Grrl Power #504 – Rollback
Krona’s problem is that she can’t google “time loop” and see how other reality hackers have approached it. There’s no GitHub for what she does. Amusingly, there are a lot of stories of early games back in the day turning out how they did because the programmers just didn’t know what how to do what they wanted.* In Krona’s case, experimentation may not be a great idea – but for all she knows the universe has a killer error handling routine.
The “spells” she comes up with are difficult to test, and she doesn’t know how to make a universe in a box to play around in unlike some people. Chances are she’ll have to stick to smaller tricks for a while.
*I just watched this cool video of a GDC presentation by Peter Molyneux where he talks about one of the major game features of Populus (it was an amazing game you young people) where you could elevate the ground, all arose because he couldn’t figure out how to program the AI behavior when the people reached the edges of the land. Also that Molyneux, game industry luminary, got into making games because someone mistakenly gave him a bunch of Amigas. Watch the video it’s pretty interesting.
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Krona just had a Sydney Moment.
Krona seems to have a lot in common with Sydney. Their powers are kinda similar, with seven nodes in a rainbow color assortment. They even look a bit alike.
They (along with Pixel) are all drawn in Dave’s anime style, as opposed to the version(s) used for other characters. Plus do indeed have other characteristics in common, such as stature and membership of the A-team.
That is one trio I would love to hang with. The short, cute, ones that is. As opposed to the escaped criminals, who never hit anybody, even when firing machine guns.
There was this one episode where they used those large canisters of gas as weapons, by setting them on a ramped surface and knocking the valves off with a sledge hammer. They would go flying out and explode on contact.
I don’t recall what kind of gas it was supposed to be, but given how they all exploded on impact clearly it was a kind that would have made driving a truck full of them around a non-insurable job. :-P
It recalled for me all those movies where a car goes off a cliff, only to explode halfway down without ever hitting anything. It makes you go “Huh, I don’t know why the owner of that car decided to put a bunch of explosives in the trunk with an altimeter detonator or a barometric pressure detonator, but clearly he did.” Makes driving that car around in a rain storm or in a hilly city a non-insurable mode of transportation.
Cars normally don’t explode, they can catch fire if the gas tank ruptures, of course. And that’s why hydrogen, despite all the talk about hydrogen powered vehicles, will never happen, because hydrogen can detonate (shock wave faster than speed of sound) in open air with no container. And the guys responsible for safety would lose their minds at the thought of approving that.
As for canisters, it’s a not very well known fact that acetylene self detonates at a pressure over 15 psi. Those black squatty canisters of acetylene you see in most welding shops are pressurized way above that. How do they manage that? A moderator, usually acetone, is introduced into the container and wicked into a metal “honeycomb” in the middle of the tank to keep the acetylene happy and not explodey (as Halo would put it).
So if you want to see the shop get evacuated in a HURRY, flip one of those tanks upside down and crack the valve so that acetone starts dripping out. As soon as enough of that is gone, that sucker will blow and then, OFC, besides blowing up the shop will throw flaming acetone everywhere. Laying one on it’s side to weld in a narrow place will get you screamed at in a really nasty way. So yeah, there are canisters of gas that aren’t exactly stable being driven around town every day. Ever see the valve get knocked off an oxygen tank? Life gets really interesting in a damn big hurry when that happens.
So what about those Hydrogen fuel cell bus trials? The main objection there seems to be unanticipated expenses and reliability, rather than safety.
The other thing to bear in mind is that per passenger mile zeppelins actually compared favourably to modern transportation. They knew hydrogen was explosive so took extreme precautions.
The only reason why it has such a bad reputation is because the Hindenburg disaster was the first time a transportation disaster was captured on film. So it embedded itself in the psyche of generations of viewers. Who only have that image in their minds and not the years of safe travel that preceded it.
Sadly my google fu keeps failing to get anything even vaguely on topic. So I am relying on my general knowledge here… which is not always reliable.
There are different ways to store hydrogen, other than just pressurized in a tank. One that I can recall off the top of my head involved storing it in a solid binder/matrix that would release the hydrogen when heated (moderately), allowing it to be kept in a safe, non-explosive form.
This is all I can think of now:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/EveryCarIsAPinto
Note that despite what I initially assumed, the Ford Pinto was NOT the reason this trope exists, as examples predate the 1970s (plus, the Pinto used to only catch fire during rear-end collisions, not explode – and again, only during rear-end collisions, not by hitting front-first, either). I guess EXPLODING THINGS is just rule of cool/rule of drama at that point.
Thanks to the “oh the humanity!” recording of course, people also believe Every Zeppelin Is a Hindenburg, as Yorp pointed out. Funnily enough, the actual Hindenburg is hypothesized by some to have been the result of sabotage – there’s a heck of a lot of conspiracy theories, since there wasn’t enough of the wreckage to figure out what actually ignited it.
Meanwhile, ironically, relatively few realize that there is surprisingly strong evidence that the Titanic was suffering from a massive fire at the time it sank – a fire that had been going since before they left port, and which could very well have weakened the metal riiiiight about where the iceberg shredded it. I swear to god, that ship was the most doomed out of any in all of human history…but anyway, my point is I find it morbidly amusing that some of the things most famous for “exploding” (cards/Ford Pintos, the Hindenburg) either didn’t/don’t explode at all, or were possibly not at all accidental, whereas one of the most famous disasters in history is blamed by the public solely on an iceberg and fast speed but probably involved a hell of a lot of fire, too.
I demand more info to back up this relatively ridiculous sounding hypothesis of yours. Something more than ‘it should have been proof against the iceberg’. Sources or lies!
Snopes find it plausible and their supporting evidence is highly credible. Their conclusion:
She’s also a horrible liar.
and one of orbs may be time orb, its ability just aint unlocked
So the limitation is that she has no fucking clue how it works & if it won’t destroy the universe in the long run
Which is why she put those limits: max of three loops, within an eight hour period from the time of initial setting
She’s the only one of her kind, and she can basically do whatever the fuck she wants, just be glad she decided to be a good guy
No, I’m not. Any sane universe would treat her as a threat. The limits don’t mean anything because she has no idea what she’s doing. It’s like giving a toddler a live bomb and keeping them around because she wants to help.
The limits also mean nothing because they are self imposed. They aren’t limitations so much as promises and promises can be broken. “If something kills me THREE times then I’ll totally just LET myself die” sounds good in theory, but after that second death human nature kicks in and its “well ONE more probably won’t hurt anything, I can get it right THIS time”.
Anyone with a damn brain is a threat, but no worries about that becoming a problem in this thread
I think it’s three lives PER CHECKPOINT, meaning after that second death she is going to go hide instead of doing that risky stuff she was trying twice.
Yup. Although Donling‘s basic premise still stands, in that she may just choose to create another checkpoint instead, and that might have four resets… ‘just to be safe’.
The more encouraging thing is that she is swearing off it completely above, in a sincere manner. Whilst this is still potentially subject to abuse, it remains one much less likely to be conducted, going by our experiences of others behaviour in similar circumstances.
It is a lot easier to keep to an absolute commitment, rather than a rationed one.
I think that’s a fairly aggressive stance to take.
Sure, she could be dangerous. But so could any of our cast. We don’t lock people up based on what they could do. Preemptive neutralization is usually what the bad guys do to potential threats to their evil plans.
Agreed.
Although ‘treating something like a threat’ does not have to equate to ‘locking her up’. To use an analogy people with mental health problems can often genuinely be a threat, be that to themselves or others. As such they should be treated as such. But a sensible society will do so by providing them with the support that they need, such as counselling or medical treatment as may be advisable.
Far better to ethically neutralise the threat, whilst respecting the rights of the individual and retaining them as useful members of society, than to spend resources keeping them locked up.
Not to mention that those who try to kill, or lock her up, will face the consequences of making an enemy of a god-like individual!
“It’s like giving a toddler a live bomb and keeping them around because she wants to help.”
I.AM. GROOT!
-Baby Groot, Guardians of the Galaxy 2
And thus we see how people like Trask can come about with comments like that. :/ Ugh.
Schezuan, any sane universe would treat YOU as a threat. Know why?
Krona could destroy the universe. Yep. Know who else might? A crazed villain. In fact, that may well be their goal. So by eliminating Krona as a possible threat, you thereby eliminate any defenses against certain threats.
Your method of reasoning is incredibly dangerous and arbitrary.
How could you have a localized time anomaly at all. Wouldn’t the rest of the earth moved in the mean time leaving you in space?
All time is local. The time we experience here on Earth is not the same as that for a satellite in orbit around the planet. There is a small but (for electronic devices, like GPS) significant discrepancy which needs to be compensated for.
Because space-time is interconnected all things with a time element can be affected by spatial differences, such as relative movement of two objects. So any form of time travel, measurement of things over time, consideration of objects not in the local vicinity, etc, all need to be able to adjust for the other element in the equation. Where the difference is significant enough to effect the task at paw.
In other words ANY kind of time travel (or astronomical navigation) needs to be able to adjust for planetary movement (and any significant differences in local time*). We even have to adjust for a similar phenomenon when flying or otherwise crossing time zones.
As reflected by the most famous time machine’s name T.A.R.D.I.S. (Time And Relative Dimension In Space).
* This can be affected by other things which affect space-time, other than just relative movement. Such as gravity. Most notably around super-dense objects like black holes.
So how local is this time loop thing then? Is Vamp-orc bitch still inside the warehouse wondering where Sydney and Pixel just vanished off to?
SHE’S NOT A VAMPIRE!!!!!!!!!!!!
As for the rest, we will have to wait for DaveB to let us know, possibly on Monday, or next Thursday, or maybe even three weeks while he shifts attention to what the rest of the world had been doing
Well, most of her isn’t. Pretty sure the top part of the head is.
No it’s not, she’s a Blood Mage, that’s NOT the same thing as being a Vampire
Just to make a point – she isn’t a troll either…
OR IS SHE?
::runs away giggling maniacally wearing his troll horns::
Well, Kronachrome is more of a troll than Sci-fright :P
Here’s your copy of ‘Trolling for Ass’.
So are you saying a vampire can’t be a blood mage? Is there some kind of racial profiling against vampires before being allowed to study blood magic techniques?
Sorry, just yanking your chain a bit there. Just saying that blood mage sounds more like a ‘profession’ and not a race, the two don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
I agree though that the little bit of the original Sciona we do get to see seems to suggest she is something different from the vampires we’ve been introduced to so far.
@Guesticus …Can’t she be a Blood Mage AND a Vampire? I mean, really that’s gotta be the most convenient magery focus for a Vampire, AND the type of mage most likely to be made into a vampire by force. Just imagine being able to magically manipulate YOUR food source…Oh and your food source is also the only currency you care about, your best weapon, and can be used for various other awesome things like making henchmen. Oh, and you gain this by killing your enemies.
Does that not sound like a recipe for an awesome life? Blood Mage Vampires man, Immortal AND enjoying it.
how do you know she isnt a vampire? are you saying they cant turn other races which is pretty much what they do she couldve started as one thing then been turned and bloodmage is more of a job title than a race name of course shes more frankenstein than anything else now image having to fill in paperwork for her and getting to the race section head elf with orc jaw right arm orc on my fathers aunts side of the family etc
nssheepster is right bloodmage vampire would kick all kinds of ass
The Tremere from V:tM, for example…
okay, so a way i’m currently rationalising krona’s god-level jr timelord power here is that she is having no effect on time whatsoever.
wait, here me out.
When she creates a checkpoint, Kronachrome is really creating a “quicksave”, basically an index of the location of every atom inside her AoE at that instant. then, when the checkpoint activates, any atom out of position is reverted because her “reality code” provides instructions for where they were/should be. so what seems like time-travel to people inside the bubble is actually physical/quantum travel, plus a little mide-bendery goodness. this tracks with harem’s event-retention, cos the information was transmitted/shared with her other selves before she reset, an continued to exist during it, and was restored afterwards as a side-effect of being quantum entangled with atoms outside the AoE. legit or no? The three lives limit could be to prevent repeated shifting from damaging the matter it’s affecting, and the eight hour limit could be a basic limit on the energy available to Kronacoder to fuel the movement of all this matter. or the instructions might undergo quantum decay or something.
At this point, I’m thinking, Harem’s quantum entangling, with her other bodies, is what prevented the actual time loop.
The eight hour time limit is probably more to prevent the check point from kicking in a week, a month, or even years later.
of course, krona could have put the three strikes, eight house limits in because of how SHE thinks the system works, not because of it’s inherent properties. That matches how she talks about them in the comic. the main idea was to come up with an explanation that didn’t rely on “time travel”. purely physical restoration is at least within the bounds of possibility
It’s doubtful it works like that because krona would be aware of doing a night infinite number of save states and memory lookups/writes. The code to do a time loop and a local universe quicksave would look completely different.
unless she codes for effects, rather than methods. or if the code is an abstract representation heuristic that quantifies reality differently. now admittedly i pulled the second one out of my ass, but my point is we just don’t know enough about the mechanics of her coding power to make those assumptions. or, you know, any assumptions at all at this stage.
I like this idea a lot, but I think the three lives limit is nothing quite so forethought as that. She simply doesn’t actually understand that that’s what’s happening. xD
Sydney’s glasses seem to be missing in panel 5.
Yes, talked about that on one of the other pages
There’s too many possible outcomes for time manipulation. I’m just going to sit tight and wait for the canon versions, thank you very much.
Zack Tilly
This arc is getting SERIOUSLY strained as we speak. Right now it’s tied with Peak Vehemence.
Yes, and how did that end up? Give DaveB a chance to explain things before assuming the world is over
V’s finale was an author fiat. By that point there was no logical reason for him to *not* manifest yet another power. Or just restart his mind control, sorry, aggression aura. Or use telekinesis. Or grow in size some more. Or summon tracheotomy kit and scuba gear like pants previously. You catch my drift.
As for explanation, the it’s on this page where it fails after showing signs of such for two pages. I don’t need to wait for the next one in hopes that it will repair the damage already done.
I presume that it’s hard to focus while being choked and drowned, especially when this suddenly occurs while you were winning. So that’d explain the, “Why didn’t he summon something handy?” issue pretty logically, as long as we’re assuming it takes some measure of focus to summon things…And logically, it’s pretty clear that it DOES take focus.
As for growing more, V made clear that was due to the power he’d absorbed…And he was currently burning power to not die, so it’s possible that he just couldn’t absorb enough from their violence against him to both burn power to stay alive, not shrink from losing power, AND grow due to an excess of power all at once.
Starting the agression aura again sounds good, but he did again openly say that he had power to burn and that was how he powered it. Also, again, choked, a little distracted from magick-ing anything. And of course…The aura had already failed him once, why would he burn power he can scarcely afford to do it again? Sydney would just re-shield, and the trained agents, who are now aware of what he was doing, will simply focus their agression on him, thus not helping him at all.
As for manifesting a new power….Maybe. But then, maybe he did, and couldn’t use it for any of the above reasons. Or maybe he needed more power before he could level up again, and they caught him just before he got that power. Or maybe he just didn’t have another ability to manifest. Could even be that he did, and didn’t know how to use it…V had made clear he’d never gained that much power before.
Generally the ONLY point you made that’s true is that he might have had a reason to manifest a new power, and the author decided he didn’t. Yet even there, he had reasons for that, very visible, well established ones.
For now, I’m going to just trust Mr. Author Man on this. It’s certainly interesting, and if nothing else, it raises interesting queries about the nature of time and magic in this fictional universe. Also, WTF is Krona’s Origin that she ended up like this?
Just, don’t feed the troll.
Thanks for the comprehensive and well-thought reply. This format doesn’t really serve well long-form discussion and the next update is nigh, so I won’t comment in detail. I very much disagree whether V’s limitations as shown were well-established or visible, but hey – willing suspension of disbelief is extremely subjective.
V’s limitation is that he’s human. Whatever powers he has, he’s not a robot AI which will calculate the best possible ways to put them to use.
Otherwise, why the hell would he engage a super team just to get a power-up? Though it looked like he was in control of the situation, it’s clear he was just winging it and was expecting his powers to make up for his errors. As we already know – they didn’t.
Debatable. As an innate user of Vehemic Energy he’s essentially part wrath demon. The only other known emotional energy user, Dabbler, is explicitly half-succubus.
But we’re arguing apples and oranges here. I respect you coming up with in-story explanations, but my focus is about the strength and flow of storytelling.
He’s just an innate user of Vehemic Energy, it doesn’t make him a demon.
Have you ever heard the phrase “you can’t make this stuff up”? It refers to things which happen outside of “good storytelling” – which usually means a real-life situation. However, for a story to be anything other than cliche, the author must find new ways to tell a good story. The most common way is to introduce the human element – particularly, emotionally-driven mistakes.
Yes, just as it is presumably hard to focus when you’re hit so hard you get a tooth knocked out, get shot in the eye and have it put out, and have an arm blown clean off. And yet he managed to focus through all of those just fine. Fine enough to not take more than a single panel to even acknowledge any pain, and then to just heal all of those injuries away. Better than heal, he replaced the damaged parts of his body with what appeared to be stronger replacements. Trivially.
So while he was being held underwater it should have been trivial for him to either create his own O2, or just regenerate his body the same way he did with his tooth, eye, and arm to compensate for a lack of O2. Or to do any number of other things. It is completely accurate to say that Vehemence lost the fight because the plot demanded it.
Pardon me, it was two teeth. And I also forgot to mention that when he regenerates limbs, eyes, and teeth that have been removed from his body, it makes him stronger! This is a direct quote, save that I edited the perspective from first person to third.
So countering the attempt to drown him should have simply made him stronger.
Difference between losing an eye, a couple teeth and an arm and being choked while drowning, is that he was giving time to recover and catch his breath (so to speak) after the first three examples, it is possible that he could have compensated for being choked or even drowned if he was giving the chance, but they didn’t, it was a continuous multi-team assault and he was rapidly running out of breath and energy
Your examples ARE potent…But the big difference is, none of them are immediately fatal. For the AVERAGE person, the arm would be fatal…But he knows it isn’t, for him, and he regrew it fairly quickly. Choking and Drowning WOULD kill even him, eventually. Drowning is also a primal fear…Hence why things like water boarding were invented, because they work on everyone, trained or not. Fear of death is what caused the choking and drowning to be more potent then the rest.
Well put. I have been on the verge of death via drowning twice (quite literally and with no exageration). When you have seconds before you loose consciousness and know that death will follow you have to make instant choices.
Weighing the built-in fear of drowning, that we all have, against the other options available can be done calmly, as I managed and we saw Vehemence doing. But that fear is a very powerful motivator to make sure you do not fail in the precious seconds you have.
Clearly Vehemence had never tried the pants creating trick before,* so is unlikely to have ever created air in his lungs either. Get that wrong and he could explode his lungs, from the pressure, or have a fatal result from any number of unexpected side effects.
Balance this against living life in a cosy jail cell, with the potential to escape, and there is no need to say his choice was plot-driven. It was a sensible choice to make. Perhaps not one that you would have done, in those circumstances. But it was wholly in keeping with Vehemence’s character, in my opinion.
He was not a fanatic, willing to die for a cause. He just liked a good brawl and the boosted power that gave him. Risking dying, in an ignominious way would have no appeal to him. Dying with fists flailing, against insurmountable odds sure. But not chocking to death (be it from being held down or via his own incompetence with an untested power).
* Which was very clearly done for comedic effect more than anything else, so the entire scene and and any implications as to the use of the ‘power’ should be taken with a tongue very firmly in cheek. As mentioned by the author at the time.
Apologies, instead of “Perhaps not one that you would have done…” I should have said “Perhaps not one that Oberon would have done…”.
Was just thinking of something: what if Kronachrome’s “Checkpoint Aura” has a similar sized range as Keven’s “Aggro Aura”?
Hang on, shouldn’t Sydney be saying “Included” instead of “excluded” in panel 5?
agreed
That would make more sense, and then my head would stop hurting.
Can we get DaveB on that? That’s not the sort of mistake Sidney would make.
Yeah that was my bad, I’ll get it fixed.
Awesomeness. :)
Actually … messing with Time would not work, as with space, its infinite. You cannot affect local time without affecting ALL of the space|time continuum .
What is relativity?
ask your relatives.
;)
@ThePuck Technically we don’t KNOW that, we just THINK that. Hard to prove that time OR space is infinite. Just because we can’t see the edges, and what limited evidence we have suggest that….Doesn’t make it true. Stick an ant on a football field and they’ll think it’s infinite. Humans, in time and space, are no different from an ant, and what we’re looking at is a damn sight bigger than an appropriately scaled up football field.
TLDR Relativity is unprovable, we just like it because it makes the most sense out of our small data sample.
So the Krona save point power seems to be an AoE teleport plus mindwipe.
Only she is always at the center of the AoE when she casts it, so it seems like a time loop to her.
Regardless, nesting time loops (her 3 count hard limit thing) is probably really bad. But I can’t really imagine most people setting a willing limit on their number of real life respawns, so good on her.
For my narrative sense, I am going to head canon that there are other limitations that she doesn’t know about that prevent the ability from being broken as heck.
…however, this seems to indicate that the Harems outside the AoE did not immediately inform the Maxima outside the radius about the presence of half head. That’s either bad tactics or wierder time shenanigans than even Krona thinks at this point.
Answer me this: just when did the other Harem’s learn about Sci-fright being in the warehouse?
Personally don’t believe Sydney has actually told them yet, or Pixelicious would have ordered the evac immediately (remember, Pixelicous was taken down by Sci-fright and strung up like a juice box)
Harem hasn’t found out about Double Header so far. But in at least one version of events, she knows that Sydney teleported into the warehouse accidentally and began a panicked search for her.
That is something one of her other bodies should have immediately informed Maxima about. That should have led to Maxima showing up angry and in person right now, accompanied by a sonic boom, as opposed to casual check in. A later mindwipe of the Harems would not change that.
Of course if it is an actual time loop that rewound the universe, that explains the calm call from Maxima, except Maxima shouldn’t be calling yet.
This leads me to a third hypothesis: Krona does rewind the universe, but God gets to reroll dice and make new decisions when she does, and Maxima is calling in ‘early’ on a whim.
No, she didn’t know about Sydney’s new BeePort-ability, that happened after Bodie went looking through the Warehouse to find where Pixelicious was being drained and Sydney got bored and decided to examine her balls, so far, the only three people saw the BeePort and one doesn’t remember and another is currently in doubt about whether she was caught up in whatever Kronachrome did
Why Maxi is calmly checking in now was explained in the current page: whatever Kronachrome did, it was local (definition of ‘local’ still to be determined) and time continued on as ‘normal’ everywhere else
o_o
….
Krona, please don’t take this the wrong way. I think you’re a fun, interesting and well-intentioned character …. but you scare me more than the villains of the story do.
Yes, and her powers scare her too
I find it really amusing that I’ve encountered time-manipulation discussion twice in one day from two completely unrelated sources. Now I get to delve into the parallels or whatever.
Guild Wars 2’s narrative lead dev recently commented on a similar discussion, wherein people were fussing about the exclusivity of “time-manipulating” abilities of the Chronomancer, a Mesmer (illusionist) subclass. Basically, from the dev’s point of view, the Chronomancer only toys with local time perception instead of actual space-time continuum – Their “checkpoint” ability is like an advanced clone/illusion-technique rather than actual checkpoint.
From what we’ve learned now, Krona’s “checkpoint” could be similar – Complex space/memory manipulation instead of actual time-manipulation. It’s been mentioned that Krona needs to understand the thing before she can hack it; one can deduce she doesn’t really understand what time is except as the experience of motion in space.
She’s obviously never tested the limits of the “checkpoint” code and her sci-fi jargon like “temporal fission” and “chrono rubberbanding” could be self-labelled, meaning they’re potentially erroneous in representing what their code-equivalents actually do.
It could boil down to recording original positions, then moving/teleporting everything back to that starting point when the checkpoint is triggered, right down to brain neurons, excluding the one who triggered it. If that’s the case, we can presume the position-recording has an upper capacity limit or processing time, which would explain why the effect becomes local as the recording’s natural pathing would be to radiate outward from Krona.
Of course, Krona could be dealing with real time manipulation, then they’re all probably hosed in the indeterminate future. Can’t wait to find out more. I’ve never looked forward to a Monday so bad…
One thing to consider is that, from a physics point of view, time need not even exist. Philosophically speaking it is just a construct that humans have made up in order to try and explain causality. As such, what Krona thinks she understands about time need not actually have bearing on how things really work. Pretty much in accordance with the results that we see above!
I covered that in my second and third paragraph. lol
Miscounted, should be “third and fourth paragraphs.”
Huh. My working theory regarding Krona’s “checkpoint algorithm” was she made a localized spatial dimension around her and the team. If the criteria for the “loop” were met, the dimension would then collapse, reverting everyone to their previous state prior to the distortion.
Oops, I accidentally the post button before I finished typing. Can someone with sufficient power delete this comment?
Dave is the only one with admin rights, and he is usually too busy with creating the next comic. So we usually just have to live with any such mishaps, I am afraid. But do not worry it happens to us all, from time-to-time.
Should you spot the comment though, and have the time, DaveB, please feel free to delete this reply too.
He did, once, but then time reset so…
Huh. My working theory regarding Krona’s “checkpoint algorithm” was she made a localized spatial dimension around her and the team. If the criteria for the “loop” were met, the dimension would then collapse, reverting everyone to their previous state prior to the distortion. Since perception of time is altered by spatial distortion, this should work.
Of course, this would not only result in the same “bug” as seen here (localized time being desynced from universal time), but also poses a problem with what to do with the dimension should the “timer” run out and collapse isn’t triggered.
Reasonably argued. There are complications with Harem’s other selves being outside the local spatial dimension. And that we should have seen her getting freaked out at being cut off from her other selves.
But it is possible that her quantum-linking would transcend even such separation, so that is a fair approach to take.
Is there a chance that Sciona might already have sampled Pixels blood, and having acquired her attributes, been brought back through the time loop with the others?
Yes. Subject to a lot of ‘ifs’ though.(such as it actually being a time-loop, rather than a mental simulation). So possible but not too likely.
This is a super-hero story though, so even long-shots actually have a reasonable chance of coming about.
Krona’s face in the last panel is just golden.
No, the golden face is in panel five >_>
So…if Pixel goes back to standard form, and Peggy is in command instead of Harem…
Do they drive around in a black van and never actually shoot anyone?
Actually Pixel is in command, rather than Harem.* But I certainly would not object to Peggy replacing Harem so that we could indeed have the perfect A team. With Pixel in human form, as you say.
Without her though they are the “a-team” (as Harem would still be there I can make the ‘Because they are short’ gag).
* I am not sure what Pixel’s relative rank would be. She is almost certainly a ‘special agent’, as a federal agent in charge of a team that is likely to engage armed opponents.
Likewise though all the members of Arc-SWAT would need to have that status too, in order to be allowed to carry weapons across state boundaries (without needing separate licences in each state that requires such). Similarly that would be necessary allow them to make arrests for federal offences.
Possibly Archon would assign their intelligence operatives a military rank, so that in an emergency the senior officer can easily be established. In this instance though Maxima had specifically put Pixel in command, so that would remain until the order was changed or Pixel was incapacitated.
Given that Pixel was actually Capri Soled, Harem would have been next in the chain of command. Krona not being in consideration as she is in a separate chain-of-command to Archon, and was not (to our knowledge) stipulated as the second-in-command.
No, they are the “Goof Troop” (pretty much any team with Sydney becomes the “Goof Troop”, like how any flying vehicle carrying POTUS becomes “Air Farce One”)
In most cases, the one in charge gets to assign their second (except in very special cases where the one in charge is expected to not make it)
Isn’t Harem basically her own A Team? If you put Harem IN an A Team, you have your own B Team, in your A Team. Team-ception.
No, Harem is not part of the ‘A Team’, her cups are bigger, between a B and a C
LOL. Point taken. Didn’t mean to insult Harem’s lovely chest.
Harem is a different sort of “A-Team”
Didn’t feel you insulted Harem, just that maybe you didn’t understand what the meaning was :D
Endangering the entire time-stream for you personal convenience is no big deal, if Dr. Who has taught me anything.
Besides, this is just an eddy-current in a stream of data. Sure, there’ll be ripple effects, but as with an eddy an river, they’ll smooth out downstream. It’s not a huge deal unless you’re a big fan of “causality”.
Soooo… its all timey-wimey, wibbly-wobbly stuff….I’m actually of the thought line her check point is more about time perception than time manipulation… If this is true and the events actually happened and then were undone through teleportation and perception manipulation, how long til Sci-Fright crashes their party on the roof top. After all, if they weren’t reset, then someone in the basement knows there are visitors with very interesting toys.
How could you not notice that the first time it happens?
“Hmm, I’m 34 minutes late to every single thing.”
People’s internal clocks tend to be very easy to reconfigure after they fall asleep. The guy from Vsauce did a video on it. Usually within a single sleep cycle, without outside timekeeping methods, people WILL lose track of what time it is.
So am I the only one who thinks Krona looks super sexy in panel 3?
And Super sad in panel one
I kind of saw this coming, in a lot of cases when a time loop is done outside of the area time moves normally because its a localized event. Unless your talking about a few cases, like Groundhog Day or the movie 12:01, which was a fantastic love story that really blew me away, yeah definitely see that if you get a chance, its even a pretty good action flick, but a fantastic love story with a real twist.
Fun month or two lately.
DaveB’s spam program spams me out of posting business.
DaveB learns his program but good allowing me back in.
I discover that the first third to half of my independent (not in reply to someone else’s) comments seem to be missing, probably wiped by the overzealous spam program from H-E double hockey sticks, but can’t really prove it since I don’t have a back-up of Dave’s site and meh… (serious you guys I’ve been around a long time *Bender Voice* “REMEMBER ME! REMEMBER ME!” :-P )
Windoze 10 develops a screen of neutralization (screen of death? Sounds cooler) issue which apparently Microsoft knew about over a year ago, marked as HP’s fault and promptly forgot about happily ever after…
Screw them. I like my HP which was nice enough to have a factory image of Window’s 7 so I had something besides a rock on my desk. :-P”
Download Ubuntu just to have a way to kick around the nets. (Says it has something crashing every so often but it doesn’t stop working so meh. Me not know computers… )
Realize that a decent stockpile of fun Sydney centric comics with tons of new discoveries (and apparently near violent comments?? which I skimmed over for WOG) had built up!
Makes the last bits worth it. :)
P.S. Sorry I missed congratulating you on your 500th comic DaveB (not that you’ll see this [its OK keep working! *cracks whip* muwahahaha!]) I was… busy… (now lets see if I have posting problems cause that would be in keeping with my recent luck. *sigh* )
Welcome back. I hope your computer problems don’t carry on dogging you.
*attaches a prayer wheel to rim of water bowl, so can give it a regular spin.
Probably will as I don’t know a thing about Linux and am not really good with computers. (which oddly still leaves me better with them than almost everyone in my little village) but thanks for your prayers.
Well I guess that’s one way to handle this.
Personally I would said that the checkpoint can’t be re-set until you have reached that point in time. It makes a bit of sense, because I’d be willing to believe that whatever force propelled you back through time is still “in play” until you’ve caught up with the point in time where you started.
The problem that most concerns Pixel is a never-ending loop. Which could apply to either a universal time-loop or the local version. So having the thing that powers that remain effective, no matter what, is actually more concerning than one which would get weaker and potentially expire.
“Include”, I think, not “exclude”. Including the time from the loop would make it later, and thus more likely to reach the scheduled time.
Of course, that could have been Sidney’s mistake…
Also, my apologies if this was mentioned earlier in the four-hundred-odd (some very odd!) comments. ^_^
Does it strike anyone that PIxel and Sydney have some very similar ways of thinking and/or reacting to life?
I know everyone is excited about Krona nearly breaking time but no one took a crack at the Molyneux comment? I mean, no one calls him a luminary these days, after years of over promising and then the shit storm that was Godus calling him a laughing stock is too generous. That being said, he did have good game development ideas, he just needs to stop trying or at the very least have someone look over his shoulder for any more major projects. And have his fingers broken if he goes near any more game reporters trying to claim he isn’t at fault for his latest fuck up.
No crack is really needed, as the comment makes it clear he was being self-depreciating about his own skills
There is no need to kick someone when they are being open and honest about their own failings.
The praising part of the comment is entirely deserving by the way. I would far rather play Populous, even to this day, than the majority of modern games on offer. Not that I can afford any new ones mind, but I do get to see them in action, so can judge how appealing they are.
Uhm. Reflection on Pixel’s red-pill t-shirt logo only in panel four?
Krona, not Pixel, sorry. Lotsa new characters in a short time…
Hmm, had thought that the savaloy always had that reflection indicator, but looking back a few pages and it seems that that is the error panel
I was hoping that the reflection would be there before the checkpoint was set, but disappeared after that point. Because the Matrix reference is symbolic and it would have been cool. But sadly, as you say, that seems to be the first time it has had a reflection.
Pity, it is a nice touch. I hope Dave chooses to keep it. Consistency be damned.
Panel 5 typo: “exclude” should be “include”.
Sydney’s speech prioritises natural patterns and spontaneity, over being mathematically correct. She makes linguistic mistakes, from time to time.
Mind you, in this case it was not intentionally done, if you check the author’s reply on one of the previous comments pages. But it is not one that need be changed.
Especially if you take it as saying “remove the following bit from consideration”, rather than it being a synonym for ‘subtract’. Which I believe to be the intent (even if DaveB did get sucked in by the mathematical side of the argument).
As long as Krona never forgets a semicolon, because God knows what that would do. :)
The middle bottom panel is an accurate representation of my programmers working with new sensors.
“There’s no piece of code I’ve checked and rechecked as much as this,” effectively followed by a panicked “oh, no, oh, whattheheckdoesthisevendo?” is not exactly encouraging.
Indeed, albeit quite amusing with it.
It is worth mentioning though that she is talking about checking one part very carefully. And that part worked just fine. She was obsessing over one (very important) part but neglecting other aspects.
Nice to know she is human, in the sense of being able to make an error. That, in itself, is actually a limiter on her power. Albeit frightening that she can create a catastrophic disaster if she gets something wrong.
Mind you she runs that risk by associating with a Kat.
If the Chrono-Loop was localized, it could tear the fabric of reality asunder… or it could just act like the cat in The Matrix (the movie of course, not the metaphysical or philosophical concepts the movie is vaguely based on).
The thing with teleportation (at least with portals that stay ‘stationary’ that also arent in the vacuum of space) and time travel that I truly despise is that it never accounts for the movement of the planet. Even if you ignore the planet’s orbit around the sun and the spinning, the solar system itself is STILL hurtling through the cosmos. So traveling back in time, unless it’s actually undoing all of the changes throughout the entirety of reality, or at least the solar system, could just place you out into the vacuum of space several hundred miles away from where the planet currently is. In Krona’s case, if her time travel checkpoint thingy is localized, and it sends an area around where she set the check point back to a moment in the past, the position of the surrounding area would go back to where the planet had been… If her magic or whatever accounts perfectly down to the molecule for those position changes despite the changing of the astral bodies in the area then sure fine, if there was ever a time traveler that could account for that it would be someone with an admin cheat console that can pear into the very underpinnings of the cosmos…
Sorry for the rant, but it just never gets brought up how even if possible, time travel and teleportation would need to account for the very obvious issue of a constantly moving, spinning, hurtling through outer space planet and solar system.
The universe’ll be fiiine. It can handle the occasional hiccup. Conservation of history is as much about momentum as anything else.
No seriously, think of trying to stop time/reality like trying to stop the Indiana Jones boulder with your bare hands. Now expand the boulder to infinity.
It’ll even out the bump one way or the other.