Grrl Power #207 – I’ll take six of these, twelve of these…
The site has been a little spotty for the last few days, at least for me. I apologize if it’s sucked for anyone else, but I think I have it sorted out. If nothing else the issues have prompted me to fully update WordPress and all my plugins. I usually fear doing that because if something does screw up, that means I get to spend hours troubleshooting the site instead of drawing.
So, ARCHON security. How does the armory know someone teleported in there? Well the Grrlverse isn’t one of those mature comic universes where the X-men have Shi’ar technology that makes solid holographic danger rooms or Reed Richards has invented Unstable Molecule spandex substitute. It’s almost exactly our own technology. I say almost because magic does exist in this universe and Arc-LIGHT and Arc-DARK have limited access to it. But the armory just uses plain ol’ tech. Sensors monitor air pressure for teleporters (assuming the teleporter isn’t exchanging the exact volume of air when they appear) but there are also motion sensors, pressure plates on the floor, heat and noise sensors, the works basically. Also, crazy as it may sound, there are low tech and very thick windows that can be used to observe everything from the security booth. Granted if someone could teleport into the room silently and phased so they wouldn’t displace any air, and also fly and be thermally transparent… well, there’s only so much you can do to protect your gear. Of course as soon as they teleported out with something, it would leave a vacuum.
And don’t worry, those guns don’t start throwing 6,000 rounds per minute into ammo crates the instant someone forgets the passcode. They’re armed with tazers and knockout gas and probably other non-explodey options before the guns start. Actually live fire is probably a last resort that needs to be authorized by a human from the security booth. After I drew the room I realized I designed the whole armory idiotically. I’d think ideally anything remotely volatile is kept in separate areas with lots of thick layers between them. Again, my geek cred does me a disservice, as everything I know about armories I learned from movies and shows like Chuck. You know, shelves of equipment and a big peg board on the back wall with enough guns on it to give Rambo a 4 hour erection.
Anyone think the QM looks rather a lot like Clint Eastwood? That wasn’t intentional on my part (cough). I toyed with the idea of calling him Gant, after the first character I remember seeing Eastwood play, but decided against it.
Edit: I’ve changed Harem from saying “Yes Sir, sorry Sir!” to “Yes Sergeant! Sorry Sergeant!” if you want to CTRL+F5 the page (possibly CTRL+R depending on your browser.) The point of that exchange was to show that Vauxhall was annoyed at Maxima for running such a loose ship, not to show Harem being flippant. Apparently even saluting a non-com is wrong too, but that would take more work to change. Hollywood has done me wrong. The upside is that I can now predict there may be a funny scene with Sydney being as confused about all this as I was.
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From what we’ve seen of the character so far, I’d have expected that to be her excuse to not wear any at all. Or much of anything else, whenever she had an excuse. She and Math seem like the perfect match.
I would have thought she would have gone for naked + Body paint or a “Bikini” tatoo…you know how some superheroine costumes look like they were painted on?
Not a tattoo, but yeah.
Some times she will want people to know she is naked.
Actually, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if Math and Harem never had any sort of romantic relationship. Math has a childish enjoyment of provoking negative responses with his harassment, and Harem is too open and experimental to be easily embarrassed. They seem to have more of a buddy-buddy relationship from a mutual enjoyment of pestering everyone else. They can cackle gleefully at everyone else’s expense, but romantically I think Math needs someone more stable.
Actually, if I were going to pick a match for Math, I’d go with Dabbler. She’s as hyper as Math, but she has enough life experience to take some things seriously that Harem hasn’t learned to yet, and might provide a stabilizing relationship without actually squelching his behavior.
I could totally see them teaming up to produce extreme levels of awkward. Maybe even pretending to be together to make a proper scene.
I agree they’re completely unsuitable as romantic partners, but could easily see them hooking up, just for sex. I also see him trying to negotiate for the full “5×5” encounter…
Two things:
1) The RSS feed went kaput.
2) The Who’s Who sidebar is missing the word resemblance under Goose.
Goose is fixed. The RSS worked for me. I subscribe to both, the WordPress native one and the feedburner one. I’ll keep an eye on it though.
Am I the first to notice panel four. “I’m going to checking out some equipment” .
Should it be “I’m going to be checking out some equipment” or “I’m going to check out some equipment”
No. Press Ctrl-F5 for the updated version.
I got a blank page at the main address like two hours ago and used the same workaround, but now it seems fine.
:( Intended to be a reply to: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1295/comment-page-2#comment-67420
When I went to the main page, I got nothing. I had to go through the archives to see this page. Also, Goose’s Who’s Who is missing the word “resemblance.”
CTRL-F5 will display the new version.
I assume that unteleporting means that she will absorb that incarnation back into herself, but what is one of the Harem’s are killed? what happens to the rest?
We don’t know what happends to her, but based on the pain reaction https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/389
IF the rest of her survives, it will suffer massive emetional trauma
They aren’t absorbed per se, they enter a sort of teleportational limbo stasis, along with everything they wear. The strenght is absorbed though.
Aha! So that”so what Gunnery Sergeant Thomas Highway (Heartbreak Ridge) is doing after he left the Marine Corps.
A couple different people explained their theories on teleporting, and I THINK I understand what Harem’s saying, but it still confuses me.
If she wanted to lift more weight. Harem should all go into 1 body, thus increasing her strength.
But for teleporting, if her body & her clothes add to her teleportation limit, shouldn’t she remain separated into 5? Because her weight would INCREASE if she combines, thus increasing her total weight limit. Right? Unless her teleportation weight limit scales with her physical strength, which would be weird. And sure, unteleporting would reduce the total weight of the 5 by one set of clothes (assuming the weight limit of all 5 is combined for some reason, but why would it be? If two Harems are moving a couch around, a third Harem can’t teleport to safety? Is there any weight limit on unteleporting?), but wouldn’t she gain the same amount just by stripping? Shouldn’t all her dupes go bald or buzzcut to save precious ounces?
The way I understand it is that Harem’s total weight limit and strength are ‘pooled’ between her clones. When she splits then the strength and carry weight is divided amongst her clones, so each clone can only carry up to it’s portion of the total.
I think how each clone can increase strength the less of them there are would probably rely on the same “quantum entanglement” that allows all five bodies to share a mind. Either that, or a wizard did it, which seems more likely given the nature of her power.
DaveB stated that the max weight that Harem’s bodies can teleport varies with the number of bodies. It goes from around 25 lb each when 5 bodies to around 50 lbs with one body. That is aside the bare body itself.
So the total amount she can carry beyond herself is increased for having extra bodies sharing the effort, but each body is still a body’s amount of effort.
I’m guessing 5 bodies allows for the most weight carried within her current power level, but 4 bodies can carry more per individual body.
Exacts don’t matter here/now.
Just that the idea of: one body count (5?) having best group carrying capacity and another body count (4?) having best individual carrying capacity, matters
Or more simply, her one body can teleport X weight, but each duplicate out there is constantly taxing her teleportation limit by Y. So X-4Y=Z, the amount she can carry when all 4 dupes are out and about.
So, she can carry four loads of 25 or one load of 50? That is, the five of her could more quickly transport a bunch of 5lb widgets, but if she needed to hump a 30lb free weight, she’d need to absorb a dupe or two?
I mean five. So, 125 lbs split between the 5, or 50 lb carried by the one.
The original DaveB’s description was as brief as mine but yes, that is the way I read it.
Also, her password is 69 5×5. Just wondering what the other 5 is for.
(Her sn is probably xX69Harem69Xx)
Don’t know for sure if it has anything to do with anything, but 5 X 5 is milspeak for “Loud and Clear”.
It also hits better than a 2 X 4, if you have the strength to swing it :D
Wonder if Goose’s other nickname happens to be “Duke” :P
Well, she does live her life loud and clear
hail to the king!!! LOL
Er… 5 X 5 can have a lot of meanings. It is milspeak for “loud and clear”, but it also refers to “You’ve got all your toes in a line” toes being 5 per foot. Five toes next to five toes is “five by five.”
This can apply to a lot of different situations. As in, you’re on target, you’re lined up, etc.
Maybe he’s a cosplayer who revells in the comparison.
You can find the answers you seek on page 1 of the comments.
Is that a coaxial laser sight? Is Harem being “painted” by 16 different laser sights, (and presumably 16 different weapons systems?)
Although…laser sights are for human use. so…visible light laser rangefinder?
Actually…I’m not sure what would qualify as “coaxial” on a Gatling gun. From between the barrels is what I assumed.
Visible laser sights could also be for intimidation purposes, since I’d imagine they’d rather the intruder left the armory willingly rather than start shooting around all the munitions and expensive gear.
“That’s also her excuse for wearing very small underwear.”
A rather flimsy excuse if you ask me. She’s obviously a closet exhibitionist at heart.
Arc-Dark? What is Arc-Dark?
CIA/FBI/NSA on super power steroids.
Arc-Dark is the intelligence branch of Archon. Just as the heroes are in the SWAT branch, namely Arc-SWAT. X (Dabbler’s handler, who can turn invisible) is a member of Arc-Dark.
As Maxima explained here: http://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/398
the intelligence division is Arc-Light.
Arc-Dark I bet is about “black operations” (undercover? “illegal”?), Maxima again: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/323
Yes, you are perfectly correct. As we have seen so little of them, I have lazily combined both into one, when recollecting them.
She’s hardly in the closet for her exhibitionism
And yea, Arc Dark is the black ops division of Archon. Things that need to stay in the dark (secret)
You have heard the phrase: “things that go bump in the night”? That’s them looking at your stash under your bed (‘stash of what?’ you ask, “what you got?” asks me ;))
I don’t think there’s much “closet” to Harem’s “exhibitionism.” If it weren’t for being a member of Archon, general enforcement of laws against Indecent Exposure & her own sense of fashion to help show off her assets, she’d probably *prefer* running around naked.
As for your design of the armory, the “wall of guns” is actually fairly accurate. I have seen a number of civilian armories in real life and the big ones look a lot like this.
https://boingboing.net/2011/02/04/thats-a-lot-of-guns.html
Racks of guns out in the open. Once you get into the vault itself anyways. Google Military armory and you will find a lot of pictures of the cabinets of arms you would find in a military.
I dunno about civilian armories, but the ones in the military are tightly controlled as far as weapons are kept separate from ammo, the weapons have to be within lockable mounts that are a minimum weight (think heavy to prevent being stolen), have everything behind a closed door with limited access to keys, etc. That being the case, however, this is a highly funded secret operation that expects that they might need immediate firepower to be teleported to an active battle site. Therefore, I’d expect a computerized filing system with robotic assistance for the poor armorer to rapidly access both weapons and ammo, bringing the two together on the fly. This system would have possible failsafes including the armorer has to have a heartbeat, be present, and other things.
Yep, that’s a lot of power in that firewall…
So, how does the turret detect Harem’s teleportation? I could be looking for the energy emission from a teleportation, but that would assume that all teleporters teleport in the same manner, which is not a safe assumption in a superhero universe. Also, is the assumption that teleporters can’t dodge bullets, or simply that if they’re being shot at, they won’t have time to teleport-dodge and grab gear from the armory?
Also, what is up with Mr. Amorphous’s hand in panel 5? His fingers look really strange, either that or he’s holding something that’s squishing between his fingers.
It doesn’t, it just detects her being there (motion sensors and stuff).
It specified “teleportation detected” not “intruder detected.” It has some way of determining that the intruder teleported into the room.
I could tell you, but then I would have to kill you.
Most likely it’s just making an educated guess. Someone suddenly appearing from nowhere in the middle of the room suggests teleporter.
Or there could be weight sensors along the normal access routes, and an array of them in the armory floor. A weight suddenly appearing on a weight sensor in the armory without weight sensors leading up to it could be considered a simple teleport detector. Weight sensors under weapon racks could be used to track (roughly) inventory, and figure out if the sudden appearance of weight on the floor is because something fell out of the suddenly lighter gun rack next to that section of floor.
Infrared sensors see a new heat source appear the software knows the object wasn’t there before which would trigger the message. You can also figure out away to detect air displacement which would happen when a person teleports in or out this is why Nightcrawler bamf’s and ost other teleporters pop at some level it is the air moving away from there as their body displaces the volume around them. I would use air displacement as the detector that way you don’t have to worry about an invisible teleporter they can’t hid the air displacement.
These don’t have to be either / or situations, and the weight sensors could help deal with somebody who’s invisible, as well as detecting teleporting intruders.
If you read DaveB’s main comment, he says that the security system doesn’t detect the actual teleportation. It just detects the presence of a person or a disturbance in the environment.
What about to read what the author cared to share below the comic?
I’m loving panel….what is that, 8? The bored yawn while blocking the laser vision with an indestructible hand is priceless. :)
yay! Duke Nukem has a side job!
I’m confused. Is Harem saying that it is condemned and run by the mob, or that there’s a good chance it’s going to be condemned and/or run by the mob?
She’s saying there’s a good chance the place was chosen either because it was already slated for demolition anyway, or possibly because it’s known to be controlled by a group inimical to the interests of law enforcement. In either case, premature demolition could be considered at worst neutral, and possibly a “good thing”.
Another possibility is that the restaurant is currently plagued by mobsters and this destruction/rebuild will allow Archon to pry them loose from the mobsters. As in “Your ‘protection’ left a little to be desired, so we are now using another provider.” As Maxima glowers from behind over their shoulders at the mobsters.
Wheels within wheels & plans within plans…
However, Harem is just speculating, knowing what little she really knows about how the upper commanding echelon at Archon actually works.
Then again, maybe there’s nothing shady about the restaurant & it’s just taking a bad pounding…
Shouldn’t Achilles and Amorphous be in the Who’s Who? Also, that guy with the laser vision is trying SO HARD on the wroooong guy.
I think the rule is only characters who speak get to be in who’s who.
Though in this case, Goose and Shawn didn’t speak, but they did play a semi-main role in this comic.
Achilles and Amorphus are simply background characters in today’s comic
Also, they’re specifically identified
the collars they all wear might provide tracking as well as communication, and that automated system didn’t fire right away because read the signal off of it. The system then asked for the code to verify that she was on the cleared list, and the same system might have read her energy signature of the teleport.
Ok, even after multiple read-throughs, Harem’s expression in panel 3 is still making me laugh.
I was also amused by the computer’s “Accepted”
“For Now”
“You mean after all that, there might be more hoops I have to jump through to avoid being lasered?”
I like the turret’s sound effects. Vrrrk on activation and Krrrv on deactivation.
Now I can’t think of way to harm Harem, until her injuries get teleported along. But then she can still undo the injured copy. And what if one copy dies? Does she just create a new one? I suppose that would be tragical for her but in effect she is unkillable. You have to kill all five Harems simultaneously.
We don’t know for sure that massive trauma to one won’t cause physical damage to the others. Also, I’d point out that people can and do die of shock. Which means it’s possible for all five of her to die from one of her being shot in the stomach.
And finally we haven’t gotten confirmation that she can just make another self if one gets killed. What if a copy’s death just reduces her max weight power limit by its own weight, permanently?
I believe DaveB has stated that, if Harem unteleports one of her copys, that copy is basicly in stasis until it’s brought back.
So no, she couldn’t heal by unteleporting and reteleporting a copy
This suggests she has a place to store their pattern like the Star Trek Next Generation pattern buffer? Probably not her brain as the information would be to vast. Must be some dimension somewhere she can store it and link to like her mind is linked together. Maybe having this quantum linked mind thingie led to her instinctively finding a place to store the pattern? If her mind is storing and accessing information on some hidden/higher dimensions then maybe she has developed an “overmind” beyond just the quantum mind thing she uses amongst us and can’t really be completely destroyed by merely killing her avatars down here…
In Star Trek I always wondered why they did not use the pattern from five minutes ago to bring a crewman back to live when he died on an away mission. Was that ever explained? I haven’t seen many episodes but I remember two Rikers.
When Harem has access to older copies it would really make it even more difficult to harm her.
No, it was never explained satisfactorily.
Worse they once fed the live but preternaturally aging chief ship medical officer, she had a “disease” which I won’t spoil for you completely, into it using an old pattern and her damaged bodies molecules for the conversion and she was healed. I think she may have kept her memories to as they might have been using the pattern as a filter as they sometimes do. They were awfully worried it wouldn’t work though. *shrugs* The show left you with the feeling that they were close to this level of technology but weren’t quit sure it was safe so only daring flagships and desperate folk were using it until more research was done. But yeah you would think anybody who had died would be up for a go… Seems it was one of those things they didn’t want you to look at too closely.
And if the spoiler tag didn’t work oh well… its not a thing I have use for most of the time so I don’t really spend time learning how to use all the code on all the boards.
What I meant was to create a whole new body when one is injured beyond healing.
The Federation has very strict laws against cloning, due to some unfortunate incident they had. So even though they can do it, it would be illegal. The Romulans probably do it all the time.
It is rather like the fact that we know it is possible to do brain transplants. There was a surgeon in the 60s, or thereabouts, who was pioneering the work. But the general public found it distasteful, so it got tagged as unethical and all research stopped. So there are plenty of life-saving medical techniques that can be used, but which a particular society might choose not to for religious, cultural or other moral reasons.
I think I was referring to Harem with this comment. This comment system is somewhat confusing.
But since when do Starfleet captains and admirals care for rules and laws? Picard might be an exception but the others I know dump even the Prime Directive if it inconveniences them.
Yea, Kirk being the prime example.
Mind you, it is not dissimilar to how our governments behave nowadays. Having one set of standards publicly, but ignoring them, privately, when it is inconvenient. Kidnapping becoming ‘rendition’. Torture being ok, so long as it does not leave visible scars. Or if it is being done by an ally rather than one of our citizens.
Inciting rebellion being fine, providing it is an Islamic or communist country. * But biting us in the arse when the other side decide to start playing the game by the same rules. As we now see in Ukraine.
* As evidenced by the recent disclosure that in the last few years that the U.S. were trying to destabilise Cuba by subverting social media. So accusations of similar in the Arab spring revolutions has credence.
Harem’s “Bodies” are put into a form of Stasis when inactive. all “absorbing” a body will do after it’s been ventilated is keep it from bleeding to death until the infirmary can be properly set up.
This just made me wonder about teleport defense. If a teleported cannot port into a location where something already exists, you can just hand string from the ceiling every 4 inches that has a small weight on the end and reaches just to an inch off the floor. There would be no spot where a body could appear without intersecting a string.
And, just in case the teleporter exchanged the material they intersect, make them insulated wires with a HIGH voltage on them. Cutting them would produce a contact right at the surface of the jumper and ZAP.
Probably done already and I just missed it.
Thanks for boosting the updates to 2/week!
Yea, but that’d also make it impossible for Harem to get in, and thus run equipment.
Also it’d make it impossible for normal people to walk through the room
Just had an idea.
What if somebody with the power to create portals at will would try to rob the armory?
I mean, they’d just have to make a portal in there, take a quick peek around, then open small portals to any place a weapon is stored at to grab it off. Of course, that would only work if both ends of the portal only had one actually working/existing side (meaning you couldn’t get in from the behind of one of the openings, since that wouldn’t even be there).
Also, portals: one of the most awesome powers if trained right.
To me, motivation is what protects them from this kind of attack.
That is: If you’ve got enough training and skill with your portals and such a shortage of limitations on your portals’ usage and power that you can pull the heist that way…you don’t need those guns.
I’ve only seen it in one or two stories, and I’d like to see it again: There ought to be stories where the villain ascends – where he gets so powerful that the thing motivating him to villainy (fear of losing power and/or fear of death) stop being motivators, and he moves on to things outside the heroes’ concern or even becomes a positive force.
I am actually using that in my series of teenage superhero novels.
The hero using it is a smart goth-chick, who will use the portal in both intelligent and fun ways.
For starters she could only make portals on surfaces, the smoother the better, but she`ll end up making them wherever and whenever she wants.
Maybe I`ll even give her an optional pocket-dimension hideout to use.
The fun part in writing these books is to actually come up with cool stuff and to be able to bash the usual superhero-cliches.
I am actually using that in my series of teenage superhero novels.
The hero using it is a smart goth-chick, who will use the portal in both intelligent and fun ways.
For starters she could only make portals on surfaces, the smoother the better, but she`ll end up making them wherever and whenever she wants.
Maybe I`ll even give her an optional pocket-dimension hideout to use.
The fun part in writing these books is to actually come up with cool stuff and to be able to bash the usual superhero-cliches.
A severe dislike of capes, bodysuits, colored underwear and magical-girl costumes included.
Also: superheroes with wallets and carry-on supplies.
Hey, when you`re flying around all day all over the world, there`s 3 things you`ll really need.
Local currencies, emergency water and toilet-paper.
You forgot a refrigerator and chocolate. The latter may not be available in some of the more primitive parts of the world. And you need the former to keep the chocolate from melting in the hotter places!
And chocolate can serve as a very good ice breaker. Dr Who would have used it, except he found pocket fridge technology to be a bit bulky for his coat. So had to make do with jelly babies.
Not to mention being a handy barter item in places where currency is inconvenient. Other than rare remote areas where currency is not used, there are places with hyper inflation and/or bulky currency. One spot my brother went to he wanted $10 in local currency and ended up with three carrier bags of notes! A few bars of chocolate would have served him far better.
Shame they don`t yet have transporter buffers to carry around in their belts.
The only sazzy tech they have is from a fucked-up future and from an alien that watched over the Earth since an alien pirate-spaceship wiped out the dinosaurs.
Obviously, they`ll take time to understand either and even then, they`ll use it when they can guarantee its safe. Afterwards, they`ll let it slowly sink into mainstream civilization as to better the world, step by step. So far, they`re only using it as a library and coordination/surveillance equipment. Since these heroes are only a handfull up to now, and even less with actual powers, they really can`t do much.
Well, apart from the fact that the powered heroes actually took out the Burmese military government…
and the fact that my age-old half-dragon-girl incinerated the Chinese government because she was furios they attacked her on sight.
Or the fact that my alien catgirl from the future broke out of Area 51…
A very good power stunt she could develop is to put chocolate into her own storage buffer. Provided it goes in at a decent temperature, it will come out the same way. No bulky fridge involved!
If you can do that with portals, you can make a fortune with legal work. And not have Maxima hunting you.
I know which I’d prefere
Imagine how easy it would be to give people instant-travel to places, for the right price of course.
“Jack Logan`s Travel-Agency: You`re here, then you`re there.”
“You want to take a quick vacation? Now you save travelling times!”
“Instant-deliveries, low cost!”
Especially useful if you could set up a network of sorts of pre-made portals that didn`t need your direct attention. Then combine it with a bit of Dabbler-tech and you got your own (inter-) planetary Stargate-system.
At least in the base idea the money you could rake in would only limited by your own efforts.
Alone what big-ass companies and governments wuld pay you.
Your shipping company better check their content before delivery. I can imagine someone going up to the counter and saying “I’ve got a package to be delivered to the White House. It’s from a mister Kayda, first name Al. And don’t mind the ticking, it’s a new desk clock for the president’s office.”
And always beware mass destruction events being transmitted too. See Battlefield Earth for an example of that, on a grand scale.
That is a good book by the way. Shame the movie was not split over two or three parts. Rather like Dune the film adaptation got poor critical reviews. Mainly because both the books were far too big and complex to allow compression into a single movie, without loosing a lot of the richness and interesting aspects.
I loved the details of how the human savages gradually reclaimed their lost knowledge and built up their ability to fight back against the occupiers. But that had to be compressed into just a couple of scenes, so felt trivialised by comparison. And lost the enormity of going from stone age capability back to flying aircraft again.
So, the disdain had nothing to do with Scientology?
So long as an actor can act, I do not mind what they believe. In fact, until you mentioned it, I was unaware that he was a scientologist.
Man it is hard to avoid adding “he acted like a normal person”, but that would be undermining my own point. Oops I just mentioned it.
*halo falls off*
Damn.
(scratches head) what was scoville sitting on? did she have a spicy meal before falling? should I call paramedics for you and the people near you?
*scratches Yorp behind the ear*
Yeah, loved both the Dune and Battlefield Earth series as books. A damn shame they didn`t get the same quality in movies as Lord of the Rings did.
Damn, that would`ve been awesome.
*wags tail*
I actually like the Dune movie (and am ok with the other one, finding it entertaining in it’s own right). But just consider that they should be viewed as condensed, cliff notes, of the genuine article. One of the rare instances where I would recommend reading the book before watching the movie. Whereas normally I would advocate either doing one or the other, but not both. It just leads to frustration that one or the other will fail to live up to expectations.
The Dune movie does a very good job. In particular I love the music, and the various scenes it plays over. For instance, I consider the vocal introduction, by the princess, with theme music in the background, to be a better piece of audio than the majority of pop songs. Sadly there is just not enough of fhe film.
Travolta told a story about getting offered a role in Battlefield Earth by the director and how it changed his perspective on his acting career. To paraphrase it, when they met he said ‘so you want me to play the young handsome star?’ and the director said ‘no, we want you to play the old grumpy alien’. At that point he knew that his leading man days were numbered.
“Accepted. For Now.”
I gotta get a security system that says that.
So when she reabsorbs a body, does it leave a pile of clothes sitting there? I presume she will port back to her room first so the pile of clothes isn’t somewhere awkward. Or maybe she will leave a pile of clothes in an awkward place on purpose?
No, if she do not want it. Whatever she is carrying (up to her max weigh) could be stored with her.
And here I was hoping that if she absorbed a copy and then later recreated it then she would have to go visit the hair ship again for a cut and dye. Good potential for character angst if she had to go get expensive treatments more often then expected.
Nobody yet suggested that everything Harem says, including, the line about stress, is the actual password? The face in panel three is also required for facial recognition.
It would make a great defence against people who listened in on her, and tried to teleport in this (or next) Tuesday.
Clever :)
Seconded.
That would make for a very long, stupid, and easy to forgot password
Just a random word that changes every day is way safer
Do not be so sure. Mnemonics teach us that meaningful phrases are a lot easier to recall that random words. A trick to recall a string of random words “mentalists” uses is combine them into a phrase.
Kinda same way of: Password Strength
it isn’t just the right words it’s voice and as someone else mentioned collar signal combined so a teleporter that listens somehow can’t just parrot the code they need to copy her sound too. voice print it exists now but current real ones still can be fooled into false negative by a person speaking differently from normal.
Long shoot but I wondering if the passwords Harem said means that they start with “A” on Mondays, with “B” on Tuesdays, and so on.
Also both first words (“Alabaster” and “Beethoven”) have 9 letters, only two vowels, the first one repeated thrice and in order.
DaveB has a deeply developed script or a interesting subconscious :)
Eh, having overly specific rules for your passwords isn’t a good idea. Someone like us could come up with the rest of the sequence with a little thought.
Yes, totally right, but there they are :)
Seriously: those ones would be silly, granted, but that kind of rules can be used to allow the users check their recall, without give away the generation rules even if there is some.
It is like the use of prime numbers, you know there are prime (and so no any number) but that do not helps.
Also, ‘Beethoven’ has 3 vowels. :P
I’d say 2 or 4 vowels…what’s the third? O_o
Beet-ho-ven
I think you mean syllables.
There are two separate vowels in each word. Alabaster uses A and E, Beethoven uses E and O. The vowel count, as opposed to the number of distinct vowels, is 4 in each word.
My first language is not English but I guess you are talking about vowel sounds.
I took it as vowels letters (a, e, i, o, u), so I counted de “ee” as two occurences of the vowel letter “e”.
Am I wrong?
Your first guess is right. The word vowel has both meanings, but contextually they are talking about the sound, rather than the letter. In this case the word breaks down into three distinctive sounds, as RobK detailed.
That said, your original point is right, when using vowel in the context of letters. And I agree that such systems are useful for passwords. It allows variable passwords, which gives increased strength. The fact that they might be guessable, if following a pattern, is irrelevant. If the password does not vary then as soon as enemies have heard it, they know the password and the system is broken.
So a guessable pattern is still stronger than an unvarying password. And ones that require re-memorisation daily can cause massive problems, when users fail to remember them. Such as needing to write it down. Or forgetting it and getting shot! So your suggestion is a worthy one.
Right then… I mentioned this before in the comic in which Maxima asked Harem if she could “hump the Barrett.” This is a military operation! There should be no question as to the limits of Harem’s carrying capacity. You don’t leave this kind of information up to field work unless you want a lot of casualties.
It is unconscionable that ARC would force their commanding officers to question their subordinates about their capabilities in the middle of a fire fight. It simply makes zero sense.
If Harem has a role, given her teleportation power, as a munitions/weapons/items retriever, then her capabilities should be well known. Exactly well known, by all members of the team. She shouldn’t be deciding to ditch her boots on the spot in order to carry something, she should instead be instructing Sgt. Vauxhall in exactly which items to issue her so that she can be as efficient as is possible.
Sure, they aren’t that efficient.
But remember, this IS a comic. So alot of the things are done to make it better for us.
Hump the barret is a joke to make us, the readers, smile. And it did it’s job while not being distractiong.
The comment about her boots is exposition, cleverly disguised as witty banter.
Some liberties have to be taken to ensure a good reader experience, and I think DaveB is getting the ballance VERY right.
Also: When you read this in 1 go, from the archieve, you wouldn’t have time to think about these things. You’d smile and turn the page
+1
You’re right, Maxima and Harem and the QM should all know what Harem’s cargo capacity is, especially with a piece of equipment like Peggy’s favorite heavy rifle. But RobK is right too, there’s a certain level of exposition necessary, and while it is actually a pet peeve of mine when characters in the know, don’t know, but it’s a balancing act. I could have set the scene up differently with Harem standing next to Sydney who’s asking for clarification about all this stuff, but that would take up room on the page and not add anything but satisfying guys like us who that particularly bothers. :)
The way I read that is: Maxima may not be aware *exactly* what the different clothing weights are between the different Harems at this moment. considering that this weight difference can change as easily as Harem changes clothes. If the Barret (plus SOME ammo, at least) weighs close to Harem’s limit anyway, then her number of active bodies & which clothes she’s wearing *will* determine if she can ‘port with it. Maxima asking that question at that moment is still not out-of-bounds in context to the situation.
I read it as col. leander knew that deshanti had different carry limits with different active body count and was checking if she was able to do it at current level so she knew if she had a weapon team (2) or a rifle squad (5) moving gear, the sgt in charge of issuing equipment probably never had deshanti signing out the equipment as she grabbed it having all the paperwork prefiled for fast deployment exercises and understanding she was popping in and out of the armory with undisclosed active bodies for the training. aka he never discussed per body load limits in practice focusing on harem finding and deploying the correct gear in a quick and accurate manner.
IMO you are doing it right.
I don’t know if it’s just me or not, but fleshy humans in a room with flesh-colored walls is very confusting.
I agree. We need more non-fleshy humans!
Or is that not what you meant?
Yeah, the walls were supposed to be white, and usually my shades of white are light to medium blue. I thought I’d go with a red this time since part of the ceiling is red, but they wound up turning sort of cream colored over time. Lesson learned. It’s ok though, they won’t be in that room for too many more pages.
Why is she saluting a Sergeant?
Sarcasm.
she is insuring her alt name of NJP as mentioned in prior episode
So when she remakes that clone she will be a copy of one of the others and have to regrow her hair etc… to look like that again? Has she ever unmade the “original”? That would be weird…
What are you talking about? Berry is simply ‘going into storage’ so the other Harem’s have an easier chance of transporting the supplies
OK, that was never really explained in comic. And the mechanics of it still boggle… that’s a lot of information to store. I’ve picked up the idea that this was canon since in the comments but wasn’t sure when I made this. Thanks for answering.
Oh, and even Berry has been put into ‘storage’ before, as said elsewhere, not even Daphne is sure who the ‘original’ is anymore
Actually it was explained, among with a few other details, in the voting incentive Dabbler’s Science Corner 2 which is no more available.
Note to self:
Save collectable vote incentives to hard drive in future. Especially any with Sydney looking cute.
You don’t already? Have been doing it for every comic that has invotives ever since found out they change (like with “The Chronicles of Loth”, haven’t gotten all of them, but have been saving them regularly since twcincent82)
I see now where you all are getting Duke Nukem for Goose, but on reading the data and taking another look this morning I got more of a Guile Vibe.
SONIC BOOM! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hqy1DBG52dk
it goes with everything
Am I the only one who read the turret’s lines in the Dalek voice?
No. You are not.
Agent Smith here
Generic computer voice for me.
I think my imagination is more visual than audio. I seem to default to bland sounds, unless it is something I am consciously choosing.
Not anymore.
well played – now I can’t unhear it…
I got it in ST:tng computer voice the first time, when I went back because the for now I got Major Kusenagi
I thought that the quartermaster looked like a cross between Clint Eastwood and Mr. Rodgers. Well, Clint with Mr. Rodgers style of dress.
OOOH, F2000 with the EGLM with a beanbag in the pipe, good taste!
If you ever need some mil tech ideas, feel free to drop me a line. If I don’t know of tech or procedure, I know of people who will.
It’s actually a Machina Arms 202g. Though it started off as a FN-2000 before I chopped it up in photoshop.
Duke Nukem works for ArcSwat?
No, he works for Commander Rock Lobster Badass, he has just been hired out to ARCHON
Doesn’t calling someone an “ex-seal” indicate that they left the service under bad circumstances–i.e. a dishonorable discharge or OTH other than honorable –while leaving the service under good terms–honorable discharge, retirement–would instead be indicated by instead designating someone as a “former seal?”
Also if my parlance is correct, if Shawn is an “ex-seal” he would be ineligible for future military service because of his discharge status including Archon because of its organization under the DOD. I remember getting my butt chewed by a former DI who explained the difference to me in no uncertain terms, but have also seen discussion online that disagreed. Nevertheless, he made a firm impression, and I have been very careful of the distinction since then.
The situation is not one that would arise in the real world, since Shawn transferred (in fact, he was used to illustrate why it was a transfer, rather than a discharge) to a unit in a brand-new branch. Customs that do not account for this scenario don’t necessarily apply.
Oh, based on what he said here: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/980 and not what Arianna was saying that he was out of the service and was illustrating how difficult it could be to get someone who didn’t have some unfulfilled obligation at retirement or hadn’t been placed on individual ready reserve (thus had been discharged) to get back in when and where you wanted them to.
that’s a valid question, but it depends largely on the organization. The “ex-” vs “former-” issue usually only comes up when talking to Marines. I don’t know about SEALs specifically – they may or may not necessarily subscribe to that, but some other special forces do.
most military people I ever discussed it with agree there are no former/ex-rangers just inactive ones and that seals maintain a similar standard. kind of a once you are one you never stop being one concept.
Love Achilles leaning on the eyebeams.
Mr. Amorphous have something in his hand or did he change his hands matter to resemble that darker stuff he seems to be holding? His powers involving density and limited shape change might be able to make it somewhat rock like I suppose. Though it doesn’t say anything about him being able to store/generate extra matter/density as part of his powers so I suppose he found a rock somewhere or something…
I took it to be fingers, I guess, initially. Looking closely I would say they are could be finger nails that have been stretched out of proportion and normal positioning. But also see the way it can be some piece of rubble from the collapsed ceiling. Something deformable though, rather than a rock, as it seems to have been pushed in where his fingers are grasping it. Which would not make a very good improvised weapon.
RSS Seems to be down, just FYI
Reading these comments I sometimes get the feeling people take the comic way too serious. This is an alternative universe (not to mention fiction), things like ranks, weapon specs etc are allowed to be different. It doesn’t even make much sense for people outside the USA. For example, when I served in the german army -everyone- used the formal “you” we Germans use instead of Sir/Ma’am. You use rank+name when addressing anyone else, above or below your own rank. Even a general talking to a recruit does that.
I’m aware DaveB asked us readers to point out mistakes but I feel there’s a limit. Pointing out typos is one thing but making him justify every single detail isn’t fair. Grrl Power is one of the better webcomics and steadily worked its way up to the top with a good story, improved art and tons of jokes… can’t we just accept and enjoy it without debating about a minor detail for more than a page of comments?
Why did people ask Harem how much she can carry while teleporting? Could be lots of reasons: 1. It’s not her job because her weight limit makes her unsuitable for most of the specialized gear* or 2. she has other duties (like disarming enemies) during combat or 3. they don’t trust her enough because she’s not only a spy but also a teenager or 4. she doesn’t have the qualification to handle the gear (she’d have to have the same as a QM) or 5. this is a brand new unit that didn’t even have its first official mission yet, perhaps these procedures only exist on paper and haven’t even been trained yet?
I’m sure I could think of lots more but the point is … the comic works. The dialogue works. It’s funny, the readers (officially) learn new facts and the story progresses each week. Slight imperfections will always happen. Personally… having things like that pointed out to me all the time would start to eat into my motivation. It distracts from the big picture.
*25lbs is a little more than 11kg (Isn’t the USA the only country not using the metric system these days?). Minus her clothes, phone, keys, gear etc there’s maybe 9kg left. A loaded military rifle with spare ammo comes in at about 7kg. More if you have bean bag launching attachments. Now look at the “space marines” arriving at the bank. That gear looks way heavier than 11kg.
I can’t see her “unteleport” some of her bodies in the middle of combat as part of standard procedures, she’d give up her versatility in exchange for being a slightly stronger but still squishy girl. This is clearly an emergency and not standard protocol.
Most of us that discuss these things enjoy it.
Personally, I like nitpicking things I love
Yeah! Me too! Things you don’t consider as very good aren’t worth the effort of nitpicking (and by that maybe contributing to make them a tiny bit better as they already are).
On the other hand, it’s fun to make a fictional story/comic as near to the real world as possible, so that “this little difference” is left. For me at least. And reading such a story/comic is also more fun as I recently discovered when I read a story where most nouns meant (or could also mean) something you never heard of and most in-story facts, as described, were skewed in a similar way. And you only discovered that because things didn’t match or were casually explained later on. After a few pages I didn’t trust a single word, skipped pages, faster and faster until the end. It was an unpleasant experience.
Hmm… I think you may be attributing motive a bit unfairly here
As comic-/superhero-/sci-fi-/fantasy- nerds (as many of us are), we enjoy debating back-and-forth. That’s largely discussion amongst ourselves. From what I’ve observed, feedback directed at DaveB has been respectful and generally acknowledges that it’s his story to tell, and we only offer input in case he’s un-/mis-informed on certain details.
While I have seen people request information because they don’t understand something, I don’t think I’ve seen anybody demand he justify his artistic decisions.
just my 2cp; YMMV.
Well, you surely remember how needlessly complicated the rules on saluting and ranks were at first. Some people never served and are just curious on how it works here.
You make very good points in your post. And, doubtless, even Dave, with his patience of a saint, must get fed up with the nit-picking at times. So I am in sympathy with your stance. But it is worth making a distinction here. The difference between complaining about trivia and providing feedback on things which could impact the quality of the comic.
The best example that springs to mind is in top-end Hollywood movies. For instance in those adapted from Tom Clancy novels. He is a writer who does serious research, gets inside access to espionage and military experts and the results show in his writing and the film adaptations. Be it the Hunt for Red October or many of his spy stories, you often hear professionals commenting on how realistic the details are.
If you can get experts in the field to suspend their disbelief, then there should be no problem with the general public. Likewise, if normal folks get to hear the positive feedback from the experts, then that boosts the writer’s credibility.
Contrast that to when there is a lapse that stands out to anyone with general knowledge. For instance any meteor movie where they try to blow it up using nukes. It is complete bollox, cannot work. Yet writers still keep churning out that rubbish. Which irritates people like me big time.
But the other end of the scale is small details, which can alienate other folks. For instance my mum was irritated by an episode of Hercule Poirot where he ate an ice cream cone, of a type that would not have been around in the era being portrayed. It broke her sense of disbelief.
A small detail, that anybody below a certain age would not know. The writer would probably be too young, and the trivia can slip by even diligent researchers. But screening such programs to test audiences can pick up problems like that. If they are considered to be important enough, then a re-shoot will be done.
The readers of this comic include a large number of highly skilled professionals in many areas. Getting constructive feedback from such is an absolutely invaluable resource for a writer. As you can see from Dave changing the “Sir” to “Sergeant”, in the above comic. Whilst it is not essential for the majority of readers, it seemed very off to a number. And that is just amongst the vocal minority. Bear in mind that the majority of readers are doubtless not commentators.
Of course, if anyone is unfairly critical, as opposed to providing constructive feedback, then we leap to Dave’s defence. Likewise I speak up if I feel that some point is trivial or something that we should ignore as part of artistic license. Because, you are very right that we must not make Dave have to continually worry about irrelevant details. His focus needs to be on the bigger picture. And he has plenty of people who have fun looking for the reasonable minor points, like grammar errors, that he need not waste too much time checking them.
Yes, that’s what I meant. Sorry, I didn’t make my point very clear.
There are some things that bother me in almost all movies for example like how Hollywood thinks explosive decompression works or that it’s cold in the vacuum of space. Or how ridiculously impossible and stupid lightsabers are (but I still love the idea) and I could nitpick and debate things like that for hours.
So yes, proper research is important… but, in my opinion, if it reaches a level where it becomes a distraction in the artistic process, when you spend hours looking up a detail that has no impact on the story on way or another, then it isn’t helping anymore.
But well, as long as Dave doesn’t complain then I shouldn’t either. :P
Goose reminds me of Duke Nukem, or maybe Serious Sam. Ether way it seems this fight is gonna get good.
Played an early beta game of Serious Sam over a decade ago
Cool.