Grrl Power #541 – Bubble Untrouble
This page really could have benefited from another panel or two between the final ones. Max looking around inside the bubble as it engulfs her, then one of her taking off her mask for a test sniff of the air. It’s challenging cutting down the movie of Grrl Power I see in my head into panels, on top of the challenge of laying them out on the page. (And fighting my desire to draw everything as large as possible.) Comics y’all!
Another difference between the in-my-head version and this one is originally, Sydney discovered the function of this orb in a more dire situation. Like helping shore up a structurally compromised oil rig or something, in water deep enough that racing to the surface would be a considerable danger. The reason it didn’t happen like that was simply because some simple testing of the orbs would reveal this function, and it’s not like the team isn’t going to do basic testing. So the drama took a backseat to practicality in this case. Of course if I had structured the story differently, I could have some oil rig incident happen on the morning of day 2 of the comic. Hmm. But that’s okay, not every revelation has to come on the tail of a harrowing event. Yeah, this version could have been vaguely more dramatic if Maxima couldn’t grab the chains cause Sydney was panicking, but again, none of that would make sense. Maxima can catch bullets. Grabbing that chain would be simple even if Sydney had been kicking her feet around, which she wasn’t because she’s a reasonably competent diver and knows how to reacquire her mask.
So yeah. The green one makes air. At least. Maybe it makes other stuff. Maybe if Sydney breathed molten gold like some kind of magma bling fish, it would make that. One question answered, and as usual, an infinite number more rear their head.
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interesting that the orb made an air bubble that fits both Sydney and Max. since Max was not in trouble Sydney would not have been worried about her, was it just because Max was approaching / close to her? or would anyone else in the pool also have gotten included in the bubble?
Max was breaking chains when the bubble started. I think she flew up into it. I see max’s feet poking out of the bottom of the air bubble.
true, but the shape of the bubble is not centred around Sydney, as her shield usually does, it looks like it expanded to include Max. could be wrong tho, just a thought.
The air bubble appears to be more centered on the actual orb than the idea that it somehow knows to contain Max too.
The air bubble seems centered around just below the orb, which may mean it’s taking into account the height of being held by a hand (to try to center it as if the orb was someone’s heart, in equivilant level). Kind of odd it’s not centered around Sydney like the shield, but also makes sense. Though I’m kind of curious why it would do a full body bubble in the first place, as without the flyball the orb user would perpetually fall with the air chasing down.
Looking back at the display in #181, there’s only 2 “skills” unlocked in that orb, and the one between the flyball and this orb is not lit so it isn’t a case of “air orb and flyball equals air around whole body and then some”. Either way, I wonder which this one is – the stand alone or the one with two subsequent points.
Of course, it’s also possible the orb just has a general “makes air bubble big enough to support all living beings within a 5 foot radius” or the like.
I am also curious if this ball works in outer space (where gravity is less of an issue – perhaps space is the intended environment for the orb).
The issue with space, or any vacuum, would be that the air would boil away at the edges, probably faster than it could be made. Unless it projects a kind of shield itself, that prevents the air leaving… which would mean we wouldn’t see the bubbles going up at the top of her air shell.
I expect however, the primary usage will be to refresh shield air while flying. Get up to a high enough speed, drop the flyorb, grab the airorb, drop that, grab the flyorb again.
Which would work better in space, yes. And would cover all the bases if the air did boil away in the vacuum. Although with this line of thinking, I believe the link between this orb and the flyorb would be to allow the fly orb to also provide the powers of this one.
we all forget she’s had some underwater training. Way back in her origin description in the office when she first arrived. Enough that she wouldn’t likely panic.
More than that. Sydney found her orbs while wreck diving. It takes a lot of time, effort, and training to get certed for wreck diving.
That’s an understatement, you would need training to dive, use nitrox, deep diving, cave diving and a special course for wrecks themselves, that does also not take into the account the amount of hours needed to be able to safely dive on your lonesome.
Rven most pros make sure to have at least one diving buddy with them when they go down in case of nitrogen narcosis or the like, which if you are alone could quickly prove fatal since you are not thinking straight at all and people under it’s influence have been known to remove their breathing apparatus because it annoyed them or the like.
At the very least, Sydney should know how to re-mask herself underwater. That’s one of the things you *specifically* get trained on in scuba training.
Max wasn’t in trouble, but she is an air-breathing sophont. These orbs don’t seem to be “smart”, assuming they have any programming at all, but “include anyone within range of the orb” is a pretty straightforward parameter. OR, if they are merely tools who react to Sydney’s conscious (or subconscious) direction, well, she might automatically wanted to include Max.
“magma bling fish”
pffffffft.
would that be sardonyx?
Probably more like Vorash.
Gooold fish.
GOOOOOOOOLD.
Which consequentially opens the way for…
“Dere’z gold in dem dere Hillz!”, and suddenly everyone looks at Max.
There is more to the air than just air. If it didn’t have an outer ‘membrane’ of some kind to hold it together the air would have just risen to the surface and escaped.
Excellent observation. There’s certainly something going on there.
Maybe something to do with that lesser field the fly orb puts out to protect against air friction.
Maybe it can both reduce and increase surface tension.
Why is maxima signing upwards?
Cant they hold the power review in the air bubble? She doesnt trust it?
I think she is poking the edge of the bubble…
Its a safety thing whenever you get your mask removed by force, you are supposed head up out of the water to check if every thing is ok. In the middle of that, Sydney is discovering a new orb power, so they still want to go up to discuss what, and possibly how, the new orb is working so they dont hurt themselves.
(Like if the orb is changing molecules, it can make the water super conductive, or extra dense depending on how its making air. Or if its replacing water with air then the water level might start dropping fast.)
She’s examining the air bubble membrane. For divers, the signal for ascend is a thumbs up, moved upward. (This is why “all is good” is signaled with the “ok” sign, with index touching thumb.) Admittedly, I don’t know if Maxima knows this, but HeckobA is right that Max would try to get her attention if she wanted to ascend.
Secondly, you are not supposed to just immediately head up out of the water in such an event. For one, it’s not always practical: you may miss the rest of your dive, or get separated from your group. Secondly, and more importantly, it’s not safe: it is more dangerous to keep ascending and descending, than it is to stay at one depth. “Don and clear” is a thing, and should be done underwater.
If she was signalling “up” then she’d have tried to get Sydney’s attention, not stared at her finger poking into the water.
The thing I noticed most about this sequence is how calm Sydney seemed. She didn’t try to escape in a panic and ignore the need for air. She went for air first without thrashing about.
well remember she does have a scuba certification. she has been trained so if mishaps happen under water she can calmly adjust themselves so she doesn’t drown.
I’m waiting for Sydney’s skill tree to, when she fills enough slots, to become three dimensional instead of just flat/two dimensional. Dab and Pix will be pulling all nighters trying to figure it out.
This does amuse me.
Ok, question and awnser time, to all the “why is …” people. I will for this comments page give the standard set. >.>
1) Why is Sydney still standing even if she is in an air bubble? That ain’t right!
A) Look at that bubble again, specifically around the edges. You will notice 2 things pretty fast, that the bubble is not uniform, and that disorder is in an orb/egg shape around Sydney. This tells us not enough about the orbs function, but to give us an idea, the Green Orb is continually making – or changing – the water into air. Technically, Sydney is falling but super super slowly with however the bubbles of the air are appearing.
2) Ok… that does kinda make sense, but physics says XXX outta be happening, wth is up with that?
A) There are two things to that question. Part of it is we don’t know how the orbs work with physics as we know it so any orb can be ignoring a “rule” that simply doesn’t exist for that orb.(Remember, when ARC was trying to examine the orbs, they literally couldn’t examine them, like they were not even there normally). The other part is that we know know that all the orbs are partially connected, and they do seem to have minor effects on each other to make them function with out damaging the user. (That is probably why the flight orbs has its own mini shield for high speed travel for example.)
3) Why did Sydney suddenly call that Green orb, she didn’t know what the damn thing could do? …. Your breaking the 4th wall Sydney, in a bad way dammit!
A) No it is not. As an experienced diver, Sydney is not panicking, and doing exactly what she should, trying to get the air again, then she would work on freeing herself. (Yes, Maxima was there, but moot point to her scuba training) The 2 possibilities for why the orb popped in her hand was either it was an unconscious reaction/instinct on Sydney’s part, or the orbs themselves have similar instinct to respond to their user. Because all of Sydney’s focus was on “Get Air Now” she unconsciously grabbed the Green Orb, or the Orb itself answered to the user request of “getting” air now.
That outta cover the major points for this time around, beyond the speculation stuff at least.
For #2, in case it wasn’t clear, i mean the orbs are interacting to make Sydney safe when using the Green orb, minor use of flight to keep her upright or possibly Shield for the pressure differantial of air vs water as we know it, ect.
Well actually, 1) is wrong. Two words: Flight Orb.
I had the same thought, Why are they both still swimming if they are in a bubble of air? Answer: They aren’t. Maxima can fly, and Sydney’s other hand is holding her flight orb. Took me a second or third look to notice.
Now onto my personal opinions of what this page might be saying! I see 2 possible pieces of info that might be interesting.
1st) seeing what this orb does, and how all the orbs are interconnected, I am doing to agree with other people who had the same thought. The orbs together cover all the requirements a possible stellar traveler might need, and once mastered the orbs will be able to swap / use each others functions to allow the user to travel between stars.
2) This one is a doozy, and no one brought his up yet so hopefully its at least interesting. Each orb is an access key to part of the fundamental forces of energy in the universe given form based on the users mentality.
PPO- Nuclear / Radiant
Flight – Gravitational / Magnetic
Telepresence – Sound / Chromodynamic
ForceOrb – Kinetic / Ionization
Lighthook – Elastic / Mechanical
Refresh Orb – Chemical / Ionization
??? Orb – Thermal / Electric
Just think about how each orb functions, and you will see that it makes a weird level of sense, based on the possible combination with Sydney’s mind (as the user) and how each orb would/could interpret Sydneys instict of each force.
In either case, i think the last orb will somehow be effecting temperature or the users physiology.
PPo does high energy weapon
Flight is obvious against gravity, but magnetic is why she doesn’t have vertigo when holding the orb
Telepresense lets her observe sound far away, and possibly the teleporting part, or why Krona’s save point worked was because Sydney was using the orb
Force Shield Orb absorbs all physical energy, kinetic; and the energy gets deconstructed with the ionization
Lighthook is obvious, it can stretch super far, but somehow can also grip things with its entire length
The Green (or as i called it Refresh) Orb can chemically change atoms & molecules to match the users preferances, or possibly just remove them.
??? Orb we still dont know, but the energy left over in my example are thermal / electric.
Ooh, lovely angle, on the second one, and I cannot remember anyone having come up with that before. Highly plausible too, seeing as how the orbs do manipulate reality at a fundamental level.
Going off at a complete tangent, but still running with your concept, maybe the orbs are like colour swatches for someone doing DIY. Go into a room and check each of the swatches to see which looks best, for repainting it.
Maybe some alien race or god was planning on redecorating Earth (or the universe) to their tastes. And the orbs are just the ways of conducting local testing to see which ‘universal’ laws need repainting. I am quite keen on making gravity optional. Not so favourable on ‘touching a star’ with the PPO swatch mind.
That’s…certainly an interesting thought, though I notice that there’s nothing about the Strong or Weak forces there. Though I guess maybe that’s under the PPO’s ‘nuclear’ category?
The thing about a lot of the forces your listing is that, at their core, many are derived from other forces. Light is a form of radiation, which is in-turn linked to the electromagnetic force. Heat is a form of vibrational energy. Basically, everything comes down to the 4 fundamental forces: gravity, the electromagnetic force, the Strong Nuclear Force, and the Weak Nuclear force. So that kinda doesn’t entirely match up with the theory, even if it is a good set of macro-scale ‘forces’.
Ahh, humans. So convinced that theirs is the generation which knows everything there is to know. Despite us repeatedly seeing things which we ‘knew’ turn out to be incorrect.
But, yea, good points on how some of the specifics are categorised, in the examples. But the orbs could actually be representative of the seven fundamental forces. You do not list magic, for example, despite the fact that we have actually seen it being used by Dabbler and others.
Plus how else would they be able to safely saw people in half, on stage?
*wags tail in rapt belief*
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” ~ Arthur C. Clarke
I’ve also noticed that Dabbler as mentioned she’s part demon, part alien, part human. That seems triple-cross-species seems hard to pull off, although it makes sense if demons ARE a breed of alien, at which point it’s only a two-point cross and she’s throwing both interpretations in so she doesn’t have to explain her abilities twice.
(mom=demon+alien) + (dad=human+alien)= Dabbler
What if it just happens that she has three parents? You can’t know with aliens.
Per Dabbler there are no male succubi, and as she says its complicated….. So I’m a thinking Dad human/Mom Alien/Succubi Infection/Splice.
Well, when the idea hit me i tried to check for examples to see if it made sense or not, then it looked like it actually did. The other thing is i absolutely admit mine are only generalized guesses, for all i know the whole relativity thing might be applying to how each orb can interact, even with the forces we don’t know about (magic for example, or other dimensional energy we don’t know about)
So don’t try to keep my idea as set in stone, but it was interesting enough possibility i had to let the community in on it >.>
I like the idea. Wonder which orb be best for healing. Guess the chemical orb.
Maybe both this and the space ship theory are true at once and the orbs are pretty versatile, I kind of expect the Mc to have a epic artifact with unlimited potential.
You are never going to be 100% satisfied with your work. In my observations of artistic people, they are lucky to manage 75%, the talented bastards. This page was well laid out and I really enjoyed learning something new about the orbs in this way. It shows us something very important about them, but causes more questions than it answers. Fantastic update, thanks.
Sidney confirmed for having the ability to survive in space indefinitely, probably
just switch between air and flight and she won’t careen into the vast and infinite void
well unless the green ob is changing H2O molecules to O2 (which would release quite an amount of H2 over the pool, beware of explosion up there!)
into the void, there would be a vast amount of no molecules to change, so no release of breathing gas.
something more to test in a safe zone
I suppose the pool is chlorinated. The orb could be fusing chlorine and hydrogen, then fissioning the result into two oxygens and absorbing all the radiation produced thereby. That would account for the hydrogen, and for every four hydrogen atoms fused, you’d get another Oxygen molecule from the water. At the same time, you eliminate the danger of chlorine gas in the bubble.
If we’re going to flail science at the problem instead of shrugging and saying, “Magic! Meh”, we might as well flail wildly.
Hold on there. Everyone knows that personal fusion units only work with banana peels and beer cans.
I thought that only applied to Time Machines.
Hydrogen flammable yes, explosive no. F*ing Hindenburg misconceptions.
… Except that she has no idea as yet as to how this air is created and/or where it all comes from and/or whatever other limits there are.
And we don’t as yet know how radiation-proof her ensemble might be, or what she’d do for food on your hypothetical space voyage. Gonna be a long while yet before anything like that is tried, or even considered.
“survive in space indefinitely”
Or until she falls asleep and the orbs auto-deactivate. She needs to find the ‘always on’ setting in the control panel power options.
As a scuba-diver myself, I’m curious about the pressure of the air… I wonder if the orb would make more air at higher pressure to give a constant volume or if the orb is making the air at a specific pressure (say at at 1atm pressure / user’s generic preferred pressure) which would expand/compress based on Sydney’s depth in water (or some other medium or lack thereof ie. space).
The shield orb compensates for pressure differences, should the shield be embiggened or enshrinkened whilst raised. Dave did not specify, in his comment how it does this.
Therefore we can assume that it is using some advanced technomagic which keeps air in a bubble, around Halo, without it breaking up or rising away from her. Allocating a specific mechanism for this to be achieved would create too many complications, not least because it is not something that we could accomplish with our technology base, nor even postulate a credible way of achieving this in real life.
As such Dave is very wise in avoiding detailing it. It is a super power that allows an air bubble. What we do know is that the orbs can alter reality at a fundamental level. So the green orb is simply directly altering any ‘universal’ laws to achieve the desired results. Therefore any undesirable side effects are only likely to exist because they are an inconvenience for humans but not for the orb makers.
Note on the way the Orbs have to function; they MUST have detailed, down to the atomic level or below, of the bonded user aka Sydney. Life breaks easy, thus becoming dead. Postulating that these orbs function off an intent/desire on/off effects; separating the designated suites, is a required safety feature. Along with mental tk control of the physical representation of the control interface prevents even a deeply educated user of the orbs from blowing up the neighborhood before coffee after a night partying with Succubi/Alien Princesses.
If it’s a necklace of adaptation adapted to media it ought ensure survival in the harshest conditions. It is not unthinkable that the adaptorb produces a slight reverse-gravity field in order to survive on very large planets / near sources of extreme gravity.
From Krona we already know the orbs utilize “the deep code” to function, whether TDC is a source or byproduct is at this juncture unimportant. But using a codinglike language it would not be difficult to ‘set’ the gravity constant to like -0.5g which would produce the illustrated effect, and be in line with the hypothesises for the function of the orbs (-0.5g should allow for no deleterious effects from even the frailist of users.)
What’s going on in panel 3? Is Maxima’s arm hulking out to break a chain? I don’t think we’ve seen anything like that before, even when she was fighting seriously.
You are seeing Max’s arm and Sydney’s leg as one item. There are two there, Sydney does have rounded calves. I admit that I also saw that way at first glance.
On the green ball thoughts: Sydney was reaching for “Air” and got it. Probably how she got the PPO to work the first time. An she probably got the shield orb right after that … “Holy crap, burning things! Shield’s up!”
Air? Seems a bit…underwhelming.
How about this theory: The green orb is the “sustenance” orb. It produces whatever resources Sydney needs to survive over time. It might even be able to produce food, though this might require a level-up, or maybe it only works if Sydney is starving for a particular resource.
The upgrade graph gives it a few branches, so maybe it has other life-related abilities as well, like healing.
She has AC! Never underestimate how useful good AC is. From Florida, swear by it. (And sometimes at it, when not working)
Try going without it for an hour.
Yeap, speculation is that the green orb with a cloud in it is the life-support, or at least environment-control, module. With a single dot in one of the two branches (and that double-bordered dot highlighted), there’s plenty of room to grow from “portable atmosphere”; though never underestimate the utility of that.
(Odds are, she can now refresh her oxygen supply without popping open the shield).
It turns out that the orb is not creating air out of, uh, thin air. It it actually splitting the water into Hydrogen and Oxygen. We will have a nice cloud of the mixture around the poolside shortly. And then the general walks out to see how things are going while smoking one of his cigars.
I can picture that. Oh noes!
I deal with that, above. Why limit this to hydrolysis of water, when we can make it a nuclear issue? The pool is treated with some form of chlorine. 4Cl + 4H -> 8O -> 4O2 That’s fusion/fission, ignoring the radiation produced because the orb deals with it. At the merely molecular level, removing 4 hydrogens from water leaves another O2.
Sufficiently Advanced Science yada yada yada.
This kinda makes her new air tank redundant… well, I guess it still gives her more options if she needs her non-forcefield hand for another orb. Like flying. And because she still needs a hand for flying, this doesn’t fix the whole “can she transport people” problem. So close yet so far…
Imagine this: Sydney is Bubble Bus-ing the party. The air is getting a little poor. Sydney changes course to a sharply upward vector for a few seconds, adding a few thousand feet of altitude, then drops the flight orb in favor of the Life Support orb. Momentum carries her upward briefly, then completes the parabola defined by velocity and angle versus gravity, and starts on a reciprocal angle downward. *Assuming* the air freshening inside the force globe is pretty much instantaneous (all CO2 is removed/broken down, O2 is kept) she can switch back to flight orb having only lost a few thousand feet of altitude. This is a maneuver that would take some practice to perform smoothly, and failure is not an option. If the atmosphere effect in fact a breaking down of molecules, there may be a carbon dust buildup in the bottom of the bubble, but that will blow away as soon as the bubble drops.
Just realized. Does Maxima need to breathe? Can she be poisoned?
For those of you who read Worm:Parahumans, Alexandria weakness.
For those who have not read Worm:Parahumans – Invincible to direct force up to and including a nuke. But can still choke to brain death from a spider in her windpipe. Even more vulnerable to that kind of thing because how do you do a himleck maneuver on someone who can bend steel I-beam supports by flexing their abs?
Yes she does, it was mentioned in a muuuch earlier comic about Maxima. We don’t know how long she might be able to hold her breathe however, or how efficient her lungs are with how much air. So it might be important, or it might be moot, we dont know yet.
so, environmental control orb?… oh dear, that abbreviates to “eco”.
guessing gravity control/cancellation included?
Having Life Support means she can tank inside her shield almost indefinitely, as long as she doesn’t need to fly, ppo, or use any other orb. Or maybe she can do other things, and just reset the oxygen clock (an already known factor from the Bubble Bus) when needed.
No, at least not yet. We dont know how the Eco orb works – if it just makes air, then easy. If it is a chemical reaction however, or maybe a magical alchemic one, then it requires materials
wondering if you used the air bubble without the flight orb would you plummet into the ocean at terminal velocity
So, shall the green orb be referred to as the “Gas Ball” from now on?
At the very least, she now can stay in her air-tight shield nigh-indefinitely. It is interesting that the bubble stays around them, rather than bubbling up to the surface. This implies at least some aerokinesis from the orb.
Reveal it is! Called it!
Environment Ball is best ball.
So far it seems the Orbs are controls to an Engineering/Maker toolbox. Eg the right tool for the right job at the right time. the pips are not XP gauge, more of as a ‘competency’ badge. You learn the basics before the advanced usage. eg box wrenches before ratchet before torque.
I say toolbox because what maker/engineer has not lamented a missing / misplaced tool when they need to do something?
I was also thinking about the ‘pips’ between orbs.
PPO:
+ Flight/ gravity control? (Turbo?)
+ lightwhip = lightsaber/ shaped cutting tool
+ shield = Extreme hazmat?
+ com/sensor/teleport = distance boost.
+ green – element creation/destruction? = with CO2 = specific freq laser
I love, love, love the way you drew the bubbles in these panels…
Thanks! It took a few tries to get them looking right to be honest. Had to google a bunch of pictures of bubbles, which I’m sure threw the NSA for a loop.
And Sonic once again manages to avert the horrible drowning music by breathing air from a passing bubble.
not sure if anyone commented on this, but I’m not going to read all 650+ comments to see if anyone did, but Sydney actually doesn’t look all that panicked. She has her eyes on her mask and her hand on the hose, so she can get herself breathing again in a few seconds. Apparently the scuba training that she had stuck with her.
humm.. is just me, or is the green orb (atmospherics or just atmos orb) was glowing, like active glowing, not stand-by glowing, before it jumped (?) into Sydney’s hand? curious…
I know I’m late to the party commenting on this, but when I first viewed this when it was posted, I didn’t/couldn’t read Dave’s comment about Sydney panicking. Look at panel #2, that is the calmest, most focused-on-what’s-going-on face I have ever seen on Sydney, she has a lungful of air, and eyes on her breathing mask. She’s fine, oddly, Max is the one overreacting, I’m not sure if normal steel chains of that gauge would hold down that much displaced air, but it is likely to cost more to replace the chains than to replace everything damaged by Sydney’s ‘cannon ball’ a few pages ago (I think the only real damage was one book, $30 tops if it is a hardback.