Grrl Power #543 – Elimination speculation
That’s Harem’s butt in the last panel in case you forgot she was wearing the ‘ol glory bikini.
It seems from last page’s comments, you guys beat Max and Sydney to this discussion, and came up with a lot of similar ideas. This still assumes they’re even right about the orb, though it does seem to line up so far.
Over these last few pages I’ve gotten a bit better at drawing bare feet, but I’m a long way from foot fetish levels of competence, which is of course the goal of all art. Maxima on the other hand looks kind of mannequinish to me. I’ve been having trouble with her eyes lately, I think I’m getting in my own head over them. And for some reason it’s been taking me longer and longer to do the penciling overall. I don’t know if I need to take to take a few days off of drawing, which I basically haven’t done since I started the comic, or if I need to get ahead on the comic a little so I can spend a day or two just doing art basics and experimenting with stuff. Honestly I probably would benefit from doing both, but it’s not going to happen if it’s taking me 4 days to pencil 2 pages. I could definitely save some time if I did a page or two of everyone standing in front of the same background that I can draw once then paste paste paste.
Speaking of backgrounds, the blue bit behind them on the couch isn’t sky, it’s, the nearly mirrored surface of the Archon building reflecting the sky. I have to imagine the pool was built on a side of the building that never receives direct sunlight. Otherwise, you’d might get a tan twice as fast, but also the pool would evaporate and you’d need new retinas.
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If the last one does turn out to be a “bag of holding”, would it be able store the other orbs?
Would it be able to store another bag of holding that contains more bags of holding?
If you have a bag of holding, why would you need another? o_O
to hold everything that’s not in your first bag. (which might be only your first bag)
Going with the theme of CommBall, Flyball, and now AirBall, some of the other orbs could be called FireBall, WallBall, and SnakeBall –and if the last one is for carrying stuff, I’d call it the HaulBall.
If they do test that last orb at the firing range, and if it indeed turns out to be some sort of storage system (think about time not passing in there, like one of Larry Niven’s stasis boxes), **and** if some alien has been in there for a long time (with respect to outside world), it might be handy to have Dabbler there, too, to cast a translation spell.
Or, given that Earth is a major sex tourism destination, she could provide another service.
The people, living on the floating island in my first bag of holding, also need to use such bags…
Why are there folders inside of folders?
Never put a bag of holding inside another bag of holding. Each accesses an extra-dimensional space. The multiverse does not like it if you try to put two extra-dimensional spaces in the same location.
You’re thinking of what happens when you put a portable hole inside a bag of holding or vice versa. THAT’S messy. And weaponizeable.
Bag of holding inside a bag of holding doesn’t tear reality apart, but the bags inside the main bag lose their ability to function as anything other than ordinary bags until they’re removed. It could be used for shipping bags of holding, but other than that it doesn’t really accomplish much.
Mmm, it may only be stipulated for the combination you mention, but the logic holds true. It is a consensus I had with the other dungeon masters I hung with. Albeit that only amounts to ‘house rules’.
The last Artificer I played spent hundreds of thousands in gold to get the process down to manageable levels so he could create tiny clockwork boxes that essentially functioned as grenades using the reaction between an even more tiny bag of holding and a portable hole the size of a napkin. The DM ruled that since it couldn’t shift that much mass into the astral plane, it basically ripped chunks out of anything nearby when it went off.
Yes, we killed a dragon using these, no, the hoard it left behind wasn’t enough to cover the material cost… =p
:-D
The “Portable Hole and Bag of Holding” explosion is how my low-level mage wiped out a distracted Demon (Devil?) Lord. With “Unseen Servant”. (She was supposed to leave the demon to the NPC.)
Man, he (the Demon) was PISSED the next time we ran into each other. Fortunately that was 12 levels and several hundred new spells later.
/This memory brought to you by ooh shiny
Just in case a friend needs to borrow a bag of holding.
For sorting-purposes.
Isn’t that what the BoH already does? You reach in and take out what you are looking for, no sorting required
No, not in a typical one. That is the property of more advanced variants, like the Belt of Many Things (having separate compartments helps). A Bag of Holding is no more than a sack with an incredibly large capacity and a very much reduced weight.
However, the more you put in it, the harder it is to find something specific.
Heward’s Handy Haversack is the luxury version, with the kind of property you described.
*activates orb in Ariana’s office during a lecture with the mental “I could use some help”*
“Where in Bonzo’s brass buttons am I? And who are– yaaghh, that’s one mother of a headache!”
Sydney: “An adorable tripping hazard? Meh, i won’t try for better. PULL!”
*lighthooks a gnome across the room*
“Please state the nature of the medical emergency.”
“Not you, again!”
I think that if the orbs really do give Halo the powers of a starship then “warpdrive” would be an advanced flight orb function rather than a separate orb.
Yeah. The Brig idea makes a little more sense.
I have had several big ideas. Including one that could help peace to prevail more frequently.
does that last one involve dogs being petted?
also um in case you misread SilverWing’s comment, they said BRIG not BIG
I’m betting on “medical.” This is too vast a suite of powers for healing to be completely ignored.
Most of the orbs seem to have their color relate with their function. Blue=Sky, Green=Life, Red-orange=Attack, etc. Pink is associated with pleasure and kindness, so maybe the orb relates to that. I’ve also seen pink represent fear, though.
I guess it’s more of a tan-pink though. Not sure what that means.
And so we come back to the Brown orb being the Poo Poo Orb.
Maybe instead of a Brig, it’s storage?
Grasping it and telling it to open the storage might see a tunnel opening, with doors on either side. The labels for which might be: ‘Pots’, ‘Pointy objects’, ‘ ‘, ‘Pot’, ‘The neighbours’ and so on.
Reading your comment, I just pictured a “Wormhole”-type alternative to the “Warp-Drive”-theory!
Picture this:
Once the proper skills are unlocked, the BrownOrb will be able to Expand to become an opening, within which will be seen a series of other openings. Exploration will reveal that each opening is a “shortcut” to another world, elsewhere in the universe. Whichever opening you walk through, it will then collapse & become the “replacement” BrownOrb, while she’s in this new corner of the universe.
Theoretically, you could walk anywhere, whilst remaining indoors/a>.
Gosh darn, now i read the whole thing just now, it wasnt even a really good comic
:-(
I imagine it is an acquired taste. It does have a vast, gradually unfolding world, with many interesting plots, intrigues, myseries, consistently playing out, even if we only get to see the periphery of them.
But it does principally focus on a guy and a gal wandering around together talking to each other. Even though a lot of action can kick off, at times. So I can see that it would not be everyone’s cup of tea.
Granted, it’s not the most impressive artwork…
…but then, they can’t all be winners across the board.
The plot may ‘meander’ a bit, but I’d rate it as at-least average, & sometimes much better.
I’m still enjoying the adventure of working my way thru the archives, & I’m only up to [2004/01/01].
By comparison to Grrl Power and other top-end comics sure. But it does update at a comic a day, every day of the year, for many years. So the economical technique is easily justified.
And similar to this comic, it embeds a lot of subtle detail. Some areas have a lot of grafiti, for example. But once you have learnt how to read it, you realise that many of the scrawls are actually signs and notices.
I am glad you are enjoying it. It has been favourably received by other Grrl Power readers, in the past.
*wags tail companionably*
In other news, observations have shown that a huge section of the ‘Larsen’ ice shelf has just split off into the ocean. Too bad. I am going to miss it. That was where he drew all those Far Side penguin cartoons.
If it is on the Far Side, of the world, will it fall off now? I am worried about those penguins. They can’t fly!
No, scientists proved the world isn’t flat: if it was, cats would have pushed everything off the edge by now.
OK how do you explain Australia then?
No one can explain Australia
penal colony. that’s the explanation.
No, that’s the cover story
We’re fine down under thank you very much.
*posts off a pallet of super-glue and extra-strong velcro shoes*
Just in case you run out cobber.
You will be fined if you don’t stay on your continent :P
My original hypothesis for the orbs is that they are used by survivors of a ship wreck—star ship wreck. Supplies to use to stay alive in alien climes. But as for being a spaceship. No way. But for temporary short jaunts to escape a “sinking” starship they would be advantageous in space on on a planet.
In which case the brown orb should be the distress beacon. Upgrades might include cryogenic chambers, a healing sarcophagus and maybe a stargate.
*throws pebble, with message on it, through the event horizon*
Take me to your leader
I wish to defect
indeed.
many have said that.
but you are the first one I believe could actually do it!
Your comment made me think Food. The only essential that isn’t provided by the orbs. … Are there any other essentials not provided by the orbs? (Besides the essential provided by, or with, companionship?)
Clearly the first node would have to be the primary food group.
Other essentials? You covered the most profound one. And it already grants the ability to penetrate the 4th wall.
Shelter. Although the Shield Orb provides protection, it only does so whilst the orb is being held. Sydney is not just vulnerable to mittens, she also needs to sleep.
Unless she uses over-sized mittens to hold the Orb(s) against her hand(s) while sleeping…?
Turning a disadvantage into an advantage. Clever runner.
(…humbly accepts his “Gold Star”…)
I forget – is there a “Yorp”-version of the infamous “Scooby-Snack”?
There certainly is, it is the Yorpie Snax.™
*wags tail eagerly*
Maybe the Brown is some kind of life sustaining device. Whether take the ambient mana or orgone or PKE and channel it to your body directly to every one of the 6 billion cells in your body. Since the point is to keep you alive. Once death has occurred you have little time to resurrect you. It may function as a means of keeping your body alive at all costs. Including in areas we think of as fiction or magick.
That is why I wonder if we will ever meet the makers of those orbs if they are alien in construction instead a left over from the First (previous glacial time maybe several) unknown industrialization. Humans have been around between 250,000 to 500,000 years ago. They were destroyed by Mount Toba caldera explosion about 70,000 years ago. Similar to the threat we now have with the Yellowstone caldera which can explode at any time. I want to convert it to a huge thermal plant to generate clean energy in huge quantities for as long as they can.
They were more advanced that we are now. Vimanas and the like.
If looking for global disasters that could both account for the loss of any traces of an advanced civilisation and explain where the orbs were found, I would point the claw at the Chicxulub crater..
Dinosaurs had hundreds of millions of years of dominance over this planet, with many diverse varieties having developed in each epoch. And yet humanity is confident that only they and their close relatives exploited intelligence as an evolutionary advantage.
Why? Because of not having found any traces of artifacts. Yet how many have studied objects in the vicinity of dinosaur finds, to determine if any may have been tools or artificially modified?
And, barring a very few accidental deaths, the majority of artifacts associated with humans bodies tend to be in burials. If intelligent dinosaurs did not have ritual burial ceremonies then the chances of finding artifacts would be much reduced. Add together the passage of time, degrading them, and they may not be recognisable as having any artificial origin unless that is being carefully looked for.
Plus if the bulk of dinosaur technology was based around biological and other degradable technologies, then we would be looking for the wrong things. Dinosaurs could have fashioned clothing, from plant products or hides of non-intelligent dinosaurs (much like humans do with cows).
Yet dinosaur skin and scales are vanishingly rarely preserved, in the fossil record. So we could expect clothing to be just as rare, if not more so. And even if it was spotted it may be mistaken as being a detached piece of the dinosaur’s own hide, or that of its prey (which it probably is).
And, of course, in the Grrl Verse, dinosaurs might have found advanced development to be much better progressed via magic. The thought that you could turn rocks and lumps of unappetising metal into useful tools, by using fire, may have never occurred to them.
The orbs could have been grown, much like we see pearls today, in a biological factory. In fact oysters could have been modified for just such purposes, and the ones we see just happen to be ones that were fit to survive the destruction of the factories and carry on independent life.
Of course the Chicxulub crater is quite some distance from the Florida Keys, but the devastation it caused, including probably the biggest waves the planet has ever seen, spread far and wide and could have easily killed the original orb bearer. Or simply carried the orbs from where the death occurred. Perhaps at the crater itself?
Or maybe Sydney just found the destroyed factory, and chose a selection of giant ‘pearls’ from the various multi-coloured giant oysters there? The original dinosaur orbs may have been as small as the pearls we are used to. But with 350 million years to grow, Halo’s ones ended up bigger and more powerful than those harvested early.
Has the Esteemed Author considered the possibility (approx.65,000,000 years ago) that the ORBS’ previous owner might’ve been travelling thru space at a “High-Cee” velocity, & CAUSED the Chicxulub Crater by smacking Earth hard-enough to fatally exceed the safety-limits of the Shield-Orb…?
Yes, this is very close to Yorp’s theory — just suggesting the possibility of a “careless space-traveler”, rather than an “advanced dinosaur’s factory”.
(…kinda hoping I’m wrong — I *REALLY* like Yorp’s idea of “Orb-Growing Oysters”)
As for the “Florida Keys” issue, we must remember that Sydney was a bit “cagey” about where she found them. The truth may yet turn-out to be located somewhat further west, such as Mexico…?
Mexico is a possibility, of course. Nice and handy for a Texan to get to (if that is what Sydney is). But it does involve leaving a paper trail, when crossing international borders (I cannot see Sydney using some illegal route, for her holiday). Plus she was talking to the kind of people who would be able to access those records easily.
Had Sydney figured out that it was something that they would find out anyway, she probably would have explained it, after her pause to think about it. So I think it more likely (but not certain) that she will have set out from US territory.
Of course Mexico does have a coastline…
Mind you, if she kept going down that coastline, to the area around Portobelo, and went diving there, she may have discovered one of my ancestor’s coffins. A lead-lined one, at that.
Even then we took precautions against aliens discovering our bodies and reanimating them. ;-)
If I had to guess, and if we’re still playing with the space travel theme, I’d guess the last orb is a Universal Translator.
It would explain why it “didn’t seem to do anything” when she’s used it in front of anyone, because she’s never tried to speak to anyone who couldn’t already understand her.
Possibly, although I somehow think that would more likely come under a separate, not yet attained, funciton of the comm ball instead.
It could even be one she has obtained, just untested either in general or under one of the floating runes.
Possibly. Although the problem with that would be the ‘dots’ that are lit up on her skill tree. There are 4 dots lit up on one line, 1 dot let up on another line, and a dot lit up that she picked after the press test display. We know for a fact that THAT dot allows for teleportation, and it’s a good assumption that the 4 dot line and the one dot line are for the telepresence and ‘looking through illusions’ powers.
I’m going to assume the 4 dots are for looking through illusions given she was able to even see through Dabbler’s glamour like it was nothing, and the telepresence power seems to have a LOT of limitations so far (can’t touch things, can’t see through illusions while in telepresence double, etc), so that is probably the 1 dot line.
So since ALL the dots for the comm ball are accounted for, it’s unlikely that she has access to a universal translator if it’s on that orb. However, there IS another ‘1 dot’ line on the comm orb which is unlit, and there’s also a 4 dot line which has nothing lit up, and a 2 dot line with a breakoff to another 4 dot line which also is not lit at all. Any of those could be for a universal translator, which would make sense for the comm orb.
I think that is a pretty good guess. Do note that Halo has already unlocked three ‘skills’ on the brown orb. So what might the other two be? They would have to be things Sydney has used, without realising that it had worked. So ‘summon Babel fish’ and ‘summon Bigger Babel fish’ would be out.
Plus where would the skill tree go, beyond that?
Those orbs will all have practical items that can keep you alive. And can do so for years if necessary so communications would have to be one of the skills—long distance ones at that. Maybe even “short circuit the continuum on a 5 or 6 parsec level” if need be to be rescued.(Guess what old movie I was quoting from.)
Its a wonderful life?
yus, old timey movies about Xmas often involve space travel and science fiction, cuz Santa is actually an ET
woops nvm i dint know what i was talking about, i was thinking of that one with the BB rifle and lady’s leg lamp
come, tell us your Christmas story.
[CorvusCorone68 ]:
Perhaps you were recalling Pia Zadora’s 1964 film-debut:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santa_Claus_Conquers_the_Martians]
“Forbidden Planet” (1956) a sort of early version of Star Trek. What Captain Adams needed to do to contact Earth base. had to dismantle most of their ship and disconnect their FTL drive to power it.
Ahh, I try to watch ancient science fiction, from time-to-time. But the standards tend to be so poor that I give up after a few minutes. Most of the stuff from the last millennium fails to grasp me.
Barring exploring the final frontier, a long time ago, and far far away.
I just thought of this, they’d also want to test at high altitude again. Not just as a replacement for the rebreather, or for the ideas Maxima is proposing, but to test more direct life support- can it provide heat as well as air? Or dissipate heat when there’s too much. Bring Brook over (hopefully without too much wasted on her not wanting her pinky toeless foot being seen in public, but still sporting a bikini of course!) and help out the test.
But along the starhip line, I wonder if one of the advanced functions of the flight orb is to leave Sydney hovering if she releases it, say to get a quick refresh from the life support ball.
Hands-free safety mode, using a ‘maintain status quo’ default. Clever idea. And could potentially explain a common node on other orbs too. For instance a ‘keep shield in current setting and position hands-free’ mode.
Whilst this would be a serious weakening of the ‘two hand limit’, the common theme of immobility would at least mitigate that somewhat. And could have a further limitation of only allowing one hands-free power to be in effect, at a time.
Want to camp out, and sleep, but with the shield raised? Fine, but you can’t do that whilst hovering too.
I still would like to see the healing but I really can not see Sydney not have trying that out. I am eager for the next comic to see if what she is creating is just regular Oxygen or if she is trying something more devious. If it turns out that she can create other things with the orb than food could actually be something she may be able to create in the future.
I still would like to know if she has tried the light hook on the other orbs, the writer may have already stated it but there is to many comics to go back and check.
If I had to guess about the last orb…. I would go with a computer? Maybe the last orb has the instruction manual and she has not figured on how to access it? I like the storage but it does not go well with the story arc. I am eager to see what comes next. Love this Comic!
Halo has not.
Brain the size of a planet, and you use me like a talking paper-clip!
ok, so I got bored and went through the logic conundrum of what each orb would actually be if they were all spaceship related. Yes, Sydney already went through yesterday and said blue = propulsion; yellow = communications; red = phasers; purple = forcefield; green = life support; and Orange (brown?) = buh-duh.. I dunno… but looking at the sci-fi starships (specifically Star Trek, Star Wars, and B.S. Galactica) I think it could be more appropriate to say…
red = weapons (she has the mega blast w/ slow fire time [torpedo] and rapid fire [phaser])
purple = forcefields (only thing really shown so far, though ‘quarantine field’ might be possible as Sydney
*did* “quarantine” vehemence’s anger aura)
blue = propulsion (so far only via flight, but covers warp drive, hyper drive, etc. so her comment here
about “Warp Drive?” doesn’t feel right)
yellow = systems operations (currently known it allows for communications… via a hologram… that allows
for teleportation… that’s communications, holodeck, and teleporter systems… so it could also have
intruder alert/scanning [scanners]… wait nvm, it HAS scanners, shown when she detected ‘X’ back
during that intro. board meeting…, replication [replicators], or recordable footage [security
surveillance])
green = life support (too new to give opinions on other possibilities… maybe atmospheric control, but that’s
a lesser function of life support… docking bay protocols may also fit in here)
orange (brown?) = only unknown left. Options of Cargo Hold and Brig (Security) are good… but what
about the Medical Bay? Science Stations (ok that’s prolly systems operation ball too…)? Also, I’ve
noted many people saying that the orange ball has a ‘cloud’ in it… what if it’s not a cloud but a brain?
hyper-computative capabilites is a nice power, and would be unlikely to be initially discovered [Core
Computer]
bah, I tried to space it to be more readable and it came out less readable… ebil commenting algorithim not allowing me to edit…
Good summary. The most practical way to space things out is simply with line breaks. Don’t worry about increasing the length of the post, that way, if it makes it more readable.
Another option is using a line of full stops. That is tricky though as the way it shows in the box you type the comment in usually does not match the end result. Nested comments make boxes smaller, for example. But I think it also parses differently. The cumulative effect from using lots of dots usually throws things out (if you are trying to keep things vertically aligned, to simulate columns, for example).
A final suggestion is to use bullet points. Those and other special characters can be found here:
https://www.ascii.cl/htmlcodes.htm
I keep that bookmarked, for easy reference. Bullet points being •
• Displaying like this (but note that I added the space before the rest of the text).
question does this mean halos info pic gets updated or?
It will do, but probably not for some time. There is tech stuff that needs doing on the site, but Dave also needs to do some art practice, that he has in mind, yet cannot find the time for. So things like updating the Who’s Who are likely to be postponed for the time being.
I know what Harem’s gonna do when all those bubbles arise around her.
Blame it on the dog.
I know cause my dad always does that.
I is innocent!
I may be innocent, but what about U?
Radar. We’re missing the Radar system.
Commball includes a sensor function.
One word: “Medbay”