Grrl Power #168 – A harsh lesson in orb management
I don’t know why I gave Sydney an explodey cutting beam. Drawing cross sections of things is a pain in the butt.
There was lots of discussion of Dragonball Z in the comments last week, so I thought I’d link this – A group called Team Four Star has taken DBZ and edited it down to just the important parts (they get all the way up to the androids in just a few hours), then redubbed it (really well I might add – even if the first few episodes are a little rough) and it’s really funny.
Grrl Power is now available on Comic Chameleon, which is an iPhone app that lets you read webcomics one panel at a time, which is ideal for the small screen. (An iPad and Android version is coming) The other nice thing about the app is that 2/3 of the ad revenue they make on the app comes back to the comic author. A paid, ad free version of the app is in the works too. I think it’s just two guys making it. Really the coolest thing about the app for me is that Grrl Power is now listed alongside some rather notable comics like Girls with Slingshots, Dumbing of Age, Chainsaw Suit, Oglaf, etc. The only drawback to the app is that someone has to set up the panels for you to advance through. In this case my wife sacrificed a whole Saturday, like literally 12 hours doing it.
In other news, I lost a hard drive this weekend (two actually… sort of – I won’t bore you with the gory details.) The comic is all in my Dropbox so I didn’t lose anything critical, but I did lose all day Saturday and a few hundred bucks reinstalling Windows, Paint Tool SAI, Illustrator, etc. The next page might have spartan backgrounds or something, I’m not sure how losing a day will affect my schedule yet. On top of that, I renewed the hosting for the comic for another 5 years, so there went my portable drawing tablet fund. That being the case I’d like to point out that if you’ve ever had the urge to support the comic (besides liking/tweeting/telling your friends) the Amazon link in the “What I’m Reading” widget is a great way to do that. You don’t have to buy the book I have linked, just visit Amazon via that link and buy whatever you were going to buy anyway in the same browsing session, and it will drop a few pennies in my hat. Well, it’s a percent of what you buy, like… 6%, unless a lot of people are referred through the link then it goes up… there’s a chart. It doesn’t cost you a dime extra. Anyway if you were planning on getting a next gen console through Amazon, or a $5,000 plasma TV, or maybe even doing all your Christmas shopping there. You know. Just saying.
Edit: With so much else going on I forgot to post this. I recorded myself coloring this page -well, 2 hours of it anyway – which means I got though the foreground characters. The coloring was done in Paint Tool SAI. It’s not sped up or anything as I was trying to show the exact process. Here’s the link.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
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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.
Hahahaha! Well what I thought would happen did happen, but much funnier.
She definitely needs practice
Well at least she reflexly went for the force field. Progress.
AFTER being peppered with shrapnel/debris/whatever. I wonder if her flight suit was enough to stop most of it?
I don’t think that it was. It seems like a piece of debris went through her arm. Maybe i’m just not reading the lines right. If some of it DID pierce her, this would be a great time to see perhaps if one of the other two is a healing orb.
Actually it looks like the debris bounced off the flight transponder bracelet that Maxima put on her right arm. It looks like it bounced downwards.
Yeah, but what about the fabric of her suit? I’m thinking that the stuff that hits first is the fastest, lightest stuff, which can leave one with what looks like a rash or skinburn. Nasty stuff. I hope Dr. Kevorkian can take care of that little oopsie for her.
…. And we all learn a bit more about how the Force Field functions in ….. certain situations.
She will be ideal for dealing with foresr fires, get scuba gear, submerge in lake, create the largest shield she is capable, fly over fire, release shield and watch the tsunami
That gets my vote for best lateral thinking this week. The only question would be the weight limits of Flight and Shield orbs.
Although… knowing Sydney she might drop less… pleasant things on bad guys once she gets the idea.
Just keep her away from the sewage treatment plant.
Syd is less than five-four tall (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/868) and her force field sphere is a bit larger, say 6 foot (1.80 meter).
Sand in the force filed is like 2/5, that means a spherical cap around two-five height, so a volume of like 38 cubic foot (a bit more than 1 cubic meter).
The weight of sand depend of grain size, humidity and so but assuming we are handling a mixture of dry sand and tiny rocks is like 110 pounds for cubic foot.
Rounding a bit we have that the orbs are currently managing arround a 2 short tons (like 1800 kg).
Then to combat fires Syd could carry 475 US gallons (395 Imperial gallons, 1800 liters) of water.
The Modular Airborne FireFighting System II (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modular_Airborne_FireFighting_System) mounted on a C-130 Hercules, can carry 3,400 US gallons (2,800 Imperial gallons, 13,000 liters)
So Syd is at the very least a seventh of the state of the art firefighting sytem by herself. Not bad.
don’t forget, that is *just* the reflex-save-my-butt sized forcefield… going back a few strips to the pre-demonstration testing that Max and she did, i have a feeling that Sydney could outclass one of those choppers by quite a large factor all by herself… remember the various diameters of the rings of cooling rock from the shield test? i posit that even the largest diameter one could hold that much water during the trip to the fire without overloading the orbs… it may go slower than her normal full air-speed, but it’ll still get the water there quicker than the choppers I’ll bet.
I know, that is the reason of I said “at the very least” :)
Nonetheless, although she can change the size of the sphere, I still believe that the circles on the Force Field test were caused for the increasing blast area due to the increasing power of the Maxima’s shots.
yeah i did have the biggest seen in mind the one seen in corners of second panel, it seems about 10 meters radius which would give her about 4.2 mil. liters of water.
one thing, anyone caught UNDER her when she pops that bubble’s gonna be crushed. (remember,A gallon of liquid is about 8 pounds) Ever tried to stand under a waterfall?
Thats why i said tsunami, also liter of water = kilogram, meaning she drops over 4 thousand ton of water, knowing Sydney at maximum speed, that wave would most likely reach ocean no matter in which direction she throw it.
Yeah, but even if she could generate a FF that large there is no proof that the Flight orb be able to lift that weight. On the other hand, as far as we know it is possible that there was not limit at all :)
Brilliant!
I demand to see this in the comic!
Yep looks like the concussion based reprogramming is legit now to test it myself.
Wait, what’s going on with the lower half of Sydney’s shield?
Seeing the wall of sand blasted towards her, she put the shield up a moment too late, leaving her in a bubble with half the desert.
Oooh, that makes sense. I thought it looked like metal at first.
Soooo… if the force-field keeps things in as well as it keeps things out, Sydney should NEVER use the PPO while the Forb is active. 8(
Actually if you look closely at the previous page, the PPO shot starts a short distance from the orb itself. So she could use it from inside the Force Field (It has the advantage “Indirect”)
Give that elf guy a cigar!
It’s not Indirect. The power clearly comes from Sydney and travels from her to the target. Indirect attacks allow the start point and direction of travel to be changed. A good example is calling down lightning from the sky. Indirect is a high cost advantage because it’s really hard to dodge attacks when you have no idea where they will be coming from.
Sydney doesn’t have to buy an advantage to have her power start from just outside the radius of her force field. That’s a purely cosmetic sort of thing. By default characters are assumed to be able to freely use their powers in combination. If her shield prevented her from using her energy blast, that would be a limitation on both powers.
Indirect costs 1 point per rank; not per rank of the power, but per rank of the effect.
Rank 1: The effect originates from a fixed point away from you. (That what Sydney’s could be, given the beam looked like it started away from the orb).
Rank 2: The effect can come from ANY point away from you, or from a fixed point in a fixed direction (not away from you) (like from the sky and down, like a lightning bolt).
Rank 3: The effect can come from any point in a fixed direction (not away from you), or a fixed point in any direction.
Rank 4: The effect can originate from any point and in any direction, including towards you (hitting a target in front of you from behind, for example).
Actually, if you look up one of the villains in the Hero system villains book, he has Indirect…with the limitation that it only allows the attack to bypass his personal barrier, not change the direction.
Eh, I guess that would make sense. Of course, it might depend on whether she is using her Force-Field in a tight radius around herself, or expanding it to cover a bigger area (er, spoilers?).
Either way, I guess the problem instead becomes how one could go about safely testing your theory. XD
I think the force field caught all the sand in her general area from panel 3 when she generated it and settled to the bottom.
There isn’t enough sand kicked up by the explosion to fill half a bubble. She must have tried to activate the forcefield while hovering near the ground, then fly back up before the dust settled. This caused the sand in the bubble to fly to the top, then back down and burry Sydney head first while flying around uncontrolled.
Two words: comic license
Also known as “The Rule Of Funny”: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RuleOfFunny
Actually I think that’s just a reflection of the desert like on a soap bubble.
Color me wrong. Oh well funnier that way.
See, it is really a Sydney-Mayhem-Maaay-Hem Wave.
Nope I changed my mind. It is the Scoville-Mayhem-Maaaaaay- Hem Wave. PPO looks to be heat based. Therefore the power of the PPO is proportional to what she last had to eat. 3 star power from a “5 Star Us” Thai meal up to 5 plus power stars for a meal at Fusion.
NO no nono not the “5 star US”. Remember, she barfed that up after the robbery. Then she and Peggy went to Fusion. She had a bowl of “Sign the Waiver”. It had it’s own ‘hadarzous material’ tape. That’s what it’s powered with.
People always forget that vehicles have things in them that will explode when subjected to enough energy to cut metal, like, you know, FUEL.
ESPECIALLY a TANK! That has, not only a large fuel tank, but numerous rounds of ammo, that all have propellant, as well as some exploding projectiles.
Maybe, next time Sydney decides to cut one in half, she will remember to use a little more stand off distance.
Pretty sure they had emptied the tank of all explosive material. The military doesn’t use active vehicles for target practice, just ones that are FUBAR’d. It really would’ve been just a large chunk of metal shaped like a tank.
perhaps they’d have a small amount of trace fuel in it from when it was either operational or in the lines that they didn’t flush…OR the PPO just rocks with explosive-e-goodness
Let’s hope the PPO does explosions too.
Would otherwise be a waste of chance, if it only did work as a cutting-tool.
Then again, pure cutting can be awesome as well, as the Xindi proved in Enterprise.
Let’s just hope Syd doesn’t go trying that.
Agreed that the military would have removed all the volatile stuff (fuel, ammo, etc.) before setting up the tank for target proctice.
One slight possibility is that maybe some pyrotechnics or otehr things were placed in the tank to make its destruction look more dramatic. Sounds like the sort of bone-headed thing Arianna would secretl;y arrange for added effect.
A better possibility (IMO) is that Sydney’s zap is actually a LOT hotter and more powerful than people realized – to the point that even a supposedly inert hunk of metal will E-X-P-L-O-D-E when hit with the PPO at full power. It has been said that ANYTHING will burn if it gets hot enough, so maybe that’s what we are seeing here.
Heatwave can turn metal into Plasma..I guess the PPO is like Heatwave on MEGA_STEROIDS!!!!
Alternatively, Brooke probably has better experience and more control over her powers, so what she showed may have only been a fraction of the devastation she could actually do. Sydney’s probably still more powerful, but precisely we’re seeing this mess because she needs training to limit herself.
It’s your basic anime beam – it cuts stuff then there’s an explosion. Who knows how the physics work? I guess when the beam cuts off there’s a final pulse that overloads the matter on the receiving end.
It doesn’t need to be loaded with fuel or explosives. Heat something fast enough and it’ll shatter or pop.
kind of like an elastic band. When the tail end gets down there after being streached there is an extra snap.
*puts on glasses*
I think it superheats the material past it’s melting point, but the force that stabilises tge beam keeps it semi-solid for safety reasons. But when she stops fire-ing the stabilising effect abruptly ends revearsing the effect causing the matter at the end to partitialy sublimate causing a chain reaction of explosions.
*steals glasses*
That’s right.
Shit just got REAL.
*steals glasses back*
*dope slaps Cittran*
Mine.
The high-energy particle bombardment of the PPO beam, in addition to its immediate cutting effect, creates a (very small) quantity of antiparticles when it cuts normal matter. For a brief instant after these particles are created, they’re left hanging in the wake of the beam with no normal matter to interact with. As air and/or other matter rush back into the wake, the antimatter reacts with the incoming matter to create a small explosion, which is intense enough to ignite the incoming matter, forming a secondary fireball along the path of the cut.
This technobabble brought to you by your friendly neighborhood Committee for Unnecessary Explanations. That’s your CUE!
Also, love the last panel. It’s approaches Sydney tirades on the funny scale.
the encounter of matter and antimatter does not create an explosion but rather photon(wich is light) and neutral particles.So while it would be funny its not possible.
nerdout finished
I will grant that antimatter’s terribly inefficient at producing the sort of blast you would expect from, say, a bomb. Lots of ionizing radiation, secondary flame from superheated materials nearby, but effectively no concussive force–most of the energy released would go right through everything without slowing down. However, a sudden release of a burst of energy by means of a chemical, nuclear, or even mechanical reaction is pretty much the definition of “explosion”. I also noted that the visible secondary explosion would be the result of the energy release superheating surrounding matter, turning that into a “fireball”.
We can discuss just how much antimatter it would take to vaporize how much surrounding steel, but the answer is going to be somewhere around “not very much”.
When the kinetic force is used in order to cut the material, the material itself is able to absorb a specific amount of that force in any given time. If that material is forced to absorb force beyond it’s capabilities, then it will cause several reactions in the means of braking, melting and even forcefully expelling this excess energy out to the area around it. thus, the energybeam-explody effect.
Does it REALLY deliver a slow-curve stream when you sweep it, like a fire hose?
I was trying to make it look like the angle of the beam was changing, not so much that the beam is curved. Of course unless you could move your arm at nearly the speed of light you wouldn’t see that effect, but you know, artistic license.
As a feedback let me say that is way hard to me to see the red path as a trace OVER the surface. I think is the width variation that tricks my brain on seeing it as an ascendant thing (right side nearest than left side), like a smoke column.
I did not realize the true until read the comments, and even so I keep seeing it the wrong way.
seconded
Ya, your right about that Dragonking I did that for a year, you would not believe the inspections, just to make sure all the oil, gas (depending on the equipment) was clean, or gone not even any oil on the engines outside, it was an 11 month pain just to what? Live fire? Well, that was fun, the 81‘s with wp were really nice. .
That’s true, and the same type of prep & inspect are done for aircraft that are being retired for display purposes only. It’s especially rigorous for ships that are earmarked for artificial reef construction. It basically boils down to a long-term environmental impact.
BTW How awesome is it that we finally see Sydney’s PPO in action on Veterans day. (MMmmm like butta)
Extreme! I’m going to take an enthusiastic walk. Gaaaaa! I love this comic! Hummm that works three ways…..
Kinda ironic that the military is so concerned about the artificial reef things, considering what they fuel their ships with in the first place…
Uh? You talking about nuclear powered ships, subs ect?
Divers like to go down and poke about on those reefs, hay check this out! Dvd called mysteries of the deep by undersea explorer it’s old but 5 dvd’s in it show a lot of artificial reef diving.
Don’t over think it. Sydney DID tell them that orb “makes explodey beams.” Beams that explode things.
Likebutta is the best sound(?) effect.
Beat me to it =) and I agree completely.
Got anything better? o_O
Only if you use ‘I can’t Believe It’s Not Anime’
I think ‘Zidane’ was a better sound effect!
Not to forget GDGDBAAOIZEN!
Once there is a Don-Martin-Award for the most creative sound words, I knew whom to nominate :D
Agreed, but for some reason I think the “PANG” sound effect should have been “PONG!” – with maybe a “ping” sound effect in the preceding panel from the small piece of debris that hit her flight transponder.
Phil Foglio had the best one for a ray-gun in “Buck Godot: Zap Gun for Hire”: “Zownt”. You can even stretch out the “z” for the powering-up phase, but the “ownt” needs to be short.
Don’t forget the great sound effect “TOME” from another work of his Girl Genius, when a character is hit with a lrge tome.
But “likebutta” is now on my list of favorite sound effects.
Right up there with “Ohminoushummm” from Schlock Mercenary, Schlock’s gun (prepare to fire noise)
Especially because I read “likebutta” in Jontron’s voice lol
Needs to work on the aim a bit. And next time stand or fly back a few hundred yards before shooting.
I agree. From the last comic I thought she was higher.
So do I, way higher according depicted relative sizes.
That is one impressive orb. She will require a lot of training to aim it right though. Max, you’ll be doing overtime!
Also go Maxima! Speed, strength and armour all at once!
Primarily speed, I think. She is just relying on her naturally high armour class (at least 10 from what I can see) to deflect/catch the high-speed projectiles.
What system are you using here? I default to dnd3.5/pathfinder, where 10 is really bad.
if you take a look at the cast page there are some stats on each characters powers, pretty sure that’s what they where going by
D&D 3.5 is what I’m most familiar with and AC 10 is average human with no armour (and no Dex bonus).
When I was playing AD&D in the 1980’s, AC10 was unprotected with not dexterity bonuses and then the score got less as your armour got better (I was generally not a fan of encumbrance when my character had negative AC). The latest D&D version I have switched it around so that AC0 was normal human without protection. AC10 is heavy duty armour plus a massive dexterity bonus (and often some impressive encumbrance).
Looks like flight is in that combo as well. You go girl!
Meh, she can easily use it for “air strike” manuevers.
as long as it’s not inside a city. Don’t need the collateral damage.
I don’t want to bring the fans down, but before the “The reporters were too close” comments come in there was a controlled demolition of a hospital where the viewers should have been far enough away but some pieces got loose, killed one and injured several.
On a positive note, nice recovery Max!
That hospital didn’t have Max to stop everything flying away
Dave, you should see about installing your important programs on an external, that way you won’t lose them if something happens to your computer. Although not all programs will like running off of an external.
It took me a moment to realize where the dirt came from, but I think Sydney is trying to dig to safety right now.
External hard drives are as likely to go bad as internal hard drives.
more likely in my experience, since they’re more likely to be dropped or kicked.
Uh, not sure what you’re doing with your external HDD, but mine sits on my desk permanently. Externals are less likely to fail IMO because they don’t even have to run all the time. I only fire mine up once a week to do a complete backup of my PC. The best thing you could DaveB would be to get an external 2-3 TB drive and do a full PC backup weekly of all your drives. If you have Win 7 and use the system image creator, you basically have a full copy of your entire system. All you have to do is replace the failed drive and flash your image back on. No muss, no fuss. And an external 3TB drive will run you $120-150 and give you a nice piece of mind.
The problem with externals is they generally use cheap power supplies, and the USB controller board on it is also generally pretty cheap, the power supply in your PC is almost always of higher quality (most of the time much much higher quality) and the direct SATA connection on your motherboard is much more reliable compared to the USB adapter to SATA in the external HDD’s.
Then as the other user mentioned, external hard drives can be bumped or knocked over which may or may not be a problem depending on where its placed and if you move your externals from place to place.
Generally its a better bet to use a eSATA dock or have a hot swap bay in your PC if your just doing back ups and then not using the drive (that way its not always powered on) or if you want real time backup run one of the many RAID combos for data backup.
That’s where flash drives come in. I back up all my data to a flash drive I got in a box of cereal (I kid you not, it was one of those “Free Inside” prizes).
I just need backups in general. In 30 years of messing with computers I’ve only had 3-5 drives fail on me, so it’s easy to get complacent.
I know the feeling of getting complacent. I don’t do backups as often as I should sometimes. But after I lost my first laptop drive and lost about 60GB worth of personal stuff, I vowed never again. At least now I do a fairly regular backup, even if not weekly, at least once a month.
Just use one of those mem sticks, they hold gigabits. Those ports they use are on most computers, and are mostly standard now. Yes I’m showing my age.
Carbonite is a set-it-and-forget-it continuous off-site over-Internet backup solution. I have multiple computers and a smart-phone, so I also use GoodSync to keep everything synchronized so that all user data and configurations are backed up by Carbonite.
And this is why we have trial runs of weapons before demonstrating them to a crowd.
way to instill confidence in the public Sydney.
A girl that is buried with her head first,that nobody can reach because of a impenetrable force field,will not be relatively unharmed or flailing around for long.We can only hope that Sidney can overcome her panic long enough to turn of the shield,before she suffocates.
She only has to open up her hand. She’s fine
Easier said than done. Grab a hard ball, like a billiard ball and place half-way down in a flower pot. Fill the flower pot with sand. Now see if you can let go of the ball. The sand won’t let you. It might be a little easier if you used soil instead of sand, but this bombed out bomb range probably does not have any reasonable amount of soil, especially given the amount of glass shards Max was able to produce by blasting Sydney’s shield.
Yeah, but all she has to do is stop telling it to make a forcefield, and it stops, right? I mean, that’s how it seems to work with the others, anyway.
she can just expand her shield and she would be out of the sand
She simply has to flip over in flight, the sand will then flow to the bottom of the force field. I *think* gravity works through the force field. She’s ok.
What I want is a snow globe just like that last panel. Too dang funny.
I love teamfourstar. They also do Hellsing abridged which only comes out once a year but is so worth it.
Oh my god is it eveer XD
Yeah the Hellsing Abridged is super hilarious too. I had only ever seen maybe the first 3 or 4 episodes of Hellsing, then I watched their abridged version which made me want to go watch the rest. To be honest I thought the Team Four Star version was much better.
Well to be fair they are doing the Hellsing Ultimate Ova’s abridged. The original Hellsing series is only 13 30 minutes episodes and barely follows the manga at all.
They also just did an Attack on Titan Abridged episode on Takahata’s channel. It’s like 5 episodes of the show in one “episode,” and it’s great!
I made the mistake of watching it the day it came out this year. Now I have to wait soooooo long for the next one.
Well, you’ve gotta love a group that doesn’t just do an abridged series, but release an abridged version of their abridged series. I can watch the whole Saiyan saga in about 3 minutes now!
TeamFourStar does primo work, but you probably should have mentioned it’s most definately PG-13, unlike the Anime it’s based on.
That being said, I think TFS’s version of the writing is more accurate/Realistic (can I even say that about DBZ?) then the Original
GOD THIS IS HILARIOUS. one of my favorite page so far hehe.
and boy the part with the forcefield and max’s reaction … OMG hehe
Why are there two tracks in the first frame? Is one the burnt path on the ground? Panel 3 is perfect Sydney, by the way. Oopsie! Her PPO is pretty powerful, but Max is awesome. (Bracing myself for another round of Max hero worship from Suzie.)
Yes. She missed the tank and moved the beam across the ground to it.
The zig-zaggy one in the bottom right of the panel is a fiery gouge in the ground carved by the straighter beam dropping in from the centre top.
Oh, I was thinking of Darkseid’s Omega beams, where the beam changes direction in mid-flight.
So, speculation time! Did everything that the beam touched explode? Was the explosion triggered when she stopped shooting the beam? Was the explosion a direct effect of the beam, or did it hit something explosive? What is the aiming mechanism for the beam. Am I hip enough to say PPO? DISCUSS!
I think she can guide the beam as it’s traveling, so if she doesn’t focus on that it’s an ungided wiggly line
Are you hip enough? You’re reading this comic, so…
No, yes, yes, her extended arm, probably.
Since there’s no laser barrel in her arm, does it fire along the same vector from her shoulder to her palm or something. Maybe it’s which ever average direction her palm is facing. She obviously doesn’t will it to hit an exact spot. I’m trying to figure out what her potential for improvement is, and the mechanics of how it aims are nontrivial.
It’d be cool to see if the truesight orb helps with her aim, but it probably doesn’t. The truesight orb doesn’t seem to remove her need for glasses or give her telescopic vision; but since it revolves around vision (well, illusions I guess), a fan can dream.
She might be able to aim with just her mind, but holding up her arm and palm might help mentally. As far as the truesight orb, it doesn’t give her telescopic vision, but she can send her double 50 yards over to the target.
That was even more hilarious than I imagined it. AWESOME work DaveB.
PS: Sorry about your harddrive, good luck. And set up that donation link, I don’t use amazon!
+1. Vigorously. ; )
Yes, I’ll do that too. :)
Seeing that sand bubble first thought is who’s she going to drop it on?
Back-blast area NOT clear!
To be fair I don’t think anyone expected the back-blast to be quite THAT Big! ;)
Looks like the blast-orb has at least 2 settings: Flamey-goodness and Laser(lazer?)-cutter
I think the first is a secondary effect of the second.
Sydney really needs to level up enough to boost her WIS and DEX stats.
I think mainly her Wis. Her Dex is probably not that bad, given how she can throw someone by their *tongue* (the disguised Mr. Amorphous).
Intelect, Definitely would have uses. Or Strength. It is all good to Have the dext to use a weapon, the Wisdom to know how swing it, and the Intellect to Know when to use it, But with out the strength to Hold the weapon while using it, Your Screwed.
Actually, I think you have Wisdom and Intellect reversed. Intellect is need to know how to use a weapon and wisdom tells you when its use is most appropriate.
Sidney obviously still lacks both.
good point, Though both pretty much are necessary to knowing when is a good time to fire of a hefty weapon and when is a sub optimal time to fire of a hefty weapon.
Well not a Pin Prick from god, but a holly [redacted] get the civilians the [redacted] out of here and shut that [redacted] beam off! [redacted] [redacted] [expediently deleted] [several redacted’s]
On one hand, it was quite irresponsible of Max to let Syd simply do her thing. Unless it happened off-panel, it looks like Max didn’t even have Sydney test out the PPO. That beam was wild and out of control. And had the worst happened (a “critical fail”/”botch” result to use RPG terms), that beam could have hit the reporters. Goodbye Archon.
On the other, this makes a great example of why supers should join Archon and be trained by them. Arianna’s very likely going to spin Syd’s demonstration that way (and she should).
—
DaveB: Cross-sections and other deep details are worth it. THANK YOU. Please keep up the good work.
I doubt that she would of hit the reporters, they should be far enough away that her aim would of have to be way off, but in a more uncontrolled use of her power it could be really bad for bystanders.
mmh, the explody laser effect reminds me of the robot soldier attacks in Miyazaki’s Castle in the sky movie
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5dS0Rd5gOJA
(first few 10 seconds, where he cuts the door frame then everything explodes :p)
Love that movie. Was the first Miyazaki film I ever saw (I was… 12, I think?) and I ended up looking for more by him — which was got me into subbed vs. dubbed films, which got me into manga/anime.
Woot for early childhood!
Team Four Star also does a hilariously over-the-top version of Hellsing Ultimate.
Okay, question. Does the beam itself cause the explosion, or is it the side effects of the beam? That is, does the beam cause the explosion, or is it just heating things up until they explode?
Cause if it’s the actual beam causing the explosion, that could be either a lot more, or a lot less, useful than just the heat ray.
I will field that question with a question, Is it the force of an impact that creates an explosion or the Projectile it’s self? The answer is both, at the same time.
Mass + Speed + Energy (force) = reaction = or > the cause.
So am I the only one bothered by panel 4? Sydney is clearly switching from the PPO to the Forcefield, but in panel 4, that orb’s coloring (as referenced by the info block on the top right) looks more like the Energy Tentacle ball to me…. Not a big deal I guess, but it made me slightly confused for a minute in panel 7 when I was thinking she was using the Energy Tentacle ball
The problem is the Who’s Who panel has the “raw” pictures on the orbs, but in the comic they have a glow effect on them so they’re much more saturated which can make them a little hard to match up.
Should her thumbnail revert to patch-less yet?
The eye patch may go right back on after that shot.
This energy blast does seem like more of a villainous weapon to me…
Interesting. The orbs are orbiting her foot while she’s playing ostritch. (Yes, I know they don’t really do that.) Which means they actively avoided the dirt storm while it was burying Sydneys head. I wonder how much volition those things have….
I can see that Sydney is going to have a season ticket to the infirmary. She has been there once already today for the eyepatch. I wonder if she will have her arm in a sling, after this peppering with shrapnel? All sorts of potential for roleplaying. Not least Nelson, if she whips out the eyepatch again.
I’ve seen people peppered by particles. I know they can leave a mark and can take a long time to heal, and Syd just now took a potentially serious dose. Kinda scary, but I’m really looking forward to any and all encounters between Syd and the Doctor. They get along so well. ; )
From Sydney’s future training: Sydney, Dabbler, Hiro and Harem (2 of them) are back at the bomb range. A set of targets are set up 500 m away from the firing line. Hiro is RSO and directing the training exercise. Sydney has her hand above her glasses, trying to see the target, way down there.
Hiro: Okay, for this exercise each of you will take one shot as quickly as you can. See how close you can hit the target.
Harem (not on the firing line): Okay, Hot Stuff.
Hiro: You will address me as Major, corporal!
Dabbler: Right, Major Hot Stuff.
Hiro: (he has lost too many of these verbal sparing matches with Dabbler to try any more): Grr. Harem you are up first. At your own target, on my command, … fire.
[ The Harem not at the firing line disappears (Voorp!) and reappears at her target, which she stabs with a knife in the bullseye, then teleports back. ]
Hiro: Halo you’re next. [ Sydney stands like a stereotypical old-west gun fighter ] At your own target, on my command, … Fire!
[ Sydney grabs the red orb, points it down field and, well, explody beam! ]
(another panel)
Hiro: Private, for next time, you do not need to use full power during training exercises. I did say at your own target, but you took out all of them and we will have to rebuild the berm. I better go see where it stopped. [ Hiro and Sydney fly off, over the range, and the excavated hill to the endurance course ]
Sydney: Well, now there are some more obstacles in the obstacle course.
Hiro: You are cleaning this part up. Grab another target and set it up for Dabbler.
Yea that happened roughly how i expected it to lol Sydney getting backlash and Max saving (more or less) the press. I would also love to get the app Buuutttt untill they make an android version (which i know they are working on it) ill have to wait.
Well, Sydney, I suppose all is well with the world if you’re flailing comically while destroying armored tanks. Though, I have to say, it looked like the ‘splosions were occurring, to me, as the beam was cutting, so I had thought the delay between panels two and three was very short in normal time. But, any which way you cut it, splody beams render most physics arguments invalid. But to the main reason I made a completely separate post for this comment:
Where is the direct donate button? I mean, I’ll do the Amazon thing if necessary, but I’d prefer to just dump money on you, or buy book versions of the comic or merchandise or whatnot. And I’m glad you recovered so much. I know the feel of computers/laptops unceremoniously dieing/being stolen -.-
I move to have a “Sydney Owned” count from here on in!
I’m curious if there are multiple power settings to the beam or if it is BFG mode only with the PPO Orb.
Also, sorry to hear about your Drive crashing. At least you only lost Saturday instead of multiple days or even completed Comic Work (or worse, RL Work).
That should be, like, the regular expression for their team.
(Giant explosion, Sydney is nowhere to be seen)
“Sydney! Are you relatively unharmed and flailing comically?”
Oh yeah, that. Definitely that.
+10 0011 0010 1001(b2)
What!? 10001100101000!? There’s no way that can be right.
I think the mental trigger changed the orb to a higher setting when it was finaly on target.
what she was tracing around with was basicaly a red dot aiming aid / light damage straffing function.
More like pain in the butta!
Ummm…anyone else think Halo is wounded from that explosion? In the panel where she is reaching for the orb, there’s a dark line of blood along her hand.
Hopefully not a serious wound, since she’s going to be seeing enough of the infirmary as it is.
It’s not blood. It’s the strap from the arm band. If you go back a few pages & look, you can see it several times…..To be fair, I was confused the first time I saw it…..But it is not blood. Sydney is safe from that….Just not safe from herself.
Ah good, at least this proves that her reflexes are up to snuff.
Her initiative bonus comes in handy. (Nods.)