Grrl Power #540 – Bubble trouble
Ok, I will admit, that pool is ridiculous, especially considering it’s on like the 10th floor of the building. Actually, more like the 7th through 10th. I don’t think it’s probably even possible to do that. The weight might be manageable, but the outward pressure the water would exhibit on the walls would be considerable, so let’s just say some metal-kinetic helped build it or something.
This seems like a pretty dumb mistake for Sydney to make, but consider this. Imagine you’re playing a Grrl Power video game, and when you’re playing as Sydney, you have to hold the left bumper to pull up a radial menu to select an orb for her left hand, and the right bumper to do the same for the right. (Or Q and E on the PC, obviously.) Tell me you wouldn’t at least one time, while flying over the lava level, accidentally replace the shield orb with the Lighthook, and comically flail around with the whip as Sydney turns into a sparkler then tumbles into the nearby bubbling caldera, forcing Krona to pop her checkpoint on you. (By the time the game comes out, she will have worked out the bugs.)
Dabbler’s level would be a Boris Vallejo-esqe scanty clad world, only she’d be shooting the trolls with railguns and chain lightning spells. Also her other level would be the alien bazaar. Maybe that would be her hub area. Yeah, I think about this stuff even though I don’t know how to program or have any time to work on a game.
This page colored by Keith.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
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"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Oh come on, Sydney. Batman can breathe in water!
…or in space, because BATMAN. Which makes less than no sense, making Batman who he is tho.
He can not breath in space.
He just always has a Bad-gadget that allows him to breath in whatever environment you put him in.
You mean “Bat-gadget,” right?
Bad/Bat, it was all science fiction until they were actually made. It’s called a rebreather. And TRITON has one made. Works for 45 minutes, doesn’t look like a giant face covering mask, and is considerably smaller thank you’d expect.
That may be true but this one includes a radio built in for communication. The Triton rebreather is a mouth piece and would prevent clear communications.
It is still science fiction, as the Triton rebreather don’t work at all. It is completely impossible for such a small device to filter enough oxygen out of water for you to be able to breath underwater.
https://gearjunkie.com/triton-artificial-gills-breathe-underwater
https://gearjunkie.com/refunded-triton-artificial-gills-campaign-update
Also: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/triton-world-s-last-artificial-gills-scam#/
Also: https://youtu.be/S5ep2vUMJt0?list=LLn9IvNSomv916x95ODRNkgg
Sorry, forgot the explanation there. That is a Busted video by Thunderf00t where he explains exactly why the Triton is impossible with all currently known physics, and even what the images the scammers used really are.
Awe dam… and here I was hoping it was real.
My apologies if I’m explaining things you already know, but the meme came from a webcomic, Shortpacked, that pointed out that the space exploration Batman figure did not have a full helmet.
https://www.shortpacked.com/2005/comic/book-1-brings-back-the-80s/01-just-a-toy-store/batman-can-breathe-in-space/
I figured it was from the training montage:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2010
Those were the two things I thought about when I wrote the comment.
You clearly have Batman-level detective skills.
This reminds me of one of the bugs in Arkham Asylum (and I’ll explain exactly WHY it reminds me of this particular bug in just a minute).
One of Batman’s finishing moves in the game is to straddle the enemy’s chest and punch them in the face, knocking them unconscious. But every once in a while, the inmate falls on his face, so Batman straddles his back and punches them in the ass, knocking them unconscious. (On an even more rare occasion, it is OWW-inspiring to see Batman punch them in the balls.)
Now, the reason I’m reminded of this bug is because Batman is well-known for being Crazy Prepared, such as Batman’s face mask for breathing in space. If anyone knows how to knock someone out by punching them in the ass, it’s Batman.
Dang – she coulda drowned but for Maxima….
She wouldn’t have been here without expert supervision.
I love Sydney, but she’s not SEAL material… That sort of thing is what they test for…
Oh by the way Dave, that is amazing art in the first panel. It’s easy to take that sort of thing for granted…
Yes, I agree.
Though if I am to nitpick, the things out of the pool (the small structure) should not be visible, water, when looked at from underneath in any angle above a very small one act as a mirror.
On second thought, the same effect should have also “flattened” the pool in panel 10 of the previous update.
I think you are looking at this the wrong way…
The critical angle for the water to air boundary is almost 50 degrees, so you have a pretty large visible area. And the way the light refracts means that in that circle you can actually see the full 180 degrees.
It’s a bit like setting the view angle to 180 degrees in a first person shooter. You get a 180 degree field of view on a monitor that takes up about 30 degrees of your field of view… It looks strange at first but you can learn to live with it.
Whilst looking straight up at the surface from below you have a 180 degree field of view of what’s above the surface compressed into almost 100 degrees of your personal FOV.
Yes, I did not know the precise number. Still, the outside structure would not look anything like it does here. For one thing, more of it would be visible, and at least the edges (but I actually think the entire surface area visible in the comics) would be a mirror.
I was originally planning on making it ripply and distorted but I kind of ran out of time.
I like it just how it turned out.
I second this. This is some really well done underwater shots. Seriously well done.
Thanks! It wasn’t too hard to figure out how to do the wavy water effect, but I was kind of learning as I went. Came out okay I think.
I was specifically diving in to comment on how good the effect is, and so was pleased to find it mentioned so near the top of the page.
In particular I like how you adapted the basic technique to work so well on the various elements, other than the most obvious one, of the pool walls. Namely on the surface as well as on the characters.
Plus, in comparing the various frames (and only then) it makes me appreciate how you got the frame with Sydney releasing the Shield Orb to pop out so much. In that you did not have the prominent effects on her, unlike the similar ending shot, with Maxima.
A very well judged decision, as the difference was not apparent to me, without that comparison, so the flow of the page was not harmed. Yet each panel achieved a powerful result, in its own way. Complimenting both characters and their situations superbly.
Well, that is a rather unusual situation, even for seals (effectively being blasted by air).
The loss of your mask on the other hand is practically the first thing you are trained when you want to go scooba diving.
Rapid air displacement, and gravity is not affecting her so she doesn’t move she got seriously slapped in the face by a serious amount of rushing water by surprise. I’m not surprised she lost her mask even with scuba training
Scuba just teaches you that you dont need the mask. Things just look odd. but in this case with the mask and reg as one, mask is a little more important. Still not hard to recover on your own.
Thought Sid was a diver. She shouldn’t be panicking over getting demasked. Being that you have to lose, recover, and purge the mask and regulator to get qualified. She’s got plenty of time. Right arm sweep back and up. Tada. Regulator mask in your hand. Purge, breathe, put on, start working on chains.
this is more losing both her mask and regulator and being covered in what are most likely fairly heavy chains while underwater. also except from breathing out she hasn’t really panicked yet that we can see.
you have to remember the force she just got hit by, that would be like getting it by a 50 foot wave right there.
while true, she just got hit in the face by a considerable force and/or her mask could well have been trapped by one of the chains. this is one case where it’s actually a better idea to let the shield fill with water- she’s breathing off the cylinder ANYWAY- as well as using an actual BC (Buoyancy Compensator- those jackets scuba divers wear that they inflate to go up) to control her buoyancy- which has the added advantage of meaning no chains to cause crap like this.
I guess its just Sydney being Sydney.hopefully shell actually remember her training in the next page cause if she doesnt that means her instructor has no business training anyone.
She wouldn’t have been there but for Maxima in the first place.
Unless the green orb morphs her into a mermaid
My money is (still) on healing for the green orb
Is Sydney going to start use post-its on the orbs?
That may be what the other 2 orbs are for, because one super-focus orb obeying standing orders of safety isn’t enough; you need a “improvise out of the unexpectable” orb too to keep her safe. Plus Krona’s checkpoint doesn’t hurt…
I thought she used duct tape at one point. PS: post-its are almost useless for this kinda thing with an adhd person. (I have adhd, and have long since given up on trying to use them effectively.)
Taking bets on this being the situation where she figures out an orb.
I’ve got five bucks on ‘fair to middlin’ chance
I’ll put my chawin’ backy on “sher as shootin'”.
She’ll have to grab one on instinct. Being attacked by a giant robot doesn’t seem to be as stressful as being submerged and chained. That said, I’d love it if she figured one out now.
That would be pretty cool actually. Sydney during her flailing touches one of the unknown orbs just as Maxima reaches her and she is like “… never mind, I got this. Guess I can breathe underwater now.”
“Blurrp bleerp hlp mxm wait a minute this is okay.”
Or a portal opens up and dumps all the water into Sciona’s basement. Or the pool is suddenly full of butterflies instead of water. Or the chains turn into real hentai tentacles. Wait, “real hentai” is an oxymoron…
‘realistic’ hentai?
Don’t call me a moron just because I breathe oxygen!
Any more of that and I’ll probe you, to learn you the difference. And you know where that goes!
Suckers bet. Impending ball power discovery detected…
Agreed! Plot sense tingling…
Let’s see. I think green lets her breathe the oxygen in the pool around her. Just make sure you don’t extract the chlorine compounds as well.
Sydney: Hey, Max. Guess what? I think I have a lungful of water but I’m okay, cause of this guy! [ Wave the green orb around ] Actually, I guess I two lungs full of water right now. Man, my voice sounds low. I guess this like the opposite of that helium breathing trick.
Maxima: That wasn’t quite what expecting, but good to know. Now, let’s get you untangled and get you out of the water. I’m glad to see you’ve stopped panicking.
Sydney: What was that Max? I think I knocked my ear bud out. [ Examines the chains around her leg, reaches down and untangles herself as Max arrives ].
Maxima: [ Points up, SCUBA style (thumbs up position, raising) ]
Sydney: What? Oh, top-side. Got it! Man, this is cool!
I don’t think voice works at all when all you have is stream of water instead of air. Even if you can extract enough oxygen from it to not die.
Doesn’t change the fact that it would be cool if it was orb of underwater breathing (wanting it to be helmet or ring would be too much, I guess, dnd is not applicable here).
Any fluid should do it. Because water is so much more dense than air, the vocal cords will vibrate a lot slower, lowering the voice. Check out Adam demonstrating with light and dense gas, although he says it is about the speed of sound in the gases (which is about the same at any given pressure), when it really is about the density of the gas. The effect would be magnified even further with a dense liquid, like water.
As a point of comparison, take a small pot or pan, holding it by the handle, and tap the bottom with a metal spoon or something like that while it is in the air. Next, submerge it in a sink (or tub) with enough water to completely cover it and strike it the same way again. The sound will be noticeably lower, even though the speed of sound in water is much faster. Density of the medium wins in determining the frequency range of a sound.
But if she’s breathing the water’s oxygen, she’s releasing the water’s hydrogen. So helium-ish chipmunk sounds would follow, with a kaboomy-rocket-fuel explosion possibility thrown in.
I am talking about the oxygen dissolved in the water, not the O in H2O. That might be required to get enough oxygen to sustain human metabolism. Maybe that’s part of the reason that dolphins and whales still breathe air instead of redeveloping gills.
I’ve long understoood (or assumed) that gills separate dissolved air like lungs do, not that they breeak h2o into h2 and o. h2o is a weird molecule, horrendously stable despite being so enthusiastically catalytic. It doesn’t separate due to heat until a few thousand degrees, and exists all over the damn universe, from stellar nebulae to deep in the atmospheres of gas giants. It’s even part of the solar atmosphere.
I was just kidding about the h2 chipmunk voice thing.
That is correct. Gills extract oxygen from the water and dump carbon dioxide into the water. This oxygen and carbon dioxide is dissolved in the water, not extracted from the water molecule itself. Splitting the water molecule would require a fair amount of energy, when the fish is trying to liberate the energy. Mind you, it is the first part of the chemistry of photosynthesis, but that is what the sunlight is for.
I dunno. Mages, psychics, aliens (including demons), living armor, hackers, and technologists looked at the orbs and no one identified them yet. I think it’s best that way.
But at the same time, I think the orbs just hack reality like Krona, but way, way better.
If it is an underwater breath orb, it wouldn’t do it in a way we’d identify as molecular alteration, but /root level code seen through a gaming lens (thank you .hack//sign):
“Are this person’s cells getting their required oxygen?”
(ignore all biological information and surrounding weather/conditions, also any other pre-requisites)
(clicks checkmark next to ‘yes’)
Water is way to heavy for the vocal cords to generate anything recognizable as a voice.
Here is a video that shows the effect of breathing a heavy gas.
I like the Necklace of Adaptation myself. Nope, we are stuck with an orb of water breathing.
The aqualung orb.
Aqualung
Given that it’s green like a plant, maybe it lets her conduct photosynthesis.
Why not chemosynthesis? People always forget that, it is always “photosynthesis this” and “photosynthesis that.”
It would be more difficult than that, human lungs are not built to cycle a liquid. Even if the orb liberates dissolved oxygen, it would also have to pump the water at a considerable rate to extract enough. There’s a reason fish have pass through gills, instead of lungs with a single opening.
Wrong.. you can breathe water,you breathe it for 9 months as a baby, and you can breathe liquid oxygen as well, but for some reasons only known to science,your lungs forget how to extract the oxygen, but the water needs to be richer in oxygen than anything, currently liquid oxygen is only way to breathe or simulate the womb equivalent of breathing water, also if you ever seen the movie abyss that’s actually true to a point about being able to breathe… just don’t expect to shove your head under water and force your lungs to remember
Water Breath?
Then again maybe that orb should be held when using her Shield so she doesn’t need the rebreather.
Eh im not taking that bet,Syds been getting powers exponentially ever since she joined up with Archon ^^
Nice Very nice.
This is why i like Grrlpower so mats!
Triple whammy. 1/ Lose all air. 2/ Lose the diving mask. 3/ Tangled in chains.
Is that a record for Sydney?
Well, the other day she had a gun waved in her face and beat up her first super then got scouted to become world famous (actually MORE famous than just this tiny planet since the Council), hit herself in the eyeball with a spicy noodle, got nega-knuckled, and became the Queen of (what was it, plastic spoons?).
Salt. Queen of salt.
True. Though I meant all at once :)
We need to get a kickstarter together immediately to fund “Grrlpower the video game”.
+1
I’d pay for that!
He’ll, I’d pay launch price for that.
Hmm, we will need at least a writer (who has what moves, etc.), an artist (all the pretty pictures), and a programmer (to make things work). DaveB could do the first two, I guess. I am been a database programmer for more than a few years in a variety of languages, but that does not necessarily make me the best choice to be a game programmer. During that time I have also been teaching and tutoring programming, math and science (among other things).
I wrote simultion software for flight training. I’d love to do this code.
I’m a writer and a programmer, and I’d be willing to be part of that project. :D
I wouldn’t worry too much, you want to separate out game state and display anyway. The state side shouldn’t be far from what you are used to anyway.
I’d happily support a grrlpower game, either by buying it, or helping with development (I do mostly embedded systems programming, but I’ve been wanting to learn how to do graphics for a while now, though I had a different style of game in mind)
I’m a programmer. Not much experience in games, but made a simple side-scrolling platform game once. Maybe we should through together a GitHub project (with Dave’s permission of course) and see what we can put together in our spare time.
Wonder if I still have my source code for that side-scroller (rummages around HDD)
Ugh. *throw together. Need edit function, especially when commenting from a phone with auto correct.
I’m a game designer myself, and I’ll say this: you need at least 20 artists (stupid amount of modeling work using 3dsMax+Mudbox or something better, and all the concept art has to be perfectly sized in turnaround images) 5 coders (only 2 or 3 if you’re just heavily modding the Unreal engine) and more.
I am currently the sole developer on an edutainment project creating virtual geography labs for online college students to use.
As a very side hobby project a Grrl Power game sounds very interesting. I’m currently based out of Unity3D and working with the Cubiquity voxel engine. Destructible/deformable terrain is something I’ve enjoyed since Red Faction (2001), and am sad there hasn’t really been more of.
Proposed story: Various bad guys are causing trouble around the country. You pick a small team of Archon members based on your intelligence report and go deal with the situation. The people you pick this mission have to recover at least one mission before being selected again (no fair always picking Maxima, Halo, Dabbler, Anvil, Hiro). More downtime is needed if the team member got injured on the mission. Allies and associates (like the Council members) may show up occasionally to provide intelligence, bonuses or even join a mission.
Hmm, Krona in combat. She runs away a lot but after a few minutes, she opens a wormhole under your feet. *Relocation*
Max: So where did you send him?
Krona: [ Reviewing her notes floating in front of her ] It was kind of random, but I think I dropped him on Mount Olympus.
Max: In Greece? He’ll be back in a few hours.
Krona: Sorry, I got that wrong. It’s not Mount Olympus. It’s Olympus Mons. It will take him more than a few hours to get back.
Grrlpower themed xcom but with people having better than an 8% chance to hit. I like!
I’m a computer animator- at the very least I could do backgrounds, and I could do character rigging and animation as well, as long as I have decent source material to work from.
Hmm, Skills and powers would vary between characters. All scores between 0 and 100. 0 is unable to that; 100 is maximum superhuman (probably).
Accuracy: (How well you can aim at a target to attack) Two types: Melee vs Long-range
Peggy (Long-range): 99 (targeting cross-hair snaps to the eligible enemy closest to the mouse even as the target performs evasive manoeuvres. Little or no mouse input is required.)
Peggy (Melee): 75 (Almost always hits what is right in front of her)
Math (Long-range): 99 (thrown objects behave as above, just not with the kind of range that Peggy has)
Math (Melee): 99 (What he sees, he hits. What he does not see, he still hits.)
Brooke (Long-range): 10 (targeting cross-hairs slowly meanders within 2 degrees of the mouse. Can be a little hard to stay on target)
Halo (Long-range): 2 (targeting cross-hairs wiggles around the mouse up to 5 degrees even without mouse input. Whether an enemy (or ally) is anywhere near the cross-hairs makes no difference to its meandering. Mind you, close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades and nuclear weapons, and Sydney’s PPO are pretty close to the last one)
Strength (How much you can lift and determines the maximum damage you can inflict in melee combat).
Anvil: Starts at 70 and goes up when she is hit with physical, non-bladed attacks.
Max: 80-99, depending
Hiro: 80
Stalwart: 70
Halo: (not Lighthook): 2 (may improve as she gets better trained)
Speed (how fast you react and how many targets you can hit at once.)
Math: 80 (he is still human. He does not have the super-speed necessary to go higher)
Max: 80-99
Anvil: 50
Stalwart: 40
Halo: 10 (spaz-outs not withstanding)
Hmm, there’s some numbers on the Cast page that can do the rest of the skills.
YES!!!
I’d be throwing $50+ at that EASILY!
Only if it allows me to play as anyone other than Halo.Last thing I want to play is a character that wont pay attention to my button inputs lol
… I think we’ve been issued a challenge guys. So HOW would we go about building and reinforcing that building and the pool to engineer a solid structural building and a working pool of that size?
My money’s on extra internal support structures and columns in the center of the building. Gunna have to say screw it to the rebar and cement columns alone on that one too. Probably have to say it has a steel beam central support column with the rebar and cement columns as secondary supports. Likely, this is where the elevator system is located in the building between said columns as it’s the most stable section of the building.
I’d say the pool would require more of a large steel existing exterior structure with the internal lining to it. Max states that it has a secondary hull as well. So, it likely would have that secondary steel lining with support arms mounted between the first hull and second hull.
If anyone has CAD systems or access to them, should probably take a crack at the floor plans for grins and giggles.
Some quick wikiwalking reveals that Comcast Center in Philadelphia has a 300,000 gallon double-chambered concrete tuned liquid column damper. Read – a deep pool built into the upper part of the building to prevent it from swaying much in high winds.
Given that the Archon building is (presumably) in the DFW metroplex, I can see this being built into the structure without issue. That it’s an actual pool is just a perk for being part of a government super-team.
In Toronto we have an old building called the Royal York Hotel with a swimming pool on the third floor… So it can be done.
Yes, a swimming pool. Not a billion cubic meters underwater training pool.
consider the weight of all the steel, glass, concrete, etc in Burj Kahlifa in floors 120 to 163. the weight of water is much less than that per volume, and that’s 43 floors of mass being held aloft by the lower 119 floors. Very few buildings are as tall as 119 floors.
The swimming pool is not even remotely close to “hard to achieve” as modern engineering problems go.
The answer is you WOULDN’T build the pool on the 10th floor. If you want a 30′ deep cement pond for training, you build it on ground level behind the building (yes, cue Beverly Hillbillies tune). You can build a smaller pool on the roof if you want one up there for recreation, but any engineer, before figuring out how to do this, would ask WHY you want it inside the building.
The building is already reinforced,they probable thought that the pool would not need much extra work and that having the personal near the command center is worth it.
I can only assume that Archons budget gets cut by however much of it is left at the end of each year and the only quick way they could think of spending the remaining budget before the end of last year was a completely pointless swimmingpool XD.Funnily enough this is not me being snarky,This very reason is why my local hospital has dozens of pointless tvs all over the place.
While “build it at ground level” is an obvious answer, I’m sure Archon has perfectly good reasons and loads of budget. The wise engineer accepts the ludicrously large budget and the cool factor and makes it work, because it looks great on his resume and pays well.
As for how you handle the outward-pushing stresses, that technology has existed for centuries. Flying buttresses will do it. Internalize them and make them of modern steel or stronger building materials and you can redirect almost any amount of outward force into downward force with plenty of strength.
When I was in Thailand, none of the pools (in the cities at least) were on the ground floor.
Chang Mai – I think it was on the 12th floor
Bangkok: top floor, I think 28th floor.
Phuket, etc, the pools were in the ground.
Building it high keeps it above the (worst) pollution
Flying buttress require greater surface area the higher up you go, Studied too many cathedrals.
Many buildings have pools on the roof but most stop around 6-8 feet in depth. As you increase in depth the physical pressure increases dramatically, though their pool looks only to be about 16-20 feet deep so it might be doable. The big problem would be swaying with that much weight at the top of the building.
Honestly given the kind of stunts Maxima and Dabbler pull off in the building; it wouldn’t actually make the engineering challenges that much harder. A good, solid, bunker like military building will be close to as good as ground for this kind of purpose. And thats without super(science) to help make things stay strong.
Maths level would probaly be unsuitable for children and some adults.
Actually, assuming a 25m*10m*10m pool, which is triangular in depth profile as this one seems to be the water mass is “only”about 1500 tons. That is heavy certainly, but also comparable with the average water tower, in terms of structure. This means that you just build a standardish building around a water tower type support structure, you could even build it so it appears to be some nifty abstract sculpture style art in the lobby/atrium.
The issue isn’t the weight of the pool (as you pointed out). The issue is that they apparently use it for testing powers. And I’m sorry, but you don’t build a pool that tests explosive or (even worse) completely unknown powers at the top of a building. This is what bomb ranges are for.
Well, they do say training in the comic, not testing.
You are right, provably the string place for testing unknown powers (however convenient)
Except they are apparently testing/experimenting with Halo right now. So testing certainly applies.
well i mean he’s a perv
The pool is possible. There is a “Diving Tank” that takes up 4 floors of a 20 story building in Massachusetts. It belongs to a group that does medical dive testing for the US Navy, to research how to treat people suffering from various dive related ailments. Theirs is a round cylinder though not a rectangular tank with multiple levels inside. To access the tank you have to go up to the 9th floor, although the have a lockin/out in the base of the tank as if you are escaping from a submarine.
I’d probably play it with a controller on PC anyway, assuming the controls were designed around one and the M/K controls were an awkward wrapper around that, as is so often the case.
Reminds me of how on the Apollo 13 flight, in a move unique to that unique flight, they released the dead Service Module before releasing the lifeboat Lunar Module keeping them alive. The Command Module pilot was afraid of accidentally releasing the LM instead, which would have killed the three astronauts in seconds, so he taped a big “NO” sign to the LM Release switch, and have another crewman double-check that he had done it correctly. The crew were also cold, tired, and stressed out by this time in the flight, so the paranoia is entirely understandable. Anecdote from Jim Lovell and Jeffrey Kluger’s excellent LOST MOON/APOLLO 13 book.
Be sure not to read that note upside down.
In retrospect you would think the ‘break the spacecraft apart’ switch would be a twist and push rather than a toggle switch as shown in the motion picture. Did it at least have a ‘lift before use’ cover?
No it didn’t. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/9/98/Apollo_Command_Module_Main_Control_Panel.gif
The switch in question is the “Main Release” one, on the bottom center left, by the switch indicated with “G” on the panel.
Just reviewed that scene in the motion picture.
Yes…there was a lift before use flap over it.
consider that (on mercury or gemini capsules, I forget which) the backup system for the attitude control rockets used on reentry was a set of mechanical cables that directly opened/closed valves on the thrusters. This was actually used once. “Lift to press” protective cover? ppsssffftt. They probably didn’t even have caps for their ballpoint space pens.
OK Sydney, how did you do it? How did you manage to be cute even in a scuba mask?
Eeeek! You’re drowning!
*dives in and doggy-paddles to the rescue*
Big eyes.
Why thank you!
*bats eyes bashfully*
What about my teeth?
*gives a big smile*
Why did I click on your smile with my screen zoomed in at night with no lights on while lightning crashes outside?
:-D
Sydney is a klutz, doubly so when it has certain values. On the other hand, she’s a trained and experienced diver that solos in the ocean. This may be annoying to her, but she knows what to do, and still has at least one hand free. She may have things in hand so to speak, by the time Maxima gets there. Super speed underwater is not a good thing if you want the water to stay in the pool.
She should just need a few more seconds then usual. Being blasted by water that way is NOT common at diving and then being estrained by chains?
Luckiely a full restrain is pretty hard and just need 1 hand to put the mask back on, at least temprary to breath.
Forgot to mention, awesome water lighting effects :)
So waiting for the water breathing orb reveal, soooo waiting ^^
Though honestly, if one orb had water breathing and swimming, so she only had to hold one orb and could access say the pew pew orb “under water”…
It has to be something other than a ‘breathe dispite local conditions’ orb.
Super to the extent of breaking chains strength?
Vanish anything nonliving within one meter? (VACUUM?? NOT HELPING!!)
Omega 13? (Not the vitamin)
Oh come on! It CAN’T be water bending!!
… aka BATMAN CAN BREATHE IN SPACE orb?
Man, Sydney really, *really* needs to practice her ball handling skills…
..I offer myself as tribute.
in her defense, maybe the water distorted the color of the balls enough that she got confused which was which
Yea, it’s a pain when balls change colour like that, especially the blue ones.
>.>
blue balls? are those the ones royals have? like, the royal jewels? blue cuz blue blood ofc
Sydney, those AREN’T the balls you’re looking for.
Could that kill you? They are pretty deep so the pressure of the water rushing to fill that bubble would at least hurt like hell.
well they aren’t all that deep, she has the mask on so she can keep her shield on indefinitely and not pass out from oxygen loss, i bet it hurts about as much as the ppl poolside were hurt from her splashing them earlier
1: judging my the chain on her right, i would say about 5 meters.
while it may be nothing for just slowly submerging, this is still a few tones of water rushing at you from all sides.
2. in panel 4, the mask comes off so… yeah sure, its only because of the point one, which is only because there was a shield in the first place. it still did come off.
Would probably hit like a strong upward wave. Enough to disorientate and rip off your mask (though I think the chains may have helped here) but shouldn’t be much worse than a surfer.
Explosive Re-Compression?
No..The air bubble around her raising to the surface would be like her submerging.
However… There would be some change in air pressure buffering the water collapse.
I hope Sydney doesn’t fall into a certain category unless she’s in a category by herself???
Next time,Sydney should hang on to the CORRECT orb…!
It’s time to duct tape the correct orb to her hand again, to avoid unpleasant situations like this.
ok I admit it my estimates on how deep the pool is where way off
Mine too. This is much deeper than 7 feet or so.
Come on Maxima, you got a tactical genious when it comes to super powers that has an incredible amount of known powers that can be upgraded over time and some unknown powers to top it of. So what if she has ADD, is a bit uncoordinated and you have to train her to better fit into yout unit?
And it’s not like other members don’t have problems and you aren’t used to all of them either.
.
I have to say : this page is really nicely executed.
You can really see water physic being a bitch to Sydney.
Being a trained diver, surely she knows not to panic and to get her mask back on. If you are swimming deep under water, you can’t just pop up to the surface if your mask/air comes off.
assuming she is capable of thinking at the moment.
ADD is one thing, but she also appears to have been stunned or dazed as well.
Discovering an orb power at this point seems to be probable, but flat out water breathing is a little too obvious. My bet is some sort of phasing ability that lets her get untangled from the chain, but has the drawback of getting her out of whatever she is wearing too.
You can but hope, eh?
Meh. Sydney’s body type is not my jam. But there are enough people in the audience that like her flavor of cheesecake that I considered this scenario a distinct possibility.
How about a ‘shape-shift- orb, starting with “shift into a creature that’s better-adapted than your normal form for the local environment”?
She would be the Incredible MRS Limpet. They even have the same glasses.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/HcNnTcAf7uI/maxresdefault.jpg
She may want a superhero version.
https://68.media.tumblr.com/79f4e6dbadd97e03d5bebe92d1d38b5c/tumblr_n3mkk9nuZ31ru89oxo1_500.jpg
Not “Mrs.” unless she married him.
Then he’d be the Incredible Mr Scoville. “Whoever I marry is taking MY last name.”
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/456
That water rushing in is probably like getting kicked in the chest by a horse. If googles is correct, she’s getting hit by about 20-25 PSI. That can’t be pleasant.
Just in case people have forgotten it, here is the that was originally posted. There are only two nodes activated on that green orb and it looks like one of the nodes will require two hands to use. Consider this in the speculations about powers!
Also, because I went digging through the archives to find the skilltree again, I found this curious little thing: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189
Vengeance, Cthillia (maybe?), Deus. So we’ve found three of the villains! More to come?
Ugh… I fail at hyperlinking. It works! But… Sorry. And no editing. *headdesk*
Well, if we’re speculating… I’m probably not the first to suggest this, but that two-lined node (I note each orb has one of those) might not be for a two-handed ability, it could be for using that orb’s abilities with no hands.
If that’s true, well, the green orb is the only one with that node active, and it only has one other node active, so depending on what that ability is it could be difficult to tell the difference between something the orbs can just do, and use of that particular orb. This would also explain the apparent lack of difference between holding it or not.
As an example of an ability it would be hard to tell with, the currently active node might grant telekinetic control over the orbs themselves. This is something she uses a lot, and people seem to assume it’s something the orbs just let her do, but I think it would make a lot of sense for it to be a distinct orb power, just one that’s usable without holding its orb.
Of course, all of this is just speculation…
speaking of double connections…
there is an active link between flight and pewpew orbs. what could that mean?
some sort of compatibility patch?
The ability to shoot at something and make it fly?
I would think that a Grrl Power based game would be an MMO. Something similar to City of Heroes, but with an updated game engine.
Question: Is she using the flight orb to stay in place in the middle of the bubble in panel 2?
If she weren’t, what would happen? Would she drop to the bottom of the bubble, or is the bubble centered on her? If the bubble is centered on her, how would that play out? Would she end up in the center anyway, basically hanging from the orb?
In the previous page she was laying on the bottom of the shield bubble after she emerged from the water without the flight orb.
Fair enough. From that I guess we can assume that she is flying. Now that I reread it, the previous page suggests as much.
I wonder why she didn’t just play with the shield to trap water in with her to counteract the buoyancy problem. Getting things just right would be difficult, but becoming negatively buoyant should have been easy.
This certainly looks like a “fly or die” moment where she discovers that one of her orbs lets her breathe underwater, or anywhere else there’s no air for that matter.
It may not have gone to plan anyway. Doing back of the envelope math (if people still used envelopes) I get about a 9 ft diameter sphere, which has a volume of 381 cubic feet. Multiply by 8.35 pounds per CF for water gives about 3200 pounds upwards against 4 clips. Can a screw lock carabiner hold 800 pounds?
Never mind, the rating number of ’40’ I found for bigger clips was not in kilos, but in kilonewtons (which,surprisingly enough, is not the force needed to lift 1000 fig cookies). That is about 220 lbs.
Captain Pedantic says: According to the intarwebs, there are about 7.5 gallons in a cubic foot of water. Your 8.35 pounds is the weight of a gallon. The correct number is 24,000/4= about 6000 lbs per clip.
I always find it weird that suspension of disbelief often does not apply to the little things. I mean, purple-haired, gold-skinned, flying boom goddess? No problem! Four chains and screw lock carabiners holding down 24,000 lbs displacement? NERD RAGE!
And by NERD RAGE, I mean mine. I had already done the calculations and was just going through the posts to see if someone else had already made the comment.
No slight intended to O.B. Juan.
Derp. Missed a step in my math. I think I’m going to need a bigger envelope.
It is not so much as rage, but trying to find something to comment on for the limited action in today’s episode.
I found carabiners at REI rated for 72kN, which should easily hold 16000 lbs each. And a quick search of home depot turned up a logging chain rated 5400 lbs, so there should be heavier chain out there that would hold. So it looks like misinformed nerd rage at that.
Woo! Go knowledge.
and that’s not including alchemical, or otherwise scifi/fantasy alloys >.>
I got about 14 tons displacement. Or about 140 kN, which given the tensile strength of steel (usually between .5-1 GPa) would require at least a single solid tether (literally just a straight cylindrical rod of steel, for calculations sake) of about 1 cm in radius.
Given the angle of the chains, I’d say the force requirement is doubled, but 4 chains sharing the load have an easier time.
Conclusion: Current chains may be sufficient, but thicker chains strongly recommended.
I think it would be funny if it was reviled that Sydney can hold her breath underwater for a long time. She just brushes this off and begins to untangle herself and get a hold on her breathing gear. I mean, I assume she was trained in situations where she loses her mask and how to get it back on.
i don’t think those training included a few tons of water slamming into you.
To hold her breath, she first needs to HAVE a breath, and with how much water slammed into her i bet it was all pumped out in a second or too.
How the heck did Sydney manage to end up with no gear chained underwater. That’s like tripping and falling and tying YOURSELF to the railroad tracks while Snidely is out on coffee break!
and when he gets back, you convince him to untie you because he never outsources these types of things, so he’s untying you as Dudley comes by, and Snidely convinces him that he’s turned over a new leaf…
ALL skyscrapers have huge tanks of water (or other fluid) in them near the top floors. Really tall ones have them on several levels. think “water tower”. It’s the simplest way to provide water pressure for the plumbing and fire sprinklers. it damps out vibrations from many sources. with internal baffles, it absorbs sway energies caused by winds. in many buildings, it is used to protect against earthquakes also. this swimming pool is nothing unusual.
https://www.npr.org/2011/11/07/141858484/how-the-worlds-tallest-skyscrapers-work
https://www.solaripedia.com/13/173/1725/bank_of_america_tower_ice_tanks.html
i am fairly certain water tanks on top of scrapers are counted in tones.
this pool here, in thousands of tones. not quite comparable,
unless you can give a solid numbers of something comparable, IN SIZE,
and while yes, there are roof pools, they are probably something like 2 to 3 meters deep max. this here is closer to 10.
Then, its not just the water itself that has to be accounted for, but its containment as well, since physics are slightly different, when you don’t have a PLANET on the other side to counter the weight.
I’ll bet the pool weighs less than the top 120 floors of any skyscraper that has at least 121 floors. the bottom floor of any building is holding up the rest of the building. A swimming pool’s mass, no matter how big, can be compared simply to the weight of X number of floors. if there’s a building out there that has X+1 floors, than the pool in question is doable.
As for the sides holding in the water, the same math applies, because the direction doesn’t matter – the mass being resisted is the same, except as an engineering task.
1, i am fairly certain that the article above stated that the highest skyscraper is 101 floors high.
also, when you you build in that scale, the top floors have to be way lighter than the bottom few, so you make them thinner, and with lighter maerials.
2. this pool is a solid block of water, which is around 4 floors high, and, if walls were occupying FULL space, instead of panels, that would be another… i say 2 times heavier.
now you have 80 floors worth of mass.
you’re welcome.
counter argument, could be that perhaps water is not as dense as the walls?
dunno.
at least bring something solid next time.
GOD DAMN IT EDIT BUTTON!!!!! i meant 20 times, not 2 times, but you might have guessed it from the 80…
Burj Kahlifa is 163 stories high.
and that is concrete number, that google confirms.
(if only the article actually gave the BK floor number instead of the Taipei’s)
Also, even if we were to calculate this structure to be impossible, someone could probably counter everything with “But meta-materials!”
Fighting the buoyancy of water seems an aweful lot of trouble when she is wearing scuba gear anyway. Why not just dive underwater first, then put up the shield so its full of water? If the shield has to be full of air and submerged in water in order for the unknown orb to work, then it’s a useless orb.
Hey @DaveB, remember me? ^_^
If you’re interested in a game, programming is my thing, I’ll build it if you do the art :D
Sombody call sucker punch i think we got a new game for them to make
Sucker punch did the infamous games they also dud sunset over drive and are doing the new spiderman game thats why them
Actually Insomniac Games did Sunset Overdrive and is doing the Spider-man game. I know because one of my childhood friends is a programmer for them! Also did Ratchet & Clank so they could definitely get the humor down as well.
How about getting the guys who did this one? Everyone loved it, right?
https://nationalpostcom.files.wordpress.com/2013/06/etphone.jpg
You are EVIL i say EVIL. Besides, it would be better to get John Romero to do it, Without Carmichael. That way it can be as great as https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/12401-john-romero-s-daikatana-windows-back-cover.jpg
The sad thing is that so many copies of that ended up in landfill, in pristine unopened condition, that it is probably the one most likely to be found intact, when aliens archaeologists are excavating the ruins of our civilisation.
Not much of a legacy.
yup. It’ll screw up their reconstruction of our history, and lead to massive scientific debates over what actually brought down our civilization, like the Roman’s lead plumbing.
Pristine, unopened, and in most cases, still working. But that’s what happens when you give one guy five and a half weeks to make the whole game, and produce 5 million copies without audience testing.
Estimates are that 1.5 million copies were sold, and the other 3.5 million went unsold. Some 728,000 cartridges were buried in the Alamagordo landfill; the site was chosen because no scavenging was allowed and its garbage was crushed and buried nightly. They were not all E.T. cartridges; there were definitely some Pac-Man, Berserk, Defender, and Raiders of the Lost Ark cartridges in there.
In an odd way, it’s a testament to how sturdy those cartridges were. During the 6-month period that a Canadian film company had access to the site, about 1,300 usable cartridges were recovered (the depth of the burial made it too dangerous to dig any deeper). Most of those were sold at auction to cover the cost of the dig; the city raised about $107,000 from the sales of 880 cartridges (including one E.T. cartridge that sold for $1,500.)
It amuses me that for a game that allegedly sucked so badly, that several unofficial fixes were released in 2013, it was ported to the NES in 2014, and a homebrew remake was released in 2016. To be honest, a lot of the bugs would have been incredibly easy to fix… even I could’ve done it!
I know what you mean, Dave. I’ve been having trouble with the complex buttons of Breath of the Wild, especially R versus ZR.