Grrl Power #542 – NCC Scoville
Actually that is a pretty fair question. The more powers you’ve got, the more earning potential you’ve got in the private sector. But in the military, I’m pretty sure you’re worth your pay grade. Of course, Sydney isn’t an E-0, she’s an ES-0, and makes more than a four star general. That might sound ridiculous on the face of it, but considering what she could make with her cutting beam alone, doing demolition, fracking, anything involving mining, or any number of things. The team needs be competitive with organizations like the NFL.
A few of you came to a similar conclusion as Sydney on this page. I’m not saying you’re right, but, congratulations I guess?
Death traps are pretty absurd. To the point that it’s weird they’re such a common trope in superhero comics. I mean, in the history of comics, has a single death trap ever worked? The 900th time Batman escapes from one, doesn’t the Joker… ok, maybe that’s a bad example cause he’s properly looney tunes, and it can be argued that he has no interest in killing Bats, cause then who would he play with? But then, the Penguin or Two Face. After they fail to dispose of Bats the umpteenth time, wouldn’t they think “Hey, maybe it’s time for a change in tactics.” And it’s not like death traps are weekend projects either. Sure, some of them are just a motion sensor and a claymore, but usually they’re considerable installations involving pits in the floor and giant sheets of plexiglass over top and/or spikes with moving parts, motors and gears. You don’t just make that stuff on a whim. Are Doctor Octopuss’s henchmen primarily comprised of contractors and day laborers? Or is he actually hiring people to make that stuff for him?
When they get together at Villain Con or their Legions of Evil, do they compare notes on death traps. “Ooh, this one almost got him.” “Next time I’ll add glue to the switch.” “I took his utility belt, but didn’t search his boot heel.” Meanwhile, the noobie henchman in the back is wondering why they didn’t just shoot him, and beyond that, if you’ve got him unconscious long enough to put him in the trap, just… take his mask off. Just a peek! Maybe these guys are knocking over armored cars to support their death trap making addictions.
Maxima was in the Air Force and fought in Gulf War 2, but if she had been somehow captured, she wouldn’t have been stuck in a death trap. She’d have either been put in prison or killed outright. Assuming they had a prison that could hold her, which they didn’t. No one does. You can’t pour a concrete wall thick enough to hold her. Ok, so a death trap might actually be the only way to keep her under control – but it wouldn’t be a trap that eventually killed her. Put her on a pressure plate, tell her if she steps off it, a bomb will go off in a hospital somewhere. But a room with spiked walls closing in on her? Yeah, good luck with that.
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Since this line of speculation (that it’s space suit or expeditionary kit) is now in-universe, what could be the function of orb number seven? If they continue with that train of thought, would further testing be geared towards “ship functions” to unlock the last orb and expound on the ones that are known?
The next time she levels up, in a safe environment, they should invite Krona before Sydney spends the point. This Semper Vigilantes may give an insight and better detail of the “holding pattern”.
I’m also liking Sydney’s hair it’s totes adorbs.
I’m pondering “repair and maintenance”. Has Sydney been injured yet?
(Although it also wouldn’t be unreasonable for healing to be an extended function of life support)
I have also considered those possibilities and consider them likely.
I figure it’s ether that or some form of camouflage that she simply hasn’t figured out how to use yet.
Cloaking Device…aka invisibility?
Yes, a number of big bruises and the hot sauce incident, so it’s not auto-healing at the very least.
Yes but she never grabbed that orb during any of the times she was injured, if I recall correctly.
True, but the green orb moved into her hand when she needed air, so the pink one would have moved too.
Singular double-line node could explain that. ‘Knows when it’s needed’.
She was reaching for air and got air.
She needs to be reaching for something, like a band aid, or a phone to call the doctor, for a healing orb to jump in. All about the desire she has in her mind.
“Damn it, Jim, I’m a medical orb, not a fortune teller!!”
maybe the last one is like a fortune cookie, and just has a little questionnaire in it ‘how would you rate your free trial of our…’
As for “Has Sydney been injured yet?” that should be more “when hasn’t she been injured?” Besides taking nega knuckles to the face, hitting her self in shin with own orb, falcon punching herself in her ovaries she is a fairly accident prone individual. But unless its Dave not including them or make up concealing them she had a major bruise on her face from the restaurant fight.
Though as you said, maybe the last orb is medical bay? Providing her head doesn’t become a gas mask and start asking everyone “Mummy!……….Mummy!………Are you my Mummy?” (plus one points to those that get that reference!)
just hope any healing isn’t exclusive to syd that way everybody lives
+1 to you! :)
Matter replicator (transmutation, conjurarion)
Holodeck (make illusions, hard light manipulation/creation)
The yellow orb makes holograms, so probably not.
Navigation….. Exploration is HARD! Interstellar or god forbid inter dimensional it is really easy to get lost. Yea we are looking for earth?!? What’s an earth??
Heck Sydney got lost a few hundred yards from her home.
Justifiably. The view from above, and taking a different route to the one you are used to can easily do that.
But that is with landmarks and street signs. Not the vast emptiness that is space.
It would need to be something which she couldnt have easily figured on her own by testing so … hrm. That does make it tougher to guess.
Does somebody remember the Rising Stars comics by Michael Straczynski, the creator of Babylon 5 ?
In it a limited number of humans (113 in total) gain superpowers after a comet come close to earth, and near the end there’s a theory that the powers where not as random as first tought that is very similar to the space ship theory here.
The serie is complete (21 issues) see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rising_Stars_(comics) (warning, spoilers !)
If the others are “Force Field, Communications, Propulsion, Phasers, Life Support” and “Tractor Beam”, and Sydney’s the Pilot, then a logical answer for the unknown orb could be “Power Supply”. Maybe the orb works in conjunction with the others to amplify their effects.
I’ve been told we’ve had WoG that none of the Orbs are a power supply.
i would assume it is for navigation, because in space it is needed
i dont think it is FTL because i think it is a transportation Orb should cover this and healing and life support could be a option for the Air Orb. Invisibility could be an option for the comm Orb ( teleportation and visual transmission is already included)
Nope, Transport is covered by the Comms ball.
Cargo bay.
If we go the ship route, than we are missing a way to unwind/relax. We currently have shields, weapons, tracer beam, engines, communication/teleportation, and life sport.
So it summons a massage parlour or sex robot?
Hey, the most widely distributed race in the galaxy, that we know of, are the succubi. Their ideas of leisure activity will likely have influenced many cultures, possibly including the orb maker’s.
*puts on a pair of armoured underpants*
*looks nervously at VladThyImpaler*
If it’s an exploration kit two thoughts come to my mind…
1: A Scanner. Something to record all kinds of non-destructive scientific information about an environment, flora, fauna, atmospheric, and geologic.
2: A Translator. A quick way to communicate with a new species.
However if it’s just a “space suit” why does it have skill-tree, and one that retains “points” between users? Normally “equipment” doesn’t function like that. The closets example we have in modern technology are Voice commanded Machine-Learning systems like Siri/Google Voice/Alexa, that both try to adapt to the user’s voice and their query behaviors.Most of it is adapting to the user, not unlocking totally new features.
…Because they kept some features disabled, so the newbies could learn the basic functions before moving on to the more complex ones. The level-ups seem to be correlated with discoveries about how the Orbs function, and new insights and experiences with them. So they seem to be a reward system for mastering the Orbs.
Absolutely. You are talking about the “Training Wheels Protocol”.
Going with the space suit/exploration kit analogy along with the Training Wheels Protocols, its a kit that adapts and grows with its user.
Maybe the previous user was futzing with the settings and accidentally turned off the UI and then fat fingered it into the “guided tour” mode. Then they put their hands on their head in frustration and died since they were underwater and that’s a bad time to release the shield orb. Sydney gets new powers when she accidentally hits the “tell me more” part of the UI that she can’t see. Normal operation would allow her to allocate points freely to customize her exact abilities either for extreme specialization or to cover as many options as possible.
Perhaps it’s a food/water producer? She has everything else she would need for a hostile environment.
I’d think that we’d have figured that one out by now, buuuut maybe it needs input before it out puts. Which would simultaneously give her the best and worst mre’s ever. She’d like it, but everyone else’s die trying to eat it.
Life support may include necessary requirements covered other than atmosphere. She should try grabbing it when hungry. Then again it may be included in the breathable atmosphere it produces.
But that’s how it SHOULD work – also did she tell Maxima about the teleportation yet?
More power doesn’t mean a better hero.
Ben 10
I agree. Its a para-military organization so her pay isn’t base don her abilities and number of features/powers per-se, but a fixed paygrade which is dependant on her total skills, experience and abilities. Just for being a super she is already making more money at the bottom paygrade than most high ranking officers in other militaries. As she gains more experience and rank, she will get paid more.
Which makes me wonder, is Max getting paid more than her ‘superior officer’ in this case? Or is he also on the extended scale and getting paid more for having to put up with them.
She already gets a five-figure (at least) paycheck every two weeks. No need to be greedy.
She can have real custom batman kit made…
maybe the last one is a med bay
Seems reasonable. We’ve already been given a hint that she heals fast now…
Err, can anyone double-check me on this? I swear I remember her getting some injury and being a bit surprised when it was already healed, like when she took off a bandage, but I can’t seem to find it right now.
Wasn’t that when her eye was healed quickly due to the doctor?
black eye covered with makeup healed later by the doc same time she healed harims broken arm
To be fair death traps are hardly used anymore
real villains what the hero to live how else can they make them suffer
I have to admit, l0wten… that’s a pretty good point.
At least not in the throw them into one after you caught them way.
But look to BtAS. Death traps there would be to kill remotely or to handle the pesky problem of shooting Batman is bloody hard to do. So drop him in a vault and suck out the air. Putting a tamper resistance explosive on the compressor removing said air is a death trap. (Batman did not carry an oxygen supply of his own at the time)
Death traps for superman. Most weapons don’t even tickle him. And the gear for red sunlight is heavy. Kryptonite he can see a dozen miles away. So a death trap is to lure him into position for one of these weaknesses.
So said traps have their uses. Just not the silly Adam West era ones.
In answer to Max’s question: It’s *obviously* a tow cable
Wouldn’t that be the Lighthook?
They are referring to the lighthook.
It’s the equivalent of a robotic arm. What you’d see on research submarines, space probes & ROVs.
Or the grappling hooks on the prequel series of Star Trek.
What the hell do you mean “deathraps and death rays etc arent a weekend project”? The hell is wrong with you? https://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20090306 :P
Plus that way you can be a deathtraps weekend project… :P
thanks man, when I switches to my new laptop (old one broke) I lost and forgot about a lot of links to stuff I like GG has been a long time favorite, now I can catch back up! :3
Awesome comic link. Thank you. And anyone who thinks deathtraps and deathrays aren’t a weekend project clearly has a trust fund…or indulgent parents.
…Seriously, Moloch is like the Platonic Ideal of a minion.
So now I’m going to havta go back reread GG and get caught up. My other favorite comic.
Death rays are not hard to make now, parts are a trifle expensive and you’ll probably get a visit from federal agents if you start accumulating the parts.
Man, it’s been so long since we’ve seen Moloch von Zinzer in the main comic. I love that guy. He’s one of the best side characters in Girl Genius.
Theoretically he’s going to have to come back some year. We still haven’t gone full-circle with the time bubbles Dupree saw… although the Gilgamesh she saw in them looked a lot more sane and less darkened due to the endless cynicism of rule than the current one.
If she’s a ship, then one of those orbs would have to be a scanner of some sort. She doesn’t seem to need it, but she could use it to analyze enemies to determine their weaknesses and resistances.
com ball has scanner functions and teleportation
I think that would fall under the vision modes of the comm ball. True sight, seeing magical auras… Not much of a stretch for “see weaknesses” and have them flash red. :p
The yellow orb, “communications”- telepresence and true sight- covers that as well. If Halo were a Star Trek vessel, she’d probably be able to see cloaked ships.
without the BS technobabble about reversing the polarity of the remodulated shield phase emitter of gravitic flux tachyon particles every 11 parsecs.
How do you get 30 Feds into a phone booth? Tell them there’s a new life form to talk to.
How do you get 30 Klingons into a phone booth? Tell them it’s Earth.
How do you get 30 Romulans into a phone booth? Tell them it has a cloaking device.
How do you get 30 Ferengi into a phone booth? Tell them there’s a profit in it.
How do you get 30 Gorn into a phone booth? You don’t. Don’t even try.
how do you get 300 Tribbles into a phone booth? Push in a Klingon.
It works best the other way around. Klingons consider them mortal enemies though I don’t think it goes both ways.
Super late to the party on this but tribbles absolutely hate Klingons. They can tell who is or isn’t a Klingon even if they’ve been modified to hide their Klingon traits, because that was a plot point of The Trouble With Tribbles and was repeated for effect in Trials and Tribble-ations. Tribbles make a horrible screeching noise when they sense a Klingon.
Klingons did have their own emu war with Tribbles, after all.
*fluffs hair*
Prrrrrrrrr.
Ooh! Thought of a new one!
How do you get 30 Bajorans into a phone booth? Tell them there’s a prophet in it.
(If I could edit, I’d insert this one right after the Ferengi one.)
“Sydney, scan the planet for life-forms!”
So… the last orb is the FTL?
I’m thinking cargo somehow; we don’t know that commball has a maximum speed of mini-orb movement and it can teleport.
Hammerspace. Unlimited storage potential. Sydney would flip if that were true.
She wuld fill it with hammers.
Or chainsaws and mopeds. …don’t have schlock link for this sorry.
If we are to pursue the spaceship hypothesis than the last orb must be food and poop.
I was about to say ‘toilet’.
But….if the the breather came to her when she needed to breathe,
Why didn’t the toilet come to her when she needed to pee?
Has SciFi and/or Fantasy ever featured magical internal organs that vanish waste products and replace water? None come to mind.
Hollywood heroes don’t poop. Ever.
(Which may be why so much movie sci fi is fulla…)
I just pictured her needing to poop, then the “unknown” orb suddenly jumping up her butt and wriggling around…
Awkward.
Not only do they not poop, but unless it is story lined in, they don’t have sex or masturbate.
She was already holding orbs so the other didn’t rush in to get used. Plus, she’d have to go longer without a restroom in order to risk death from holding it in, so emergency mode wasn’t active. Or maybe Emergency Mode is a spent point on Breath Ball?
I recall a couple of offhand references.
In Wapsi Square, a number of characters can teleport themselves and other things. They’ve had some teleportation/bodily function interactions–teleporting food into someone’s stomach, teleporting alcohol into or out of people (one character is a god of booze), and at least one instance of porting a poop out of someone.
There was also something about walking a blink dog familiar…somewhere. Maybe in an “Ecology of the Blink Dog” article in Dragon Magazine. It suggested that they displace their waste (sometimes into the neighbors’ houses).
Ftl is probably a not yet tapped power of the fly ball.
Last orb is probably either amed bay, replicator, or holodeck :)
Although the comm ball miiight already have holodeck capabilities that have not yet been accessed
I think it might be deflector/tractor kit since the light hook could pull and push and hit a person with out killing them
FINALLY!
It’s the final thing that a space suit needs!
Also makes me think it’s designed for a species with more hands.
Speaking of what are the odds of finding technology or a super that can grow her more hands?
not necessarily looking at the skill tree i think some of it pertains to how many orbs you can activate at once (not manipulate activate) ie you can set a telepresence decoy in front of you to draw fire whilst using the flight and shield orbs.
looking at the tree their is a spoke in the middle that doesn’t have any obvious connection to any of the orbs with two lights lit up i think it might be a indicator of how many orbs you are permitted / have power to use
That central bit is correlated with two filled in Nodes, which in-turn seem to match up to the Force-field and Flight Orbs, two of Sydney’s strongest Orbs. So that might be a raw ‘strengthens the corresponding Orb’ Node.
no, space suits need a bit of velcro to scratch:
https://www.popsci.com/article/technology/time-i-got-try-actual-space-suit
Don’t they know a certain reality manipulator?
Or the final ball might give her telekinesis/”ghost” hands. Which, of course, she can’t use because it would require immense focus and concentration and – – – Sydney.
Sydney, keep the air recycler.
You only have two hands.
Two thumbs up for that.
If this is a spaceship, then it’s either from a species with more than two hands or the creators activated the orbs some other way besides grabbing them. It would be tough to go interstellar with shield, propulsion, life support, scanners, weapons, etc – but pick only two at a time.
Maybe the last orb is the cargo bay? like a bag of holding, it opens some kind of sub dimensional storage space, making her utillity belt obsolete.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1062 Hammerspace !!!
It IS the only other orb with an “inner orb” color. The com ball has a remote/teleport option. So what if the remaining unknown has a remote/storage option?
Can i just say that sydney in panels 2 and 7 is god damn beautiful.
Seriously it’s a shame it’s pretty much limited to wet but drying hair, I support the look.
Imprisoning Maxima would be very difficult. I think it just depends on how strong she remains when she does a full stat dump into defense. Thick Tungsten walls, floor, and ceiling, and a massive electrical field to force a full defense stat dump. Tungsten is not only incredibly hard, it has very high heat resist just in case she can shoot a little energy while in full stat dump.
The trick would be making sure that the current was high enough that she could barely maintain consciousness in 100% defense mode, so that the nano-second she tried to move a stat, she’d be rendered unconscious.
Sydney is much easier, needing only oven mitts and duck tape.
Don’t forget hearing protection.
And something shiny to distract her.
That alone could render her helpless.
Definitely a muzzle.
The question with Sidney is how to extract her from her field in the first place.
Considering she is The Nerd and won’t fail to any of the standard villanish negotiation tactics.
Just have a trap door at comicon.
Change the situation a lot to make her orb switch frequently and wait till she messes up.
Even more difficult if go with how not many people know how Maxima’s powers work. Hard to plan for a stat dump\change since you DON’T know it exists.
Why does everyone try to have possible villains & such act on info only READERS know? *sighs*
Well now feel lie a dummy. Sorry for over boldage. Not spend lot of time actually talking on net so not so savvy how to use things.
Which is why someone would try to trap her and force exit as a test. Can she take 200 db’s of sound? Infrasound? Ultrasonic?
Anyone being logical would presume she’s got some kind of nanites going on, or similar structures in the cells, so attempts to disrupt those with very high frequencies, EMP’s, gamma/particulate radiation or just plain heat would be things to try. Again, anyone who’s seen a video of the fight with Vehemence would want to test his assumptions about Max and high tension electricity.
Yes, just put her in a cell with tubey full of orbs in the next cell…
Whoever commented that the orbs were an advanced survival/exploration kit wins a cookie.
In another note, death traps are so Silver Age…
No, Mr. Bond. I do not expect you to talk. I expect you to die!
You’re now trapped in an invisible box. You must use a Mime to get out of it. unfortunately, we are in Paris, there are no mimes here, Mr.Bo…what? no! pretending you have a key will not work! you mus..
fine, Mr. Bond. you win this round..
Did I ever mention how much I love this community?
I hope that one gave you a good *milk from the nose* laugh
Yes it did. You and David. Thanks.
I hate you. Do you know how unpleasant coffee from a nostril that vents plasma is or how nasty it smells when you plas since you can never clear it all.
From DaveB’s log, above: “Meanwhile, the noobie henchman in the back is wondering why they didn’t just shoot him”
Maybe the noobie henchman is the only one in the room who has read the Evil Overlord’s Handbook?…
Hey! I know you
Maybe she been in one ore more death traps but dithe see not see it like that because she is out lange before she is in real danger.
I’m was sort of expecting a page about what happened with the air bubble in the pool and maybe Sydney and Maxima doing some further experiments with it… or
DaveB, please don’t begin to rush the pace. The difference between comic time and real-world time is one of the things I love about this.
About death traps – as a super villain, you have to install death traps once in a while to be taken seriously. Because what if you don’t, what if you install traps that are meant to slow the heroes down a bit or cause some discomfort to them, even if they fulfill their purpose better than death traps? You’d be a mere annoyance, nothing that needs immediate attention, if at all. It’s better to deploy a death trap that at least has the potential to be deadly even if it never kills anybody, than a trap that can’t kill anybody.
And indeed, the Joker may be an exception but I don’t think he is: Exploding whoopee cushions, squirting flowers filled with acid, deadly poisons that leave a grin in people’s dead faces – the Joker is to be taken seriously, he’s something that needs the attention of super heroes instead of mortal human’s police. Even under the assumption that he has no real intention to kill Batman.
Aaand the first sentence is me rushing a comment to get sent… :-/
So, supervillains are attention whores? That fits with the megalomania, monologuing, idiotic posturing, fancy duds, and hordes of minions.
Science can be done later. After they’re better prepared, rather than shortly after one of them could have drowned.
Going by the Star Trek standard equipment, how about a universal translator/Babel fish? Has she tried to use it while listening to a foreign language yet?
Personally I’d figure that function would be an unlock on the comm ball.
I thought of that as soon as I’d said it. Still, that so-called “comm ball” has shown quite a cornucopia of powers already. Especially now that teleportation has been added to the mix, which seems quite outside the scope of communications.
Probably a design thing. Since it already had the Lightbee moving around for projection, might as well give it the teleport function. Two birds with one stone, ya know?
The package deal, so far, includes Telepresence, Teleportation, and Truesight. Rather than just communications, the Comball is an entire exploration and investigation suite.
Other way around…. Zip in look around, assess, then pop in…..
…Huh? Are you arguing the teleportation was the originally intended function, and the other features are the add-ones? Because the teleport function is a single Node, while the remaining functions, most of which are scanner-y, are the entire rest of the tree.
The Comm Orb’s tree, to make that clear.
Like Dabbler in her native language?
Since most orbs can be used multiple ways I’d say a universal translator would be a likely part of an A.I. orb.
An article on Death Trap reasons: https://lorendiac.livejournal.com/2864.html
Interesting article.
#10 is not about a death trap, it’s about a trap/device that’s not meant to kill.
Also I think the list lacks my reasoning: Forcing superheroes to pay attention to the villain.
A sane and rational villain (ignoring the question of whether a sane and rational person will be a villain) won’t put a victim into a real deathtrap. If Villain has determined to kill Victim and there’s no reason not to do so immediately, then Villain will just kill Victim and a quick and sure manner. If Villain has a good reason to not kill the Victim just yet, or has not decided to kill, Villain won’t want to create an artificially-high risk of Victim dying accidentally.
Even a fake deathtrap is chancy. Sure, your extremely sharp pendulum swinging over the midriff of your spreadeagled victim is set to stop a half inch before cutting into flesh… but what if that stopping mechanism malfunctions? Or what if the victim gets his arms free and sits up?
However, there are lots of good reasons to build man-traps. These are not intended to kill, or even look like they are going to kill. They are intended to hold which may call for measures to keep the trapped person from bringing his abilities to bear on the task of escaping. Those measures may make the trapped person extremely uncomfortable but should have very low risk of doing significant or permanent injury. In due course someone comes along to see who got caught and determine the proper response to that person’s presence.
I think the green orb is more accurately labeled as Emergency Life Support. For when you main life support (power suit/space suit/air recycler) gets damaged/stops working.
Unless of course the original user/owner of the orbs actually did have 7(unlikely because on earth at least there are almost no true asymmetrical species) or 8 arms/appendages/tentacles
Spiders? Octopus…sies? Squids? Jellyfish?
Hmmm… Explorer octopus with a remote controlled tentacle to poke and prod things it can’t do inside a shield. Or isn’t safe. Makes sense.
Let’s just hope there isn’t an angry army of these looking for their lost comrade!
Well if you were designing a system that needed to use your “hands”, you’d want to leave at least one free for non-orb related tasks. So 8 “arms/hands” seems correct as a minimum.
If there creator was tentacle based… I wonder if it’s total contact area that’s the trigger for the Orbs. Has Sydney tried to stuff one under her armpit?
Yes I believe she has, as well as other parts of her body.
But humans have four limbs, not just two. Feet and hands are essentially the same thing, just adapted to different normal use, and any “hands” that an alien might have, evolved quite independently, would likely be far more different than human hands and feet are from each other. Sydney seems to have realized that, because we saw that she had tried to attach an orb under a foot during her experimentation, but it still didn’t work. Which makes it seem like the orbs are very specifically designed to be used by the two hands humans normally have and nothing else.
The Orbs respond to thoughts and desires it would seem judging by the way they come to her hands and the way the Air Orb responded to her need for air. Chances are the reason her feet, butt, and… other bits… wouldn’t control the orbs because she didn’t think of them as being able to control the orbs, she didn’t think of them AS hands.
Its been suggested the point buy system is designed to train the user to what is possible and that the toggles on the orbs are designed to help the user develop the mental skills necessary to simply Think the orbs what to do so maybe some day when she’s gotten used to “Thinking with Orbs” she will be able to control two of them without touching them and maybe eventually ALL of them when she is in super ADHD mode or whatever. (yeah, I’m sure that makes no sense with the condition but knowing Dave’s sense of humor concerning Sydney a hard to maintain “Super Saiyan” mode seems likely!)
Who says it orignated on Earth? It could be a seven-armed space-starfish.
Sh*t, wrong comment.
If the orbs are designed to work when gripped by the user’s manipulating organ… human feet are only capable of gripping fairly small objects, considerably smaller than the orbs, and aren’t much designed for manipulating things. Being gripped by tape holding an orb against the user’s skin is also not the same thing. Tucked in an armpit might qualify as gripping, but the armpit is also not a manipulating organ.
Oh, and Sydney already has more money than she knows what to do with, and she still wants a raise? Please don’t turn greedy.
I think it’s relatively safe to assume that was a joke.
How many days has it been since the “dog and pony show”?
Ooh just had another thought. What if these are gems that’s supposed to go into some kind of giant glove like thing so they can all be active at once?
Infinity stones? No I have no idea what you’re talking about.
:P
I’m thinking that the orbs are more like spaceship structural parts. Like the Mandarins rings that where originally part of a crashed alien spaceship.
Or maybe they’re pieces of a giant crystalline space-whale gestalt. It would certainly explain the superheroes.
(Let’s see who gets the reference…)
The only giant space-whales I an can think of are Moya and Gomtuu.
Eh. ‘Whale’ is about the closest parallel there is, in this case. I mean, what else would you call a giant mass of flesh-and-crystal, which swims through space, made up of numerous semi-sentient sub-systems, which occasionally fragments itself and grants super powers? ‘Space-whale’ is apparently a good enough parallel to their overall appearance.
While I think of David Webers Belisarius stories and those things from x-men comics that were hunted by the Brood. And also Worm but that is only cause i read so many fanfics of Worm on Spacebattles. I never read the original.
hello, fellow Worm reader! o/
Jeez, does nobody understand true villainy anymore? If something is worth doing it’s worth doing with flair.
Anyone can shoot a man, you’ve got to go further if you want people to truly fear you. You’ve got to go to extremes to show the (perceived ) difficulty in killing a superhero. Otherwise your achievement just seems mundane.
“Oh, he wasn’t immune to bullets? Not much of a super then, was he?”
Ahhh :-) I’m pleased.
Yes, but unfortunatly, that tendancy to monologue and flair for dramatics usually gives the hero time to figure his way out of the situation and foil the plan. Especially if the villian ended up giving away all the secrets of how the death trap works along with his evil plan while monologing.
Sometimes letting the villian talk for minutes or hours on end can be a hero’s greatest intelligence source to figuring out how to foil them.
Oh of course, the monologuing is idiocy born of a twisted need for others’ approval. There’s no benefit from that.
Death trap that worked. Sorta.
Jason Todd killed by the Joker.
Technically jason todd wasnt a SUPERhero since he was just a really well train human with no powers.
It was still a death trap :)
And by that logic, Batman isnt a superhero either.
Batman is a Superhero….. He warps probability so that he always survives/has the gadget in his belt that does the job. Regularly jump off buildings where the fall would be lethal ect….
And has the most powerful super ability of all more money than most 2nd world countries
Well, that story was from about 30 years ago. Jason just walked in on the Joker who proceeded to bludgeon him with a crowbar and left him with a timed bomb. I suppose the bomb might count as a death trap, but it was hardly the elaborate trap I think we’re talking about here, and besides, the Joker thought Jason was already dead from the crowbar.
I think the fact that the idea that it’s an alien spaceship-lifesupport device being in-world makes it likely not the case.
My guess – it’s an alien game device. Someone lost their playstation 225. Or the whole world is a simulation and that’s a player-avatar’s interface device. The latter option has already been heavily hinted at.
While there could be other justifications for the orbs ‘level up’ tree, they feel like a bigger stretch than the above.
What, ‘training mode’ is a bigger stretch than ‘reality is a simulation’? Serioust, the level-ups seem to come when Sydney has gained insight into the function of the Orbs. So ‘training mode’ seems fairly plausible to me.
*seriously
We really need an edit function…
A reality TV game show? Are there incoming bad guys to beat sent by the organisers?
Going to update Sydney’s side card?
Maybe after the orb is named?
I still want to see Sydney using the lighthook like a Spider-Girl web, swinging, etc.
I dont think she can use light hook in that way … from whats been displayed light hook doent seem to behave like its a rope attached to her. It took vehemence type of power just to drag her a little bit. And in testing the limits with max she didnt get lifted off the ground. I think light hook is its own force that just happens to use the orb it was summoned from as a point of reference.
That is something they need to test as it will give insight on other orbs
Can she ask Dabbler if she knows any species with 7 or more hands?
The problem with asking Dabbler that question is not if she knows any species with 7 or more hands.
The problem is that she is likely to go into explicit detail of all the ways they can use them…
;-)
she might just say ‘hmm, seems most human males do’
Riddler is the deathtraps guy. Joker is the “Hi, I’m gonna tie you to this bomb. Buh-bye.” guy. Two Face usually just opts to shoot Batman and Penguin usually sics some kind of animal on him.
“…has a single death trap ever worked?” Yes, a death trap in the film “Mystery Men” killed Captain Amazing pretty thoroughly.
Death traps were a staple of the ’60s Batman series and Bond films, but I don’t recall them actually used much in comic books. I remember one with Black Canary and Clock King, but that was to put her into a countdown peril to lure Green Arrow into rushing in without preparation.
There was one with a fake Black Canary and Penguin, where the plan was for Batman to “rescue” the imposter and her to give him a poisoned thank-you kiss. Funny thing was after he punched her out, beat up Penguin and his goons, then rescued the real Canary, she DID give him a thank-you kiss. Then a couple issues later he was daydreaming about how great the kiss was and wondering if he was seriously thinking about making a play for his friend’s girl.
There were a few in the comics, I remember that mechanical Joker head swallowing Batman very well. That was way back in the 60’s.
I totally like the way Maxima is dealing with Sydney’s aura of nonsens’yshness.
With attempts of dignity and carefull poking-with-a-stick XD
The last orb is obviously the muffin button.
Or any time she tries to activate it a garage door on Alpha Centauri goes up or down.
and squishes a poor little muffin.
omg why can’t we upvote these?
(Sydney presses a shape on the last orb) *poof* (looks down…ooh, I’ve got a sweet muffin top now!) [camera pans to Sydney’s front, her shirt now has a HD picture of a muffin on it]
Last Orb is a tent! A pocket dimension home away from home. After all, any traveler needs a place to sleep safely.
An “Harry Potter tent” of alien design with power ups to be different kind of disguises.
Don’t confuse this and hammer space, you might have trouble escaping when you want to leave. What happened to the last user? The orbs weren’t found with a skeleton.
Off topic, but the keys on the ‘then you may like’ sidebar need updating.
‘Love and Capes’ has concluded.
SN ?
I suspect that,if Sydney’s guess about her orbs being for a “spaceship/spacesuit”, it might be an amplification and combination orb. Essentially giving her the ability to hold the one orb and activate and control the others, thus allowing her to literally become a space ship.
This would also act as a “master orb”, allowing control of all the orbs at the same time. It probably won’t activate unless either Sydney fills out the rest of the slots for her orbs, or in extreme danger. (The life support orb probably also act as a medical orb, not acting unless the user has been injured or in imminate danger of life function termination. (And yes, it likely would have gone into effect as soon as she started being drained by that franken-vampire).
I had one comment about Sydney still being in her wet suit. They are built for insulation purposes. Wouldn’t it be way too hot to just sit around in?
Possible reasons for not changing:
1) They are a pain to get into and out of.
2) They are going back into the pool for round 2 of testing.
3) Dabbler has a habit of using the furniture for ‘recreational’ purposes. Maybe they don’t want to sit there until they can check for space herpes or something.
With regards to death traps, I rather liked the Batman: The Animated Series episode where a bunch of his villians are talking about the cunning death traps they’ve thrown at Batman over the years. Killer Croc offers up “I threw a rock at him!” . . . “It was a big rock.”
Of course, spoilers happen, but I get the impression that it actually was as close as any of the rogues had gotten to killing the Bat…
In general, death-traps make sense as a barrier to protect key pieces of infrastructure like a treasure vault, throne room, command and control center, etc. from generic threats and invaders. It’s when they start being custom-tailored to specific individuals that their function falls apart.
Death-traps also see common use as part of blood-sports, like hunting. Pit traps used to capture and kill large animals like lions, tigers, and bears are common in fiction and reality.
The reason Batman’s Rogue’s Gallery uses death-traps so much is because they see fighting Batman as a blood-sport, Edward Nygma, in particular, gets a sick thrill out of using riddled death-traps to try and prove that he’s “smarter” than Batman, and just about everyone else.
Doctor Otto Octavious, aka Dr. Octopus is not only legally insane, but uses his deathtraps to defend critical pieces of infrastructure against generic threats. Spider-Man just happens to be the one most often to clash with Doc Oc.
For Dr. Doom, doubly so, and Dr. Doom happens to run an actual country, so the R&D, not to mention labor and cost to build his death-traps are fully justified.
So in their respective universes, the copious death-trap use is perfectly sound among the super-villains.
Traps used to guard the entrance to a location or peice of equipment (often fatally) are typically refered to as booby-traps not death-traps. At least in my experience. Wheras death-traps are typically more specific to the tailor made machines of death intended to kill the tarket eventually. Usually very complicated and designed to (i guess) instill fear of the impending death in the target. Prolong mental and/or physical suffering. And yes come to think of it, early Batman and James Bond movies featured them. Have not really sene them any where else.
Classic boobie traps I have seen plenty of times. Depending on the age, and janitorial crew of the trap area, sometimes with remains of past victims who didn’t notice the trap till it was already killing them.
Gues one of the few ‘death-traps’ I have sene that wasn’t super complicated and worked (for a time) was the pit and monster trap Jaba had in the first Star Wars trilogy. That seamed to work out quite well for Jaba, until he tried to feed a Jedi to his minon’s pet. That meal did not work out so well. But that was also a sporty type of trap as Jaba and his men got a kick out of watching the victim feebilly defend themselve sagainst the monster.
My fear is now that the spacesuit/spaceship theory is being discussed in-universe, its likelihood as an answer has gone down.
Last Orb: Automatic setting for use while its user is asleep.
Or: power source for the other orbs
Or: (this could be really bad) Automatic recall to home planet (assuming earth is NOT home planet)
Honestly, I’m trying to remember the last time I actually saw a deathtrap in comics.
Gold Digger has a ton of deathtraps. The main character is a cross between Indiana Jones and mad scientist, so in most cases the traps are defenses in ancient archaeological sites. The builders couldn’t be physically present. Or, in some cases, they just don’t want to be in the same room as the hero; you can get captured that way!
I don’t think this has been mentioned so far, but in some cases a deathtrap makes sense because the hero can’t be killed by ordinary means. It’s hard to “just shoot him” when facing Spider-Man, since his spider-sense tells him where the bullet is about to be fired, and he can dodge ahead of time. There was one issue of Spider-Man (I think it was during JMS’s run) in which the villain put a time-bomb in a building with hostages inside. Spidey knew the bomb was about to go off, but he went in anyways to save the hostages. They turned out to be mannequins, but his spidey-sense is was too busy screaming “that bomb over there is about to explode” to mention “by the way, the hostages are fake”, assuming that a danger sense would notice that at all.
My time in FTL gives me insight into this. The last orb is probably the most important part of the space ship, the door control.