Grrl Power #418 – High level talks
Hopefully you all can follow Sydney’s pantomime. Without motion it probably loses something. In case you can’t tell, the second panel of the pantomime she’s doing the universal symbol (in her mind) for “two toes.” Dabbler “Two Toes” Tantalis.
It bugs me in movies/spy shows when people fail at spycraft 101. Your contact hands you a USB drive? Don’t plug it in to your agency computer idiot! Or the network connected to your agency mainframe in Skyfall. I’m looking at you, Q. Plug it into an air gapped machine inside a Faraday cage. You and your cohort arrive early for the meeting? Discuss top secret plans why not? It not like anyone has invented a thing called a microphone.
I get why that stuff happens in movies and shows though. If the good guys did everything right all the time, the plot would either stagnate, or the bad guys would have to actually be especially clever. By which I mean the writers. I want to write my characters acting smart (at least the smart ones) and Maxima is certainly used to keeping secrets and thinking at least a little bit like a spy. The problem is if I somehow accidentally write the good guys being smarter than me, it’s possible the bad guys will never get away with anything, so I guess everyone in the comic has to be, at most, slightly dumber than me. :/
That’s kind of weird to think about. No character can really be smarter than the person writing them. Crazy math/tech/science/magic skills don’t count, since the writer isn’t showing the work. That stuff really happens “off screen.” Inventing a time travel button isn’t smart, it’s just something the author wrote. When the character uses it to travel to 5 seconds before the life altering event he has to stop instead of an hour before or a week, that’s actually dumb, or at least, high INT, low WIS. The characters’ plans and courses of action and witty dialog are entirely limited by the person writing them. The one advantage all characters have in common is that a writer can spend a 5 hours, 6 months, 10 years or whatever, coming up with said plan or snappy dialog, and that’s what makes a smart character seem smart. So there’s probably a formula that incorporates the author’s intelligence factored against the time spent that will tell you how smart any given character of theirs can actually be.
Sydney’s rebreather fits neatly under her jacket and has a retractable loop-over-the-ear stillsuit style nose hose, because otherwise you guys and I both know I’ll forget to draw it. I pledge to at least remember to draw a bump under her jacket once in a while. The rebreather can also function without the hose, actively pulling in then venting recycled air, but that eats up the battery much faster. Eventually Sydney will have her gun and other gear on her so I’ll need to design a super easy to draw utility belt.
Speaking of gear, Maxima’s facemask is supposed to look like it’s able to fold up and tuck into her jacket, but… it doesn’t. Just pretend for now. Maxima mostly needs it to speak, cause you know, sounds doesn’t transmit in a vacuum. She does need to breath, (otherwise Vehemence’s attempt to strangle her wouldn’t have been nearly the same threat) but her internal power can subsidize her oxygen needs for a while. A human body (or any aerobic cell) uses oxygen to create ATP, which is chemical energy. Maxima’s cells generate their own “super energy” and in a pinch her body can use this energy instead of ATP, lowering her O2 requirements. The exact amount of time she can go without air will surely be determined by the needs of a future storyline. :) It’s not measured in hours, but it’s definitely longer than a human can go without air.
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A few author comments.
The design of Sydney’s rebreather can be simplified from the aquatic variety. The air does not need to be contained in a hose from the person to the unit and back, since the shield bubble contains the total volume. I am not sure if the nose tube is to provide scrubbed air to the user or concentrate the air going back to the CO2 scrubber. The battery could be saved when it is set to run on ‘auto’ using a built in fan by having it turn on the fan only when a sensor sees ambient CO2 levels have reached a certain safety limit.
My one complaint is with the setup, since the topic for today is ‘being smart’. I hope this is just for testing and not the final design, but having a tube hanging exposed outside the uniform is just asking for it to be snagged on something. We see this in movies all the time. The director wants the audience to know ‘this person is breathing special air’ so the space suit, hazmat suit or diving gear has a big exposed hose going to the person’s helmet. This inevitably leads to said hose getting snagged or cut, thus putting our hero in peril. Try to avoid that.
And do you have an established altitude for our dynamic duo? It looks to me like it could be in the 50K feet range.
I actually had a little trouble finding photo reference for “this is 1 mile up, this is 5 miles up, this is 10 miles up” It was all either “view from skyscraper, view from airplane, sattelite view” so I think this shot is from the high end of a commercial airliner, so, somewhere between 5-7 miles. I was hoping to make it look like they were at least 10 miles up though.
As far as the hose goes, she’d only wear it while she’s flying in the bubble, so there’s little chance of it snagging on anything. If it was something she needed in the middle of a fight, yes, it would need to be less snagable. I always wondered why Batman’s first move isn’t to yank Bane’s venom supply line out.
I think sometimes he did, but only when in a hurry. It tends to really mess him up.
Going for the Venom Supply is SOP when fighting Bane.
However getting a solid enough hold to actually yank it off is not that easy. Especially when it is attached to a superstrong person, that could break your back with one knee, throw cars at you and is otherwise resisting a lot.
Take a copy of Kerbal Space Program, add the mods that turn Kerbin into Earth, launch a tiny ship with the gravity and fuel cheats enabled, find a good altitude, and see what the altimeter says.
I used to be a space nut before but that game has really opened my eyes to what planetary scales actually are.
Yes, this.
Obligatory XKCD https://xkcd.com/1356/
Cutting off the Venom helps, but Bane is a badass even without it. At least the Comic version of bane and not the bull shit versions they use for cartoons and videogames.
Depends on who’s writing Bane in any given comic but officially he’s always playing around with the venom formula so his addiction level varies from time to time and it’s cannon.
Batman’s main move when fighting Bane IS to remove the tube. Usually by slicing it since it’s not easy to yank it out without, oh…. getting your back broken, for example.
Yup. I’m pretty sure Bane once screwed with Batman by developing a patch that provided a jolt of venom so when Batman cut his main line he just slapped on a patch and kept fighting.
I… think that was in Batman Beyond, but I could be wrong.
Wasn’t there something about multiple patches being applied at the same time or is that another series altogether?
Yes but I thought that was in the Batman Beyond cartoon, where the Venom was being used as a new drug in patch form.
Re: trouble finding reference shots:
Ask and ye shall receive:
https://www.daveakerman.com/?p=1927
Dave Ackerman is a High-Altitude Balloon enthusiast (google keyword: “HAB”) and well known in the Raspberry Pi community.
Post includes (annotated!) photos at 9081m, 30043m and 27549m.
His website has many more shots from up high, but most of them aren’t annotated with altitude directly (though it may be derivable from some of the flight meta-data he posts)
Ooh, thanks, I’ll stick that in with my reference bookmarks.
In terms of landmass scale (i.e. stuff like “what do mountains look like from 10 miles up”), Google Earth is probably an cheap and quick solution. I doubt it makes a good simulation of what the weather would look like, though. Although you can easily find tables of what kind of clouds you’d find at a given altitude: https://www.kudzuacres.com/wwow/lessons/weather/clouds.jpg
1. If she has the shield up, and the shield is holding the air in (it’s been established as airtight, IIRC, and would pretty much have to be as it’s described here), then a rebreather is redundant. Useful if the shield drops, but otherwise not doing much.
2. A rebreather with a nasal cannula seems pointless. Most of the oxygen she’s expelling is coming out of her mouth. (Unless she shuts up and breathes through her nose. But this is Sydney we’re talking about.)
3. A pocket sized rebreather is almost pointless. You need to hold a good volume of air for it to have any benefit.
If you mean that it’s a small compressed oxygen tank which can supply emergency oxygen if the shield drops, that makes sense. But the shield itself is effectively a giant rebreather. One that would be far more effective than any rebreather she could carry. And pure oxygen, especially when compressed, is highly flammable. Literally rocket fuel (or at least a major component of it). Maybe not something you want her to be carrying.
I realize it’s a little late to be bringing this up, but I’m really not seeing what good that tube is supposed to do.
The first problem you face with being trapped in a small area with limited air isn’t the oxygen running out. Its the CO2 build up. The things you learn watching Apollo 13.
If that were a CO2 scrubber, that would work. It could filter out the CO2 in the air she is breathing in through her nose, and if she wanted to run it hoseless, it could scrub the air in general, but be less effective.
A SCUBA rebreather works like normal SCUBA but with a few significant differences. The air supply goes to the diver (like normal) then the exhaled air is returned to the rebreather unit, instead of being released into the water. The rebreather then scrubs the CO2, tops up the supply with fresh oxygen (could be air, but then the nitrogen will build up in the air supply) and send it back to the diver.
Syndey’s unit will need to have a CO2 scrubber that is collecting for the general air supply and then tops up of the oxygen and sends to directly to her nose. She then exhales into the trapped air in the force field bubble.
A standard nasal cannula (not saying Sydney is using one) is not a rebreather, it just blows a steady supply of oxygen into your nose.
A resting male human uses about 0,28 liters of oxygen per minute. Depending on the model a 2 liter oxygen cylinder filled at 200 bar (thus containing 200 liters of oxygen) weights between 2,5 and 5kg. So even if she only had the oxygen in her tank, she would be able to go for a while.
And speaking from my experience as an ambulance man, if you aren’t a total idiot (e.g. using flammable grease on the cylinders thread) there is no risk of fire, even if use a cylinder 5-10 times the size at the maximun ejection insinde your not-so-big ambulance van. Because you usually do that on multiple occasions a day, and nothing has happened so far. (Excluding, of course, said idiots)
It’s safe because oxygen is not flammable. Fire needs oxygen to keep burning, but oxygen can’t burn by itself. But none the less, speaking from experience, an oxygen cylinder is a great and fast way for bored EMT’s to nicely glowing coals.
But as Wee Red Bird said: the CO2 buildup is the real problem and the O2 in her cylinder does exactly nothing to prevent that.
I realize what a nasal cannula usually does, but if the author is specifically referring to it as a rebreather, I’ll assume that’s somehow what it is. Unless he made a mistake, and it’s an oxygen tube. I considered both possibilities.
But this thing is under her jacket. It’s supposed to be relatively unobtrusive, and easy to carry. You’re telling me she’s got a 2L bottle that weighs 10lbs under there somewhere?
As for fire: You have to remember who we’re talking about here. Sydney is accident prone, inclined to charging forward with terrible (but awesome sounding) ideas before thinking them through, and is expected to be facing super battles on a semi-regular basis. I’m not concerned about a regular old tank of oxygen being used by someone with a lick of sense (though even those have to have giant labels reminding people not to smoke). I’m concerned about Sydney specifically being the one to have one strapped to her torso.
CO2 buildup is a good point, though. A scrubber would help. But not if it’s hooked to a nasal cannula and kept stored under her jacket (and thus away from the broader air supply inside the shield).
1) A rebreather in an enclosed space is not redundant. Rebreather is an ill-defined term but Sydney’s shield is not a rebreather. It contains air but in no way circulates or refreshes it.
2) The canula is not pointless unless she’s breathing in through her mouth taking in the general air in the shield.
3) This is an advance verntech rebreather. Do not apply existing rules to it. I believe DaveB means for it to be a device which takes in air inside the shield, purifies the CO2 buildup, and supplies clean air for breathing. He could mean for it to supply some O2 as well, but I don’t know. Remember that oxygen only makes up about 21% of the air we breath. Even a small tank that isn’t running pure O2 could last for a while and Sydney was only asking to extend her shield time, not spend hours underwater. Pocket size could actually work just fine under those perameters although as DaveB said he wants to put it on a utility belt.
Hmm, okay. So it’s a superscience pocket sized CO2 scrubber and O2 condenser with maybe a small additional oxygen supply (and, while we’re at it, a filter to help remove bacteria, poison, and irritants) which is not designed to directly recapture the air she exhales. That would make sense. I’m not sure “rebreather” is the right word for that, but I can’t think of a better one offhand. But if that’s the case, then the air intake would be crucial. Not something you want to muffle inside your jacket. (Not to mention breathing armpit air.) A utility belt could work, but you’d at least need a hole in the pocket for the intake.
I’m going to have to point out that unless she’s speaking over a com, the facemask wouldn’t actually make sound transmit between them any better than otherwise. Sure, it’ll transmit through the air in her mask, but it’ll still be silenced once hit hits vacuum.
There is no vacuum. The air is thin but still there. Which is part of the reason she commented on it being quiet.
I’m just saying that the facemask wouldn’t make a difference. The thickness of the air between them is all that would matter.
They have throat mics.
And yes, non-dangerous radiowaves CAN get through the shield. Same as non-dangerous light and sound levels.
They have throat mics yes. With a slight tweak to the chokers’ abilities, the things will read the subvocal movements and actual speech is rendered unnecessary. This would also enable some really cool private comm during fights. (Used that in one of my novels, actually.)
Not so slight a tweak as it has to monitor lips, tongue, and jaw movements in addition to the larynx.
Actually, not quite. The electrodes read all the impulses, and can pick up those additional movements easily. The issue is that the patterns are unique to each individual, and sensitive to the positioning of the electrodes. Which is why it’s currently quite difficult to do.
I’m interested in that part about “pick up those additional movements easily”.
From what I’ve been able to find it takes some seriously advanced sensors for this. Things like ultrasound to track the tongue and a camera to track the lips has been used. Implants in tounge and lips that can be monitored by electromagnetic sensors are another method. Even implanting electrodes in the motor cortex to create a brain-computer interface has been suggested. None of these sounds easy to me. Especially if it’s to fit in a choker. And for Max I think we can forget about any of the invasive methods…
Hypothetically you could use an induction ring in the collar to detect the signals from the spinal cord. The hard part would be sorting that out from things like the signals for doing everything else, breathing, writing, jogging, digesting, etc. Which is tricky for us (mostly unique per person and requires pretty significant data crunching via computer) but probably not so hard for Dabbler. On the other hand archon doesn’t seem to want to rely on her technical know how too much, probably partly due to trust issues and partly due to dependancy issues.
I’m not sure that would work. I guess it all depends on just how the nerves are routed going from the brain to the relevant muscles in the mouth and face. The charts I’ve found indicate that they don’t go below the jaw.
Actually they’ve advanced the brain interface considerably in the last few years. Current research projects that have working prototypes include an implant that relays visual data from a pair of glasses with a camera allowing a blind person to see, an implant that allows the user to control a computer interface as if using a mouse, and a device that can be put on a person’s head that can read and project images of letters directly by the person thinking them.
That last project was working on the computer being able to project general images the last time I checked so within a decade or so there will likely be devices that can project your thoughts on a screen or maybe across the internet. Eventually they’ll probably figure out a way to project it into peoples’ heads allowing thought-to-thought communication for the first time. That will probably happen in the next fifty years give or take a few decades. They’ve already figured out how to record, transmit, and simulate one persons nerve impulses to another person. The same technology will soon allow them to fix the nerve damage from a broken back by putting transmitters on either side of the gap to transmit across it.
Technology just keeps getting better.
I wonder if at that altitude, how much is sound reduced?
Dave says they are about ten miles up. I just looked up pressure vs. height and according to the sources I found, air pressure at 10 miles up is just about 1/10 of sea level (and damn cold, at about -70 F).
Sound intensity is proportional to air pressure. I don’t know if it is a linear scale, but if it is, then sounds generated at that height would be about 1/10 the volume heard at sea level.
This also means that if the geomancer’s phone rings when he is down in his vault it would be really loud.
not necessarily, Sydney’s shield keeps the pressure inside the bubble at the SAME pressure as where she was at the point she activated it, otherwise her ears would pop when she changes altitude. and as for the gold-guy geomancer, he can do the same thing in reverse, he just creates the space with a lower pressure than what would actually be there IF the way to get there was open to the surface instead of something like an “elevator” compartment (a totally SEALED elevator mind you) since i’m pretty sure Arianna doesn’t have the kinds of super-powers that would let her keep up with Max and the Gold-guy… ergo, the vault that he created for the storage of his gold is at, or near enough to, sea level air-pressure for Arianna and him to be walking around the room without any protective gear what-so-ever… therefore the ring-tone will sound the same there as it does up on the surface…
“Crazy math skills” can only be gotten away with if…
1) You show nothing but the end result
2) You actually have them yourself
Otherwise, people are gonna tear things apart testing the accuracy of what’s shown.
Also, pet peeve of mine: the verb is “breathe” with a silent E at the end. “Breath” is a noun and only that.
One Schlock Mercenary comic I can’t be arsed to look up summed this up with a footnote. “The reader may ask ‘how much work did the author do coming up with these numbers?’ The answer is ‘as little as possible.'”
I love Schlock Mercenary! It’s done very well going from a joke-a-strip to a very plot heavy serious comic. The transition was excellent, and Howard Taylor is alongside the Foglios for making a free webcomic into a living (the Foglios did a LOT of other stuff first, though, from pre- and post- WotC Magic the Gathering art, to their own card game, to an actual novel [get your hands on a copy of Illegal Aliens if you can] to published art, and more).
I really recommend that DaveB talks to them (Howard Taylor is very accessible) when he’s ready to do the book.
On a totally different topic (but I was directed there from here), I was very disappointed with Spinnerette withholding volumes for the book. I also didn’t like the art until it got into color; Adam Warren’s shading is so good, Empowered (which is referenced in Spinnerette XD) is basically colored in B&W, but early Spinnerette…not so much. And they have three people (as do the Foglios) to do what DaveB and Howard Taylor are doing alone.
Keep it up, Dave. This is one of the best webcomics out there. I put GrrlPower firmly alongside Girl Genius, and you’re doing it with 1/3 the manpower yet 2/3 the comics. Great job!
The Foglios go well before WotC and start in the early days of Dragon Magazine and are there for a majority of the run.
I personally love what they did for the Graphic Novel Myth Adventures.
So many Easter Eggs the Bunny would get a hernia.
Some people do very little work on details in their comics, but some like DaveB or Thunt (from Goblins) seem to do research and put a lot of consistent detail into theirs. :) Which I happen to love.
DaveB actually did mention that “Crazy math skills… don’t count, since the writer isn’t showing the work”
A ‘breath’ is what you take when you ‘breathe’
typo in last paragraph of author’s note
Yes, know that, was just typing that so others can catch their own future typos
The writer of HPMOR (https://hpmor.com/) did a short series on writing intelligent characters based on his writing experiences. I can’t get to the site because I am at work and we have blocks, but searching for “yudkowsky writing rational characters” should turn it up. It seemed like good advice to me, but I am not a writer (avid reader though).
Here’s the table of contents for the series.
Sydney should totally try to stand on a ball to see if it works the same way as holding a ball.
If so barefoot Sidney would boast double simultanious power than not barefoot Sidney.
She tried various other body areas first thing.
And that conjures all the wrong nsfw images. Thanks porn!
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589
Thank you, couldn’t remember if DaveB actually depicted Sydney attempting the ‘butt-clench’ hold, but he did
… Along wirth a quite charming blush from Sydney.
Just how high up are they?
WOG says ~10 miles
If the air is thin enough for Syd to possibly pass out before she can bring her shield back up, then it’s likely that Max wouldn’t be able to talk very easily with her. It might have been better to have Max and Syd rest their hands on the shield to better transmit the sound. They would likely sound very distant and and have to shout to be heard, otherwise.
It isn’t that it would happen before she got her shield back up. It would be that the atmosphere in her shield would be the same at the atmosphere outside it even if she did bring it back up. Right now the pressure in the shield is the same as when she put it up, presumably at ground level.
And that’s why Maxi is wearing her mask: so she can talk for her throat mic to pick it up and transmit it to Sydney
That’s right. I forgot they had throat mics. Never mind, point withdrawn.
I would lay odds one of those unknown orbs is a life support orb. Maybe she would need to grab it every so often to refresh the air in the shield. The other might be a healing orb. I don’t know if she has tried them while she was injured or running out of air in her shield. I have no info to base these guesses on other than it seems that since the orbs seem to be designed as a suite of powers, those make sense in the context of the other orbs (to me anyway).
Healing was an in-universe guess even but despite her injuries Syd hasn’t tested it yet. It’s starting to frustrate me a lot.
She has been shot at in a bank robbery, been inducted into the military, fought supevillains, yelled at the President, flew through the Grand Canyon at Mach 2, puked her guts out on a track at 6 am, and gone clubbing. Let her find some spare time.
… And all that has been in just the previous 48 hours or so..
The rant about author intelligence and character intelligence is actually very interesting!
Would you believe there’s a way to write characters more intelligent than any person involved in writing them?
There’s a form of roleplay done on 4chan’s /tg/ board where a GM writes a story, and the players comes with suggestions, for actions and, with a particular kind of GM, even suggestions for how the world should look.
In essence, many players are playing a single character. With the combined input of so many people, the story often has ideas and plots that are far more complex or interesting than the original GM – or indeed, anyone else – could have come up with.
This extends to the single characters being played by many players. The suggestions each player makes are voted for, and they often end up taking completely baffling options and sideroads that are occasionally very random, and occasionally utterly brilliant, as each suggestion gives someone else an idea, modifies the suggestion, resubmits it, gives someone else an idea, and so on.
In the end, this single character becomes far more intelligent than any one of the people writing or making decisions for it.
That may be, but it’s impractical for writing a comic strip.
Not if you do the roleplay session beforehand and make a comic out of it after!
Was more thinking that one wonders why this methods isn’t used for more serious pursuits, as it literally creates a person with expertise in more subject than any single person could have.
… hrm…
https://www.prequeladventure.com/2011/03/prequel-begin/
the updates are a BIT inconsistant and slow, I’ll admit
Reminds me of a joke that Jeff Dunham says, when Jose Jalapeno and Peanut (his ventriloquist puppets) start talking to each other in Spanish, and he tells them to stop doing that because it’s making him feel uncomfortable, and when Peanut asks why, he says ‘Because I don’t know what you guys are saying since I don’t know Spanish.’
There is another way. I’ve been trying to get published for years. My first novel, the two main characters were based off of me and my ex-girlfriend (I was working through stuff). I always knew what my character was doing. At one point, I had NO CLUE for more than a chapter why the character based off my ex was doing what she was doing.
It turned out to be a brilliant way of creating a huge protection sphere very quickly.
Characters can be smarter than the authors if 1. They are based on real people not the author (may not be a requirement) and 2. They take on a life of their own. Many novel authors have commented that they create characters, and those characters become people, people who sometimes have motivations unclear to the author. I think Sydney is fast on her way to becoming like that.
…. Do tell a little more about the sphere?
Well, I could send you the book, but unfortunately the website I had it posted on is down because free websites aren’t a thing anymore. The short version is that she summons creatures from another dimension capable of doing magic, who in turn summon more of their kind, until there is enough of them to rapidly write the Elder Sign in the air and ground around Cthulhu (spelling changed due to copyright issues), trapping him. The main character then makes a deal with Cthulhu involving clever wording, and uses Tic-Tac-Toe to banish him.
Oh, if you want to share your e-mail, I’ll happily e-mail the book for free until I publish. ^_^
An author also has the benefit of knowing the plans and motivations of every character (and random events outside their control) and has an extended time to think about it. This allows for the Sherlock Holmes/Batman style of super-intelligence where the plans of one’s adversary can be analyzed and extrapolated in a way beyond human limits. There just happens to be a contingency for the attack on the character (with the implication that there are many other contingency plans as well). Maybe that tactical blunder was actually a trap.
Of course, if not done correctly, this kind of thing can look like a cheat and you can end up with something way more convoluted than necessary.
Never underesimate the power of human stupidity. The CIA and the FBI not to mention thr NSA all have gotten compromised.
Forgive my ignorance, but what does D.L. stands for?
In this context it’s: ‘down low’. She’s basically asking Syd to be secretive about it.
On the Down Low – refers to any activity or relationship kept discreet. Specifically, keeping an act, action or some other piece of information a secret.
Thx
I… don’t get Sydney’s pantomime.
I think she’s suggesting the reason she was asked not to use the Comm Ball is because of aliens like Dabbler.
Either that, or Maxima and Deus totally banged.
She means she wanted to make sure Maxima knows that Sydney knows that there are more aliens on Earth than just Dabbler.
It was explained in the very first comment nest
Ain’t nobody got time for that, sir ^3^
The flight ceiling thing reminds me of an old game of how to make awesome super-powers…less awesome, as in a (I wish I had….) and then put some horribly limitation on it.
two big one’s I remember on flight were.
1: Only able to fly twenty feet above any surface.
2: Only able to fly up to 100 feet above sea level.
I was playing in a campaign that had people occasionally get powers. One time somebody got x-ray vision. Each power had to have a limitation, so the GM had to come up with a substance he could not see through. I suggested ‘air’. The GM almost went with it, but relented on protests from the player.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9NJM53vSknk
I remember something about a super with the power of invisibility. The only restriction was that it only worked if no one was watching…
yep, the movie”Mystery Men” and it was actually played out that way in the movie too…
Never saw the entire movie… Did they manage to do anything useful with that power? I’m having a hard time imagining a situation where it would be of any use.
Yes, they faced a door with a motion-censor laser, he was the only one able to approach it to deactivate it
OK, so a machine didn’t count as an observer. What about cameras? Would a direct feed camera be different from one that only recorded? And if so what happens when someone watches the video?
So many questions and each answer tends to generate two new questions. It’s like taking a sword to a hydra…
With the 20 feet above any surface does the “above” only mean away from ‘down’ (down meaning toward the largest, nearby, gravitational pull) or would vertical surfaces count? 3 dimension are usually a little more finnicky than people tend to give them credit.
How big would the surface have to be? How about the fuselage of a rocket or fighter jet? Could it be the back of a vulture or maybe an goose? Radio control model?
Mind you HANO would be easy to do then. HANO is like HALO but without a chute to worry about.
The largest flat surface bigger than the user, so the ground, road, wall, ceiling, (balance it well enough and you might float about the center of a room and bounce between surface to boost your speed via dropping from one to the other).
Dabbler has had ‘Mr X’ following her around for a while looking for dirt on the ‘alien’. I think if she wants to get back at him she should conspicuously leave something that looks like a person journal lying around her room that she thinks he will take photos of for proof of her motives. The cover should be written in a script she knows they can decipher and translate into “To Serve Man”.
Was going to comment, but the stupidity levels are too much, time for sleep
That is pretty hilarious.
The title translates as To Serve Man.
But the text is just a list of Subservient sex positions.
Sydney in space, I think that is stretching it. I mean high altitude flight yeah that is possible being on the edge of the atmosphere that gravity won’t bother her yeah I can see that but not going into deep space. Imagine her smacking right into a satellite then pissing off a satellite TV company. XD
Well, remember how arbitrary the line between “high altitude” and “space” are. There was that guy who technically parachuted from space. Sponsored by Red Bull, if that helps the memory.
Also, forget orbit. If Sydney’s flight is not gravity dependent, then with her speed, she and Max can, with proper equipment, fly to the MOON. It would take about a week, but with Sydney’s shield, she can carry a lot of equipment, including air. The trick is to duct-tape her hands to the shield and flight balls, and see if she can fly in her sleep.
Actually, Max might not be able to make it, if she’s unable to carry enough air. We’ve seen Sydney’s shield with the volume to protect a press conference. It would be interesting to see if the flight ball, like the lighthook, has a weight limit.
Still. Sydney on the Moon.
Or Max could fly in Sydney’s shield with the air supply, in which case…if the flight ball has no weight limit…Sydney can take the entire team to the moon. She could take construction equipment…in theory, Sydney has the ability to make a permanent moon base just as practical as the ISS.
Also, orbital laser cannons.
I can see an off shoot comic where Halo is missing for a few days and then the news erupts with the Mars Rover catching video of halo planting a flag on the planet claiming it as her own. Soon followed by her trying to make a rock castle with the light hook and failing miserably.
It might be worth noting that we don’t know if Sydney can fly fast enough to hit orbital speeds – at least at low earth orbit. In atmosphere, she tops out at Mach 4 (~1.3 km/s). That it well short of the 7 km/s needed to resupply the space station or build orbital laser cannons. You have to go up over 200,000 km altitude (over half way to the moon) before orbital speeds drop to 1.3 km/s. However, without the drag of the atmosphere, her speed could be theoretically limitless if it provides her with a constant force. But that would also imply a weight limit – unless the force scales with the amount of mass.
But then again, the speedometer-like things on her orbs suggest that her limits are based on actual speed rather than force. Although, this gets tricky when you start leaving earth. Speed relative to what? The earth? The sun? The center of the Galaxy? It gets very confusing when you try to do absolutes in a relative universe.
Do we know that she ‘tops out’ at Mach 4? Or was that simply the speed Maxi set? Remember, Sydney didn’t even notice how fast they were going which implies there is no acceleration or ‘G-forces’ at play for her mode of flight
These are all very good comments, makes me feel like grinding down the numbers on theory baised on what I am seeing so far. If Sydney CAN make it to the moon, then things will get complicated.
And Screwball finds a way to get back on the net……kinda…
Well we do know she can get pretty high, maybe even orbital altitudes. So if so, all Sydney need do is suit up in a space suit, carry the cargo up to the right altitude, start racing along the intended orbit path, drop the bubble, fire the boosters on the cargo, let it start getting momentum then duck away & fire up the shield again before she gets roasted…
I know Sydney got turned to ash in 1 of the Gundam timelines, I don’t think anyone here wants THIS Sydney turned to ash too…
She didn’t top out and more importantly she didn’t feel it, which could mean that (without the need to accelerate) she might not even top out at light speed.
Again a very good point.
Escape velocity does not mean what you think it means.
From PhysLink.com:
“From the surface of the Earth, escape velocity (ignoring air friction) is about 7 miles per second, or 25,000 miles per hour. Given that initial speed, an object needs no additional force applied to completely escape Earth’s gravity.”
Sydney has additional force. As long as she is flying at Mach 4, the flight orb is exerting force to compensate for air friction. We’ve seen from their rapid stop that it probably ignores momentum, implying either 1. an inertialess flight system, 2. a lazy artist, or 3. one hell of a brake. It doesn’t really matter: you don’t need to hit escape velocity if you continue to exert force to maintain velocity, which the flight orb is perfectly capable of doing.
Escape velocity is how fast you need to throw something to throw it into orbit, not how fast a Soyuz has to fly to get into orbit.
Also, the speedometer thing is not tricky. It’s her speed relative to the surrounding space. If she is in deep space, that means relative to deep space. On Earth, we know it’s relative to the surrounding space because she’s not having to compensate for the rotation of the Earth. We know it’s relative to the surrounding space and not the planet because rotation speed varies with altitude.
No, I mean orbital speed. Escape velocity is the velocity required to escape an object’s gravity. If you travel away from an object at escape velocity, you will not go into obit around the object. Instead you come to a rest at an infinite distance from that object (ignoring the effects of other objects). Escape velocity for the earth at the surface of the earth is about 11km/s.
Orbital speed is the speed you need to achieve so that you can free fall into an object without hitting that object. The reason you are weightless on the ISS is you don’t have weight when you are in free fall, not because you have escaped the earth’s gravity, far from it. The earth’s gravity is about 90% as strong at the ISS as it is on the surface of the earth. Orbital speeds vary depending on altitude and the eccentricity (shape) of the orbit. But for things in circular orbits about 200 miles up (low earth orbit), orbital speed is about 7km/s. The reason Sydney would need to be able to go this fast is she would need to match the speed of the ISS in order to provide resupply without becoming a bug splat on the window.
As for the nature of Sydney’s flight orb, I agree that something must be counteracting wind resistance as she flys and a constant force is a good explanation as I discussed in my first post, but probably not the only possible explanation.
And I think the relativity of speed is more complex than you make it sound. What is the space around us? The expanding space-time weave (or whatever, I’m an engineer not a physicist)? We are all already traveling through that at huge speeds as the earth rotates, as the eath orbits the sun, as the sun orbits the galactic center, and as the Milky Way plays tug of war with other galaxies. Or maybe it is defined by the mass around us? Again this works great on earth where you have the relatively static land and atmosphere to measure against, but it is far stranger in interplanetary and interstellar space. Imagine she is moving away from the earth at a constant Mach 4 when suddenly she exits the earth’s magnetosphere and hits the solar wind. The solar wind is so thin that normal space craft don’t even notice. But suddenly the mass around Sydney would be flowing away from the sun at 400km/s! She would suddenly be swept up by it and propelled away from the sun at enormous speed. That doesn’t make sense.
You mean escape velocity, by the way, not orbital speed. I defined escape velocity above.
The definition of orbital speed, from Wikipedia:
“The orbital speed of a body, generally a planet, a natural satellite, an artificial satellite, or a multiple star, is the speed at which it orbits around the barycenter of a system, usually around a more massive body.”
If you’re going to take a stance on a subject like getting into orbit, use the right words.
Do you like mmmm….bananas?
Yes I like bananas but what does that have to do with anything?
Or just get some oversized mittens (big enough to hold an orb inside) with velcro wrist closures, so that it would be almost impossible for her to drop the orb.
That’s right, mittens are NOT her weakness!
Sort of like those bondage mittens
One problem: what if she wants drop the ball, in an emergency? Kryptonic Mittens again :P
Awesome scene! Now for some dumb reason I am imagining Sydney being tasked at some point to do some space station rescue mission, or geekily decide to take a moon trip to resolve all the (dumb) moon landing conspiracy theories.
I can totally see her wandering the hallways dragging a cart with 20 days worth of air tanks and a space suit, Max stopping her suspiciously, and Sydney acting innocent.
I can also totally see them disappearing for a month and coming back with a picture of their boot prints next to Neil Armstrong’s.
Or a selfie with the US flag in the background. That would make for a hell of an Instagram post.
Actually, not quite. The electrodes read all the impulses, and can pick up those additional movements easily. The issue is that the patterns are unique to each individual, and sensitive to the positioning of the electrodes. Which is why it’s currently quite difficult to do.
Um, that was a reply to an earlier comment. My browser derped.
Derp happens…
derp indeed
Forget that, if the shield has no weight limit with flight mode but volume, a conservative estimate of a 50 ft diameter in comic 173, would mean that she could lift some thing lIke 2000 tons of water into space. Of course, since she doesn’t seem to be able to get up to orbital speed yet, it would need to be accelerated by some other means
We need to get a picture of Sydney in scuba gear swimming inside a giant ball of water.
Her own aquarium?
Not to be confused with this Sydney aquarium. https://www.sydneyaquarium.com.au/
Sydney in scuba gear fighting forest fires on California – Blooosh.
Though if she is flying at speed on release it would be more of a sneeze. [think about it]
As I posted above, orbital speed is irrelevant. Sydney has constant propulsion enough to fly up. There is nothing to stop her from continuing to fly up. You actually mean escape velocity, not orbital speed, and escape velocity is the speed to get into orbit without any extra force.
From PhysLink.com:
“From the surface of the Earth, escape velocity (ignoring air friction) is about 7 miles per second, or 25,000 miles per hour. Given that initial speed, an object needs no additional force applied to completely escape Earth’s gravity.”
If you’re going to take an educated stance on a subject like getting into orbit, it helps to use the right words.
The definition of orbital speed, from Wikipedia:
“The orbital speed of a body, generally a planet, a natural satellite, an artificial satellite, or a multiple star, is the speed at which it orbits around the barycenter of a system, usually around a more massive body.”
Forgive me, but I’m a bit slow. Was Sydney confirming that Deus is like Dabbler?
Nah, Sydney’s just confirming she knows that Dabbler isn’t the only alien on record.
I disagree, DaveB!
In a brilliant piece a friend wrote on the topic of Sherlock, the point is made that a writer doesn’t have to be a genius to write a genius well.
A genius has to come up with the right answer – ideally, with consistency.
A writer has to make sure the genius is correct, sure, but has complete control over the scenario in order to ensure it happens. Accounting for the various natural consequences of one’s own rules can be difficult, but doesn’t require you be as intelligent as the character, because the character has to make intuitive leaps without the benefit of knowing where every atom in her universe is. You, meanwhile, do, because you put them in place.
Certainly, there are a million chances to forget to have a character note a detail they should have noted on account of being a genius. But being a genius has never been a defense against stupid behavior. It adds smart options to the table, but it doesn’t really take the dumb ones off. Sometimes when The Doctor misses something obvious and winces and goes, “Oh, I should have noticed that” and then goes back to behaving like a genius…sometimes that’s the product of subpar writing, but far more often it feels real. It feels right.
That bit about smart characters not always taking notes on every detail nicely explains how they hear someone talk about something, or see something not directly related to the case, and suddenly you can see the gears moving into place and the light switching on above their heads because they finally get that last piece they didn’t know they were missing
That is not sub-par writing, but realistic writing: a genius doesn’t have to know or see everything, they are just able to put things together faster, and most times they have most of the situation figured out but simply missing the one thing that ties it all together
Too bad they can’t make ‘Oxy-gum’ like the old late 60s anime, Marine Boy. Or some form of a tank with hydrogen peroxide + catalyst which breaks down to water + oxygen.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcSOeVb-j1w
“Oxygen generation using Heterogeneous Catalyst for Advanced Oxidation with Hydrogen Peroxide”
Seems a small compressed canister could be ‘triggered’ if the need arose. Lightweight, non volitile. Worst case, a peroxide spill on jeans.
I remember that show.
It suddenly occurs to me that ‘Oxy-Gum” could be one of those things you would NOT want to swallow.
Wait, isn’t Hydrogen Peroxide what they use to dye hair blonde? o_O
The Germans used concentrated hydrogen peroxide in WWII to power their ME 163 rocket plane. The technicians said that if it spilled on exposed flesh it would immediately burn straight down to the bone.
The James Bond jet pack ran on spraying concentrated H2O2 though a platinum screen that rapidly and exothermally decomposed it into steam and O2, making it as far as I know only the second steam powered heavier-than-air aircraft (see Besler 1933).
The ME-163 was, aerodynamically,. a GREAT little glider. It was very nfortunate to be married up to a propulsion system that, by any imaginable standards, was totally unsuitable for manned flight.
The Germans also experimented with Hydrogen Peroxide as a submarine propulsion system. The British acquired this technology post-ww2, and built an experimental sub, HMS Explorer, to test the cconcept.
Within the RN, said vessel very quickly acquired the nickname “HMS Exploder”, and the whole thing given up as a lost cause. Enough said.
What’s this about a utility belt for Syd? Really looking forward to the development of that idea. Gotta have a pepper spray holster, of course (good for spicing up her field rations, at least), but no telling what else our comic savvy little heroine will want on there. Some rope, her meds, her list, and all like that?
Also, “sexy wag” ftw. : )
Hmmm, restraining equipment (Daniel the Human says zip ties, handcuffs or rope would be too bulky), pepper spray would probably end up in there, ADHD meds, reloads for the rebreather, video camera/action cam set up to record what’s going on (don’t want Halo ADHD forgetting her reports), spicy snacks (no, pepper spray doesn’t count), battery backup for wrist-com unit to prevent it dropping dead on her at the wrong time…
Anyone else got any ideas?
I don’t know what would be in it, but she would have to have a canister labled “Bat shark repellent.”
Why would zip ties be too bulky? Zip ties are VERY easy to pack a lot of in a small pouch.
Also pretty sure a camera would likely be added to the goggles/glasses or wrist computer more easily :)
Battery backup sounds like a good idea. Zip ties, pepper spray, her gun, reloading filters (assuming the rebreather NEEDS reloading filters – it’s supposed to be experimental – maybe it doesn’t need anything), spicy snacks (yes!), ADHD meds (definitely), Bat-villain-repellent spray….
I read that as zip ties instead of, not zip ties and. Probably rope in that list somewhere too, or more likely some super-cord to save on volume like the air tank does.
Molecular filament with a few meters of Teflon coating to prevent her from slicing her fingers off.
Emergency med kit with things like field suture aka Crazy Glue, instant splint aka self expanding foam, epi-pen, anesthetic etc.
A plastic card with various names and contact details – organizations to directly call about specific situations encountered in the field. I KNOW whatever passes for ARCHON’s mission control should usually handle those things, but it is good to have a back-up just in case she CAN’T contact ARCHON directly.
Checklists for specific things, probably also on plastic card (OR in her Pip-Boy) – what to do in case of …. She will undoubtedly be trained in a lot of this stuff anyhow, but there are very good reasons to use a pre-printed checklist – you can then be sure nothing important is over-looked.
Spare glasses (I KNOW she can function without them just fine, but … )
Cleaning kit for said glasses.
Swiss army knife (for the MacGyver in all of us).
Ziplock bags, assorted sizes, for collecting evidence and/or samples,
How are zip ties too bulky? A bag of 100 has about the volume of a sandwich.
You’re thinking of the wrong kind of zip tie. Zip Ties used to restrain someone have to be made thicker than the zip ties that fit in a sandwich baggy.
https://www.uzi.com/other-gear/uzi-flex-cuff-green
Google Earth connected to GPS, because Google Maps can’t tell you how to find the Archon building from orbit…
Pepper Spray to spice up her rations? Pssh right. Maybe if she wants baby food on her rations.
Depends on how strong she has the pepper, Kid Ace from “TMI” use to use pepper spray to ‘spice up’ hotdogs, and he (and his family) have a high tolerance to the Scoville Scale :D (would still love to see a crossover between them, a spicy eating showdown)
This is Sydney “I will melt your face with my spice breath” Scoville Jr. you’re talking about here. However strong the pepper spray is, it won’t be strong enough unless it’s been used during wartime.
Maybe. :)
No, if it’s been used during wartime, it probably complies with the Geneva Convention. Pepper spray that also qualifies as “lunch flavoring” for Sydney is definitely in violation of the Geneva Convention. She’d probably want pure capsaicin.
@DaveB: If Max had thought it through, she wouldn’t need to worry about being able to talk to Sydney at high altitudes. Instead of a nearly pointless ceiling test, have Sydney englobe Max. And Max flies up to whatever altitude while carrying Sydney. That leaves Sydney one free hand for another ball. We already know that Max can’t pass through the shield. And that Sydney needs to remain inside near the center. we also know the shield will bisect anything. Depending on the shield size, Sydney could scoop up land or water, and even if it exceeds her ability to lift, Maxima in lifting Sydney would prevent Maxima from tearing Sydney apart by using the automatic point protection.
As to why “ceiling” is unimportant…Sydney, Max, Hiro, or any super with reactionless flight have no ceiling. Ceiling isn’t a physical construct, but a logical one imposed by reaction/thrust based movement. In thrust based movement, the energy used to move the item is in relation to its mass. As you move the mass farther or faster, more energy is required. that energy is attached to the mass and makes up a component of the mass to be moved. Reactionles flight isn’t like jumping. You are accellerating away from the mass at Velocity=X. You will continue to do so because you were able to start doing so in the first place.
I forgot to add that as far as RF communication of any kind is concerned, 10 miles is practically nothing. heck even the ISS at between 180 and 220 miles up can communicate with much of the near side of the planet anywhere on the near side with the rf equivalent of a hot commercial soldering iron or an oven light bulb. .
I didn’t quite get the pantomime at first. It was either Dabbler is an alien, or Harem was a spy (how Halo figured that out was a mystery to me).
Hmmm. Shouldn’t Halo’s shield prevent radio communication? Or is that considered a wavelength of light that the shield allows? This also brings us back to the tanning thing: does the shield only prevent “harm” such as the Aggro Aura), and would that include things like tanning or being flash-banged? Er, suffering disorientation from a flashbang grenade?
Radio and Light are just different parts of the RF spectrum. If you consider that her throat mic works through the shield, I’d say that a pretty good indication that it does not block RF. That may be a later fiddly bit upgrade to the Comm Ball or something linking the Shield and the Comm Ball.
It blocks radiation (light is radiation) up to a level. Anything that could be considered dangerous it seems to be able to block. Point in case, the lasers fired at it were blocked, the light around was not. I’m sure if you blasted it with a dangerously high level of radio waves that it would filter them out. As common radio signals are not dangerous, no blocking.
“I’d say that i trust him about as far as I can throw him, but I can actually throw him pretty damn far.”
Hmmm, could Deus actually be… Agent X? (The link showed up on mentalfloss.com today)
https://www.denofgeek.us/books-comics/deadpool/254483/agent-x-the-strange-history-of-the-other-deadpool
I’m sure it’s been mentioned by someone, but if Sydney just ran the tube up under her shirt, it’s out of the road but still easy to put on and take off…
“No character can be smarter than the writer”. Partially true. Not _entirely_ true. Because the writer gets to spend time sitting at home in a relaxed environment, spending days or weeks to work out a puzzle and the characters often have to work it out in a very short timeframe while under a great deal of pressure (like getting shot at). This means the characters _can_ be better thinkers than the writer in some respects, but they can’t think of anything the writer can’t imagine. Similarly, the characters can be more observant than the writer, by noticing details the writer would have overlooked in real life, but they can’t come to any conclusions the writer couldn’t.
By the way, I thought Sydney was pointing at her eyes in that panel that was apparently two toes. But given that she can see through illusions and that’s how she found out about aliens , I still came to the roughly the right conclusion.
He actually covers that in his commentary.
Hah, teach me not to start writing my replies out half-way through reading.
No, ‘two-toes’ is actually pointing at her boots, ‘two-horns’ is pointing at her eyes
Is this an air scrubbing device, that removes CO2 and other items from the air? Also, I just think Sidney is the sexiest member of ArcSwat.
As long as she’s in atmosphere at all, couldn’t Sydney just manifest her force field at it’s maximum radius, and then draw it inward until the air around her was at sea-level pressure?
Edit: And if she does that fast enough, compressive heating should raise the air temperature to something comfortable too, though by that point O2 partial pressure is probably toxic. Still, it’s a maneuver she should practice, and she should carry a non-barometric altimeter with her at all times so she knows exactly how big a bubble she needs to make.
That’s brilliant. It should work as long as she doesn’t freeze.
You know, with their ability to lift things and the apparent ease that they have with flight, they could pay for their entire ARC budget simply lifting satellites into space. Even Sydney, give her an actual suit so she doesn’t need the shield, and hauling a 10-15 ton satellite up? That would be insanely expensive to do with rockets, she could do it in an afternoon. Money made, all the toys and gadgets they want paid for, don’t even have to run a PR campaign.
I was gonna say she could use the light hook but that would require her figuring out varas gestalt power with her is that she can use the shperes too
The light hook can’t lift very much, remember? Only about 15-16 tons.
Wait, how is she lifting these things if she’s not using the shield? I guess xero’s mention of the light hook is actually feasible with the satellite weights your giving, but I’m not sure a space suit would survive breaking the sound barrier, much less air friction at sustained Mach 4.
Carry it in the shield like she did with Harem when she went to find her car seems like a better bet.
Uh…don’t Syd need to worry about solar radiation?
Nope. Shield keeps out radiation above a certain energy.
Also keeps out light above a certain energy level, sound above a certain energy level…. magic…etc. Seems to keep out ANY harmful energy – kinetic, magical, radiation-based, sonic, light-based, etc.
It’s awesome. :)
I don’t know if this has been discussed yet, but I just listened to an NPR thing about the Time Dilation experience people feel when they are in a life or death situation. According to their findings, people don’t actually see everything slowed down, their brain just stores ALL the information, instead of just the stuff you find important. I guess when you are about to die, everything seems important, since you want to try to use anything to stay alive.
What I’ve never understood about stories that have it as an element, and this is no exception, is why the government thinks it has a right to keep the existence of extraterrestrial and/or extradimensional life a secret. It doesn’t own those worlds.
Ever see men in black?
They think it’s for our own good.
Whilst unsaid, could also be for the aliens’ own good as well.
Even if the government doesn’t have a right to keep something secret (and knows/believes that it doesn’t), that is not the same thing as being required to publish that something.
In this case, note Max politely asking Syd to keep things quiet, as opposed to mentioning some slew of government gag orders and regulations.
I imagine, in this world, if someone with credibility started talking publicly and accurately about aliens on earth, the government would just give them a polite phone call and offer them money to quiet down, rather than making them vanish… depending on *which* government we were dealing with.
Because people panic easily.
MIB:
Edwards: “Why the big secret? People are smart. They can handle it.”
Kay: “A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it. Fifteen hundred years ago everybody knew the Earth was the center of the universe. Five hundred years ago, everybody knew the Earth was flat, and fifteen minutes ago, you knew that humans were alone on this planet. Imagine what you’ll know tomorrow.”
I love that scene.
Always possible that they keep it secret as a request from said aliens.
The first and most basic principle of government (at least, any with even delusions of stability) is “Don’t #### With The Status Quo”. There’s your reason.
Furthermore ….
“It’s amazing how good governments are, given their track records in almost every other field, at hushing up things like alien encounters. One reason may be that the aliens themselves are too embarrassed to talk about it.
It’s not known why most of the space-going races of the universe want to undertake rummaging in Earthling underwear as a prelude to formal contact. But representatives of several hundred races have taken to hanging out, unsuspected by one another, in rural corners of the planet and, as a result of this, keep on abducting other would-be abductees. Some have been in fact abducted while waiting to carry out an abduction on a couple of aliens trying to abduct the aliens who were, as a result of misunderstood instructions, trying to form cattle into circles and mutilate crops.
The planet Earth is now banned to all alien races until they can compare notes and find out how many, if any, real humans they have actually got. It is gloomily suspected that there is only one – who is big, hairy, and has very large feet.
The truth may be out there, but the lies are inside your head.”
― Terry Pratchett, Hogfather
OK, all that was meant to be a reply to Random832.s post immediately above.
Okay, wait. Maybe I overlooked something, but…which “brand new piece of tech” is either of them wearing? I don’t remember either of them having tech – that didn’t come from Archon – that they’d be worried might transmit their conversation…
Sydney’s new air thingy is from Deus.
When did she get that?
Here’s a great webpage about writing intelligent characters:
https://yudkowsky.tumblr.com/writing
Called “The Abridged Guide to Intelligent Characters”
I’ve long held that there are two aspects to intelligence, one of which can be emulated by people with lower INT score but more resources, and one of which can’t. I think of them as “clock speed” and “chunk size” – “clock speed” is simple to compensate for – the more intelligent character may get there faster, but the writer can take the time required to catch up. “Chunk size” is harder to grok – it’s the idea that some ideas are more complex than others; that some thoughts are literally unthinkable for anyone below a certain level. Of course, in real life, it’s not as simple as a linear scale – different people have different competencies, and someone who can understand the inner life of a proton can be confounded by the topological exercise of tying shoelaces – but, still, there’s a hard limit on how much smarter a character can be (or be shown to be) than the author (or the smartest individual in the crowd) simply because the character should think of things the author never would…