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. :)
Be sure to check out Wearing the Cape: Team-Ups & Crossovers. Sydney’s first Crossover! I’ve made a dedicated blog post for it, please comment there.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like :)
Here’s the link to the new comments highlighter for chrome, and the GitHub link which you can use to install on FireFox via Greasemonkey.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
What, no Konami Code reference? (Up, up, down, down, left, right, left right, B, A, Start)
nevermind, I see it now. >.< I'm blind…
Ahh but did you see the second time it is referenced in today’s comic? Depending on which one you spotted first.
Not that you should beat yourself up, in any event. You made the connection without spotting the clue(s). Which shows that you are on the ball, even if you slipped up on your ‘spot check’.
I missed the clues. >.<!
I hope you’re not… Blue. =OP
Da Ba Dee
But did you notice King Kai’s symbol behind her?
She really should be using a shotgun with slugs does a lot more damage yes you can get one with full auto and a drum mag.
Those ones are made for breaking through doors so they’d go through a wood mannequin nicely.
People keep saying this. But they have really soft bodies, and surely would just go ‘splat’, rather than doing any significant damage? At a stretch snails might do a bit, with their harder shells, but even then I think metal pellets would be far more effective.
Oh, unless you mean slug pellets? But manikins are inorganic, so poisons of any sort seem unlikely to bother them.
*solemn expression*
You – I like you!
They aren’t that soft and appear to be made mostly of would referring the the Were Dire Ratel take down of one of them. There appear to be some really nice pine there maybe oak but it looked like a large amount of pine. 12 Gauge and or a 20 Gauge semi auto or full auto would work wonders on that it would also do great damage against the joints. Mind you this is only time I would actually suggest a shotgun with slugs buckshot and bird shot are crap against hard targets and some soft.
depending on the munitions. a shotgun is an incredibly versatile tool if you know your rounds.
i’d use either lockbreakers, or dragonsbreath against the manequinns personally, but non-lethal rounds would probably shatter all kinds of structure inside them as they have no squishy to disperse the impact.
Yorp was referring to slugs having ‘really soft bodies’, that’s why he suggested using snails instead :P
my brain needs catching up. the level of crazy exhibited on this board far exceedes my power level.
Starfish might make a better munition.
Or, perhaps not.
Oh, you’ve heard of the AA12 Shotgun? Real nasty package…
I guess you can buy it at your local Quick-E-Mart?
And stop making me want to get one!
*checks calendar*
No zombie apocalypse scheduled, so really no need.
Not here, I’m Down Under. Won’t even let pump or lever action shotguns in. Quick question tho, does storing a few in a personal “hammerspace” created by an ancient pocket-dimension generator count as bringing them into the country…?
as long as you keep the 11th commandment!
You are in a country that almost every thing (fauna, flora and terrain) wants to kill you, founded by criminal and ex-convicts, and you are worried about some silly ‘law’ restricting your rights to ‘kill them before they kill you’? o_O
Trouble is the neighbours are going to complain,* if using the weapon on full-auto, to ensure the dunny is clear of any black Huntsman spiders!
Very tricky legal question. It may well come down to how any pertinent law, or definition of what constitutes the country’s territory, is actually written. Clearly an extra-dimensional space cannot be considered to be part of the territory. However the ease of access and ability to easily subvert anti-smuggling legislation would prohibit such use, on common-sense grounds.
Ironically a well-defined territorial description may well create the loophole suggested. Whereas if it is loosely defined, the common sense one cold prevail. If it is the former, a loophole patch law would be enacted if real hammerspace became public knowledge.
Either way though, any loophole would only last whilst the weapons are in hammerspace. This would be akin to keeping weapons in an embassy, which legally speaking is in a foreign country. But the instant you summon it out of hammer space, you have illegally brought it into the country, and would be subject to any penalties prescribed under the relevant laws.
Plus black Huntsman spiders would love crawling into hammer space, and waiting until you stuck your hand in, trying to find something. Doubtless growing to absolutely ginormous size, in the extra-dimensional space!
* Or die.
Yeah, I would assume that keeping them in hammerspace is fine legally – you’re not in possession of an illegal item, because despite having instant access to it, the item isn’t actually present in any legal jurisdiction. But the instant you summon it, it’s an issue.
But then, supers in general open up so many such legal issues. E.g. is a weapon stored in hammerspace any different to the ability of Harem to vanish briefly and re-appear with a weapon grabbed from back home? Actually, Harem is probably one of the worst for legal weirdness – since with five bodies, which jurisdiction is she in if she commits a crime? If one of her bodies killed someone in Canada, could she argue lack of jurisdiction because four-fifths of her was in the US? And if extradition was ordered, how many of her would need to go?
Outwardly it would appear to have the same result. No gun one moment, gun the next. But if a gun is permanently stored in hammer space, and testing it in court proves that to be outside of sovereign territory, then no crime is being committed. Until, of course it is summoned, then that is illegal importation of a gun.
Whereas, if home is in another country, then it is subject to their gun laws, from the outset. For instance if she lived n the UK , then keeping a gun in her home, would be a crime in itself (for most types of guns, barring very limited exceptions). Then, when transporting it across international borders, without the appropriate permissions, it would be a crime in both countries.
Potentially in five different jurisdictions. Which means four of them might need to go through extradition proceedings, before they can be legally brought to the country where the crime was committed.
Let us say a UK cop saw Julian Assenage’s hand sticking out of the embassy window, and handcuffed him to a point outside the embassy grounds, he would be in the situation where part of him was in the UK and part in Equador.
There would then be a huge diplomatic and legal row to decide which country took precidence. In this case I think it would be Equador, as he was granted sanctuary by them and had not exited their territory. So the UK would need to give his arm back.
Likewise most countries, with extradition treaties, would co-operate in reuniting Harem’s bodies in the jurisdiction where the crime as committed.
No. The country where the crime took place has jurisdiction regardless of where the criminal is present. For example hackers in the UK have been extradited to the US for crimes committed in America. Even though the criminal has never been to America.*
The only exception being if they are living in a country with no extradition treaty (or where the request has been denied. Who has jurisdiction does not change mind, it just cannot be enforced.
If there was the prospect of a custodial sentence (or execution) all five.
* Incidentally this may cease, for all extraditions to the US, if it reintroduces waterboarding and other torture. The U.K. is still presently bound by human rights conventions, which explicitly prohibit the extradition of any prisoners to countries which practice torture.
It’s worse than that. Much, much worse.
Since it takes all five of her to be one legal entity, all she needs to do to escape any and all charges is to leave one of her bodies in hammer space. The right to a “quick and speedy trial” would either allow the four other bodies to be out on bail indefinitely, or simply result in her four selves being released due to habeas corpus.
Assuming that fine point is ignored, she could allow one of her bodies to be prosecuted. If found guilty and imprisoned, she could then escape that body to hammer space. Then she would have the legal precedent of her bodies being treated as individuals to use if there was any attempt to go after any of her other ‘selves’ as being escapees.
All of the above presented with the caveat that I am not a lawyer.
No, most types of gun are legal in the UK provided you have the right license and properly secure the weapon when not in use. Hunting shotguns are pretty easy to get licenses for according to my friends who do shooting, SMGs rather more difficult (enough that most people wouldn’t bother trying). I have no idea whether hammerspace would count as properly securing; an anchored gun safe is the usual approach.
Nope.
Try banned. When talking in the context of private ownership. Whilst exceptions were made, they were for very specific, existing needs. Without bothering to look them up, I would guess that restrictive licences might be granted for use in the movie industry, as an example. So that blanks can be used in appropriate action/ war movies.
However if a private individual decided “I want to have an SMG” they will be refused flat. They do not work in a role where there is a legal need to use an SMG. And even if they did, they would not be allowed to make use of it in their private capacity. The place where it would be ‘suitably secured’ would be at work, not at home.
You do know that despite their impressive size and friendly, dog-like demeanor, Huntsman spiders are about number 90 on the list of things you should be concerned about in Oz? The brutal climate is up near the top of that list, and all these marvelous adaptions are a response to the brutal climate and competition for food.
Take the impressive , which uniquely hunts in its sleep and relies on perfect camouflage (ie fucking invisible) and total stillness to Hug and Kiss prey without waking up or moving. Cute little buggers, huh? My mum has about 150 of these on her place, out at the family farm. Just leave them alone, and you won’t even know they are there. Seriously, you’ll have no idea. At all. What could be nicer?
Besides, WTF do you think would happen if you pointed a gun into a Hunstsman spider’s face? We Australians have a deal with the spiders: We don’t threaten them with firearms, and they don’t stuff guns up our arse.
I screwed up that link. It should read “Hugs and Kisses Adder”.
I have about that many wolf spiders, living out there.
*gestures towards garden*
Any one of which is bigger than my paw! But so long as they stay outside, we have a peaceful co-existence. They have not broken the treaty, to date. Mind you, if they came inside the house, hid in the loo, and bit my dangly bits, then I would be breaking out the flame thrower.
Outback is ‘out there’ too, so I am not concerned about that. But an English dog’s loo is is sacred. No spiders allowed in my water supply!
Hey all, Daniel here. Screwball’s dancing around, happy he can bring his “Hammerspaced” weapons in, since they “don’t exist in this plane of reality” until drawn. Me, I’m chuckling at all the debate he started with 1 little question…
As for living Down Under, yeah, spiders can be interesting to deal with, but I still like it here. Sure, we got plenty of stuff that can & will kill you here, including the country itself (hello Summer, we meet again…), but honestly there are worse places to live. Just ignore we Aussies have turf there too… :P
:-D
Now you see why I placed my secret base where I did. Even Australia does not pose a high enough difficulty level.
Plus any spiders which sneak in, say in a bunch of bananas, will be eaten by my penguin soldiers! They tell we that tarantulas taste like prawns.
Screw Hug and Kiss Adders, try Tiger snakes and brown snakes, fearless, aggressive and territorial, Poison that can kill several in a single bite, like to give several bites…
And loves living under your fridge…
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-13/adelaide-woman-finds-pregnant-eastern-brown-under-her-fridge/7085206
Ah the tried and true combat shotgun, never fails me and it sure as heck would be better in this then that rifle considering she is probably not using the right ammunition. IF-88 is me tried and true friend.
Welp, guess I need a new OC.
Don’t feel bad, when that kind of thing happens. Folks have been intensively creating super characters for decades now. It will be very hard to find any power that has not had either the identicle thing done (especially if inspired by the same sources, such as a play on words or a natural phenomenon) or something that is broadly similar.
If you look through the comments regarding both Elsbeth and Kroner, you will find that even Dave comes up against this. So if you came up with an original character, before reading this, then there is no reason why you cannot carry on using it. Presumably if it was a fully-realised character, it will (other than the specifics of ‘hacking reality’) be a distinctly different individual.
Mind you there will always be the ‘turning up to the party in the same dress’ factor to deal with. And if that is (understandably) too big a deal, then, yea, back to the inspiration drawing board.
If no other inspiration strikes, here is a handy technique. Get the biggest dictionary you have access to and find two words at random (or three and discard whichever is least inspiring). Then see how you can find a way to make a super power using those two words in conjunction.
This increases your odds of finding something with a genuinely unique twist. As you will be avoiding following similar lines of thought, from being inspired by similar sources. E.g. anyone who has seen the Matrix may well be inspired about a ‘reality hacking’ character. For which Kroner’s t-shirt is (as I have been kindly informed) is a nod to acknowledge (or at least point out the similarity).
Oh I realise that, he was never going to be unique from the moment he was made except in his gimmicks, a mix of Soulstamping and Akashic record alteration for inspiration with this one. In this case it was mostly because in a discussion trying to make a character to fit into this specific setting with a series of fitting gimmicks, in this case the alteration of objects physical properties via the alteration of metaphysical Glyphs, with the largest difference between Krona and them being gender, closely followed by his Glyphs being kind of ethereal silver colour.
Mostly the annoyance is sourced from having been on the money with the character, to the point that they are invalidated in setting by the same descriptor, the one in the authors note that I had applied to Glyph.
Whilst yes they are significantly different in backstory (Hopefully), I need to form a new one due to either losing or winning the discussion/character creation challenge depending on how you look at it.
Re the ‘turning up to the party in the same dress’ factor: Back in the 1980s’ revival of ‘THUNDER Agents’ there was an episode in which Dynamo went to a fancy dress party as Superman, saw the agent known as ‘Weed’ there dressed as Hyperion, and thought “Oh, we came as the same character”.
^_^
If she’s totally all-new one-of-a-kind, how did she get equal rank with her own banner in the ancient super-secret society–
…Oh wait, she hacked her way into the roster, didn’t she?
Got it in one.
Merely a minor adjustment to the Matrix…
From the comments under the comic…
“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.”
Yeah, she hacked the matrix… :P
Or, as a variation of what Opus the Poet said, “She’s THE One.”
;)
Jet Li is not going to be happy to hear someone beat him to it.
Halo isn’t a super going by that definition, even though that’s where she works.
I’m sure that ArcSWAT would have welcomed Krona with open arms. Her being here rather than with them could be as simple as that this is the place Krona prefers to be. After all. it’s not like ArcSWAT would have given her a spiffy banner. Heck, Sydney herself might have preferred to hang out here, had she known about it; I’d say her level of fangirling among the monsters has well surpassed her fangirling at ArcSWAT HQ by now.
Krona may also be underage to be in the military.
16 with parents permission, but anybody who can twist up reality and put a ribbon on it might be just a touch older than they seem…
Or older on paper than in life.
Arc-swat is technically a new organization whereas as the council has been around awhile. And yes, I know the “atypical resources commission” has been in operation for awhile, but as a very small sub-rosa agency within the government. They are in the open now though, and I’d be trying like hell to get Krona on board, but Sydney isn’t an optimum choice to run the membership drive…..
No, Sydney is even more optimum than Maxi: “We recruited Sydney, how weird are you?” :D (or something like that, have faith that someone in the commentary boxes will come up with a better slogan :))
It’s more like they dangled a shiny object in front of Sydney (superherodom) and asked if she want to play too…
‘actually, we’ve tried to recruit her about 10 times. Something always seems to go awry.”
How are either of those Archon Recruitment slogans? o_O
IIRC the standard 40mm grenade is armed by a combination of initial G from the powder charge plus spin from the rifling of the barrel after 10 meters of flight. So if you’re shooting someone/thing less than 35 feet away just aim like you were shooting a bullet because the explosive probably won’t, and you’re likely to get wounded by shrapnel yourself if it does.
Aw. She needs a hug. Also: Is she single?
Well, there is no one else like her and she is on her own behind her banner, so technically, yes, she is ‘single’
I think Sydney should let Krona have a crack at deciphering the UI for Sydney’s orbs.
This might be a good idea, or a terrible one. No way to know without trying though…
It could be a scary one…..
IIRC only Sydney can see the levelup interface.
Everybody present could see it. We even saw Dabbler drawing it on the whiteboard from memory, without Sydney’s input.
I guess you are thinking of the restaurant scene, where Dabbler mentioned that it could not be seen on TV (or, by inference, with her cybernetic eye). Although I have been known to get that mixed up myself.
Yups, anyone can see it with their naked eye (how vulgar! someone really should put clothes on that eye!!) but recording devices detect nothing
eye clothes are called eye patches or blindfolds
….or glasses….
Or contacts! The g-string of eyeball clothing.
+1 for everyone involved with this thread regarding “eyeball clothing”.
+5 for Guesticus for getting the ball rolling.
A rolling eyeball is seriously disgusting to watch…
And The Crawling Eye is just downright painful to watch – even with the aid of MST3K!
Can remember seeing a trailer for a horror movie where someone was possessed (or something) after swallowing an eyeball that flew through the air (it was a human eyeball that was knocked out of a human, possibly a zombie)
It also gathers no moss. Or at least that’s what I’ve heard. Well, close enough anyway.
……0 ……0
So, bring up her own UI, turn annotations “On” and change the “Language” setting to “English”?
“Citation needed”
“As inspired by the hentai porn industry.”
“Do not use in forests”
Syd found a new best friend in crazy normal in a world of supers and magic
See that stuff that Elspeth’s doing there?
That’s exactly the sort of stuff Peggy ‘cleared’ from Sidney’s head back in #330. Hell, she’s even doing a Rambo spray-and-shout.
I guess that’s why she’s a mage and not a soldier.
Also why it seems does not seem to affect the golem particularly much… Peggy in the same situation would probably have carved the control-chip thin out of the head with only a quarter of the bullets
You mean this one?
Her spell casting stat is charisma. Not intelligence or wisdom.
Dave, your grenade kept it’s shell. Shouldn’t that still be in the gun?
Or rather, shouldn’t the unfired grenade have some sort of propellant?
It’s obviosly a magic grenade.
Actually, what the mannequin did was take a full, un-fired 40mm, apprently loosen the round itself from the casing where the propellant is contained a bit, and then just tossed the entire thing like a normal grenade. The key to it being an effective weapon being used like that is to make certain you put some spin on the round since the grenade itself is armed due to rotational G forces stimulating the chemical components contained within the grenade itself. Normally this is accomplished by firing the round from a weapon and the rifling takes care of the rotational requirements. So, basically, as long as you have enough distance between you and the target, you could literally throw the thing like a football and it would still work. Given the apparent distance the mannequin seemed to be tossing it, and what looked like some negligible rotation on the round itself because it was an underhanded lob, it’s actually questionable if there had been enough rotation to cause the grenade to arm itself just before impact.
Raise your paws, anyone who is thinking of the scene in ‘Saving Private Ryan’ where they have no operational mortar, so just arm the shells, by slamming them on hard rubble (as if they had been dropped down the mortar barrel, in normal operation) and then throwing them, like a grenade.
Just make sure they land on their noses/detonators…
Actually recall a story in an old English war comic (probably “Battle”) where a soldier loses his gun (or something) but still has one bullet left and places it in a hole in a wall and taunts his opponent closer and then whacks it with a rock, setting it off (or how ever you call it) killing his enemy
That’s fine but why does it look exactly like the grenade a few pages back?
Because it is. That is an automatic grenade launcher, with a bunch of grenades loaded in it. We saw Maxima bashing a grenade launcher into pieces, and she may have done so with all of them, before she had to dash off. Either way though, this one is inoperable. But the munitions are still intact, and these particular ones can be set for manual use. Which he has done.
Incidentally it is worth pointing out that these manikins are extremely adaptable. Either they are being actively controlled by someone, or they have people-level intelligence themselves, somehow.
I foresee Sydney and Krona forming a “How do these fucking powers work?” duo at some point in the future, to take down some supervillain who can disable any ability that he can understand.
So he’ll be foiled by Harem’s amusingly named soda in an unusual flavour to which he happens to be allergic? (“TPK Belladonna” perhaps…)
Is that book collecting her spent brass?
Yep. Recycling made easy… :p
Better than collecting her used bra’s
Aw, heck. I wouldn’t mind doing that. I’ll even put them in the laundry for her, as long as it means whe’ll be running around the house without wearing any of them.
O.o
Depends on how ‘used’ they are
Do you realize that you just showed sydneys faction on the council? She appears to be the same as this girl. Not a magician, obviously not a super the only one of her kind that can do what she does and nobody knows why (and likely both geeks)
Yep, Sydney’s check box is “none of the above”. The orbs are inscrutable, but Krona might have an answer if Sydney asks nicely….
Say it isn’t true! Sydney is a super-hero, not a none-of-the-above-hero!!!
An Apex super hero. Granted in still in training.
uhh oh I just noticed another similarity, Krona uses 7 coloured sections in her hud, sydney has 7 amazeballs. Coincidence? I think not.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2142 Dabbler notes that some of the lines go elsewhere, so how about here (the Matrix). This might possibly get a bit weird, even or Sydney…..
I wonder if Krona can hack up a user manual for those things…
Just as long as she doesn’t hack up a hair-ball!
let’s hope it doesn’t get lost like “The Greatest American Hero’s ” book does… TWICE no less…
Aww… World Customize Creator rip-off :( Cool power, though. One of my favorites.
Only if a) Dave is familiar with that source and b) copied it.* Even though I check out a lot of film manga, and get peripherally aware of even ones that have not yet been adapted, I have never heard of it.
Plus Dave is not shy of stating his inspirations. In this case the most likely candidate (if inspired from existing entertainment) is actually Neo, from the Matrix. Given the open hint given by the red pill, on Krona’s shirt.
Although it is easily possible to come at it from a completely different angle (which I would suggest that the Konami code could be the source of the inspiration) then, when finished, recognise that it has similarity to [insert one of several different films books and the like, all playing with the same underlying concept].
I can say this with confidence, given that seeing the Konami code banner made me suspect that the girl could hack reality. And there is no way for me to have been ‘ripping off’ World Customize Creator, given that I was totally unaware of it.
* He created some Grrl Power content years, before he started to publish it on the internet, as an example.
https://kissmanga(dot)com/Manga/World-Customize-Creator
There you go. He has a screen like an rpg instead of a 7 colored (was it on purpose that it looks like Sydney’s orb colors?) set of windows. He can mess with momentum, turn things on/off, locked/unlocked, and even alter form. It really does look like the same thing. And it’s been out for a while.
Just need to see if she can mess with quality/rarity. He turned a crystal used as money into a higher rarity crystal worth quite a lot more.
Also, I get that not just one person will think up a specific power. It was just so similar…
Lol Python for mages.
Prediction :
This fight wraps up at page 500 with a reveal of which bad guy planned the attack. Veil is possibly destroyed.
Maybe a short monologue interrupted by Sidney.
Now to patiently wait for the upcoming Mondays and Thursdays.
Calling it now, Krona is a proper phyonic less people that understand her ability the stronger it is
All hail our mildly evil overlord, spicy red hot pill girl! May her cheat codes change us all into obedient minions!!
mildly evil overlord,cute as a bug overladyFixed it for you. :-)
Nah, Red Hots are round, that’s more like a cinnamon Mike and Ike.
‘joke’ name : Dr. Mario
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AYwvBFfxKfE
Could it maybe be that she accesses the interface through the goggles? Maybe, like, she’s got some kind of microsized superhack computer/fabricator dealie like how Mass Effect’s Omni-Tool is basically an excuse for characters in ostensibly a science fiction space action affair to be able to throw fire and ice spells at eachother? Like, maybe she’s actually a level 10 tech/gadget user who found the magic guild before ARCHON and they just kinda assumed that she’s a magic user and she either never bothered to correct them? Or maybe even she doesn’t know how she does it so she thinks it IS magic because hey, she ran into a mage one time and he seems to know what’s up with all this freaky stuff so may as well see what his guys have to say about these fancy goggles or whatever and OOPS now it’s five years later and she has her own minor seat on the council because they just KNOW it’s SOME kind of magic because it must be because what else could it be, it’s not like some kind of mortal technology could do that stuff, right?
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.
– Arthur C. Clark, Science Fiction Writer
Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology.
– Agatha Heterodyne, Protagonist of Girl Genius
(The Doctor has definitely said one of those before, and he might have said both of them over the many episodes. Dr Who)
Any technology, no matter how primitive, is magic to those who don’t understand it.
Florence Ambrose
Any technology, which does not put food in my bowl… ooh look, a butterfly!
Permission to steal that for a table top role playing game’s chapter on technology?
I mean, throw me some credit on it or something but sure, kick ass! Give me a yell when it’s done too, if you post it.
Oh wait… you didn’t mean me, did you…
With pleasure.
*wags tail posteritifically*
Thank you Yorp
Would love to know the name of the game, and a plug when it gets published? So that I can add it to my list of “things to buy, when I have money… someday”.
*puts paws on window sill, and looks out to the distant horizon*
you missed a chance to say “Squirrels!”… from “UP”
Yups, was thinking of that one, but couldn’t be bothered digging out the notebook had copied the quote into
EXACTLY!
In a way Sydney should be sitting next to Korona. She is not a super and noone including herself does not know how her powers works and she can pass the geek/nerd test with flying colors
Why did the magazine empty? A magically replenishing magazine would still be real bullets hitting.
Because it’s a physical object? The side bar says it’s a ‘book of holding’, so it actually had that assault rifle in it.
Agreed, the weapon is a normal weapon. Whilst it may be a bag of holding, in book form, it may also be creating these items, on demand. Either way though the thing created is just a normal item, of its sort. Possibly the book holds more ammo drums? But Elsbeth would have to reload those by hand Likewise if she can create more instead.
Um, can we have all the Krona? Because I’d really really like all the Krona. She’s cool, and her power is cool.
Sweden would object if you took all their currency.
We are very happy we didn’t switch to the Euro right now.
So is the UK
And even happier not to still be using copper ‘plate money’?
I always want to know the limitations of a power like this. What stops Krona from hacking herself or others immortal, or maxing out Sydney’s power tree, or turning the White House into a bouncy castle. Also she’s been here the whole fight and she hasn’t hacked the murder puppets into weebles.
Weebles would be bad, too.. since they don’t fall down…
They wobble plenty though. That would surely make it harder for them to aim, at least.
Maybe nothing. Achilles does not know how he became immortal after all.
That is within the potential scope of a top end power. Whether or not she would want to , is anther matter. Kroner does not seem to be very keen at Halo’s suggestion that she should be on the Archon team.
Indeed, but up until now nothing had directly attacked her. The only thing which did threaten her before was the initial grenade launch. But Maxima disarmed that in the blink of an eye. So not her problem. Even now Kroner may only be bothered that her goggles might get a scratch, or some soot, on them. If she is immortal.
If she does have limitations though, there could be a whole bunch of different ones. Until we see more of her in action, or get other clues, we can only speculate wildly.
If Kronachrome was responsible for Les, then that would put a minimum age on her
No, she was simply shocked that Sydney was talking to her, not what the subject was about
This seems like the sort of comic where there would be multiple routes to multiple kinds of immortality and they probably all take either a great sacrifice or a ton of hard work (same thing really) so she can probably become immortal by endeavoring to understand the mortal state, from her powers view point, and then either slowly working out how to alter key parts of that state without destroying/altering her favorite parts of the individual in question or studying a preferred type of existing immortal to understand them and then compare the two to see if she can reproduce it safely. (assuming her display has a mode for studying the make-up of things without altering them)
Of course, she may not want to show people the full level of her power – she’s rather lacking in allies, being the only one of her kind, and wiping out the dummies in a few seconds would be rather scary,
How do we know she hasn’t already done so? It is, after all, a kind of magic.
“How are you not on our fucking team?!”
“Umm.. I am on your team…”
“No, I meant .. Wait, you are on our team? What the hell was I saying?”
“Why don’t you just forget all about it?”
“What were we talking about again?”
“we were talking about lunch”
“Oh yeah, up for some Atomic Tacos?”
“sounds delicious”
“Ice Cream it is.”
I noticed King Kais symbol there behind Krona.
So either there’s a real fanboy/girl/?? or an actual disciple of King Kai around.
I wouldn’t put either past David, but I’d bet on the otaku angle.
(I’m not going to suggest King Kai himself, or some egotistical person that thought they could hijack the title and not get harangued for it.)
It was spotted (and commented on) some weeks ago
There are a LOT of comments every day. I’m lucky to read 1/10th of them :)
Most references, like that, are just there for the purpose of providing either an in-joke, or a bit of a thrill, for those who spot it.
Well done on doing so by the way. That symbol has appeared a number of times, but only one other person realised what it was (and then alluded to it, rather than stating what it was directly, if I remember it right). As such yours is a useful post, to those of us who were not in the know.
The only intellectual copyright characters, or the like, which are likely to feature beyond a simple background appearance are those which have official crossovers. Of which Wearing the Cape and Wereworld are the only ones which have happened to date. Although Dave is hoping for a Gold Digger one someday too.
Separately, of course, there are the top-end patreons, who earn their cameo scene appearance. And are therefore integral parts of the Grrlverse. But they, as part of the process, have given permission for their characters to make that appearance. Unlike the homage and in-joke references. Limited use of such is permissible, under copyright law. But Dave wisely does not push it beyond that.
I like that the death squad suicide mannequin has full, lovingly-rendered lips. Somebody really spent time on these.
:-)
Or maybe they were just born that way?
You first see a vampire July 14 it is now December this has at most been three hours. Let that little fact sink in
…. so time moves much faster in the Grrlverse, than here.
…. the gap between Sydney and my ages will never narrow.
…. Sydney is barely aging, but I am hurtling towards a grave, at breakneck speed!
*cries*
I blame it on Einstein and that pesky relativity thing…
All things are relative.
Particularly in trailer parks.
*giggles*
Personally, I’m a little curious why the Kai’s have a seat directly behind her and no one seem to be in attendance. None of the Zone fighters use magic (except Buu maybe), and I don’t think the Kai’s themselves have to worry about being exposed to human society.
Side thought: Assuming the Zone fighters are in this universe, then a fight between Maxima and the Samoans would be really scary…
Dang auto correct. “Z fighters”
You are unlikely to see much more, than you have, of intellectually copyrighted material. For reasons given above.
Since we have our own little version of the UN in the comment section, I had a question.
Here in the states the animated series is called Dragonball ‘Zee’ by the narrator. When it is shown on the British side of the pond is the voice-over changed to refer to it as Dragonball ‘Zed’?
Zed was a character in the Police Academy movies, not in Dragonball!
Oh, you meant . . . 🙁
Never mind.
Zed is dead. But only in America.
In the UK our “a, b, c”, ends with “zed” (for “z”) rather than the American “zee”. Some TV companies rebrand things, thinking that the general public are too dumb to either know international differences or figure it out from context. This happens in both directions. But Hollywood is the more prolific industry so I guess it happens more in the American —> British direction, rather than vice versa.
I did have an American friend, who I met up with when we were both on holiday in the UK, ask me to take her to a shop where she could pick up the English versions of the Red Dwarf books. She hated that so many British terms were changed, in the American version, thus loosing a lot of the flavour of the originals. Which would have been very apparent compared to the TV series.
Sometimes it happens for totally nonsensical reasons though, for instance: “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” was released, in the UK, as “Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles”. Given that ninjas were fully understood and a commonly used term in the UK, plus it was not considered offensive, or otherwise politically incorrect, whichever corporate executive made that call was just stupid.
As Guesticus says, similar things may or may not occur in other English-speaking territories, depending on whether differences apply in the spoken or written language. At the end of the day it all boils down to “will people understand this unchanged, or should we translate it?” Personally I would always prefer the former.
But not everyone has a good ear for accents (or compensating for them) nor do they all have cosmopolitan knowledge of linguistic differences. So fairly often there are sound economic reasons underpinning such ‘dumbing down’.
We must of gotten the American version, as it was pronounced “Zee” (including in the catchy song)
Sooo I think Girl-Neo is a mute. Why? the use an ! To discribe her shock and the use of whew in a moment where most would say something else
Possibly. Or she might just be a girl of few words.
Plus she can alter reality. If she wanted to speak, being mute would not pose much of an obstacle in her way. “Mute = 0” (i.e. she can change reality to cure herself. Barring what limitations, if any, she may have)
She could be Yin to Sydney’s Yang, and don’t you dare bring up the ying-yang argument…. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1590
I’d say Krona is as much a super as Sydney is, with maybe that visor thing as her equivalent to a ‘power item’. If not that, I’d go with ’empowered by some kind of powerful entity’, especially if it’s still magic. Though if what she does is magic, and she can make stuff out of thin air with effort, what makes her different from a mage? Does she not use mana, or does the lack of pentagram for a sigil do it?
Dave’s comment, if taken on face value, indicates that she does utilise magic, as part of the process. This is necessary so that she can perform spectacular actions, but without worrying about what would otherwise be nasty side effects (because magic can fix them, without her having to fixate on the minutiae).
For instance if it is necessary to evacuate the building, and it is daylight outside, at the time, Krona could change “eclipse = 0” to “eclipse =1”. Thus giving the necessary darkness to allow the vampires to flee to some safe location, before daylight returns.
Magic meanwhile makes sure that the Earth and Moon are not ripped to pieces by such cosmic alteration of their orbits!
Fundamentally though Kroner is not using mundane magic to do her core powers. She is lifting up the hood of the universe and tinkering directly with the engine. Magic just provides the safety net, in case the engine drops out.
In my interpretation, needless to say. Dave could have subtly or grossly different intentions.
It would be easier to generate a big black cloud thunderstorm. They might get wet, but it’s better than roasting…
She has the same build as Sydney, has a similarly unknown powerset. I’m just saying maybe Sydney should be at that banner instead of superheroes…
If you make Sydney cry, by telling her she is not a super-hero, I will bite you!
Sydney have a Batman belt, ergo she is a superhero.
Can’t disagree with logic like that.
Batman isn’t a ‘superhero’, he’s a ‘vigilante’. And a detective, and a rich guy, and a genius…
okay, fine, he’s a ‘superhero’
(walks away with briefcase full of money)
[omg, all these bills have Joker’s face on them]
You really don’t want to see what is on the reverse…
She’s more like a superheroine. =OP
Probably mentioned earlier on, but if not– grenades like this one (presumably 40mm?) activate by ‘spinning’ a certain number of times before arming to explode. Possible to manually activate one just by twisting it a few times, then tossing it on its way. Tis why they tend to be packaged in boxes that say ‘DO NOT DROP’ in great big red letters!
The old 40mm grenade cartridges have internal ball-rotor, which will align the firing pin to the primer when the grenade is spinning. The rotor is initially locked in place, and the set-back during launch releases it. That is, the grenade needs to be launched and spinning before the impact fuze can be activated. It is very difficult to detonate the grenade just by handling it roughly.
However, some grenades have self-destruct fuze in addition to impact fuze. That is, the self-destruct fuze is initiated during launch, and it will detonate the grenade after a set time. A good example of this is the Russian 7P9M (30mm VOG-17M) with VMG-K fuze.
I assume that the mannequin just twisted the grenade so that grenade base rotated within the casing and initialized the self-destruct fuze. At this point, the grenade acts as a time-fuzed hand grenade.
Actually, let’s examine the plausibility of arming a grenade like that. It’s probably not that unreasonable, considering who’s arming it. Most grenade launcher grenades arm themselves after traveling a certain distance. They spin whilst moving, whereby an internal gyroscope arms the grenade after a certain distance, letting it travel until the firer-er is well outside the radius of the explosion before detonating. However, if you spun one with enough force, theoretically, it might arm without firing. I’m going to say that an extra device to keep it from arming in the shell would take up precious explosives space, since they need to be efficient with their mass in order to be a usable size, and move a desirable range. Therefore, since the constructs in swat armor are clearly meant for fighting, I’m assuming that they have preternatural speed, grace, and strength, meaning that it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect one to be able to generate the force required to arm such a grenade by simply spinning it with their bare hands. In short, I wouldn’t worry about this being plausible at all. I’m going to interpret the sound effect of “Vreee…” as the sound of the construct spinning the grenade manually, since grenades like that don’t typically waste space with the electronics needed to make an arming sound.
What?! You mean bomb whistles AREN’T a thing?! I’ve been hornswoggled!
You are The Soaring Eagle?
It’s clips like these that convince me that wrestling isn’t fake at all.
The results may be fixed (like ‘professional’ boxing), but the moves and action is real, like a choreographed fight, they always have been (or, at least, for the last 60+ years)
Am i the only one that saw Krona at first and was like “hold on, did i miss something? why does sydney have blue hair? wait when did she get that ability…..oh wait THERE’S sydney”
Oh noes! Final panel… the end is nigh!
Zombie Apocalypse Soda sighted!
What? o_O
As long as Harem doesn’t port in we’re safe! (though I’d think this would mostly just annoy the vampires)
I think it is more likely a can of ‘Dew’, the caffeine overload delivery device of many gamers.
https://healthyrise.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/Mountain-Dew-7.jpg
Looks more like a can of ‘7-Up’ to me
*keeps anti-zombie bunker blast-proof door firmly shut*
I consider there is a zombie outbreak, until it is proven otherwise! I ain’t coming out until we know for sure. And even then I will require a proven number of days, with no zombie infection, just the same as the W.H.O. insisted on, before declaring any given ebola-infected country to be free of the disease.
You know, our heroes need to really work on their situational awareness if it takes someone in the peanut gallery to notice one of the dummies activating a anti-magical critter bomb.
Of the three S.W.A.T. members two are busy and the last one, Dabbler, seems to have snuck of to the sidelines. I’m assuming she is either working on a solution to the reassembling Murderquins (I’d assume it has something to do with the mark in blood) OR she trusts the entire room of variously more than human powered individuals to keep the remaining free one in line until Maxima gets back so she is instead focusing on developing a tracking method to find the source of the assault.
Kind of wondering why the remaining two Murderquins aren’t being dogpiled by the tons of “more than human-oids” running around? Do they assume that they are more dangerous to the Council, that they could plan for, than the supers which they may not have? So far they have let their younger members enter the free-for-all without calling them back or joining them. (Direwerewolf stood up some time ago… )
Its been a weird fight so far.
She is a lesser God of the forge with no memory of her time as a god
OK, that’s three posts in a row the comment system ate. The only reason I can think of is they had a link in them that it must not have liked. So, without the link:
I read a webcomic a while back that dealt with people who could hack reality. To find it search for The Fancy Adventures of Jack Cannon.
I feel the need to get all mercantile about Krona’s power. It would seem obvious that the outcome of any lottery drawing would be a forgone conclusion if she wanted to buy a ticket for that day. We need to see if she has a few billion set aside somewhere. Possibly Sweden. She did hack their banking system to name their currency after herself after all.