Grrl Power #481 – It’s basically just another kind of magic
I’m really bad about featuring new characters on a page without naming them. It’s on the next page so I’ll just tell you her name is Krona. That way you guys don’t have to refer to her as “hacking girl” in the comments.
I’m also really bad about controlling the firehose of new characters, but Krona is… I’m not going to say she’s the last one for a while, but it’s winding down. At least everyone seemed to like Clover and Ellie. :D
So yeah, Krona’s power is reality hacking, which, as suggested in the page title is really just another kind of magic. Instead of pentagrams though, her sigil happens to looks more like a soundboard. And instead of having to memorize complex spells before hand, she can just pull it up and start fiddling with the wires. Kind of like remapping a shader flowchart. This makes it significantly easier for her than most mages to alter things that already exist – unlock doors, change the color of a car, etc – but significantly harder for her to create things out of nothing, like fireballs. Still, she has some macros set up to do more complicated tasks, so it’s not like she can’t create things out of thin air, but outside of those shortcuts it takes her a while to do it.
Also, she’s not actually a mage. She’s also not a super, as you can tell from her physique. Actually no one knows how she does what she does, and she’s the only one who can do it to anyone’s knowledge, which is why she’s sitting all my her lonesome behind her banner.
Do grenade launcher rounds have a manual operation mode you may be asking yourself? These ones do, so don’t worry about it. :)
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That IS a cool power….
Hacking Reality is how Drummer’s power was described in Planetary.
Well, it may not be “Hacking Reality,” per se, but it could be a little bit simpler; Analyze / Control Device.
I see her as having direct override of the reality control panel, and it only took one small adjustment. Sydney needs to work on her recruitment speech though…..
Indeed, Krona’s eyebrows, in the final panel, have a distinct “we are not amused” look to them.
Seems more a “are you talking to me?” look to her, specially when combined with the chibi-noseless look
World Customize Creator. Same ability to analyze and alter objects. Lock and unlock doors, activate and deactivate… Tons of fun stuff.
I was either going to guess a Gnome, or a Technomage. Also, if she is unique, shouldn’t she be in the misc council section?
I think why she isn’t on the misc group is because that section is for established races that just happen to not have a large enough member base to warrant their own section. Krona however is seemingly something else completely and doesn’t belong to anything known. Maybe she is the first of a new subset of mages?
I like Technomage or Technomancer. Or possibly Gremlin.
Virtual Adept. One of the ‘Houses’ of magic in White Wolf’s Mage RPG. That’s exactly how they’d deal with a thrown explosive.
Yeah, that’s my guess as well.
A bit closer to Sons of Ether, I’d say.
Ridiculous. Nothing exploded, there were no green flames, and no new appendages resulted on ANYONE.
Well, the Virtual Adepts focus on magical computer hacking, whereas the Sons of Ether generalize a bit more in the practice of overall Weird Science. For example, Dr. Frankenstein would have been considered as one of the world’s first Sons of Ether. Also, the Adepts are known for their use of Ether Goggles as a Focus for their magic.
That sounds pretty close. Right down to the Ether Goggles.
:)
One of White Wolf’s Mage RPGs, anyway. The White Wolf Mage RPG that’s actually good is a bit less over the top, but would neatly fit her in as a member of the Free Council.
The Nitrine of Grrlverse.
Krona’s rejecting reality and substituting her own, or possibly wishing reality to be different. That makes her a genie… or a Mythbuster.
We’ll have to check if she has tons of c4 and uses it when in doubt
The way you describe her, she sounds like Bleach’s Orihime.
It may be that they expect more of her “category” to appear in the near future. After all, it seems to be a form of magic based on video games, which from the point of view of the council, are fairly recent. Alternatively, it may be a fairly significant power block, of which only Krona actually bothers to show up at council meetings.
Interesting possibility. We really need her back story…
Another possibility is that the Twilight Council did want to have her as part of the “miscellaneous” faction, so vetoed setting up a “Reality Alteration faction”, but that Krona did not like the idea. All it would take is her to access the field “Veto setting up ‘Reality Alteration faction’ = 1” and change it to “…. = 0”. The Council’s vote would thereby change from allowing the veto to rejecting the proposal, and Krona gets her own faction.
Other ‘tweaks’ may be “Private dressing room, next to council chambers = 1”, “Baskets of fresh roses always stocked in private dressing room = 1” and “Faction leader to have personal jet, funded by Twilight council = 1”.
Krona = Chronos, God of Time?
Anyway, her recent application to the A Team accepted, and her Nerd Cred Card was authorized. I’m thinking she’ll either be a best friend or worst enemy to Sydney. As Mr. Glass suggested though, probably both.
Krona could defeat Halo easily. Just alter the parameters of the shield orb, and it isn’t a shield orb anymore. She could also figure out everything there is to know about the orbs and tell Syd about it, or activate the inactive ones, or give her a whole bunch of Points to spend, or she could even start de-clicking blips!
IF she can affect the Orbs at all!
Remember, those things seem more like knots in reality than traditional ‘objects’.
In fact, it’s entirely possible that Krona and Sydney’s powers stem from similar sources.
personally i think they may very well stem from the same source.
1. they both seem to have 7 areas to work with, crona has her fields surrounding the visualized object sidney has her orbs
2. the areas they have look to be nearly the same color
3. neither one seems to have any kind of origin for their powers
And they both have heads-up displays available! By Jove!
Has anybody seen them both, in the same room, at the same time?
*conspiratorial look*
Um. We do. Right there. In fact they’re speaking to each other. XD
We’ve seen two confirmed Sydneys in a room together, both talking remember. We’d need three or more to debunk her being Sydney. :P
Damn.
Can think of at least three times I really, REALLY wish I could do that.
I could think of at least three times PER DAY I could use a power like that…
I can think of one time when I did use that power. And have no idea how.
*alters tail wagging from “=0” to “=1″*
I have done it before too, twice I think. Once I unlocked a locked door without any tools, and another time I had a door that always closed and locked itself not do so, again no tools or door props. Both times my key was inside, so it was very handy.
Three times a day you find yourself wanting to disarm a grenade someone has thrown at you?
Your life is waaay too exciting.
Okay, if that was the SWATaton Dabcon was battling, where did Dabcon go? o_O
Anyone seen where they went? Anyone? O_o
Exactly! Where is Dabbler?! I grow worried!
. . . also, azaleas.
*Sends Yorp to help fertilize the azaleas.*
*Guffaw*
I’ll never know how a rose
Can smell so sweet and pure
And hold it’s head up high
When it’s standing in manure!
– Benny Hill
Consider it done. I really have no idea why mind? Or is “azaleas” just a random thing that humans sometimes bring up, for surreal reasons? Kind of like furballs, for cats?
Just make sure he doesn’t eat them>/a>.
There’s something about a sexy magic woman with a big gun that goes Futa.
Her book sucks up the spent shells? VERY nice!
I was also impressed by her ability to both fire and police up her brass at the same time. I know a few drill sergeants who would be quite frustrated by not being able to hand out that task after any live fire exercise. Having owned firearms since I was 12 I wasn’t terribly gung-ho in Basic, and fired my M16 as little as possible. That both limited the amount of brass needing to be policed up, and limited the amount of cleaning I had to do. Seeing as how firing a rifle wasn’t any kind of new experience for me, I viewed it as being on the winning side both coming and going.
Probably to reload them for the next time…
Or getting a rebate on the mana used to create them in the first place. Kind of like returning your empty bottle, for recycling, and getting some cash back, for your troubles.
“Show me your War Face!”
~Drill Instructor in Full Metal Jacket
Wait, you saying the Ellie is packing more than a SCAR? o_O
I knew this crowd would know that one.
Well, at least it doesn’t go “Futter!”
^_^
I’ve seen plenty of artwork involving women with big guns and the word “futa”…
Big ‘water cannons’
that ain’t water.
I’m not sure which is more impressive, that Krona’s a reality manipulator, or the fact that Elsbeth’s book is policing her rounds.
The former. The latter is cool, but tweaking reality, at a fundamental level, is waaaaaay more impressive, once you realise the implications.
Big bang = 1 Heat death of the universe inevitable = 1 ————————->
Big bang = ∞ Heat death of the universe inevitable = 0
Number of Yorpie Snax™ in cupboard = 0 ————————->
Number of Yorpie Snax™ in cupboard = 99
Does Elsbeth’s rifle even have a drum magazine?
Yes, if you paid attention last page, you would see it had a twin drum magazine
Better question: does her rifle actually *need* a drum magazine?
Magic has a way of ignoring physical dimensions
It’s not a magic weapon, it was just summoned via magic
+1
Open book to “ammo belt”.
She would have been better off going for a “Hot Shots Part Deux” Machine gun. Man that thing never ran out of rounds.
“BLOODIEST MOVIE EVER” .
And it did run out I think, cause he just threw loose bullets at them at the end.
well what do you expect he didn’t one shot- one kill the bunny
I look forward to someone firing a chicken from a longbow.
Great. Now I have a mental picture of someone inventing a chicken missile, designed to be fired by a Longbow… an Apache Longbow (as in, the assault helicopter).
In a magitek world, it could happen. I remember one of the GURPS sourcebooks was set in a high-mana world where they had RGB’s. (Rodent Guided Bombs. Usually hamsters. Sure, they could’ve used laser guided bombs, but hamsters are cheaper.)
The US military did attempt to create pigeon-guided munitions, during WWII. With the intent of getting them to guide missiles towards enemy shipping. The training being to reward them when getting a dot to appear in the middle of the sighting mechanism. With a ship triggering the same response.
Sadly, on examination, the cunning plan did not take into account the fact that US navy ships look pretty much the same as Imperial Japanese Navy ships, to a pigeon. As one factor in deeming the project to be impractical.
Is that where they got the idea to stop that pigeon?
Not to mention the ‘Bat Bombs’.
And then there was the UK’s later plan to keep its nuclear landmines in West Germany (planted in case the Russians over-ran the area) viable in winter by filling a hollow casing around them with chickens for added warmth…
(YEs, really!)
As was said before, this is not a magic weapon. It was the mundane (propably not even a masterwork) item she stored in her Book of Holding – that is also holding onto her. Not any more magic then the Masterwork Sword a Supervillain has in thier bag of Holding.
These things can propably absorb any magic directed at them, making them “Explody”. So unless the “ammo creation magic” can very quickly decay (so the bullet is no longer magic when it hit’s), using a Bottomless Magazine would be to dangerous.
I have a “Garage of Holding” full of mundane things, but it doesn’t work nearly as well as Elsbeth’s book.
Definitely a case of it NOT being bigger on the inside, right?
:)
Anybody who has a garage of holding damned well wishes it was…
I love that konami code banner Korona has :D including the “Bee A”
Ah ha, I wasn’t the only one to catch that.
:)
Pity the fool who missed the B. A. :P
There are actually grandees that you can set but usually for distance to target for airburst and they have to be fired to activate but everything can be modified
Grate comic love it
That shader flowchart reminds me of Unreal. I wonder who programmed her reality UDK. Or what it’s called.
I see that Bloodrayne reference in the undercomic comment.
I’ve typed it many a time myself . . .
And Metroid
Thought her name was Konami, but Krona is cool (as long as people don’t try and spend her all in one place :P)
Konami is more feminine, Krona sounds very masculine.
It sounds Swedish to me.
Yeh this page and comments is making me think on money an awful lot.
Not just masculine, but a complete nog-head!!
Glad this Krona is neither
Like Sombra in Overwatch?
Don’t you hate it when someone has a similar idea to yourself that you worry that others might think you have ripped it off from them?
If that sounded accusatory, it wasn’t meant that way.
I’ve written a few characters I thought were unique only to find someone else using a variation of them in their own work.
I have similar experiences. The coincidence can be amazing.
Sometimes it is scary. First time I thought “has someone in the future picked up a copy of my book from the 99p bargain bucket and hopped back in a time machine?”
In a population of seven billion you have to either be working in a totally new field or expect to find yourself retreading the steps of others. So it is best to concentrate on making sure your choreography is top quality, and not concerning yourself with anyone who may have been using the dance hall before you got there. So that your dance is appreciated for its own merit.
Thanks. Its the paranoia that sinks in. The fight in the mind of “Should I change them? Should I replace them with a different character? How do I make sure they are different?” In the end, I said “Fuck it, they are different. People will get it.”
But its the same when writing a joke into something. I saw a cartoon that depicted it perfectly with a writer saying to themselves “This is the funniest joke ever. Maybe it isn’t that funny. Actually it’s dreadful. Maybe it isn’t that bad.” and in the end, someone reading the book gets to that line and does laugh.
Synchronicity.
It’s usually referred to as Hodgkin’s Law of Parallel Planetary Development, but restricted to the various cultures across the face of a single planet.
For example, many modern religions (IRL) began with similar core beliefs that were observing the normal functions of nature seen by those ancient peoples. Most religions developed from those two basic tenants, Order vs. Chaos (to form their cosmologies, or the way the universe fits together), or Good Vs. Evil (addressing the Nature of Human Behavior).
Most religions developed fundamental concepts quite similar to each other, even though whole continents & oceans separated them from knowing of each other.
Well, there’s only so many ideas. Peggy looks like Zarya, Anvil looks like Zane (from Gold Digger) Sometimes there’s overlap no matter the origin on the idea. Sombra and Krona are both hackers, but they seem different to me besides their appearance. Of course, I know more about Krona at this point, so those differences aren’t apparent on this page.
Now if Sombra ever got her own Metroidvania cyberpunk type game and they expanded her abilities to more than just 3 things, then those difference might become less significant.
One of my characters is the only British member of a mostly American team and can jump forward in the same way that Tracer does in Overwatch. Was gutted when I started playing it as I was worried that some may think I copied the idea.
Thankfully she looks nothing like Tracer, because she has long ginger hair and a penchant for wearing yellow. Then I saw Crystal of the Inhumans. I had toyed with some black stripes on her outfit but had already decided against it.
Though, as you say, they are different and you know the differences yourself. That will always shine through.
I’ve come up with characters/concepts YEARS ago, only to find much later someone did stuff with notions near-identical to them and became so rich from it that even attempting to use my own idea would almost certainly be seen as a ripoff.
Back when I was a little kid, I had an idea for a super-strong, super durable hero who was basically a big bulky dude made of living rock.
Then I learned about the Fantastic Four, and Ben Grimm, the ever-lovin’ blue-eyed Thing. So much for that plan.
Fast-forward about two decades or so, and I decide to revisit the old idea, but alter it – instead of just one Earth hero, it’s a race of stone aliens. And instead of just rock (and this is what I thought at the time to be very clever), they cultivate special symbiotic lichen and mosses and such to emulate the hair and beards and such that fleshy races have…
…then along comes WildStar, and the Granok. Which are stone aliens who use moss and stuff to resemble hair…
Dammit.
I’d better get my WIP finished and out there before anyone else comes up with similar ideas.
The latter sound like Discworld’s Trolls, too.
While running a ‘Champions’ campaign in the 1980s, I introduced an NPC called ‘Night-Owl’ just a few months before the publication of ‘Watchmen’.
Drum?
Not clip?
Also panel 4..
Is the T Shirt logo a reference to The Matrix where Mobius offers Neo a choice?
The shirt should change without notice or after she does her ‘Magic’.
A twin drum at that
It would not be clip any way. It would be magazine. Guns that use clips are fairly rare and tend to be bolt action rifles.
Thank you.
Yes and no. :) A clip is what you often load a magazine. in the interest of not sounding prurient I wont mention it’s called a stripper clip. Nor mention the mind busting concept that you can load a revolver with a half moon clip or a full moon clip.
A clip can also be a non-supers cartridge that advances through the gun but, if it’s sealed, stays in place and only moves the bullets, then it’s a magazine. IIRC a drum is technically a magazine too.
I wonder if it is possible to get a drum in oil drum size? It sounds like Krona could do with one or two of those. And a boosted cooling system, to go with it.
Well, yeah, they exist. However they are used on really freaking large guns.
See Here
That’s what goes in an A-10, just in case you don’t know.
They are favourites of mine. I liked their early testing, when they performed favourably against supersonic fighters. Simply because the pilots were trained to fight either other supersonic aircraft or (relatively) static ground targets. Sub-sonic, highly maneuverable, aerial targets, with a very low heat signature, were a whole new kettle of fish.
Not that they are fighters, of course. That just amused me. The fact that they are extremely good in their ground attack role is the main appeal. A machine built for a specific task, which performs it very well.
Believe it or not, the A-10 was) (emphasis on was) slated for retirement. The biggest strikes against it were the age of the airframes, and the fact that it was not built with an all-weather spec, so it was not designed (for example) for night operations.
And then Desert Storm happened. Its tank kill ratio exceeded anything else; not a single one was lost due to damage (one of them made it safely back to base with a hole in the wing big enough for a 6′ man (~1.8m) to stand up in); and the pilots came up with cunning solutions for night flying, such as saving one of their AGM-65 Mavericks and using it like a nightvision camera. (The AGM-65 is infrared homing. As long as it’s still attached to the aircraft, the feed from the IR camera in the missile’s nose can be slaved to one of the Multi-Function Displays in the cockpit so the pilot can see what the missile is seeing.)
So, instead of retiring it, the military commissioned a SLEP (Service Life Extension Package) for it, including an upgraded avionics suite to add an all-weather and night-flying spec to it. It might be kept in service for another 20 to 25 years.
Speaking as an ex-pilot (although I never flew an A-10)… if I’m being shot at by 23mm anti-aircraft guns, I want to be sitting in a titanium bathtub. (Being an indestructible super would be even better, but since that’s never going to happen, I’ll settle for the titanium armor.) I’m actually pretty happy that the A-10 was not retired.
As far as being a fighter… you’re right, it isn’t. Using the 30mm cannon against enemy aircraft is overkill, and its radar doesn’t have the range to take full advantage of BVR (Beyond Visual Range) radar-guided missiles like the AIM-120. It does, however, have the ability to carry AIM-9 Sidewinder short-range infrared homing missiles for defense (four of them, if I remember correctly.)
I was an infantry officer in my younger days, and as far as I’m concerned all A-10 pilots should get the CIB https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Combat_Infantryman_Badge after a tour. I’m also a fan of fully loaded BUFF’s…..
I’ve read that when the Avenger is fired it significantly slows down the A-10. But this appears to be apocryphal, since Wikipedia states The average recoil force of the GAU-8/A is 10,000 pounds-force (45 kN), which is slightly more than the output of one of the A-10’s two TF34 engines (9,065 lbf / 40.3 kN each). While this recoil force is significant, in practice a cannon fire burst only slows the aircraft a few miles per hour in level flight.
I wouldn’t necessarily call it apocryphal, if the recoil is more than the output of one of the two engines, that’s more than half of the planes total thrust. Additionally, according to the article, the exhaust gases from the guns used to cause engine flameouts, although they have systems in place to prevent that now. So if you have recoil equal to more than half your thrust, then your thrust is cut in half, you are going to slow down quite rapidly. The reason that they only lose a few miles per hour of speed now is that the gun is usually fired in short burst and they reduced the maximum rate of fire, as well as solving the flameout issue.
I think I said non-sealed, not sure though, auto correct sucks.
A lot of them now seem to be drums, almost harkening back to the Tommy gun with drums pre WW2. You see a lot of weapons with them, ranging from shotguns, grenade launchers, semi and fully automatic rifles.
At first I thought her shirt was an Akira reference, but the color of the pill is different.
I’d have given her the name Konami. Since when I saw the little snippet at the bottom of the page, I thought of the Konami Code.
Still she’s pretty cute, and has one awesome power. Also, I second Sydney’s question. How is she not on their team?
Judging by her eyebrows, in the final panel:
“Because I do not want to be!”
Either that or she misunderstands Halo’s comment of “Fucking Team” and thinks “Well they do have a Succubus on it, so I cant REALLY say I am surprised but how come this wasn’t on the invite? I thought it was all exercise till you puke……..pen me now!”
Yeah, people tend to forget, that a weapon that can fire 500 rounds per second usually don’t come standard with a 500 round magazine (or clip or whatever the Hael they are called)
Magazine is correct most of the time.
Exactly. Large drums or belt fed like the mini guns for example. Still makes me laugh in some ways how “far” we have come from the Gatling gun and all they pretty much did was add a motor rather than a hand crank.
Have you ever seen the [older than the Gatling] ‘Puckle Gun’?
How about a repeater rubber band gun?
https://www.black-bear-haversack.com/index.php/toys-kid-items/rubber-band-guns/toy-wooden-rubber-band-gun-pistol-repeater.html
Yeah the British flintlock one firing either round or square bullets depending on the religion of who you were shooting. Seriously either way you are still getting a lump of lead in you.
A version of the original Gatling gun driven by an electric motor was patented by Gatling himself all the way back in the 1890s.
A Mag is a non-moving sealed container with an internal mechanism for ammo advancement. A Clip is an ammo holder with no internal mechanism, either used to load a mag quicker or with a gun that advances the whole thing.
A chained unsealed container with an internal mechanism for ammo advancement is a book.
Did anyone else mistake Krona for Halo having somehow changed her appearance?
And/or her long-lost twin?
*mind blown*
How did I not see that likeness?
To me, I think Krona could pass for Halo’s younger sister. By the way, I wonder how old Krona is? She looks very young.
The big eyes are contributing both to her young appearance and anime feel to her artistic style. The overall shape to her face also complies with that style (being more child-like than a strictly realistic adult depiction). Which puts her into the same bracket as both Sydney and Pixel. As such the three of them will have a passing resemblance, to each other, when compared to the more normal looks of the rest of the cast.
However once you factor that into the equation and compare them, as individuals, within that artistic style, I disagree that they are similar. Most notably Krona has a distinctively different nose.
I do though agree that she does look younger than Sydney (and Pixel), even though they are all in a young-looking manga girl style.
Question is: Can she hack herself?
Perhaps the big eyes anime/manga style is what she’s hacked herself to look like. Originally she could have been a 35 year old 400 lbs guy with arthritis and bad breath…
In which case she has good taste.
Bit of a side track… Launched grenades dont have a manual mode per say, but that grenade wasn’t armed…
They arm as part of the firing process, after about 15 or so, under that it’ll just break a few ribs and put you on the ground…(unless it pegs you in the head of course)
Depending on the grenade or missile type, yes, there is normally an “arming range” designed to try to prevent “friendly fire effects”.
But as we’ve seen… These guys don’t really have to care about friendly fire.
If you can throw it as hard as Max, all ammunition has a “manual” mode.
Likewise SWAT armour does not come with poisoned claws, wolverine knuckle spikes and anti-magic shield-piercing palm spikes.
These manikins have severely customised tech. Including having the feature mentioned, as per the author’s blog above.
Don’t know about these 40mm grenades but the grenades used with mortars, recoilless rifles and artillery shells has an arming range, usually defined as a number of revolutions of the guide fins, so if you find an undetonated grenade don’t start twisting that finned aft section. That’s not how you take it apart, it’s how you blow yourself up…
Yeah, she’s something special and probably also bored to *not quite her own* death
This morning Krona said “I am bored,” and altered “Interesting times = 0” to “‘=1”.
Prior to that Halo was going to spend the entire day in basic training. After the tweak, Maxima ‘decided’ to bring her along. Simultaneously the Evil Overlord Squirrel ‘chose’ to step up his diabolical plan and have his minions send in their SWAT manikins during this meeting.
We must worship the All Squirrel!
I for one welcome our new Squirrel Girl overlord!
Good squirrel overlords are permissible.
Also Just love the way the book collects the brass so she dont have to pick it up after….
+1
Also – that girl should have looked up ‘Movie Gun’ in her book as they never run out of ammo…
Unless it works better for the story if it does.
Movie guns do exist in the real world, true enough. But a blank-firing weapon, with the normal number of reloads, would not be ideal, in these circumstances.
But clever idea when glossing over the boring ‘reality checking’. Something that Krona could have assisted Elsbeth with.
I suspect that once Sydney gets over the “you can hack reality” bit, she isn’t going to like Krona for the same reason she doesn’t like Pixel. To close to her.
I have a feeling that it will go the other way. Sydney seems to have rubbed up Krona the wrong way already, and it may be a case of ‘first impressions counting’. Whilst you are right that Krona will have the ‘too similar to me’ disadvantage, the coolness of her power, and the fact that she is neither magical nor super, in nature, will absolutely fascinate and appeal Sydney. She will want to know Krona better, but Krona may not reciprocate.
Which is good. Sydney has a charming personality, and high charisma, which does go a long way to smoothing feathers ruffled by her antics. However occasionally you would expect to find a situation where the chemistry does not work. Which is both more realistic, on one paw, and more interesting to the story, on the other.
Mind you Sydney has managed to irritate a fair number of the Twilight Council, already, such as Barkley, Ingsol and Crimson/Scarlett (delete as applicable).
Nothing you have to apologize for. Add as many as you need to.
No, I agree with Dave’s admirably honest self-criticism here. The “cast creep” isn’t helping.
At least DaveB appears to have full history for his multitudinal cast
Oh well, we can’t really expect much different when the main protagonist of the story walks into a large room full of extra-powered people…
;)
Oh I like them all, I could read a web comic that’s just a list of characters with backstories that he comes up with. But it does bog down the narrative flow to introduce them all at once.
“I read it for the
articlesnarrative flow.”Or to use the more current version “I watch it for the plot”
And now you know the origin of the joke among the MLP:FIM fandom of referring to pony butts as “plots”.
Which makes plot hole a weird sort of thing to talk about.
No, those parts are called “ponuts”. Dare you ask why?
Huh, kinda reminds me of how Katia began to use witchhunter magic in Prequel… which is based on Elder Scrolls, which I have never played, so don’t know how much is the same.
Anyway, It would be cool if Krona could do stuff like switch gravity off (in a limited area) or change physical properties, like make something volatile, or harder or stuff, guess we’ll just see.
Elder Scrolls has specific schools of magic. One of which is Alteration. It used for opening locks, stoneskin, water breathing, featherfall, levitation, etc. Krona could be an innate Alteration user. (If TES leaked into this world.)
That goes back all the way to original D&D
Actually, “Switch Gravity Off (in a limited area)” is one of those powers that can’t survive the onslaught of the “Fridge Logic Brigade”. The inherent problem was even addressed in 1901 by H. G. Wells, in “The First Men in the Moon”. The area where gravity is ‘blocked-off’ is still subject to air pressure. As the surrounding, non-affected area pushes inward, the affected area has no ‘anchor’ of gravity from which to push back, & so it fountains upwards (you’ll note that this view of gravity as an energy that can be blocked, like light, was before Einstein published his theory of Relativity). If the source of the antigravity-effect can’t be swept-away in the resulting up-stream, then most of the Earth’s atmosphere would be ‘fountained’ off into space. This ‘air flow’-issue also places limits on the weight of the vessel, & therefore on the amount of air/food/power that any vessel can carry, so it’s unlikely to provide a survivable trip for any distance within even our own solar system. Even a moon-trip would be fatal, since ‘lift’ is only produced by ‘air flow’ & the airless moon would result in a one-way trip that strands you there until your supplies run out.
REF: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_First_Men_in_the_Moon]
If, “OTOH”, you treat anti-gravity in a more modern (I.E.: ‘Post-Einstein’) fashion, then you have something more like what we see in [(1956) Danny Dunn & the Anti-Gravity Paint], a ‘Juvie SciFi’-story in which a (fictional) material’s ability to ignore gravity (including anything within it, rather like a Faraday Cage) is adjustable by changing the amount of electricity flowing through it. While it’s not totally clear whether the resulting effect is to ‘IGNORE(=insulate)’ or ‘REJECT(like opposing magnets)’ gravity, the net result within the story is to ‘bounce’ from the gravity-well of one planet/star to another, like a ‘pin-ball’. As with Wells’ version, the lack of any actual ‘thrust’ makes this vessel too slow for any form of travel outside our own solar system – in fact only the inner, non-Jovian planets are near enough to each other to reasonably avoid thirst &/or starvation during transit.
REF: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danny_Dunn_and_the_Anti-Gravity_Paint]
Regarding the first paragraph, surely, just as with a regular fountain, you will find that fluids (including the atmosphere) spread out (as the atoms bump into each other), as they rise? As such, the moment that the atoms pass outside the anti-gravity field, they will be subject to normal gravity and start to return to the planet. Ending up with a fountain-like effect.
Of course it would be a lot more powerful than a normal pump assisted water fountain. And could have a tornado-like result (in a doughnut shape but with the winds going vertically up the inside and down the outside, rather than spinning round), possibly of devastating power.
Whilst there would be a certain amount of atmospheric leakage, I do not see that it would end up draining a significant amount. As soon as the column of rising air moved above the denser layers below, it would naturally spread out. The closer it got to being surrounded by vacuum, the greater the inclination to spread out, and thereby no longer be subject to anti-gravity.
Whilst momentum will carry quite a lot of it up, it would have to contend with overcoming what air pressure remains and the inclination to follow a parabolic course, back to the planet.
One should also assume that there is an upper limit to the anti-gravity effect, otherwise it would be like a knife cutting through suns, black holes and planets across the galaxy and the rest of the universe. Probably akin to the normal diminishing returns of gravity, as you outlined. So what little anti-gravity affected bodies beyond our solar system, would be negligible to their orbits (although not necessarily to sophisticated gravity sensors).
So the amount of anti gravity affecting the air, in the extreme upper atmosphere, may not be sufficient to pose a threat of atmosphere drain significantly above natural leakage (assuming human-scale areas being affected rather than say a country-wide anti-gravity effect).
Although, of course this is rather offset by gravity being equally weak, at those altitudes. But it does mean we should not envisage an endless elevator, into outer space. Or, at least, it is one that gets a lot weaker the higher you go.
okay, both of you are looking at MILES of atmosphere that are apparently being anti-graved, which is extremely unlikely unless the localized anti-gravity got overcharged. Sure, it could cause a mini air-doughnut, probably similar to what a bonfire or sunny parking lot might do, size wise. But no escaping earth today.
Well if it just affects a limited volume then you have more immediate effects. In the earlier situation, although not stated, we can assume that the anti-grav starts at the core of the planet and just keeps going (but the diminishing effect makes it negligible when dealing with astronomical scales beyond Earth). The column of rock and soil attempting to rise has the friction against the rest of the Earth, along its entire length resisting it moving. As a whole it would tend to stay in place. And any debris taken up and falling out of the field high up would fall so far away as to be of negligible danger (to those using the anti-g).
The limited volume one though would only extend a short way down. At which point you get a nasty transition. A plane where a small volume of rock, soil and pedestrians have 1G of gravity pulling it up, and immediately below that you have 1G pulling down. So the friction holding the top bit in place only has the immediate surrounding terrain holding it in place. And most critically, there is a likelihood of separation occurring between the upper and lower strata.
Or you can say “ahh, but we just want to levitate our team, so we will not include soil”. Then you want to hope you are all standing on a perfectly flat surface. If not then that nasty fracture line could be passing through someone’s feet or legs!
OK we can survive seven or eight G, in one direction, for a short time, with little more risk than fainting or succumbing to preexisting heart conditions, or the like. But suddenly imposing a 2G differential, inside the body, may cause very different effects. If nothing else blood will seek to fall in different directions. Creating a low pressure area in between. Which, combined with the gravity sheering, could play havoc with the circulatory system!
But not as much as what happens when the team bobbles up to the peak of the anti-g field and meets gravity coming back down again. Then you have that entire effect rippling through the body, starting with the head and the brain within it. Plus you are now on a parabolic trajectory with no chance to remain within an anti-G field (unless it follows each team member dynamically).
Let us say they tether themselves together, and they figure a way to stay at the top though. You then have all the debris to consider. Maybe a big chunk of the ground, or at least the surface rocks and bumpy bits of soil, that were higher than the flat plane, chosen as the bottom of the field. Plus any unsecured equipment. Or weapons that get pulled out of folks grasps, by passing through the 2G differential zone.
What goes up has to go down. If the anti-G field is finite. Lets hope their helmets were amongst the securely fastened items of equipment!. Because they are going to find it raining rocks!
Alternatively, as I am coming up blank as to how they could stop themselves at the top, we go back to the “you have just been launched out of a cannon” effect!
Not to mention all the doughnut-tornado effects, described previously, but in a much more contained volume. Potentially leading to very high wind speeds, as the air is continually being driven around in a tight loop. Plus, rather than considering the thin air of the upper atmosphere, this is air under (presumably) one atmosphere of pressure. Meaning that considerable force would be involved, with dense air moving at high speed. Drawing in even more debris.
At the top the lighter stuff (dust and so on) would easily disperse. But the denser, heavier items, such as rocks would fall …. err … like rocks. So although they would be inclined to fall away from the column of whirling death, the winds may drive smaller rocks back into the system, to be recycled for another pass. Or, if hitting the ground beyond, they may displace other material, that will be picked up instead.
Fortunately Grrlverse super powers tend to work as intended. And wibble their tongues at the quibbles of physics.
Krona?
… but not https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krona_(comics) , right?
Yeah, was thinking of that toss-bucket from DCUO (not actually met him yet, but have heard enough stories to not like him and want to pound his face into a plant at light-speed, repeatedly)
He appears to have a penis, black hair and blue skin. Which does rather serve to distinguish the two, despite the name matching. Likewise, even though both are quite clearly powerful, the character concepts are clearly different too.
To be fair though, the only things we can be sure about are the hair and skin. Assuming genital configuration is a bit presumptuous.
One that is puzzling me on this. She is appearing to use magic on the device to counter it, yet from what has been seen and referenced is that is the last thing you should be doing to it. I would have expected it to prematurely detonate when encountering her grid.
It’s the dummies that are magic booby-trapped, not the grenades.
Still has a point in that they were both possibly made by the same person/group that apparently likes booby-trapping their stuff.
There isn’t a reason why they can’t have both magical and mundane traps. A glass ball with a thin divider between two hypergolic fluids inside the bodies of the killikans, for example, would be fairly nasty.
One of the key tricks with trap designing is to ensure that the trap does not kill, or otherwise cause problems, for the side that deployed them. Melting your assault team, before they even get to their target, because one of them tripped, would be a very expensive loss.
I was assuming strong enough to survive normal bumps and thumps but not, say, being ripped apart by a were dire honey badger. Or drop kicked by a kick boxing were jack rabbit. Or, for that matter, dismantled at turbo speed by a giant golden superheroine.
A fine line to walk I will grant.
One problem is that one “normal bump” is getting launched from a weapon, which needs to be about as much of an impact as it will be delivering on the other end.
Not launching from a weapon, hidden in the chest cavity of the golum/killbot.
Problem is these mages know more about this reality then us. The experienced mage knew what such a trap was but fell for it anyway suggesting they are rarely encountered or are harder to hide that well. The second “reality hacking” mage assumed she could mess with the shell so maybe it is “known” that such traps would be very difficult to install in such a device or one of that size.
To the second part, it didn’t actually touch her grid. An image of it was inside her diagnostic/hacking computer like display. Could be her “sensors” or whatever are fairly well proofed against being used as a line of attack. (like a good hacker?)
It may be a sort of magical ‘Catch-22’, wherein the magical means of detecting the trap provide the very magic that fuels-&-triggers the trap. Meanwhile, this sort of booby-trap must be too bulky (&/or costly in time/resources) to apply to each-&-every shell of their ammunition.
…hmmm-m-m-m…
…perhaps Dabbler’s next project might be to devise a 100% magic-free method of detecting this particular form of magic trap.
You assume she used magic to hack reality…
In the Author Notes Dave states that what she does is an unknown (kind of like Sydney’s Orbs) They are neither Magic nor Super.
“So yeah, Krona’s power is reality hacking, which, as suggested in the page title is really just another kind of magic”
“just another kind of magic”
It is still “technically” magic.
what i believe dave meant by an “unknown”, is that it is so hyper specialised, the other mages have real trouble figuring out how it works.
my assumption, is that it is either inherited “spell like power” (which is different than just “super” power, cause its based on magic), or she has found some sort of magical artefact.
Magic is all about the argument, but how do you argue, when you don’t even know what you are seing?
Dave is mixing his terminology, in his blog. Which will cloud the issue. Initially he talking about “magic” in the sense of ‘anything we cannot explain is magic’. I.e. the way our society (at large) views magic.
Later on though he goes on to clarify that mages (note not “magic”) are distinct from supers and Krona’s power is different from both. To those in the know.
If we take everything Dave said in his blog literally* then a ‘detect magic’ spell will show up what she is doing as magical. Whereas a ‘detect mage’ spell will not identify Krona.
It is worth noting that Krona does show up under Sydney’s aura sight power. Although so do supers. So that power is not limited to just magic or just super powers. And, importantly, the orbs can tell Krona has some kind of power despite being neither mage nor super.
A spell-like power is a reasonable way of viewing Krona’s power. But, significantly, it did not trigger the magic vortex. Likewise Icon, despite clearly being magical, and physically coming into contact with the ‘anti-magic’ spike and thereby being close enough to trigger a mana vortex, did not get drained, nor turn his opponent into a bomb.
As such I would say that the magic trap is very specifically keyed to actual spell casting, and spell-like powers (if that is what they are) are immune. Personally I am going to put mental walls between ‘magic’, ‘reality-alteration’ and ‘super-powers’, and just note that ‘reality alteration’ utilises magic, as a part of its process.
This is an important distinction as, in the GrrlVerse super powers work as intended despite any inconvenient ‘universal laws’ which might create nasty side-effects. If Krona directly changed reality, without a similar correcting mechanism, she would probably have died long before now, due to the nasty accidents that would occur to even relatively simple seeming alterations.
So, whilst her interface might be directly showing reality, it needs to have magic involved in ensuring that the changes she wants happen safely, rather than implementing them strictly literally.
* Always bearing in mind that he reserves the right to change how it plays out in the comic. And given the slightly contradictory explanation (if you treat “magic” and “mage” as being relatively synonymous) that may happen here, when it comes to handling specific issues in later comic scenes.
Based on how Dave described her ability, she may not trigger the counter spell. Imagine they’re locked doors, magic guy tried to use his magical lock pick and triggered the defence, her ability dismantled the lock and its defences then reassembled them in the open position.
The not using magic, she’s manipulating what this are made of.
well, they don’t explode on their own, so we can probably assume they don’t absorb ambient magic.
So with the assumption that not all magic is detected and absorbed, we can assume that there is a way.
Again, “its all about the argument”, and considering that her magic is literally hacking…
What’s the worst thing that setting off a booby trap could do? Make the canister explode? Now think about what the canister is going to do anyway if she does nothing.
The booby trap is connected with the manikin, rather than the canister. If it were to be triggered, it would be the manikin which exploded. Plus Krona would have her power drained, so the grenade did not get disarmed. Thereby resulting in first the grenade exploding, next to Krona, then the manikin blowing up where it is (after the slight delay, as per the initial explosion).
Fortunately reality alteration does not match the trap activation conditions, despite utilising magic.
She is a DnD sorcerer! Born with innate magical abilities stemming from a highly magical ancestor and her blood has just chosen her to show it’s power! It obviously flavored itself to fit her personality.
Heh. Fun way of looking at it. Although it would not explain the fact that her casting failed to activate the mana draining trap.
She isn’t targeting the mannequin, so it’s not effected? Trapping each piece of equipment and ammunition would probably take too many resources.
Plausible loophole.
On the fourth panel, I think it would have been better if you would have put a Metal Gear sound effect on the “!”.
Gamer Girl is practically the ADMIN of the real world and the I.T. of reality shapers.
Plus, Judging by her shirt, I believe she and Sydney would get along rather well and beat Leon in every video game.
:-D
+1
Let’s just hope that Krona either hasn’t read the BOFH stories. A reality hacking Bastard Operator From Hell isn’t a great idea.
DaveB:
Do grenade launcher rounds have a manual function: Obviously yours do…. but!
40mm low pressure grenades for the M203 (and others) as well as 40mm high pressure grenades for the Mk19 automatic grenade launcher…. technically do. IF you can throw them with a good enough spiral football-esque throw, as it’s centrifugal force that actually arms the impact detonation mechanism about 40 feet or so from the point of launch.
Keep up making the awesome comics.
Way back in the dark ages, when I was in the Army, there was an urban legend of sorts that was told to trainees that a pair of of guys in the back of a Gamma-Goat tossed a 40mm grenade back and forth enough times for the spin counter to reach what ever number of spins arms it, so it blew up. Have no idea if this is true or not, but it’s “plausible” to quote Adam and Jamie.
The moral to take away from that being ‘Never EVER play catch with a grenade’.
The story is phony. The grenade has to be fired to activate the rotation counter. Otherwise you might have grenades detonating in shipment.
I would amend that to “is most likely phoney”. Simply because mechanical flaws can occur in devices. Whilst we would hope that a grenade would ‘fail safe’, reality often shows us that designers do not take into account the actions of idiots combined with what they thought was a safe state to fail in.
An example being that the designers of a class of nuclear reactor making them fail safe (when examining the schematics in isolation). Until the idiots get involved and decide to build one of them in a spot exposed to both earthquakes and tsunamis.
You can make things fool proof, but you can’t make them damned fool proof, and I know damned fools who could break an anvil with a rubber hammer….
“NOTHING is foolproof in the face of a sufficiently talented fool…”
The thing is and this was an interesting Nat Geo Documentary on mega Tsunamis like the march 2011 that knocked out Fukashima, is that the area in which it was, was and did have Tsunami protection but the thing was so much more massive than they could predict. I watched a video of the waves coming over the massive sea walls, seriously would NOT want to ever see a wave that big coming towards me.
They have not a lot of choice though as they have to rely a lot on nuclear power.
We didn’t have anyone playing catch with one but we did have something like that happen. They have a spin fuse that arms them after they rotate 30 times and have travelled 30 meters so they theoretically won’t detonate close enough to hurt the firer. But they fly at such low velocity they can be deflected and stopped from spinning by hitting tree branches on the way out, so they don’t arm immediately but they are still live. One time walking through the woods one idiot in my platoon found one such grenade lying on the ground. Instead of leaving it lying wher he found it he picked it up and tossed it back over his shoulder. Where it spun a couple of times so it was armed when it hit the ground. Right behind my squad.
Luckily no one was killed as we were actually wearing steel pots and flak jackets that day. But I still have scars on my left hand and thumb to remind me the Army doesnt always recruit geniuses.
I assume that moron- if he wasn’t chucked out of the Army- wasn’t allowed to forget that particular bit of stupidity?
He got a field grade article 15. As no one died and we were short handed already he got busted down from E-4 to E-1 but didn’t get any time. I think he would have been happier to be away from us for the next few months though.
First-hand testimony, from a commentator in good standing, and the scars to prove it. Duly accepted.
As the army rule of thumb is. ALWAYS assume any ordinance to be live and treat with caution.
Back in my day, Grenade boy would have at least been sent to another platoon, if not battery/company. I can see the platoon sergeants talking this one over.
“OK, I’ll swap you Grenade boy for Never shows up on time and a private to be named later.” “Sound fair, I’ll tell the butter bar to make is so. I owe you one”
And where has Dabbler been in all this – still dicking around? Is Sydney going to do nothing but colour commentary for the rest of this scenario? In all seriousness the focus should be on our main characters. Since when have Sydney, Max, and Dabbler been second-bananas?
Active participation from the would-be victims rather than them being just passive targets is all very fine and dandy, and I appreciate the trope subversion, but their role is, ultimately, to be in peril otherwise there’s no deeper narrative reason for Our Heroes to be there.
Syd is holding 25% of the assault team and Max took out the magic bomb, plus the first grenade. Plus, of course Sydney supplied the warning. I suspect it’s been under 30 seconds real time from when Max took the bombikin down the tunnel.
I expect we’ll see what Dabbler is up to shortly.
As for how this works narratively… I suspect the manikins aren’t the real threat, but a distraction. So it makes sense to show that they’re drawing lots of aggro.
Ah, I hadn’t thought of that! Good call!
I’m not worried, Sydney is the master of aggro… one way or another…
I like that her weapon has a suppressor. Still loud, but anyone who doesn’t have Kat’s hearing should be fine.
I was this close to saying “Why is sidney suddenly with blue hair?”
Heh. It is a genuine neurological feature that “all Chinese look alike” when you are talking about an individual without enough experience of Chinese faces to form a mental library of common Chinese features. As such the mind picks up on the gross differences between Chinese and (say) Caucasian faces, and only recalls those.
Resulting in a hopelessly incompetent eye-witness, who will very likely misidentify a suspect (or if astute, confess to being unable to distinguish one from another).
I mention all this because we are all used to Dave’s general artistic style, which has been getting ever closer to photo-real. Except, of course, as regards the anime-style characters. Of which we see Pixel very rarely. So most anime-style girls will be more similar to Halo, in many people’s minds, than they are to any other particular character. Despite specific differences about their faces.
Krona must be really quick with her powers to them to work on that grenade before it landed. A “fast caster”, so to speak.
She started before it where thrown.
True. But Messenger is correct too. Mind you it is her core power, and she will be used to prioritising picking out ‘disarm’ or ‘disable’ or ‘render inert’, if she has any combat experience. Likewise even if she just practices her powers for such a contingency. So your comment can explain why she was so fast.
Or Krona might have tweaked reality for herself, years ago. “Adrenalin = default human” —–> “Adranalin = super human”. Giving her Ren-like time-slowing powers, in a crisis.
‘Reality Hack’ is a book written by Nial Teasdale where a mage could do just that.
This seems a LOT like what she could do.
Anyway… ‘Once the pin has been pulled Mr. Grenade is no longer your friend!’ applies in this case too I would think. Throw it back?
Mr. Pin is everyone’s friend. Mr. Grenade isn’t ANYONE’S friend – and since the ammo is meant for the attendees, not the drones I think that would be a REALLY bad idea.
+1 to each of you.
This reminds me I have a gameplay report to write for divine blood. Recent game session had the team hacker hack a fae-court backed yakuza leader’s smartphone to cause the battery to overload…then hacked the vehicles of the incoming reinforcements so that their brakes locked up on winter roads…resulting in several fatal crashes…fortunately away from bystanders.
Does she have bullet time (grenade time?) or is she just that quick?
How fast can you type when someone is tossing a ball at you? o_O
I think her magic gave her a premonition of the grenade flying. I think.
Or she made her initiative roll with a critical success, lol
Or – as a side effect of her spell the grenade is held in stasis until she completes it.
Plausible.
That is the way I interpreted it, when reading it through the first time. Albeit that I came up with an alternative explanation three threads above. I am fine with either.
Krona reminds me of The Drummer from the Planetary comics:https://readrant.files.wordpress.com/2008/06/cheat-codes-of-the-world.jpg?w=564&h=756
That’s like the Magic 2.0 series or the Laundry Files.
At some point they’re going to ask Korona “Why didn’t you just turn off the drones?”
If you mean “killer mannequins”, the answer was a few pages ago.
There may no off switch except for a suicide switch since they appear to be Kamikaze in nature…
Very good question. Very good answer.
Might I suggest an RPG-7 next time?
If it works against tanks………………
An RPG (like Sydney’s PPO) is not an indoor friendly toy.
An RPG (like Sydney’s gaming session) is an indoor friendly toy.
Depends on how twitchy your players are.
An annoyingly creative GM is usually the first to experience “friendly fire.” As the military axiom goes, “Friendly fire, isn’t.”
She could have used an Armbrust or a MATADOR. Both are recoilless rifles that’s considered safe to use indoors.
The thing is that the propellant is sandwiched between two pistons. In front of the forward piston is the projectile and behind the rear piston is a counter weight consisting of compacted shredded plastics that weigh as much as the projectile.
When the propellant burns the gases expands and force the pistons apart. The forward piston will throw the projectile forward and the rear piston forces the counter weight to eject backwards where the shredded plastics disperses in a cloud and is slowed by air resistance. As the counterweight weighs the same as the projectile recoil is negated.
To keep the user and those close from being burned by the hot gases they are contained between the two captured pistons and slowly leaked to the surrounding atmosphere.
So one of these acts like a loud, deadly and violent confetti cannon, shooting a rocket propelled grenade (hopefully) at your enemy and covers everything behind you in the room with plastic confetti. But yea, this close the warhead wouldn’t arm, so probably not so good an idea…
I’ve been told that a Armbrust is no louder than a pistol shot. Which is loud, but less loud than the automatic rifle fire that has been in the room already. Of course when the warhead goes off, that will be rather loud.
There’s also the De Lisle carbine, but those would be awfully hard to find, especially since only 129 were made (despite an initial order for 500); it had an integrated silencer and fired a .45 ACP round. Tests revealed that it produced only 85.5 decibels of noise when fired. By comparison, modern pistols produce 156 to 168 dB without a suppressor, and 117 to 140 dB with a suppressor.
Essentially, it sounded like a muffled cough at close range, and was practically totally silent beyond 50 yards (~45.7m). Of course, the drawback was reduced range; the effective range was only 200 yards (~182.9m), and the maximum range was only 400 yards (~365.8m).
So Krona is a carnymancer…
Kind of. Going by this. And going by “belief in reality” = “reality”.
Remember……..there is no spoon.
Tell that to the Tick.
https://i.onionstatic.com/avclub/5741/77/16×9/960.jpg
That’s sort of how reality works in most White Wolf/Onyx Path settings.
I remember playing many a Scion who had some sort of occupation that involved spreading stories: stage magician who incorporated myths and stories in her act, mangaka, reporter…etc.