Grrl Power #220 – Bondage to go
Oh noes, is this the end for Silent Shadow/Mach the Knife? Let’s face it that what Archon is going to wind up calling him since he never declared his name. We’ll see if that keeps him down.
Dabbler’s grasp of technobabble is pretty good considering the holes in her vocabulary. I’ll just say once she had a baseline in English down, she boned up on her science and math terms.
I have to be careful with Dabbler’s gadgets. She’s been adventuring around for a while and she has a lot of toys, but I don’t want to give her a gadget for every situation, a sort of Deus ex Gadgeta situation. Really, those little bondage pods would be quite effective against many of the villains at the battle now. The easiest excuse is to say she gets really focused on building the gadget itself, but bored when it comes to making the ammo, so she usually only has 2-3 shots for anything.
Here’s an entirely NSFW thing for you guys (though the page defaults to a SFW mode at first). Someone has made a kickstarter for adult stuff, and Fred Perry is using it to try and fund a naughty tactics game. Basically if you like Final Fantasy Tactics but wish it had naughty interstitials, then this is probably worth checking out. The site is called Offbeatr, make what you will of that, but their set up is a little different. Projects posted there have to be voted on before they can enter the funding stage, I assume as a way to gauge interest and elevate the cream so to speak. So here’s the link, like I said, NSFW. Tactics Elemental.
I’m at A-kon starting today. The con isn’t open till Friday but I volunteer and help transport guests and stuff, so I’m not sure how much internet access I’ll have before Sunday. I have a Friday panel at 2:30, Humor-Based Webcomics 1: Humor in Story. In case you can’t make it, I’ll be wearing a Grrl Power shirt, (at least on Friday) and I’ll probably be hanging around for some of the other webcomic panels, and I’ll wander by the Antarctic Press table quite a few times. It would be cool to have a meetup for lunch or dinner one night with people. I’m not sure how to organize that. Best I can figure is to post updates to Twitter, and here on the page during the con.
The Gynostar saga continues, but Rebecca’s taking the reigns back. We discussed how the story would resolve after my contribution was over but I’m still eager to see her take on it.
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I hope those ribbons left a gap over his nose he can breathe!
I’m reminded of the Schlock Mercenary equivalent (a pile of nanite goo) that automatically leaves airways clear. It had versions that could give wedgies.
I’m sure it did. It’s intended for capture and fun ‘n games.
Or maybe it’s simply breathable fabric/material
I take it that the magical duplicates aren’t fighting with full finesse? Dabbler’s going a bit too smash-happy there. Heavenly Sword now has a clear opening to attack through.
I kind of get the impression that the Dabble-gangers were more like a replay of her last moves in a solid form–since she is waving a sword it seems like a combat line. It looks more like a disengage melee for a weapon switch, possibly a spell or two. When she turns and reengages, Dabbler was able to put a lot more swing into it so that HS was knocked off balance. We aren’t seeing the ground, but Dabbler’s sword was icing up the tree it was in. Not much of a surprise if she skimmed the ground between them and iced it up to make for an easy knockback.
The Dabblergangers are all gone at this point.
Dabbler winds up and swings at Heavenly Sword hard enough to send her flying backwards. Before Sword has gotten back up, Dabbler fires her Net Gun at Mach. While she waits for the net to catch him, she tosses a lightning bolt at Sword to keep her busy.
Last panel, the implication of what she is saying is that she’s going to use the Net Gun on Heavenly Sword next. The position of her ear and the way her eyes are shifted suggests that she’s figuring out exactly where Sword is by sound so she can whip around and fire her net gun without having to take any time to aim.
My guess is that she wants to use the Net Gun at point blank range on Heavenly Sword so that Sword doesn’t have time to block or destroy the little missile.
well she did tell that she could pinpoint X while he was invisible by hearing “Can’t put a bullet between your eyes, but I CAN fill the corner with a fireball”
She could be about to get someone who is invisible. After all, if they think she is going to go after HS, they won’t be expecting her to track onto them until it’s too late.
Her eyes and ear are pointed right a HS.
Dabble-gangers is spreading! all is going according to plan
Isn’t it great when a word/phrase you come up gets accepted by the fellow readers/commenters? :D
It’s even better when the author likes it (came up with the name “By The Book Club” to describe the fans of By The Book, and the author of The Great Isle of Prentil re-named a character after me :D)
Wow, nice going!
Hmm, well the obvious solution would have been to simply put someone or something in its place, say a good guy or a rock or tree, but now that hes trapped hes not totally screwed, one of the speedsters common escape trick is to simply vibrate through it. Boring but tried and true.
I suggest a simple rule for gadgets – they can’t be used in an emergency unless Dabbler has mentioned or used them previously in a non-emergency situation.
Requires more setup from you, but it’ll solve the “deus ex machina” problem.
And perhaps the tractor-beam projectile can only lock on to a fast-moving object?
So, you’re saying that every weapon and tool has to be a Chekhov’s Gun?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chekhov's_gun
Seems legit.
Maybe not every weapon but probably the unconventional ones.
And once used, we can Checkov the gun from the list.
Badum-tss! :D
That list must be red, herrings may be on it. False clues would completely change everything.
Are you implying that Mr. Chekov was simply leading his Aunt-on?
that’d be funny… a red herring launcher.. just keeps launching fishies that, once they hit, swim in a distracting manner away from the target (or flop comically along the floor, etc.)
nope.. a squid launcher: https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#newwindow=1&q=despicable+me+squid+launcher
I’m gonna agree with that–Dabbler has the potential to be an enormous deus ex machina if you’re not careful, and you want to avoid that at all costs. You don’t need to mention the weapons and so on immediately prior to the fight, or draw attention to them when you do mention them, but you do need to at least MENTION them, and explain where they came from. You have done that with only one item Dabbler has used in the fight so far.
Now, that said, you don’t really need to specifically mention the weapons/gadgets–mentioning the component technologies will work just as well, as long as there is some indication that they can be fitted together to make whatever you will use later. For instance, now that we’ve seen Dabbler’s hammer-space implant, there is no reason to suppose that she could not store other things in it. But if she were to use it to hide herself, or to teleport packages, you’d need something to warn your audience.
This is critical. Dabbler is not just a trickster hero, in which case you’d only need to even briefly mention the most advanced and fancy technologies she uses, but she is a mad genius type of trickster hero, which means that her powers are highly dependent upon prior experience and prior preparation. Because she uses magic and/or alien technology, you MUST link her having prepared the tools ahead of time to her abilities now, or else you risk having her become essentially limitless in potential. You have done an excellent job of plotting everybody else’s powers–do not ignore the task for Dabbler.
As a rule of thumb, by the way–heroes will show the audience what they can do before it really counts. Bad guys pull surprises on the audience (although even here, it can’t be too much of a surprise). If Dabbler is first pulling these gadgets out in combat, it does not mark her as a good guy.
So far, Dabbler’s pre-fight powers include illusionary disguises, a rail-gun, hammer-space, a big honking sword (this one is mentioned several times, so it is clearly important…probably), super-acute senses in a variety of types and able to function over most if not all of the EM spectrum (just to start with), and…that’s about it. Oh yes, and a photographic memory.
You can probably get away with introducing things like recon drones in mid-mission, so long as you mention Dabbler providing battlefield support beforehand. But even then, you’ll need a reason why she doesn’t always do that.
You MAY be able to handwave the multiple illusions HS fought…once. But you’ll have to explain it after the fight, and it will have to be related very closely to something that’s already been mentioned–possibly to Gwen’s invisibility spell, or something like her earlier illusion disguise.
The pistol/tractor bullet? You’re going to have a REALLY hard time getting people to accept that, because it is a total surprise…and you’re going to have a hard time explaining why Dabbler doesn’t have any more surprises. In short, you’ve just dictated major backstory for Dabbler very, very soon, and you may have killed her as a functional comic-book character.
Just for the record, as a sometime writer, I can tell you that tech-based, magic-using, or psionic-based supers are often the biggest headache for any writer, simply because so much more work is required to provide believable limitations and explanations. Dabbler, being an advanced alien with magic, tech, etc, is going to be even harder to limit.
in effect, she’s a purple dr doom.- someone who may not be the best at everything, but is the second best at everything, to the point they can give anyone a tussle- and win 95% of the time.
and that makes for a better villain than hero; when used as a hero, doom is always at his best fighting elder gods and things squamous and rugrose from non linear geometries.
unless the bad guys step up their game soon, this fight has lost it’s dramatic tension.
I am still rooting for anima or HS to start kicking some arse ;)
Exactly and you don’t need to even mention or the things specifically.
Say you decide Arclight and it’s Dark counterpart are seeing a problem down the road that is best solved using Dabbler’s tech. You can write a scenario where they (either directly or through Maxima) ask her to come up with a “solution”. Later days, weeks, even months later she has a new toy.
Also you could use it a way to introduce her lab on occasion (which may or may not have a few named and/or unnamed projects in various states of completion).
You could also have her jotting down ideas for new items she can muck with when she has time in the lab later.
I disagree and think a simple flashback to a meeting months ago (pre Sydney) in ArcFlash mentioning that they are preparing to go-live, throw down the gauntlet and that they expect every two-bit villain wannabe to be crawling out into the open within a few hours/days of the event. Dabbler will have spent that time making up a set of one or two shot gadgets that she will not willingly bring out for any duration where they might get snagged and reverse engineered, but do entail a lot of prework. Will she then be able to pull an occasional off-the-shelf item, yes, if she hasn’t used it yet. Will she be able to go back to the lab/casting circle and recreate a lot of these gadget/spells? –Maybe if she has some time.
Just don’t give in to the time bubble resets all charges kind of effect. ;)
I firmly believe this is just a nicely themed power pool that requires a skill roll to setup, extra time to renew charges, limited charges, costs extra END to use. She cannot become Deus ex Machina level if she has to burn so much mana/brainsweat that she doesn’t have time to work with the team.
She can demonstrate these big items and then bluff the hell out of the next 5 targets by simply pulling out the same “gun” and leering at the potential target (a simple illusion makes them ‘think’ they got the bound up treatment). Ding! next.
Or do what the Penguin did in one Batman. He was ready before he started by setting up ahead of time. He made sure what he had was right for the job. Penguin is smart and also devious and a cheater. Anything to win.
In the latest Ben 10 his alien partner has a multiple use device where at least 4 things it can do and one or two always gets use in the fights.
There have been multiple Robins so why not Batgirls? Even other Batmen.
In some batman stories a Batman from the future has been brought in to fill for Bruce when something was up.
Batman: Bruce Wayne, Terry McGinnis (from Batman Beyond)
Batgirl: Betty Kane (Bat-Girl), Barbara Gordon, Helena Bertinelli, Cassandra Cain, Stephanie Brown
Robin: Dick Grayson, Jason Todd, Tim Drake, Stephanie Brown, Damian Wayne
Isn’t Beth Kane, Kate Kane’s twin-sister? When was Beth ever Bat-girl? She was believed dead until she returned as ‘Alice’
More so than Maxi? o_O
Never understood the vibrate method of escaping bindings. Don’t the bindings vibrate at the same speed? At least, if they’re tight.
When you vibrate something, you are passing kinetic energy through it. The name for the measurement of how many times something shakes per second is “Frequency”. Kinetic energy traveling through the air makes the air vibrate, and our ears translate that into sound. If the air is vibrating fairly slowly, we call that “Low Frequency” and to our ears that’s a low note. Fast vibration is High Frequency, and we hear that as high notes.
When water vibrates, you can actually see the vibration. You will see it as waves. Having the air vibrate is called “sound waves”. If you could see it, it would look a lot like what water does.
Multiple waves happening at the same time can sometimes fit together. It happens when their frequencies match in some way. For example, if one wave is exactly twice the frequency of the other, they will blend together, making the waves taller, or the sound louder. This effect is called “resonance”.
Vibrate a solid object at just the right frequency, and you can get it to shake. The waves are just the right length to “fit” the object, and it resonates. It is particularly easy to get glass to resonate. Play the right sound loud enough and for long enough, and you can get a piece of glass to shatter from the resonance.
In theory that will work for any solid object. Find just the right frequency of vibration you can get the object resonating. Vibrate harder, or add other vibrations that fit the Resonant Frequency, and you can shatter any solid object. In practice, this only works with solid objects that are brittle. It works well with glass, and some metals, but not so much for anything else.
Speedsters are known for using resonance to shatter things like handcuffs.
Flexible things like rope will stretch. If you stretch something out and let it contract over and over, it will get looser and looser over time. For a normal person who gets tied up, that doesn’t do much good. It could take months before fighting with the ropes would get them loose enough to do you any good. Speedsters are known for doing weeks or months worth of wiggling in a few seconds.
Actually, the “vibrating to escape” that speedsters are more known for isn’t shattering things, it’s passing through them without damaging them – no resonance involved.
The Comicbabble explanation The Flash (and subsequently all of DC) uses is that they are vibrating their molecules “between” the molecules of whatever they’re passing through, since most solid matter is really mostly empty space between the atoms. Mechanically, in the DC Heroes RPG (which Halo was playing in the first few pages of this comic) you would have to buy the “dispersal” power separate from your superspeed power, and just include a “flavour” note that you’re using superspeed to achieve it, just like The Flash does.
However, in play, you can attempt to power-stunt with your powers to emulate some other power, which the flash television series did in an interesting way to show flash getting out of something. (it costs the base cost of the power if you succeed in the roll to try the stunt to add it as a long-term power stunt, if I recall correctly.) He was drugged up on hallucinogens, tripping madly and accidentally does the vibrate-through trick.
Such a shame that series didn’t last longer. I liked Shippe as the Flash, and Amanda Pays is ALWAYS awesome. Also, they had Mark Hamill on as the Trickster.
My main “gripe” with Hamill’s take on the character is that the Trickster has always been the Flash’s version of Batman’s Joker. Both are always returning for another round, with some new gimmick. Hamill clearly recognizes this, & it shows in his interpretation. If the two are both going to engage the audience, they need distinguishing details, so one cannot cry “rip-off!”. In comic form, Trickster lacked Joker’s traits of…
– Insanity
– General disregard for human life
…instead, he was a clever inventor of gimmicks, who sought to humiliate the Flash while stealing riches. Whatever attempts he made to kill, they were almost entirely focused on Flash alone.
Hamill, on the other hand, includes Joker’s insanity to the character, & is thus little more than a “Joker”-ripoff. What’s not clear is whether this is his fault, or just lazy script-writing that he follows.
The vibrating to cut through things explanation I am fine with myself. Being happy to gloss over the heat from friction problems and the like. But this variant I have issues with. Not the general principle. I.e. getting the molecules in the super to avoid the molecules in an object, so he or she can pass through. But the specific detail of saying that super speeders can do it simply by virtue of vibrating their atoms/ molecules.
All that does is increases the volume of space that their bits are being moved through. Increasing the chances of colliding with the atoms within the object. Not decreasing it.
I have quite happily used the similar ’empty space’ angle to justify using extreme luck, to pass through barriers. Your atoms just never happen to be in the same place as the wall’s, for instance. Likewise if the super speeder’s atoms were able to sense the other atoms, and dodge out of the way. But just vibrating… nope. It would take more than that for me to willingly suspend my disbelief.
If I’m remembering an episode of NOVA I saw about 10 years ago on quantum physics, or something like that, the thing that prevents you from passing through solid objects is not the atoms bouncing off of each other, but rather the electromagnetic-field that the most atoms have. This makes sense to me as in high school chemistry they teach us that electrons are always going in circles around the atoms, and electricity is simply moving electrons. somewhere is science they also teach us that EM fields and electric currents are insepperable.
Well, you get the general idea.
Hopefully.
Sounds right. But that effect will not kick in until the atoms get close enough. So the same principle can apply, but with less wiggle room. Keep enough distance between atoms and they should be able to pass.
Although I guess that depends on how far out the effect does go. If it goes all the way up to the surrounding atoms, then there would be no gaps to use powers to wiggle between. But that would create an impenetrable barrier. Every time we touched something solid we would not pass through. That does not make sense. ;-)
Actually, there is the urban legend of marching causing a bridge to collapse.
Not a legend; it’s a fact.
It was a split suspension bridge and people walking along it made it swing a bit. To accommodate for it they unthinkingly stepped when the sway would cause them less problems, increasing the sway as they did so. It had not been designed to handle swaying a lot and broke.
I think you are probably referring to the Millennium Bridge. Whilst it did collapse, that was only due to an attack by Death Eaters in Harry Potter. A fact which has been hidden from muggles. As far as they are concerned, the real bridge got shut down, until it could be modified, by installing dampeners, which countered the effect.
The bridge in question is the Broughton Bridge, which was collapsed by a remarkably small amount of troops marching in step.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Broughton_Suspension_Bridge
Any rumors that Death Eaters were involved is the work of loony conspiracy theorists.
No. That’s not right. The Loony Lovegoods featured the event in the Quibbler. The only covers they do are on the front of their magazine.
i believe that i heard/read somewhere that when the Roman’s had a bridge built that they would put the architect and his family under it then marched a bunch o’ troops over it, if it collapsed, problem solved… that architect won’t be designing any more projects for the Caesar… not sure if it was true or not, but it sure sounds like something they’d do back then.
Some things are worth reintroduction into society. Although, in our more enlightened era, “and family” could be replaced with “and shareholders.” It could be applied to many industries. The banking sector springs to mind.
For instance the South Korean ferry, which sank whilst many times over it’s rated cargo capacity. If the operators and their shareholders maintain that they were acting responsibly in modifying the ship after it had been certified seaworthy, and not getting it recertified. Likewise if they feel that it is acceptable to overload the vessel.
There is a sister ship, still in operation by that company. Perhaps similar modifications should be made to it, then have it overloaded and filled with owners and shareholders as passengers. Then be made to conduct violent maneuvers, by an unskilled officer. With the passengers kept below decks until the ship was two thrids submerged, in the event that it did start to sink.
And the captain who abandoned the ship, whilst passengers were still below decks? He should get the very lowest cabin, and made to wait until every other person was safely evacuated, before he was let out.
Argh….
So…. The ripples you see when you chuck a rock into water are Rayleigh Waves.
Sound however is a P (or Pressure) Wave.
The two are quite different. When you chuck that rock into water, you do also get a P-Wave (or sound wave), but even if the sound presented a visible effect, traveling at nearly a mile a second you won’t have much time to spot it. If you could see sound waves in water, they would look much like sound waves in air: variation in the pressure of the medium, but air or water, sound ripples neither visibly.
I am not a physicist, nor do I play one on TV. I was trying for a very non-technical explanation, and there are probably some errors in fact that I dragged into it.
I could have said “They adjust their vibration to the resonant frequency the materials that make up their bindings and shatter them” but I didn’t think many people would find that a useful answer.
I have an alternate idea for how to use super speed to escape your bonds. If you can control the rate at which the molecules of your body vibrate, and you speed them up, you know what you are actually doing? Generating heat. I think you could get out of things that way. If you burst into flames, those ropes are going to be history!
I think that she psyched him out. I could think of several ways of possibly defeating the round, the first being, how long can it function before its energy is depleted and it simply drops to the ground? Is it going to follow my path, or, more likely, try to cut the corner if I turn? Either one can be used against the round. For the first, I would keep moving, but toss something over my back, like a trash can, to intercept the round. For the second, a tight 180 around a wall, or an opponent, would activate the round. Luckily, our speedster’s thoughts are not as quick as his body.
My thought as well. Also, I was thinking that there is no reason to think he couldn’t keep out running it, if only to wear out the batteries, or think of a better solution. Definitely a case of his feet being faster than his head.
Dodging closely around a member of ARC-SWAT would be the best way to avoid the homing shell as well as transferring that attack onto someone else. Two for the price of one!
Also, tractor beam or not, you CAN outrun it at least hypothetically. I mean, not sure what physical laws speedsters work on, but the projectile works on normal ones and would have problems with air drag or later speed of light. (Of course, I suspect it WILL deplete battery before having problems with speed of light).
You don’t get nearly as much drag (if at all) when in the slipstream (why do you think geese fly in a ‘v’? or competitive cyclists ride in single-file? or car drivers ride up the exhaust of other drivers?)
So, when she pulls out a coil gun the size of a crossbow and fires a round with enough power to punch through a hull protected by tonnes of chobham armour AND then send Achilles flying, you dont think she may have an advanced and highly miniaturized power source either made with alien tech (or as an out and and easy though not unbroken explination -Magic! ) she couldn’t use the same or a similar source to power the round?
I wonder if inside there, SS is crying for his mummy.
It would be a real bind, if she were too tied up, to come and bandage his bruises.
It is that the name Punisher has already been trademarked :)
Considering the second last panel shows him being trapped with a drawn blade over an arm, before it got tightened, he would have more problems then just a bruised ego.
The pressure should slow any bleeding.
Is the knife sharp on both edges or is it a normal single-edged knife?
That tight the bindings, does it matter?
Double sided, but on a closer look, it seems he is starting to hold the flat of the knife to his other arm. Chance of cutting himself, but greatly lessened.
Simple escape solution for Shadow here is the classic speedster vibrating trick. Vibrate you’re molecules to phase through the straps and you’re free. Or Vibrate the knife in his hand to cut the ribbons easily. It’s been stated man times that a vibrating weapon cuts better. Also If Heavenly sword can do her projectile attack to hit the bullet or the gun before she reloads it then she should be in the clear as well.
Also saying that those ribbons can tow an asteroid is not saying much. Asteroids are usually in space were they have no weight in a zero g environment. Pretty easy to tow something that weighs nothing.
Ahh, good, my reading lamp is broken. Now that I know that bit of information, I shall just move the Moon to a more convenient orbit.*
* Sorry, could not resist going for the absurd eventual conclusion which can be drawn from that statement. Your point is well made, if somewhat flawed in the way you phrased it. The lack of gravity does make things a lot easier. But objects in space still have mass, and therefore inertia. So still require effort to get them moving. Or to alter their course once they are moving.
Dabbler’s point being that asteroids are likely to have massive differences in speed, relative to other objects, like space ships and stations. So if you are going to tether to one of those, you need something capable of handling the huge changes in momentum, that manoeuvring will bring about. Which could involve considerable forces, if you are trying to capture it and bring it back a fair sized asteroid for mining, or research.
If you tug an asteroid with mass equal to our moon and decided to step on the brakes, you may wan’t for the ribbons to rip appart. That, and not be where the asteroid is heading if you do so.
You might get a little headache otherwise. Oh, and flat.
the amount of inertia you would have to deal with when moving an asteroid depends on both its mass and orbit; but you would be unlikely to tow one anyway- putting a booster on it an pushing it into a new orbit at the correct spot and time is way more energy efficient.
moving the moon would require a force of around 8*10^28 joules, or around 100 billion of our largest nuclear bombs.
when evil superman did it in that stupid evil crossover comic last year, I cried total BS
Actually, objects in 0g have no weight; weight is a measurement on how much gravity effects an object. In a 0g environment, the problem with objects is their Mass; that’s the measurement of how much energy it will take to set the object in motion. Refer to Einstein’s formula E=MC^2 when an object’s “weight” has no meaning.
None of which contradicts what I said, so I assume that your issue is with my line “The lack of gravity does make things a lot easier.” The relevance being that if you had to perform an identical maneuver, in an area of high gravity, you would have to impart additional forces, in order to overcome* the gravitational pull.
* Sometimes gravity assists you, rather than opposes you. But, in the case of capturing asteroids, even when possible, it would take intense calculation, and exact application of forces, in order to do so. Which, in it’s own way, does not make things easier.
Why is a vibrating weapon better? I’ve never really understood that one. In theory, it would cut a rigid substance just fine, sure, but I can’t see it cutting something like ribbon as easily. I know, for instance, that chainsaws and ropes really don’t get along too well.
You are exactly correct Simply making a normal weapon vibrate does fairly little.
When you see mention of “vibro” weapons in science fiction, there’s a couple different things that might be depending on the technology involved.
For example, a Vibroknife might have a serrated edge, and with fast enough vibration will work more like a very fine chainsaw than a simple sharp edge.
Another version of the Vibroknife vibrates fast enough to cause the blade to heat up.
Of course you could always combine the effects, to get a blade that cuts like a glowing hot chainsaw…
not quite a chainsaw – more like a reciprocating saw or electric carving knife
Chainsaws does not vibrate in the sense you are thinking a chainsaw is a blades over a conveyor belt that is making rounds around the machine the vibrations happens as a result of machine working but not as a goal in mind (newer models have blades moving in a smaller arch but principal is same and blade itself is moving). Vibrations that makes cutting eaiser happens in a few milimeters (if not even smaller scale) think that a knife is hitting same spot over hundred (or thousands) times in mere seconds without the blades own center is moving away (like a pendulum but in a small arch) Would this give it enough cutting edge to get rid of flexible materials like ribbon or ropes? Well testing it with my friends vibrating knife I can say that it really makes a difference since we could cut ropes without even putting any strength on the wrist and just making an arch when cutting ribbons instead of using too much strength to pull the whole arm upward. My freind even tried to tie a ribbon around the knife than turned vibration on and in about 3 minutes the knife cut the ribbons that was tightly wrapped around it.
If you are talking about the kind of “vibrating knife” I think you are, those are actually much more like electric saws than anything else. The blade doesn’t vibrate so much is move up and down. Put a serrated edge on it, and it saws through things.
The best known versions of this are often seen used to carve turkeys.
the traditional ‘vibro knife’ comes from Alan Dean Foster; its a blade with a mono molecular edge that vibrates- essentially an insanely sharp saw.
can cut through almost anything, as long as the blade doesn’t break :)
in a certain sci fi movie inspired by those books, they replaced the mono blade with an energy blade, and called it a light saber.
;)
The movie didn’t replace vibro-blades, they added a different kind of ‘super-cutty’ blade. Jabba the Hutt’s guards (and similar thugs) are sometimes referred to as armed with Vibro-axes.
Actually, the Gamorreans take pride in the fact they don’t turn their axes on
that would have been later; only the original star wars (aka the tar ayim krang) and the empire strikes back were really inspired by foster’s work.
Then there is the Variable Sword. Looks like a jump rope handle with a little red ball on it. Turn it on and the red ball is 3-4 out from the handle. Between the ball and handle is a Sinclair Mono-filament ( a wire one molecule thick ) supported by a force field. It slices between the molecules of an object.
Wait, what? The Tar-Aiym Krang has some relation to Star Wars? I fear you are mistaken.
Alan Dean Foster does have a special link with George Lucas and the Star Wars universe. He was the ghost-writer for the novelization of the movie, “Star Wars, from the adventures of Luke Skywalker” by George Lucas.
Alan Foster also wrote another Star Wars novel, sort of. He wrote “Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye” which is set in the Star Wars universe, Luke and Leia are the main characters, and Darth Vader is the main bad guy. Lucas didn’t know if the Star Wars movie would make any money. He allowed Foster to write a Star Wars novel of his own with the idea that it would be used as the basis of a low budget sequel if Star Wars didn’t make enough money to cover the costs of the much more grandiose sequel Lucas wanted to do.
Work on “The Empire Strikes Back” was well underway when Lucas allowed Foster to publish “Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye”. It is considered to be the first novel in the Star Wars Expanded Universe, but is not considered to be part of the Official Star Wars canon.
All true. The most important thing being though that Alan Dean Foster’s Humanx Commonwealth universe is the best* science fiction setting.
* As proven by the fact that it is my favourite.**
** If anyone fails to agree, and claims that this is biased and subjective, then this is simply a sign that they have inferior taste.
-smile- This thread brings up fond memories.
I started trying to read books from my parent’s library of science fiction and fantasy at a very early age. I’m sure they thought it was cute when they saw me doggedly trying to read “grownup” books, but they never, ever, tried to discourage me from trying. They did get a little tired of me asking what various words meant. I remember the long-suffering sighs and being told “Look it up in the dictionary.”
I was so proud of myself the first time I read one of their books and understood it! It was a collection of short stories. Some people may have heard of it. It was “I Robot” by some guy named Asimov. I was 8 years old.
I was 11 when the movie “Star Wars” came out. I thought it was the Best Movie Ever and it remains one of my favorites to this day. Naturally I had to read the novelization. I didn’t know about ghostwriters back then. The book said it was “by George Lucas” and I believed it.
I’m not positive when I read “The Tar Aiym Krang”, but it was early on. I remember pulling it off the shelf because of the weird title and reading it because the guy on the cover had a snake with wings wrapped around his arm. I loved it, and searched my parent’s book collection for more Flinx books. I found “Orphan Star”, “The End Of The Matter” and “Bloodhype”.
I do remember that I was very excited when I saw “Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye” at the bookstore. A Star Wars book written by the Flinx and Pip guy? That just -had- to be awesome. (Sadly, I was disappointed after I finished it.)
Based on publishing dates, and the fact that I know I had read “The Tar-Aiym Krang” before “Splinter Of The Mind’s Eye” was published, it is likely that I read the Flinx and Pip books the same year that I read “Star Wars” by George Lucas. I never would have guessed that Foster wrote that book.
The Commonwealth remains one of my favorite science fiction settings. I am especially fond of the idea that when we get to the stars, we might meet alien races that -like- us. We might find -friends- out there. Races that think Humans have admirable qualities. That’s kind of rare. I understand why that is rare. We don’t get along very well with ourselves. How likely is it that we will get along with people who really are different?
On the other hand, maybe all the trouble we have had with ourselves will translate into us having a lot of practice in getting along with others when we first reach the stars.
According to Alan Dean’s usage was earliest seen in 1973, while Larry Niven had the Variable Sword in 1970 which suggests that he wins by a few years. The Variable sword had a (mono?) wire suspended in a stasis field to, was ten whole feet long and could cut through pretty much anything. The red ball at the end allowed you to be very selective about how to fillet your target…
Shows my lack of HTML-FU just check the refs yourself:
Variable Sword https://www.technovelgy.com/ct/content.asp?Bnum=58
Vibroblade https://www.jessesword.com/sf/view/976
On the other hand, there is the “vibroblade” First mentioned in a story written by Robert Heinlein in 1940. It’s a weapon used like a knife, they don’t explain how it works, but apparently it kills without cutting.
https://www.jessesword.com/sf/search/?catchword=vibroblade&search=Search
If they want to play with vibrators, let them. When their batteries run low, they are in trouble.
*Snort* They said ‘vibrators’ *giggle*
Damn, should of put down that “When the batteries run out, they are screwed.”
Au contraire. When playing with vibrators it is only while the batteries are still powered that you are screwed.
and yet they make flashlights that you power by shaking up and down, up and down…C’MON people, apply that to the vibrator already!
That’s the thing: a vibrator that has run out of power simply becomes a manual dildo; you are still screwed :P
An Object might not WEIGH anything in Zero-Gee but it still has it’s MASS and MOMENTUM. In space you don’t just “Hit the brakes” to stop something, you HAVE to cancel out it’s momentum by accelerating in the opposite vector. “Equal and Opposite Reactions”
…. mass =/= weight. ‘Towing asteroids’ isn’t hauling around something that ‘weighs nothing’ – if that were the case, then our landing on the moon would have sent it on a slow spiral away from earth.
‘Towing an asteroid’ means having a ‘rope’ that is capable of withstanding the enormous stress of accelerating a massive object in a direction of your choosing. Let’s get some perspective, shall we?
Apophis is an asteroid that is in an orbit that puts it into occasional position to make near passes to earth. In theory, this would make it a potential capture target for orbital mining. It’s about 350m across – 1100 feet, roughly, and masses 2,699,000,000,000kg, or approximately 2,975,140,000,000 tons.
The largest nuclear device created by man is Tsar Bomba, manufactured by the USSR. This could create 210 Petajoules (210,000,000,000,000,000 Joules) of impulse if we could somehow figure out how to harness the explosion perfectly into a giant engine. If we strapped this hypothetical engine to Apophis and fired it, assuming we harnessed all of that power… we’d accelerate that asteroid a whopping 8.82m/s. Twenty miles-per-hour.
Apophis is not a large asteroid .. and, admittedly, i’m rusty, so my math may be off.
So. At the bare minimum, if Dabbler’s cords could be used to tow a smallish asteroid like Apophis, they’d have to withstand a force in the ballpark of something like the biggest nuclear weapon invented by man… if you just wanted to accelerate your rock a paltry 8 m/s faster in the same direction it’s moving now by nuclear explosion.
… moving a space rock ain’t a small thing.
Really, though, Dabbler’s space lines only have to be strong enough to withstand the impulse you apply. It’s all about reference frames, at that point.. it’s just… to change the direction of an asteroid requires astronomical amounts of force. To have practical application, her bondoropes are going to have to be terrifically strong. Not Tsar Bomba strong, likely – but it should put ’em in perspective, anyway.
depends on the asteroid, some are much, much smaller
“As previously stated, if all the asteroids in the belt were combined into one, it would form a body less than 1500 km in diameter. Noting the immense size of Ceres, it comprises over 1/3 the total suspected mass of the belt (2.3 x 1021 kg). 26 known asteroids are larger than 200 km (124 miles)”
the vast majority of asteroids are so small we can’t measure their mass from earth; so really, all dabbler said was ‘ these ropes are strong enough to move a rock”
You are probably talking about the belt between Mars and Jupiter. What about the Kyber Belt, where Pluto is just part of it, and not even the largest one?
Kuiper Belt.
The Khyber Pass is in the India region (know that because of “Carry On Up The Khyber Pass” :P)
There is a weird bit of trivia from that film. Remember how the locals shook their heads, to say yes? Well that bit is actually true. Not that I can say that it is so in that particular region (although it is possible, as there are several cultural links), but Bulgarians actually do that!
Technically they rock the head from left to right, as opposed to shaking it. But the resultant motion of the head is so similar, to the way that western cultures shake their head, that it confuses the hell out of foreigners. To those unfamiliar with the quirk, even if they are verbally saying “yes”, it still looks like they are shaking their heads “no”.
Cosmopolitan Bulgarians learn to avoid that particular bit of body language, so you may not observe it in those who are fluent enough to talk in English, for example. But, amongst the general population, you see it used quite a lot.
asteroids there will be on average even smaller.
what im trying to say is there are asteroids out there the size of a nickel.
I think the best indication as to the size of the targets it is designed to capture is to look at the one it has been used on. Meaning we would be talking about a man-sized asteroid.
Depends really on how big the ‘net’, when deployed, gets
Yep, but it narrows down the range. Nickle-sized and city-sized both become unlikely when the only known use has been against a person.
Dabbler is TOTES like Courageous Cat! She should have a special gun for every circumstance inside her cape (so she needs a cape).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Courageous_Cat_and_Minute_Mouse
Hmm… a cat cave, a cat signal, a cat mobile, a cat plane, and a cat boat. All of that sounds oddly familiar in a slightly altered sort of way.
Well both were created by the same person.
I hope the punishment for not realizing that isn’t Kane-ing.
Nah. You will just be forced to wear a mustache that is also a phone. ( Kane also created a cartoon Bumbling Super-Spy named Cool McCool.)
Unless the punishee is female or there’s something hideous about the mustache, that doesn’t strike me as much of a punishment.
I love her
I want an invite to one of those parties
if he has any intelligence, he now knows how to handle those projectiles…quickly cut past any object or person so that it triggers the proximity sensor on something other than him.
Except… it is locked on it’s target, which means the sensor will not trigger for anything else
No, it has a tractor beam effect…he was towing it (by her words anyway)…meaning if he slowed down at all, it would slam right into his back.
a proximity arming feature wouldn’t care about a specific target, just how close something got.
That depends on the sophistication of the sensors. It might be possible that Dabs could build them to detect a certain person’s “signature”.
Re: “That depends on the sophistication of the sensors.”
Exactly! For example, the “heat signature”, or pattern of heatwaves from your body, is as unique as a fingerprint. As far back as this Michael Crichton film (from 1984), they were already in use:
[https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088024/?ref_=nv_sr_6]
Well, you know the old saying: “Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice, … hey, you used something different!”
Or such.
Except with some people, you wouldn’t even need to use something different.
And that is why the next one will act differently, going past any suddenly reversing (thrown) objects to a heat signature, or firing a flash effect instead of bindings and then a slippery coating. Her next speedster attack may be energy based delivery of nano-demons that tie his legs together.
Someone who has a deus ex gadget for every situation? Sounds like Batman, but with breasts. So… Batgirl, but sans the wheelchair. (Too soon?) Though I suppose Batgirl without a wheelchair would be Barbara calling for Life Alert.
Wow, am I a bad person? Perhaps I’ll segue to snickering at Dabbler “boning up” on English. Hehehe… boning up…
it would be called ‘the current batgirl’..
Batwoman is cooler, if in need of some Vitamin D
Dabbler’s smart weapon, that can stop in mid air, is one step above the VecterCon smart bullets/micro missiles from “Runaway” that can turn corners. Has a IR sensor that maps your IR sig then follows you till you are dead, it is destroyed. This one does have your name on it.
There are several weapons in existence that do what the projectile did –which is to trigger before it hit and not stop midair. Antitank rounds that trigger a few feet from armor and do the self-forging plasma cone effect (HEAT ? I am years away from my tabletop gaming days of Morrow Project and perused Jane’s like a madman).
The Dabbler Wrap strips were still going at speed so they had had the momentum to wrap around. Albeit to wrap that tightly and thoroughly suggests some musculature in the strips themselves.
As others have pointed out he could have kept going, but the shell was drafting him and could be in some way using his own power to power itself once it got close enough. If Mach the Knife could place a nice big object in between and then stop (or better yet get Dabbler between him and the round) he could defeat it.
The anti-tank rounds are actually impact-detonated, using essentially a stand-off rod to assure optimum distance. The hypersonic hot gas jet is referred to as the Munroe effect, named after the 19th century chemist who discovered it. Take a look at the shaped-charge wiki for more information. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaped_charge
I’ll see your wiki and raise you –closer to what I had in mind https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proximity_fuze
“A proximity fuze is a fuze that detonates an explosive device automatically when the distance to the target becomes smaller than a predetermined value”
There are also rounds that will detonate after they have rotated a set number of times in flight. These are mostly to maximize damage against personnel and unarmored structures, however.
Within that entry I note ‘Sensor types: Radio.. Optical… Acoustic… Magnetic… Pressure.
Boy do they have some catching up, by omitting the obvious Tantric.
Why not just keep running until the tractor beam runs out of juice?
Who says it will?
It looked to be closing. If you look at panel four and make the assumption that the speeder dodged at the point when the bullet was fired. Compare the gap between the gun and his dodge point. Then look at how close behind the bullet is where they both appear in the foreground.
It looks to have halved the gap. Which means that he did not have far to go, before it caught up with him anyhow.
You can only have so many ABCD Omni-Gadgets.
But you get so many more if you are an ACDC alien succubus with ADHD.*
* And I know that this counters my earlier contention that she is not. Which I eloquently counter with:
:-P
The Who’s who use of ADHD is a convenient way of saying that her attention goes from one project to the next. A convenience used due to limited space in that entry. As opposed to being a clinical diagnosis of a medical condition. I doubt that there would be any clinician, on this planet, qualified to make that assessment. For her.
You’ve got me. There is no counter-counter argument to :-P
The Who’s who use of ADHD is a convenient way of saying that her attention goes from one project to the next. A convenience used due to limited space in that entry. As opposed to being a clinical diagnosis of a medical condition. I doubt that there would be any clinician, on this planet, qualified to make that assessment. For her.
Now that I can argue with.
Since you are not a clinician qualified to make the assessment, how are you able to make the judgment of whether or not they mean it in the clinical sense when they say “A succubus and ADHD genius.”?
Because I have access to her personnel files. Aka her cast list details. Which are much more detailed and fail to mention it at all. Hence I feel confident in saying that it is a shorthand convenience, rather than something that should have too much read into it.
That said though, there are enough parallels between aspects of Sydney’s behaviour (who we know to be clinically ADHD) and Dabblers, that the shorthand has merit, even though it could lead to confusion. But I like to think of it as Dabbler personifying the useful sides of ADHD. On Earth we treat ADHD an unwanted condition, but Xuriel shows how similar traits, with no untoward condition associated, and presented in the form of an alien, can make her super heroic.
I have been mostly-joking in my comments about Dabbler and her ADHD, but for just a moment I wish to be serious.
What are the “useful sides” of ADHD?
As long as they can stay focused, they can do quite a… ooo, did that fuzzy cucumber wink?
A constantly shifting focus of attention could be useful for many purposes. Provided the individuals could have enough discipline instilled (by themselves or through training) to overcome the negative aspects, that aspect alone would give them a considerable advantage, in a number of roles. Plus strong multi-tasking can help in various other roles. Any that combine the two, get a double hit.
Examples: Sentry, image analysis,* intelligence analysis (same thing, but for communications and other spook stuff), detective (police or private investigator, or store flavas), bodyguard, tracker, investigative accountant, ** sorter (but who wants a boring factory job, even if they are good at it?), gardener (tons of different things that always need attention in a garden, this is a double-hit role) and emergency room doctor (life saving double-hitter, spotting problems and multi tasking).
* Looking at photographs and picking out unusual troop movements or the like. Civilian versions include looking at slides of cells to spot cancer or other diseases. However these are especially boring roles, so I suspect that even a disciplined individual would have difficulty sticking with it. We would have to get input from ADHD possessors, to find out their opinions.
If they think the negatives outweigh the positives in that role, I would consider the rarer combination of an ADHD compulsive obsessive, as being a stronger solution. These are critical, life-saving roles. If you can find individuals with exceptional natural talent for them, it could profoundly affect the lives of many people. In the most fundamental way.
** Taking advantage of the benefit to the detective role, to balance out the likely impact due to being a boring aspect. Being good at spotting anomalies, through paying attention to multiple different things, can potentially reduce investigation times dramatically, compared to a simple methodical investigation. Perhaps best paired with someone, or just having one on a team, of regular investigators. Many investigations will require the slow methodical work, even if some cases can take the short-cut, with the right person to spot the anomalies.
As someone who has ADHD, I can honestly say that sometimes you notice things that other people wouldn’t notice in a million years, and somtimes you notice nothing at all, and feel very stupid. It also means your mood, attention span, and IQ seem to be closely related to your blood-sugar level.
Interesting. Obviously my list of suggestions above are pure speculation. Mostly based on information that ADHD readers have mentioned. And it does rather work on the assumption that the problematic aspects were under control.
In Dabbler’s case, or some other ADHD-like hero, they could simply be expressing more of the positive traits than the negative. For the real world , there could well be lucky individuals who likewise have an abundance of the good effects, and less of the negative than average. For other, less fortunate, folks, who suffer badly from the negative, I guess it falls mainly down to taking the appropriate medication.
Which I guess (and that word is used advisedly), probably has a sledge hammer effect. Impacting the positive as well as the negative aspects.
Obviously anyone capable of spotting things or making connections as readily as you say, would be an invaluable member of a team. One that I had meant to list before, but forgot to, was a research scientist. Which I think would still be on the cards. Provided the ADHD individual had someone looking out for the obvious slip ups, they would work well together.
Conversely, critical roles, where any omission could be dangerous, would be problematic if operating solo. But, that is part and parcel of why ADHD is branded as a ‘condition.’ I just like to explore the possibilities offered by viewing it as an evolutionary option. Not a genetic mistake.
ALERT! We’ve got another SOPA issue coming down the pipes! Spread the word, Especially if in America. Actual video at ‘Read the rest of this entry’. Fcc links at bottom:
https://www.bladebunny.com/2014/06/03/good-evening-monsters/
omg i love the bondage gun……now where can i pick that up and alot of extra ammo
And now I know why this gun sounds so familiar, it is the tech version of the “Wand of Straightjackets” used in a tabletop D&D game from many years ago. Not the seeking part thank goodness. The activation command was “klaatu verata nikto” and if you said it wrong in any way it self targeted…
“klaatu verata necktie!
Bugger, I meant… gah, too late!
Get me out of this bloody thing!”
Love the comic title DaveB.
Yep. Asked for the afternoon off, so of course I clock in at 3 PM… just in time to miss the one panel I wanted to go and see.
Dammit.
I will find you eventually Barrack… I’ll be the broad in the big red hat :P
does she actually call it bondage bullets?
Not really. Dabbler makes a joke about how that load is popular at “certain parties”. Given her succubi nature, kinky is almost mandatory.
OK, I can see Dabbler getting bored not wanting to make ammo. I get that she does not want to give her tech to people (because, lets face it, we will abuse it). So here is my thought.
Dabbler should hire someone to work in her lab, have a scanner at the entrance/exit (to make sure the person is not stealing tech), and have them make ammo for her. I can think of 10 different ways to set that up so the worker would have no access to the tech, just the components in them. Like how, if you gave me the components to make a round of ammunition, I could assemble the parts. But I would still not know how to make the gunpowder, primer, or bullet (the copper-jacketed lead thingy).
“Oh Sydney… wanna make some extra cash quick, fun and even legal?”
There are people who make a few bucks doing specialty handloading.
I hand load for my guns. It’s a necessity since ammo for them is hard to come by due to the age of my guns.
There were early cultures that did this. Trying to conceal a major technological advantage. The only problem is that you can stop them taking bits out with them. But you do not stop them taking the knowledge. And, once they have enough of it to replicate the process or invention, then they may set themselves up in business.
To Dabbler the fun is in the inventing. Using the gizmo a couple of times proves that she has managed that. Then on to the next challenge. Which would become a lot harder if the ape descendants suddenly had access to her level of technology too.
Ha! I’ve seen that ‘bondage pod’ before, in another comic by Dave B. It was definitely Dabbler’s sort of party.
Why would she gets bored making bondage ammo? Bondage. Ammo.
How can you make something more kinky than that?
Working on a one woman production line will not be very stimulating. Dabbler would not be making use of her very best sense, for a start.
I could tell you, but then DaveB would have to change the rating of the comic.
I hate to be the voice of logic, but Dabbs is without doubt intelligent enough, and has access to the tech to make an automated assembly line to make all kinds of ammo for whatever types of weapons she has stashed away. Probably semi-intelligent and able to swap types according to a self determined inventory.
Have a look around to see how much time and effort it costs to set up an automated production line. Then envisage driving your car to a 3rd world village, with a trailer load of useful gadgets and setting up to help deal with the out of control banditry in the area. Please provide your estimate for how long it would take to establish a fully automated factory to produce your weapons and ammo. And figure out how tedious it would be. Then factor in how much fun you could have doing something else with your time.
Then consider what would happen if that facility fell into the hands of the bandits.
Dabbler is a craftswoman, not a arms dealer.
I think we already have all that we need to know about Dabbler’s resources techwise. First off, we, the audience, have the vague knowledge of a past of strife and of travel. The conflicts she has been in likely were many and varied. This would motivate her to make preparations for further conflicts. We also know that she traveled. When one travels, one tends to want to bring along either supplies and/or tools. Roughing it with neither supplies or tools, while possible in places, is generally not all that fun despite what our culture may have to say about it. So, she would want to address the problem of being prepared for future conflicts (even if only by escaping them) all while traveling. In general, there are 2 ways to do this:
1.) Prepare portable tools/gadgets/weapons at home and bring those with you traveling. Dabbler might be doing this by building stuff in her lab and teleporting her things to her on a case by case basis. There are probably certain limits on this. She may have trouble building in her lab while also training in magic and also training in ARCHON and while just enjoying herself. There may be a limited resource her teleporter requires and so she might need to restrain herself from using it over much. There may be security concerns. Maybe every time she uses the teleporter her lab is more noticeable to her enemies. etc. The big assumption here is that her lab has access to her home civilization’s infrastructure/industry. Otherwise, she is stuck with whatever portable tech she could bring along when she first traveled and isn’t using this option but the next one.
2.) Build your own infrastructure wherever you go. This is much more difficult than it seems. But story wise it could give all the limits DaveB. wants for Dabbler to have to work with while still giving her the advanced technology seemingly on command that DaveB wants her to have. In this scenario, Dabbler has access to human infrastructure/industry and can build her own lab from it. While she is doing that she can give her lab the upgrades she wants so that she can build the gadgets she feels would prepare her for future conflicts. This imposes the further limitation that her technology will be a clear extension technologically from existing human technology. ( the railgun is human buildable but not at that power output in that small a size)
With option 2, Dabbler also can be less concerned about leaving the remains of the bondorage bullet to incapacitate SS. She can do that because even if the remains are analyzed by ARCHON they will find materials that work much like existing materials. Therefore she can “arrest” SS and then process him with straps in place until SS is put into a prison capable of holding him. Then she can either teleport the straps back or remotely render them nonadvanced and just discard them into ARCHON’s hands.
All in all, I think the limitations in option 2 along with the ADHD limits on how much time she is actually going to spend on preparations in general should impose enough limits on Dabbler’s tech so that she doesn’t just auto-win everything, but does let her have an answer ( though not necessarily the most efficient answer) to most anything that comes her way. She might have to approach alot of problems laterally to get any traction as well.
I am sure glad that the tracker oriented on Swift Shadow instead of, say, Math. Mind you, if it has hit Jabber instead, Math would have felt ripped off, that Dabbler was trying to get all the glory again.
Nooo.. ive caught up! :(
Welcome to our world… it’s not so bad, really… I hear there’s punch and pie…
There’s sandwiches a plenty… but the cake is still a lie!
Everyone keeps getting that wrong :(
There really is a cake, but it is fake, the pie is lye (and you don’t really want to be eating it)
So we keep rhyming with different foods… but I just stopped by to say hi!
So have I.
Not I. Bye, bye!
why oh why
“Rolls an eye to the sky”
Oh noes! Poetry! RUN AWAY!!!!!!!!!
You could just occasionally have scenes of her testing something you want to have her use a few storylines down the way, not the immediate next storyline, too obvious (at least most of the time)
I wonder if Dabs knows that famous British spy: Bondage, James Bondage?
Mach the Knife: “With that Bondage to Go, I want a side-order of whips & chains.”
Maybe his sister, Jenny Bondage
Dabbles was possibly good friends with Bettie Paige
Sadly Ms. Page strolled off this mortal coil in December 2008. And her favorite photographer, Bunny Yeager just passed last month. Model photography of all sorts owes them a bunch. As do those of us who hit puberty just in time to fall in lust with black lace and seamed stockings.
Well that gun might be effective against some heroes, but most of them could either shoot it out of the air, or simply block it with an object. Also the most OP gadget she has is her teleporter, you could say it only has enough power to teleport a certain amount of items per day before it has to recharge. This way she can either get a weapon and 4 reloads, or 5 different weapons with a pre-loaded shot in each.
To be honest the only limitations that need be imposed on it, is for Dave to ensure that she does not use it so often that it gets boring. Which is just down to sensible writing. The very very simplest solution being that if it is likely to bore the readers, the Dabbler will bored of doing it, long before us.
I haven’t really seen anything wrong with Dabbler’s powers thusfar, but then I suppose that’s perhaps because I’m looking at the characters through a D&D lens. Dabbler seems like she would be a Magus, a character that mixes magic and spell/techcraft, able to freely flow between each – and being acceptable, but not exceptional, at either one. Her generalist nature means she’s never able to specialize – so general utility would be her forte, but not to the level of bat-shark-repellant from the batbelt.
As for Dabbler’s weaknesses, we’ve already seen some major ones, haven’t we? Like we’ve heard, she’s already learned about them twice. Beyond that, it does still seem like her lack of knowledge about Earth could cause all sorts of problems.
Keywords: Terrorism, nuclear weapon, White House, revolution, NSA, CIA, biochemical attack, atrocity, genocide, poison gas, neurotoxin, ebola, anthrax, C4.
We use so many of these in this forum that we will get a huge number of hits on the security services monitoring databases. But that is to our advantage. They have no way of knowing if we are, as we appear to be, a harmless collective of comic nerds discussing the usual waffle.
We could, instead, be a dangerous group of radicals attempting to covertly communicate in an openly accessible forum. Or even having extremist elements attempting to subvert members of the public to extremist thinking.
Until they get programs sophisticated enough to tell the difference, the only way that they can distinguish between the behaviours is by use of human intelligence analysis.
So, guys and guyessess, welcome to the community. You will find us to be pretty open and accepting. Be sure to check out the comic, it is really good fun. And contains a lot of social and lateral thinking that may be of use to the intelligence community. Or a good laugh.
We have lots of scientists, authors, teachers and other influential members of the community. Not to mention tons of impressionable youngsters, who could be swayed by radical thinking. So, if your bosses complain about why you are spending so much time policing one webcomic and it’s community, you have good reasons to offer for protecting it.
In the meanwhile, pick yourselves out a nice pseudonym. We don’t mind you concealing your day job. Kick back your feet, and enjoy taking part. You never know, with enough coaxing, you might get some of us to reveal interesting secrets!
You do realize that quite a few internet users volunteer enough information about themselves to be identified and categorized ? If you combine age, origin, parents, parent relation, school subjects, field of study, selected sports, selected projects, hobbies and such with keywords, you get sufficient precision for a statistics based thread analysis.
Additionally, while I don’t know to which extend region 1 subjecs ( people of the States ) or region 2 subjects ( England ) are allowed be spied on or analyzed, region 3 subjects ( as in the rest of the world ) have exactly zero right of any privacy as far as the states are concerned.
Every company operating under the law of the united states must, upon request, lay open any region 3 subject information they got. This, and they got a really impressive machinery working getting to almost any other kind of resource, such as the large scale filter the british secret service is running or cooperation contracts with other secret services worldwide.
This means they already have sufficient information for such statistics based analyses to the extend of actually having trouble managing the huge amount it sums up to.
This also means we are but one step away from being locked up for what any of us MIGHT be doing next. Do you feel remembered of the plots of some more or less recent films ? They suddenly make more sense, don’t they ?
And for those who believe this to be science fiction: There already is a commercial version of exactly this technology running almost wordwide, a service analyzing our habits and interests so that we are presented not just with what we sought after, but also with what we might be interested in next.
I am talking, of course, about Google.
You believe it to be coincidental if commercials appear to be following you no matter which site you visit ? Or what about you computer spouting other search results than the computer right next to you using the same query ? Have you ever tried to Google something, then clean all cache and cookies, reset your router and search again ? Never mind finding local results before those in neighbouring cities. Never wondered why your Android phone wants to know your location this badly ?
Well, how about waking up ?
Hey, so long as they are readers, there is a chance that we can win them over to becoming patrons for Dave. Somebody has to do the jobs that the rest of us would rather avoid, like morgue attendants or sewer workers. It does not automatically stop them from being nice people. And, hey, if they are willing to check us out, allowing us to advertise the comic to them for free, it can’t be a bad thing!
You may be surprised to find out that agencies can find out a lot about you, with a lot less information than you listed in your post. As it seems you missed it, you may want to check out the link in my earlier post. I think you will find it a very interesting talk, as it has close bearing to this subject.
But, whenever spooks try their normal tactics, they fail with me. On account of the fact that I separate my online persona from my real life one. My real name does not get entered on any computer, for any reason. Other than paying my taxes, and identifying myself to government authorities, with a genuine need to know. I do not fill out my personal details on social media. I do not even belong to them.
I disable all privacy intruding options on Google, such as they allow. I have yet to see one for ‘do not pass my personal information on to the NSA.’ Although, given the failure of the US government to protect the rights of any non-US citizens, I am strongly considering my alternatives to Google. I am aware of them, but find my current arrangements cosy. And using the heavily protected systems can simply raise suspicions. Some of which are already compromised. So that can be rather counter-productive.
And no mobile phone can leak my movements or other details. I do not own one. In fact, readers of this forum know a lot more about me than can be obtained by other means. Cause I only activate privacy protocols as a matter of principle, rather than giving a toss about it in practice. If the spooks wanted to check me out properly, they need merely turn up, and I would offer them a room to stay in, whilst they did it. For a suitable rent.
Most of the stuff you mentioned I was aware of for years prior to Edward Snowdon poking the hornets nest. It was fairly common knowledge, and of little concern to me. From a personal point of view, anyhow. I oppose the police state from getting too many powers over the populace, as a general principle. So I am on your side. Just a lot more relaxed about it, where it concerns me.
Actually, it quite amused me, when I did find a spook snooping around. He had been attempting to engage me in social chatter, via an internet game and then a chat program. But he inadvertently let slip the fact that he was aware of something that I had said, on a completely different program. One that I had never even told him I used, let alone spoke to him on.
I carried on drawing him on, to see what he might be after. Checking out our chat history, it was very clear that he was more likely to be a spy, than a general hacker, or criminal after financial details.
Confirmed soon after by him making an approach. But, frankly, I could not be bothered to find out if he was working under a false flag. Yes, am sure he would have been able to set up a Washington meeting. But I would not want to disturb any of my contacts, to confirm that it was genuine. And, given how inept the approach was, I really did not want to have anything to do with them anyhow.
But felt it quite a compliment that they should show interest in me anyhow, whatever agency they were actually working for. And I bear him no animosity. If intelligence agencies did not want to check out some of the things I have stated, they would have been incompetent. So he (and possibly more capable colleagues, that I have been unaware of) was just doing his job.
I did mention it, conversationally, to friends and family, as a point of interest. Some of whom assumed I was being paranoid. So I made a point of printing out the transcripts of the conversations, to allow them to make up their own minds. Most interestingly, those who actually had security clearance (with one exception) were amongst the majority, who did not think I was being paranoid.
And those with the highest clearance and/or direct knowledge of the operational side, simply confirmed my suspicions. Stating that it had been a classic approach. Even naming the agency that they believed was behind it. That without me revealing the offer. As a point of note, both the chat programs involved were on the list published of ones that had been compromised by the NSA. But this well pre-dated the Snowdon leaks.
So, yea, fairly awake.
Wide awake, actually. And you are right; this one post I missed out on. Sorry.
As for the statistic based thread assessment, the quantity of data should allow a fairly precise analysis even without actually understanding the text were the keywords were found in. There are two simple ways to go about it: Using the site / site title ( or other meta ) as context, and using opposing keywords as contrast. What they probably do have trouble with is creating the reference dataset upon comparing which those threads will stand out, and for very simple a reason: You need sufficient actual threads to create and train said dataset. And since there fortunatedly aren’t nearly enough actual incidents beyond common crime, this is gonna be a hard cookie.
As for your identity being known or not: Your IP can not just be logged, but also looked up as the name given by your provider – a name that not seldomly gives information about the user to some extend. There also aren’t sufficient IPv4 IPs around to truly rotate your dialin-IPs. This and the fact that IPs can be both traced and geolocated pretty well means that this alone should already suffice to seek home.
Furthermore, you leave all kinds of traces while browsing, most notably cookies. Since you use G00gle, and it also is used on great a many sides in form of “analytics” and “adwords”, they can follow you pretty well, including to this site, even if you didn’t enter any special data. And here you use your Gravatar, which is aligned to your email-address, and thats that with your identity being unknown.
It became hard, if not impossible, to truly protect yourself from being followed or spied on.
I like how relaxed you are about it though, because honestly, you can but make do of what already is.
That however, does not mean that we shouldn’t be very vigilant about this technology being missused or simply running completely out of control. Also, I don’t know if I could deal if anybody would follow me about like this invisible spook “X” does Dabbler, and it ain’t all that different.
This actually shows a couple of contrasting points. The first one has some feel good factor, if you choose to acknowledge it. There is actually rather a lot of terrorist activity, if you look at it from a world-wide perspective.* Rather than just how much may be affecting your home country. But the fact that you can claim their is little, shows that your security services are doing their job well.
Contrast that to any of the countries in north Africa, for example, and you can see that things could be a lot worse. But, regardless of what countries they operate in, terrorists will be generating certain tell tale patterns. Which can be used to inform the programs. Given the international nature of terrorism, it is necessary that such programs rise above mere language differences, and be able to pick out more fundamental indicators, than just key words.
The other thing to remember is that there is a risk pyramid. This applies across many fields. So lets take one that is very intensively analysed and openly published, rather than deal with the cloak and dagger. Airline near miss figures. For every one incident involving an actual in-air event, there are approximately 30 near misses (two aircraft passing within a specified distance of each other). And 30 times more than that again of less serious incidents. Where some serious violation was made, but which did not result in an actual collision or a near-miss.
So for people who take comfort in the fact that they only hear of one incident appearing in the news headlines, due to a collision, do bear in mind that there have been nine hundred other things which have not been reported, by the media. Such as aircraft straying out of their flight corridor. Or bits dropping off. Or people without proper authorisation having gotten onboard. Plus thirty incidents where aircraft got so close that it was only luck that they did not actually collide.
There is a similar ratio for terrorism. The spooks have lots more material to work with than you are aware of. Part of their job though, is to give you peace of mind, and stop you finding out about all the near-misses.
So, on the bright side, they are doing a good job. It is merely our job to balance giving them enough capability to carry on doing that, against stopping our governments from setting up the framework for oppressing us.
* Not enough to be individually worried, I hasten to add. You are way more likely to be killed by a close friend, or member of your family, than a terrorist. So no sensible person should be fooled into allowing governments to pass draconian anti-terrorist laws, which impinge their own rights more than the terrorists.
One point of realism, that supports Dabbler’s assertion, that her munitions were designed to be deployed in capturing asteroids, is that they wrap around the target, binding it close together. Given our current models indicate that many types of asteroid and comet may simply be material only weakly held together (sometimes just by their own modest gravity), it seems wise to parcel it up, as part of the process of capturing it.
That cleverly avoids it breaking up, and spreading out uncontrollably, as soon as any force is applied to a more conventional tether line.
She doesn’t actually specify the munition, but the ribbons are made for towing asteroids. You do make a very valid point on the wrap up of the asteroid though.
I’m going to have to disagree with you about how powerful speedsters are.
Basically the speed is nothing on it’s own, it serves primarily to enhance their other attributes and is in itself a weakness.
Without either boosted reflexes or something similar, when moving at those speeds you simply can’t react to things quickly enough and even if you can, you don’t actually have enough traction to turn without another super-power also boosting that. Even in straight fights its not much of an advantage vs a well trained opponent who can predict your moves, since without enhanced reflexes, its pretty hard to do any of the move complex moves or feints e.t.c.
Also imagine a super running top speed at 100+ mph, now Sydney just drops a tiny force-shield in front of one of their legs…. wheeee splat into a wall. Not good if they don’t have enhanced toughness.
Without a super-level attack ability, the enemies with any form of enhanced toughness are pretty much immune to a raw speedster as well.
A speedster without a complementary ability, is pretty useless in the grand scheme of things, but when its combined with something else (Like in Max), it multiples those abilities in the hands of a skilled hero.
Clearly Dave is talking about the usual package that comes with super speeders. So it is not just running fast, it is numerous attacks per second, sensory input that allows them to operate without hindrance, immunity to heat build-up, from friction, no crippling metabolic problems or premature ageing, and, as you say, corresponding reactions. Without which it is a gimped power.
With it and it is phenomenally powerful. The top tier ones (which they usually seem to be), would travel so fast you could not react in time to push the obstacle in the way in the fist place. Should you somehow predict their arrival, and start it going before you sense them, they can just step over it or go around. Very few seem to have such problems with inertia that they cannot apply enough traction to turn. If they are that bad at turning, they should not get out of bed.
Usually this comes from an enhanced time rate, rather than simple fast movement. They are not motorbikes, they are masters of time. They can kill you before you can even blink. Oh, you have toughness? Let us just wrap you up in some chains, for the fun of it.
Then zip over to the nearest thing that can penetrate your defences. Mmm, you look flammable. Just take a bucket to the fuel tanker driving by, knock a couple of strategic holes in it, and carry over enough to submerge you in a lake of petrol. Building up a nice improvised dam around you to keep it in place.
Yep, extra powers would make the Flash even more deadly. But he has vast capabilities, and should not be underestimated. Nor should Mach the Knife.
Quite frankly, a speedfreak isn’t going to reach their teens (let alone adulthood) without the ‘extras’
The fight is going well it seems, one casualty was a single injury from that speedy guy.
There’s nothing casual about
dyinggetting your foot cut by a knife, nothing casual about standing for freedom….Let me see… your ID.
Well what I mean is one of them is supposed to get hurt and one of them did, in the foot. So as far as I am concerned the rest of the fighting will go smoothly.
Okay, fourth panel… Why is there an arrow pointing at Dabbler’s finger?
She has twelve of those, so you will need to narrow it down a bit more than that. And, no, before you say it, ‘the one that has an arrow pointing at it’ does not help.
Both her right hands are holding her sword. Bottom lefty is firing her gun. Upper lefty is holding up her shield.
Now it is the latter that I am guessing you are referring to. It has been posited that she is firing lighting from that hand too. Personally, I remain of the opinion that she is reflecting one of Heavenly Sword’s attacks back. By blocking it with her shield. A lesser version of this attack, in the final panel.
I assume you meant third panel. The finger has the arrow because it’s tracking the target
Both the gun and the her pointing finger are tracking mach the knife in the second panel. I assume the third panel was once large enough to have “tracking” over both the finger and the gun but was cropped at some point so only the gun had the label.
Simply to indicate that the finger and gun are moving, tracking Mach
Testing, 1…2…3…
Looks like you got the hang of it. Personally I only use it in its most basic form, so strip out the ‘ cite=”” ‘. I experimented with filling in the source, in the quotes, but it appeared on screen. So I assume it is either a disabled feature here, or something to assist in internet searches. I manually insert opening and closing quotation marks, around the text, as the blockquote feature does not add that automatically. So the format I use is as follows:
<blockquote>”The text to be quoted.”</blockquote>
It might look that way, but I really don’t. That last question was not supposed to be “cited.”
One problem is that there seems to be multiple tags for doing the same thing.
Here’s blockquote cite=”” with a closing /cite and the word ‘test’ within the quotation marks, and nothing between the markup tags at all:
So, blockquote cite=”” with a closing /cite and the word ‘test’ within the quotation marks didn’t show up on the post at all.
Cite and a closing cite with ‘test’ between the markup tags didn’t appear to recognize that it was closed, because everything after it was closed still appeared within the quote.
And q cite=”” with a closing /cite and the word ‘test’ within the quotation marks seems to have just posted “” and lost the word ‘test’ entirely.
Here’s [blockquote]test[/blockquote] and more words which shouldn’t appear within the quote:
and more words which shouldn’t appear within the quote.
Yay! That seems to be the trick…
Cool. The quotation marks are optional. I just tend to prefer to put them in, to make it clear when I am quoting someone. Each website that I have tried using blockquote on has, without fail, formatted it completely differently. So I like adding the standard English language convention, to make it readily understandable to even a casual reader, unfamiliar with the formatting. But it is easier to do it without, and fairly intuitive regardless, so very much optional.
Likewise all the tags seem to support both the square brackets and the angled ones. I just opt for the combinations used for the sample tags at the bottom of the page. I find it quicker/easier to copy and paste those in, than to type them out.
*sigh* Typo, missed out a negation.
should read “…but it never appeared on screen.”
*** VOTING ALERT ***
We have somehow slipped down from 2nd place to 5th, on the Top We Comics list. There may not be enough folks logging on on a Sunday, to tip the balance, but we should all vote and close the gap.
That is the usual slump that starts off each month. :-( TWC finally reset their counters and are not adding in last months counts. Too many think they have to have a new incentive to vote for, not just the comic. :-(
Sydney’s “Demon stuff.” is still making me smile. I really hope Dave gets a break to finish up those last two. But, if not, they make great sketch art.
Yea, although he will have been tied up at A-kon, this weekend. I hope he, and the Grrl Power fans attending, are having a great time.
I really love that vote incentive. I think it is one of the best ones yet. Personally, I would much rather see that one coloured in, than have something new. Which was true, even looking at it as a Sydney devotee. But there is a double-hit now that I have been promoted to being a Dabbler fan too!
Personally I like the buzz you get when you see that the counter has gone up, thanks to your vote. Or yours and whoever else happened to vote simultaneously, which could just give both of you a bit of a thrill, so all is good. That was a lot more common when the comic was less well known, and further down in the rankings. If there are only a couple of votes separating you from each level, then you have a 50/50 chance to cast the tipping vote.
But, I guess, the rarity now can make up for it, when it does happen. And, of course, seeing it go up, as part of the collective effort, is the main aim. It makes good advertising. The more readers there are, the more potential patrons amongst them. Every time we get an extra one, to help keep Dave from having to find a day job, the better our chances of keeping the comic going smoothly.
Plus the wider range of people who might get tempted in on the comment side. Making for a richer, even more interesting, community. So, keeping voting, helps in multiple ways.
I don’t know why but this Log reminds me of “No sir, But his head is a -Splooosh!-‘