Grrl Power #507 – Not so mini boss
Obviously this turn of events further calls into question Krona’s whole checkpoint system. Did Sciona remember what happened, was she not even included in the loop? Did Harem’s presence throw the whole thing into disarray? Is the only thing keeping Krona from being absurdly powerful shoddy programming chops? Maybe she wanted to be a wedding planner or a reptile veterinarian, but she decided to pursue coding cause of the whole reality hacking thing.
Pixel can get away with being terse with Max because she’s not in the Arc-SWAT chain of command. Obviously it behooves her to be cordial, but Pixel didn’t want to listen to the whole Maxima spiel. Her and Max don’t intersect a lot in their day to day work, but they’ve known each other for a while. (And yes, Sydney could have gotten eyes on with her Lightbee, but that means someone can see her too, and the orders were to keep her well out of harms way. The only reason she’s there is how useful her non-magic abilities would be against the Manekillers. If that went down, it was shields up, but otherwise don’t get involved.)
Over comms, no matter how secure they are, the general guideline is don’t be too specific about ultra classified stuff, like the existence of the supernatural. The Veil can cover electronic communications, but why strain it if you can say “informants” instead of “the secret council of vampires, aliens and elves.”
You never hear anyone using “gormful” or “gormy” as a compliment. I mean, if you can be gormless, you can also be gormful. Or just possessing of gorm. I want to see a tabletop RPG with a bunch of off brand stats like Gorm, Thew, Anfractuousness, Puissance, Luculence, and Callipygiance.
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Almost called it on the last page as “now would be a good/bad time for Sciona to make her move, because Sydney’s orbs are sort-of unavailable” but then kept it to myself. Good to see some tropes still work as they should. Looks like she will have to choose a power under pressure, and there is a good chance it won’t be the one they agreed on. And it will save someone’s ass in the future of course. Also… is it only me or text on this page implies that the original Sciona’s body is the lower half, making her an orc?
I think she upgraded by acquiring that new body.
No, that’s Sciona’s Mark 2 ManneKiller.
I do believe that Joe was referring to everything jaw-down, not anything on-page.
I think it’s safe to assume the brain is hers, it’s the body that’s been swapped.
Or it could just be a guard-dog.
Quick, Sydney, throw a really big stick!
Fetch boy, fetch!
Sqeaky Toy, AWAY!!!
I’m going to have to invent a squeaky yorpie snack now, just to show proper appreciation for this conversation.
*wags tail, enthusiastically, like an aeroplane propeller*
Like a Toot Sweet, made of beef jerky?
She called it troll, so I was assuming the bottom 95% was troll. And I have no idea what happened to the original troll top part of a head. Ashtray? Drinking goblet? Enshrined in gold plate as “the friend who died that I might live?”
While that’s ManneKiller 2.0, is it manned?
Technically all she said is “Troll blood does you good!, as previously pointed out by one of our astute commentators. I.e. there was no direct reference to the body. It may be a troll, or an orc or an Ogre.
Possibly. It would be fitting to have an intelligence directing the more powerful opponent Which could either be done with a cockpit or remotely. Presumably using a possession-type spell as opposed to something technological..
Although it would require different magics to simply super-sizing the previous versions.
More specifically, DaveB stated that Sciona went and got some Troll Blood to use as a sort of first aid kit so she could regenerate from Pixel’s laser claw attack that took out her arm and eye. As such, I think we can safely assume that her new body is not that of a troll itself.
uh oh made….
No fair attacking while Sydney is on her level up menu! That’s cheating!!!
Looks like any plans for “now we let Krona carefully analyse the schema since she appears to be the only person who can scan the orbs’ workings but needs to do so while they’re in this state,” will be out the window if future upgrades start to occur only during live operations then. That would be frustrating.
The impostant question, of course, is: Did anyone manage to find Krona a pen?
Sydney probably has one in the arts&crafts section of her utility belt, but didn’t have time to dig it out…
I think Krona’s fully capable of magically tattooing it onto her skin.
Or any piece of paper, if she wants to be boring about it.
Life is Dark Souls difficulty, the game doesn’t stop just because you opened a menu.
That begs the interesting question: what does that make Fallout 3’s pause system, where the game pauses so hard when you level up that you can’t check your current stats to know what you want to level up? Either way, I think I prefer the RL system, because I can always wait until I’m at a good place to level.
Fallout 3 would be sort of “stepping out of time to observe”
Well if she follows her instructions she’ll be grabbing the force field orb, and therefore getting the level up there.
Ranked in “IMO” order of usefulness:
1) Force field
2) Flight
3) Telepresence
4) Hentorb
5) PPO
6 & 7) Fuck them anyways
Yep, shields are higher priority. I wonder what the effect will be?
Hopefully life-support.
Well good old fashioned SCUBA technology has handled that for her at least as a temporary measure, so spending the point for some other effect, if she could even begin to know in advance what effect she was going to get, might be a superior choice.
SCUBA equipment is bulky to carry around. Also, a compressed air tank is not something that you really want on a battlefield- YouTube has the videos of the Mythbusters testing out it out during the Jaws episode. Getting an upgrade that causes the air in her forcefield to continually be replenished eliminates the need to carry air, which means she no longer has to deal with that added weight. It also means that she might be able to sustain someone else inside the shield.
Oberon is alluding to the mad scientist-created device that Deus has already given to Sydney (which she is currently wearing on the back of her belt). Clearly this has had innovations which are not commercially available in our world, as it is more compact than any existing models. However it will provide her with breathable air, for a limited period, in an emergency.
Currently Sydney can actually sustain several people, for a number of minutes, inside the shield, even without the use of that. Which is longer than a fight is likely to take (given that Maxima is on her way).
As regards the latter by the way, the time shown in their flight to New York, before the air needed replenishing was unrealistically short. The amount of air in a volume the size depected should have remained breathable for far longer than the period stated.
Personally I am viewing it as them having set their carbon dioxide monitoring equipment far too sensitively, and relying on that to determine when to change the air. Yes they might have felt it getting stuffy, but no they should not have been suffering any symptoms of hypoxia.
For a reality check just think of people trapped in a lift. They can be there for hours before the repair crew arrives. Despite being in a nearly-airtight box. As opposed to the minutes shown in the Halomobile.
that or the light hook inside the shield or perhaps moar powah!
The forb gets my vote. Its most likely anyhow, and there are two orphan lines. I theorize that the lines indicate how many hands are involved (with two lines for the orb connectors and one for most of the actions connected to each orb, it seems reasonable) so it would probably be best if she went for the one handed orphan, but at least she’d have a two handed orphan on an orb that she knew what it meant.
Which reminds me, she’s had bruises and now a burn. Isn’t it time to check the fuck’ems to see if either one is a healing orb? I mean, not right now, obviously, but…
I really hope calling these the “fuck’em orbs” becomes canonical….
I’d start any of the new lines with no points in yet. Some only have one point to complete whats visible.
actually i believe she was ordered to use the point to finish the 4 pipped tree on the Flight to see if it unlocked the greyed out one.
In her panic, Sydney will grab the PPO instead. Big brown ‘bot goes boom, or maybe it unlocks the stun setting, which would suck the first time she uses it when she intends to destroy her target.
I think the PPO scares her a bit, but the shield is familiar from a lot of recent use…
I don’t think it scares her so much as she isn’t at all bloodthirsty (a distinct difference between herself and Sciona!). Remember how she was instantly sorry that she had been any part of IGetStronger losing his arm? And her plan for taking him out involved suffocation until submission (basically like a wrestler or MMA competitor choking out their opponent) rather than blowing his head off, which Maxima was probably still capable of doing.
Well the two times we know she used it, 1) she started a forest fire, 2) she got sand in places… ;-)
I think both of your arguments have merits. By going with ‘overwhelmed by’ rather than ‘scared of’ I think it would make both viable at the same time. There is a whole page devoted to precisely those feelings, over the PPO.
I do hope that Sydney remains scared of the consequences of using the PPO mind, if it goes wrong. Previously it was the fear of ‘being whisked away’ that compounded the usual disquiet that we would all feel from burning a forest. Hopefully Maxima’s talks will have replaced that with a fear of burning down orphan and bunny sanctuaries.
Proper respect for a deadly weapon, with vast damage potential, is vital, after all. Personally I am glad that Sydney’s instincts go more to tongue-fu and orb-bashing, than burning people to death!
Im assuming theres a dot on the shield orb to allow trapping others, and one to make inside occupantsinvisibleto outside world and maybe illusions of what the user looks like
I’m still thinking of The Fuck You Orbs. I wonder if one is going to be called “Don”. Would have to do with polymorph (standard faire), requip (thank you, Titania Erza Scarlet), and cybernetics (hey DaveB you can go meta again with Sydney being Inspector Gadget…ed).
1. Peggy looks really young, in her helmet.
2. The anticipated level-up interruption turns out to be an end-of-level giant monster.
3 Issue the brown trousers!
1b) and way smaller in that huh-yuge cockpit
I’m guessing Pixel’s surname is Lucado. What ethnicity is that?
Hold on. Sciona got her head chopped off. So what we’ve been looking at is a replacement upper head. Does that mean Sciona’s consciousness/identity/memories(most important one) doesn’t reside in her brain?
No, Sciona is just the top half of her head that’s sewn onto the troll body.
Ah. If so, I like that.
And to prevent a repeat of the same argument, the prior consensus was that it is most likely an orc or ogre body, infused with troll blood.
A ‘consensus’ which does not include myself, since orcs, ogres, and trolls can all look pretty much like the bottom half of the current Sciona gestalt. And selecting a troll body for the obvious regenerative abilities seems like it would be a lot easier than selecting any other kind of body and then using troll blood for the same benefit.
Agreed.
Mind you I think that necessity might have limited Sciona’s choices. If you have been ‘mostly decapitated’ you need to make use of whatever suitable body happens to be to paw. If there is a choice between orc, ogre and troll, sure go for the one that regenerates.
But, if there is only the one, then the choice is forced. Likewise with only half a head to work with it may turn out that an orc is easier to part from their body than a troll!
Visuals wise though I fully agree with you. The body could be any one of those, and none of the dialogue, or other clues we have, definitively point one way or the other.
I still stick with my original idea that Sciona is the blood, which gained the troll blood traits, and uses the body as armor.
That would also allow her to directly control the mannekillers.
I posted too quickly.
So, here’s the scenario in my mind:
Sciona gets mostly decapitated. Blood spills all over. She finds that since she’s a blood mage, she can transfer her consciousness into the blood itself. There was a battle (which is how she got like that) and AT LEAST one other person ALSO got mostly decapitated.
You’d need at least two like that for her current form, so this answers that.
One of the other people who got chopped up was a troll. Their blood spilled all over, and the blood mixed- but Sciona’s consciousness was in hers. Now it is in both- she pulled body parts from around the floor into her current form, and to make sure the (to her) enemy troll didn’t recover, she replaced the braincase with someone else’s head piece that fit (mostly).
Then she started looking for more blood abilities from Council and Archon members (if that isn’t what landed her in hot water to begin with).
Will people stop going on about the lower part of Sci-fright being a troll body? It’s not, or she wouldn’t have had to leave the damn room
Totally innovative idea and wholly viable! More than that it would be a pinacle power for a blood mage to achieve. Just as a necromancer might ascend to becoming a lich, so might a blood mage become pure blood. Very cleverly done.
*awards a Golden Yorpie Snack™*
If I recall correctly that was only mentioned by Dave in a comment. As such many folks will not have picked up on the point. It is entirely fair for people to only comment on the basis of what has actually appeared in the comic itself.
Especially as Dave himself has stipulated that he reserves the right to change things which have only appeared in the blog or comments, when it comes to actually featuring them in the comic directly.
Some folks might choose to acknowledge ‘hard canon’ only, whilst others might simply do so because they do not have the time to hunt through the blog and all the comments to find other clues. All is good. Either way they are fans and their ideas are worth hearing.
That aside though the basic idea can easily be adapted to incorporate that. Sciona is the blood possessing the bodies and can add some troll blood (or ancient vampire blood or whatnot) as and when she wants either a top-up or some extra power or other. Whether that was done shortly after decapitation, or immediately after fighting Pixel, is not a biggie.
Screw it, don’t give a shit anymore, they can say she is whatever the fuck they want, up to and including she is half sentient porcupine
What the fuck’s the point of DaveB making his under-comic blog post if hardly anyone bothers to read the damn thing? Or why do we bother commenting if people don’t bother to read and post the exact damn shit within two posts of each other
I know it bothers you, but it is an essential part of a free world. People should be allowed to consume their entertainment in the way that suits them the most.
One very good example of why people may choose not to read all the points is that they want to avoid the risk of any spoilers. Yet they may wish to ask a question or pose their own pet theory. It would be grossly unfair of us to demand that they read all the posts and blogs (which amongst them all do contain some spoilers) as a prerequisite to doing that.
Another one, clearly not applicable here, but which we should always bear in mind, is that we do have quite a large readership who do not have English as a first language. Likewise we have some dyslexic readers and doubtless have a number who may not have a very high reading speed, or who otherwise have difficulty following some of the threads.
Which leads to the fact that many might find a lot of the posts quite boring, especially the long ones that I write. Just because the regular commentators enjoy following the various threads does not mean that everyone does, nor should we force it on them.
In fact trying to do so just makes the environment hostile and decreases the likelihood of people wanting to read the posts. Which really is self-defeating. Even though I do appreciate we all need to let off steam from time to time, if frustrated about something.
I sat here for a few minutes trying to think of something that I could suggest that might help. The one thing that came up is going to sound odd. And ironic. But it may assist. Try reading less posts….
yea, not taking the pee here. It is the one way to ensure that you do not get fed up with duplicate comments. We can’t impose our will on the rest of the world, but we can alter our own habits.
Personally I find the occasional detox, where I am unable to access the comments, or have restricted access, can help me chill out. I do get rather emotionally invested myself, as you know.
Yeah, but talking about posting the almost exact question below another post, there is no way to miss that unless you are being deliberately blind
Or have a huge ego and live in a world where no one else ever could have had the same idea or question and thus not bother to read to see if someone else had already posted it and gotten an answer
You suggestion has merit, so, farewell and may your walks be always adventurous but not strenuous, and you don’t get chubby eating all the Yorpies :D
I hope you only intend a bit of a break, rather than a permanent one. You are too valuable a member, to the community, to loose you!
Think of it more like “she had her body chopped off”
I think that ‘Lucado’ is Portuguese.
I’m Portuguese and I’ve never heard that surname before. Sounds more Italian though. Could be Brazilian also.
Doing a wild bing only brings up a page of ‘Max Lucado’ returns
And trying Google Translate, the only language that did anything (other than switch the L between upper and lower case) was Telugu which gave a result of “Luke”, so, it’s probably just a surname with no secret special meaning to it or indicator of origin
You are correct its Italian.
At least according to my googel-fu.
https://www.houseofnames.com/lucado-family-crest
But it’s possible that she could be also Brazilian because it’s quite common for Brazilian people with Italian surnames.
I would lay big bucks on Brazil. Were-Jaguar
Especially a PINK Were-Jaguar!
All valid and fair points but i raise you this.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THdBio9pFZU
Jaguars are common in the Amazon Forest region and the Brazilian people are considered quite colourful.
Especially especially an “enboobened” pink Were-Jaguar that would look great on the beach in a thong and a smile.
………………………………….https://i.imgur.com/OgRYlDc.gif
Lucado sounds either hispanic or italian to me
Callipygiance – having a nice ass? HAH that is subtle Dave!
Bad time for Halo to be in middle of level up. She’s gonna have to grab shield again and will have to spend a point there. Neh?
Callipygiance – when Charisma is NOT your dump stat.
Gorm (Wisdom), Thew (Constitution), Anfractuousness(Dexterity), Puissance (Strength), Luculence (Intelligence),
Gorm according to Wiktionary is: to gawk or stare or gape.
Wiktionary continues with other etymologies of gorm as: to smear, to make a mess of or to devour.
There are apparently words from the gorm root in the Maine lingo e.g.
“A man who bungles a job has gormed it. Anybody who stumbles over his own feet is gormy.”
So I suppose that is why gormless means naive. gorm = stare, less = without, without vision, clueless.
Word History for Gormless (from here: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/gormless )
c.1746, “wanting sense,” a British dialectal word, from gome “notice, understanding” (c.1200), from Old Norse gaumr “care, heed,” of unknown origin;
…So a high Gorm/Gome/Gaumr skill would be for someone with good observation skills.
…uh, or maybe that would be better described as good perception. Able to spot things in his/her environment or understand complex instructions from others.
+1.
Gorm was the father of Harald Bluetooth. All I know of him is the story goes Harald had his corpse baptized in order to establish himself as a Christian king. But if you picture a viking king that’s probably an accurate original definition of the word “gorm”.
I thought it meant possessing handwriting skill.
Having beautifully shaped buttocks.
Maybe you’re thinking of calligraphy?
YES!!! Callipygian is my favorite word! Nice one!
I like Spathic as well, it’s a geologist’s term for places like the Grand Canyon, but could conceivably be used to describe a woman, too. If you don’t mind getting slapped.
Like, Sithy Spathic? The original ‘Carrie’?
I thought she was the next female Dark Force wielder in the next Star Wars “Story Time Gap Filler” movies?
Super Secret Spathic Cypher?
*sings*
♫Super-Spathic, ♪Callipgiac, ♫Anfractuos ♪ala-docious.♫
+1
As an aside – it’s been SO nice reading a comment section that isn’t about #45, and completely lacks vicious slurs and spiteful buzz-words. I’ve been enjoying the peace.
A good part of that is down to the author requesting that we keep politics out of the comments, to keep it a fun place. Which is very much respected by the community. The rest of it is due to the great community spirit here. Sometimes things get overheated, but mostly we manage to deescalate the situation by trying to resolve things civilly.
For the most part though the threads are light-hearted in the first place, so, yea, an enjoyable place to hang.
*wags tail sociably*
Puissant means powerful. I think it’s French?
or german? Prussian?
Yep, that’s french.
I’m pretty sure that since there are a few other empowered there (yeah I read that one too), someone, or multiple someones (maybe Harem teleporting Sydney somewhere else, she’s light) and then teleporting multiple hers in, she can both keep Halo from having to spend her point before Krona gets to jot it down (that’s years of research they’d lose and millions of questions they don’t yet know to ask that would be possibly lost) and get to test out her Nightcrawler-fu.
Wow I re-read my post and it even confused me.
Basically there are enough people there to at least protect Syd until Peggy and Max show up.
If not, then she can be teleported away (which might also give a point. Two points!?)
Yup. Although I can see Sydney being the one doing the protecting. She does have that handy shield, after all.
The ‘teleporting away’ though is a no goer. Halo’s capacity is way too low to include Sydney, small though she is. Even if Harem got rid of all her other bodies (which is not viable at the present time, given how she is providing support to all the other teams too) the most she can carry is Peggy’s big gun, which weighs considerably less than Sydney.
Harem was only able to transport Varia because that was the special power granted by their gestalt.
Sorry, I omitted Sydney’s own teleporting there because she would need to send the lightbee off. Which could not be used as easily as Harem’s teleportation or (as we see above) the leaping ability of a jaguar.
It is perfectly correct though that Halo can escape by first sending the lightbee to a safe location and then teleporting. But last time she had to switch her attention from her own body to navigate the lightbee. Which clearly is not a valid prospect when under attack
In any event though, that did not seem to be the intent from the way “she can be teleported away” was phrased.
True. I was mostly making the assumption she couldn’t let go of the orb she’s got, or use it since the grid is up, and also couldn’t grab another orb with her free hand because it’s meant to select stuff. Unless she’s able to let go of one or the other, as long as one is still being held.
Mostly just she can’t use any ability at all.
I can definitely get behind a character having a high Callipygiance score!
*golf clap*
Mind you if Maxima was outside of the ‘local time loop’ (for want of a better name) then Sciona probably has minions beyond its reach too. All it takes is for one of them to have been informed of the situation and Sciona could have been given a report too. Without the delays the good girls had.
But, true enough, Team X-Ray will not be getting any “Best ninja team” nominations. And the big glowing level-up screen will stand out even more!
Sydney’s ninja hopes are Gorm With The Wind.
She should spend the point on Molestorb’s single expansion with dual ring.
First thought: grab shield.. no wait dont, upgrade Pewpew orb and go bonkers on that golem! Would love to see that shot. Whether it is effective or not.
Also someone is eventually going to be able, crush through or figure out how to deny Syndeys shield I guess. That would make for an interesting scene.
Also, Boo for Sconia, No symmetry, that is ugly :( (sorry, my job involves a lot of symmetries so I tend to look for them too much)
If it has a tentacle on it, it must be evil.
But I think that’s a horn? Or do you mean Sydney? Who has access to a tentacle.
I think I would opt for a character with a high Callipygiance and cunning linguist skills. Maybe give her a tongue like a giant frog’s.
You’ve been reading Wapsi Square haven’t you?
Cromulance, swarth, and nebulosity, too
Just wait you wiff your creation rolls and end up playing Toad from the X-Men.
And the fans sang ‘You Bash the Balrog’, as I rolled out my fighter named Fred, with a strength of 18, and a wisdom of 3, as I started to play my first game. (Sung to the tune of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, by Eric Bogle.)
Rolled a character using a percentile system once. Ended up with a barbarian fighter. Str:100, Wis:1, Int:13.
We all laughed at the stats and thought that was as bad as it would get. Then the next guy rolled up another barbarian, Str:99, Wis:4, Int:15… BROTHERS!
The amount of stupidity and mindless violence we unleashed on the poor DM and the campaign was hilarious.
Missions got a new element as first people hired us to eradicate something, being it a gnoll tribe, an undead dragon or a neighboring country. Then we partied, and then they payed us just to go away, preferably far far away…
Another time I rolled up a character for Stormbringer. The dice decided I would play a weak, stupid (no, not slow or even mentally challenged but stupid) peasant. But that fixed itself as I had a health stat of one, and then ended up with bleeding open sores for minus 1 health and died before the ink dried…
Traveler / Stormbringer mashup game.
“Can you survive your origin?”
I had a character with those stats once. His name was ‘Bootin Dor’.
Is it me or do those last two panels feel like they should be switched round? (or do away with the bottom left panel).
The looming shadow, and the cut to the see the mini boss seems like a natural progression. The sudden still-action-still just doesn’t sit right with me for some reason. :/
Looming Shadow panel is the MK2 attempting Death From Above.
Krona still salivating at the sight of the orbs workings is just too good not to comment on. Krona will really want to stick close and become Sydney’s best friend now I think.
Judging by Sydney’s look I think she might be slightly exasperated at that concept. I need the orbs of always been her thing now somebody else can see the back end of it.
*I mean,
Really need an edit here.
Yep, only Sydney is allowed to act like Sydney…
So looks like good odds Sydney’s going to get forced into spending her point without much thought in order to unlock her orb set and access her powers again. So will it be Shield as some speculate or will it be something less expected? Maybe it’ll be one of the connecting orb bridge links instead.
A point in the time-control orb could be handy.
She could reach for both flight and shield with a slight delay touching the second. Don’t know if she can activate a power until she spends the point though.
My suggestion would be going for the. That links the shield and the PPO hoping to gain the ability to fire on things while keeping the shield up.
Or the ability to put the shield over a target and ppo it with the damage contained / amplified by the shield.
Or a bug zapper shield. Offensive defensive.
I think that she can already do that.
Arc light had already determined what point they want Sydney to spend. But they’d probably have liked to reconsider now that they have confirmation on what the first point unlocked.
Yes they had a suggestion for experimental purposes for where Sydney should spend her next point but pretty obvious they were assuming it wouldn’t become available and need spent during a combat event, since the one we see happens at a safe time. Since she’s under fire simply going ‘oh well they said put the point in the Flight Orb on that link there’ isn’t very likely, the odds she’ll have to spend it elsewhere have increased dramatically under the circumstances. To protect herself she could easily be stuck spending the point on the Force Field Orb instead (which could unlock air-purification for example, albeit unlikely) due to her instinctively reaching for it in order to protect herself, since as we’ve seen when an orb is picked she can’t back out and switch to another.
Probably more likely now that she’s been given a piece of mundane equipment for that purpose anyway…
^_^
Good point, but since spending the point, there are now two “hey that used to be greyed-out” things, both with the commball:
1. See auras (used to take down Kevin)
2. Teleport to Lightbee (used to screw up recon)
Oooh oooh oooh! Peggy is incoming. The a-team will be complete!
WHOOO!
With additional members :D
Do remember my prediction.
They are to far away.
Supplement: They’ll arrive just after the main event is over.
It all depends on how far away Max is. I figure they’ll get their collective butts in a deep crack first….
So Maxima will have to save them with a super wedgie?
I think Harem’s eyes are watering, at the thought!
So far it’s a self inflicted super wedgie…
sorry but Max can fly insanely fast. she broke the sound bearer then arrived at the Archon office within 10 sec. with that kind of speed plus absolutely massive inertial control, she should be there in less than a minute. ‘course that’s a long time in a fight…but she should beat the Osprey.
Harem is already here (or maybe she decided to pop off) but the presence of non-members does not negate the gathering together of the coolest team.
The correct point to query is whether Pixel qualifies as a member. She certainly does not in her current form! But I do not think we should discriminate against her, for only qualifying part of the time.
In fact, to encourage the four of them to get together regularly, I propose a weekly a-team gathering around my place. I can lay on ample supplies of Yorpie Snax™ and we can have marathon tummy rubbing sessions! Plus nice walkies in the countryside.
By the way…The Iron Giant is on Netflix.
Just turn a hose onto him, until he climbs off.
Be sure to offer him a big towel after though. You don’t want him rusting.
heh “gormless” …..for some reason that makes me thing of the Firefly TV show…. and now I’m sad that there was only 1 season again…. :/
mmm, gorram perhaps?
It had two seasons worth of plot, just the second got a little condensed.
Looks like Sciona may have communicated with the outside world, her puppets and minions, to notice the localized time discrepancy and went to red alert just in time to notice the loud party on a certain nearby rooftop…
If I’m right (I know I said it this chapter a couple times) and she is the blood, then the mannekillers are her, and not minions or puppets, just additional bodies. Since the timeloop was only localized, her main body would be unaware, but she’d notice the problem immediately and get her nearest body (or bodies in range) to converge.
At least one teleporter, chronomancer, and lycanthrope? Yeah she’d be pulling in more forces at this point.
True.
Sciona would have the same ‘deja vu’ memory as Harem, at a minimum. Provided any were outside the area of the ‘time loop’. At a minimum it means she would realise that something is up, and that alone could have caused her to change her actions. With the upper extreme being that she retained full memory of the events, in her remote bodies, and immediately updated the memories from them, when they reset occurred.
All of course assuming that ‘she is the blood’. But it does neatly explain how the monster is here, despite that not having happened ‘last time’. So it strengthens the hypothesis.
Guessing Pixelicious doesn’t want everyone on the bandwidth to know she got taken down in her Pixel Panther mode :P
You just mean the channel or the frequency.
The bandwidth is how much data you can send. The band is what you send it on. The frequency is what specific part of the band you are using. A channel is an arbitrary name for an individual frequency to simplify or obfuscate its use. Some channels are sequential with frequencies, however many government agencies use Channel names which are not synchronous with frequencies so that it’s harder for listening people to follow the transmission manually. With the advancement of heavily computerized radios Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) with encrypted command channels makes this much harder.
The invention of spread spectrum technology goes back in part to WWII and the actress Hedy Lamarr (or was that Hedley?) https://www.women-inventors.com/Hedy-Lammar.asp
Yes, fhss goes back to World War II however it wasn’t really put into practice until the Korean War. However modern p25 radios with encryption mean that even if you have a set capable of receiving the signal, without knowing what encryption key they are running your pretty much out of luck.
Officially the coolest thing I’ve learned today.
+1, I say!
Nay…
+2!
Ea aw? [translation: learning a new dialect?]
“You mean the world doesn’t pause while I am levelling up? Lame!” – everyone who has ever discovered this the hard way.
Looks like Sciona, or her large servant would have checked her perimeter if she hadn’t been distracted by home invaders setting off her wards.
Uh, guys.
Where’s Harem?
Telescaped.
If we were lucky, getting Varia. We won’t be lucky.
So reasonably she’ll be getting her other teams up to date and heeeeyyyy… why wasn’t she getting her other teams aware of the situation? She is the ultimate in communications…
Anyhow. Reality is that she’s probably just off screen.
Is Varia cleared for info on the ‘additional earthlings‘? I would assume, with her “DNA-analysis” abilities, she probably has to be..?
No, Maxima made a point of telling Sydney that her fellow trainees are not cleared. Unlike Sydney’s truesight, which could spot anybody in sight, Varia’s gestalt can only be formed deliberately.* Which means Archon can control the use of it. I imagine she gets a list of personnel she is to test their gestalt capability (under relatively safe conditions).
The cover story (and a necessary part of it) would be that they need volunteers who can pair with her should an emergency require it. Plus that they need to get security clearance and an assessment of whether they are medically fit for potential active duty.
Which gives a bunch of excuses to weed out any extraterrestrials or supernaturals. Or to only allow them to be tested under extreme supervision, to deal with any unexpected side-effects of a non-human gestalt.
* By logical deduction. If it could be formed by accidentally touching someone, then she would have to remain isolated and avoid crowds. The possibility of a random gestalt producing radiation in 100′ radius, for example could not be risked.
While it is possible that Varia hasn’t gestalted with Dabbler, she has said that the only person her powers don’t work with is Maxima. That seems to indicate that she has likely already touched and gestalted with Dabbler. It is completely reasonable to say that she probably wouldn’t ge able to differentiate between alien DNA And human…
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1751
Though that begs the question: would she gestalt with a Xoloitzcuintli?
Dabbler is always tricky to try and prove a point with. Simply because she has such a complex makeup. In particular, for this discussion, her succubus DNA is compatible with humans (and everything else on two legs probably). So she (and the Council succubus representative) may well be compatible with Varia’s power (assuming it is indeed DNA based), even if no other aliens are.
The Twist: Sciona disembarks from the construct that has landed on the roof, calmly walks up to Mighty Halo, and respectfully asks her for protection from the Council because she (Sciona) has evidence they are trying to murder her.
Completely ignoring the fact, the last time they met, Sci-fright attempted to (and possibly succeeded) KILL Sydney to gain control of her balls (not to mention what she was doing to poor Pixelicious and others)
Except that never happened. Unless it did.
As far as Sydney is concerned, yes, it did happen
Also, if it didn’t, then how would Sydney know that Sci-fright lost her body from the jaw down?
Props for insinuation of grabbing a girl’s balls.
Always :wink:
i bet tree-fiddy, that’s a orb controlled golem at Sydney’s disposal…she just needs to find the instruction manual…
You owe me a tree: we already saw Sci-fright working on it when the traitor vamp showed up to report how the Killer-quins failed
Adding to what Guesticus said, Sydney hasn’t spend her point yet so no new powers should be available yet. (Though it would be pretty cool if one of the unknown orbs’ abilities is to create+control a golem.)
Summons a Droz, eh…?
::wiggles his hears in Semaphore Flag about “backwards to avoid copyright infringement::
ᖉөɐq!uɓ ʇµɐʇ ƨөwɐbµoʁө wөƨƨɐɓө, !u ɐ w!ʁʁoʁ, !ʇ ʇ∩ʁuƨ o∩ʇ ʇo pө ɐ wөƨƨɐɓө ʈʁow ʇµө Dө٨!ꞁ¡
Kebert Xela.
The dude turns out to have a very impressive filmography. Albeit rather typecast by playing himself.
Sciona and her lab were in a previous comic. As we saw in the first panel of that comic Sciona has her own pop-up magic display screens. It wouldn’t be to hard to point its focus at the rooftop across the street. Also her latest creation made his debut appearance in that comic as well. I’m going to call him Jeeves. https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2364
On the subject of “gorm.” I was told as a youngster that gorm meant stupid or fool and that there were no positive forms of the word. To be gorm meant you were stupid, to be gormless meant you were worst than stupid, and to be gormful meant you were full of stupid.
However it’s possible the person who told me this was gormless himself so don’t quote it.
North of England usage isn’t necessarily stupid (though it can be) so much as impractical and not paying attention to the point of potentially being a liability. It’s entirely possible to be bright and terminally gormless, as Sydney and Krona are currently displaying. (I may have had this allegation directed at me a time or two)
Many thoughts:
—Colonel, Sydney’s in the middle of it. Of course it’s complicated.
—Next up, Sydney tells Sciona to wait a few minutes while she chooses her next power.
—Did Harem vanish or has she just been off-screen for the last few comics?
—Also, we need a name for the group of the three height-deficit cuties. ‘Pinky and the brain spasm’ maybe?
They already have a name, ‘the a-team’.
Yes. Harem had no significant part to play, so no need to waste drawing time showing her. As a teleporter it would be trivial for her to get out of harm’s way, so even that is not necessary. Or she may have gone off to do something urgent. We shall find out which, in due course.
That last panel – laser claws in the shadows. In the foreground. Foreshadowing.
And they look shorter than normal, in that panel. Foreshortening.
Fortunately Peggy is on her way. Fourshortherein.
Yeah, Pixel will go first, though it likely won’t do much good. It will however, give Sydney a chance to upgrade…
Why hasn’t Sydney chosen a node? Why is theskil tree still up? Isn’t that risky?
I think ‘not dying’ took precedence over choosing a skil. Of course Sydney is too dedicated a gamer to have made such a faint-hearted decision, it was forced on her by Pixel.
Sydney is not going to pick another skill at random though, and she does not know how to open or shut the screen on demand, in any event. Therefore she will either have to ignore it, or make a snap judgement. Which may or may not factor in Maxima’s suggestion.
My feeling is it could end up going into a mystery orb.
Which still may not reveal what it does.
Sydney will go for whatever helps her right now, because survival is not a theoretical construct…
Exactly, circumstances are going to limit her choices and make her have to decide based on the practical concerns over the theoretical.
Precisely the short-term thinking that ends up with a nerfed character!
*shakes head in despair*
Sydney’s shield has already proved to be more than capable to deal with any attack up to and including a near-nuclear blast. Plus she can definitely use her tentacle in conjunction with it. As such she can both protect her more vulnerable team-mates and help to oppose this construct.
Given that any upgrade is an unknown, there is no guarantee that any one will be of use. So there is no need to choose something rashly, based on this current crisis. The most common suggestion for what Halo could gain, if putting a slot into the shield is the ability to breathe, with it up. Which she already can provide with a mundane item of technology!
Whereas following Maxima’s suggestion, of putting it into the fly ball, she might unlock interplanetary or even interstellar travel. Or it may actually grant her extensive control over gravity (as it should be called a ‘gravity control ball’ rather than the ‘fly ball’).
Both of which examples would actually provide more combat capabilities than extended air capacity. The former would allow her to disengage from combat in a way that Sciona could not keep up (and with the shield up and containing a few minutes of air, they would be safe enough until they chose to return, which would be well after Maxima had arrived).
Clearly this beasty is too big for the tentacle to lift. So presently it could only entangle limbs or manipulate things (such as pulling down a wall onto the construct). However powerful gravity control could potentially incapacitate it completely, by lifting it off the ground.
Of course, battle is not the place to experiment, in any event. As demonstrated by the death or near-death experience that Halo just had. But, again, that is an argument for sticking to long-term planning choices, rather than making a knee-jerk reaction.
Your thinking in a logical way, but Sydney thinks in a Sydney way. I expect her to grab the shield, but she may grab one of the unknowns just because…
Indeed. I shall keep my claws crossed that her gaming instincts prevail. But it is a life-or-death situation, so snap-judgements or instinctive responses are to be expected. Not to mention accidents or enemy action interfering with sound decision making.
But it would be a fitting moment to discover the properties of one of the mystery orbs. Giant monster fights do not come about every day.
At most they are every third day, if part of a super-hero team. Or every other day in New York.
If the Fly Ball lets her fly not by speed, but by Magneto’s powers (manipulate Earth’s magnetism and glide along it) then the right upgrade could give her the ability to create localized EMP bursts. Then again, her flying isn’t based on speed- that’s how she can hover.
In any case, the balls seem to be case-sensitive. Maybe just when she’s flying FOR speed, it IS based on speed, and when she isn’t, it isn’t. Kinda like Colonel Leander’s meteor nanytes.
Maxima does not use midichlorians!
little bit a buttah, little bit a garlic…them midichlorians’ll taste just like lobstah
Now I’m just thinking of Sith and Jedi as having powers because they’re delusional from brain parasites acquired from low-quality food. How many members of royalty have powers? How many poor/slave people do?
But with the meteor nanytes, I was just looking at whatever colonized in between her dermal and epidermal (looked like to me) layers from the ‘meteor water’.
Uh it’s WAY too late to nerf Sydney, she already has an impressive array of powers only exceeded by a few characters we’ve seen and a single misspent point is hardly going to nerf her, particularly when she added a high-grade power like teleporting to her array with her first point she spent at random because she wasn’t prepared for the idea. Seems unlikely any of her point expenditures would be a waste.
Hmmmmm, suddenly started wondering if she grabbed a sphere that already had all its branches filled, would it end up wasting the point, simply not let her grab the sphere, or simply wait for her to grab one that was available for spending? Not that we’re likely to ever see her fill enough of the tree to matter (unless there’s a time-skip somewhere along the way given how long it’s been real-time between the first and second and the skill tree has a LOT of options to it).
“Situation has evolved!” Into a Golurk, looks like…
Who feels that Sydney and company are in way over thier heads…..?
Is this a short joke?
Sciona might not have needed to “investigate” the screaming. That thing is huge, it might have just come out to stretch a little and saw the yummy blood bag treats on the other roof.
Hm. So Sidney only gets one point to spend, which is currently in her left hand.
Can she grab the shield orb with the right hand without spending the point?
Only way to know is if she tries to do that. All info we, or they for that matter, got so far is from the one time that Sydney got a point to spend before. That time no one really knew what they were looking at and she ended up spending that point randomly to the first open spot she pointed at.
For all we know it’s possible that she can use the orbs as is without first pending the point. It’s also possible that the orbs won’t do anything until that point is allocated. With the current data there is no way to be sure of anything. Given time Krona probably could have figured out some things about how these points and connections work, but time just ran out for Team X-ray…
maybe thats what the “fuck them” orbs do. allow finer and more varied control of the orbs.
She tried that with her true-sight orb last time to see if she could get more detail. It selected the orb for upgrade and she couldn’t deselect it.
You made me think of something- we already know she can’t let go of an orb when the sphere grid is up- but can she get the hand that is holding an orb… chopped off? If so, does she lose the point, lose access to the menu until she uses her other hand, can a regenerated or cyberlimb work?
Probably not since tech can’t see the grid but organic can (our best friend with porno-sense said so).
Hey that means that neither Sciona or the mech can see it!
Huh. Maybe that means that instead of Syd getting severely loopy at no sleep for what? Three days now? (I had the unfortunateness to not sleep for 4 and a half days at one point- body temperature very high, concentration all time low, hallucinations) would instead be experienced by Sciona?
Eeew!
Harem has a good point to make on questions like this. In her case it is not wanting to die, to find out whether a replacement body can be summoned by one of her other bodies. In Sydney’s case, no no, you are not to chop of her hand! Not even at Sydney’s request! She may feel tempted, but we have to follow Dabbler’s example and protect her!
*shields Sydney’s hands from anyone seeking to grab or cut them off*
god dang it dave now i have too look those words up. literally 5 more fricken words that i have to know. anyway sciona looks pretty knowledgeable she probably hacked the coms. but yeah i’d figure that harem use being entangled with time probably affects her other bodies.
I’m guessing either your shift key is broken or you are secretly E. E. Cummings.
Well… “Puissance” you will probably find in a French RPG.
If “ass beauty” is a stat of its own, however, I can’t help but wonder what kind of “roleplay” exactly you are thinking about :P
That would be the Game of Memes. Specifically, “D’at Callipigy.”
Hmmm. If Krona recognizes the wrist-breaker, does she know what the orbs are? Further, can she hack them?
I would say that’s a confirm that the time loop is not a loop but a rewind for ONLY the ones involved. Time continues for everybody else.
Girls are by definition ‘gormless’.
No not really.
I was thinking of ‘corms’
So we are in the perfect set up to use the PPO. TIME FOR MASSIVE DESTRUCTION!!!
And with Sydney using it, massive is a given…
Not with friends near by. Need the light hook first. Get him airborne then shoot up so no collateral damage.
God Dammit, is Sydney actually going to be able to fight?
Sure, as soon as she picks a point purchase. Being a video game decision with major real life impact though, it might not be easy for her to do so. Or she might just pick it instantly. I have no idea.
I would go with lighthook strength, just so she could do more with that
Not a bad choice, as this construct is clearly too big for her tentacle to be able to do the ‘grab it and smash it into the ground’ technique that she is authorised to conduct.
The problem is though that Sydney does not know which is which. Unless of course she can get Krona to promptly examine the options and translate the code or see if there are any clues.
Failing that the tentacle orb has four separate paths, each of which is partially filled, so none of which give any clues that we can use to determine which is the strength route. The alternatives, such as ‘increased length’, ‘improved flexibility’ or ‘extra tentacles’ would not seem to be as useful in this particular fight.
One in four chance of gaining the desired upgrade is not good odds for a survival situation.
So, shield then? Just in case? I assume the one that is almost completely filled is her shield strength, and that is always helpful. Or, she could through it in the PPO for damage, assuming that lone branch is damage.
Although, thinking about it now, I assumed the last columns with only one point in them is the strength attribute (well one of them). That does increase the chance of it being strength, but if the single point columns are not strength, it might unlock something entirely new for Sydney like being able to morph the light hook into weapons or she can split the hook into multiple tentacles for extra affect. (I love theorizing about this. I hope we find out soon what they do :D). Why does the light hook have so many branches? Thoughts?
Put a point in the PPO and get zappin!
Time’s up, Syd, pick a dot, grab the shield ball, and raise the gorram shields!