Grrl Power #355 – Aerial areal detour
Sydney’s wrist-com and choker… (I mean cool tactical throat mic that’s not sexualized at all, especially when Maxima confronted Arianna about it when they were originally proposed…) Anyway, they both have trackers in them, so it would be simple for Maxima to find her.
When you ask people what super power they’d like to have, I think the answer varies based on their demographics. Kids tends to want to fly, partially because that would be awesome and partially because they haven’t thought of more subtle and complex powers like probability manipulation that would let them clean up in Vegas or lotteries or whatever. Especially young males may give you the answer along the lines of “Be able to drive a tank” or “Have a dinosaur as a friend” because the concept of super powers may not be entirely clear to them, though both of those things would certainly be pretty sweet to a 6 year old. Adolescent males will as often as not answer “invisibility”… because they are adolescent males, though that may be an artifact of every generation before recent ones where unlimited access to seeing naked women is a few keystrokes away. “The internet in my head” might be a viable answer these days.
I have little insight into what females of any given age may answer beyond the usual popular choices of flight and, well, to be fair, invisibility still probably ranks highly, though perhaps not for as unrelentingly prurient reasons. A female friend of mine once answered the question with “invisibility” but it was so she could not be noticed… not like a thief, but so she could escape embarrassing social situations.
If I had to pick now, excluding any big universe altering power like one might find on the Infinity Gauntlet, I’d probably go with Harem’s power, so I could draw this comic faster, but also work on one or two other comics I have buzzing around in my head. (And still have time to play video games) That or some sort of skill copying powers like the Taskmaster. I’d go around conventions shaking the hands of all my favorite comic artists and writers. And maybe one guy who was a super successful commodities broker.
Update: Fixed Max’s missing hat logo and posted a wallpaper-ish sized version over at DA.
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Sydney have a bad influence on Maxima it seems :P
You mean good influence
I second Good Influence. :D
I third. I know several workaholics. It does them good to be encouraged to chill and enjoy life once in a while. Reduces the risk of heart attack and other stress-related illnesses. Such as catching a fatal dose of death. And improves their chances of surviving beyond the first few months of retirement!
All I can say is workaholics shorten their lifespan by about two years, just by being workaholics.
I’m not a workaholic, I can quit any time I want.
…I have done it before.
Was that when you founded Workaholics Anonymous? I was particularly impressed with how you chaired three self-help group sessions a day, plus lobbied governments worldwide to introduce maximum weekly working hours.
She’s had her powers so long, that she is taking them for granted.
Easy to forget how fun things can be when taking something for granted.
Don’t believe she had taken them for granted, simply she has been in the military for so long she hasn’t had the freedom to just ‘fly’
Yeah, military has a way of slowly squeezing out your own sense of joy for just being alive…
Not so uncommon a problem.
https://loveandcapes.com/comic/02072014/
I think flying supers need to remember how awesome that one gift is.
curse you for adding yet another comic to my ever expanding list of reading material
/shakes fist in air menacingly
And now you know how I felt when people mentioned Worm
https://parahumans.wordpress.com/table-of-contents/
and that has lead to Whateley Universe.
https://crystalhall.org/stories.html
=^_^=
Seems they may be a good influence on each other
That would be one I would like to see as a wallpaper.
Oops, that was meant as a reply to the next thread.
I love the way Sydney gets Maxima back in touch with her inner geek :D
Love that last panel :D
And good to see Sydney reminding Maxi about the pure enjoyment out of simple flight :D
I, for one, would like to see the last panel as a separate wall paper.
I have to agree. Wallpaper, please!
Make it so.
Yup, it shouted out wallpaper to me too.
Even though it whispered “but that hat… oh don’t mind that, it is ok”.
For some reason I totally forgot that today was Grrl Power Day, for the first time in months. I only remembered when the Facebook notification came up on my phone, which happened to be while I was streaming a video to my TV through Chromecast, so I decided to read the comic on my TV as well. And got the last panel all over the 40 inch screen the first time I saw it. Now I’m tempted to read it like that more often. Yes, I *would* like a wallpaper. There’s been a few other panels as well.
I’d take immortality any damn day of the week.
You may now, but what about 100 years from now, after you watched everyone you ever loved die?
that’s a terrible argument.
anyone who wishes for immortality obviously doesn’t have soul, and as such is incapable of love.
on another note, there are a few kinds of immortality.he probably just meant not aging.
People around you still age though.
Immortality sounds very boring to me. I’d prefere a regular ‘VERY long and happy life’ over eternal life.
Maybe immortality with the condition that you can fade away if you get bored of life (In the world of Dragon Age, the oldest immortal elves would enter an eternal sleep once they got bored with life)
poeple with no souls wont care about others aging, since they cannot get attached.
not aging, doesn’t mean that you cannot be killed, so again, a perfect solution.
That… is a terrible argument. Do you wish to die right now, or live to see tomorrow? If so, then proof on the induction positive means you wish to live forever unless you have a set date of death. That’s how a survival instinct works.
Second, it’s an interesting look at humanity that wishing for the superpower of immortality comes up frequently, but wishing for the ability to GRANT immortality to anyone you so choose (including yourself) does NOT come up frequently at all. What is it that makes people want to be personally immortal, but not think of this rather easy ‘loophole’, if you’re already wishing? Being that ‘watch your friends/family die’ is the most common argument against it.
Mind you, in that scenario you then have one person with the power to choose who lives and who dies. Do you grant immortality to just those you love? Who of course will want to have it granted to all those they love. Which may include some folks you do not like. Or do you just skip to the end game and decide to grant it to all?
Then you have the scenario of an immortal population. One that, presumably, will still carry on breeding. A world of immortals but with finite resources. Where we already do not have enough food to feed them all.
Let alone the millions kept under subjection, slavery or in conditions that amount to torture. Torture that will now never end. Without even the option to commit suicide.
Not to mention the social stagnation. Pick your least favourite public figure. The one you will change channels if they come on TV. They too will be immortal. Along with whatever unpleasant cause, or ideas, they may champion.
Mind you memes already have immortality. And once somebody is recorded, they have virtual and cultural immortality too. As long as the recordings are played. So we are already getting used to some of the aspects I mentioned.
And lifespans are gradually increasing, worldwide, with every disease we cure and every country which improves its healthcare. Longevity is the interim stage to immortality. Statistically speaking, it is likely that the first people who will live to reach their two hundredth birthday have already been born.
Longevity is a double-edged sword. Immortality is an indestructible double-edged sword.
Data, of Star Trek TNG had the best answer to that.
Lt. Commander Data: I have often wondered about my own mortality, as I have seen others around me age. Until now, it has been theoretically possible that I would live an unlimited period of time. And although some might find this attractive, to me it only reinforces the fact that I am… artificial.
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: I never knew how tough this must be for you.
Lt. Commander Data: Tough? As in difficult?
Lt. Commander Geordi La Forge: Knowing that you would outlive all your friends.
Lt. Commander Data: I expected to make new friends.
Yeah, this is the answer to immortality. Plus I want to see what the graphics on the PlayStation XXIX look like.
Screw that, I want to know how perfected VR gaming looks like
Like a Star Trek holodeck, maybe?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7ANUIr50ts
Screw that, I want to be around long enough to see humanity either become a true multi-planet/system species, or collapse back into the dark ages. Either exploring the universe or struggling to survive would be fulfilling to me.
Time travel might then be preferable to immortality.
You get to do the same thing as immortality will give you, but without all the waiting.
You might get to see that by 2060. It all depends majik dirt can transform people who evolved in 3rd world areas into 1st world people. Sweden, France,Germany, & Greece are finding out 3rd world people bring the 3rd world with them. Every rape for the last 5 years in Oslo was committed by non Europeans.
Ann Rice also mentioned this aspect of immortality in her Vampire Chronicles series. People can change their “viewpoint about life” but it usually takes several decades or maybe even centuries. For example, a person who ages normally will gradually change as they see their eventual end approaching. But to someone who is potentially immortal, they don’t have to think about it much (if ever). Those who can’t “change with the times” when living among a society of mortals soon find themselves left “behind the times.” Eventually it gets to a point when the immortal finds he no longer has any kind of intrinsic “link to Human Nature” anymore.
Even as much as Achilles enjoys his life now, it’s the same concept he’ll have to face in the centuries to come. As far as anyone knows, Achilles will be the last living being in the universe. Depending on how the universe is destined to end, Achilles is likely to still be around & he’ll have the dubious honor of watching the last light go out…Then all he has left to look forward to is lock the door on his way out (proverbially speaking).
In essence, the biggest problem with immortality is the inevitable loneliness…You watch everything that happens, but really have no one to share it with.
Wow that was morbid. now I pidy the guy something firce. Imagine he does not go to lock the door on his way out in the end and just have to float in the vast emptiness of a died out univers for all eternity. Everyone, even all of matter and energie moves on, only he stays behind. *shutter*
Makes me think of this short (8 page) comic by the makers of Of Stars and Swords (which I recommend, too):
https://www.seriousturtlestudio.blogspot.com/2011/10/sts-18-end-complete.html
It kind of explores a similar space, sort of.
The real question is whether he would have the equanimity to recover from the insanity his long floating isolation would impose on him in order to take interest in the new universe that would form after the next big bang or would instead have retreated so far into his own mind that he simply floats through space or resides as the nucleus of some planet for the next eternity. This raises an even more morbid question: What if there’s an immortal person left over from the last universe trapped at the center of every planet providing an anchor for all the matter to gather on? Worse, what happens if they wake up?
Ooh. One darker question occurred to me. According to M theory when the energy of a universe fully disipates the brane that universe was on collides with the nearest brane that also has no energy and the resultant collision imbues a burst of new energy, a new big bang, to power new universes on both branes, but the point at which that energy is expended enough for this to occur cannot be determined with current technology. What if Achilles immortal existence means his universe never completely empties and he is forced to float in nothingness for eternity upon eternity?
Sounds like how Death of the Endless describes her role in the universe, Midnight.
“When the first living thing existed, I was there, waiting.
When the last living thing dies, my job will be finished.
I’ll put the chairs on the tables, turn out the lights and lock the universe behind me when I leave.”
Given enough time, he’ll probably encounter something that can kill him. Previously unknown natural phenomena, black holes, magic, a super whose power is to cancel other super’s powers, reality warpers, Eldritch Abombinations….he hasn’t been tested against more than a small fraction of potential Achille’s heels.
Can’t remember where I heard this described, but I heard immortality described thus:
Imagine a childhood friend, who was a huge part of your life when you were young and together, but who you’ve grown distant from as you’ve matured. Your current relationships, parents, partners, even children, will one day be as inconsequential to you as that now distant friend, as you form new friendships and meet new people.
On the one hand, it’s terribly callous. On the other, it sound far less unpleasant than eternal loneliness.
Think about it this way, you would get to meet your great grand children and their children.. and so on. And as for friends, i’ve had a few friends die already in my normal life, i miss them and i’m glad i knew them, and life goes on.
And Earth exploding? Well you have 5 billion years to work on a ship you get you someplace else.
I think even Sydney could construct a ship in that amount of time.
Or just drift till you hit someplace new.
You need to tighten up your schedule a bit. The sun will expand and make the earth uninhabitable in about 4 billion years, shortly before melting the planet itself.
And that’s assuming the sun and earth both survive, without substantive change, the collision of the Milky Way and Andromeda galaxies in about 3 billion years – I doubt that anyone’s even trying to model that event in sufficient detail to predict its effect on this planet. It’s a safe bet that some earthlike planets will be unscathed, but “which ones?” kind of matters.
Sounds like a good time to hop off onto some passing planet.
*makes note in diary*
Statistically speaking _all_ solar systems will be just fine in the collision. The odds for any two stars not in the core getting within one light week is about the same as the number of stars in the galaxy (.. I read in an article a few years ago).
There is just a lot more space without solar systems than with them. Like, a lot.
The event is much too far in the future to model on the individual-star level, incidentally. There is just no way at all to be able to know where the stars will be hanging around a few billion years in the future.
Even if we knew the mass of all stars within a few tens of thousands of lightyears it’s still rather impossible, small errors now will lead to huge differences three billion years from now.
It would also take about infinite amounts of CPU to solve this mother-of-all nbody problem. :)
Moore’s Law. I think we could manage it before using up too much of the 3 billion years. And predictive techniques will improve beyond our crude modelling too.
I can remember one of my physics teachers, in response to a comment by me, saying ‘there is no way we would ever be able to detect planets in orbit around stars.’ Yet we have been doing a pretty good job of that for a couple of decades.
Besides which one light week sounds like a much easier commute than five light years! I would prefer that than having to develop a really good air bag, for a direct bump.
“There is no particular reason why Moore’s law should continue to hold: it is a law of human ingenuity, not of nature.” – https://arxiv.org/pdf/quant-ph/9908043.pdf
But, if we assume it does, then after about 250 years, we hit the ultimate physical limits of computation for the paper above’s “ultimate laptop” (1 kg in 1 liter, maximum possible computation the laws of physics allow). If we assume that Moore’s law continues, then computers have to get bigger. After about 150 years, computers have to be about the mass of planet Earth. 30 years later, the size of 1 solar mass (total of 400 or so years). If we advance 70 or so more years (total 473 or so), our computers would be the size of the Milky Way…
If we get to assume that Moore’s law doesn’t break down, I think we, just as a side-effect, get enough technology to have the collisions of galaxies be a complete non-concern long before we get even remotely close to one actually happening. Whatever we’re using to build or computers will almost certainly let us just fix orbits so that things don’t collide if we don’t want them to.
That said, I am sure that there will come a limit to Moore’s law. But it may not be at the point which Seth so proudly claims that it is. And we are talking about a R&D process spanning 3 billion years here (with the implicit assumption that we do not wipe ourselves out by some other means in the process), so I am fully justified in assuming that whatever can be discovered and invented will be.
That said though, I personally would crave a time when the practical limit had been achieved. Allowing you to demand a thousand year guarantee on your new computer, with the confidence that it will not be obsolete before it is even out of warranty!
Your concluding paragraph shows you appreciate there is an alternative to Seth’s comfortably finite solution. You just shy away from accepting it. Similarly to how Einstein initially felt with quantum physics. The possibilities are unsettling, the scope vast and the outcomes hard to visualise. So it is easier to bury one’s head in the sand and deny it.
But Einstein gradually worked his way through his issues, and realised that the limits were those he was imposing in his own mind. They were not the actual limits and he then came to accept the reality of quantum physics.
In the course of reading that paper four different ways of bypassing the limits jumped out. This is the most fun one, as it runs with the vibe established by your ending comments.
DON’T TRY THIS AT HOME.
You must be fully certified for conducting experiments in parallel realities before attempting a project of this nature.
A big bang occurs from nothing. So we do not need any materials for this computer. But we will need to seed the bang with the right conditions for improved computing power. One of the limits on our traditional computing techniques is the speed of light. So we shall want our universal computer to operate with a faster speed of light. Let us set that at a googleplex faster than the speed of light in our universe.
Another is time. How about we have the clock running one googleplex faster too? Let us stick with infinite space, that seems about right, to give us room for expansion.
Now comes the tricky parts. Ensuring that the manufacturing process (aka the bigger bang) does not accidentally create any conditions in which life might form. The complexities of dealing with alien civilisations which technologically progress at a googleplex faster rate than us would be… problematic.
Once that has been solved, then it it is simply a matter of ensuring that the components form in a manner optimised for efficient processing. I think choosing a stable state is best, so the computer does not collapse before we have finished using it. Likewise ensuring that it’s heat death does not come inconveniently soon.
Ok, now what was the question you wanted to ask it? 40 + 2 =?
Um, no.
Ooh, what was there before the big bang?
We do not know.
Some say a massive singularity.
Others nothing.
The wisest admit ignorance.
I’m not even sure we can know, or that the question has any real meaning. The laws of physics that make this universe possible formed during the big bang. Before that is literally before we can know what the rules were, what could be.
I bet there was a chicken sandwich! Not that it would have anything to do with the process of forming the big bang. But it would explain why any meat you cannot identify kind of tastes like chicken.
First of all there is no evidence that it was big, secondly, Yorp, yes all evidence points to the sandwich.
I did intentionally try to stick with what we believe we know about the universe. This is partly because it meant I could put numbers to things (or put Seth’s numbers to things, as the case may be) but also because, at least in the “short” term (you know a couple of decades or even centuries is short term compared to 3 billion years), I think the chances are that we’re more likely to look back at relativity and quantum mechanics and so on as good approximations of what comes after rather than as completely wrong. This is much like how Newtonian motion is a pretty good approximation even though relativity is clearly more right given what we know now.
However, I have to say, that I love your example. And I love it, if for no other reason, because it has me imagining two scientists working on an early prototype which isn’t working out. One turns to the other and says, “We’re gonna need a Bigger Bang.”
:-D
Making computers larger to increase computational power does not continue Moore’s law, which states that the amount of compute power per area goes up. Keeping the ratio constant while increasing the area admits you’ve reached it’s limit.
Also, increasing the size of a computer doesn’t scale up it’s speed linearly. Data still has to move from one part of the computer to another, and as you scale up the size of the computer that transport starts to take up a larger fraction of the time available. Certain problemsets can work around this by breaking down the problem into parts that are each kept localized, but that is very problem-dependent.
I haven’t read the whole thing carefully, but Moore’s original paper (https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~fussell/courses/cs352h/papers/moore.pdf) seems to talk mostly about the number of components per circuit instead of per area. But I’ll grant you that I may be abusing the strict formulation of Moore’s law when I talk about the computer getting bigger instead of more dense. That being said, I am not the first to do so, nor will I be the last. I assume you can tell what I mean, though. I’m hypothesizing exponential growth (without justification) well past the point where density can do it for us. I’m just taking it as a given and trying to follow the consequences.
As for performance not scaling linearly with size, I have two thoughts.
First, let’s say that performance grew with the cube root since we can double the mass by only increasing the physical dimension by cbrt(2). If I still get to posit exponential growth from (extended/abused) Moore’s Law, then the result is still exponential. It would take 3 times as many years to hit the various milestones, but that’s peanuts compared to 3 billion years. (Now, if the cost increases exponentially or super-exponentially, then that would greatly change the outcome.)
But, (and here’s the second point) simulation of the physics of two colliding galaxies is a pretty “embarrassingly parallel” problem. If I distribute the computation in a way which matches the physical galaxies I’m simulating, then calculation A needs information from calculation B at a delay which is proportional to the light speed delay between the physical points which A and B are simulating. So, as long as I can accurately simulate the galaxy collisions with a computer which is smaller than the galaxies being simulated, then the speed of light does not prevent the information I need from travelling where I need it by the time I need it to simulate in faster than real time.
I know what you mean – but it ignores something fundamental: People already build massive compute centers for big problems. The day you hit the limit of compute per area/volume, you can build a computer of arbitrary size immediately. Growth of compute power has stopped – as of right then, you can build any amount of compute power you want to, subject to the area limit. There is no reason, need, or expectation to wait and build it later – they can build it immediately, subject only to funding availability.
Performance scaling per size at a particular ratio is a complex question – it has to do with the speed of light in the medium you’re working in, the clock speed of your computer, and a few other variables. To compensate, you start to spend time syncing computations, which means even more overhead, etc. The end result has more to do with the type of problem you’re trying to solve then the tech in many cases – non-parallel problems quickly hit a limit where the overhead is costing more than the additional compute resources give, so the scaling stops entirely.
Parallel problems of course can do better, and we’re still finding parallelization algorithms, so it’s harder to say if the same would apply (and to which problems…), and at what scale if they do.
Your end result, for this question, is probably correct – we can likely simulate two galaxies colliding in less time than they would take to collide. (We can do a decent job already, actually.) This is largely because we can limit the problem to fairly course detail – Working at the scale of stars instead of smaller units will be effectively accurate for most of it, and we can probably scale in to planetary units in edge cases. (Of course, we’d need a bit more detail on the galaxies in question to do that, but it’s not outside of even current computing power.)
In order to predict if the solar system will be in a place where another star also is hanging out a few billion years from now during the “collision”, “course” simulations is far from enough, even large planetary masses passing by can throw off the speed of the sun by several millimetres per second in a few million years, which will, in a few billion years, be enough to throw off the results by 8000AU. :)
With our current computing power we could calculate about 1s/y at a 1 week timestep (much too large for the center of the galaxy, but probably enough at the edges for suns without planets) at a star-group detail level (1Bn masses for each galaxy) (thanks, wolfram alpha ;)), but, granted, it’s likely we will increase our computing power by a factor of 3e7 in a few million years (the minimum mass for such a computer is not even very large).
Still, we also need to do a [i]lot[I] of observation to plot all stars and other significant masses (in both galaxies).
DStaal, I agree that, one you reach the density limit, if you keep the cost the same per area or volume, then effectively, you end Moore’s law, even the extended/abused one. At that point it really is not exponential growth.
However, if computational power per dollar (or whatever you measure your resources in at that point) continues to increase exponentially (and I’m not saying it has to, just saying “if it did”) then you get where I was pointing. After a few hundred years, in order for that trend to truly continue, I must have some way of manipulating vast amounts of mass into massive planetary (or stellar mass or …) computers.
In other words, either at some point the exponential growth breaks down, or a side consequence of that growth is that I have the ability to manipulate planets and stars and maybe galaxies and, at that point, I can control whether there is a collision or not.
You and Yorp both, I believe, would agree that when you look out that long (or even maybe not *that* long) there’s a hundred reasons to believe that at some point the exponential growth stops. And most of me thinks that too. Although when you think about such vast amounts of time, the idea that the human race could go for a million years or a billion years without essentially advancing computers. That at some point we hit a limit and progress asymptotes towards that limit never to really advance again… Part of me doesn’t want to believe that. I fully admit I can’t justify it. It’s probably wishful thinking, but a million years is so long and I look at how much has changed in even just the last one hundred…
Here, borrow one of my wormholes. Go pick up a sailor, from some point in history, from at least a couple of hundred years ago. Then return that sailor to another ship, but one hundred years before OR after their time. Ignoring language and cultural differences, they will find that they will be able to crew that ship.
If they had been born in the era of cannons, they will still know how to fire a broadside, even if the cannon are weaker or stronger. Ropes and knots would still fulfil the same roles and be essential to the running of the ship. Even the climate would be consistent.
It is only in the present day that these things change within a single lifespan. Let alone continuing to change at geometric or exponential rates. For most of human (and pre-human) history, society has coped with slow rates of progress, including periods of extended stagnation, or even decline. I am sure it will be able to again.
Not least because processing power does not equate to the limits of our capabilities. It is what you do with your power that is most important. And that is only limited by your imaginations. That is the thing we would not want to stagnate!
We have already hit the limits for what can function in space without the atmosphere and van allen belts to protect it. As computing power increases by making things smaller it becomes even more venerable. The Carrington Event destroyed telegraphs a similar solar storm would destroy everything more delicate & plunge the world back into the 1800s
I’m not an expert on computers and radiation, but I’ve read up on it because it affected my day job for a few years.
Space hardware needs to take account of radiation effects and either mitigate it through redundancy or harden against the effects or so on, but as far as I’m aware, we’re still more limited by cost than by physical limits on this front. If that’s no longer true, I’d be super interested to hear about it.
I’ll totally grant you, however, that the atmosphere and Van Allen belts make things a *whole* lot simpler for software and computers.
Actually, the larger the conductor the more sensitive it is to solar storms. Modern electronics are immune, they have much to short conductors, they do not efficiently work as antennae for the frequencies induces by them.
Let’s not forget about the oceans drying up in about 1 billion years, turning the Earth in a barren, uninhabitable wasteland….
I like the family angle. i would use my immortality to get really good at martial arts, psychology and the administration of therapy, manual labor and other useful skills and become my families literal guardian spirit for generations
hmmm.
[notes that one down in the short story possibilities list]
“What if everyone around you dies?”
Dude! That’s going to happen anyway!
“People who wish to live forever have no souls.”
Nobody has a soul.
Honestly, nobody wants to die. Everyone wants to live forever. People who do say they want to die don’t usually understand the permanency of such state. Religious people who believe in an afterlife already believe they’re immortal; people who are suicidal don’t want to die, they just want to stop suffering.
No, I can’t think of anything so bad that I would want all thought, feeling, and awareness to cease forever. I mean, c’mon, existing is basically everything I do.
People outlive their loved ones all the time. Adding more to the number shouldn’t be such a horrible thing that it drives you mad or something.
Do like Donald Trump love someone younger.
Every one whines “who wants to live forever!”
But im all like, “I WILL OUT LIVE THE UNIVERSE!”
Friends dying is a very easy trade.
What about if you get traped somewhere, 127 hours style?
Live long enough and the probability of that happening eventually rises to 1
live long enough the earth blows up. i just need to learn patience.
And than you’re floating through the void, with even less to do
The human brain will go completely insane without stimulus
You ever heard of bored with insanity?
I’ll probably go through that a couple of times.
I used to say I planned to outlive the Universe.
A friend of mine told me to just remember one phrase at the end.
“Let there be light.”
And right before that I set up my solarsail waveboard.
And ride the wave into the next cycle.
*crash*
Oy! I hope you are insured? Look at the dent you put in my cycle!
There is this little Scifi story.
They made an immortal solider. Nothing can kill him, he breezed trough enemy strongholds like they weren’t even there.
While on a space transport one day, the ship got blown up mid voyage. He didn’t die.
Yeah, let me know how that feels after a thousand years and being in a thousand year old body… scratch that, make it simply a hundred years
Please to be noting: Wolverine doesn’t have immortality, he has an advanced healing factor, that is what keeps him looking youthful, immortality is simply a by-product
I believe we are talking about True Immortality
Never age, cant die, do not require air, food or sleep, but can still have them.
You might want to invest in ‘can never feel pain’ too, or someone might give you some concrete boots and send you for qaswim in a volcano! (The boots are important, you can walk on lava if you survive the heat…)
So, basically the power Achilles has in this comic then. Seems he’s got the “does not age” thing down pat since he’s obviously a product of having spent young adulthood in the 80’s and looks physically in his late 20s/early 30s at most.
I did not know he was Immortal, but it does explain a lot.
That’s my preference – immortality without most of the nasty side effects. I suspect Achilles might be mentally “stuck” like his body is, which is the only downside to his power I see.
He has a permanent mullet.
That sort of sounds like a living hell to me.
It could be worse. His powers could have manifested the morning after a heavy drinking binge. Imagine having to go through the rest of eternity constantly fighting to keep your hair out of your mouth and eyes. Given his invulnerability I doubt there’s much a comb and hairdryer could do about his hairstyle. Ordinary hairspray doesn’t stand a chance but a generous dab of cyanoacrylate might hold it for a while…
I always asumed that his hair was still hair (and thus flexible), just doesn’t grow and impossible to cut
You want Achilles power set then. He hasn’t aged since the 80’s and he is in permanent perfect health.
There was an episode where they looked at that very briefly. Mordred had broken his “Forever Young” spell, but not his “Immortality” spell, so now he was trapped in a still-living thousand-year-old body, with pretty much everything worn out.
I meant to say this was an episode of the animated Justice League Unlimited, where Mordred made all the adults disappear and Morgan Le Fay turned some of the Justice League into children to help them fight him.
“I’m older than you now!” “you sure are.”
How about Highlander-style immortality then? Eternal youth and health, but if you got tired of it you’d have a way out. As long as you didn’t have lots of guys chasing you around with swords like he did, it could be pretty sweet.
For me personally, just one of the powers I would like to have is the ability to open windows through time. Not necessarily to travel through time, you understand, just to open a sort of portal that I could look through. I would be in high demand with the world’s historians, but the downside is that I would probably become a target of every person or government with secrets to keep.
Yeah If I got Immortality I’d see about getting it with VERY specific conditions such has it has to be by a consciously self-inflicted wound with a silver needle under the big toenail of the right foot on Boxing Day.
Asimov did a story about time-windows – his conclusion was, a window into time is also a window into the present, and laid waste to privacy. A dangerous power, that one.
I would word that as “Eternal Youth”. What good is living forever if you keep on aging and just-can’t-die?
Agrecian!
When making wishes, you have to be very specific about what your intent is
I don’t remember the exact mythos or divine pantheon that made this reference, but a common story is how one of the gods would fall in love with a mortal & gift them with immortality…In one such story, the god forgot to add “Eternal Youth.” You can imagine how that eventually turned out…
That was one of the Greek myths. Look for a fellow named Tithonus.
To be fair, if you’re not worrying about things like organs and such just quitting on you, there’s evidence that the human body doesn’t really age anymore past 90 or 100 or so. Just so few people get there, all we see is the decline, without seeing the lower ‘plateau’. And with exercise and a decent diet, it’s possible to be quite fit and active in old age- especially since we seem to be assuming a lack of mental degradation as well. Sure, injuries would take ages to heal and some activities would take longer to complete, but you have eons to live.
Teleportation. Of myself, and/or objects I am holding up to whatever limit is applied, and of objects I know the location of to myself. Ideally with a minor level of clairvoyance for scoping target sites, or checking which shelf I left that gadget on! (A sonar-style ‘volume sense’ would suffice, rather than holding out for full sight/sound)
Of course, I’d need to come up with a way to get my passport checked between countries… :/
You just have to know where the ports/points of entry are and teleport there and appear as foot traffic. Once on the other side, away you go. Same thing for high-powered flyers. Avoid the airport customs inspection sites. It would be so much easier to just check in where foot-traffic is common, like land/bridge crossings or even ports that accept small craft.
The main problem with that is I live in Great Britain – we have no ‘walk in’ borders! I suppose skipping to Northern Ireland would be the closest. Sea traffic might work, pretend I have a boat moored. Or really have one, but ‘skip’ the bit of the journey out of sight of others.
Alternatively – embassies? Since they’re territory of the resident state, you could go from there to the country or any of their other embassies without it being technically illegal..?
There’s no problem. I am from the Netherlands and I currently live in Liverpool, sure I get my passport checked if I fly or go home by boat, but (and this is the important bit) no stamps. I believe that you can go anywhere in the EU without needing a stamp in your passport, within the Schengen convention zone there shouldn’t be any border checks at all even. It might not be entirely legal but it’s not like if you were to be detained by police in another country for whatever reason they would know you didn’t go through the passport control.
No stamps, but it’s likely your passport was scanned when leaving the UK, and many EU countries keep entry/exit computer logs for those crossing the Schengen border. But you (as a teleporter) should be OK unless you draw attention to yourself. Resist the temptation to rob bank vaults until you get home 8-)
I’ve traveled some in the EU and quite often there were no checks done at all. Just choose the gate for EU citizens with nothing to declare and waltz through. This might however changed over the last few years, and the current influx of refugees from Africa and Asia are causing a lot of countries to close their borders.
I am from Canada; we have a huge border which has lots of places for walking across.
As for the UK, teleporting to a sea port would work except for one little wrinkle I can think of.
“Welcome to England. Can I see your documents please? Where are you coming from?”
“Oh, I am coming in from Iceland. Here you go.”
“So how long are you intending to stay in the UK?”
“Just a couple of days. I expect to leave for Norway late tomorrow.”
“You aren’t planning to work or take a course while in Britain, are you?”
“Nope”
“Okay, this all looks good. Let’s go take a look at your boat.”
Oh boy!
Easy out for that:
It was moored right here! Someone has stolen my boat!!!!
Don’t forget that the UK has more surveillance than any other country on the planet. Be sure to look around for CCTV cameras before making up stories. And you are very likely to find them at key places like marinas and harbours.
Tell them moslems stole your boat & the cops will ignore it like they did the 1400+ little white girls gang raped by moslems.
Not if they have CCTV footage that you are lying.
Or if someone asks you for your papers you teleport away. Problem solved. They report you? People think they are crazy.
On teleportation, I would go for that power as described in the book ‘Jumper’ (and more or less as done in the movie of the same name). Instant transportation, and a whole bunch of other things one could do with it.
Depends on the flavour of immortality.
“Can’t die, don’t age, invincible against any harm” – yes.
“Can’t die, period” – eeenope.
There was a Cracked.com article about why true immortaliy would suck. I cant remember all of them, though some have been covered already like being trapped and immobile for all eternity. But there is also evolution. People dont look the same today as they did 10,000 years ago. In 100k years, you will be looked at as a biological freak, a neanderthal in modern times. Its entirely likely your body wont be able to handle food, the environment, hell, even SPEECH like the new normal can. Your ability to hide in plain sight like a highlander immortal will approach 0 and governments will get interested in you. I hope you enjoy long years as a lab rat.
We have pretty much halted our evolution. I don’t think the people of 100k years will look much different than they do now. If you like we can place a bet on it and see who is right when that time comes around.
I bet pointy ears will be popular. And cat people. Folks living on other planets and in micro gravity will be radically different by then. Plus there will be specialists, who have been optimised for a variety of roles. Some of whom may have radically different looks. But may still be able to interbreed with other humans.
Sure there may be some ultra-conservative populations who have clung to ‘natural human’ forms. But even they will have had evolutionary pressures shaping them. Greenhouse planet adaptations, for a start, and maybe improved resistance to industrial pollutants.
Plus, hopefully, the super-sized population proportion will have decreased.
Unless the highest lifeform on the planet, by then, is cockroaches. Those have a pretty stable evolutionary development.
No we only favor different things for evolution. Asians and whites favored high IQ to build/plan/store in order to survive winter. This now results in saving enough money to be able to raise 1-2 kids well while 1/2 of their paychecks pay Latrina to squat out 20 crack babies. Welfare state evolution will lead to the movie Idiocracy.
Wise choice. But never forget, if wishing for that, to incorporate a get-out clause. You may decide to change your mind, if you find yourself trapped in eternal misery.
You could do it like that due in Sandman. Every century on the day he meets up with Death at the pub where they first met to have pint and catchup…
I just like drastically reduced aging and regenerative transformation. (Kind of like the Doctor.) My example on page 2 of comments: I can die just as easily but only if I don’t transform. It’s really hard to kill a dragon.
So has anybody here read The Silmarilion and wondered WTF would happen to all of those immortal Elves way down the line?
It did occur to me that if you wanted people to go to Mars, or even interstellar, it would be sensible to choose from those who think that sitting around for a few months thinking about nothing in particular is a fine and dandy way to carry on ;-)
It depends!
For the elves that stay in Middle Earth it’s really depressing. Eventually, their physical body fades away, and they become an invisible, incorporeal spirit.
For the elves that leave for the Undying Lands don’t suffer that problem, though, and live until the end of the world with the Ainur.
In the Silmarilion, both elves and humans had immortal souls (Tolkien wasn’t clear on dwarves). The difference was, elven souls were a part of their bodies, while human souls were simply ‘bound’ to their bodies during life. This made elves ageless, and gave them innate spiritual awareness, but when an elf was killed, his soul was also destroyed. Humans were mortal, but their souls survived their deaths. This was important, because the world was the result of a flawed melody the Ainur (Tolkien’s ‘gods’) had sung at the beginning of time. When the world ended, all souls would be brought together to sing the song again, this time, hopefully, without flaw. Whatever elves still survived would participate, along with – get this – Every Single Human Being Who Had EVER Lived.
Makes you think. Worth the trade-off?
Woof?
Actually, no, that’s not how it worked.
When Humans die in Middle-Earth, their souls go outside the “known universe” and it is presumed they go back to Eru (the God analogue) for some unknown purpose: this is called the “Gift of Men”.
When Elves die, their souls go to the Undying Lands in the Halls of Mandos, and after a time they might be re-embodied (a couple of cases are known, including Fingolfin and Glorfindel, and it’s implied that eventually most will do so). Their souls will remain within the “known universe” until it is ended: this is why death is called a “gift”, because this will take a very long time regardless of what cosmological model you think Middle-Earth runs on ;-)
This is very much TL;DR, there is hugely more to it than this, but the vital bit is that both Elves and Humans do indeed have immortal souls, but the latter are not destroyed when they die.
Funny, you look like a cat.
*sniff sniff*
WOOOF WOOOF!
Lets put it this way: Immortality/invincibility does not mean that you don’t feel pain. Frankly I don’t usually tell people mine because once they know it they want it. So here it is: Total control over reality
The internet in your head sounds like an awefull super power, concindering that it would include all the trolling and darkweb stuf
it probably just meant the high speed connection, possibly with some hacking powers.
i doubt any one would actually want to have all the data of the internet being placed into their heads.
Isn’t this literally Freakazoid?
Ah but just think of the viruses you’d get as well.
I read a sci-fi story which essentially incorporated that. A long time ago. I can’t say that it described the internet per se, but everybody had computers built inside their head. So no street signs were necessary, for example, as everybody had access to the information they needed just by thinking.
At the time computer viruses were not a thing. So it seemed like a good idea. Now…
mmm.
I WOULD love a microchip inside my head that I can interface with at will. But that’d basicly be super advanced Google Glasses
Having the internet in your head SOUNDS kewl – until you start thinking about malware …
And all the stuff on the Net you would much rather NOT see.
And all those damn cat videos.
Imagine what would happen if the cats got the internet in THEIR heads.
It’s basically the show Intelligence. If it could be like an augmented reality thing, with high-speed internet, instead of actually having the whole net in your head, that would be keen. Even better if I got to work with Meghan Ory. =)
So, Is that a bridge or am i just seeing things?
Also I want a poster of that last panel.
Amen for the poster!
It’s been awhile since we had big panels worthy of a poster, and this is definitly one of them
Panel four, with the shadow to the left? My guess is bridge connecting to a path cut in the mountainside
Yes, you can see it better in panel five
You can see it in panel 4, but not at all in panel five.
In panel five it’s the black straight translucent line crossing side to side behind Sydney
And now we know where they are :)
And it makes an interesant link with the past page :) because taking Kansas City as Archon’s headquarters and assuming they did a bee line, they just fly… yes, 1,000 miles ;)
DaveB, I salute you.
Some trivia if you like :)
The bridge in panel four is the Silver Bridge at Bright Angel trail. Under it runs the trans canyon waterline, and can be used for people on foot.
The bridge in panel five is the Black Bridge at South Kaibab trail. It can be used for mules trains.
And last (panel) but not least: Nankoweap Canyon (mirrored ;) )
Well, when you recall that Max said Sydney topped of at Mach 4, a mere 1000 miles doesn’t take long.
About 22 minutes.
And if you do the math taking in account Syd’s age and height plus the ellipsoid air volume, she could keep the force field up around 25 minutes before the CO2 became dangerous.
I’m impressed for real, If DaveB didn’t do all this on purpose he’s a damn lucky fellow :)
No, it’s a bridge, looks to be a simple suspension bridge to me
Yes, the last panel as a poster, but also the one above it, just loving Maxi’s face in that one :D
Got to love the classic superman pose. Sydney brings out the origin arc in all the jaded superheroes.
are there many other poses used when flying in one spot?
oh nvm… you meant the last panel.
I had an FRPG character that acquired some Drake armor that allowed him to fly for 30 minutes daily. Every morning he went out and flew for 25 minutes. The other characters complained that he was wasting the flight time, but he simply responded; 1. My armor, and I will do as I please. 2. I need to practice flying, so I can get better at it. (It was a skill that could be improved). 3. I can freakin’ fly! Screw you guys! WAHOO!
Totally, number one is the most important reason: it’s his armour (followed by number three :D )
I’d do it every night in case the party needed something that was a five minute flight away.
Say, did anybody else notice that blue guy with the ears in the last strip?
You wanna get slapped. Don’t you?
MWAHAHAHAHAHA!
The only one “with the ears” in the last strip is golden, not blue, and she is clearly a woman.
no, in the crowd.
someone has had a skin color changed.
I havent heard about this. Tell me more?
on the previous page there were 2 big panels, showing pretty much the same thing, only with a few seconds passing in between them. during that time, sydney grabbed her TS orb, expecting a space ship. some people have caught sight of a certain man on that crowd, becoming blue after TS was activated.
If you look closely, when the guy in the crowd changed color, his ears,or what we can see of them, changed shape and position (wider and higher on the head).
The heck you say! Why has no one said anything about this before?
I did. I called him a “Drow Ninja”.
This reminds me of the Astro City story about Samaritan, the Superman of the Astro City universe, and how he’s so busy saving that he has maybe a minute or so of time during the day to just enjoy being able to fly to the point where when he does grab a few hours of sleep he dreams about flying just for the joy of flying.
So I noticed in the last panel she’s holding the shield orb and the flight orb, and the shield around her is blue. I’m assuming that that’s a by-product of the ‘point’ that connects the two?
What are the differences between the blue shield and purple?
Has there ever been a purple shield?
It’s probably just an effect of the lighting. She’s flying over blue water afterall
Huh, that’s weird. I just went back and checked the fight scene and It does appear a similar color.
I just remembered wrong, I guess :)
The blue water is just reflecting the blue sky. The water itself is clear, but does absorb light in lower frequencies first. The blue sky is caused by light scattering of higher frequency light waves in the atmosphere.
Why is the sky… blue? :)
Oh, right.
The ancient Greeks did not see blue skies. They saw bronze ones. Looking at your second link, which indicates our seeing blue is down to the red, blue, green receptors in our eyes (in part), it exposes a more interesting solution than the one currently proposed by lazy historians and linguists.
Do you think that the ancient Greeks had slightly different receptors in their eyes, which meant that they did not see the sky the same way that we do? Presumably due to a gene, which has since been bred out of most of the population.
An interesting topic but hard to say without some research, and even with one.
It seems a short time for evolution to kick in, and Greeks since Homeric times have been civilized enough for natural selection not being a main factor.
But changes in life styles can make it. Mutant people that kept producing lactase after babyhood (usually a waste of energy) gained an edge thanks to dairy cattle and today are more common. Maybe people able to distinguish more colors started to have an advantage somehow (*)
However it looks like there’s evidence that a fewer amount of named colors in ancient times is found across different cultures, not only Greeks, and a name for “blue” seems to be the last one appearing. Genetic alone would be expected to have more localized outcomes, like happened with skin color and such .
I would think about atmospheric composition, perhaps. Different proportion and type of suspended dust and molecules (volcanic activity vs pollution to name one) could have made blue frequencies less scattered than today.
Dunno, I’m just throwing what crosses my mind, I would need to research a bit :)
To answer the question: Yes :) Despite all the above I would expect genetic changes being a relevant factor. Mainly a gut feeling, though ;)
* Speculating about that “how” opens interesting options :)
Europe developed beer and other alcoholic drinks, such as wine, at a time when urban dwelling was on the rise and water supplies were becoming increasingly contaminated with cholera and other diseases. Individuals who could survive drinking weak beer or wine as their primary fluid source could live without (unknowingly) relying on contaminated water.
Modern European populations have a high degree of alcohol tolerance, due the the propagation of genes which provide that. Other human populations, around the globe, can be found in which such do not predominate.
Evolution certainly does work on that time-scale. Yes, the big changes, such as eyes, take millions of years, but those which rely on a single gene or cluster of connected genes can spread at an exponential rate, once the mutation is present.
And there are other examples. For instance, within our lifetimes, we have observed species, such as butterflies, which gain a benefit from camouflage, altering colour to cope with industrial pollutants. Their generations are only a year long, but that is not vastly dissimilar to ours. And they allow us to see the changes taking place every year in our fields, woodlands and gardens.
Nice to see the open mind, revealed in your reply, by considering a broad range of possibilities.
*wags tail very happily*
There’s also been some study in the concept of Epigenetics, or how diet & lifestyle can influence the way our DNA triggers work during the course of our individual lives. You can find a documentary called The Ghost in Our Genes for more detailed info on the topic, but in essence, the old phrase “Talent tends to skip a generation” may have some basis in truth.
You are right, and I was trying to say the same. Your examples, as well as mine with the milk, are based more in the “selection” part of the theory which works “once the mutation is present”. I was trying to differentiate between successful changes in the structures (evolved in millions of years), and changes in the proportion of the prevalent mutation (selected in a few generations). I think the Greeks’ case could be the latter. :)
A better question is the bronze they talked about the same as current bronze? Bronze has copper in it that can turn green over time in a process called Verdigris
It’s not the shield and fly orb that are connected; it’s shield and blast-orb that have a connection as seen here:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1166
I meant flight and blast, not shield and blast.
May just be me, but this would make a perfect “end scene”, just before the credits start to role (but NOT fade to black)
With some epic music taking over
Yups :D
The next “The Touch” :D
BTW, has anybody else ever pretended to fly, say as a kid’s pretend game, and notice how the standard flying poses are really uncomfortable to maintain, especially on the back of the neck? I’m guessing that it won’t be long before Sydney is flying in a more comfortable position, like being seated or just standing, since it doesn’t really affect her speed or mobility.
They are already half standing though.
So atleast it’s not the really bad neck cramp you’re probably thinking about
But yes, keep it up like this and they’ll need a massage
You know why fliers fly in either the one or two-handed ‘Superman’ pose? Because that breaks down the wind resistance, but yeah, once Sydney realizes the Bubble does that for her she will probably adopt the Magneto pose :D
Flying-kick pose. As a bonus, it translates directly into a first attack, giving a bonus to initiative!
First of all, in a superhero comic, actual laws of nature like aerodynamics matter very little. The most important thing is always what looks cool. There is the Superman pose with one or both arms in front, sometimes with a fist. But there’s also what I could call the Peter Pan pose, from the Disney movie, with the arms out like a kind of “wings.” I have the impression that the latter is used more often for female fliers, though there are exceptions both ways.
If I should don my amateur psychologist’s robe, I guess it depends on what the flying is supposed to represent. I suggest that the Superman pose represents power, while the Peter Pan pose represents freedom.
It would depend on how exactly the flying works. Apart from the aerodynamics mentioned, it’s basically same pose as swimming. So if your body is supported by the flight force similar to water, holding your head up would be the only minor problem.
I’d totally commission a set of ‘flight goggles’ that were basically prisms / mirrors / what have you to redirect my vision 90 degrees ‘up’ so that I could fly with my face down, but still see in front of me while in an otherwise classic superman pose.
Considering that Sydney has localized gravity, I’m assuming that she’s pretty comfortable in whatever position she’s in while flying.
The problem Town Crier means is the angling of the neck in order to be able to look ahead
What RobK said, as the main problem; however, in the more classic “body as straight as a board” pose, to reduce wind resistance, I guess, keeping one’s head in the up-and-back position, so as to see where one is going, would also cause cramping in the shoulders, back, buttocks, and backs of the legs after several minutes of sustaining the position, much lesser hours. Now, I am willing to allow that a standard F.I.S.S. hero can pretty much not have such issues, but Sydney is a normal person plus alien orbs. Luckily for her, wind resistance is not an issue, so she could actually run in place, stretch out, even go to the bathroom (bring a bucket or slow down and briefly drop the shield) if she so desired. Big time “Ew” on that last one, but one can not ignore bodily functions if one is basically a normal.
Ironman strikes me as the more advantageous setup, since he can use a graphic display to simulate looking forward, and have “facilities” built into the suit to deal with, store, and probably eject bodily waste, as well as carry a supply of water and food concentrates. Being a genius helps lots.
MAXIMA IS SMILING AND TAKING 5 MINUTES TO GOOF OFF?
WHAT IS GOING TO HAPPEN TO THE WORLD? lol
Okay, How many of you had to come back and read the text at the bottom of the comic, because that last panel is too awesome?
Yup. ;)
My choice power? heh, already got that one down pat. Portal creation ala my own hero “Hallow”. Man I need to get back to work on him…
That’s one of my top ones as well. However I would like to combine it with Achilles style invincibility, and/or Halo’s shield. (Though with fresh oxygen). Then I would go and explore everywhere. I’d probably make a deal with NASA that I would ferry some guys to Mars and back for them for a few billion dollars (easily cheaper than when you have to do it with technology) and put it in a bank account to have a steady income of a few tens of millions a year, even with today’s crappy interest rates.
Sydney knows how to use SCUBA. She could use that, maybe with a modified regulator. She could try a firefighter’s air rig instead.
Maxima has a magic logo hat…
Alteration of reality at will.
I turned six during the US’s bicentennial celebration, and I’d still pick flight if I had to choose only one super power…
That, or invulnerability like Achilles.
Choice of power, to make my imagination real.
Careful with that one.
That would have what Sidney calls a ‘bad power’ since nightmares like to manifest during sleep. You would spend the rest of the comic fleeing from something that terrifies you, someone who now can defend yourself with imagination.
What would such a person fear? Nothingness? Themselves(evil clone)? Or perhaps it would be simpler than that… WRITER’S BLOCK! The ideas just… stop.
Alan Wake.
Awesome game, but HE wasn’t making his imagination real… that was the power of the dark entity. It had the power to make Alan’s story come true, but not enough power to free itself, which was the whole point… to get Alan to write a story in which it gained enough power to enter our world.
Aron’s point still stands, though… that kind of power could be dangerous, unless one of the conditions for its use was that it required a conscious effort to make it happen.
Remember the Krell, dude. That kind of power didn’t work out so well for them.
It didn’t work out very well for Dr. Morbius either.
Other top picks are (I assume these are all combined with a form of perfect immortality):
My own personal dimension so I can do stuff while no time passes on earth.
The ability to learn anything I want to be able to do instantly.
The ability to “automate” things I would normally have to do by hand. E.g. I know I have to repeat a certain set of steps a lot I could simply cheat to the end result.
The ability to teleport anything I know the location of to another location I know of.
I would combine the latter three to clean up all waste in the world and sort it in piles for recycling.
E.g. (Learn the location of a piece of non-sorted waste near Earth, teleport it to me, learn the perfect way to recycle it. Teleport it to the corresponding waste-pile) Use the other power to do this instantly until no more unsorted waste exists near Earth.
#3 – AKA programming and robotics
Next time Sydney wants to fly,how would she look in flying goggles?
Will the media prep course occur next time?
She doesn’t really need flying goggles, she has her shield for that
Now I’m wondering what she would look like wearing one of those old leather barnstormer flying caps with the goggles . . .
Personally I think she should have a set of goggles so she has the option of flying at highish speeds while using something other than the shield orb. Say, using the truesight orb during a search and rescue overflight pattern, or chasing after a cruise missile and trying to shoot it down with the PPO. Even if she’s only dropping the shiled orb for a few seconds at a time, the ability to still see what she’s doing sounds like a no brainer. The flight orb’s built in inertial dampening isn’t perfect.
Good points, it would be nice to be able to use other things during high speed flight.
Though she could probably just ram a cruise missle with her shield. Achilles style (https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/384)
Also the possibility that, with a suitable set of flying goggles, Sydney could have a REALLY kick-@$$ HUD (heads-up display). That would be very useful on the job – and also be great for off-duty game-playing.
She still needs her prescription glasses to see distances well, especially at high speeds.
Max: Look out for the geese!
Sydney: What gee…? Wah! Sputter [ Rapid descent! Uncontrolled flight into terrain ] How does that go? Any crash landing you can walk away from is still a successful landing? [ Stands up and dusts herself off ]
Max: [ Swooping down ] Are you alright? You made quite the ditch there. You would almost expect Ma and Pa Kent to show up any second now to check out the end here. Nope, no spacecraft, just a space-case. Will you watch where you are going?!
Sydney: [ Stupid grin ] Just call me Sydney Sullenberger. Man, I have got to remember to wear my glasses when I go flying.
She has reading glasses. Dave said it recently, but I’m not sure where.
Maybe she’ll have goggles that’ll fit over her glasses?!? Otherwise Sydney in a leather flying helmet ang goggles would make her look like Rocky the Flying Squirrel….!
Reading glasses are for seeing better at close range.
So she’d have no problem seeing long range without glasses (which is the relavent distance during travel)
She wore her glasses when she was driving. You can not wear reading glasses when driving, unless you want to hit something. Near-sighted people wear prescription glasses for seeing at significant distances.
Those are her Agatha Hetrodyne cos-play non-prescription glasses. They make her look cute.
;-)
[s]Agetha[/s] Sydney is cute with or without the glasses
You realize it would be possible to make prescription goggles. And with their tech, possible to make goggles that can swap prescriptions at will. So when she’s ‘on duty’, she just wears those- when off duty, she can take that off and put on her glasses.
Top picks:
Achilless Special (absolute invincibility&immortality)
Teleportation (better than flight IMO)
Computer implant with internet access (but only with a surefire protection against viruses – like, say, double layer of software and hardware)
Shapeshifting
And finally, the most broken ability ever – time stop.
why not go for broke and choose.
Become GOD?
Infinite power. immortality. and no one can tell you what to do!
And the power to be the good guy dispite killing an enitre planet worth of people!
Not to mention almost all of the plants, animals, insects etc. All totally innocent, but
whoever wrote that bitGod didn’t seem to care.Actually, when you concider that most life on Earth lives in the water, percentage wise it’s less bad.
Yeah, about 90% of all species living today live in the water…At least that’s what I read recently.
Don’t forget that some species that are capable of flight & still can land (& float) on water when they get tired of flying. Those species could still live for quite some time if they know how to go fishing for their food, too.
It didn’t work out to be that great a deal for Dr. Manhattan.
I’d be nervous about time stop. Every time there’s a movie or TV episode with some ability to stop time, there’s often some episode or risky part of the show where the protognist gets ‘stuck’ out of time and can’t get time to start up again, or has to keep time frozen because they don’t have time to restart it without dying.
Clockstoppers
Futurama (this has happened several times in a variety of ways)
Twilight Zone
The Outer Limits
Simpsons
Thursday Next
The Langoleers (sorta)
Inception (sorta)
Stargate SG-1
Angel
Star Trek TNG
I think Hiro might have had an episode with that in Heroes too…
I dunno, the risk of being forced to stay stuck out of time is scary enough to be waaaay too much of a threat to want as a power.
Not so much as time stop as much as time manipulation; the ability to change the rate at which time flows & in which direction you can make it flow (backwards or forwards, compressed time or dilated time). It would be difficult to get “stuck” in time as long as you can bring it back to the “normal” pace, without ever actually stopping it at any point.
Could go another route and just have time slow down to 1 minute equals 1 planck time length. Basically stopped, but not.
You better get some upgraded parallel processing capacity with that or you’ll find yourself stuck watching cat videos for the rest of eternity…
I think the best option is to partition the environment. Anything drawn off the internet, or other remote external access, only operates in a dedicated sandbox environment. Making sure that the core operating system strictly gets updated just by physical, verifiable, means. And that it never runs code from the sandbox environment anywhere else.
On top of the usual firewalls and anti-virus both for the core system and the sandbox.
Well it’s a super power. So just ‘technopathic connection to all machinery, electronics, computers or devices, with utter and inviolate mental control’, and bam, you’ve become the Internet God. Also known as Ceiling Cat or Anonymous ^_^
The start f this page is a bit jarring to me. Could have done with a panel or two of Arianna contacting and berating Maxima for her to reply to instead of Maxima just talking to her as if Arianna was listening to them the whole time.
As for powers I like the idea of nen powers from Hunter X Hunter. Just the basic techniques (e.g. Ten, ren, en, gyo, shroud etc.) would be useful powers to have, before even getting into the personalised hatsu abilities.
Seeing the last panel (Beautiful, by the way) reminded me that one of the first fatal mid-air collisions in commercial aviation was in 1956, over the Grand Canyon when to flights from Los Angeles went sight-seeing over the Grand Canyon but did not see each other until too late, due to some clouds. 128 people on both planes died in the crashes; no survivors. Mind you, if these two ladies bump into each other, it is unlikely to result in injuries on either part.
Unless Sydney drops her shield.
Me, I want the TRUTH power.
Every question you can make, I know the TRUE answer, as long as that answer was ever known to any man, ever ( knowing the true answer to all questions, you’re god – a bit to much to ask..)
Soo, you just want Intellectus?
– Okay, Alex, let’s try Ancient Indian Architecture for $2000.
Daily Double
– You have $78 400. Both of your opponents are in the hole, so what do want to bet this time?
– Let’s do another True Daily Double™, just like the other two times.
But do you really want to know that you are living in the Elder Gods’ snack bowl, and it won’t be long until you will have a tentacle scoop your brains out, for an entrée?
Ct’hullu Saves!
…He might get hungry later…
But he can easily bribed with coffee ,
https://www.thezombienation.com/the-cast-page/
The most versatile answer is “Uninhibited Telekinesis“, seeing as how with Telekinesis, you can manipulate anything you want. That would include the smallest component parts of the Universe.
In essence, you’re now God.
Functional alchemy, turn atoms into other atoms
Except your brain can’t process manipulating matter at low level, you’d need to have some serious augmentation of mental abilities.
Being able to use the power is usually an automatic secondary power though
See the ‘uninhibited’ part. So I imagine his telekinesis is on par with Cable’s during his Messiah phase in the Cable and Deadpool run where he was going toe to toe with the Silver Surfer and blowing up buildings (and people) and reconstituting them molecularly before it could register that they’d died haha.
Dat grin!!!!
I think magnetism. Make my money in rare metals, finding them and extracting them. Then construction as I see fit. Can you imagine the homes I could help build when I could afford to be altruistic cause I am that rich? Third world countries could have pilings and underpinning done in moments and not days, if not weeks. Major construction projects could be started with a quickness. Overpasses having the infrastructures put up with a quickness, inspected and concrete poured… (I know its sounding too help the world, but I did start out with making my own money)
Don’t forget that magnetism control also effectively gives you electrical control. With fine enough control over shifting magnetic fields you could induce potential / current in the metal you are working such that it weld itself or you could directly interface with electronics. Act as an emergency pacemaker or defibrillator or human-MRI at any time. I always wondered why Magneto never played with the ‘electro’ part of electromagnetism.
Someone needs to go back and look at Magneto’s actual comic history. He controls the entire electromagnetic spectrum and has even manipulated gravity a few times as well. Burned a city down by manipulating infrared energy (heat), went invisible (manipulating visible light) created X-rays, microwaves, stopped gamma radiation at the center of a nuclear explosion, etc.. Comic Magneto is WAY more powerful and competent than movie/cartoon Magneto.
For those going Immortality as their wished for power, You might also want to double that down with stop aging. Otherwise your a 700 year old, in the body of a 700 year old. That starts to get pretty dampening after you get past about 55.
i’ll say… just ask Lo Pan about that…
My idea: ratio of 1:500. Person alive in Abraham’s time would now be ~8 years older.
Please don’t also include super long puberty in that
It, uh, actually does. With my fiction, it kicks in right at the start of puberty.
Do you have any idea how long it would take to grow up to the point where you could legally order drinks in a bar?
No thanks…I’d prefer Achilles’ type of invulnerability, as it didn’t really kick in until after the point when he was already legally old enough to drink anywhere it’s even legal at all.
Great scene, love it.
Panel 6, her hat appears to be missing its logo. It also looks… off. Like it is off center relative to her face.
I can’t point to any one thing, but the perspective/tilt just seems a bit warped to me.
Enough of that though. I continue to enjoy your comic.
This one’s all on Sydney’s impulsiveness being right.
I love that last panel, great job!
As for my superpower I personally would pick Telekinesis. It is so versatile for use in everyday life or in use when supers are needed to save the day that I really can’t see choosing another power over it.
Hmm… Mental crowd-sourcing? The ability to access/use any skills/knowledge possessed by people in your vicinity, and to permanantly copy such though touch and gift ‘permanent’ skills/knowledge to others the same way.
Then, enter a quiz-show where the host can see the correct answer :D Or just charge extortionate amounts to give people languages & social conventions, such as diplomats or politicians
“Now where did that . . .”
Maxima stopped there, but what do you suppose she was about to call Sydney? :D
Recruit? Duckling? Actually military jargon for baby pilot?
Brat?
Given which original characters I’ve put the most thought into I’d have to go with the full scope of telekinesis. Macro to micro. So punting meteors into the sun to not breathing in potentially noxious fumes from a broken down car. Other option would be the manipulation of light or waves in general. As I said on another site with enough thought I could make pretty much anything op.
Creativity is the ultimate superpower.
As side power you’d need the ability for your brain to process those things though.
A human brain can’t really focus on more than 1 thing at a time (multitasking is actually just switching between tasks fast, or doing multiple tasks that you basicly do on autopilot)
It would be very difficult to control so many things at the same time
One super power i’ve always wanted is control of my personal perception of time.
train journey due to take 3 hours? fast forward. in a fight? slow your perception right down so you can react to things much faster.