Grrl Power #508 – Sydney needs work on her combat multitasking
So a few things to cover right off. Pixel’s claws actually project a cutting laser blade (or several, as you can see) and aren’t limited to however long her claws actually are, which look to be like, I dunno, 3/4 of an inch? The laser blade doesn’t go out too far. Like a foot. She can’t chop a building in half like she’s cutting though the main bad guy at the end of an anime.
While writing this page, I almost got distracted by wanting to show how Harem actually saves Krona, since she can’t teleport other people. She teleports about halfway down the side of the building (which is only 2 stories – this method wouldn’t work if someone had already fallen 30 floors, but it’s enough that Krona could break something, or many somethings if she landed wrong) just below where Krona is, and to the side. Harem keeps her inertia, so has almost no momentum for the first fraction of a second. As Krona passes her, she grabs on to her arm and swings her around. This transfers about half of Krona’s momentum to Harem, who teleports again going the opposite direction. Remember Harem can pick her vector when she teleports, almost like she’s going though a portal in, well, Portal. You know. Portal 1 in the ceiling, Portal 2 under a crate, it falls, move Portal 1 to a wall, and you have a gravity powered horizontal box canon. Harem repeats this maneuver until nearly all of Krona’s velocity has been transferred to her, Krona flops on the ground ungracefully but mostly unharmed, Harem flies up into the air until gravity stops her, then she teleports to the ground.
The reason it doesn’t work if someone is already falling at a high velocity is that it rips everyone’s arms out of their sockets. Harem could teleport above them, fall to nearly match their velocity, then start this process, but at some point, Harem’s upwards velocity would exceed grip/joint/tendon strength, so she’d have to bleed off that velocity by falling upwards until she’s barely going faster than the person she’s trying to save and repeat until all is well. But of course, all this has to be accomplished within the total distance of the fall, so your best bet is just not to fall off any buildings in the first place.
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Didn’t Dabbler suggest Sydney select a specific upgrade the next time she was able? Something about testing to see if it would open up more of the skill tree?
‘Course, there’s no way in hell Syd’s gonna remember that, especially in the middle of a fight like this.
Sydney certainly could be forgiven for forgetting that. I think the problem is more likely to be that she remembers that, even though she was sleep deprived at that time, and since. But will have been working on improved alternatives of her own. Plus will be factoring in usefulness in the current survival situation. And considering about twenty other things, including frivolous ones that she really does not want to slow her down.
By which time the other options have pushed the one, previously advised, to the bottom of a deep pile of considerations…
Right now she’s in the middle of a mental core dump. She’ll remember eventually, but she needs to get the orbs back online right now. Pick a random and go with it…
PLUS, she still has that Batman in a banana hammock visual singing ear worms into the back of her head…
ski bi di bi do bap do….
Yes, it was suggested that for the next few upgrades, the first should be the last dot on the Fly ball track, to see if it opens the NEW track (maybe going at a whole new speed of measurement, not just in machs but in like…. multi-machs… or even in cosmic speed levels for interplanetary and interstellar speeds.
Then it was suggested after that to pick a dot on one of the inner tracks.
Somehow I don’t think Sydney will be thinking about the briefings. I’m thinking she’ll pick another dot on the shield orb or the PPO, Or MAYBE the lighthook (maybe it’ll raise the strength of the lighthook. But if she picks the Fly orb, good for her remembering the briefings :)
I doubt she’ll waste the dot on either of the two unknowns, until Krona could give her an idea of what they might be the next time she sees it, and I doubt she’ll do another upgrade on the comm ball since she did that once already (although she lucked out and got an awesome new power of teleporting).
She might, the briefing was earlier that day
Yes, and just look what her distractible (wait, that’s a real word? o_O) little mind has had to face since that briefing, the briefing she half-slept through while the nerd-geeks gawped over her balls
Sydney’s distractible, but she’s also a gamer … and one who’s good at optimizing character powers judging from the initial game she was playing at the start of the webcomic. She’s going to make a strategic choice or she’ll do what she was told to do in her ADHD focusing superpower :)
That only works, if Sydney remembers which slot she was told to pick
She is also being distracted by a large kill-bot
We’ve seen in the past that Sydney can have pretty good focus during stressful situations, utilizing a LOT of information. Most notably in the fight against Vehemence, but also in taking down Death Toll She also probably HAS taken her ADHD medicine so worst case scenario we get some banana hammock Batman scat singing before she remembers what to pick. :)
Yeah, but how often has she been running for her life?
She can’t pick the flight slot until she finds a safe place, she can’t find a safe place until she picks the slot
Yes it was suggested she select the one just after the G in the last pannel to see if it opens the ones under that same G there… and it was recommended that her third be spent in the center wheel a few pages later.
However i think she is simply going to shove the spark in the nearest spot or one that looks similar to
where it was recommended and then do combat.
I feel dumb now. I read the comment and the first two replies then said the same thing pander said without having read it threw. sorry ill just go hide in a corner.
There is no shame in saying what I say, since I am so ultra-cool and stuff.
Please no one say otherwise, I’m emotionally fragile.
Absolutely no chance, you iz kool!
And also, apparently, triplets…
Such a good boy you are!
*pet*
https://cf.ltkcdn.net/dogs/images/std/128943-318×211-Crunchy-dog-biscuit.jpg
Good boy.
Yummy!
*munch munch, gobble gobble*
That instruction as based on an assumption that it would help them figure out what the newly bought point did. They now know, so that instruction is not exactly valid any more.
However she should probably still just pick something NOW.
Has it really been two years since I last read this webcomic? Certainly feels like it. Anyways, my two cents having just binged from where I left off last, and yes, it’s relevant. Considering that Krona can apparently see the underlying functions of how the orbs work during the “Point Allocation” (even if she doesn’t exactly understand them yet), I’m thinking that she might make a suggestion that turns out to be surprisingly useful for the situation.
I’d make a statement about Krona likely hanging out with Sydney more often due to the apparent synergy between her abilities and Sydney’s orbs, but I feel that would best be put in another thread because that would be a discussion all its own, assuming said discussion hasn’t already happened.
If you’re gonna place a point randomly, pick one of the two unknown orbs.
Then it’s not random.
50/50.
More like ‘dead or alive’…
Since she hasn’t found out what either of those two orbs DO yet, that seems like a shot in the dark. She’d probably be better off adding to something she knows she wants – like, for the Hentorb’s tentacles to be stronger. Or, the Pew Pew Orb to be easier to target with (maybe link it to the ComBall?).
But if the shot in the dark hits home, and Sydney found out what that orb did, then she not only gains that power, but it will be a lot easier to figure out what the other existing powers in it are. She would gain several powers, instead of just one!
Improved accuracy would be highly desirable, especially given the consequences of misses in urban SWAT action. But if it unlocks the ability to raise the dead, heal the sick and grow back Peggy’s leg, there would be vastly more benefit to both herself, the team and society.
Not only would Sydney become the best homicide detective ever, by being able to question the deceased, the victims will also get their chance to stand up, in court, and say “It was him! That was the guy who murdered me!”
Only 10 minutes???
I need to take some pointers and learn how Sydney goes about picking it her skill points!
I tend to do an in-depth analysis on skill tree skills and make a chart, look up online guides at previous runs, measure the cost-benefit of skills that give immediate payoff vs OP late-game breakage, revise the skilltree picking options I had already set up from the previous leveling, etc etc etc.
Bwah-hah-ha-ha. Miss No-Impulse-Control takes 10 minutes to choose upgrades? What horrible trauma caused THAT aberration in behavior?
Don’t forget the montage we saw of her tactical planning for the fight against Vehemence. When there is something important to do Sydney thinks things through from every angle possible, before taking action. It is only when she is in comfortably safe circumstances, that she will say or do the first thing that pops into her head.
Choosing a skill is typically irrevocable. Which is never ‘safe circumstance’ (as demonstrated by her previous failure, even in a non-combat situation). A wrong choice can permanently nerf a character, if you pick something that ultimately does not assist the character, but which prohibits you from either choosing an alternative path or uses up one of a lmited number of choices (which Sydney may find out to apply to her powers too).
Very true. Picking a skill to have is relatively easy; picking a skill you will *never* have is incredibly difficult.
i don’t think any of her power choices lock out other power choices. except for the two “fuck them” balls any choice she makes will make her more powerful. PPO…moar powah! flight orb…mach 12 anyone. lighthook…double the muscles. telepresence…may add telepathy. the only truly unknowns are the two “fuck them orbs” but even they might show some chutzpah with another dot.
Oh I doubt it very much. But until Sydney confirms that she can unlock the entire tree, it is wisest to assume that there may be limits or choices to make. In which case random picking is a bad idea, as that might get something that is unnecessary for her.
It is a mantra that I live by. ‘Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” It is the best of both worlds. You get all of the perks of being an optimist* but retain the safety net of being ready with a plan if things go pear shaped.
As an example, the orbs and Krona’s powers feature the number seven a lot. Seven orbs, seven colours (for both), seven sections in Krona’s control panel. Clearly Sydney has a number of skills already selected. Be that from a prior owner or ‘default skills/powers’ that any user would be automatically granted.
However it may only allow a further seven choices, ever. Of which one Sydney chose totally accidentally. Which means that Halo would be unable to max out the flyball, should she have wanted to specialise in that. As you can see from the cleaned-up skill tree, it would take six picks to select all of the known options, in that line. Yet it looks like it could lead to something else.
Perhaps the one that is now unobtainable might have allowed the opening of stargates? A short range teleport, via the lightbee, would pale into insignificance next to that option!
And if it turns out that she can unlock them all, then the exercise will have allowed Halo to identify the six most important choices, in advance. As levelling up seems to occur shortly after significant things happen, it seems likely that interruptions could occur in future levelling choices. Having a list of the ‘must haves’ is extremely useful in making a snap judgement.
Making good early choices could be the difference between living to make all the other choices, and dying because of lacking an important power.**
* Less stress, less chance for an ulcer, better relations with people (folks respond better to a positive attitude), improved career prospects (bosses like that too) .
** Halo needs to ask Krona if any of the skills seem to be connected to spider sense or precognition. Her recent ‘death’ shows a vital need for such. Likewise for Sydney’s vulnerability to bullets. She does not keep her shield up all the time.. So really needs some kind of heads-up if danger is imminent.
The cleaned-up skill tree.
Years of hardcore gaming.
13:55 – 14:08 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skKXuASNgsE
Whole video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQKLImul6sQ
Also this picture. https://images.wikia.com/finalfantasy/images/9/94/Final_Fantasy_10_Sphere_Grid.svg
she is ADHD. Hyperfocus is in there. she might have trouble focusing and most likely can’t chose what she focuses on, but when she is in focus mode, she might forget to eat, sleep and take meds för days due to her excessive focus on optimizing her skill tree
i say that based on my adhd friend, no idea if Sydny is similar to him…
Have you seen skill trees? Those things are massive.
When it comes time to pick a new node, first you have to read everything you can pick. Then you read everything else in the tree. Then you find themes. Then you try to decide which of those themes you want.
Based on that, you select a direction on the tree. And then you realize something, start over again, and read the whole tree again. Then you look up some guides online. Then you realize it’s 4am, and you have to get up in 3 hours.
Then the next day, you start over again.
What if there are 100 empty skill slots, but you’re capped at only having 20 skill points?
I tend to just pick up skills that seem useful at the time, then never use them because they never quite match up to “Pick up guy, throw guy into not-evil wall.”
I feel like you can always just save up and pay for the respec later if you screw up…
Sometimes there is a steep price to pay though. Like having an illithid sticking its tentacles up your nose and sucking your brain out through your hooter!
Pretty sure that’s re-rollin’ you’re describing, not respecin’…
Oh Fred puts you back together again. You do not die. But I have my suspicions that everyone who avails his services might henceforth be sleeper agents for the mind flayer king!
But folks don’t seem at all concerned about that, so long as they can denerf themselves.
I really hope you’re kidding about the laser claws, because that is just silly (the lines are just the usual ‘speed lines’).
I don’t remember were anything developing laser claws anywhere in mythology…
And damn it Sydney! I told you to pick your damn point on Monday!
He’s not kidding about the laser claws. Pixel is a super, but only in her were-form (and animal form), remember?
Which is why she is a member of the A-Team rather than Victor’s Secret Angels
maybe Pixel’s superpower is being a werejaguar with laser claws, rather than the more magical merely being a werejaguar
Entirely possible. However the circumstances of he promotion from human may definitively prove her to be one or the other. For instance if she got bitten by a pink were jaguar, and transformed into a normal one initially then she is a were. Subsequently getting exposed to a radioactive laser-pointer and developing laser claws, would then make the description of her being a super, but only in her were-forms, to be accurate.
Whereas if she got bitten by a laser clawed pink were jaguar and gained similar powers then even she would not know which was the case. She could have gained a super power package, as you indicate, through exposure to a super stimulus. Alternatively the were who bit her may have had their were-form altered by a super power, and it just turns out that both can be transmitted by the usual lycanthrope techniques, such as through a bite or by infected blood transfusion.
If she does not know then her description is simply choosing one for conversational purposes. Pick the one that is easiest to explain, whilst in a time-critical situation. Getting the key points across, about power capabilities, is more important than the subtleties. Later, discuss the lack of certainty when time permits.
Mind you there
is one bigare two big points which support that only her were form has the super package. Given that her human form is much more modestly packaged.It’s fairly simple: does she have any special abilities not found in a ‘normal’ typical hyu-mon while in her hyu-mon state? No, no she does not. Do were’s typically have pink fur? No they typically match a ‘normal’ specimen of their type. Do were’s typically have laser claws and giant mammary glands? No, no they do not (unless it’s a HolyWeird porno)
She’s basically like Dr. Banner: she only has super powers when she transform (which raises a side question: if they managed to hit Banner hard enough and fast enough, could they kill him before he gets angry?)
Which just leaves one question: is she a Super Were? Or a Were-Super?
Given that she can also turn invisible, there is also the question, that villains might ask “Where’s the super?”
Or monsters might query “Where’s the supper?”
Well in the movie ‘The Avengers’ Banner said the he tried to shoot himself by putting the gun barrel in his mouth and pulling the trigger. “But the other guy spit the bullet out.” So you can’t hit him fast enough to kill him before he goes Green.
Nice example, and agreed, based on that. But that is in a situation where he is both aware of the act and getting emotionally affected by it. Profoundly.
So it does not resolve the issue of a surprise sniper shot. If the bullet gets what would normally be an instant kill, presumably he would die, as there is no emotion to awake the other guy?
Yeah, Peggy doing a Cree-buster
Banner does technically have super-powers, even discounting his super-power of turning into the Hulk he’s extremely resistant to harm from radiation (a blanket ability that it seems virtually every super who got his super-powers from radiation gets, which also includes the Fantastic Four).
Laser claws are silly, but it sounds cool. Lasers do not abruptly end at a particular distance from their source. I think they are forcefields of one to three atoms thickness (will cut through anything) with a visible radiation side effect (for targeting?) Are there other side effects like sealing the cuts? It would be awesome if Pixel could someday turn off the visible radiation because she knew exactly where her claws were. Villain: You missed! gurgle, gurgle, die.
In a super genre there are many ways of getting a short-distance laser to work. The principle is just to have a mirror (or similar effect) at the terminus point. What form that takes can vary widely:
• Literal mirrors held in place with telekinesis. Breaking these cause bad luck. Or lots deeper scars. Their replacements can be moved into position automatically. Clearly this would be more of a slashing weapon, as the mirrors would be damaged by any piercing attacks.
• Alteration of matter at terminus point, into mirrors. Be that air, flesh, bone or metal. As the swipe continues and the mirror-effect is no longer needed the material reverts to its original form.
• Mini energy portals formed at the end. Just like Portal the lasers get redirected to a new location, which is positioned at the laser source. Thus any excess energy that is not needed beyond one foot is recycled into making the laser stronger, within its normal operational range.
• Inversion of time-space or shaping it into a “U”, such that the laser carries on in a straight line, but space itself curves back to ensure the laser doubles back on its path. Obviously this would need a similar arrangement near the claws, to prevent them from burning too!
• The power politely speaks to the laser and asks it to co-operate in terminating at the one foot range.
• The laser is created in reality at the tip of the claws and removed from reality after one foot
• An interdimensional gate is opened, at the claw tips, accessing “Laser”, the realm of light. Which pours forth, heading towards the return gate to “Laser” which is positioned one foot from the claws.
• Little, invisible, demons ride beside the light, using anti-light whips, to ensure the laser only follows the path it is meant to.
Lesser known fact: lasers actually lose energy and coherence (read: cutting power) the farther they travel through a medium (such as air). This is why industrial laser cutters cut things from millimeters away. That same cutter, if used on something across the room might leave burn marks (or it might not, there are a lot of factors that I’m leaving out).
But in the end this is just a comic, science doesn’t necessarily apply — especially if the “laser”claws are magical in origin. It has already been shown in the comic that not all of the powers on display are science-based. . .
Well said.
Although it is interesting that not a single super power has actually shown a basis yet. Maxima has been exposed to ‘geode water’, but that does not normally give super powers so there is something else unknown involved.
Sydney’s orbs are from a completely unknown source. And even the claimed location they were found at has been received with scepticism by Archon. Dabbler’s illusions are clearly racial in nature, but we do not know if they are actually created by a spell or whether it is a racial super power, psionically generated or even some natural phenomenon.
Varia seems to think her power has a genetic origin. Yet both Peggy and Arianna, who will be better informed than a new recruit, with no security clearance, have said that whatever causes supers to gain powers is unknown. Although there is a clue in that industrialised nations have a higher instance than developing ones.
The Twilight Council meanwhile consider supers to be distinct from the various supernatural factions. So whilst we do know that lycanthropy is genetically transmitted by a virus with a magical component, that is not actually considered to be a super power.
Likewise mages are not supers. So despite the fact that Dabbler uses magic, has a racial illusion (and sexy sensing powers) and uses advanced technology, we do not even know if she is actually a super at all! Not in the same way that most of Arc-SWAT are, anyhow.
Finally Math is very proud not to be a super, but to have gained his prowess through his training and his extensive martial arts lineage.
So, yea, an awfully wide range of individuals with extraordinary powers. But we know more about the non-supers than we do the supers!
I tend to think they’re actually plasma, not lasers, but that’s just my knowledge of real-world physics interfering. If she ever actually hit a human with laser claws, the results would (in the real world) be far gorier than a few neat, clean cuts.
See, the human body is about 70% water. Lasers powerful enough to cut metal would make that water flash to steam almost instantly. Her claws (if they’re really lasers) would not leave a neat auto-cauterized slash. The tissue would messily explode in a burst of steam. It’s pretty much a guaranteed kill.
Then again, getting hit with plasma claws would be pretty gory too. But plasma is easier to shape with a powerful magnetic containment bottle, which could be generated by her power.
maybe they aren’t’ lasers at all. High-density plasma. perhaps even an exotic field effect that dicks with the nuclear strong force, causing the atoms to either decay into individual quarks, or to compress so hard that it rips the electrons out of their orbitals and into the nucleus for a split second.
If harme is using the redirected inertia trick, DO NOT LIFT WITH ARMS. Just collide with Krona.
To flesh out your idea:
Harem needs to port to just below Krona positioned horizontally face down. They bump, and some of Krona’s speed is transferred to the almost stationary Harem. Harem’s speed is now downward at X. She then ports down a few feet facing up. The next bump transfers her now upward motion X into Krona slowing her down some and giving Harem a new downward motion. They repeat this maneuver going alternately face up / face down at each contact until they reach ground level. Each bump bleeds off a little of the gained potential energy of the fall into the kinetic energy of the contact and eventually into waste heat. The end result is Krona hitting ten objects at 5 mph instead of one object (the ground) at 50 mph.
Sadly, for long falls with a late start, even this trick won’t work. If you don’t start the energy transfer almost immediately you will not have time to overcome gravitational acceleration enough before arrival at the ground.
For shorter falls, a late start means they hit before you start… Thankfully, not the case in this instance…
That’s poor muzzle discipline on Harem’s part imo.
You don’t shoot at the enemy if there are friendlies behind. (not to mention that that hunk of metal is likely to cause ricochets)
Get a super soaker full of paint and blind the thing! :D
Yup. But it makes a great visual image, which will have been the driving concern in laying out the panel.
Bear in mind that Dave has mentioned that he was not paying attention to the relative scale of the construct either. It should be a lot taller than depicted in that panel. Dave just shrunk it to fit in.
Now factor in that Harem is probably trying to hit an eye/sensor, and it turns out she would actually have sky beyond her target, rather than Halo or Krona.
So this we should put down to artistic licence, rather than bad gun discipline on Harem’s part.
What goes up, must come down. Every New Years Eve (well, usually not until New Years Day) I hear of one or two people who got hit with falling bullets because some idiot shot into the “empty” sky. Don’t fire off a round unless you are sure of your target and everything what’s behind it!
Agreed.
Mind you there is a difference between unnecessarily firing, for celebratory purposes, and desperately fighting to stay alive. The latter is offsetting a small risk of harming somebody (and they are in a deserted area, so it is very small) versus imminent death (or prolonged naked upside down blood extraction and eventual death).
Still to be avoided, granted, where an alternative presents itself. But not to the point of dying to protect the principle.
Depends on the shooter.
I’d trust Peggy to shoot the thing, even if I was between her and it.
Probably… but as we’ve seen on several occasions, Harem has no more sense of military discipline than Sydney does.
Do not confuse ‘lack of authoritarian respect’ with ‘lack of military discipline’, Maxi and Peggy fit into the first while still displaying the latter
imagine how annoying it would be if games didn’t pause when you brought up the skill tree, and if it came up and required you to use it right when you leveled up.
Although if her skill tree did pause time that would be a useful skill.
Aye. But most such games freeze any actions other than just clicking on the relevant option. No shifting the point of view to look around, for instance. And others obscure even the current point of view, to minimise the tactical advantage that can be obtained by studying the situation previously visible.
Of course if you have the variety where you can walk around and do things, then that is a top end super-speeder type upgrade. The kind of thing that Maxima can do in ‘bullet-time’. Without the interacting and you have Ren’s super-adrenaline time-stopped view of the world. Either of which would be significant powers in their own right.
I’ve been playing ESO a lot lately, and run off somewhere and go into stealth so I can look at level-up options since MMOs don’t pause.
In reference to DaveB’s under-the-comic joke:
Engineer Scott: “I can get power in 10 minutes, sir!”
Captain Kirk: “We haven’t got 10 minutes!”
Like yeah, Sydney’s balls aren’t exactly “user-friendly,” are they?
On the contrary, we’ve seen them be quite helpful at times; they respond well to direction and highlight useful app symbols and such. Sydney just can’t read their language, is all. The problem here is only poor timing.
Not “user-friendly” in the aspect that Sydney got no instructions whatsoever & has to figure out everything from a cold start.
Although Halo did get a flying start.
Maybe that’s what one of the unknown orbs does. It’s a “Settings” orb. Language, Skill tree display type, command response time, porn filter, etc.
Rofl. You just made me visualise Sydney with censorship turned on. Automatic bleeping, in real life. Complete with a pretty carnation appearing, in front of her mouth, to protect innocent lip-readers.
like in panel 1 with the news reporter….
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/389
Really dangerous thought:
What if Sydney could change the primary setting for what an Orb does? When the Skilltree is up she manipulates an Orb in the proper way and a sub-menu comes up. This sub-menu gives alternate base powers for the Orb in question. Still limited to the same number of Orbs of course…
Nah. That would be silly.
Swap out ‘tank melting laser’ replace with ‘creation of tank-sized tub of ice cream’. With upgrades allowing choices of flavours, chocolate sprinkles or hot fudge topping.
Sounds great to me!
That better come with scuba gear and a crazy straw.
You can easily substitute a snorkel for the straw…
:)
Can’t harem grab a quick deploy inflatable crash mat and gas tank from their storage and put it at the bottom instead? Two ports or four and open the valve, what? A second or two? Should work. Civilian safety sounds like this kind of thing might be prepared in advance.
Mmm, negatives first. Harem has only got a few locations that she knows well enough to teleport to. So two problems, one is that she can teleport to the armoury entrance. Then she has to orient herself and find whatever she needs to grab. Then take a few paces to where it is. By which time Krona will probably have already hit the ground. Gravity works really fast.
Plus there is the further risk that someone (or something) is in the location she wants to teleport to, in the armoury. It is not reserved exclusively for her, and will be very busy, especially in a time of crisis, like this. Which would result in Harem having to abort that teleport and try again in a fresh spot. Or accept it being diverted to a clear spot, but then having to reorient herself again
But, to keep it positive, Harem is performing a similarly complicated maneuver that Dave describes, so possibly it could be done. Although his remains in the area that Harem can see, so his is the more credible. Running with the idea though, just tweak it to use automatically deployed air bags, and ensure they are within Harem’s very low weight limit. And perhaps give her an exclusive area in the armoury with such items in arms reach of her teleport point.
However the second part cannot be overcome in the current circumstances. Harem is not familiar enough with this current location, to teleport here. So she can teleport to where she sees Krona falling, and then to follower her down, from there. But Harem cannot find her way back to this spot, from the armoury. It would be a one way trip, with her having to come back by taxi or Archon helicopter.
If she could spare the other bodies, Harem could send one of them to pick up the air bag, whilst keeping the local one here to guide her back. Sadly all the other bodies are committed to their own teams, at the moment. And cannot be spared for exactly the same reason. Any that left their current location would not be able to return to their own team and ongoing mission.
I would assume there would be an alcove in the arnoury roped off for her. “Do not enter. Teleporters inbound. Probably.” However that’s the only solvable problem. The mat would take too long to inflate because someone is too close, (or get damaged from the explosive decompression of releasing enough air fast enough) Or it wouldn’t do much good because they are moving too fast.
After 2 seconds at 1 G she will fall 64 feet. The building is under 6 stories tall, so Harem would have about 1 and a half seconds to pick up the material, put it in place, and inflate it before Krona hits the ground at about 35 mph. She may be able to teleport, but she is not a speedster.
not to mention that she has weight restrictions. a large rifle with ammo was pretty much upper range… i am not sure, but i think crash mats weigh more than that…
Pre-inflated giant zorb ball, just at Harem’s weight limit; stored back at Archon. Made out of material that the sewing wizard who made the regulation Archon gear created. Harem pops into the room where it is stored, then pops into the air right below the falling body, catches them; lets bag go. Falling body now lands on a giant air pillow.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mI7vz9Bd664
I like the idea of finding out what happens if the 5 center triangles get filled and create the circle.
I would be unsurprised if that unlocked the ability to use them without holding them- and all at once. I equalyl dont’ expect to see it, because that probably would make Sydney majorly OP.
Unlikely – the Fly ball has the inner track selected, so it probably isn’t hands-free.
They mean that having all of those inner tracks lit up at once would unlock hands-free balling. Not, each one unlocks it for that ball.
I thought that was the tentacle’s job?
Oh wait, maybe that was from my ‘personal thoughts’ rather than canon. Never mind. Moving along, nothing to feel here.
See. Nothing to see here!
Err not that I have been *gestures down below* you know…
Still fully functional. Err t.m.i. right? OK moving on…
*tries not to laugh*
Bad dog! Go lie down on your bed!
Zephan
thinksworries about that too.They do arise from the same place, don’t they?
To be fair, Zephan is always concerned about Things (Man Wasn’t Meant to Know) like that.
…
with how many orbs she has, and how many upgrades they’ve got, all of those could be accurate.
And used at the same time.
worse some of the upgrades fade off like there is more but you have to open what you have first. like a kid at christmas. You can see the 30+ presents under the tree, but mom n dad wont let you open them all at once. They hand you the ones they want you to open one at a time…
To make it even more realistic (and to simulate the possibility that making some choices might lock out other ones, if she has a limit to how many she may ultimately take) have two or more siblings, and allow her to choose which box to open of several, each time. But the ones not chosen are given away.
She is allowed to give them a little shake and a poke though, to try and guess what is in each.
Then forget the realism, as she is having to do that with the house burning down!
Of course, if you’ve read Nodwick, you know that “That which man is not meant to know,” women find hilarious.
Of course…Which is why I’m glad Sydney got the orbs instead of, say, Zephan, for example.
;)
It’s unlikely but either she could gain another ball or they may combine into one ball.
By your powers combined, I am Captain
PlanetHalo.Corporal*
Recruit*
Well, Corporal in the now now, but during the course of the story at this flashback point, she’s a Recruit in the then now.
Get one of the lone shield points Sydney!
One’s got to be an oxygen supply!
What if it’s chlorine, because that’s what the original owner breathed?
+1
The orbs seem to be intuitive to the owner, even to the point of responding to the user’s thoughts. The shield orb seems to know precisely what specific levels of energy harm the user & filter out the harmful levels (ie: allows visible spectrum of light, but blocks lasers). Considering that the orbs are functionally bound to Sydney (’til death do them part), it seems unlikely that it would generate an atmosphere inside her shield that would be harmful…Indeed, once the shield goes up, it’s already got a good sample of “compatible atmosphere” for an example of what it should maintain.
I wonder if that center wheel, seemingly floating above the rest of the grid, with the two points lit up, controls how many orbs she can use simultaneously. I imagine others have pondered about it, but it’s the first thing that occurred to me on seeing the mandala this time around.
They have indeed. It probably unlocks the next level of the game. Halo might want to level her other skills a bit more, before doing that. Given that the latest end-of-level boss has already killed her once, and she only has the one life remaining!
Sorry, Dave, this won’t work unless the falling person falls far enough to reach terminal velocity, and Harem also has time to reach terminal velocity. (Harem doesn’t have to fall as far, because she can fall the same distance repeatedly – but it will still take the same amount of time.) Before the falling person reaches terminal velocity, the absolute speed difference between her and Harem cannot decrease. Unless something comes along to accelerate Harem *faster* than gravity would.
(The falling person hitting the ground before being rescued also changes things… but that’s precisely what the rescue attempt is trying to prevent.)
Terminal velocity for an ordinary not-equipped human is about 56 meters per second and takes about 10-11 seconds to reach. That’s about 290 meters – around 900 feet – of falling distance.
In other words it can work if someone is falling out of a plane from very high altitude. Heroes falling out of planes (or other flying devices) is actually fairly common in the super hero genre, so this is a valid proposal.
Plus do not forget that if both parties are conscious they can co-operate to ensure the distance is closed. We see this all the time in skydiving demonstrations. The person at lower altitude spreads themselves flat, to provide maximum air resistance, whilst the higher one dives vertically, to catch up.
An unconscious body is likely to be tumbling, so would fall midway between the two states. Harem could therefore do the diving to close, but just not as fast as with a co-operating partner trying to slow their decent.
Clearly it is not applicable to save Krona in the above situation, but Dave was not trying to say that it could be done here. He was just describing how the technique might work, in general.
Most importantly the key bit was that Harem could not just teleport (from a standing start) to someone falling at terminal velocity (but still having no momentum herself) and hope to have a favourable outcome from grabbing them.
It would be much the same as any of us standing underneath somone falling from an aircraft and trying to grab them. They would still die, and we would have our arms ripped off.
Not that you were disputing this part, but Dave did call that right too. Mind you all your points are valid as well. It is just that none negate Dave’s comments. They simply define the circumstances under which it can and cannot work.
You don’t just keep accelerating at the same rate until you hit terminal velocity and then suddenly stop accelerating – as you start getting to a significant fraction of terminal velocity, you start accelerating less rapidly (if you model air resistance as a well-behaved function of speed rather than allowing for the random fluctuations that happen in real life, you never actually quite reach terminal velocity in any finite fall, though you do get arbitrarily close).
Also, provided they start early enough, Harem doesn’t need to soak all of Krona’s speed at once – she can catch her and match velocities then port directly below with reversed direction, meaning she’s rising at the same speed Krona’s falling and when they collide an instant later, their combined momentum will be slightly upwards (it looks like Krona’s noticeably less massive than Harem). Start falling again, and vorp to reverse Harem’s momentum whenever the speed starts to build up and you can keep the speed right down – or maybe even start rising into the air if Harem can teleport fast/often enough…
It wouldn’t work exactly as described, with Harem starting her Vorp-run from a higher point than Krona. But it may well work if she starts from a lower point than Krona each time round the loop, so that the faster Krona falls past Harem with a less arm-ripping velocity difference. Of course, it’d take a lot of trial and error to get that height difference right so that they are actually in the same place with an acceptable velocity difference – and even more practice to be able to do it by eye in a tactical situation.
Hm. What happens if Halo collects all points for the ring in the middle? It somehow looks like she could gain another ball… the Master ball?
And in the darkness bind them. Yess, her preciousses. She wills control them. No no, she will nots be under the control of a great old power of darkness. No, no, she will rule thems yes.
*tongue shoots out to grab a passing bug*
Mmm, slimys. But a bit crunchy ands bitter.
Then she can kill all of the filthy hobbitses…
Noo! Hobbits is nice! Especially those on the continent near to Australia.
What about the Bagginses, specifically? As it has been said, “We hate the Bagginses forever!”
:)
I don’t think they have wi-fi, so can’t be readers. Syndey can toss them up into the air, with her tentacle, and use them for PPO target practice, if she wants.
I love the hobbits!
They are my people!
I am their sovereign!
I LOVE Them.
Pull!
He he.
Hmm… given Krona’s powerset, I’m surprised she can’t do something which prints the api instructions. Or projects them as a giant holographic mandala, since that seems to be the way the universal admins roll. Then she could view the properties of the alien text, and swap it to English (in much the same way she disarmed the grenade, or uhh… adjusted the undies).
Its possible, but so far nothing electronic is capable of recording the images. The reporter cameras, dabblers cybernetic eye, they couldnt see it or record it. Thats why dabbler had to do it out of memory. Of course, krona being able to see the deep code of the orbs could mean she IS capable of that. We will have to see.
+1
I don’t know what’ll happen, but I expect a rash thing to actually happen, and Krona having to be part of Sydney’s team, or at least part of random training erraticness to see what’ll get her another point, so Krona could actually have time to draw it all out. Probably have to model it in a PC, unless she’s good with drafting.
I expect that if that happens, then Sydney will be asleep and holding onto the ball while its drawn.
Krona shouldn’t need to write it out to do what I suggest. Her abilities work on reality itself. The floating text, which she can see, is an object she could manipulate. Writing the translated text out to form others could see, like paper, is also well within her abilities. Think of it as capturing console output, piping it to a translation program, and then writing the translation program out to a file. Could be a one line invocation in unix.
If such were allowed, there are multiple ways that it could be made useless from a narrative standpoint. The translated text might have no direct English equivalent, and be something like impossibly complex math equations, or an equally indecipherable equivalent. Or it could just be the number 42, repeated over and over.
Good counter-arguments.
Also, even if it is in a language that Krona is able to read, it might take at least a short time to figure out WHICH language it is that she can read. Since all of this seems to have happened pretty quickly since the emergence of the grid, Krona probably got blitzed immediately by seeing something so brilliant and is trying to catch up and figure out what is going on in it so she can parse it in some reasonable way. And if none of you have tried to figure out brand new code (even written in a language you supposedly know) while dealing with a giant robot attacking you …. well, let me tell you that from personal experience, it can be a bit harrowing.
Also just because you recognize a programming language does not necessarily mean you can understand how that program works.
If I look at some code in C++, I know that I’m looking at a C++ program. I don’t necessarily know what the program does, or how it works, because I’m not versed in C++. Likewise, if I was versed in C++, and someone showed me a program in PROLOG, I might recognize that it’s PROLOG, but not know how to program in it at all. If I run a MUSH (roleplaying game online), I might know how to do softcode, but I might not know how to do the hardcoding). Or if you use Windows, you might not know how to do things on the computer without that nice buffer between you and the machine code.
I’m sure Krona DOES understand how to program in it though, but like DaveB said, it’s like she is using a root command and someone else had machine level access instead.
DaveB- I should have asked a couple chapters ago, but I hesitated. Do you have a Krona/Sydney deep-code skilltree with no speech or Sydney’s other panel? I’d love to get that as a wallpaper. My wallpaper right now is the sphere grid in all its glory, but now I know it isn’t as much glory as that other panel showed.
Worst skillpoint distribution system EVER.
And I still think that I’ve seen it before already, and no I don’t mean the time with her 1st point :p
I can’t put my finger on it but I vaguely remember having played a game which killed me from demanding attention on my level up over my character’s life…
I wouldn’t be surprised if that game is one of the Dark Souls games.
Gavin Dunne (goes by “miracleofsound” on YouTube) says it best in his tribute to Dark Souls:
Your journey, it began because YOU DIED.
Out of your cell you ran, and then YOU DIED.
You pause to catch your breath
And die another gruesome death
So now you creep around each corner terrified
Humanity restored and then YOU DIED.
A graveyard to explore… HAHA DENIED!
For every step you take
Is just one more fatal mistake
So you must learn to take the torture in your stride.
Dark Souls is probably one of the most masochistic games since the days of the Nintendo Hard games for the SNES.
Dave mentions the name of the game (or two) that inspired him the most, in creating the skill tree. Just follow the links folks have provided to the first time the skill tree appeared, and you will probably find it mentioned in the blog, on that or a subsequent page.
Failing that you would need to check out his replied to comments. Or ask someone with a better memory for names, than me. I am sure some readers will recall the game off the top of their heads.
Final Fantasy X sphere-grid.
Yes that inspired the layout, and the sphero-grid was actually one of the most interesting systems I’ve ever seen, but it definitely didn’t inspire the “you’re fucked until you spend your damn point” philosophy xD
The first time the skill tree opened, the flight ball and shield ball were on Sydney’s right as she faced the tree, with the flight ball higher.
This time, the flight ball and shield ball are on Sydney’s left as she faces the tree, with the flight ball again higher.
IOW, this time she is standing on the other side of the skill tree.
Is there an explanation for this change?
It’s possible that the orbs continue to rotate as they do when around her head around the central point of the mandala. I wasn’t paying attention to the relative position of the orbs; is that consistent?
Dave pretty much always has the orbs rotating between frames, so I imagine that would continue here. There was a continuity error with mirroring the grid, on the previous page though. So I would not try to read anything too significant into it.
Sometimes things I think are continuity errors are deliberate mind. But Dave has a pattern of mixing up things when mirroring is involved, so I feel it is best not to over-analyse this issue.
It’s not a question of the orbs rotating. You can see by comparing the rest of the skill tree that she is standing on the other side now.
Compare page 181: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1166
with this page.
The tree has the same orientation from our perspective, but Sydney is standing on different sides.
Probably means nothing, just something I noticed.
Well observed. It is probably just the mirroring problem I mentioned. Dave has a lot of elements to input into each scene. And if some of them need to be inverted, to fit a particular scene best, he can forget that other elements should be transposed likewise.
But, if we assume it is genuine, then perhaps we are seeing two alternating time lines? One with Sydney in one pose, the next her counterpart. In which case we should keep an eye open for other ongoing clues.
For instance if we see Pixel naked in the opening of the next scene, then clothed a couple more frames in, we will have confirmation that Krona has screwed up time big… um …. time.
But if it does mean something… well spotted!
Oh man new power time!
I’m not sure if I’m rooting for Sidney/Krona becoming a thing, but I’m suddenly very invested in the thought of, if romance becomes a thing, Sidney getting a girlfriend
I would certainly ship Sydney with Krona more than I would with any of the guys she has shown an interest in. Unless Wolverine turns up of course. She should not abandon her dreams, after all!
Laser claws? Part way there.
Good points. ;-)
Except, that’s Pixelicious, not Kronachrome :D
I already mentioned on an earlier page I ship Sidney and Krona as BFF, but if Sydney ever decides to give girls a chance I’ll be romantically shipping them too.
Oh man new power time!
I’m not sure if I’m rooting for Sidney/Krona becoming a thing, but I’m suddenly very invested in the thought of, if romance becomes a thing, Sidney getting a girlfriend. Super girlfriends yeeee
Now you are just teasing me, with your philosophical shipping!
Well what do you expect from a guy named Socratease. I doubt that ship will sail since Sydney had to remind herself she wasn’t a lesbian when she first met Dabbler.
Check out the new incentive art. I just want to say two things about it.
One, I want a turn.
Two, where r the orbs?
Funny incentive however you slice it. Sexy if your into a LOT of pink…
Maybe they are in Mr Tubey, It’s not like Sydney has them circling her wagon at night unless she literally falls asleep on her feet
Good initial observation, I had not picked up on their absence.
Likewise almost certainly the correct solution. Mr Tubey will be beside the bed probably. I could see that the gradual change in colours could prove a mild distraction to relaxing reading. Plus their illumination would ruin the pinkness that Sydney is so obviously revelling in.
Ok, tech problem I am compelled to point out. How are one, maybe two inch long nails able to slice an at least 6″ diameter limb to ribbons? Is she able to extend them to 12″ or more while striking?
RTFUT!!!
LASER claws! How knows how far she can project the cutting focus-point from the actual physical claw.
Per Dave’s blog above.
Didn’t see that, gotcha.
You don’t have to read the comments (although even four days in and three pages deep, you really should at least skim), but everyone should at least Read The Under-comic Text, DaveB does tend to explain things there
I’m worst than Sydnei. The first time I put my eyes on a skill tree i don’t close the window till I read all the nodes and see what power I like enought to see whats the shortest path for them.
Same here
Likewise. Plus I look at the synergies of the powers with one another and for the play style I wish to employ with the character.
For instance if a character is likely to be engaging the enemy up close and personal, and will not have much time to pick powers, then I will try to avoid activatable powers, and make as many of them automatic as possible. Say built in defenses, enhanced healing rate or boosted attributes.
Too many choices, on what powers to activate, can cause me to delay a bit too long in making my choice, in the heat of battle. Likewise even if you do choose one promptly there are still a lot of other ones which are not being used, at any given time. So the character is not using their full potential. So always-on powers, or abilities automatically activated under suitable circumstances, would suit that type of character far better.
Mind you another type I favour, but for team-play, is buffer characters. Who can grant extra powers to themselves and allies. But you need suitably long-lasting powers, to make such a strategy worth-while. So that you have time to grant layer upon layer of extra capabilities. If you have enough such options, then the more powers you can activate the better. As it is your
minionsallies who will be doing all the fighting, whilst you make them more and more powerful.Al;though it is fun if you have enough time to spare to be able to throw in a few direct attack powers too. Especially for those occasions where you are solo. But that is where having summonable minions comes into its own.
Pixel’s kind of a jerk. That’s a shame.
Pixel’s under a lot of stress at the moment, and Sydney needs to be snapped out of her daze and take action so she can become useful again.
Agreed. Pixel has demonstrated a lot of tolerance for Sydney’s play-acting, to date, so I do not think the charge is fair. In a life-or-death crisis you do not have time to pander to possibly hurt feelings. You have to say and do what is necessary in order to preserve life. Pixel is not being rude, she is being practical. Speaking briefly, and to the point.
Even more importantly she is actually leaving Sydney total discretion on how to spend her point. Which is very generous,on two grounds. One Halo is in the military and could be ordered to spend it the way her superiors decided is the best way.
Two, in not ordering Sydney to take that option, there is bound to be some degree of delay, in Sydney choosing her point. Even if she decides to do it pretty much at random, the thought process involved in that will still take longer than (hopefully) obeying an order and lacing it in the spot previously pointed out to Sydney.
So even with her terse comment Pixel is actually being pretty decent, as opposed to being a jerk.
The real question here is why Pixel’s laser claws are limited to less than a light-second or so in length (maybe less in effective length due to attenuation).
Cue the “lightsabers are plasma cutters, not laser blades” discussion.
A light second is exactly 299792458 metres long. I expect that Pixel does not want to chop the Earth in half, so limits it to a foot, for practical reasons. Not to mention that any longer than that and she will chop her own forelegs off with her rear leg claws, when walking!
So …. just about one nano-light second? That seems to actually work out nicely.
Sooo… Harem needs Dabbler to invent a parachute gun, or a human-surrounding squishy-ball of kinetic absorption. Or just let Anvil catch the fallers.
Anvil would need to learn how to teleport to help in this instance.
Quick, Krona, put time into reverse. Uhh try to keep part of your mind isolated, so that you can monitor this, then pause it at the point you were last in contact with Anvil. Flip her ‘teleportation enabled’ toggle from 0 to 1, after convincing her to try it out, tell her to practice her power for catching falling people. And tell her the precise moment she will need to ensure she is free to do it in earnest.
Keep time paused until certain of how to fix the checkpoint error. Then set a checkpoint.
Finally allow roll time forwards, to the present, and hope that Anvil does the job right.
I guess this is as close to a Groundhogs Day loop episode as we are going to get for a while. Too bad. Love those episodes. Especially the SG-1 version.
Well at least they are getting a second chance, which is more than most folks do.
Admittedly this time they are fighting an enhanced manekiller. But at least Sydney is not dead and Pixel is not being ‘Capri Sol-ed’.
On the downside none of them are naked this time round.
Still Halo has got to spend that point. Plenty of scope for wardrobe malfunctions. Clothing burning off, turning invisible, being ripped off by possessed hentai tentacles…
keep watching.
She spends it on the shield and it gains the ability to conform to her bodies shape and move with her.
Her clothes are not as tough as Maxima’s
LOL, now you got me doing it and I don’t even care! XP (fun game though XD )
body’s
naked body’s
Have you ever seen the Haruhi Suzumiya version of the Groundhog’s Day loop? I think that was the single most annoying moment in anime for me. It was called the Endless Eight, I believe. Eight episodes, all the same episode with cosmetic changes. Though, I’m not sure. I stopped watching at episode 3.
I have. I watched the lot. Making a heck of a lot of use of fast forward mind. But I wanted to spot the points where divergence occurred. A good director would have done that part for you mind, rather than thinking folks would want to see so much identical content.
Groundhog Day did it perfectly, in giving you the impression of the repetition, through short examples, but showing you the interesting bits where changes were made.
I would quite happily watch Groundhog Day 2 through to 8 if they followed that formula. Especially as, in the infinite variety of his day, he could have gotten up to things not even hinted at in the original. So there could have been whole romantic arcs, for instance. All vanishing at each reset, thus allowing him to return to his original motivations, once enough cycles had allowed his own memories of the relationship to fade.
Of course it would be better if done with a new film series (or TV series) designed with that in mind from the start. The scope of an isolated small town is a bit limited for a major project. But a day in New York or London, and perhaps with an antagonist, with similar powers, involved too, allows significant scope for variety in each episode.
I was only able to get through the first season. (I think. I only watched it once and its been a while) I liked the idea and the catchy music but something about the way they went about it must have turned me off.
Short answer: No, I did not see that one.
You should show Harem training this in the background at some point. E.g. while other characters are talking in the foreground, Harem drops a medicine ball off the roof of ARC SWAT and uses one or more of her bodies to bleed off the momentum. As a side note, couldn’t she use multiple bodies to bleed off the momentum of a fall from any height since one body could be slowing itself down while the other is interacting with the falling person? As long as she has enough remaining distance to slow the person down, it seems she could save someone even at high velocity. Apologies if someone already suggested this – I didn’t read the other comments.
No problems. The last can be done, but only from considerable height. It would require skydliving type manevers for Daphne to match their speed enough that any slowing down can be performed safely. Too much difference, in their relative speeds, and there is the arm-ripping off problem that Dave mentioned.
But as this requires a lot of time, to perform each stage, it would require all her bodies, working in tandem, and results in much much greater fall distance, before the fall is slowed to safe speeds.. The technique Harem is using above works only when the victim has only just started to fall, and has not built up high velocity.
I think this may have already been mentioned, but instead of purely reversing/mitigating her falling velocity, would it maybe be more practical/easier to redirect her? With the number of repeat impacts that are being expected, couldn’t her momentum be shifted into a roll rather than a splat?
Indeed. But some vertical momentum must be leached off. Otherwise she will still hit hard enough to break bones. Tumbling with broken bones is most unpleasant, as I can personally testify.
Your point is good though, as Harem only has a very short drop to work with. So if Pixel is going to hit fairly hard, then she will be less likely to suffer major injury if she is doing so at an angle where she can roll to expend the remaining kinetic energy, by tumbling, rather than crushing organs or breaking bones.
Practicing at a survivably short height may be a good idea, with a safety pad below, that way, if she makes a mistake, the worst that (hopefully) should happen is a few broken bones or the wind knocked out of her, and then work up to greater distances
Maybe work with one of her being the ‘dummy’, that way she would have a last second ‘safety’ of being able to *VORP* just at the point of impact
Yes this was mentioned already and the consensus was “If she used more bodies she would have no way to teleport back to the other groups because she is not in familiar terrain and the groups have to move”
Good news, Sydney is 13% less likely to die!
Well of non-supernatural villain related causes anyhow.
I’ve eaten them all my life, but then again I’m a Texan and it’s in the job description. Sydney goes max pepper though….
But if eaten by someone who has stomach ulcers, it could kill…
It either kills you or makes you stronger. Makes sense.
“BACK OFF, ASSHATS!! Making the right skill upgrade decision is IMPORTANT!”
“Syndey, WE. ARE GOING. TO DIE!!”
“Like I said – IM-POR-TANT!”
Reading you comment, this is the first thing that I thought of…
That is what I was invoking, yes.
You put far to much thought into how Superpowers work.
With that much thoughtwork i´m really surprised you actually even considered letting Krona mess with time.
The theory is always complicated. If there actually were Superpowers (or time travel), heroes (and villains) wold laugh at explanations from theorists.
Interestingly enough theorists don´t get distracted by facts.
Even if i have actually done something, i always find people who tell me it doesn´t work like that, because theory says so.
And you laugh, with your other tourist friends, as you compare primitive theories on time-travel, to the massive commercial operations that allow your temporal holiday excursions.
Psst, do I get any of my social or philosophical theories widely accepted? Or I do just go down as a ‘curious foot-note in history’? Go on, I will distract the tour-guide long enough for you to type a reply!
*puts on pink gorrilla suit, black tu-tu, roller skates, and picks up the drinks tray full of pina coladas*
Huh, I just noticed Krona is wearing a skirt and boots. Thought she’d be a jeans-and-sneakers girl like Sydney.
Krona hangs around thousand year old vampires, with extremely conservative (a.k.a. Dracula-like) tastes. As she is also a diplomat, as the head of a faction of one, she doubtless would not want to antagonise them with ‘weird fads of modern youth’.
Whereas Sydney clearly likes sometimes climbing trees and other tom-boy behaviour. Such as punching out ceiling tiles. In addition to the everyday practicality of trousers, that anyone might prefer them for.
The universe doesn’t Like checkpoints and will take steps to correct them. Three backwards steps in this case.
People are over-thinking Harem’s rescue. Krona is still at the edge of the roof when Harem ‘ports. No more velocity than, at best, catching someone falling off a step-stool or third rung on a ladder before Harem has her in hand. Harem ‘ports to the ground, same effective velocity/energy as jumping from the back end of a truck. Now, if we saw Harem ‘porting as Krona was flailing in panic three stories down, sure, a bit more of a problem, but not much. Harem ‘ports, grabs, ‘ports, Krona lands in a swimming pool or lake. It has not been established Harem needs a particular sort of grip or contact to ‘port someone…she can grab Krona’s arm and before Krona’s greater velocity does more than lift her arm an inch or two, they’ve ‘ported, Harem lets go, Krona lands in the water. Would probably lose her breath, maybe strain some muscles, but water is much more forgiving than dirt or concrete; what’s the height of the Olympic high-dive? Several effective stories…and we’ll all seen divers screw up a dive badly (sometimes after hitting their face on the board) and *still* swim to shore.
Even failing that, there is feasible redirection of motion. Instead of trying to stop Krona cold, pop next to her, push her sideways…as many times as necessary changing downward velocity to a more lateral vector…doing it on opposite sides within milliseconds could literally stop Krono in mid-air, since every action has an equal and opposite reaction…every push by Harem redirects *her* energy laterally, so popping in on the other side would cancel even more of Krona’s energy.
Drop a tennis ball or a rock or a baseball, then impart a lateral impulse via hand, baseball bat, tennis racket. Gravity doesn’t cease acting on the ball; the kinetic energy is redirected, thereby giving a interested party time to do whatever. Same principle as a tennis match…except in this case, Harem would not want diametrically opposed actions. She could conceivably keep the Krona-ball in play by ‘porting, applying oblique energy via pushes…until Max arrives. Max can then match velocity with Krona and slow down to a safe lading speed.
Krona does not go from a stumble to terminal velocity immediately…especially as we *see* Harem ‘porting before Krona’s legs have left the roof.
Heck, Harem may even be able to `micro-port’…or multi-port. Port directly under Krona, absorb X amount of energy, another copy ‘ports in, does the same…bleed off all of Krona’s downward energy by porting a thousand times in less than a second, no clone staying there long enough for gravity to impart more than a negligible effect on that clone. She could conceivably do this if Krono was on the last six feet of a thousand-story fall. The only limit would be how many times Harem could ‘port…and that’s only necessary for future falling incidents…as noted, Krona hasn’t done more than trip over her own feet in *this* instance. Even Sydney could catch her easily and without danger or harm…if she could ‘port, that is.
The reason for the ‘overthinking’ is because of Harem’s very severe weight limit. She simply cannot transport Krona. The most Harem can carry is Peggy’s sniper rifle, which is far lighter than even the relatively small Krona.
Incidentally Harem also likely has a prohibition on carrying anything living (per a comment by Dave way back, but do note the ‘likely’).*
The reason for both of these is to stop things being too easy for the heroes. So Krona cannot be teleported to a safe lake. Note that Varia’s gestalt with Harem actually extends Harem’s power to include Varia. This is subtly different to increasing Harem’s weight limit. Effectively Varia is teleporting herself, but needs to go wherever Harem is heading, like a piggy-back.**
Redirecting to horizontal movement is viable, but it is still vital to bleed off some of the downward acceleration too. Otherwise Krona will still have the momentum of her fall from the roof-top, when she hits the ground. Yes she will be able to tumble, but with two stories of falling damage, that tumbling will result in broken bones and severe road rash.
Dave has simply opted for the least energy expenditure, in only countering the downward force.
I have doubts that the micro ports could work at all. To do those, at the speed indicated, would require super-human reflexes, or Ren’s ability to see the world in ultra slow motion (and more importantly effectively think really fast, so that she could plot what trajectory is required next and calculate the teleport accordingly) or have both and effectively be a super-speeder teleporter.
Harem has none of those. Mentally she is simply an average woman but with fifty odd years of accumulated skills and experience. Try figuring out, yourself, the exact speed that Harem needs to be travelling at to do the first micro teleport. Oops, Krona has hit the ground already.
Basically Dave is pushing it already, but this is a super genre, so we can assume that Harem can act reflexively as quickly as a top martial artist can block a blow or land a punch. Fast, but not super-fast ***
Martial artists pull off their tricks with muscle memory. Which allows them to cut thinking time out of the loop. They see an incoming attack and their body starts to react in a carefully practiced counter, to that specific type of attack.
Whereas Harem does have to think about what she is doing. But does not have the delay of getting muscles moving. I am assuming that one will roughly counter the other.
We can estimate the thought time though. Under normal circumstances Harem will think “I want to be there” (looking at her destination point) and *poof” she is there. In a crisis it is shortened to “there”, and for a series of rapid ports “there”, “there”, “there”, “there”. I.e. allowing a short reorientation, each time, and actually focusing on the next destination. Not to mention calculating the desired trajectory / impact for each.
* This would stop Harem from teleporting parts of Vance’s ‘body’ in four or five separate ports, then getting the spiders rejoin into a single colony and to sew up the Vance suit, around them, thus making a whole ‘body’ once more.
** Possibly Varia shares Harem’s weight limit, because of the piggy back requirement. However if she has additional carrying capacity, independent of Harem, then the pair of them might be able to teleport a payload of 2 x Bartlett rifle weight (31 lb) = 62lb. Healthy weight for slight build 5 foot tall woman = 90 lb. Still too little capacity.
*** Ignoring Math, as he has cinematic martial arts, and his reflexes are listed as being as fast as Maxima’s i.e. he can dodge bullets! With ease.
Can see Grimjac‘s point: Kronachrome has literally only just toppled over the edge, all Bodie need do is re-appear at the top, grab Kronachrome’s hand and grab the ledge (or just grab her delectable foot and hope she doesn’t slip out of the boot), we know that Daphne’s strength goes up proportionally to the less bodies are out, so she just gets the others to take a short ‘quantum nap’ and then after the rescue they re-appear with their assigned team
Oh I have no dispute with such a simple solution, if she can pull it off. When I considered that myself, I decided Krona would probably have gone over the edge by the time Harem committed to porting (simply because that is the intent of the page). But it certainly would be the most viable option, prior to that point.
Grimjac was simply over thinking it and making it more and more complicated.
*wags tail cheekily*
*looks at length of own prior reply*
*wags tail even more cheekily*
To be honest, didn’t read more than the first sentence or two
A normal human takes around .3 seconds to react to something.
However, humans with training and who have specific things to react to (Quick draw specialists, fighter pilots, hockey goalies) can get this as low as 0.1 seconds.
Thus I estimate that Harem can travel in an unfamiliar location at around 200′ per .2 seconds, or 2000 feet per second.
Faster than a speeding bullet.
Er, 1000 feet per second, but principle still applies.
I really have to hand it to DaveB that he has really innovative ways to take the most powerful players in the game out of action temporarily :) Makes for a really good story here rather than just having Krona switch off the robot thing while safely behind Sydney’s shield :)
DaveB reads your post: “Damnit! That would have been so cool to do!! But already plotted out the next several pages!!!” :P
DaveB, you are getting good returns for your new anime style for Sydney and Krona (plus Pixel in her human form*). From the odd comment by other folks, clearly I am not the only one who misses Sydney’s original look. But I must admit that the new style has grown on me. The ‘bobble heads’ no longer bother me, and I can appreciate the expressions properly, without that distraction.
It has allowed you to give Sydney comedic terror in panel one. Plus allowed a full gamut of emotions, from both Halo and Krona, when the secret code of the universe was revealed. Likewise with Krona’s dazzled look above.
It all adds beautifully to the action and comedic fall.
Plus it is particularly interesting that nobody is particularly concerned about the clear and present danger to Sydney, other than the pressing need to choose her skill point fast. Despite the fact that Krona has made it clear that resetting is no longer an option!
Which I put down to the highly successful comedic look and tone of the current page. Very nicely done.
* Although I do love the expressiveness of the Jaguar face, which I noticed in particular on the previous page. Clearly hanging with all your cute kitties has inspired you!
That whole apogee act of Harem’s seems like it should take lots of skill and practice to do right, especially under the conditions of falling. At least one of her must be working those moves all day every day to keep then so sharp that they are annoyingly boring to execute.
Or maybe I should tell myself that it is just a show and I should probably just relax.
THOUGHT: for re-reading value, you could make additional comics lateral to some existing ones to show what is happening in places not pictured in the main story line.
Dave would need to hire minions to do those, as the main comic is a full-time job, and we would not want that compromised!
Mind you the most fan-requested spin-off is the adult ‘Grrl Power After Dark’. Would you rather see teleportation rescue techniques or the first time that Arianna invites Suzy News, back to her place.
Talking about which, it is an awfully long time since we last saw Suzy Wen!
If Krona can see more information around the skill tree than others can, maybe they should get her to take a look at it when they’re not in immediate mortal peril to see if those code sigils provide some useful information about what the the skills in the tree are.
Question: if somebody standing next to Sydney grabs one of the orbs, can they activate the powers? If that’s possible, then you have a way to double her effectiveness, and also a great weakness – an enemy who gets too close can use her powers against the team. Even just taking over the force field and waiting until the air runs out – which wouldn’t require too much understanding of how to use the orbs – would be a threat.
No, I’m pretty sure her orbs only respond to her.
Agreed that is the most likely scenario, as the orbs clearly have safeties oriented to maintaining Sydney as the user. Namely the inability to move them away from her. The fact it can prevent the strongest known super on Earth from doing that implies that the decision has been taken very seriously and implemented well.
We do know of one exception though. Albeit only by implication. But Varia’s attempt at a gestalt resulted in Halo’s orbs including Varia in their orbit. Even though none of the heroes noticed that! With the clear implication that the orbs will accept her as a co-user, whilst the gestalt is maintained.
Meaning that Varia would be able to use one (or possibly, but less likely, two) orbs. Even if Varia is not required to maintain contact, to keep a gestalt going (in all her demonstrations she did, but she had no reason to do otherwise), I suspect that the orbs will require her to remain within the normal distance from Sydney.
Although it would be interesting if they allowed her to ignore that. Very interesting, as it would temporarily deprive Sydney of one or two of her powers. A very different proposition to simply letting someone else take the controls, but still being able to instantly swap them round, if it proves inconvenient.
Obviously once Varia stopped the gestalt, they would head for Sydney, as they always do. With the provisos that they may not know where she is or something might be able to block their path.
Which raises the interesting proposition that perhaps there are many orbs? Let us say that a twenty armed alien arrived in Earth’s distant geological past, with the full set. It too managed to find a super, or supernatural, ally who could share the use of the orbs. This octopus would only use seven orbs though, as it always needed at least one tentacle free.
Sadly, when battling Wynter (the immortal super who periodically plunges parts of the world into an ice-age) she got trapped under ice so deep and supernaturally strong that even the PPO could not penetrate it! Only being short-lived the octopus died, of old age, before the ice-age ended. Not being able to return to their owner, upon her death, again due to the ice, the orbs settled down to sleep, in what would eventually become the Caribbean.
The true owner though is still locked in his battle with Wynter, underneath Antarctica. Waiting for them to find their way back.
She needs legendary skills like in Skyrim. Reset all perk points but keep levels so you can fix your character build.
Or choose well in the first place. Which Sydney may just do.