON for him not to work toward the betterment of the world. At least Dabbler has an excuse as to why she isn’t willing to share.
plenty of reason really, see unlike reed, reed’s enemies have no problem with torturing children to death when reed ruins their business model.
They’d have to do a lot of torturing to come close to the number that starve to death or die of thirst or aids or malaria or any litany of other ailments on a daily basis.
Yes but all those disease and famine deaths are not a direct result of Reed’s actions. Anyone that was hurt as a result of him stealing money that rightfully belongs to the megacorps would make Reed start researching what CAN kill him. Either that or he’d start having weekly poker sessions with Punisher and Venom.
Capitalism dictates that money belongs to whoever can best earn it. :)
One of the problems of new advances that just disappear and don’t change the world. Whom ever is writing it or their editors do not want that world to change too far beyond the normal. Like in Dick Tracy for instance. At one point all of EM hover crafts and space vehicles were withdrawn and we are told it has been found it is “dangerous to the environment.” That was that, no more tech.
CapitalIST’s dictate that money belongs to whoever has the most of it.
it’s kinda of a deal where the more money you have the more income you expect, so the rich expect to get exponentially richer by the day.
In theory but not practise.
Chaos, your arguments are completely backwards. You might as well say that police forces worldwide should be disbanded because there are criminals who have no problems hurting people in the course of robberies. It’s not the cops who cause those injuries, it’s the robbers. Assigning responsibility to the cops is not clear thinking, at all.
In the fictional Marvel Universe, it would not be Reed Richards who would be responsible for injuries to innocents were he to introduce technologies which helped people but had the unfortunate side effect of causing some companies to lose money, it would be those persons who were willing to hurt others purely for financial motivations.
The real reason this won’t happen is that the Marvel Universe is essentially our real universe with added superheroes and the deliberate decision not to implement the logical changes which would occur, because it would chance the setting into one with does not resemble ours at all.
Stan Lee says that every time Spiderman goes swinging by people are always going to turn and exclaim “Wow! Look at Spiderman go by!” The public will never become jaded, as they would were Spiderman to really exist. It is a deliberate decision that superheroes will always remain a special addition to everyday life in the Marvel Universe, without changing that everyday life in any other way.
Not that Reed’s attempts to cure anything have been more successful than you’d expect from a physicist trying to do biology.
Actually, a number of advances in modern biology were achieved by physicist who decided to go cross-discipline.
physicists, plural
Actually, it is Canon in the marvel universe that most of Reed Richards money comes from companies paying him NOT to patent and make available all his nifty stuff.
The main problem I have with that is that it assumes that genius is equally transferable from one field to another. IOW, no matter how he wants to and is willing to devote the time and energy to solving even one of those problems (much less all of them), he still might not have the knowledge to do so.
Furthermore, a lot of starvation isn’t caused by lack of supply, but inability to distribute food effectively. I might be remembering this wrong, but I believe a good chunk of the food bought by the USA for Africa (or it might have a similar fund raising project) proceeds eventually rotted in storage because the dictator of the country it was to benefit refused to allow it to be distributed.
Planet wide we have no food shortage.
you are right about the distribution being the issue.
Distribution is a major issue.
Can distribute it too. That’s easy enough. Storing it so it doesn’t spoil in a few days in all the butthole areas of the world that have no power to run any kind of refrigeration on a local/personal level…. that is the crux. You can send all the food you want, but if it rots before it can be used, it’s a waste of time and money. And….if they aren’t paying for it, why would people bother to grow/raise it, much less send it. They aren’t in the bizz of making themselves unprofitable. Farming isn’t exactly a high margin operation in the first place. Then you have if you are just sending it to people, they are now *your* dependents, kinda like Haiti. Independent in name only, in reality it’s a basket case that can’t do anything for itself but blame the rest of the world for not doing enough for it. Not the only country that is basically making a farce of the concept of independence. But would raise bloody hell if you dare suggest they aren’t, much less annex them. (As if anyone would really want to, but that is a different matter as well)
The trillions in aid to Africa certainly has accomplished nothing, but to keep them dependent on it, and to enrich the dictators and petty warlords skimming the aid, or stealing it outright.
Actually in the last few years we went over a tipping point. Prior to that we had sufficient food in the world to feed everyone. Widespread starvation typically only occurring in areas where warfare or other human intervention prevented distribution or humanitarian aid. Today we do not have enough. No matter how well we distribute it, there will not be enough to feed everyone and starvation will occur somewhere.
A situation which will only worsen as populations increase, currently fertile land is lost, coastlines are submerged and regional instability increases due to climate change.
Fortunately, unlike preventing global warming (all we can do now is slow it down, and that isn’t looking likely), we can do a variety of things to change the equation. Sadly though, global political inertia, as with climate change, means we are unlikely to do anything about it whilst there are relatively easy fixes available. So expect to see more reports of massive starvation in the news in coming years. Except we will get to a point where our usual fix of sending in relief aid will not be an option, except for in the high profile cases.
I’ve looked it up, there is about 10 acres of land on the planet for every human being, but only 1/4 acre of arable land. To a great degree, the difference between arable land and non arable land is just a bit of smart soil management. This planet can handle a lot more people than it does, it just has to get every on to stop hitting each other, stealing from each other, and trying to control each other.
There is a difference between can and reality. Currently we do not produce enough food to feed everyone.
In South America and elsewhere on the planet the solution is that the poor have to cut down forest in order to find marginal land to farm. That is not a solution that is helping the survival of the species. But until we give them viable alternatives that will carry on.
But I agree with your comments about fighting and waste. Zimbabwe being a prime example. Some of the richest farmland on the planet (let alone vast mineral wealth) and they cannot even feed their own population, let alone be a major exporter, as once they were.
We just have to accept that a certain proportion of land will likely always be unavailable for productive use, due to war and selfishness and factor that into the equation. What is important is how much is being used effectively now. At the present time not enough to feed the population we have.
I know it’s years later, and you probably won’t see this, but maybe someone who reads these comments in the future -as I am right now- will see it.
Put simply, your claim that “Currently we do not produce enough food to feed everyone.” was incorrect when you wrote it in 2013, and remains false today.
In fact, back in 2012 we were producing enough food for ten billion people. Until Covid19 that amount increased every year. This year and the next few we might have a smaller margin, but production is certain to remain in excess of demand.
Meaning, we’ll still make more food (in a pure quantitative sense) than all the world’s people would require for a healthy diet. Just a smaller excess.
Make no mistake, more people are going to go hungry, partly because of Covid19, but it won’t be because there isn’t enough food produced in the world… it’ll be because the food can’t get to them, they can’t store it, or they can’t pay for it or get someone to pay for it on their behalf. All problems which Covid19 has made worse, and harder to resolve.
Link to paper from 2012 about our global excess food production: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/241746569_We_Already_Grow_Enough_Food_for_10_Billion_People_and_Still_Can't_End_Hunger
Deepbluediver, it isn’t about whether or not the tech would destroy the world’s economy – it’s what the people whose wealth you are destroying are going to do about it. Middle-Eastern oil companies are owned by Middle-Eastern oil sheiks, who are already sending millions of dollars a year via back channels to supply terrorist activities. If you not only threaten, but actually cut off 30% of their wealth production with just one invention, do you think they are going to sit back and take it philosophically? Add in a process, for example, to create buckytubes out of simple plant material, and suddenly you gut them of the major portion of the other 70%. They’re already wealthy – but instead of a bunch of rabble-rousing factory workers in England trying to upset the apple cart, you have billionaires whose lifestyles are threatened. Every single plant that tried to get up and running to build these things – ‘a pollution-free engine that runs on seawater and puts out 600 horsepower’, for example – would be bombed within a month, every distributor bombed within a week, users killed flagrantly …
I actually looked at this, albeit from a villian-helping-the-heroes point of view, a while ago – hit ‘https://goo.gl/9VOl7A’ and do a search-in-page for ‘squirrel’, and you’ll be able to read the start of the RP and a few of my little rants/theoretical explorations. (Yes, a hyperintelligent British red squirrel. Don’t laugh. … well, okay, you can laugh, but c’mon, was it really that funny??) Interesting stuff. Long and short of it, though, is the old adage that change cannot be imposed from above, it must come from below – and that the time must be ripe for change to occur, or rather, to take permanent hold. After all, the ancient egyptians had the steam engine.
Minigendo, you’re approaching the same fallacy from a different direction. Does she care about helping hundreds, maybe thousands out, when the cost of her help will be the deaths of tens or hundreds of thousands? Once the tech gets out there, you can’t control who has it. Teleport an injured person into a hospital … teleport a bomb into, well, where-ever.
Remember also what you’ve said – that what we’ve seen of Dabbler is ‘the mischief-making imp persona she’s displayed so far’. Her ‘level of dedication’ may come from having seen firsthand the results of such, well, “dabbling” – results which I’ve just stated. (Though I’ll point out that you’re leaping from thousands to millions rather readily.) The global crude mortality rate is roughly 8.37 (Wikipedia, quoting the 2009 CIA World Factbook number), which does equate on a 7.121-billion-strong planet to just over 163,000 dead each and every day across the world – but erasing that death rate, even cutting it back hard, means explosive population growth, even more than current. At the current rates of population growth (1.1%) and death (0.837%), we’ll hit 8 billion souls in about 2057. Cut that death rate down to something miniscule – 0.010%, let’s say – we hit 8 billion in 2024. In 2057? Almost 11.5 billion, and 18.287 billion in 2100. Can we feed two and a half times our current population? Does Dabbler dabble in biogenetics enough to enable us to grow that amount of crops??
There is a point at which, if you want a world to grow, you have to kick back, play with your own toys, and let them figure life out for themselves. Otherwise you release the Krogans to wreak havoc on the universe … :P
I fear you’ve missed my point. I imagine we could go on at great length regarding the various potential consequences of the dissemination of Dabbler’s technology. We can argue death rates, consequences, and potential technological counters until we are blue in the face. Neither of us would likely convince the other, though it would probably be a fun argument. (If figuring it out on your own is such a concern how can we advocate for any technological transfer between geographically distinct areas, where do we draw that line and why, etc.)
What I was getting at was that we would expect such a situation to have a consequence on the character involved, Dabbler. If she’s untroubled by the potential impact she might have, she could easily be viewed as heartless. If she’s here solely for her own amusement, and doesn’t really see people as beings worthy of her concern, she’s borderline monstrous. If she understands that she might make a difference but knows for an absolute fact that her impact would be outweighed by the negative consequences, then she’s a tragic figure, but it also indicates a high degree of fatalism. And so on. Many of these possible characterizations are quite negative, which is not the role I believe that Dabbler was intended to play.
If the author wishes to ignore the problems Dabbler’s background creates, given the way he’s just portrayed it, that’s fine. Such behavior is a time honored tradition in comics. Reed Richards should have had the Marvel universe living in a post scarcity future long ago. But if he wants to do that, he’s probably best off simply ignoring the inconsistency, and the attitude clashes with his planned in depth exploration of other aspects of the heroes powers, as well as throwing in background details like Harem’s reading of comics which explore the societal consequences of superheroes.
I understand your point, but I think you exaggerate in many ways. I do think Dabbler could be considered monstrous, tragic, iron-hearted, or whatever – or, very possibly, all of them combined. Something to consider, however (and I speak of this not from the point of view of a reader, but from that of a fellow author) is a) whether or not you are seeing the entirety of the character that the author holds within their head (note: you never do), and b) whether or not the motives that you (that’s a generalized you, not minigendo-you-in-specific) assign to the character actually are the character’s complete motives, and c) whether the motives you can see are exclusive.
Specifically addressing the last, I don’t think any of them are. There is no reason for “an alien mutant demon martial artist cyborg psionic tinkerer” to be REQUIRED to restrict her ultra-tech to herself, to apparently ACT selfish, and to VIEW the whole thing as a fun vacation during which she can help out to the limit of her restrictions by being part of this cute little local ‘superduperclub’ group.
Hell, she isn’t even the first superhero comic character out there to do this. Look at Booster Gold …
Man I want to get into this stuff but it’ll come up in the comic at some point. The short version is that she’s in the camp of “Don’t give a man to fish or even teach a man to fish, he has to learn on his own not only how to fish but also the ecology of the oceans and the economics of the fishing industry.” There’s more to it than that but like I said it’ll eventually be covered in the comic.
That seems like a difficult position to reconcile with conventional notions of super-heroism, or the concept of education. Regardless, I look forward to the reveal.
Actually it’s perfectly routine superheroic reasoning. Iron Man figures that releasing the tech he uses in his armour into the open market will cause more problems than it solves. Doctor Strange clamps down hard on mass market publication of grimoires to avoid the resulting demon invasion. Reed Richards is a rich man from the crumbs that fall off his inventing table but there are only about 4 people qualified to use the products of what really interests him safely.
Heck, forget Reed Richards and Tony Stark. Can you imagine how much good would come of Peter Parker maketing his web-shooters to police and fire departments? Plus he could finally afford to have a private life that wasn’t a slice of hell.
Spider-Man is rare among superheroes for having actually tried to sell his web formula. However it wouldn’t have occurred to him to try to sell it and the webshooters to the police, because then the police would be using it to catch him.
DaveB’s suggestion was that Dabbler wouldn’t give a man a fish, or teach a man to fish, until they no longer required either. But if we consider that she is not a fisherman, but a nominal hero, this amounts to her saying that she wouldn’t help anyone with her tech unless they already possessed it. Otherwise she would be giving them the proverbial fish to keep them fed for the day, or in this case giving the enemy a shot from her railgun to keep the civilian alive for the day.
From an educational standpoint, this would essentially mean that believes that people should learn things for themselves by figuring it out for themselves. But taken to the logical extremes this also would seem to imply that she doesn’t believe in educational systems. The creed as stated would involve say, not teaching anyone how to read until they built their first printing press. Not teaching anyone how to speak until they performed their first aria. As a non-human she has an out, perhaps her species is capable of this and chooses to ignore the gross inefficiency of reinventing the wheel every time. It does seem like this philosophy would cause her to come into conflict with people who don’t think that way though, namely every person of her team.
So… to paraphrase…. “Don’t give a man a fish. Don’t teach a man to fish. Just tell him that fish exist, and let the poor dear stumble through all the rest of it himself.”
“there are fish, you can eat fish, the rest you can figure out for yourself.”
Yeah, but in this case it’s more like “don’t give a man a nuclear weapon, that’s something he reeeeealy needs to learn about before he has a red button to push.”
That is a respectable priority.
Give a man a fish feed him for a day
Teach a man to fish and he will –exactly like he was taught.
Show a man fishing is ‘possible’ and he will develop six different ways to Fish you never thought of.
To me this is an example of seeding for new technology by letting the natives peek at the possible…
If you are of the opinion that Dabbler’s stance on sharing her technologies provide insight into her character, then we are in agreement. All that apparently remains would be to argue over the extent of the insight.
I am not an author of any skill, so it is difficult for me to fully address the points you present as an author. Your first point caught my attention in my role as a reader, however. The audience has no way of knowing what the author’s conception of a character is outside of what the author provides. To the audience, the characters are as they are presented, until they are presented otherwise. (This gets complicated further by the audience having to filter the presentation through their own perceptions, and the changing nature of such perceptions over time).
I’m not sure I understand the third point you’re making. As I read it, you are saying there is no reason for Dabbler to do all three of these things, and I feel like I’m misinterpreting your point. If we assume that Dabbler isn’t doing all three of these things, the comment seems superfluous. If we assume that she is doing these three things, and you are saying that there is no reason for her to do them, then it sounds like you are saying it is poor characterization, but I don’t believe that to be your intention.
To Booster Gold, I am again limited in what I can say because I have not read much in the way of DC comics. As I understand it, however, Booster Gold is a time traveler; which bound his actions in a particular way. (Please forgive me if I flub the specifics here, I’m going on third party knowledge which may be outright false.) Wikipedia suggests that until recently, Booster was prevented from causing paradoxes because time was not “malleable”. Thus, Booster could not disseminate future technologies into the past because such technologies had not been disseminated into the past. Once time was rendered “malleable” (and thus Booster could affect changes) Booster could have if he wished shared future tech into the past, but given the butterfly effect and the length of time between his point of origin in the timeline making any such changes would have paradoxed him out of existence (and I have no idea how that would ripple through the continuity). This apparently happens at some point when Superman starts dating.
I’d argue, and have above, that Mr. Fantastic is a better example of the “selfish” super hero. Hence the Reed Richards is Useless trope. But the use of such a trope only works well when the comic doesn’t subject itself to much introspection.
It only took us 14 years to hit 7 billion so I dare say it will take less time than that to hit 8 billion unless we have some mass killing disasters including at least one pandemic involved. Geometric progression of reproduction remember. So the idea that it won’t be till 2057 to hit 8 billion just doesn’t add up.
It does if you understand that at some point the density of population and inability of distribution to keep pace will cause a sudden drop. It only takes one supergerm say 14 days to reverse the trend you showed back 100 years worth of gain.
Good point. And we are due at least one soon. Be sure to stock at least 15 days worth of tinned food at home. We want as high a ratio of Grrl Power reader survivors as possible.
Personally I never have less than four month’s worth. Mainly because we can have harsh winters here, and I like a nice buffer if I cannot get out of the house. But also handy for riding out super bug rampages and the zombie apocalypse.
14 years ?
I have been alive a lot longer than that !
are you writeing your own bible ?
one human to billions took a lot longer than 14 years in my opinion.
No, no. Just the most recent billion. At least, that is the implication.
According to https://www.worldometers.info/world-population/ , one of many world pop tracking sites:
A tremendous change occurred with the industrial revolution: whereas it had taken all of human history until around 1800 for world population to reach one billion, the second billion was achieved in only 130 years (1930), the third billion in less than 30 years (1959), the fourth billion in 15 years (1974), and the fifth billion in only 13 years (1987).
Sorry, here’s the more relevant section:
6 Billion (1999)
According to the United Nations, the 6 billion figure was reached on October 12, 1999
7 Billion (2011)
According to the United Nations, world population reached 7 Billion on October 31, 2011.
The US Census Bureau made a lower estimate, for which the 7 billion mark was only reached on March 12, 2012.
8 Billion (2024)
According to the most recent United Nations estimates, the human population of the world is expected to reach 8 billion people in the spring of 2024.
So if 6 to 7 billion (an increase of ~12%) took ~12 years, then going from 7 to 8 billion (an increase of only 11.5%), would likely take less time (barring the above-mentioned possible plagues or famines, etc.).
I guess the UN is expecting some of those, giving the 2014 date they are projecting…
Sorry, I forgot to use blockquotes. But basically this whole post is quoted except the first lines and the last paragraph…
The ARC version of baseball:
Max/Anvil throw Syd in her forcefield, Anvil/Max then use Archilles to bat Syd.
Or for fighting baddies: Halo uses Forcefield and hentai-orb and is getting used as morningstar.
That would be more a Flail.
The flail tends to have multiple straps (ropes, chains, leather straps) and not have a large weight at the end of the straps. A cat-of-nine tails is a version of a flail.
The war flail (Nunchaku and Morningstar as well) was originally based on the tools that was used to separate Grain from Chaff.
Depends on if the ‘ball’ is spikey or not (a morningstar is a ‘spikey ball on a chain attached to a stick’)
As Mok would say the Morningstar is not a subtle weapon.
Ok, I have a hard time believing you guys come to this comic predominantly to spend time considering the philosophy and real world effects supers would have.
If I’m wrong about that you are bigger nerds than I would have imagined. Fun characters, unrealistic powers and tech and you get into a serious discussion of how that would impact our current real world?
Granted Dave started it, but he was digging with a spoon and you all rented the 20ton excavators. :^)
Nice boob adjustment by the way.
I’m curious how many sphere’s Syd will manage to use and what unintended consequence will result.
Nah. We come to enjoy the comic.
The philosophy and nerd talk is just to fill the time between updates. Fortunately, we enjoy it just about as much as the actual comic. And also it is often thought-provoking, as a bonus. :)
when theres a week between update, you try to fill the time. That and it’s fun.
It’s always good to find a place where you can run your nerd flag up the pole and let it fly proud.
And the great thing about the internet is you don’t get weird and confused looks when you talk about anything above high school level.
or get into the theoretical use of a micro-singularity as a power source to energize a small pistol-like weapon.
Theoretical?
Way to ruin all our fun…
this was 20 years ago! They hadn’t even proven that Micro-Singularities even existed yet!
The real problem with Micro-Singularities is they don’t stay that way. Any encounter with a large mass will add to their size. One story I read they used them to produce gravity waves for communication and some idiot released it (on Mars) where it of course immediately fell through the crust boring a hole straight to the core. It stayed there gobbling up matter until eventually it ate Mars. Planets, Suns and even Galaxies can be swallowed by Black Holes in fact they are what holds galaxies together and will eventually swallow everything (Billions and Billions of years from now). One theory I like (my own) is eventually everything is sucked down into the last black hole and rebounds out in a new Big Bang.
One possible way to keep a micro-Singularity “micro” is to trap it in a Mag-field powered by the radiation emitted when matter enters it.
Sort of a Hawking-powered Reissner–Nordström field? You still have to watch that the little thing does not evaporate too much and explode!
YOU SAY THAT WITH PRIDE! FTW.
You forgot the punctuation.
YOU! SAY. THAT. WITH. PRIDE!
well guessing by the dirt picture probably 2 the flight and her “pew pew ” one. i’m wondering if they intend to show off her shield to the press, by hitting her with the railgun instead of focused kinetic energy, like max did a few pages back.
after all before they came here it was to be a small display so her telepresence or her tentacle most likely wont entertain the press as much as her “i’m afraid to use it” gun or shield.
The trouble with extreme tests is the possibility of failure. I suspect Arianna at the very least would veto such a proposal. On the grounds that splattering a 21 year old girl to pieces, live on worldwide broadcast TV, can be considered poor public relations. Even by the most optimistic of “there is no such thing as bad publicity” spin doctors.
Hmm. Sidney’s powers vs the tank… Interesting. The power combinations are literally endless.
Flight+force field= impact at over 440 mph. Human cruise missile.
Flight+Hent-orb= Tank Trebuchet.
Hent-orb+Pew Pew Orb= Tank Oven (Even without breaching the armor it could roast people inside while the tank is bound and helpless.)
Hent-orb+Forcefield orb= Sidney Morningstar.
Really, the only limit is Sid’s imagination. Scary ain’t it?
I believe ‘utterly terrifying’ would be more apropos.
Use her flight orb on a huge rock, then set the rock on fire with pew pew orb, then smash it into the tank at high speed = Molten metor attack !
Then, as the molten rock smashes into the insides of the tank, she could switch from flight to Hentai Orb and have streamers of glowing lava rip out trough the sides of the tank, from inside the tank.
The result should be properly destructive.
Remind me not to get on your bad side on a day when you have not had your coffee yet.
Well, luckily for you, I don’t have orbs hovering around my head. :)
Hmmm, didn’t have a problem with Dabbles original ‘breasticles’: seemed to me as what you would expect if you tried to force such large bubbles of fleshy goodness into her corset (shows they have/had a bit of a sag when not confined/contained)
I protest, they are boobs, they are supposed to be distracting.
And aren’t those “puppies” supposed to have little “noses.”
I believe the “puppies” are illusionary and require no noses.
Puppies without the ” ” would be a whole different type of comic although she probably could do that if she wanted.
Ah, by the way, Maxima ought to know that what Sidney is plotting is tactic, not strategy.
Well she was being facetious in any case.
Ehn, an easy explanation for Dabbler would be to say to the public is that she doesn’t totally understand her creations and they don’t work for other people. She can *say* she can build things she needs because of her super ability but its not like she can explain *how* they work to sell it. Simple easy, peasy.
I think Dabbler’s weapons just wouldn’t work without her at all.
There’d be no power source.
Wait, weapons powered by libido? A fellow fan of Highschool Dxd I see?
we won’t go to the puns about thrust, penetration, or all the other little dual meanings, eh?
Probably last time posting this because there is only 4 days left on KS.
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
Keeping our fingers crossed for a good result.
It already passed 600k mark and progressing smoothly. I epect it to get close to 650k mark unless it passes it.
Halo is just awesome. Even in a time out box!
+1.
“topple the economy?” U FAIL ECONOMIX FOREVAR.
As someone with non-waterballoon breasts, I can say with confidence….well done. ;)
I am seriously surprised that most of the conversation has been on sociopolitical implications of Dabbler’s technology and not on how much better her breasts look!
One thing regarding Dabbles former glorious orbs: they are not real,so why should they be made to look real? And there are plenty of large breasticled women with similar looking breasticles (do a search for Lilly Roma or Tessa Fowler for just 2 examples)
To me, the ‘new’ ones look more fake than the ‘original’
I doubt that wherever she is from they have silicone valley.
Besides as i understand it she can just wish herself any breasts that fit her mood.
So while they are conjured, they are real XD
I wonder what jiggle physics of magic breasts are.
I’m going to gues… ‘magical’
Hypnotic :D
Because the majority of men (and really, based on the science of where women look, the majority of women, too) like real-looking breasts, not the “water-balloon under the skin” look they had.
Most of which are implants, which is why the comments said the looked like implants. Sure, there are bound to be some natural ones that look like that (and almost any other look you can imagine), but usually, those are implants.
Most people (majority women) who say that are simply jealous/envious and claim they have to be implants to make themselves feel better
But whatever, the new ones look more like ‘water-balloon implants’ than the original, not attempting to change anyones opinion, just stating own opinion about them
Personally I feel that the new version art is an improvement. But everybody has their own tastes.
Not disputing the artwork, just personally didn’t have a problem with how they looked previously
I’m not a woman, and I think most of the people commenting on them weren’t women, either. If you think they looked “real” before, I’d have to say that you have little to no experience (especially personal experience) with large, real breasts.
You are certainly entitled to prefer what you like, of course, I’m just pointing out that it’s not jealousy AT ALL, it’s that they looked fake and unattractive to most people before, especially people with personal experience with large, real ones.
She may choose to appear to be enhanced !
If she can change skin colour and number of arms to most observers; what are her limits to cosmetic changes?
Can she use her powers to turn on observers when choosing to appear… well,disgusting?
Such “glorious orbs” look fake because that is what happens when you pack to make them larger. They get spherical and when she lays down they still stand up unnaturally. Gives it away ever time.
I am saddened by noting how long it took to notice Dabbler’s neck insignia is XXXX
–one beyond triple X. Sort of Triple X to the X power…
“Eyes! Down there!” (to misquote Power Girl)
He he. That was fun. My vote took the comic from 14th place to 12th place, in the top webcomics list. I guess that either somebody else voted for Grrl Power at the same time, or that the previous 12th & 13th were tied at the time of my vote. And looking at it the numbers were very close for them.
Mind you, I guess tomorrow we will shoot up much further in the rankings. Lots of catching up to do with the head start from the Friday and weekend voting comics though.
I have to agree I like the new version. The other was not attractive to much. Also she can look like what ever she wants so why wouldn’t she have a more perfect form. I can see when you are trying to blend but when you are wearing an outfit like that you are not trying to blend but show off.
Nice change
hopefully if she has teleport-on-release knives then she doesn’t have a butler like Alfred in the dabblercave where a knife with a large kinetic energy might suddenly appear at any time.
Meanwhile on Sidra…
Steve: “Huh…how’d this get here?”
The Hacksmith created a hand-held rail gun a few years ago.