Grrl Power #512 – Some assembly denied
Sydney hasn’t forgotten about Pixel, but I can only fit so much dialog on one page and it was getting a little crowded already. Harem’s checking on her in case you’re wondering.
I’m not sure how blood helps when making golems or other miscellaneous automata. I know in a lot of stories the blood is just a vehicle for life force, so I guess it’s used in place of a generator. I guess if the Stargate went to hell, they could use blood instead of a ZPM. That would suggest blood has a crazy amount of power in it. That’s less evident when making golems or enchanting stuff than when you’re using the blood to open portals to other realms, which seems like something that would normally take 16 power plants and/or a lens made from a slice of neutron star normally.
In this case Sciona is using the blood as a cheat, essentially a pre-written code base for programming behavior. Essentially she’s using the DNA for primitive survival and instinctual behavior, then enchanting her own code on top of it. She could do it with any piece of DNA, but something in a liquid state is easier to work with, give that she already has considerable experience as a blood mage. She’s hit the point in that school of magic where she’s realized that most of what the purists do is the hardest way to do it because they’re too dedicated to the art.
It’s like if you’re getting a weak wi-fi signal in one room, you could set up a signal booster, or hack an old router to function as a wi-fi extender, or you could rearrange the wiring in the building and move the wi-fi router… or if all you really care about is getting a better signal in one room, you could just cut a hole in the wall between you and the router. Ok, you could make it look nice if you wanted, like one of those… I think it’s called a pass-through? Like it’s a bar on one side? Anyway, Sciona’s like that. All the experts will give you the networking options cause they’re networking guys and Sciona will just kick down the wall.
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That’ll learn ‘im!
Can I has arm? NO.
The golem’s look just says “Did you seriously just bat my arm into a forest?!”
It may be more eloquent than that. “Oh NO you DINT!”
“Wha..? You’re supposed to let me finish, dammit!”
bad monster no arm for you!
It sort of reminds me of how you tell a dog that it not going to get to play with something I want to keep intact. Bad Doggy! (Not Yorp; that is good doggy)
She should have used a rolled up newspaper…
Why did that werewolf have a couple of balloons attached to its chest?
You ought to see her in human form, she makes Sidney look busty.
Jesus, those things’ll rip out her spine…
Ow my eyes!That thing is more chest than person!
Sydney: BAD MANIKILLER!No reattach murder arm!Now SIT!*Confused golem sits*
If that works well, she should try “Play dead.”
D&D Spells for Anyone:
Feign Death: Run at as many miles per hour as your strength score for as many miles as your constitution score. Fall down; feign death. Casting time could be up to a few hours. Verbal component consists of a series of unarticulated huffing and puffing.
Someone did a series on that. Examples:
Find Traps 1/2: material component = the party’s lowest INT member. verbal and somatic component = bunch of strange hand-waving followed by “Go ahead Gunther, the way is clear.”
Rock to Stone: verbal component only = “That’s not rock, it’s stone.”
That’s one way to disarm a golem *rimshot*
Technically… Pixelicious already did that :P
Now Halo needs to distentacle it too.
Krona looks worse for wear than I expected. She survived but Harem’s way of slowing her down wasn’t the most gentle solution.
It’s not that far. While easier to slow down, that’d also mean there’s very short time to do so.
Better than being dead!
Kind of makes me wonder if she is limited in the ability to hack her own health stats. She works for the Council vigilante group. Shouldn’t they carry emergency healing potions or something?
There back there in that floating book.
Oops, They’re, not There.
She probably can hack her health but thanks to the whole reset hooha shes currently a lot more wary of her own powers which in the shortterm makes her kinda useless.
Yea if something goes wrong, when you rearrange the component bits of your own body, you might not get another opportunity to try and fix the problem.
Yeah, a 404 error could kill you!
Yeah makes me think of the book Equal Rites where a young girl who happens to be a wizard(a wierd thing in itself in the Discworld universe) effortlessly works several spells that are thought to be impossible all because she doesnt realise what shes trying is impossible at the time=).
She went to the Acme School of Wizardry? Defying every known law to science since ages ago
In discworld the laws of physics are more guidelines really…Especially if narrative causality is involved-for example if a third and youngest son is set out on an epic quest that has already killed his elder brothers in Discworld its dang near impossible for him to fail ^^.
Plus light in Discworld is rather lazy. It really should not be hard to go above lightspeed on the occasions that it is idling along.
Amen!=)
Wait so if golem protection includes reality hacking, is there some sort of overlap between the mechanics?
Maybe she’s doing exotic golemancy on the local universe, to change how it works?
Well that’s how she perceives it, protecting your creations against magical efforts to disable them or usurp your control is fairly common which would mean you’re effectively hacking the reality of the item to reshape it your way.
Perhaps the nature of the husk’s magical protection and Krona’s powers are the same: magic. Some settings, after all, best define magic as a way to hack reality, bending, breaking, subverting its laws.
Well, it has been explained that her ‘reality hacking’ has the same basis as ‘regular’ magic, just with a very different format.
Except it clearly doesn’t. I think that’s just what all the mages and such that she’s surrounded herself think, but from the evidence we have, that’s clearly not the case.
Exhibit A: She can perceive extra information about the Orbs. Orbs which have so far been complete voids to all other magical information gathering methods. Ergo, the Orbs are NOT magic in the traditional sense, and the fact that Krona can interact with them (see the ‘Deep Code’) means that she is not using magic in the traditional sense either.
Exhibit B: She does things that the other mages can’t. This is why she’s not a part of the Mages Enclave in the Council, but her own representative group. They just call what she does “Magic” because, well, what else do you call someone performing a complex series of gestures that cause the rules of reality to warp with no understandable source? Science?
I think that Krona is using the truest magic, science. Afterall any high enough level of science would be nearly indistinguishable from magic.
Maybe Sciona knows about Krona and figured out a specific way to keep her out of tempering with the golem. Like a magic firewall.
Or it could be a more general protection against all kinds of attempts to take control of the golem which happens to be enough to also prevent Krona from gaining access.
At least from gaining access easily. Krona seems to be indicating she can take down those safeguards, it’s just extra work/time before she will be able to get to the golem’s code itself, and doing something quick is sort of what they are looking for.
Sciona is an old enemy of the Twilight Council and clearly is up to speed on their membership (from the fact that the munitions were tailored against them). Krona stands out as being so powerful that she constitutes an entire faction on her own. So I agree with your speculation that Sciona would know about her. Further she would give a high priority to countering Krona’s power in any way she deemed feasible.
Hmm, old enemy? Or former friend slash ally turned new enemy? And was that before or after the whole ‘attempted beheading’ incident?
Considering that whole beheading thing, I figure hostile or enemy….
It wasn’t attempted, it was successful. Mostly.
Almost, kinda…
The beheading went great, but they didn’t expect her ot to e from it. You could say they were getting a head of hemselves
“I tell ya, I long for the good old days when you cut off a fella’s head, they died. Nowadays, these kids with their fancy blood magic and necrothingy…
“Sometimes, I think it just ain’t worth it ta get outta bed in da morning. What’s a contract killer supposed to do?”
+1 :)
Take multiple contracts for the same target?
“I know you. You killed me!”
“Have we met? – Yes, I killed you last year. – Where? I died at least three times last year.”
“This is getting rather tiresome.”
“What? You gain?”
“Will you stop that already!”
“Do you know how much that stings?”
The worst enemies are ex-allies. The attempted beheading might have been a punishment for betraying the Council, at some point (it’s already been mentioned that the Council is BRUTAL when it comes to punishing transgressors).
Yeah, that’s why asked if she use to be an ally, and the beheading was a result of her betraying them, either directly or because she was found performing Blood Magick without a licence
Or since Krona is female, some of her blood could have been effortlessly stolen with no one knowing, and some of that was used to protect the golem from her own powers.
Whatever the exact nature of Krona’s ability, isn’t it inevitable that it has to mimic magic to hack the golem directly? The same way you need to connect to a pc with a known protocol to be able to hack it? In which case it’s likely the protection will also apply.
Not talking about sabotage, by the way, though I do wonder whether Krona should be thinking of changing the circuit-board analog to shaving cream.
Sciona has a lot of experience, but Krona is still learning. If you wanna be a successful Evil Overlord, you need to know the list https://www.eviloverlord.com/lists/overlord.html
Krona is not an Evil Overlord in training!
Have a look at panel 3, give her a (gentle) hug and apologise!
At worst she is an Apex Evil Overlord in training.
You can bet Sciona has though…
Sci-fright has done what? Given Kronachrome a hug? o_O
Im thinking that Sciona just protected this golem from hacking by making its code pointlessly complicated so Krona has to find her way through all the unrelated junk code to do anything to it that way.Though she defnately rolled a one in planning for superpowers shes definately had a long think about magic and so on.
Or maybe it has a lot more complexity, than normal constructs, due to being either much smarter or having more powers? Or both.
The disembodied head in panel two is Peggy right? Thinks she’s flying the Osprey in to level bring in reinforcments?
Given she’s in the cast sidebar, yeah.
And you can kinda make out her facial scar. I mean, I thought it was fairly obvious that it was Peggy, because she was in the helmet the last time we saw her also, but the scar was what cinched it for me.
Yes, that is exactly how Peggy appeared when we saw all the teams reporting in, and Peggy confirming that she was responding to team X-ray (this team)’s call for support.
So far, it looks like at least two members of team x-ray are going to need one.
::attempts to look innocent::
You’re talking about Pixel in her were-form, right?
::attempts to control the humorous flicking of his ears and fails miserably::
Well Peggy is proud of her ‘A-team’ status, and wanted Sydney to enjoy that too, which might give a clue as to her preferences. So my best guess is that she would prefer Pixel in her human form.
We don’t know how Pixel is and Krona’s roughed up but this is otherwise good. Where Halo can stay calm, she can use her powers effectively. She was even attentive enough to stop the husk from reattaching its arm.
Now think of what she’s going to be like once she gets enough training and experience…
At a guess, Krona’s got a dislocated shoulder from Harem’s rescue. She’s probably also teleported in another of her to check on Pixel.
It’s possible she hit something on the way down. Bounced off an awning, maybe.
Or the ground. Harem was attempting to slow her fall, but did not have much time or distance to do it in. So she may have only reduced a potentially fatal impact to one that bruises or dislocates/breaks bones.
Harem slowed her down enough that it was survivable, but she did still fall down a building.
Back in the old days before nets, high wire walkers had ‘catchers’. There a trick to it, and alive is not the same as unharmed…
Source? That sounds like a rather interesting thing to read about.
KnuckleDragger probably does not want you reading his mind. ;-)
I can remember the days before health and safety, when the circus trapeze act would make a high-point of their show being removing the nets to make an especially daring stunt.
It was a particularly thrilling time as the circus that we would normally go to was competing to achieve a world record, for the number of somersaults. Which they did manage to get (if my memory of yea ancient times is accurate).
Just as well that they did use the nets for those attempts mind, as they were dangerous enough even with them. I personally saw one attempt that failed badly, resulting in a fall. With one of the performers bouncing off the net and hitting the ground!
It was really tense, as it appeared touch and go, from where I was. Even then I knew that the circus would try and cover up any incident, to keep the mood up. But those injuries were serious enough that they could not risk whisking them off stage. Fortunately they survived, and were well enough to give us all a wave, before being carried off.
Enweencible?
I am!
Now say “nuclear vessels.”
;)
Naughty-naughty
“No!
“Bad golem!”
^_^
And then they played fetch.
Interesting tidbit to learn from this page. The husks could make their body parts fly back to themselves, or each other, to reattach anything that is missing, but it looks like this one needs to pick up the missing parts itself and hold them in place to reattach them.
Or at the least, that is the first option, likely less expensive than using high-speed levitation on weighty components.
Yeah this upgrades pretty inferior in a lot of ways,We cant even say its all that smart thanks to the coding explanation outside the comic.
That may be because it was laser claws through a “bone” instead of simple joint separation, and the joints are what have remote control?
maybe it’s time for sydney to to do her boa constrictor impression for/on the golem
Whilst that would distract me, I suspect the golem would be unaffected.
Oh, wait, you mean to wrap it in her tentacle. Sorry, my bad!
Youd be amazed at what a master of confusion fu like Syd can get away with XD
Thank you for that.
better yet, stick it into the hole in its chest and wriggle it around. see if you can break something important.
Kinky…
Well, she DID want to call it the molestorb….
maybe do both and attempt to recreate certain scenes from the various aliens movies (though with less bloody … possibly)
Here’s an idea: Sydney’s tentacle has been shown able to lift 5 tons(?) and I doubt this golem weights that much. She could keep it busy with a nice relaxing game of Hacky Sack.
Maxima estimated the lift strength at about 14 tons, so maybe. The first view of it made it look much too massive for even that to lift it. But some of the more recent views make it plausible. I would not bet on it, either way, until we see Sydney attempt it.
maxima is much stronger than that, she did throw that tank that is at 60t+
Yea, this was during the scene where Maxima was lifting a bunch of girders, each of which weighted much more than that limit. Whereas Sydney could not even lift one, with her tentacle. So Max just gave a tug on it, to guestimate how much lift the tentacle was actually providing.
So quite a subjective measurement, but it will do until they can do a proper scientific one. Possibly they can lay their hands on a force-gauge that can handle that. But if one is not available, they can just add regular weight-lifting weights, until she reaches her limit.
Whip it!
WHIP IT GOOD!
Hark, is that what I hear Pixel calling, from yonder building?
Alright, I’m convinced. Krona’s “reality hacking” is just another way of saying “cast a magic spell.” She just has an intuitive GUI with some divination magic built in.
Any sufficiently advanced technology blah, blah, blah, yackidy smackidy.
Or that magic is just a whole bunch of mystic nonsense hiding the fact it’s just tapping the same reality back-doors that Krona does…
We already know that she is using magic. That was stated fairly early. We also know that magic sigils and such are coded in much the same way as modern computers. They even have their own coding languages and nerds who argue over which spell coding languages are better for a given task. So that’s not what is unique about Krona’s special brand of magic that only she can do.
We already know it’s a form of magic.
It is a unique form of magic though. Only Krona has this GUI that allows her to develop new things and mess with existing things like this.
Not quite.
We do know Krona has view of Sydneys powers, wich implies the two are related.
Nothing in Dabblers aresenal could identify what the Orbs are. And basic magic was among the first things tested and not found.
Perhaps magic users have just accessed a way of calling and arranging functions someone like Krona developed first.
Yes, they are magic users, Kronachrome is a magic coder
Nice distinction.
To be honest most things in this comic probably involve magic as the same powersource in some way shape or form,Specially since superpowers instead of having origins appear to mostly be genetic blips that grant access to abilities that break the laws of physics and grant killer abs.
I don’t think magic need be involved (well other than in animating the golem, but that is a given). Krona’s major limitation is that she can only hack things that she understands. Clearly she understands normal technological things (her banner hints at that, but disarming the grenade confirmed that). Plus she would not even attempt hacking the golem if she she did not understand enchanted constructs well enough to do that.
In fact, perhaps she studied the remains of the previous ones, along with Pixel’s analysis, to gain that understanding? However to understand this more advanced one, enough to use her power, Krona needs to figure out its peculiarities. But, just as with trying to analyse a modern computer, by remotely accessing it, you can be blocked by a firewall.
So first Krona will need to figure out how that works, hack it, then work on the golem itself. Just like with the lesser constructs this process might take longer than the battle itself. Especially with Maxima due to arrive imminently.
Although Sciona did not seem to be pretty confident that her golem was up to the task. So Krona may yet have some working time and the chance to show off her capabilities.
How about a nice cooooool refreshing glass of O.J.?
“If the glove fits” I guess I must quip.
NO! Bad robot! No arm for you! Go to the corner and think about what you’ve done!
Bad Golem, no cookie. Sydney plays by Kill Bill rules. You lose it, it’s hers, price you pay man. Price you pay.
+1 for reference. I forgot that bit. Sounds like I am overdue for a rewatch.
Yep, Kill Bill Vol 1 is one the best violent movies ever done….
Kill bill Vol 2 however……yeah I think Mr Tarentino used most of his budget on the first one before realising they wanted him to make two films XD
Actually, he shot a lot of film that he wanted to use, and wound up splitting it in two because the studio didn’t want a four hour movie. Too bad, since I think it would’ve improved continuity…
Well that just lowered my opinion of Tarentinos filmmaking skills…
Of course, then he was going to do the same for Django Unchained, but realized that that movie would work better as a single feature, and cut a whole lot out.
Next page: Peggy arrives only to observe Sydney and Bad Robot in the middle of a slapping contest :D
Or maybe just Bodie and Kronachrome doing their “Killroy Was Here” impression doing the observing, and then looking at each other and simultaneously saying “You can tell Max about this!”
Armwrestling, thumbwrestling and everything else. Sydney employs an elaborate score system to determine the winner.
Can’t thumb wrestle: Bad Robot has no thumbs
You just have to form the outline of a hand with the tentacle/lighthook.
I think Sydney plays by my rules, but through her, they’re actionable.
My rules look like a combination of GURPS and Calvinball.
Bad Golem! You not allowed to have your arm since threw my friend into a building.
Getting the Golem angry could backfire. What if someone or something comes at her from inside the building and underneath where she is standing? What if that thing tries to destroy the building?
I do love how she one upped the golem though.
She can fly.
The shield also extends down under her feet, so coming at her from a lower floor would surprise her, but it wouldn’t be able to get to her.
The only reason Shadow Crushed-Nuts managed to ‘come up from below’ after Sydney deployed her Bubble, is because he was already inside the Bubble area when it went up!
Actually if you go back and look, she hadn’t deployed her shield until after he punched her. She just sort of fell down and hit the shield on a mode that was big enough to include him.
I love the comments and DaveB’s blog includes discussion of the ideas from every other story universe ever written. Though I haven’t seen much about Jason and the Argonauts or Xena.
Well, Sydney did just ‘fleece’ that golem out of his arm.
There is an entire faction, the Odysians, which inspired Greek mythology. Of which Jason may well have been (or possibly still be) a member!
Wasn’t Jason just a normal guy? He never had any superpowers besides leadership and even this power wasn’t so super.
He was the great-grandson of the god Hermes So it is entirely possible that he was immortal by birth. And, even if not, he was favoured by the goddess Hera (the Queen of Heaven, wife of Zeus), so she could well have granted that to him. Well if the part about him failing in his vow to love his wife forever was incorrect, thus not resulting in loosing her favour and dying as a result.
Being a soppy romantic I always envisage a hero doing the right thing, especially where love is concerned!
Don’t you mean “wuv”, with an Earth double-you? (this message translated from intercepted communications from Omicron Persei-8)
Wuv should not be treated lightly, not when a vow is made. In the truly devoted, it should go beyond the words and transcend death.
But, of course, that is not necessary when true love is involved.
Note how Pwincef Buwucuh never said “I Do”?
Of course not, she would never betray her true love, not even under duress!
Buttercup: Oh, Westley, will you ever forgive me?
Westley: What hideous sin have you committed lately?
Buttercup: I got married. I didn’t want to. It all happened so fast.
Westley: It never happened.
Buttercup: What?
Westley: It never happened.
Buttercup: But it did. I was there. This old man said, “Man and wife.”
Westley: Did you say, “I do”?
Buttercup: No. We sort of skipped that part.
Westley: Then you’re not married. If you didn’t say it, you didn’t do it.
A fact I mean to remedy shortly..
Remedy what? o_O
Sounds like K. Drakor intends to propose!
Actually that is what Prince Humperdink said as he entered the room after the marriage lesson by Westley.
Oh phew, I was afraid you were trying to get in between true love!
Silly dog. I could never get between true love. *Reaches down and gently strokes Yorp between the ears.*
Oooh… Just had a thought. What if that golemwhatever isn’t programmed? What if Sciona is remote controlling it? That’d bring a level or two of scary to the mix…
Actually that would be a bonus (unless it also has autonomous control as a backup), given that it is preventing her from engaging them herself. Whilst she is busy controlling the golem, she is not getting up to other mischief, like destroying the next sigil!
Though that would imply that Sciona isnt much smarter than a chicken ^^.This Golem has literally done nothing that would put it above simian level intelligence so far.
What it has done is use sensible tactics. Which, admittedly a monkey might have done. But so might a four star general. The results have been impeccable, up until hitting an impenetrable force field. Which might give even a general pause to assess its capabilities, in the same manner as illustrated above. So we can’t really appraise the upper bound of the controlling intelligence, only the lower.
Not especially,the smartest thing its done is back up and raise shields and that could be a preprogrammed response to getting a ton of flashlight thrown at it.Other than that most its actions hae been crude as heck.
You omit the intelligence shown by choosing not to raise the shield earlier, when it might have interfered with its own attacks.
But, other than that, we are in agreement that its tactics are no greater than a trained monkey might have. However there has been no need for more than that, so I stand by my comment that there could be any level of intelligence behind it.
Especially if they are mulit-tasking and, for instance, issuing orders to other minions, as we might expect either Sciona, or the hypothetical general, to be doing.
The more I see of Sciona the more I think she lost some brain when she got half her head cut off.If Sciona has minions you can bet they more near brainless golems as with her blood fetish living minions dont last all that long.Still I supose she could be ordering around some manikillers instead of running away from the ALL the council plus a ton of suerheros ground zero that she surely knows thats coming.Now if she had 50 Midboss golems I could understand her thinking she has a chance…..
She is a supernatural villainess and has indeed had her brain severed, so both her base motivations and judgement capability are unknowns to us. However she clearly is capable of commanding sufficient magics to rise from the mostly dead, create enchanted minions, command the respect and servitude of an elder vampire and easily defeat both an invisible great cat and an apex superheroine in training.
Perhaps she is not overconfident? Rather she might be justifiably confident.
Or she may just be insane.
She didn’t have her brain severed. She had her body severed. Context is important! :-P
Not exactly true. There is the brain stem, the medulla oblongata, and the top of the spinal cord which are all need to function properly at the base of the skull, and if I remember correctly her head may have been severed higher than that in the back.
Hm…..Actually you just gave me a disturbing thought,What if Scionas only the catspaw in all this and the real villain just wanted to use her as a fallguy for the own plans to break the weil-er i mean veil?
We already saw the true mastermind’s scout observing the Council Meeting. The raccoon is one of the agents of … [pause for dramatic effect] … the Evil Squirrel Overlord!
She has a presumably old vampire as an ally and she treats him like a minion. It hints that there might be more to here.
Running away might not be the wisest choice. Her hideout is protectet by wards and whatever else. Home advantage is probably her best bet. She does not know what is coming for her. And the Veil is not reliable enough at the moment to protect her from ARC and the Council.
Theres no way her base is secure enough to withstand a siege made up of many many angry supernaturals spearheaded by budget superman.Her wards are only designed to show her someones sneaking in and from the look of her after she met Pixel just one sufficiently dangerous council member wrecked her pretty badly on her own turf dispite her alleged defences.
If I was her id be setting up shop in Freddy Fazbears Pizzaria as we speak.
Anyone else just get a vision of a Achilles casually strolling through the wards as things explode around him?
Not impenetrable. Penetration resistant.
Unlike Dabbler (she told me to say that)
So, if she could smack away the Sword of Omens, could Sydney slso smack away Thor’s hammer?
Well, she might be able to send it flying – assuming Thor wasn’t gripping it tightly* – but if I recall correctly (and I’m embarrassed to say it’s been a while since I’ve re-read the Eddas) doesn’t Mjöllnir return to his hand? which would make batting it away either pointless or a fun game, depending on the circumstances, i guess.
* I’m assuming here that if Maxima on full strength counts as a 9, then the divine strength of the almighty god Thor must rate at the least in triple figures :)
… gah tone of that comment came across wrong, was trying for chatty and missed. sorry! on the bright (?) side, it reminds me of that great joke though:
Where do mansplainers get their water?
From a well, actually.
Swatting away Mjolnr is still a viable tactic as it stalls Thor for time, and doesn’t allow him to fire off lightning bolts, which he requires Mjolnr in hand to do.
It would be funny if Sydney could pick up the hammer since ‘worthy’ is not exactly defined…
I think Sydney would be eminently worthy of picking up the hammer. Especially if it appraises heroic ideals, goodness and bravery as being key components of that.
If it deducts points for silliness and wacky behaviour she might have a problem though.
If that were the case, then Thor himself would not have been able to use it. The mythology makes him out to be a loud obnoxious drunk prone to poor choices.
it’s not heroic ideals, it’s warrior spirit, IIRC. For example, Superman can’t lift it, IIRC (he’s not a warrior) but Wonder Woman can. (and warrior spirit doesn’t have to mean fighting- Thor once got it passed back to him by a paramedic or EMT (I’m not sure which) and by the time he realised what had happened, they had already gone.) Sydney may or may not be able to pick it up.
Just look at how keen Sydney was to use the minigun and say that does not indicate warrior spirit. Likewise she fought the premiere martial artist in Archon (and possibly the world), not once but twice. Even beating him the first time. Plus she was willing to risk death fighting the bank robbers and Vehemence. In that case beating him despite the fact that he was clearly overwhelming the most powerful super human known on the planet.
I think she qualifies on that account.
Where it may judge her ill is her squeamishness at killing or dismembering a person, given that it probably holds such in poor esteem, being from a more bloodthirsty culture than our own. But she has shown fighting instincts in response to her first sighting of a demon, and when initially surprised by a teleporter.
Likewise in her terrifying assault on a mugger, in England. And finally her glee at crushing Shadow Boxer’s manhood may redeem her fully, for the hammer.
She qualifies for Valhalla, at the absolute least. Though, that doesn’t mean anything where Sindri and Brokkr forged it.
If a gadfly made them cut the handle too short, just imagine the screwups Sydney could cause!
Also in the the new Thor: Goddess of Thunder, even Odin, the maker of Mjolnir was considered unworthy to lift the hammer. Think about that for awhile. The hammer chooses who wields it and who can lift it. What is stopping the hammer from having a grand ole time with Sydney, full of wacky adventures and zany goodness?
She does make a zany goddess.
In references to the silly/wacky points handicap.
Reminds me of a story where a weapon could only be wielded by the pure of heart… and the bad guy qualified, because it didn’t say anything about pure what of heart.
So can you lift it if you have a body of pure hero (heart 8nclude grafted on your beheaded head
it also reminds me of a Full Frontal Nerdity strip- the DM said the Macguffin was behind a shield that barred people with a “good” motive from getting at the Macguffin. It’s just a shame the players had already established their characters were only doing it for the money.
It is also simple to bypass that restriction by …
[Ickyess alert. Don’t read this bit Sydney!]
… cutting the heart out of one of the pure, and making that into a pair of gloves.
Are you talking about Harm?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VpwBPHgALSg
DaveB, I love how you treat magic as just “energy-manipulating programming”.
Its really cool.
Here in the UK, a hole in the wall between the kitchen and dining room would be called a serving hatch. It would usually have doors, and just be big enough to pass a tray of food through.
They (the large open areas in the wall between kitchen and dining/living areas) are fairly popular in the US. And it makes sense. The kitchen is, in my experience, where a lot of congregating usually occurs during parties or family get-togethers, because that is where the host and or hostess will be doing some prep work for the gathering. The open area allows the host and/or hostess to chat with the guests while also keeping them out of the way.
Having the kitchen hidden away seems to me like it might be a fine thing if you’re wealthy enough to have kitchen staff, but not something you’d like if you were not.
The hatch, to close it, is mainly for the convenience of avoiding any strong smells from distracting guests, or making them hungry before the meal is served. Likewise some folks (such as my mum) find being watched, whilst cooking, to be stressful.
At other times, the hatch can be left open, in order that guests can see the kitchen, or to give a bit more space in a more compact dining room.
Not everyone in the UK lives in a large country mansion, with a staff of servants.
*discreetly brushes present accommodation, and personal upbringing, under the carpet with a paw*
Wow! Syd managed to hurt it even with its deflector shields up. Look at those score marks. Just imagine an unshielded hit!
Those might be from the initial barrage before it got the shield up though.
Plus Pixel got in one good swipe, which might be the damage we see on the right side of its chest in panel 1. Although I thought she got it on the left side, but I’m not paging back to be sure.
just re-read the whole comic the last couple of days, and one thing came to mind (besides the need for a better high res patreon version of the comic, browsing it in the wrong order is awkward at best)….
The super gene, it is kind of insane how supers work, but what if….
The one mutation basically gave a bunch of people the fleshmaster gene (the ability to (in this case subconsciously) alter their own DNA).
Then when max came into contact with some alien DNA her own self extracted that into a useful mutation and applied it to herself, all supers being pretty is just because they subconsciously wanted to be (programmed into them by popular media, etc) and took the best bits of DNA they encountered during their life (up to a certain trigger point) to become like they are now.
The occurrence of supers could then also skyrocket as people have more contact with other supers or aliens and supernatural because the “normal” people with the gene (that did not get triggered)might outnumber those that have powers by a fair margin.
Varia can be seen as having an accelerated version of this as her power, or maybe her power is actually broken since it should have permanently made her the most powerful thing it could have by a certain age.
To explain why they all haven’t copied maxima’s powers by now I would assume that They are mutable till a certain age, and can remain inert when not trigged by outside stimuli, such as alien DNA.
what do you guys think about my random thought?
Applying this to Pixel would mean that this gene (if there really is a single gene that can be traced down to this) is attached to the animal part of her DNA, which is why it only activates in her non-human forms.
Though while this sounds as a nice starting point on the idea of the origin of supers, to me it feels a bit lacking in certain areas. Supers have abilities that are beyond what is capable by a human body which I feel can’t be explained just by their DNA being different.
Telekenisis can be a mental power, most ow what maxima does can(and has been) be explained in such a way, give me an example?
Turning into lightning such as Jiggawatt did for example.
Concretia turned intangible to shift into the concrete before she could mold it around herself.
Opal and her portals.
Harem with both her multiple bodies / quantum mind and her teleporting.
Pretty much anything where the character turned their body into a non-physical element or broke space time.
And that is factoring in that telekinesis is a result of a changed mind and different ways of (subconscious) applying it are how different powers are formed.
The turning intangible, breaking the laws of physics would definitely require some creative, interpretation of physics ;)
lets give that a try, shall we?
The portal bit could definitely be a mental transformation, some kind of energy projection to create portals, besides she needed to concentrate to manage it.
Harem too can be mostly mental, still unsure how/what quantum parts there are in a normal brain but the most astonishing is a apparent limited power to manifest mater(a body) and store that energy internally, utilizing it to be stronger somehow…. She could just be a very advanced (subconscious) telepathic/telekinetic using some kind additional energy to matter conversion (and reverse).
Concretia we could see as her existing in (or shifting to?) another plane/dimension and having mental powers that move/animate? mater, creative, no?
Jiggawatt is problematic, maybe she dematerializes, separates the energy from the consciousness, stores that in some different dimension and then directs said energy. the ability to dematerialize can be another mental transformation, i guess…. but this is getting fairly close to Ascension as in Stargate…
but then it’s a comic book, so who cares about physics? I think the basic idea stands on the wobbly premise that comic-book powers defy physics already anyway.
The thing is, Telekinesis, though it can account for a vast number of common powers, is itself nearly impossible to justify. Psychic abilities less so, due to the infinite range of magnetic field interactions and the fact that human brains operate on electrical impulses- that could also explain certain transmutative abilities (interacting with the electrical forces in atoms and molecules) or other kineses (pyro, electro, even aero, geo or magneto) via a brain or nervous system that somehow sets up cascading waveforms within those electromagnetic fields.
However, doing anything that has to interact with gravity on a significant, macro level (floating objects/self, certain types of non-physical strength or durability [that is, those that utilize telekinetic effects as opposed to those that supercharge muscles, interact with the Earth’s magnetosphere or cause repellant electromagnetic forces in colliding objects], probably portal/wormhole or other sorts of transpositional types of powers) can’t be explained in the same way.
All things that affect the physical world must interact with one of the 4 Primal Forces of the universe (unless you’re including more, in which case all bets are off for using current Physics models)- the Strong Force, the Weak Force, the Electromagnetic Force, and the Gravitational Force. We KNOW that we can interact with the EM forces with our biology, by generating electrical charges. Sodium Pumps for the win.
HOWEVER! The only ways we know of affecting the other 3 forces involve particles that we cannot produce or influence with our current biology. These forces are what you need to be concerned about with the above Gravitic powers, disintegration or strengthening abilities (Strong Force), or Entropy powers (Weak Force). And to interact with these Forces, you basically need particle accelerators. Theoretically, you could have a biological Atom-Smasher, but it would be unlikely, and look entirely non-human in micro scale, if not macro (Maxima might be an example, as her skin is apparently entirely impermeable to high-energy radiation and she shows evidence of being able to generate much higher amounts of energy than biological fuel processing would suggest).
For everything else, you’ve gotta go Quantum.
Pseudoscience quantum stuff can be used to explain a lot of the less straightforward powers. Take Anvil, for example.
Now, what she’s doing could be attributed to electromagnetic repulsion negating incoming energy and accelerating outgoing force, with the ‘absorb and release’ mechanic being merely a psychosomatic block on her part. Or she actually has specialized cellular structures that convert physical force to electromagnetic charge that gets stored in different microstructers, and can be reverted at-will. Or even straight up ‘hyperspring’ bio-mechanisms in her dermis. Those would all be known by the doctors examining her, though, and would probably have led to incredible advances in armour and crash protection technology.
But if we’re going with the Superhero “biologically human, but with powers” angle, you gotta start getting into Probability Waveforms and the like. I personally LOVE the whole “All realities are existant until a single one is observed” interpretation of the quantum uncertainty principle (Shroedinger) as a way to handwave superpowers at a level of detail where it might be possible.
So back to Anvil. What she could be doing is sort of ‘expanding’ the probability waveform of her being imparted that kinetic energy into a standing wave that she can then ‘collapse’ back onto a target of her choosing. Any redirection power might work like this, sort of ‘pausing’ the effect of what is hitting them until they decide to ‘play’ it with different vectorage. This is also basically how/what Havem is. Her different selves are all different probabilities of herself, observed together or in different locations.
Every other strange power is basically a specialized form of Magic, in that Magic is a more generalized utilization of this ability to ‘observe what you want’. In essence, Magic’s various rituals, training, etc., are all tools to fool the observer (you, the universe, your audience, Gaia, what have you) into ‘Observing’ a specific outcome- because all things are possible, just not probable- it’s improbable for two 6-foot-diameter circular planes of space separated by miles on a planet to suddenly touch (Opal’s portals) or a handful of marbles to move against gravity and suddenly gain inertial vectors (Vektor)- but it’s not impossible, and Superpowers (or rather, naturally occuring mental pathways that channel Magic in that specific way and no other) merely… increase that probability. That sort of thing would also do a lot to boost the usability of other powers- Jiggawatt could, for example, theoretically convert all of her atoms into charged particles that travel along a specific path and continue to act as the pattern that forms her consciousness using very particular impulses of a specially-grown nervous system heterodyning electromagnetic fields via wave-amplification in such a way that those waves will then later collapse said particles back into solid, non-radioactive atoms in the same configuration at the other end (you know, teleportation via lightning-bolt), but the complexity of that means the probability of it succeeding is very, very low. Therefore, it probably gets a boost from said quantum wibbly-wobbly.
TL;DR- Some superpowers are theoretically possible because our brains are electrical, most would only work because we believe real hard which is what Magic is.
Wow, that went a lot more technical than I expected, and I can’t honestly say I understood every single part of it (though more due to a lack of personal expertise in these fields than the explanations themselves) but I think I got what you are saying. Impressive piece of work you typed out there.
My mind is damaged, and I can’t concentrate well, but here’s my Harem:
A combination of Far Sight (a telepathic ability that lets you see in real time somewhere you’re familiar with- it’s a real thing btw no matter how nuts it sounds) and the odd occurrence of someone being in two places at once (it’s also a real thing) due to astral projection.
Astrally projects herself to places she can actively see or remember sufficiently, and that gets her multiple bodies. But as she says, one mind. Anyway (dangit my blood sugar is low) its something about telekinesis that gets her the other bodies to materialize (kind of like how the Doctor on Star Trek Voyager didn’t have a body, but seemed to, because of force fields and holograms- its the same with illusions and telekinesis).
There.
Concretia: She’s a ghost with telekinesis. We didn’t see a flesh body; the first one that got smashed was abandoned like it was nothing, the second was formed and blown apart by Peggy. But we’ve never seen her ‘real’ body, so I’d assume she died awhile ago. Just destroying her stone forms tires her out, but she can’t actually be hurt.
If Concretia really is a ghost (I don’t think ghosts or similar superhuman beings were mentioned at the Twilight Council but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist here) than she is a mythical creature and not a super, which puts her outside the scope of how changes to the DNA could result in the powers of a super.
I don’t think Concretia is a ghost though. It would be kind of odd for Vehemence to round up a large number of supers and then include just one (1) mythical creature. It is not impossible and there are probably lots of reasons for why a single mythical creature showed up but that is a whole different kind of discussion.
Just about everything seems to exist in the Grrlpower universe. We have:
Superheroes
Vampires
Werewolves
– OurWeresAreDifferent (See: WereMammals. See: Pixil. See: Thumper)
Fairies/Pixies (the little winged girl)
A whole host of alien races
Succubi
– A broad category of Succubus related fantasy beings (See: Dabbler in school)
Magic
– Magic-users
– Sub-categories of magic (See: Blood magic. See: Sciona)
Magic artifacts (See: Gal with the hammerspace book, etc.)
– Subcategories of magic artifacts (See: Living magic artifacts. See: Icon)
[I’ll just block out some space here for the various factions which make up The Council, a few of which I’ve covered but many, many more of which remain]
Trolls (Referenced by Sciona)
Whatever made Sydney’s orbs
Whatever Krona is, since it seems to be outside of both magic and superpowers
No Gojira (ゴジラ)-like creatures though. In New York! What is the point of going to New York if you do not get to see a giant rampaging monster‽
He moved to D.C.
Once you start thinking about shifting to other planes of existence, dematerializing, and separating the mind from the body in pocket dimensions you’re going outside of what a physical body, even a changed body, is capable of. In my opinion anyway.
But like you said, these are comic book rules, and for any of this kind of stuff to work we already have to imagine regular physics taking a step back and thinking ‘You want to do what? Psst, sure, whatever, do what you want’.
Good ol’ MST3K theme rules.
and yes I did think about pixel like that, but that also means her animal DNA is only active when transformed which questions the nature of wheres (and is a little bit of a different topic), they must have some common bits of DNA to allow for supers that are always both were and super?
Hr’rmm…
If the ‘super’ gene is attached to her ‘animal’ DNA, wouldn’t that imply the potential existence of ‘super-animals’ too?
not necessarily don’t question DNA in combination with were-creature transformation :P
Interesting and viable.
Krypto is neither of those things!
Rocket is, though.
So are you, Yorp. *pets*
If the blood adds “primitive survival and instinctual behavior”, can the thing be trained like an animal? “Bad doggy, no arm for you!”
He he.
Bad robot, bad!
But poor Krona. All bruised. Somebody needs to give her a hug!
OW! No hugging people with shoulder injuries. That sound like the sitcom situation where a person with a bad sunburn inevitably gets slapped on the back.
It is possible to hug gently, whilst avoiding ouchies.
:-P
How about a ‘deep’ massage?… :-))
be careful or she will mess with your settings
You really need to win her affections before that becomes ethically viable. Seeing her like she is above I certainly would be willing to try, if Sydney was unavailable.
Maybe if the massage is for the purpose of -gently- applying aloe…?
Syndey: a master of distraction (her own and others”).
Man, some poor bear is having a bad day in that forest. All he wanted to do was have a dump, then the forest catches on fire! Now he has an arm hurled at him!
I just hope he can bear it!
He’s armed now, though, right? That’s an inalienable right, the right to bear arms.
Well, one could argue that Sydney is exercising her Right to Arm Bears…
*laughs hard enough that soda sprays out of my nostrils*
This is America. He has the right to.
How would the headgear of this person….
https://www.yojoe.com/images/resize/w/MAX/filecard/86joes/lifttick.jpg
…look on Peggy?
exactly the same, that’s Peggy in the pic!
;P
Silly? ;)
I’m surprised Sydney passed up the chance to literally beat it to death with it’s own arm.
Also, see my comment last page on Sydney only allowed to use the Lighthook in combat from now on.
Heh, yea.
She just found out its got animal level intelligence so she wants to play fetch with it!lol Silly Sydney!Dogs are much smarter than this thing!
At the same time saying “Stop hitting yourself! Stop hitting yourself!” :D
When your golem’s out of line, you must whip it!
When its arm you must deny, you must whip it!
Apologies to Devo and MST3K for that.
If Sydney is so interested in seeing how the golem works, she could just activate the truesight orb and turn on the magic scanner. Maybe she could find a weak spot to attack.
+1
Likewise using the truesight orb might give her clues and/or warn her of anything else, in the area, that is not what it appears to be.
Like a small exhaust port in the back?
If only she had a torpedo-shaped object to insert…
Well, crap, threw it away, didn’t she?
Tubey is in her quarters, safe and sound! Harem could ‘port there, and retrieve it, if one of her other bodies can be spared from a team.
Note to Maxima. Never commit all five of Harem’s bodies to places where they are indispensable. She needs at least one free, at all times, in order to pick up munitions and other important equipment! Let alone to provide support and additional combat tactics and capabilities to any of her bodies which need it.
Didn’t we see only four Daphne’s?
Sort of. Four on the other teams, plus one on this team.
Thank you, couldn’t remember if we saw all four of the other Daphne’s (almost didn’t recognize Berry in her disguise {what? it fooled me :(}, but it was Gothamer couldn’t recall seeing)
But if we have seen all five Harems, how is she supposed to act as a double agent for Deus, who suffers from Villinous Hyenious?
If its a bloody based golem, Then in theory, it shoudl have a high magical reserve and it should have a whole suite of pseudo partial abilities. Given what its been feeding off of anyway..
it might even have some of our panther girl given the reset seems to bevery locallized so it might actually not have affected in the base..
THough that leaves a fun question.
if it didn’t extend into the base, but still plucked Pink Panther… did it taket he blood she’d already “given” or did that blood also port? Which could cause an amusign issue later
Language, please!
Just as well Sydney batted away its arm, if you are right. Otherwise it might have been able to manifest laser claws, from its fingers!
Fingers, which it definitely has!
It used to. Now it only has a tentacle. Its fingers are currently bouncing off a bear’s head, along with the rest of the arm that Sydney just hurled.
Let’s just hope that Pixel’s laser claws are laser claws, and not ‘laser digits a specific percentage length longer than the digit’ and simply attached to her claws.
Otherwise that tentacle has a very, very, long laser it can extend.
Krona, be glad your arm hurts instead of back and neck. Likely, you wouldn’t be feeling anything below that. You might want to get a doctor to look at it; Archon has a really good one. The other option is to feel no pain at all, a probable consequence of hitting the ground after an awkward two-story fall. You doctor in that case would be the coroner.
Yeah Sydney nearly Gwen Stacied her.
Hey, running blind is the runner’s fault. Krona could easily have chosen to run at right angles to the bright display. Plus she is an experienced S.V. and federal agent, so will have had combat training.
But, from the point of view of feeling guilty (which Spider Man did, despite it having been the villain who was morally at fault) your analogy is fair.
As I recall Gwen Stacy being dead before she hit the ground is a retcon,Originally she died from a broken neck due to being stopped so roughly by spideys webbing.Funnily enough though the reason we havent seen Harem so long is she probably had to do a fair bit of porting trickery to stop Krona from being seriously hurt herself ^^.
The point is that Gwen was going to die if Spidey failed to intervene, and the physics of the situation meant that his attempt was doomed to failure. As Oberon points out below the proximate cause of her death is the villain who caused the fall.
Every super hero will come to a point where they are unable to save someone, despite all their super powers. Sydney is fortunate that she has ended up in a capable team, where if one person is not in a position to help, there is a good chance that a teammate will be able to stand in.
Harem did a good job. She is no more to blame for Krona’s bruises and probable dislocated shoulder than Sydney is. Ultimately, of course, it is the Evil Squirrel Overlord, who shoulders the responsibility. He is the one who maneuvered Sciona into this scheme, with the current result of deploying this construct against the team.
Curse you Squirrel Overlord!*Waves angry fist!*
Yeah, but that whole episode was just a combination of bad writing combined with bad physics. I mean, Spiderman has webs of all kinds, and grabbing Gwen’s ankle with a stretchy web would be no more of a shock to the neck than is bungee jumping. While I’m sure people have been injured bungee jumping, I don’t recall any broken necks except for the case of the university student who miscounted the floors on a building and made his bungee cord just a bit too long. And that wasn’t due to having the fall slowed by the cord, it was due to the cord failing to slow the fall entirely. And I actually do not recall if he broke his neck, just that the stop was fatal.
Hell, even assuming that Spidey didn’t have a stretchy web to use, he could have just done some of his trademark acrobatics and turned her free-fall into a pendulum motion just by moving far enough away from being directly over her. Anyone who has seen that issue has seen that Gwen was still a fair distance above the ground, there was time for Spidey to move.
People get caught in comics and movies all the time by superheroes moving way too fast to safely catch a person without killing them. And yet they never seem to suffer any ill effects.
Reference: Neo catching Trinity in The Matrix Reloaded. Note that Neo is “Moving faster than anything I’ve ever seen” and then realize that being “caught” while falling by a 747 moving at top speed, which cannot begin to compare to “faster than anything I’ve ever seen,” is not going to be an experience that you walk away from. Ooze away from in a series of bloody rivlets, perhaps. But not walk away from. “catching” is really a poor word to describe the physics involved. It’s more like a baseball being “caught” by a bat.
Days of Future Past tried and failed to account for this. Holding the head to prevent whiplash is great, but it’s just the bare minimum of lip service to the issue. It isn’t going to protect the body from the extreme acceleration. We aren’t told how fast, but moving fast enough to be invisible is far faster than the body can take going from 0 to whatever in 0 seconds. And all Magneto did was look a little dizzy for about 5 seconds.
Missiles are not manned for many reasons (it has been tried, however…) , one of them being that the human body simply cannot withstand that kind of acceleration no matter how much protective gear it is wearing. And you can still see a missile being launched.
Another reason missiles are not manned is because pigeons do not make the most reliable targeting system. Although I suspect that was just an excuse to avoid having to clean up pigeon poop all the time.
At that time, Spidey hadn’t learnt how to make multitude of differing webbing, and the reason why bungee-jumpers don’t snap their necks is because their body doesn’t suddenly imitate a whip (bungee-jumpers simply fall straight down head-first, and the cord stretches then pulls back upwards, with Gwen, she wasn’t simply stopped, her head moved like the tip of a whip)
Neo catching Trinity: yes, if he just stopped her fall, she would be a fleshy bag of broken bones, but he didn’t, he scooped her up by matching his speed to her velocity, she also wouldn’t have suffered whiplash or shattered bones because he cradled her body absorbing any stress
If you pay close attention to that DoFP scene, Pietr also holds onto his dad’s arm just under the pits to help steady him, plus the arm of the hand holding his head is also against his back, further steadying him (it’s similar to how you are supposed to hold a baby’s head)
The reason missiles aren’t manned, is because it would be a one-way trip
No, he most certainly did not. He did exactly what I described: He flew into Trinity at 747 speed like a car windshield flies into an insect. You can check your windshield for the expected outcome of that meeting. I don’t care how much he was ready to “catch” her, she was dead before he landed to pull the bullet out of her body.
Yes, and Magneto is still a dead man. Because as I already explained it doesn’t matter how much protective gear you put on a pilot, there is an amount of acceleration that the body simply cannot live through. And Quicksilver speed is far, far faster than that limit, as clearly demonstrated by the fact that he is invisible to the eye as he moves. Oh, and an arm under the pits and another cradling the head is not exactly the full body squeezing suits that are meant to keep a pilot from passing out by literally compressing their body enough that the blood can’t quite exit their skulls during a high G turn. Not even close.
Neo had a similar power to Krona though, in that he could change the Matrix code on the fly. Literally, in this case. Tweaking Trinity, to reduce her inertia, would be one alteration that he could have done.
*looks glumly, at the names*
I had to look up Krona’s name, in the Who’s Who.
*sigh*
Then wrote Trinity’s name as “Liberty”. I did not even get suspicious about that, until I started making up a joke, about him ‘having to be careful about not overdoing it, when he restored her inertia, to make sure that she did not turn into a statue’.
*sigh, more deeply*
No, he matched speed with velocity and maintained momentum, all he did was change her direction from vertical to horizontal, at the point of contact they would have both been travelling at the same speed, it would have been little different to throwing a child in the air and catching them and spinning them around
One thing you are ignoring: by holding on to Maggie, Pietrois affording him similar protection that he himself has, the reason why Maggie was nauseous at the end is because he is simply not use to such speeds, it’s why some people can have no problems riding the fastest roller coasters (even after eating a dozen hotdogs) and others throw-up after riding a small one
Wait, you are fixated on the fact Pietro said “whip-lasshh!”? Pietro could have held Maggie by his nose and it wouldn’t have ripped his nose off anymore than if you grabbed someone’s nose and pulled them along because Maggie would have been travelling the same speed as Pietro with his same protective barrier, similar to Maxi’s Zero-touch (or whatever the term was decided on) that allowed her to lift the ecnalubma intact
I am just going to leave this here in regards to the Trinity catch by Neo: https://youtu.be/MjIPfnp1wB0
Hey now! While Sydney was there, she wasn’t responsible for Krona’s fall. That’s the fault of the blood golem-thingy (that’s a technical term) or herself. But you can’t really blame someone for tripping and falling to their death while trying to escape a giant kill-bot that is trying to kill-bot them, can you?
If Syd spent her fricking point Krona wouldve been able to see where she was going,For Krona it was like trying to navigate a room while being hit by infinate flashbangs.
And staring into oncoming car headlights will blind a driver. Yet millions of commuters manage to drive home every night, perfectly safely. It would have been a simple matter to avert her eyes.
Krona was in an understandable panic mind, having been in a blissful state then needing to flee or die. But it is not fair to blame Sydney for Krona choosing to run in the direction of the thing that was blinding her. It is not like they were on a bridge or in a tunnel, with only one direction to go in. Krona could have fled in several directions to get away from the construct.
And her combat training should have taught her not to bunch up with team mates, when under attack. Sydney was in the lead, so it was up to Krona to separate from her.
We know that harmless levels of light and sound can pass through Sydney’s shield.
Is that why radio waves can pass through?
My guess is there is a toggle switch yet to be unlocked for light based/radio wave attacks. It was on page two whrn she talked about it.
I think it blocks high energy levels, so light and radio work as long as it doesn’t reach weapon level output. Kind of like a voltage/current regulator blocking the excess…
Probably goes by intensity rather than wavelength. Comm radio signals are likely scrambled, frequency hopping, and as low intensity as they can manage.
Probably both intensity and wavelength. Microwave (that goes deep into tissue and heats water molecules) would be dangerous at rather lower intensity than some other frequencies.
Heh, every answer so far, in this thread, shows how primitive our technology is, given how prevalant our responses to such problems feature imperfect blunt hammer solutions. The orbs are ultra technomagic, they keep out dangerous things and let in helpful ones.
The one exception being air, but Earth air might well have been considered harmful by the orb manufacturer. They showed good taste with Harem mind.
We are poo flinging monkeys with tools. We’ve learned how to use a hammer, but not how to break things…
Actually, just about everything can pass through her shield, but I’m not sure on exactly what the qualifiers are for blocking.
Go back and read the stuff with Vehemence. Before he started fighting, and Sydney was just standing there talking with him, he was partially inside her shield simply because she walked up to him.
Ahh you missed part of the significance of the scene. Sydney did not move, rather she sent the lightbee to project an image of herself. It was only an image of the shield which overlapped Vehemence, the real one was on the other side of the battlefield.
The dog is right. Good dog.
Random thought: Dyslexics know that Dog is watching, and god is man’s best friend.
Dog is always with you.
I’m a fan of “No! Bad golem!”
Also: apparently, radio gets through Syd’s shield just fine, but whatever mechanism Harem uses to teleport doesn’t. In fairness, Sydney already noted that visible light gets through the shield unimpeded, but lasers don’t, so it’s beginning to look like the shield has a pretty complicated relationship with EM radiation. That combined with the fact that it can embiggen without popping Sydney or ensmallen without crushing her (despite it not letting gas exchange across it otherwise) suggests that there’s a *lot* of intelligence built into it that they haven’t had much chance to investigate yet.
I, for one, look forward to learning more.
The shield and the EM spectrum are going through a bit of a rough patch the shield just found out that EM had dated his sister’s boyfriend at one point, and EM thought it wasn’t a big deal, and now she wants to see other mystical artifacts, its just… just a mess.
Like sands through the hourglass… So go the Waves of our Lives…
Or is it “So go the Particles of our Lives?” All that crap that moves at the speed of light has such gigantic identity issues, you don’t need to be compounding them just for the sake of a cheap rhyme!
I don’t understand the reference. Help?
The base reference is:
Like sands through the hourglass… So go the days of our Lives…
Hence the initial play combining the relationships implied by that* with your comments on the EM spectrum, as one of the properties of such is that they have wave-like behaviour:
“Like sands through the hourglass… So go the Waves of our Lives…”
But EM radiation (such as light) is not just a wave it can also be considered to be a particle, hence the play:
“So go the Particles of our Lives”
* Not that I have ever seen it, but I have heard of it.
You haven’t seen DooL? You know Harley Quinn? That was where her true origin came from
I have seen her in trailers only. The ‘bad girl’ image is not particularly appealing. In general or from those trailers in particular. Likewise the crop of fan art that sprung up. Although clearly, from that, she does appeal to others.
Maybe once I have seen more of her, in the movies themselves, I may change my mind.
Forget that trash movie, watch the old “Batman: The Animated Series” that is the true Harley, not some Aussie hooker
So many great scenes, like with her ‘puddin’ and reving up Joker’s Harley
So many great moments, even a few in the Superman series: mercy mercy me :D
Poor abused girl!
Sadly close to the mark for some women in abusive relationships. Especially so when they do not take the opportunity to walk away, when the opportunity presents itself, despite being urged to. Unfortunately life does not always allow simple ‘logical’ solutions to be used.
For the longest time Ive thought that the orbs have some kind of AI monitoring Sydney at all times,Possibly one thats fully sentient and smart enough not to let anyone realise its existance.In short i think the shields mostly lets through things that wont harm/are needed by the wielder like light etc but keeps out eerything else.Of course if thats true it means the makers of the orbs didnt need to breathe air*shrugs*.
Well, they are either monitoring Sydney or themselves in order to determine when to award another level-up. And it’s clear that they have some kind of Sydney monitoring in place, since they settle down and go semi-dormant when Sydney is asleep.
Heh, congrats on hitting on a plausible solution. Albeit that there are ways that advanced technomagic can achieve the same result, but without a complex intelligence being involved. One example I have proposed, in the past, is that they might just keep scanning the future and determining whether Sydney survives, if a particular energy or substance is allowed to pass through the shield (or not).
If Sydney continues to have a long and happy life with one option, but the reverse happens with the other, then it uses the former. Likewise with monitoring life signs and injury, for any situation where there is no obvious contender on the previous criteria.
All possible with relatively simple rules that could be programmed in. No one being more complicated than the collision avoidance that the orbs clearly must have (from not having hit one person accidentally, despite having been in crowded conditions several times with them).
Personally Im not a fan of the idea of the orbs monitoring the future,Of course thats mainly cause I consider time trickery in any form to be one of the most broken powers in existance(Way up there with reality warping).
That said if the orbs were only interested in their users survival Id be ok with that being revealed by the orbs aggressively putting others in danger to keep Syd alive.For a start it would create some interesting drama along the lines of “WHY DID YOU FIRE THE PEWPEW ORB AT HIM!??!?!YOU NEARLY KILLED ME!!!!” Sydney: I didnt!I was trying to extend my shields!
Ahh you have extended it beyond my proposal. I was only stating that as a mechanism for determining what things to let through the shield. That is a safe use of a ‘dumb’ system. The wider you extend such the more likely you are to get situations that are undesirable, exactly as per your proposal.
The purpose of the shield is to protect the user from harm, so having a mechanism which supports that specifically is good. The PPO could be used for a very wide variety of purposes, so it is far harder to build in safeties which may not have bad consequences.
Even saying “do not fire the PPO, if the user’s body is in the path” can be bad, if they are attempting to amputate a badly infected limb, as an example. That could well result in the user dying.
And scanning the future to check if the user dies or not, to determine whether it is OK to fire, may result in someone being unable to kill themselves to avoid a slow and painful death. A dumb system is not fit to make such ethical judgements, only the user is.
Hmm you have a good point there,In a wierd way it would also explain why the shield never lets air in,If Syd passes out she stops holding the shield orb so a dumb AI wouldnt be able to join the dots since airloss isnt causing her to die.
Just had a random thought about the shield changing sizes. Anyone ever mess with Conway’s Game of Life? I imagine her shield like that now, billions of complicatedly-interacting energy packets that reshift and reshuffle constantly, not because things change, but because it’s part of how they exist. When the shield grows, they “step” outward, “stepping over” tiny tiny pockets of air.
Conway’s Game of Life
At one place I worked, there was a text editor with some really powerful programming capabilities… provided you wanted to do string manipulation. Math stuff? There were I think 18 variables that could contain integers, and 18 that could contain line numbers (format nnnn.nnnn). And 18 storage areas that could be treated as either text to edit, or code, and switch back and forth between them.
In that environment I managed to write Conway’s Life. As string manipulation. Using code that wrote code. (Of course the code that got written was really simple – “call this other prewritten code, passing it your line number as a parameter”.)
Maybe that is what happens when Sydney fills in the middle of her skill tree, the next iteration of the orbs is created using the rules of Life.
Make sure you have the right pattern Sydney, or you could be loosing some of your powers! Get more, not less.
The closeup of the battle damage to the golem shows the effectiveness of the new exploding impact energy incendiary ordnance. (or EIEIO if you’re hip). Each one can go through about an inch of armor plating. If she can control the fire rate then she could use one to take down a door. It would also be cool if she can get it up to mini-gun speed of around 3000 rounds per minute.
Can she use the EIEIO to farm mannekillers?
That takes a level of skill that only Old Mac Donald has learned so far.
… and on that farm she had some orbs, one of which was armed with EIEIO…
Well, that specific armor plating. Who knows what materials and enhancements it has.
I wanna know how late you stayed up making that acronym.
So envious…
+1
And now I’ve THAT song in my head. Thank YOU so very much. :(
You mean THIS song? o_O
You don’t think I’m actually going to fall for that do you?
He was asking a question, so the content is reasonable to infer. It is not like he was claiming to link to a really good video whilst actually Rick-rolling you.