Grrl Power #223 – Unlike a dead parrot, Heavenly Sword does go VOOM
My wife cautioned me to research whether or not ice conducts electricity before putting up this page, which is good advice since I just assumed it did. Water conducts electricity so ice should too, right? Well, it turns out, water doesn’t conduct electricity. Not pure water. It’s all the impurities in the water that conduct the electricity, or rather all the ions swirling around that are provided by the impurities. Same thing goes for ice, only since ice is cold, the ions aren’t so much with the swirling. A chunk of frozen sea water will conduct electricity if you put enough volts through it, but it is a better insulator than melted sea water. Therefore we can posit a few things about Dabbler’s attack. One, the ice she whips out of the sword is loaded with rock salt or something. I guess the diamonds or magicite or lightning phoenix eggs or whatever you what to think they are that she has in the hilt are intentionally impure for that reason. Look, it’s magic ok? Two, she puts a shitload of volts in that electricity attack. Four million at least. :)
Originally I had planned for Dabbler to cast some sort of Magic Missile pinwheel attack to keep Heavenly busy while she reconfigured Soulreaver, but it didn’t fit. I also wanted Sydney to grill Dabbler about where the second handle came from, which is a reasonable question. I originally tried to conceive of a way that would work, the best options I came up with had flaws. One was that each handle was shaped like a U if you looked down the length of it. Maybe a better way to describe it is like an stick of celery. Take a second stick, flip it over, then they kind of fit into each other, only Soulreaver’s handles would fit together with machined precision, and never get floppy if not refrigerated. That would physically work, but could make the grip awkward in both configurations. The other idea had the handles corkscrew shaped. That could potentially make them the right circumference in either configuration, but then separating them would be a pain in the ass. In the end I decided that one handle is phased inside the other, which is a huge cheat, but again, magic. I mean it’s a sword that shoots out elemental attacks based on what magicite has been stuffed in the guard so I figured it wouldn’t upset anyone too much.
Anyway, all that extra stuff would have made for one if not two more pages, and I wanted to wrap up this fight and move on. Sydney can give Dabble the third degree about the sword later.
Heavenly Sword is fun. Her name is a little cumbersome, granted. Same number of syllables as Wonder Woman, but anything over three syllables is in need of a nickname IMO. The more thought I give Heavenly the more I’m sure this isn’t the last we’ve seen of her, but she’s done for now. When she comes too she’ll feel like she had a hard night of drinking and woke up next to the Energizer Bunny, only all his fur is missing and it’s just a bunny shaped mass of exposed wiring.
I am on vacation this week, puttering around Florida, so contact may be intermittent, but expect a comic as usual on Thursday.
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As a materials scientist I can say this: ice is a very poor conductor of electricity, regardless of its purity. Also, sodium and chloride ions are both pretty much useless as dopants; the mechanism by which they improve the conductivity of water does not apply in a solid solution.
Magic, however, is a superconductor. It’s Magic Ice.
Like DaveB said, this aint science, it’s freaking magic. So just roll with it.
DaveB, looking forward to a hilarious couple of pages of Syd grilling Dabbs, that’s gonna be great :D
And for those that like Science in their Magic;
Consider the Law of Similarity and the Law of Contagion- Ice is, magically speaking, very, very closely related to Water through these two primal Laws. The Law of Expectation says that Water conducts Electricity. Therefore, though not quite as effective (since Ice has as a mystic property “Solidness” while Water has “Flow”, and Solid is less conductive than Flow for transferring effects), Ice can in fact conduct Electricity.
Science in their Magic you say?
We made contact with Dr. Impulse, member of the Sons of Ether in good standing, and this is his report.
I had never tried to use ice as a conductor for electricity, and none of the other Sons had either. Obviously the only thing to do was experiment!
Professor Von Trogger provided a batch of his Thermarctic Hand-grenades so getting large chunks of ice designed to entrap your foes was simple enough.
We came up with one hundred and sixty seven different ways in which to electrify the ice once created in the first fifteen minutes of discussion. We tabled it for another time, as it was clear we were just getting started, and there was Science to do! We compromised by using a different method for each trial.
We made five trials, and the results were interesting!
Trial #1: The ice was inhabited by a spirit of some kind. The resulting Ice Elemental wreaked havoc on the lab equipment and frightened the devil out of some of the lab technicians. The elemental did not noticeably conduct electricity.
Trial #2: The ice was vaporized entirely. The next time we use that Tesla cannon for experimental testing, we are going to use a lower setting.
Trial #3: Another Ice Elemental. The enthusiastic efforts of the Scientists present to defend their persons wreaked havoc on the lab equipment and frightened the lab technicians more than the Elemental did. Again, the Elemental did not prove to conduct electricity.
Trial #4: The ice entirely failed to conduct electricity, or to do anything else of interest. We consider that test something of a failure and include mention of it only for the sake of completeness.
Trial #5: Ice Elemental. Havoc. The Captain ordered us to cease all testing. I don’t know why. We got the fire put out in plenty of time.
Further testing is obviously required, once we construct a more Ice Elemental proof laboratory, and talk the Captain into letting us try it. Preliminary data supports the conclusion that applying large amounts of electricity to a mass of conjured ice produces an angry Ice Elemental, and that Ice Elementals do not conduct electricity.
Ah… I have a hypothesis on why your experiments continued to result in Ice Elementals.
Were you, by chance, using Lightning instead of Electricity? They are very similar (even identical) Scientifically, but Magically speaking each has some important differences, mostly due the Laws of Precedence and Expectation. See, Lightning, in its aspect as the Fire of Life and source of Natural Power has before been used to provide Life to the Lifeless. If you are using mechanisms which generate Lightning- that is, tools or weapons that throw Bolts that travel straight through the air or aether to their target, then I can see why you would be having the troubles you describe; of the subject being “Lightning’d” coming to life- the Violence inherent in using weapons in this experiment explains why the Elementals were immediately hostile, as well.
I would suggest for further experiments to both change the source of the Ice to something either natural, benign or even Pleasant (the ice from a skating rink, perhaps) so as both to reduce the effects of Precedence in future results (as the Law of Three in conjunction with the number of times a hostile Ice Elemental has spawned further solidifies that as a likely result of any future experiments of this nature) and by using a benign or ‘friendly’ source of Ice, if another Elemental does appear, it should then be of a friendlier nature- these changes, and using a source of Electricity instead of Lighting should, at the very least, require less “spirited self-protection” from the lab technicians.
Lightning is scientifically different from other electric shocks in that it ionizes air to levels were the emitted radiation enters the visible spectrum and expands the created plasma(creating a shock wave also known as thunder). Saying lightning is the same as electricity is like saying gun powder is carbon. There’s a lot of carbon in gun powder and without it, it wouldn’t be gun powder, but it’s not carbon.
+2 Your dedication to Science! would make Agatha Hetrodyne proud.
Likewise it gets the approval of an eternal mage ©.
The Virtual Adepts stare on in disbelief at what your team accomplished, but have to admit that was pretty awesome.
Kudos for the Sons of Ether minific. =D
Really, is see this as a simple problem: create a fluid, that when frozen into large crystals, separates out into the crystalline ice, and conductive metallic filaments.
And please stop with the lightning tests, or else PETE. (people for equal treatment of elementals) will likely file a complaint.
Bah! There is no such thing as “just magic”. If magic can be controlled, it can be understood. If it can be understood, it can be turned into science. The fact that it relies upon types of energy that exist beyond normal understanding of physics does not make it any less scientific.
“Sufficiently analyzed magic is indistinguishable from science” Agatha Hetrodyne
Considering that ice is the rigid symmetrical matrices so different from liquid water or water vapor. So of course some of its properties will change. Glad he checked. Best to get the small things right. It helps with the rest of the story and world to get such things correct.
I,d go with osmium rather than ice.
Quite high melting point, so splash and supercool will look close to ice when solid as it is a blueish white metal.
The huge weight would be useful against supers and lower strength heat powers will have little effect.
Hard yet brittle materials would work well in a comic.
Dabbler would apreciate this over ice I believe.
Osmium is also a reasonable conductor.
This also gets away from the fire and ice element sword combo cliche.
I like your thinking. Unfortunately, osmium creates a toxic, volatile compound when exposed to air, OsO4. This would soon make the area uninhabitable until the gas is dispersed. Maybe use copper or silver instead?
It reacts less at lower temperatures though right?
The main danger is then when the magic is producing it hot and cooling it. Once cooled to minus temperatures it should be safe enough to be used like this.
A question for you, if you can answer. How much current and voltage could you get out of a sufficiently large piece of piezoelectric material? Say that ice was quartz, could Dabbler do much shock damage by punching it hard enough? Alternately, could she do much physical damage by electrocuting it? It occurs to me that would make for a novel attack combination, if it’s feasible.
A very small amount. Piezoelectrics actually don’t take much to break. That’s the reason you can’t charge your phone from your shoe, the crystals wouldn’t last a week.
However, a wide range of materials become ridiculously good conductors when they are doped with about .3% of graphene nano-platelets. That level of concentration shouldn’t affect the light flow in the ice too much. Since we know this, I think we could count on Dabbler knowing this.
Strictly speaking, for a single atom thick molecule, graphene is very opaque (iirc, it’s around 98% transparent). May not sound like much, but graphene is basically graphite (one method of harvesting graphene involves pencils). Get enough of it together an it will be black in color, not clear. And enough will be just a few hundred layers.
Although if you stack the layers so that the hollow parts form tubes, you will keep a large amount of transparency.
Actually from the angle and the shape of the “ice” and how the sword is going in it looks like its stabbing heavenly’s footcombined with the fact the ice is less than her a few inches off the ground means the site of the grounding is the end if the whip which is in her hand. So that means ZAP!
So if they don’t give you proper credit, do you just walk away?
Totally. Scientists are all attention whores.
If there’s Alteran writing on dabbler’s sword does that mean she’s had a connection to the Ancients?
And if so, does she know how to make a stargate?
I could imagine her using a weapon with “Chevrons” on it to set the optional abilities…
<penetrate>”Thrust repeatedly into target impaled”</penetrate>
*checks Alteran on Googly-eyes Translate*
“Insert sharp end in enemy.”
Huh.
That’s just the computer translation. A more proper translation would be “This end out.”
I don’t know how I feel about this one, while I understand the need to move it along it still feels like a major cop out. I was just starting to like HS and her powers were just getting neat, and this little scene pretty much undid everything that the fight did to make Dabbler not seem super op.
As DaveB said: this is not the last we see of Heaven
I should hope we do. I work on the assumption that all Grrl Power fans are good folks, so that destination is assured. I just plan to put off my arrival date a few millennia, though, if I get the opportunity. Possibly several eons, if I am having particular fun. But pencil me in for a reunion sometime. Bring your own harps.
I’ll bring the fillet of hell spawn and serving pitch forks
And this is why an experienced Tinker can be the scariest kind of cape, they’ve had enough time to build up an arsenal of tricks.
Fucking Tinkers.
Hey Dave, have you read Worm yet?
I’d be careful about encouraging him to read Worm. Unless he’s a speed reader, that could cause a major delay in the next update. I speak from personal experience here. I’ve been reading it almost every free moment I have. Even to the point of saying up for two or three extra hours on work nights.
No, it keeps getting recommended to me but the enormity of it is daunting. I imagine I will eventually though.
izzat a book or a webcomic?
Editless Editation: I think I found it…….Makes me think of when I started reading Tales of Mu thinking it was a webcomic.
Dabler and Sidney are my two favorite on this team because how well they compliment each other, personality wise.
That sword would make a magnificent videogame weapon.
Which of Dabbler’s eyes has which color? I assume like in this comic, it’s just that in this comic, her left is blue and her right is green, while in the “character bar” in the page header, in at least one of her photos, her left is green and her right is blue. Is that one just mirrored, or?
It’s possible that’s an easter egg, or it’s possible the cast page was grabbing the pic from when she was in the bathroom – the view of her in the mirror.
Actually its been pointed out before a while back. Dave just never got round to removing it.
Our left/her right is green, that’s the natural one. The blue one is cybernetic, she never bothered getting it color matched. I have probably reversed them accidentally once or twice.
Dabbler is known to use disguise spells and so forth, so it seems plausible that she could also use this to change (or swap) eye colours now and then.
If nothing else, there would be the sheer joy of messing with other people’s heads – especially the bureaucrats who maintain her dossier.
I can imagine her doing that for fun, on purpose, both, or neither.
Yep. The poor unfortunate SOB who does ARC’s photo IDs probably bursts into tears everytime Dabbler is sent his way.
Wanna bet the photo keeps changing too? And rarely matches up unless Maxima gets huffy about it.
Just remember also the conductivity of the ice might not matter. Dabbler did say she was going to stab HS through the foot. And with a blade that can obviously change its appearance she might have done so when she stabbed the ice therefore negating the need for a conductor other than the sword being thrust into/through said foot.
At the risk of appearing dense, can someone explain what Sydney is talking about when she pops into the frame and says “I fucking knew it!”
Knew what?
Something to do with the sword, not sure what though
Possibly Sydney predicted that Dabbler would go for dual weapon wielding.*
Alternatively there is the option I chose to run with, namely that Sydney figured that the sword would have some really cool magic power, over and above the (relatively) mundane icy damage bonus. I certainly felt it was awesome enough, that I probably had a similar look on my face. If not the 70’s disco dancing pose.
* Personally I hope she has, and shows off, her quad wielding style sometime. Maybe four dual-purpose lightsabre/blasters. That should cover most contingencies.
Actually, one thought just passed my mind. Sydney’s nerd credentials are higher than mine. She can probably read both the names on the swords. And is probably reading some extra significance into their origins.
A bit like if I saw a girl flying outside my house, with five coloured orbs circling her head. I might even do the pointing up bit too, if that happened.
She took one look at Soulreaver and thought “Oh yeah that splits in two.”
If I could’ve had a look as close as Sydney’s, I’d probably said the same. It’s not really apparent from a webcomic drawing, if the coloring on the blade isn’t a shadow play from a weird light source.
Though, flipping back a few pages, I noticed common theme and nodded in acknowledgement. :)
Dave, damn it!!! You are doing a REALLY good job at making it impossible for me to have a favorite character in this comic. All of them that have gotten any real screen time are fantastic. Please keep up the fantastic work.
+1
But Sydney remains my favourite, needless to say.
I like giving each of them a lot of cool moments and personality. The only one I haven’t had enough time with so far is Anvil. I’ll have to rectify that, but it probably won’t happen till the next chapter.
Yet even Anvil has had her “nose boop of doom” moment in the sun.
Not that I’m in any way shape, or form suggesting that you lessen her future appearances because of that.
Dabbler just got hotter. DAMN.
(Or cooler. Whichever)
Magacite for the win!!!
On the sword ‘upgrade’ function in this comic I would like to make two comments:
1) +50 points for coolness factor
2) -100 points for practicality while engaged in combat. What do think would happen if you were watching a Star Wars movie and in the middle of a big Jedi/Sith fight scene one of the duelists said “Hold on for a second. I have to change the battery in my light saber.” ? The odds of your opponent just standing there and waiting are pretty slim.
(Maybe THAT’S what happened to Alec Guinness in Episode IV)
Ok, some think that Dabbler is stupid for telling her opponent about her powers. Other folks think that an opponent would not pause fighting long enough to listen. There is only one solutions…
*issues big rubber mallets to both sets of contestants* Ok you are not going to be let out of the arena until you have sorted out the inconsistencies between your arguments, one way or another!
In case you choose not to bludgeon your debating opponents into unconsciousness, you could agree to the compromise that, perhaps, Heavenly had observed Dabbler continually talking more than she should do. Giving away tactical information about herself and possibly her team. Heavenly may have decided to let her carry on running her mouth off. Feeling confident that she could finish Dabbler off at any time.
Or: Syndey’s calling of ‘Silver Age Rules’ still applied to this fight. ;)
That’s the one I’d go with, tho it does bring in to question how villiany these villians are. Personally i would have gone for killing the purple moron while she was running her mouth.
Well, on one side of the fence, we already know that the fight between Dabbler and Heavenly Sword was both a contest of ego and ‘one-up-manship’. Star Wars is Star Wars. But even Star Wars had moments (jedi vs someone else, even other jedi) where ‘talking is a free action’. When egos collide, expect both parties to make room for smacktalk and being a show-off.
On the other hand, also supported by your Star Wars example, is the fact that a comic strip medium still has trouble showing the speed in which most actions are carried out. Dabbler splitting the soul reaver into 2 swords wasn’t something like “hang on, lemme swap batteries”. It was more like the sort of conversation that took place during the battles in the movies. Notice that in the first panel, the ribbon weapon H.S. is wielding is being pulled back, likely for flourish to twine the ribbon and prepare for another attack (think about the way a ribbon dancer would need to move in order to lash out with it. it’s not something that has the tensile strength and body of a whip and therefore needs to move much differently for the level of command it’d take to be used as a weapon. Keep in mind also that the ribbon is being used as an improvised weapon, it’s not H.S’s weapon of choice). Then, in panel 8, both her hands are down when she gets caught by surprise and caught in Dabbler’s ice spell. It is likely that in that ‘Flourish/2nd strike’ time, Dabbler did her thing and countered, catching H.S. in a ‘cancel’ time window (to use Grandia 2 a an example).
Not at all sure I’d call that a problem, incidentally- more like a feature of the medium. The smacktalk-during-combat is where comics exercise license to break from reality in a way that neither purely linguistic mediums (ie: novels) nor purely audio/visual mediums (ie: movies) are capable of. It’s why Spidey can be a wise-cracking super-agile brawler in comics, but his ability to come up with witty one-liners is significantly reduced in movies.
Note that Dabbler isn’t necessarily opening up her defense to do this. The power of extra arms.
Behold the Power of Cheese.
Do I detect a possible womance forming between Dabbler and Halo?
I have a new policy. Not to disillusion any armchair matchmaking.* So shall restrict myself to saying, heck if my two favourite girls chose to make out, I would not complain!
* ‘Shipping’ – strange term. It is not growing on me. I suspect that this will be one of those bits of jargon that y’all will feel really embarrassed that you used to use, in a decade or two. And yet, your shameful usage will be immortalised, like a bad Facebook page, for your kids and grandchildren to see. And mock. And laugh. And taunt.
From what I understand, “womance” (like bromance, except the latter with guys) indicates “a strong and vibrant friendship between two straight women” [emphasis added]. IOW, it doesn’t include a sexual element to the relationship.
I find myself chuckling over this one.
I’ve always through that “Bromance” meant a romantic relationship between two men. Obviously “Womance” would be a romantic relationship between two women.
This is what comes of making up words. If all that was meant was “Friendship”, then why not use the already existing and clearly understood word?
Both Bromance and Womance is like friendship but with way more subjective subtext.
It’s “friendship with benefits”, and a “bromance” is much more than just being “bro’s”
I must admit, the phrase “subjective subtext” confused me a great deal. I looked up the words in the dictionary to make sure they meant what I thought they did. I even checked the word “friendship” just to be certain. I am pretty sure that I don’t understand what you meant to say.
As near as I can parse it out, “subjective subtext” would be when characters come up with their own personal interpretations of what was meant based on things nobody ever actually said.
The gist being that the individuals in the relationship may view it’s status differently. As might any third parties.
I always get a big bang out of that show.
The way I understand it is that the object of one’s bromance (or womance) is the type of person one would be sexually attracted to if one were of the opposite sex or homosexual.
+1 for the Buffy reference. :)
What’s wrong with putting goods to be transported onto a boat.
Other than the fact that the term is also used if the goods are put into a land or air vehicle.
Yeah, to me, shipping is the part of a business that makes sure that the product gets delivered to the customer.
Pretty sure they’ve already formed “alliance to make Maxima’s hair fall out”, but I don’t see any particular romantic elements.
Just wait until Halo finds out about Maxima phrase bingo….
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/655
There is a large version of the final panel of that comic available for download, and the title perfectly describes the relationship between Dabbler and Sydney.
“Unrelated Siblings”
Sydney is the mischievous little sister Dabbler never knew she needed. Those two as a team focused on the job would be terrifying. Fooling around during the job, they would be even more so. And to a wider audience.
I shudder to think of the consequences of letting Sydney loose in Dabbler’s lab. It would be a constant series of Syd saying “Oooh, what does this button do?” followed by a hasty “No! Don’t touch that!”
Buttons. Those big red things, with virtual, luminous, “push me
” signs, hanging over them?
mahoshi squared with an ADHD acting washu ………fear has a new face
Those signs are only in your imagination, usually.
See, the thing is, Dabbler would have buttons like that all over her lab. They wouldn’t be there as anything but schmuck bait, but they would be there…and pushing one or two would quickly teach Sydney not to push them.
Push one, get Silly-Stringed. Push two, Bucket O’ Slime. I need a volunteer for number three.
A perfect spot to discuss magic swords, hammerspaces and other girly topics. Punctuated by loud bangs and puffs of multi-colored smoke drifting through Archon’s break area.
Awesome little cartoon at the bottom, I loved it! XD
Great page, just pointing out a typo in panel 2.
Gotten on by–is backwards :D
N’m realized you can say it the other way as soon as I hit enter. Ugh.
Those are the worst type of typos.
her Bag of Tricks is vast?
Guess she got the Tan version….
( paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/magicItems/wondrousItems.html#_bag-of-tricks )
I met a guy, last week, who would not like to see that demonstrated, in person. He already had one arm bitten off by a tiger!
Just noticing that the tan bag can produce lions and tigers and bears.
Oh, my.
Also noticed there might be, however rare, instances where it would be better to have a “lesser” bag.
is dabbler felix the cat?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=amGbBFsiuzc
Are you calling Dabbles a gay carpet-bagger? o_O
No, she is a trysexual carpet-bagger.
Hmmm, she always seemed so cheerful and happy-go-lucky to me
XXXX seems the type to wash, dry, fluff, comb, style, recolor, and even try snacking on carpet more than just tuck it in a little carry on.
A problem I see, is before it was said you didn’t want Dabbler to just have an answer for everything, but she seems to have had an answer for everything.
Just because she has an answer for everything, doesn’t mean she gets it correct, or even answering the same question
Hilts. Blades have hilts, not handles.
Unless you’re talking about Blade the vampire hunter when he’s on an internet forum. That Blade has a handle: Vampkilla3031
Actually, judging by how I’ve seen the term used, IE “to the hilt” I would wager that the hilt is actually the portion of the blade that keeps you from slicing your own fingers off. Alternatively it also keeps your opponent from slicing your fingers off when you decide to try blocking their blade with yours. i could always be wrong tho, I Am Not A Bladesmith.
Hrm, looked it up, looks like hilt is both of those things, basically it’s every part of the sword that isn’t sharp.
Weapon terminology is eccentric. It was created on the spot by the original users. Mostly recorded by scholars and monks who knew only a bit of the technology and technique. Then mostly forgotten when firearms became standard. Then rediscovered by scholars who knew even less about bladed weapons than those monks. Who competed with each other to publish definitions of obscure terms written in forgotten languages… I’m rambling like mad but I think you get the drift. Pick a term you like it is probably a standard somewhere. Hilt, grip, handle. To hold.
fullerine crystals+alkali metals = celestium’s zapper properties in reality
Absolutely love the big panel with 4 arms, two swords and the evile Dabbs grin. Can we get it for a wall paper, huh? can we DaveB?
+1 on that sir.
my new desktop pleeaazzeeee (ignore the photo teleported to your desk of me trying {and failing} the puppy dog eyes if you would)
Dave, I think the art and the Dabbler dialogue were plenty. By trying to explain it as Ice but better you missed out on being able to let us fill in the blanks with a logical explanation –It may be “cold” magic but there is no need for it to be water ice… It could easily be methane ice, or a crystalline superconductive ‘liquid’ in the same way glass is a liquid. Aside from that minor, minor quibble –ATTABOY! KEEP IT COMING!!!
And welcome to Florida. Keep the beachgoers from seeing red –use sunscreen. ;)
DaveB, I think there is some inconsistency with swords hand guards direction.
That is in panel 6 I think, and panel 7 has the guard drawn differently.
Lol, triple checked and I am wrong about panel 6. Blue blade is held edge up, I thought it was down.
I still think 7 needs corrected.
Anyone else amused that someone named Heavenly Sword was defeated by a sword that splits into two blades, ? If it’s pure coincidence, I find it all the more amusing.
Don’t remember it splitting into 2 swords, but haven’t played it in years
I have observed an interesting phenomenon. Sydney revealed their company website name, at the press conference. Check out where it links to:
eventhorizoncomics.com
Apparently a fan did it if you read the comments section.
Does this mean that Dabbler gave HS the cold shoulder (or actually two of them)?
It’s not ice. It’s translucent aluminum. *grin*
“Drops a Shatner on quarktime”
drops quark on shatner then ads Jonathan Frakes, Wil Wheaton, Brent Spiner, DeForest Kelley, Leonard Nimoy, and Walter Koenig on top
Let Bones rest in pece he deserves it.
Transparent aluminum is a real thing. It is basically ruby, without the impurities that make it red (mostly chromium). The formal name is anodized aluminum and it is far stronger and harder than metallic aluminum. As Scotty said in “Star Trek: The Voyage Home” a window made of transparent aluminum could be much thinner, but be just as effective, if not more, than conventional materials, like glass or poly-carbonate plastics; the big problem is that producing anodized aluminum is a lot more expensive than producing the other materials.
I remember when I was in university, talking with a graduate student in chemistry who was researching the properties of di-lithium oxide crystals and her supervising professor was also working an an anodized aluminum project as well. I thinking we were in the Computer Science Club together.
Actually, I came up with several ways that it could be useful to be able to create gradiants in “ice” composition for this situation.
A big problem I don’t see coming up is the charge grounding out (certainly seems like shes thrusting the sword in ice in the ground). What if the bottom/majority of that ice is close to purified DI water to prevent the charge from grounding or arching out? The most interesting electrical properties of real world materials often happen at their surface. Who is to say that the top of the ice isn’t coated with a highly conductive film?
On top of that, the conductances of many materials greatly increase when super cooled, she could easily be working out a wonderful recipe for an on the fly super conductor. Of course I’m willing to let this all be chucked to magic, but such things can be very interesting when forced to dance with real science.
I will note my pilled higher and deeper is in molecular genetics, but I’ve been working with nano-tech for a few years now. I wasn’t going to post, but some of the comments are making me wonder how many other carrier scientists read this….
My apologies to the people in the first page of comments who mentioned grounding. I hadn’t read that page when I commented.
Again I think the issue of grounding gives the opportunity to address the conductance questions.
Courses in my education include physics, robotics, mechatronics and software development. I am not specialised yet have a good knowledge of most fields ‘basics’.
I’d need to catch up if anyone wanted an advanced field specific conversation, not that I’d mind, I love talking science.
You have been trained in battlemech construction? :-O
Just what century have you time travelled back from? Did your robotics course include anti-terminator combat techniques? Can I have a ride in your mech? I hope it is one of the land-air convertible ones. They are really cool.
I hate to be a Debbie Downer Yorp, but it is a real and current course of engineering. For the curious here’s a page about it. https://www.engr.ncsu.edu/mechatronics/what-mech.php
Can’t I haz mech ride?
*sad puppy dog eyes, tearing up*
It ended up being called mechatronics by Japanese engineers because of the necessity of all those related fields to building functional mecha. Some graduate thesis will be a functional medium sized mech like a VOTOMS or Genesis Climber.
I’m designing something now actually.
(Hint: My choice of name has relevance)
Ooh. Let me guess. Is it K9 cybernetic enhancement? Because, opposable thumbs… those are really handy for opening tins of dog food!
*wags tail excitedly*
Maybe human vocal chord and brain speech centre K9 enhancement? You have no idea, how much you take for granted, the simple freedom of speech.
Opposable thumbs are shockingly difficult to wire and calibrate properly, and the primary funding source for this kind of project tends to be militaries, so I was thinking something more along the lines of pneumatic retractable razor claws (and yes they will work just fine for opening tin cans).
Wicked. It would sure beat using a the alternatives.
Ooh, pneumatic Wolverine, but externally sheathed, instead of internally.
I can just see it now: Hey, Sarge! Do these come with a really strong healing factor too?
Mmm, I can think of a good use. I have got to get my paws on that invention. Err… put the invention on my paws. Oh, what the heck, you get the point!
Picturespleasethankyou!
Sorry, but I’m not far enough along to have anything patented. If I post blueprints and someone else builds it first, it may well turn out like segways (you can’t legally build your own now, so if you want one you have to pay whatever the company charges).
If it’s that big, I can wait for the press release stage with everyone else. Good luck.
Very wise. I have a couple of patent-worthy ideas. But until they are converted from concepts and research, into schematics, they are staying safely where they are. Somewhere that is not connected to the internet, or even a local network.
Which, sadly, will likely mean they stay undeveloped for some time. Given that I do not have the money to hire specialists, to work on the aspects that I lack expertise in, nor to even file the patents. But, equally, I also have other projects that are much more important. So cest la vie.
*shrugs*
But, do tell us if and when yours is set for a public unveiling. You have more than one of us titillated.
Ya know with the organic elements of the blade you could have made it grow the extra handle. :D
Wouldn’t magically erecting a handle, by means of being grasped by a Succubus, be rather phallic?
And it makes my eyes water, at the thought of her pulling it into two, like a wishbone!
Putting it back together would be a problem. Need to break one off first, prepare for phalic induced watery eyes.
Some of the comments about Dabbler and her sword are skating on thin ice when it comes to innuendo.
xurial has no problem with using thin protection when messing with something long and stiff in discussions or forgoing the cool layer of defense altogether.
My eyebrows just went up in flames. No biggie, they grow back eventually. I’m only mildly prudish.
I am amused by Sydney’s pose in the vote incentive. I like to imagine Fred struggling to draw sub-DDs. :D
He can do cute. See Sheila in the various Edge Guard appearances.
The salt explanation I feel is a bit iffy. I personally like the explanation that I came up with before I read the salt one, which is that “It conducts electricity so well it can conduct it through other materials”.
She’s monologuing. Only villains are supposed to do that. :-P
I am going to do you a favour here, and reply. With that, you have started a debate. Without it, you were monologuing.
“Let me show you a little trick. Something Mom taught me while you weren’t around.” Best distraction attack in history.
Sorry that was a reply to Peter Sadlon.
Spidey taunts and monologues. So does Deadpool (ok ok he is crazy and a merc, but sometimes he’s not a villain).
It distracts ones opponents.
“My wife cautioned me to research whether or not ice conducts electricity”
LOL!
Methinks your wife knows more science than you and didn’t want to tell you outright to “fix yo shit”. Ahhh, what would we do without feminine tact?
—
Also? God I love this comic. You just keep giving me ideas for physics questions. And if you don’t mind, can I borrow the comic for a question?
Four million at least? Naaahhh… You just MIGHT just be able to get away with ~40,000V and not necessarily that high, although yes… 4 million+ is very likely. (Somebody else wanna check my work?)
So, drawing upon the internet and assuming that the ice thingy created by Dabbler has the same composition as a glacier…
1. Assume ice blast is at -10°C and is identical in composition to the glacier 1m in diameter with the distance between Heavenly and the electric sword of 1m.
2. Assume poor Heavenly was given enough current to induce a ventricular fibrillation (0.3A) and that Heavenly’s body resistance is fixed and is at 1,000Ω (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_shock)
3. The ice should have a 1E5 Ωm resistivity at at -10°C.(https://www.igsoc.org/journal.old/6/47/igs_journal_vol06_issue047_pg623-633.pdf)
4. Use the V=IR and ρ=(pL)/A (https://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/electric/resis.html)
We might conclude that to complete that circuit and put 300mA through Heavenly and the chunk of ice, one might be able to get away with only an electrical potential of ~40,000 V.
—
But yeah. Magical ice. I like that explanation.
As a comment on the conductivity of ice conjured from a custom magical weapon by a self trained half (Quarter? Sixteenth?) breed succubus technomancer:
….Yeah, you’re lucky if it doesn’t crawl and grow tentacles. We’re talking about magic ice summoned – there’s not nearly enough water in the volume of air that spell effects to generate that much ice – from somewhere /thoroughly else/.
The chances that /actual water/ from her home universe has the same properties ours does are not 0% obviously…I just wouldn’t care to bet on it. Adding that it’s something Dabbler does as a magic attack, well… I know too much about too many different classifications of Succubi.
(Universes where the classical elements are things like Blight, Corrosive, Blast, Freeze and Torment are probably nearby neighbors for Dabbler..)
I have just figured out what panel 1 reminded me of.
Reminds me of Bruce Lee movies.
Where he would start bleeding, stop take a taste then open a can o “Buttwhup” on the bad guy.
YES! That fits better, but he tended to use his thumb, not fore-finger, guess Dabbles needs more movie nights with Hong Kong cinema :D
‘VOOM’? Thought Heaven went “G’YAAA!” & “NRRG’YA!“
Be careful. You’ll end up summoning an Elder God if you keep speaking in that language.
the and sound was a good break to inhibit arcane energy gathering between the two words, the dimensional barrier /anti-eldrichhorror-summoning field around the solar system can take a lot more than that anyway
And panels five and nine Dabbler is so hot
Show me a Dabble shot that isn’t hot on some degree :D
About time that fight was over, seriously how long did Dab spend fighting that one person there?
Only a couple minutes at most. But in that same time, Math, Anvil and Halo took down 9 opponents to Dabbler’s two. She just now caught up with Sydney. And Dabbs got hurt worse than Halo in the fight.
I was joking about some of the less impressive baddies needing to reconsider their lifestyle choice. Dabbler at least needs to consider her approach to super character fighting.
Taking out gods usually depends on a McGuffin hidden in a forbidden temple guarded by traps, monsters and fanatical Cardinals with high Stealth skills. Massive casualties and property damage on a continental level are SOP. Toning it down seems to have left her indecisive.
Winning is not the important part. It is having fun. Which Dabbler realises is an art form.
Besides which, we all know that she who dies with the best toys wins. Dabbler is pretty high on the list of contenders, using that score.
Meh me I preferred to hit my enemies fast, and hard, and with as much firepower as possible so they can’t recover. Sure I can toy with my opponent for a while but bleh I’d rather just end em go wading into the war zone wiping out more enemies with heavy firepower.
agreed – it’s only overkill after the fact
Just because they are dead doesn’t mean you can’t still play with them :D
I was going to call you on the fact that ice is nearly a perfect insulator (in fact if you can get your hands on a piece of absolutely pure ice it’s easier to just blow a hole through it than send a current through it), but it looks like you’ve already learned that lesson. I will give you a partial out however. Since you don’t show the current being conducted /through/ the ice you could claim that it got conducted /over/ the ice (which isn’t very hard at all, it just takes the right impurities on the surface of the ice and it nearly becomes a superconductor). This is one instance though where I won’t let you just say “it’s magic”, as then you’re just allowing the magic in the setting to be an escape for when you don’t want to follow rules, instead of forcing the magic to follow a set of rules, even if they do slightly differ from the rules we’re normally familiar with.
Am I the only one that sees Dabbler being unnecessarily cruel here? Heavenly Sword is already trapped in crystal and immobile. She’s out of the fight. What she then does is beat on the perp that’s already down.
Not really HS has proven, to me at least, she couldn’t be contained by the ice. She can reconfigure her blade. She does it enough times and ice will either shatter or weaken enough for her to break it. Better to knock her out and that easier to do when she is immobilized. Besides less chance on HS hurting herself struggling.
Erm, when was it proven that she couldn’t be contained by ice? She can make blade-like projections along any linear object in her hands, yeah. I don’t see how crystal (it’s not ice) qualifies.
Right now she can’t move. She can make energy projections of the ribbon-thing in her hands without moving. I don’t see how tasing her is helping right now.
I am with Peter Sadlon on this. I had come to the conclusion that conventional non-lethal options would no longer be viable options. Heavenly Sword’s capabilities are far too high to have a realistic chance of success. Plus she is making intense effort to kill Dabbler. Getting closer to success every time that Dabbler underestimates her.
So it was my conclusion that, lacking a super-powered option, use of lethal force was necessary.
Given that, any lesser alternative is viable. The level of pain being irrelevant, provided there is no permanent damage, given the alternative would be death! *
Further Dabbler is under no obligation to unduly risk her life, at this stage. The combination of containment
and incapacitation minimises the risk to her life. Use of either in isolation leaves too many possibilities of overcoming them.**
That said though, I am not opposing your querying of whether it was unnecessarily cruel. Those are questions which must be raised, whenever extreme force is deployed. But, in this instance, I feel that the actions were proportionate and necessary.
Not just for Dabbler, but for Heavenly Sword herself. Peggy will be repositioned shortly, having moved after firing her last shot. She is a professional, battle-hardened, sniper. Who is getting constant spotting from Harem. I am sure that Heavenly’s life was measurable in less than a minute, without such intervention.
* This is the same level of ethical decision-making, as resuscitating somebody, who is not breathing. You apply sufficient force, in chest compression, to maximise the chance of restarting breathing. If that results in the possibility of broken ribs, which will cause painful breathing for a prolonged period, that is irrelevant. Either the patient will fail to be revived, in which case they never get to feel the pain. Or they are alive, and can heal up, in time.
** For example Heavenly has numerous allies. It would be a moment’s work to smash or melt the ice. Even without assistance, she could break free in a moment, by herself. She still has her weapon in hand. As such can simply grow her arrow-like power manifestations out from the whip, smashing the ice, as they expand.
Ice is very good in compression, but is easily shattered. Especially from within. And we know that Heavenly can apply enough force to smash walls down. Plus it can be fired across the room, from the weapon, so can even blast away ice that it is not in contact with.
None of which she can do now, because she has been rendered incapable of commanding her power.
Without DaveB clarrifying I’m not sure if that was actually the blade being fired or the shockwave from it’s swing. If you are right that would make her all the more dangerous. If it is the latter she’s at least on Math’s in her respective martial art but that would not help with the magic ice crystals. As we pointed she wouldn’t have need the shockwave with her blade channeling is enough to break through.
As far as letting the others break her free. I see that happening more with a hero team than a villain team. With villians it’s more if I get around to it and I get to make him owe me or I get to gloat over them about it.
When Heavenly Sword carves off a corner of the building to drop bricks on Achilles, she does so while standing all the way across the sidewalk from the building. It’s clear that she can extend her energy blade a consider distance.
True but that’s hardly the same thing as fired across the room.
Whether it is the direct power itself, or the secondary effects resulting from the shockwave, there is no doubt that Heavenly Sword can fire across the room. She it destroying a target, what twenty feet away from her?
Heavenly is not just a melee attacker, she has deadly ranged capability too.
The beige tinge to the leading edge of the attack, extends all the way from Heavenly’s weapon. Which matches the colour of her barbed arrows and other cutting effects. My personal interpretation is that the power has extended the full distance.
Although I remain open to the possibility that it is, as you say, just the shockwave.
Zixinus, the author himself flat out stated in the blog for the page that it was ice, and ice is a type of crystal, so saying that she is trapped in “crystal (its not ice)” is wrong in comparison to what the author himself is telling us.
An argument which I would normally support wholeheartedly. However, buried in the four hundred plus comments, there is one by DaveB, indicating that he is reconsidering. So informed speculation will probably help him in that reflection.
It is pretty clear that Heavenly Sword has “super” level defenses. Dabbler has been throwing little spells at her the entire fight without effect. Sword has also soaked up a couple of big hits without being notably effected by it. She has also demonstrated that her power is pretty adaptable.
What Dabbler does here is a classic combination attack; Root your opponent in place so they can’t dodge, then zap the hell out of them.
That’s not being cruel, that’s fighting like you mean it.
Dabbler is following the cardinal rule from Zombieland “Always double tap.”