Grrl Power #354 – And I would fly 500 miles…
A music video in case anyone isn’t familiar with Sydney’s tune. The first time I ever heard this song it was actually in an AMV. Not this one though. That was a video from before YouTube existed. This video is cut from an anime called Redline, which I’ve never heard of before. It looks amusing, even if it contains some… questionable physics.
Mach 4 is pretty impressive. America is about 2600 miles across, and mach 4 is about 2700 miles per hour at sea level, meaning Sydney can get anywhere in the contiguous US in about an hour. Well, excluding her needing to stop every ~15 minutes to refresh the air in her shield, but lets assume they do eventually equip her with some sort of air tank or rebreather.
I’ve never said explicitly where the team is located other than somewhere “central-ish.” I lean towards Dallas because that’s where I live, but Denver or Kansas City would make as much sense. The idea being that they’re already halfway to anywhere they need to go in the states, so really Sydney’s only 30-40 minutes away from anywhere USA, and Maxima can get there even faster if need be. Of course most of the team still needs conventional transport, but the centralized location minimizes their travel time as well. The eventual goal being to split the team into different groups as their membership grows and establish at the very least an East and West Coast base.
Being able to cross the US in an hour is pretty incredible, but it makes me think how ridiculous The Flash and Superman are, who, depending on the continuity reboot you’re referencing, can both travel at the speed of light. I don’t keep up with DC comics these days, in fact 95% of my DC knowledge comes from Batman the animated series, Superman TAS and Justice League animated. I assume the current power levels are tamped quite a bit though, cause otherwise it would cause enormous writing problems. Ignoring relativistic problems and city destroying wake – it’s fine, he’s using the “speed force” whatever – there are issues like if someone shot someone on the West Coast, The Flash could run from the East Coast and back 50 times before the bullet left the barrel. How was a guy like Captain Boomerang ever one of his enemies? Boomerangs are WAY SLOWER than bullets.
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So, off topic of how broken superhero comics are, Im wondering if the trip back to ARCHON will be a game of tag between them to test how maneuverable sydney is at high speeds. After all, flying in a straight line is easy, trying to react to sudden changes while traveling 4x faster than the speed of sound is not. Especially when your powers dont include enhanced perception. People like superman (or maxima) can handle high speed reactions because its a part of their biology, its basically a secondary power like the zero range telekinesis used to explain why their clothes dont explode from friction. But sydney has no powers, she has orbs that let her do crazy stuff. So considering her human level reactions, she may have a lot of issues dealing with surprises at high speed.
And yes, back on the topic of superman, he is utterly stupidly impossibly powered. There was a comic where superman was something like 25 light years from earth. Jimmy was in trouble back on earth and activated his emergency watch, which has a hypersonic frequency only superman can hear. Superman heard this frequency from 25 light years away, through the vacuum of space, and returned to earth in at most 10 minutes. There are so many different laws of physics that breaks that its hard to count them all, but thats superman for you. Laws of reality are annoying suggestions he tends to ignore. And yes, this was in the more recent continuity.
There was a rather interesting comic-book series called Irredeemable, produced by some third party publisher (I think) where the premise was that the captain-ersatz Superman went nuts and started just wrecking everything. Later on while the other characters are discussing how to stop him, one of them has a theory that his one real power isn’t strength or speed or super-senses, but reality warping. He’s not lifting a tank with his muscles, he’s shifting it’s mass to a pocket dimension. He doesn’t have X-ray vision, he briefly alters the property of an object so that light passes through it, etc etc etc.
Personally the ridiculous nature of power-swings and the inconsistency with how they are applied is why I don’t read more comics. My personal breaking point was in (if I’m recalling rightly)the New 52 or one of it’s spinoffs and Superman travels from Jupiter to Earth in just a few seconds.
My first thought was “that’s not speed, that’s teleportation”.
My second through was “if an object of superman’s mass entered the atmosphere at multiple times the speed of light it would impart so much energy to the air around it that matter would undergo fission/fussion and the resulting explosion would decimate an entire hemisphere”.
My third though was “I’ve been reading to much XKCD lately”.
But yeah, I don’t know how bad Marvel is, but from my limited experiences they at least tend to keep a shorter leash on their speedsters. If DC did a reboot more in line with the DCAU, I might be inclined to try and start reading comic again.
I think a lot of people are conflating “plausible” with “realistic”. Saying someone can will themselves to fly at 1000 mph (but they have to deal with some of the physics involved) is unrealistic, but it ‘feels’ way more plausible than saying they can will themselves to travel at relativistic speeds with no apparent effects on the environment.
Different folks have their Suspension of Disbelief defaulting to different numbers.
To me, the problem isn’t the physics so much as the logic. Once the Flash figures out where you are, you are instantly unconscious and in jail… unless he can’t legally pin anything on you. Flash stories (considering he is a science detective) should be about him finding the evidence to be allowed to arrest foes, not dodging boomerangs.
Superman is even worse, because he can find forensic evidence to the genetic level with his eyes without so much as standing up from behind his typewriter.
However you classify it, I think the upper levels of power for some of the characters, particularly those who are labeled as “hero”, don’t make for good story telling. You might as well be writing “The adventures of God and his buddy Sam”, and trying to make them both out to be equally important.
There was another incident (probably in another continuity) where one of Green Arrow’s kids gets shot, and Ollie starts screaming for Superman. Clark hears him from halfway around the world, and comes racing to his aid. We’ll ignore the fact that sound waves would have taken several hours to travel that distance even accounting for magic-super-hearing, and that I guess Boyscout lawful-good Superman must be ignoring the cries for help of hundreds if not thousands of people every day.
No, lets focus on the fact that the writer ramps up this dramatic tension, then fixes it by having hero X decide to get off his butt and actually do something. That is not a satisfying climax.
I’ve heard that some people complained that in the DCAU Superman was “to weak” because they show him getting worfed occasionally by whatever the bad-guy de jour is. And maybe compared to some of his comic-book depictions he is. But at least the other characters got some time in the spotlight in a way that wasn’t completely implausible, in a show that was ostensibly for kids.
Meanwhile, the “adult” comics with their dark-and-gloomy atmosphere and excessive amounts of sex, wangst, and death-oh-no-really-we-were-just-kidding, can’t manage even that much.
Gee, I think I might have found the reason Superhero movies pull in hundreds of millions while actual comic-book sales register less than the breeze from a passing gnat’s wings.
Actually, yes, Supes does ‘ignore’ thousands of cries for help every minute, he is just one man afterall, not a god, and if he did help everyone who needed to take out a large bag of trash to the curb, people would stop doing anything for themselves because they have a Superslave to do it for them
Marvel speedsters main limit is the fact they get BORED. It may take just a fraction of an instant to the outside observer but… to the actual speedster everything happens at “normal” speed. Want to run to the other side of the city and back? Fine – you have to run the entire distance. With no one to talk to. And the “speed mode” has to be voluntarily engaged. (Surprises are possible)
Incidentally – Marvel speedsters are usually drawn as “walking” in superspeed mode.
Really? Cite examples, please?
That sounds reasonable. Also I’m never sure if it’s ever been applied in-comic, but presumably under the same rules you’d also age normally while using your super-speed. Depending on how much you used your powers, you could go from wise-cracking teenager to old-fogey in just a few years of real-time.
The whole hitting atmosphere thing is easily explained. He stops flying ftl when he reaches atmosphere. Because yeah, him hitting earths atmosphere at 800,000,000,000,000 mph would be a Bad Thing ™
Even allowing for Superman to slow down through the upper, thinner atmosphere, that still leaves him traveling 30 or 40 miles through the thick part in a matter of seconds. The characters don’t hear him coming; he’s just “there” all of a sudden. In reality Superman’s arrival would be followed shortly thereafter by at the very least a cripplingly loud sonic boom (see the comic), if not a blast-wave of pressurized air that would devastate the landscape.
“that his one real power isn’t strength or speed or super-senses, but reality warping”
you mean like the time he was holding a black hole? or maybe the time where he punched a hole through the fabric of reality and to another world… or… perhaps how he is powered by the sun, and yet he is outputting FAR more power in a second, than the sun would be able to supply for a thousand years.
‘holding a black hole’ … gads, Bugs Bunny does that ALL the time, and no-one EVER questions it (and Wile-E coyote, and roadrunner, and….and…)
I think they use “Portable Holes,” not black holes.
And all thanks to that inventive genius, Calvin Q. Calculus.
https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x86eu4_the-hole-idea_shortfilms
XD Daniel the Human & I both agree, classic stuff there… XD
I recently read The Fall of Doc Future which has some ridiculously overpowered superheroes *but* tries to keep to realistic physics limitations. Good stuff.
I’ve read that. I like when the speedster sprints from NYC to Paris to saved her friend from being hit by a bus (she heard the slamming breaks on the phone) She left a plasma trail (and EM pulse?) across the Atlantic that almost caused an international incidence. Good read.
Rats, I was actually just going through the comments to make sure no one else had posted that link, so that I could post it. Ah well. Opinion seconded — great story. It really shows just how powerful a speedster is if they actually use their abilities properly.
I’m somehow assuming that the orbs not only let her do the crazy stuff, but help her have reaction times to handle that crazy stuff in the same way that the fly orb removes her vertigo. They’re almost necessary secondary powers.
I dont think vertigo counts since its more that her gravity is personalized so she is always standing up no matter which way she is facing. Its possible it will give her inhuman reaction time, but im thinking that would be a bit too powerful for a secondary ability.
I think it’s just a necessary secondary power, like Cyclops having the ability to recognize angles (which makes him REALLY good at playing pool) as a secondary power to his eye beams.
Also, vertigo isnt caused by gravity per se. It’s caused from the feeling that one is moving when the are not. When Sydney is on the edge of the building, she isnt ‘moving’ or dealing with gravity. It’s not until she lets go of the orb that she gets the dolly zoom dizzy effect/acrophobia.
If you look up vertigo, not once will they ever mention gravity as a cause or even a symptom. You can have vertigo even when on the ground.
Hey Sydney. In addition to the hat and glasses, remember to take sunscreen to deal with the more intense UV at higher altitudes. Because “traveling twice the speed of sound. It’s easy to get burned” :)
(yeah, I know the shield will probably screen UV, but then the quote doesn’t work)
Depends. Does the rules-lawyering from page 2 apply? If so, Sydney’s shield is transparent and will not block light-based damage. In fact, considering that page 2 seems to come from a time when Sydney has spent a good long while at Archon, she could have been speaking from personal experience.
Actually, I think we’ve already seen counter-examples to the rules-lawyering from page 2.
Basically, the rules of the game apply to the game, not to Sydney’s reality.
For instance, Sydney said that lasers – which are made of light – should go right through a transparent shield. Well, her shield is transparent and when someone shot lasers at it during the restaurant fight, they did not go through.
Dabbler says it’s because her shield is not “entry-level.”
The Flash is probably the only Meta that can easily kill superman if he had too/wanted too, his current abilities include Time Travel via moving faster than the speed of light and breaking the Corona Bariar, Intangibility by moving parts of his bod or his whole body at the molecular level at a vibrational speed so fast his body moves through solid objects; and yet he still can have a solid character cause he’s not nearly omnipotent like Superman.
Actually even Supes has said that if Plastic Man’s mind wasn’t a permanent resident in LaLa Land that HE’d be the stronger.
That’s just a ridiculous retcon. Plastic Man has classically never been able to change his body’s nature, only its shape: he’s always super-strong rubber.
But didn’t Elastic Man get his abilities in the same way but could alter his nature at least somewhat?
No, just his shape. That’s why when he shapeshifted into Barda’s dress (to be a perv) he still had the same ‘design’ of his clothes.
https://1.bp.blogspot.com/_16vaepAqX-c/THBg5ixMa0I/AAAAAAAAB-M/bm5DJLe74PY/s1600/jla-033-06.jpg
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/_16vaepAqX-c/THBg629hDxI/AAAAAAAAB-U/6eHUa_X8ZnI/s1600/jla-033-07.jpg
I would just like to point out that wonder woman has superman’s strength and a magic sword, with his weakness to magic she should be able to kill him fairly easily.
the Lasso would do the job as well.
Wonder Woman also can’t ‘easily’ kill Superman. She’s not at Superman’s strength, although she’s very close. However, what she does have is that she’s not only close to Superman’s strength, but she’s also a MUCH better fighter, with the strength and muscle memory agility and speed to make that fighting ability actually effective.
The magic weapons also help. But there’s already been fights between Superman and Wonder Woman before. She won once, and lost twice, and there were two draws. When she won, she wound up having her wrist broken and her bones burnt from the effort, and had to basically slice Superman’s throat with her tiara in order to win (in order to give her time to break Max Lord’s neck in order to break Superman out of the mind control her was under). Wonder Woman has also fought Supergirl a couple of times, once as a draw (in New Earth, where Supergirl was the one to stop the fight in order to give an idea of how to merge the good and evil halves of her together) and once where she barely won (in New 52, where Supergirl actually broke free of Wonder Woman’s lasso, something that even Superman wasnt able to do – but doing so basically drained her after Kara had already fought Flash as well).
However, without Wonder Woman’s weapons, she loses or, at best, fights to a draw (she’s lost twice when she didnt have her weapons). And I say this as a massive, MASSIVE fan of Wonder Woman (although I’m even more of a fan of Supergirl).
Flash can’t easily kill Superman.
Is that dude with the hat in the middle of the last panel an error or is his skin changing colour?
We found another super!
I wonder if other small changes have been inserted into the panels when Sydney is holding the truesight orb.
The other detail I like: even in the first panel, he stands out. He’s the only one ignoring Max and Sydney in the crowd. That is some excellent foreshadowing on display.
TY sir. I was just posting I wished for something like this and missed the stealth change.
And –she has used true sight around Arianna and the General but _not_ around Leon (or Joel for that matter).
Looks like he turned the same color as Dabbler’s natural look. Maybe he’s an Incubus who has been sent to our world to spy on Dabbler.
Then why are they at the Grand Canyon? o_O
Or maybe he’s just a Martian on vacation. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.
Didn’t even notice him till you pointed it out. Nice.
So any predictions on what the speed limit of the flight orb would be with that last dot added?
Plaid? :D
+1 internet for you.
Anyone else notice the dude in the brown hat turned grey in the second last panel?
Is that an error, or did we just find someone interesting?
His hair is grey and he turned his head slightly.
And the shape of his ears changed as well
Sydney is holding her true aight orb in that panel.
My favorite parts of this comic are where we are exploring her powers and learning these kinds of things.
Wait, just one minute here!! Did Sydney manage to tuck all of her hair under that hat? o_O
Oh, btw – sooner or later someone’s gonna knock out and capture Sydney (because it’s a superhero comic – that’s what happens), and while she’s out cold they’ll either seal her orbs in a concrete block or just separate her from them with a brick wall. Wouldn’t even need to put her in a cell, since she couldn’t leave wherever the orbs are trapped.
This is my prediction.
I suspect that the orbs can move with sufficient force to damage and eventually break through most common materials. That they don’t break tubey is mostly because Sydney doesn’t want them to.
That’s assuming that the orbs are either indestructible or simply tougher than any material known to Earth or Dabbler.
dabbler don’t even know what’s powering them.
To lazy to check, but I think Dabbs couldn’t even tell if they actually exists as physical objects. As far as her instruments could tell the space they apparently was occupying were suspiciously empty…
Dang it! It was page #103 and Dabbs says that she doesn’t get any feedback from the orbs, “not even a basic E.M. or pulse echo”.
Yep, Gwen’s scans were “Less than Nothing” Dabbler’s couldn’t even detect the light that was coming from them.
Sydney would do some truly epic cursing.
The orbs may not “allow” themselves to be separated from Sydney. Even Max couldn’t get them too far away.
You don’t have to move them to encase them: if they automatically self-adjust so as not to bang into people or objects, you could slowly build a wall between them and Sydney, or ‘herd’ them into a box and then seal the box
The problem with Superman is they need to set consistent power level dampening. They tried that when Byrne restarted Superman, but later writers just broke the rule. The problem would be either they make a villain far stronger than Superman and then have him face that villain and he overpowers them slightly, ad nauseum. Or the writers write him into a box and he has to break a limit to get out of it (and does so with frequent regularity). What Superman needs is a better editor.
Trust writers not to play by the established rules and to try and leave “their mark” on stuff. You see it in more than just comics. Any time fairly traditionally trained writers get onboard with a project that they didn’t start, they have to change it in some way. Or cover ground that’s already been covered.
How many times can you send a character on a “Hero’s Journey” before they’ve supposedly gained all the wisdom and self-knowledge they should ever need? It’s a persistent issue in long running media forms (TV series, canon connected movies, comic books, and book series). There are staple methods of writing stories that begin to deteriorate quickly if you repeat them too often. Some writers are very good a grasping this, many others are not. I’m not an english major, so I have no clue if anyone anywhere in any course covers this topic. Every source I run into basically keeps spouting the same “classical forms” with some dating back to Greek epics.
Next test! “Hey Max, let me put you inside my forcefield. I want to see how much carrying someone effects my top speed heading home. Just have a seat and let me drive.” Because lets face it. If sydney can transport a lot of weight while maintaining a high rate of speed, she could replace the company jet as the emergency transport for the group. Mach 4 aint no joke. Of course, this makes me VERY curious to know what max’s top speed is. I mean, we dont see any sign of strain at hitting mach 4, but she also acknowledges that with at least one circle still greyed out, sydney might be capable of flying faster than her some day. So maybe she is at mach 6-7?
As far as upgrade points. I personally wouldnt use it on flight. She is already incredibly fast. More than fast enough to travel wherever she needs to go in a hurry. I would personally suggest a three way decision between shield, ppo, and lightwhip. Lightwhip more than ppo. Shield is obvious. Stronger shield is always good, a shield that might have new options could be even better. The lightwhip is an ideal tool for nonlethal capture and combat. It has a low to mid level of superstrength on it, and is incredibly flexible. So any improvements on that would be awesome.
The ppo hasnt come into play yet, and until we learn just how it works and how deadly and easily used it is, it might not be worth upgrading because it is so rarely going to be used in a fight. But even so, being able to upgrade it, or even unlock a new function would be nice. Heck, she might even unlock an accuracy bonus. Iirc, the thing didnt exactly shoot in a straight line at the tank. Being able to cut a tank in half “like butta” is great and all, but only if you can hit what you are aiming at 100% of the time and nothing else.
I’d say each notch in the final greeted out orb is 10 Mach speed. So max speed 50 Mach?
Also the shield’s strength tree (5 full dots) is maxed out already so I wouldn’t put the point here.
Double checking both the full tree (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1166) and where she put her point (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1171), it looks to me like the forcefield orb only has four of five circles filled on the longest (visible) tree…
I’m interested in those dots that connect the orbs to the center, which when filled seem to fill a wedge of the heptagon… And then there’s that side tree on the flight orb, which to my Hero System trained mind screams “Ranked Advantage!”
Blast it, where’s the PDF of the Owner’s Manual?
Thanks. Maybe if she puts it in her shield it’ll be truly indestructible since rank 4 can stop a maxima blast.
The dots at the center apply the orb effect to the orbs themselves. As such the orbs currently have a shield and can fly.
Her shield strength (if thats even what it is) is at 4 out of 5 orbs. Flight also has a 4 out of 5 dots. I do like the two single dot sub sections on the shield orb though. Possibly two different unique abilities to unlock for it?
I’d get Sydney to put on her scuba gear, dive underwater THEN turn on her forcefield and fly.
Uh, that’s assuming the flying is “inertia free” or she could get kinda crushed if she went to fast.
(Of note – when she’s flying, gravity doesn’t affect HER but it does affect others in her forcefield. Wonder if the open skill point between the two would fix that…)
That would probably be the best test for he flight-with-load tests, various depths of water in the shield’s bubble, then test speed & maneuvering with increasing levels of water. I’m thinking with the localized gravity, the water would just stay at the bottom of the bubble, maybe even when the “bottom” of the bubble becomes the top…
Actually, a point in flight or the line connecting flight to the shield orb could be really useful if it would let her fly at high-speeds without holding said orb, if for no other reason then it would let her use a different orb at the same time. Similarly, a point into shielding could work really well if it let her put her shield on someone else or generate oxygen so she doesn’t have to drop it in the middle of flight/combat.
That would be great, but there is no indication that any point put into the flight skill tree would actually do that, same for shield. Its a nice idea, but short of filling out the tree point by point to record everything that happens we wont find out for sure. Also, aside from the points directly connected to the orbs, there are just so MANY interconnecting points to consider.
For example, there are points that link the orbs together. Every orb has a connection to every other orb. What does that mean? Does it create some sort of synergy bonus? Like when using flight + shield she is far more powerfully protected than normal? Does it mean the orbs take on different characteristics? Like, does the flight orb have a real shield automatically instead of a minor deflector for low speed flight? Or would she be able to project a shield and lift stuff with it without using the flight orb? We wont know till it happens.
Heck, that could be whats going on with the inner circle. There is a dot from flight and shield orb lighting up a portion of that middle circle already. Is THAT why there is a deflector shield when flying? We seriously need a character hack to download so we can level her up say, 20 points. That way we can explore a number of these options and see wtf happens. Maybe when the flashback ends we can see her skill tree as it appears 3 months later and be told what it means.
We don’t know what adding a point to any tree does to any of the balls
The minor deflector, spoken of in the last page’s author musings, is most likely a result of connecting the flight orb and the PPO. The PPO probably just creates energy, but fires it (ie: makes it fly) as a result of it’s being connected to the “flight” orb. Similarly, use of the Flight orb passively activates the PPO effect to “burn off” a certain amount of force/debris while flying.
The inner circle applies the orb effect to the orbs themselves, hence they have a shield and can fly.
When my kids think of their parents’ music, they’ll think of Cake.
Chocolate Mud Cake? Or Black Forest Gateau?
Strawberry Short(cake)
Anyone else notice the man who changes color after Sydney uses the truesight ball
Nope. But now that you mention it… Yes.
a few people noted it. i didn’t notice it myself before i read the comments.
Wait… Are there limits to teleportation distances? Because teleportation should be faster than flying right?
She has to either see it, or be very familiar with it. Dave has said that, for an example, she could teleport back to the family farm she grew up on, or to the archon building from a long ways away, but otherwise its line of sight. So if its an around the world sprint then that instant between ports when she reorients herself and picks her next target, max would fly past her.
That wouldn’t be the Macross Plus AMV, would it? ;D
That was “Redline” which is a car racing movie set in far future space. Put to Cake’s “The Distance”. I find Kwenton Bellette’s review quote accurate, “Speed Racer on crack.”
The AMV I first saw to that song, was made from “Speed Racer” clips. ^_^
Which Vulture apparently pointed out a you-tube of back on the first page…^_^
Has it occurred t anyone else that Dave uses the comics discussion areas as a check on superpowers for his chars? Considering how much time we all spend debating the benefits/drawbacks of certain powers and what or may not be possible within this universe, he has a tremendous pool of superhero knowledge to draw from in keeping his heroes within plausible theory.
And don’t get me wrong, its not a bad thing. I wish more artists used it this way….
Some do, well, pay attention to the comments (one artist named one of their secondary characters after me {Gus} and changed the colour of his hair and his preferred weapons)
“Clever girl”
(Dave is not a girl, AFAIK)
Dave has said that there’s been times that our blathering (My word, not his) has given him ideas that he liked or worked better than what he had originally. So yes, DAVE IS WATCHING US!!! *Playing ominous suspense music*
Sounds like Sydney needs to get a UI mod for her orbs. Does she know LUA?
i don’t think her balls operate on the same system as our own.
what if they work in base of 3, rather than base of 2.
our base of 2 (binary) is just “on or off” electric current. 0 and 1.
the base 3, could be “positive, negative or neutral” of a magnetic field within.
I wonder if one or both of her unknown orbs are meta-orbs that control the system. Points into one of those might get her a better gui or the ability to use more orbs.
Unless she can grow extra hands, not sure how she could possibly use more than two balls at once
By relaxing that restriction, so that she could use an orb as long as it was in contact with her skin, not just with her hand.
You mean retconning everything? Sydney has tried skin contact (including between her butt-cheeks) but found only palm-skin works
It sounds like they don’t mean Retconing it, but instead of having “palm/hand contact-single orb” as it’s ONLY activation option, see if adding a point to the unknown orbs allow additional activation options. Maybe “palm/hand contact-double orb” (2 orbs per hand, 4 at once), or perhaps “skin contact-single orb” (only 1 orb per hand for 2 at most still, but elsewhere on the body)…
Personally, I can’t see that happening, at least not for ages, since it’s a major part of how her powers work…
Yeah, that’d be a multi-point, unlock-only upgrade at the top of the skill tree if possible. Basically, Sydney’d need to unlock everything else first.
My guess is that one of the orbs lets her reallocate her points. The only two reasons for a tree like that are either that you want flexability in being able to have the right tools in vastly different circumstances, or that multiple people will use versions of the orbs and they need to be personalized. Other explanations just fail at the point where you ask “but couldn’t you do that easier and more efficiently some other way?” While it might be fun to have a dozen different people show up with different orbs giving them different powers, I somehow think that the author will have more fun giving her a weird set of powers after a reallocation and see how she uses them in the present circumstance.
Of course both could also be true. That would be chaos… you know, more than what Sidney can create on her own.
Random addition but Redline is an amazing anime. It’s just a movie but it’s glorious and weird.
Speaking or progress bars, someday I hope we get the “displays” on all the orbs at some point (and a BIT of a clearer picture of her skill tree – some of the “Unavailable” lines are hard for me to see.)
Awwww. DaveB you missed a great opportunity to insert another watcher on the ground in panel 6 that wasn’t in panel 4 just to screw with us. Or add a tail or horns or something to grandma on the left.
And I spoke too soon, since it was Grandpa and skintone/ears that changed.LOL
I can see why you chose that name! :)
So where is Sydney’s built in magic ball GPS system? If you can travel that fast and that far there has to be something that tells you where ‘Point B’ is when you get lost.
Thing on Sydney’s wrist don’t count. I mean the one who or whatever built the magic balls must have made.
Maybe it’s one of the inactive ones?
Or she needs a couple of upgrades to the flight orb since you need information processing and storage for such a feature?
I think her GPS system is her wrist GPS system archon gave her.
Yes, but how did the previous owner know where they were or heading since they weren’t a member of Archon (unless that was how and why they ended up wherever it was Sydney really found them)
They at the Grand Canyon?
That seems to be the general consensus
so much for pretending that orb is not powered, or not understood, or keeping the power secret — I am sure the crowd has a lip reading worthy video, LOL.
Have you ever tried to read lips on a blurry video pointed at people discussing something hundreds of feet in the air at a most likely odd angle?
Now, if top speed had been a BIT lower, I would have posted this song
“Just A Song Before I Go”
[Intro. (Electric Guitar)]
Just a song before I go
To whom it may concern
Travelling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned
When the shows were over
We had to get back home
And when we opened up the door
I had to be alone
She helped me with my suitcase
She stands before my eyes
Driving me to the airport
And to the friendly skies
Going through security
I held her for so long
She finally looked at me in love
And she was gone
[Instrumental (Electric Guitar)]
Just a song before I go
A lesson to be learned
Travelling twice the speed of sound
It’s easy to get burned
[Ending (Acoustic Guitar)]
For those who don’t know it: Just A Song Before I Go
An alternate, modern, song choice for when Sydney breaks the Light Barrier: Speed Of Light
thanks for the links :)
Oooooooh my god someone referenced a song I’ve heard of, that’s fantastic.
1) I hope Max cleared their flight plan before this experiment. I don’t think NORAD would take kindly to picking up two unknown missile sized objects traveling in U.S. airspace at high Mach speeds.
2) They would have generated a sizable acoustic ‘boom’ trail behind themselves. I thought the FAA prohibits supersonic flight over the US except in specific areas. Since they are military, they might get a waiver.
3) Has anyone even checked if Sydney’s shield absorbs or reflects RADAR signals? She may have her own stealth plane and not know it.
1) Of course she did, she specifically mentioned herself as the ‘flight instructor’, that’s her responsibility.
2) You’d be surprised, actually. The sonic boom that is generated is based on the atmospheric interference, so the size of the object generating said boom is going to play a major role, you’re probably looking at something roughly square-cube since volume is going to take a part in that. Also, they seem to have moved at a very high elevation, which means it has more room to level out before it reaches civilians. Again, you’re looking at a logarithmic declination of power based on distance traveled.
3) Good idea. Even if it doesn’t yet, that might be one of its upgrades.
If NORAD picked up two objects that small moving at that speed for that long, they’d figure there was something wrong with their system. Too small and slow to be ICBMs, too fast and too long in the air to be cruise missiles. And just completely worn for ground-to-air…
MUAHHAHA I WAS RIGHT! It looks like Max might’ve actually had to use her “Speed Shift” with Syd AND admitted that Syd might eventually equal or exceed her! *clicks button* damn remo-*KRAKADOOM!!!!* Sonuvamickymousemolestingpigeongargler!!
I think the hat will take a while to grow on me. Perhaps a visit to the super tailor is in order, to try and get something that suits Sydney better?
I presume it is fairly standard military wear? But it just does not seem right, with her face. Practical though, which is the main priority, of course.
You didn’t like the hat? I thought she looked awful cute in it. Those sunglasses on the other hand . . .
It’s a boonie cover. Standard issue/pattern in most US military uniforms, though infrequently worn because it’s a shapeless ugly thing that barely serves as a hat and usually looks sloppy with almost any uniform.
Now I know your uniform was issued with a cover, Scoville…
That’s because it was designed to be used out in the field, where you need something to protect your head, but can still be folded into a shapeless mass and shoved into a pocket
Maybe the Marine Corps is just loonie-tunes, but we were issued them, and then never actually permitted to wear them.
Boonie hat is supposed to be slightly floppy and have visual disturbance pattern so that the soldiers wearing those hats do not have sharp “cookie cutter” profiles. Instructor hats and some patrol caps are excellent long-range rifle targets.
Caps are used during garrison duty, where soldiers need to have neat uniforms, walk in formations and salute officers. When operating outside of garrison, helmets or boonie hats are the preferred choice. The brim of the boonie hat shields your face neck and ears from sun and rain. When used with mosquito netting, the brim keeps the net away from your skin, so that mosquitos which land on the net can not reach you.
Ahh, so, in summary you are agreeing with me.
*nods happily*
A normal tailor would have great difficulty in retaining all those vital practical capabilities and add aesthetics to suit Sydney’s features. This is truly a job for the super-tailor!
Thanks for the interesting details by the way. I love items built with a host of capabilities that might escape the casual observer.
Still an ugly garment though. :-D
But quite comfortable.
The Evil Squirrel Overlord strikes again!
I was slightly frightened when Sydney looked at the camera, then let out a long breath when she was just looking for a cloaked spaceship. I guess she needs one or two more points in truesight to break the fourth wall.
What happens if Sydney accidentally lets go of the forcefield orb at Mach 4? For example she traps a bee inside the forcefield with her and gets distracted…
Instant death as she smacks into a wall of air at 2500 mph?
What happens if she lets go of the flight orb at that speed? Would the deceleration from air resistance of the forcefield crush/kill her? Or does the forcefield have an “inertial damper” so to speak?
Seems like it could be extremely dangerous to fly that fast.
It IS extremely dangerous.
I’ve seen bullets start coming apart when they hit a bug or a hanging piece of string going that fast. Actually the bullets were going about a thousand feet per second slower than her.
Incidentally, flying 500 miles at mach four only takes about 9-10 minutes, I think
Since Mach 4 is roughly 3045 mph (or 50 miles per minute), then 500 miles is, in fact, 10 minutes.
You earn yourself +2 internet.
Well.. 50.75 miles per minute. :)
It’s me or the truesight orb shows a blue man between the duck mouth picture girls and the ponytail blonde?
Not just you, it has been mentioned many several times already :P
No, don’t listen to Guesticus. No one has ever mentioned it before! :)
If you fly unless you have a protective shield, it gets cold, fly fast enough to burn from the air friction. Cold, rain, lightning all plays in to it. Also breathing. Mach speeds? You’d better be near unkillable to do it.
Now that she’s mentioned it, I wonder if any of her other orbs have inlaid displays that she’s missed or if she can use one as a lens to look at another to see more.
#170, last panel, third inclusion shows the holo controls for the Forcefield orb
The shades I understand. But why the hat? That’s just more than likley to blow off when flying anyway.
She has a shield up when she flies, the hat helps to block the light that isnt coming straight into her eyes I would imagine.
Eh, a pair of googles or wrap around shades should take care of all the light that matters.
Am I the only one annoyed that she didnt yell at max, “We cant stop here! This is bat country!” Sorry, its just, that hat and them shades. She just needs one of those cigarette holders to make it perfect.
She looks like the guy from the movie “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
Which one? o_O
1. Watch Redline! Watch it! If you love movies about things that go fast, watch it. If you love weirdly styled anime, watch it. If you want an awesome sound-track, watch it. My boyfriend and I use it for a date movie, too :D (because we’re both dorks like that)
tl;dr – WATCH REDLINE IT’S AWESOME
seem to be a few glowing reviews of Redline. Daniel the Human saw it in a small cinema for Australia’s Reel Anime (Anime screening movie festival thing), I saw it on DVD. We both agree, good movie…
And now I have a new movie for my Netflix queue, thank you.
Q. Dose the Shield Orb have to do full coverage?, if she can leave the “Back” open fresh air will be sucked in renewing the Atmo
No, fairly sure, even if she was able to form a simple windshield (ie only covers the front), she would be flying to fast for the fresh air to enter to replenish
All movement through air or fluids creates eddies, and these would allow air to enter. In fact, the opposite problem, to what you propose, would be the issue. Depending on how the aerodynamics play out, of course. The most likely one though is that Halo would suffer extreme, possibly damaging wind buffeting.
Get it wrong in aircraft design and wings can be torn off. Sydney is not made of metal, so the risk would be severe.
Also bear in mind that without a back wall to the shield you are offering no incentive for the air to stay inside it. A partial vacuum would form (unless disrupted/replenished by air currents & eddies). At best this would be like operating at high altitude. At worst it could cause a loss of consciousness or other altitude sickness symptoms.
Of course an optimum shape can be formed, which minimises or possibly even eliminates these risks. Sydney is unlikely to stumble on that by accident, but it is possible that a design feature could incorporate that. Or one of the upgrade options might.
Every use to date has been fully enclosed. But we have not seen her attempt otherwise or make a comment that she is unable to do otherwise. So it is an unknown.
Just so you and everyone knows this is a song from CAKE called The Distance. Having a small connection to the band I love when stuff of theirs shows up in pop culture (Yes even web comics can be pop culture)
PS link to official video of the song
Daniel the Human remembers when it came out, it was really popular where he lived. Lots of radio play, not that he minded. He’s glad it’s still popping up every now & again (news reports, background music, etc.), so am I for that matter…
First time i heard it was watching an AMV too. A Macross Plus one, IIRC..