Grrl Power #615 – Whoops
If I was a superhero, I would buy stock in “construction.” That’s how stocks work, right? Construction and bandages. And moral outrage or racism probably.
Nobody planned Max’s bolt hitting the bridge, but the law of comic book averages meant it was practically predetermined.
Maxima didn’t know Sciona could deflect her shot, and to be fair, neither did Sciona. Maxima might have had more luck with a beam weapon, but to be fair, neither of them knows if she could have deflected that either. I don’t think I’ve ever drawn Max doing a beam attack, have I? Maxima also could have put a shitload more watts into her attack, but she didn’t want to risk washing the cars off the bridge if it missed and hit the water. Or volts. I’m not entirely sure how her powers work. Do cosmic beams have watts even? Or cosmic particle beams?
I like how non-specific “cosmic energy” is. What is that, energy that’s in the cosmos? Isn’t everything in the cosmos? So really all we’re saying is that the beams aren’t made of matter. Unless it’s a particle beam, and then it’s… kind of matter? Little tiny bits of matter. Like a super hot sandblaster, except a much finer grain. So like a super hot powdered sugar blaster.
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NOOOOO! Not the cuddle kittens!
Just think what the souffle will do to them! They’re not supposed to be eating people food!
They must protect the kitties!
Souffle is probably fine, assuming they used plain souffle. Cats can eat egg without danger, and souffle is an egg-based dish.
That much sugar will give them the runs at the very least.
Maybe it’s savory soufflé.
Ahh, I had not thought that it might make them crêpe.
so are you saying that if the cats eat the souffles they will crepe a lot?
Indeed, this is no trifling matter! They could create a nasty floating island.
The heroes will have some tough choices about who or what to save. Still, you can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs.
Base recipee
2 tbsp (30 mL) butter
2 tbsp (30 mL) all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp (2.5 mL) salt
Pinch pepper
3/4 cup (175 mL) milk (1%)
4 eggs
2 egg whites
1/4 tsp (1.25 mL) cream of tartar
Add two cuddle kittens for flavor.
NOOOOOOOO!
Anything less than three would leave it far too weak.
Yorp, no, it’s good that the truck is in trouble. The cuddle kittens are used as INGREDIENTS for the soufflet! Luckily, now french cooks shall not be able to cook more kittens into flaky pastries!
You are thinking of Asian cooks, French use horses
Filthy Germans use horses. French use mules. And pigeons.
All of which are yummy. Salami in particular. And historically horse meat has been used in a variety of countries (including England – the last butchers specialising in selling such only announced this year that they were shutting down).
Not that there is any justification for insulting our German readers.
Wasn’t actually personally insulting either the French or the Asians, just correcting the lawyer
um No. Its
Cuddle Kittens & Souffle Delivery
Not
Cuddle Kitten Souffle Delivery
The dish is called ‘Cuddle Kittens & Soufflet’
Like Pork & Beans. Steal & Eggs/
Or Ham & Cheese Sandwich. Or Bacon, Lettuce & Tomato Sandwich – they don’t call it Bacon Lettucs Tomato. There’s an ampersand in there too.
Stop defending the wanton use of cuddle kittens as ingredients in cuisine by obscuring the nefarious truth, you monster!
I think we should blame the Author for using such bad puns!
I’m going to take issue with the way the bridge cable is portrayed. I’m pretty sure a suspension bridge is never constructed that way –the two main cables are always continuous, from mounting points at ground level up to nearly the top of the first tower, down and back up to the second tower, and then back down to the other ground-mounting point. The bridge is much stronger that way.
Here’s a link.
This is not to say that Maxima’s bolt could not have severed the cable, anyway, but the comic’s portrayal should be significantly different than (in panel 3) cable-sections getting attached to each side of the tower, and then at least one becoming detached.(in panel 4). A severed main cable at the top of a tower means the bridge on both sides of the tower is going to sag.
Didn’t view it as the cable sections being attached to the sides of the tower, more as those being the reinforcement for the hole in which the cable goes through
Then you are not seeing what I’m seeing in the 4th panel, where the cable doesn’t end in a bunch of different-length explosively cut wires. Also, in the 4th panel the cable on the other side of the tower should be moving away from the tower, too.
I can note that from the angles that the two cables drop from the top of the tower, the single loose cable appears to be on the ground-side of the tower (not on the main-bridge-span side). Also, if the cable does not detach from the other side of the tower, then we can expect the tower to at least twist out of shape, because the loads on the tower are no longer balanced.
Explosively cut wires? It looks more like they’d be melted straight into the rest of the steel… Unless that’s meant to be concrete?
Some details are a bit less important than others. Consider the location of that square plate on the end of the wire in panel 4, and compare it to the location of the place where the cable was cut (if indeed the cable passed through the tower at that point). There should be a short length of damaged cable extending past the square plate. Because that segment is not there, that’s why I assume the artist portrayed the bridge-construction incorrectly (separate cable-sections attached to the sides of the towers), and therefore portrayed the end of one cable coming detached from the tower, rather than a long cable getting severed. Also, an incorrect portrayal of the bridge-construction can explain why, on the other side of the tower, that other cable is still attached.
Concrete doesn’t melt. It is formed partly because of a chemical reaction between calcium oxide (“quicklime”) and water, forming a compound known as a “hydrate”. A large application of heat breaks chemical bonds and frees the water (as steam), which causes concrete to explode.
The energy bolt penetrates the tower upward and from left to right.
Sciona, when last seen in overview, was flying just about straight along the middle of the river and towards the bridge. So, unless she suddenly has shifted her course to the far left side of the bridge, the tower hit is the one on the right and the loose cable on the middle side, not landside.
Nice link to ‘how suspension bridges are build’ btw.
I doubt however the remaining cable will stay in place.
At least 3/4 of the tower is gone and concrete is used for its compressive strength (not tensile), so the remaining part would probably snap, especially if the cable is still connected.
The energy bolt did ricochet off Sciona, and a ricochet can exit at any of a wide range of possible angles. I can agree with what you wrote about the angle at which the energy bolt hit the bridge, but that just adds to my conclusion that the artist has drawn the bridge-construction incorrectly. The more-steep angle of cable drop is almost always toward the ground, not toward the center of the span, which is almost always notably higher than ground-level at the anchor points –crossing a suspension bridge in a car is often a bit like going up a low hill.
tldr: no frayed cable ends is accurate, but some sort of end should be visible, and both sides would definitely be collapsing simultaneously. Think the bridge may be coming down, or will at least have to have extensive demolition and replacement.
Structural engineer here – you got me thinking. :) You’re right that the cables would (nearly always) be continuous through a saddle support at the top of the tower. It’s *possible* to connect separate ends at the towers on ‘small’ bridges, but it’s usually not optimal. First, you’ve got to anchor them to something equally strong, far above the tensile strength of concrete – say, identical cables just on the other side of the tower, so why not just use a longer cable. And second, it’s a lot easier to make, inspect, and maintain the connections on the ground. However, an older bridge could certainly have been built as separate lengths as presumably shown here; it does look like separate cables with the intersect angle, but given the perspective I’d believe either way.
Separate or continuous though, the main cable system is sheathed with a strong protective wrapping and the saddle and/or ends are typically made of a one-piece anchor sleeve, which *might* split during the collapse but probably not in the first moments depicted, so I wouldn’t expect to see strands flayed out at this point. Also, cables fray when cut “slowly” because after the first few strands are cut, the rest are being stretched and ripped unevenly as the failure cascades. With or without a solid sleeve though, this is a near-instant and fairly clean severing, so the whole main cable would move together initially and probably through the whole collapse.
I do wonder where the cable or anchor ends between the face of the tower and the blast hole went though. And given the huge amount of tension that was just cut through the middle of a previously balanced system, the tower tip would be getting pulled in half from both sides evenly, so the right side of the tower would be ripping as well. Now that I’m looking closer, I don’t think the vertical cables on the left would be flapping loose like that either, given all the weight pulling them down.
Couldn’t find any bridge failures that are representative of what’s happening here; I’ve never heard of or looked into a failure of the main cable like this, it’s always smaller elements – engineers try to ensure that any one failure doesn’t bring down the whole thing, so the main cable system and towers are always much stronger than ‘required’ relative to other components.
But now I’m curious what Dave is planning to show next in the next few strips for this bridge. I’m certain that the entire deck (roadway) on each span by the tower would twist and drop on that side, and probably significant portions (if not all) of both sides would rip away and fall into the river (a la the famous Tacoma Narrows Bridge; that video would be pretty good reference material for the aftermath). I don’t think the other main cable would break from the sudden increase in load, but that the deck might completely tear away in each direction – definitely some flying cables at that point if the deck unzips most of the way to the other towers.
However, the previous comic shows quite short spans compared to a typical span for the height and size of the towers, so the deck might just sag and tear on that side without dropping entirely – especially if it has any plot armor. The other tower is about to have problems as well though; as the center span collapses, it’s going to get a lot of torque from the remaining connected span as the center section of the main cable drops into the river. The towers shown are quite bulky, so it might not bend or twist enough to break or even be visible from a distance, but it would likely sustain some damage.
If I was the city engineer, I’d be demanding a lot of superpowered help in the weeks of extensive and dangerous inspections that are about to happen, and even more in the rebuilding effort. If I was the contractor designing or implementing repairs though, I’d be afraid to be the legal guinea pig for being the first to accept that type of support and warranting the repairs for the next decade. Which reminds me – Arianna is going to get a phone call and pop a vein in the next couple minutes.
I was just about to comment on the same lines but you got in before me – I guess that’s what I get for being stuck in an airport for 5 hours…
Anyway, I concur on your assessment, even though I am merely an architect, not a structural engineer – but I do have a longstanding interest in bridges and especially bridge failures, like the afore mentioned Tacoma Narrows (or my favorite case study, the Tay Bridge disaster).
Because of my particular interest I think I found a better example of what would happen in this scenario of one of the main cables parting, and that would be the Chu Va 6 Bridge collapse in Vietnam in 2014, even though it’s a footbridge, not a road bridge: https://vietbao.vn/vi/An-ninh-Phap-luat/Thong-tin-moi-vu-sap-cau-treo-o-Lai-Chau-khien-hang-chuc-nguoi-thuong-vong/186029165/218/
The whole collapse was captured on film, but I won’t link the footage because it’s pretty disturbing. If you really want to, you can find it through a simple Google search.
Question is can you account for what whould happen if Hero and syd quicly flew under the bridge at the faulre point and started holding it up from below.. We know syds light hook can’t hold that much weight but we have no clue would her fly/sheild lifting limit is..
Hiro won’t be there the same time as Sydney unless he got inside the bubble bus. The comic just before this one has Maxima requesting Sydney to boost her speed, and Hiro can’t keep up with Sydney’s max speed.
I’m not 100% that Hiro couldn’t keep up with Sydney. Say he flies along right behind Sydney’s shield. She’s gone supersonic, he’s “swimming in her wake”. He won’t have to deal with punching his way through the atmosphere, and if he’s close enough he might actually be able to draft along (?)
It might be simpler if he could get in front of the bubble and simply hold on to the bubble. I imagine he’s tough enough to survive getting pushed through the air at Mach 4. (grin)
Good points by both of you. For info Hiro is a three star flyer, whereas Sydney is a four. But those techniques could plausibly compensate enough.
Not only there’s not enough time, but the deck is designed to be held up by multiple cables hanging from the main ones. If you try to prop it up, you will only hold up a small section of about 20 yards and the rest of it will twist and still flip over.
Well, I have to brush up on my Vietnamese. Google translate needs work.
Searching with “Kai Chau bridge collapse” resulted in some English links and the videos.
When the cable broke there was no time to react, the people were basically catapulted into the riverbed.
Exactly. Those cables are under tremendous tension, so once one the fireball hit, the halves should have just snapped out of their sockets like rubber bands and the deck should have flipped on it’s side and catapult whatever’s on it into the water.
Wouldn’t the horizontal load of the still connected cable pull the tower over?
given how thin the support column now is and the fact that it appears to be made from concrete, I would say that the other cable should have pulled free and fell like the first side has. other arguments concerning accurate portrayal of structural elements aside, I believe that the tower as a whole would stand, minus the top section above the cross beam.
I agree, the damaged tower would very likely stay up after the other side of the cable ripped free (or took the rest of the tip off). The top of the other tower might twist or shear enough to come down from the uneven loading though, which could bring down the other main cable and/or smash through the deck as it fell.
it could be a Cable Stay Bridge. Suspension Bridges are not in vogue as they require large ground anchors. Cable Stay Bridges use central piers,each cable is independent carry to a pier, are easier to maintain and are beautiful to look at.
https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/lostempires/china/meetcable.html
It cannot be a cable-stayed bridge, because that type has its own distinct appearance, different from what was portrayed in the 5th panel of the previous comic-page.
Anon Y Mous is correct. While a cable stay could be built with large masonry towers like those shown, they would never have the large main cable between towers. This is definitely a suspension bridge.
Welp there goes another bundle of joy.
Guess what movie.
Her attack will have some level of watthours, probably megawatthours. Watts are a type of power similar to horsepower. Watthours are a type of energy, watts x 3600 seconds, or any ratio that comes out the same, another one you might be familiar with is BTU. Volt is specifically units of energy per unit of charge (essentially, how energetic the charges are). If there’s an electrical component, it’ll have volts as well.
Outside of measuring power delivered by electricity, energy is measured in Joules. 1 Wh = 3.6 kJ
Of course, “wattage” tends to be understood as “power” by the average reader, where as “joules” may require explanation every time.
Easier to remember is 1 watt = 1 joule per second.
For DaveB: Basically, joules measure how much energy gets delivered to you, and watts measures how quickly it’s delivered. It’s the difference between a year’s worth of sun exposure, and a year’s worth of sunlight concentrated into a burst of one tenth of a second. They’re both the same amount of energy (joules), but one has a lot more power (watts) and is far less survivable than the other.
Joules are the standard, but they’re tiny tiny units. It’s the same way that hydraulics are usually done in bars (~1 atm), even though Pascal or kPa would be the proper unit.
Watthours are a unit of energy (in the same way a lightsecond is a unit of distance), and it’s one that a lot more people are going to be familiar with than Joules or BTUs as that’s what your house consumes. That said, I doubt most people are even vaguely familiar with it beyond ‘the electric bill is X’ type of thing. I suppose you could also find VoltAmps if you’re an electrician?
The blob o’ fiery doom will transmit its energy at a certain wattage/HP, but the blob contains a certain amount of joules.
You can also study fluid dynamics in bars.
It appears to me that this attack was more dependant on heat than either speed or kinetic impact. The “hit” from deflecting a mass of actual particles (cosmic rays) would be quite significant, and would have probably knocked her out of the air.
OFC, “cosmic energy” is a grab bag term about like “unobtainum”.
Also, a mass of charged particles would have reacted to an attempt to deflect it by exploding.
If you make a super power beam or ball, of COURSE it has its own rule on a per-character basis. If it blows up making a purple crater of ‘radioactivium’ around it when it lands of example, it’s fairly consistent with Maxima’s previous power displays. It’s not like the league of heroes will pick at the writer if someone else’s beam/balls work differently. AS LONG AS MAXIMA’S CRATERS ARE THE CORRECT SHADE OF PURPLE, that is. Consistency, maaaan!
TBH, I’m kind of impressed that Maxima can land a direct shot between two targets that are going supersonic speeds. That takes some significant math to properly lead and angle, and the range between them was pretty large, too.
Sometimes marksmanship isn’t about the math (not on a concience level any way). I haven’t a clue about the math involved with inderect fire weapons (like longbows or grenade launchers) but im a pretty good shot with both. Lousy with direct fire weapons at range, figure that one out. But I do not think about the math at all, for me I just visualize, aim and shoot. There might be math going on in my subconcious, but im unawar eof it. also, never learned about the math for figuring out ballistic trajectories or any other form of geometry for that matter. Probably should look that up at some point.
Your brain just does the math automatically. Same as how it technically takes a lot of math to walk upright.
The math is build into your neurons.
There was a book series I read where the main character’s super power was that she could do that consciously and very quickly. To the point of running up walls and deflecting bullets because she could intuit the exact angles and forces needed.
I wonder if she could calculate where all the atoms in a wall would be, in comparison to the ones in her body, and time it so that they all passed through, without bumping into the wall’s?
Quite possibly, but my guess on that would be the window of time that would work would be too small for her to use often. probably requiring some set up, either a low damage sonic( or would it be tectonic?) emitter to help align the molecules of the wall resonate in time with her body better, or at least extend the window, kind of like a reverse Shadowcat. at least thats how i always imagined her powers working.
If her shots are pure energy (no mass, no wind resistance) and she matches speed and direction the Maxima can just point straight at her target.
one kitten soufflé coming right up
Looks more like it’s coming down :P
Huh, Google actually had a handy answer on looking up how much energy it’d take to burn through that bridge support.
The energy requirement to vaporize a cubic meter of room temperature iron is 64 gigaJoules. It’s scalar, so using 10 times the energy to do it in a tenth the time (~640 gJ) should be enough to core it like it was made of butter.
That’s about 15 tons of TNT.
I’m sure Max is VERY surprised at what happened. Missile Deflection isn’t supposed to work on Explosive/Area of Effect attacks unless it’s a deflectable object (like a grenade), and you can’t Abort to Missile Reflection.
Oops. missed a zero. 150 tons of TNT.
I know Maxim 37 applies, but hitting Sciona with the power of a subtactical nuke may have gone a tad overboard…
+1 for referencing the 70 maxims from the Shlock Mercenary universe. One of my favorites.
(New Schlock readers beware – massive archives, this comic has updated every single day since June 2000. The storylines have larger themes that span years, but there’s usually a joke a day still. Don’t let the very early artwork of the first few months dissuade you, it improves quickly after the first year or two.)
HERO System terms. Now you’re talking my language.
Fat Man and Little Boy were 15 kiloton bombs. Attacking a super of Sciona’s caliber with 1/100 of those actually seems conservative to me.
Maxima’s attack did seem to have grenade-like properties. Energy-based grenade attack. And don’t forget, both characters are technically NPCs, so the GM/artist-writer can define the SFX of the attack and defense as he chooses.
Also, cosmic energy is simply a superheroic definition for a type of energy that science cannot define. So it can have properties of different energy types and even of different types of matter. Like Hard Light (superheroic solid energy, like what the intergalactic police officer from DC can create with his magic ring, because science!)
Whilst comics have indeed nicked the term, for their own purposes, cosmic rays are real.
i’d always assumed that “cosmic energy” had something to do with quantum particle physics, given how some of the beams/bolts/effects are high energy, but some, usually from the same user, seem to be high mass. in simpler terms, some seem to be burny and some seem to be blasty, knocking things and people around, suggesting a higher concentration of bosons (i think? the mass-providing quarks; been a while since i read up on this) whereas the more vaporizing suggested a high concentration of the highest energy state quarks, with the growing-destruction-apocolypse blasts firmly suggesting strange quark interactions.
is this making sense to anyone else?
You had one job, hero! ONE JOB!
He he he.
Yea, is it too much to ask to protect the bridge, rather than blow it up?
I’m scared now.
That damaged rigging is going to create a highly publicized public safety incident.
The heroes will probably save the endangered, but if plots writing themselves serve me right, Sciona will escape in the wake of the chaos. Maxima will be demoted or even court-martialed for so carelessly endangering civilian lives like that (even though that NEVER happens to law enforcement agents in real life). ARC-SWAT will be taken over by someone with more political experience but far less leadership qualifications. Members of the team will be harassed, embarrassed, expelled or even criminalized due to this shifting paradigm. And the storyline will take a much darker turn.
I’m not sure I’ll be capable of reading the comic at that point, due to my PTSD and anxiety issues.
I’m sure the arm chair generals and pundits will be all over ARC after this, with lines like ‘Maxima should have taken the proximity of civilians into account’, etc.. but for all we know this is the first time one of her blasts has been deflected.
Lighter toned comic being what it is, the rest of Team Alpha will show up momentarily and manage to avert any civilian deaths.. but I expect there will be a largely off-panel board of inquiry done, and revised Rules of Use of Force implemented.
That depends.. if dabber callers her webbing gun in from her lab and relinks the bridge before the cable has a chance to fall. I think it it would barely make a blim on the news.
That sounds like it would be the best case scenario at this point, them preventing the bridge from falling in the first place. It would automatically give an angle of “able to prevent disaster” instead of “causing disaster”, since a bridge collapsing is pretty possible without this type of damage (see miami), if the engineering is stressed in a way that wasn’t accounted for.
That seems… unlikely?
Their can’t be a massive media uproar and a change in leadership every time there’s property damage. Because, as Max said and has been demonstrated repeatedly, there is almost always property damage in every Super fight.
Though up to this point all the ‘Super Fights’ have been in relatively remote locations. Middle Eastern war zones, restaurant in the boonies (with the other ARC branches there to whisk the civvies to safety), conveniently desolate abandoned warehouse area in the middle of the night. This is the first collateral damage ‘incident’ we’ve seen with a real probability for civilian deaths. And even if (and lets be honest, they will) prevent any deaths this time, someone that has to be answered will be asking ‘And can ARC guarantee that they will be able to prevent civilian deaths every time they decide to cut loose?’
Maxima has already stated to Sydney that stuff gets damaged when there is a super fight. It is just a matter of trying to minimise that. We can only assume that mirrors her official position, and likely that of the organisation as a whole, given her seniority in it.
Of course politicians and bleeding heart individuals who can get media attention may complain and demand resignations or that Archon be dissolved.
However sounder minds will see that there is little option unless you choose to bow down to the next super villain overlord who comes along. Someone has to oppose them, and when that happens there will be collateral damage.
At least with Maxima there is someone who is training her personnel to avoid unnecessary risks to life and property. And the inquiry into this incident (which is pretty much unavoidable, given the ‘friendly fire’) will show that Maxima had made a reasonably safe shot and had no way to anticipate that Sciona could parry it.
This is all still a flashback from the first few pages of the comic. At the very least Maxima and Anvil are still on the team afterwards.
Did this fight happen over Florida?
most likely over mid america, probably part of the Mississippi or Missouri or Ohio River Valy
one moment. need to go insain with lines for a bit
Nice reference, butt remember, this happened in ’11
My condolences to any readers who may have lost friends or family in the footbridge collapse there.
This is a job for: ¡molestorb!
Molestorb doesn’t have the strength for that, she couldn’t pick up single girders earlier when they were doing construction work, so she can’t possibly support the weight of a suspension bridge with the thing.
What a disappointment!
We now know what the next powerup point must be spend in.
But the Hentorb could save the truck right?
Easily. And more besides.
As long as it weighs less than one of those heavy girders
the tensile strength of the claw might be strong enough to tie the ends together even if it can’t lift the ends
Afraid not – the cable actually has much more tensile load than the weight of the bridge, since it has to act at a fairly shallow angle (along its length).
I retract my previous comment, I was thinking of Sydney pulling on both ends, but on re-reading I see what you’re saying. Lighthook isn’t strong enough to *pull* the ends back together, but the tensile strength might be enough to simply *hold* them.
Although, the lighthook is fairly narrow – assuming a) Sydney gets there in the next instant to grab it (dropping the rest of the team) and b) it could hold both ends and was draped over the top of the tower, I’d expect it to simply slice down through the tower without a proper bracket to spread the load over a big enough support area.
Any comment could make, would be severely slammed by the PMS (Pro-Maxi Squad)
Comment away.
Maxima dropped the ball on this one. She made a judgement on how best to attack, and did not anticipate Sciona having the ability to deflect an energy attack. Without that either Sciona (on a hit) or the water (on a miss) should have been the only things affected (barring some splashing).
A fireball that can burn trough a bridge support beam would make a heck of a splash and cause a lot of damage along the shores of the river.
Honestly that does not sound likely to me. I would expect its behaviour to remain the same. Namely when it hits the bottom of the river it would retain its armour-piercing characteristics and penetrate that to quite some depth (sand, mud or gravel being that much easier to penetrate than iron/steel) then to explode.
That would create a dampened depth charge-like effect (much of the explosion being channelled straight up through following the entry hole). So there would be a massive fountain – effect, but that would rain down relatively harmlessly (compare it to ships using their fire-hoses in a demonstration).
Fishies nearby would be killed by the shock wave (but only in a limited area, as with any regular depth charge – these have been measured and found to be such) and there would be a surface wave, as you say. But the energy would be diminishing as with any radial dispersal of energy. The near bank would take some damage, so we could expect some soil erosion and maybe any precarious trees might thereby fall.
The further it goes though the more it would become like a wake from a speeding power boat, and being fairly trivial by the time it reached areas with any buildings near to the shore (we could not see any from our various aerial shots). Which would be unlikely to get more than splashed, as the energy would dissipate on the bank. Bad but not disastrous.
You assume that Maximas Hadoken penetrate water as easily as it goes through air. Water, especialy with a strong current like in rivers like this, cause a whole lot more drag and turbulence than air. If whatever keeps the fireball together breaks halfway to the bottom of the river it will cause a heck of a wave.
But if it does detonate undergbround the earth will probably absorb most of the shockwave.
Agreed, on all points.
*wags tail amiably*
There is one other possibility given, as you say, we do not know how it reacts to water. It may just be put out!
That is kind of why I suspect she may have been shooting at the water, intending the shot to go into the water Close to her so she gets hit with the shock-wave and water blast. (I think this because the art kind of makes it look like she rolled over to the right when she flipped and then got hit.
And a lot of the time, ships (or whatever) aim near the fast moving target rather than directly at the target, so as to knock out and immobilize rather than outright destroy
A fleeing speedboat can’t go very fast (or be in much control) while in the air, and the drop can dislodge the pilot
I want to see more rigorous testing of Maxima’s energy attacks, having the plasma ball break up in the water would definitely affect strategy. And Syndey experimenting with all of her powers… the entire team really.
It would answer a lot of questions, but the fun is in watching things play out one discovery and failure at a time.
Can we talk about how scared the fish must’ve been? No? OK….
Given the world as described “magic” works as good as anything, but there is a theoretical possibility in physics that makes it possible for Max to fire bolts like that. It’s really a matter of “where does she get the energy from?
And the only theoretical source that would make it possible to generate such amounts of energy in something the size of a human body ( and not , say, a full bench of nuclear reactors ) would be quantum vacuum. That’s really *weird* stuff that potentially contains all the energy in the entire universe. If you can find a way to make it work on a macro scale…
It would certainly mean that Max’ body pretty much has to be indestructible to deal with stuff like that. Good thing that it is…
With energies like that, you could generate a plasma bolt that is both hot enough to do serious damage, and slow enough (that bolt must have been subsonic for Sciona to hear it….) to not cause relativistic problems ( like a shedton of hard radiation and the End of the World) and be deflected by Sci’s “lightsaber wings” .
Although the real answer will probably be “Narrativium”… :P
I personally theorize that supers (in most universes) have the ability to convert their own body mass into energy efficiently, like a walking antimatter reactor. At that rate of efficiency, converting, say, a hamburger’s mass into energy would allow you to throw around tactical nukes.
Of course, you have to direct part of the energy obtained into shielding yourself from the effects.
Sensible headcanon.
Well hopefully her body cam showes she shot at something.
I honestly can’t believe that no-one has said that “all beams matter, not just particle ones”…
Unless I missed it, then I’m sorry.
Maxima will be kicking herself for years for that misstake.
No offense but thats the kinda misstakes i expect from Halo.
Will Maxima force herself through a specially adapted obstical course as punishment for this?
What would it look like? ….. *imagining Maxima forced to carry a groping Dabbler and sugar high Halo while jogging*
She wouldnt do that to herself… no one would.
.. I might do it if it was just Dabbler (I definitely do it if it was just Dabbler).
Well… if Maxima’s beam attack has quantifiable energy and time (eg how many grams of water it can boil in over a second?), than its power can be quantified in watts.
The beam attack probably cannot be quantified in volts as volts measures the potential energy per charge (charge being the quantity of electricity)
I’m sure both cosmic beams and energy beams can be quantified by watts as we can measure the amount of energy it transfers over per unit time.
Strictly speaking, one could probably define “cosmic energy” as denoting any type of energy that’s in the cosmos… so all energy, yeah. Although, it is also used as a translation of the Hindu term “shakti”, or “external spiritual energy”. It’s most definitely more of a religious term than a scientific one… which to be fair, religious connotations and meanings are often invoked in magic/sci-fi language. Best not to try to force it into a category it doesn’t belong to.
And while you’re musing, best not to forget that as matter is simply stuff that occupies volume and has mass and that mass and energy are interchangeable via the mass-energy equivalence via special relativity, discriminating between the fine nuances of “energy beam” vs “particle beam” may be an exercise in futility.
Admit it, you did the emergency cuddle kittens and souffle thing just for Sydney to react to so she’ll go into overdrive just to save the cuddly kittens. Also, before anyone puts out the argument that Max isn’t following her own advice when it comes to combat, she did actually execute an attack where the backstop in the event of missing said attack would be a body of water. It would have made a really good splash, but no one would have been hurt.
I wonder if Maxima will have a flashback to panel 3 of https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/413
Maxima’s cosmic blasts are most likely some form of super-ionized radiation. That means it would have a magnetic charge and could be deflected by a powerful magnetic field… or a forcefield-like object with a small magnetic charge.
I have a feeling Max is soon going to be too busy cleaning up her mess to handle Scionia, and will need the rest of Alpha Team to sort her out.
Which was Sci-fright’s plan all along, now she can say, honestly, that she didn’t blow up the bridge :D
I’m gonna go out on a tree limb and say that truck was heading towards a college.
Rescue a kitty, whilst you are there!
Can be argued everything is matter, even energy. Waves, particles… all still matter.
Equally, and conversely, all matter can be said to be energy. So it doesn’t matter.
*nudge nudge, wink wink*
Especially if we are indeed living in the matrix, and there is no spoon!
And either is reduced to mere thoughts in our minds, only having reality if we choose to believe it to be so.
Hey, don’t mock the use of cosmic energy when one of your heroes is based on kinetic energy. We already have terms for absorbing that stuff, it’s called accelerating or heating.
Also why does Sciona fly? Didn’t she teleport away in the vault?
We do not know the limitations on her teleportation. She is not a super who can use powers at will, so there was something (most likely a magical spell) which granted her that ability. Such could easily be limited use, for a whole variety of reasons.
Perhaps it requires her to be carrying certain spell components, which have now been expended? Or it requires special preparation – which we know she used varieties of such, in order to access the vault in the first place. So could just have been taking advantage of that to exit (albeit with teleporting, rather than a blood portal). Of course specifically preparing a teleport version, to escape in an emergency, would have been wise.
Or, simplest of all, maybe she can only cast it once a day, and needs to sleep to recharge it? We know she did not get enough of that last night!
Dammit, Maxima! You talked to Sidney about keeping an eye on surroundings! Learn your own lesson!
When there’s a bridge nearby, you don’t aim at the flying badnik, you hit the river beneath them! Drench them, let the waterspout pull them down into the current!
That would be worse given how hot Maxima’s bolt was.
Cause if she had done that we would be talking a truly giant steam explosion that would have probably blown apart the entire bridge.
That’s not all Maxima screwed up however, she also shot to kill without first demanding surrender.
That isn’t always required, just like police officers don’t have to yell “Stop or I’ll shoot!” when lives are in imminent danger. If a gunman is trying to kill people, and you have a clean shot, you take it. You don’t stop and demand that he surrender, you aim for center of mass and you kill the gunman before he can kill someone else (or turn his gun on you and kill you).
In this case, Maxi could not have known that Sciona could deflect her shot, and the lives of everyone on that bridge were already in imminent danger. Sciona steered towards the bridge deliberately. We don’t know (yet) exactly what she was intending to do, but based on her willingness to kill even her own “allies” and her self-confessed goal of world domination, it’s pretty safe to assume it wasn’t anything good.
You’re assigning Maxima and the US government Meta knowledge they don’t possess.
At this point in time neither of those groups know her likely behavior or end game goals. Further Maxima didn’t even confirm that was Sciona and that she was the one who broke into the Vault before Maxima attacked.
They specifically did, Maxima and/or the team having been present twice when Sciona has launched surprise attacks on people. Once designed to kill many individuals, in the council chambers, the other time to kill police on a surveillance mission.
Plus they have reports of the attack on the sigil (indicating that Sciona is trying to draw public attention) and they knew Sciona to have been behind the raid on the vault (Scarlett or Crimson specifically said so). Thereby they can easily deduce that Sciona is in possession of artefacts with apocalyptic power.
Thus she poses a clear and present danger, of epic proportions! Lethal force is more than justified.
I agree mind that they have not confirmed that Sciona was the one who raided the vault. But they have enough circumstantial evidence to make her their prime suspect. However with lives in imminent risk (be it by conventional or WMD means) they do not have the luxury of a prolonged investigation.
They have have Sydney’s eye-witness testimony that Sciona was indeed the one behind these other attacks, and her hastily evacuated base will have left plenty of other evidence. We saw them conducting relevant investigations subsequently. Including interrogating kidnap and blood draining survivors.
So they have a whole host of evidence as to Sciona’s involvement and murderous behaviour.
So, it’s okay to go around obliterating suspects now before confirming guilt? o_O
Just because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, does not mean they know Sci-fright’s likely behaviour or her end game goals
Sydney didn’t see Sciona in her current form, she saw Sciona in her Frankensteinesq troll body.
Further Maxima wasn’t in any position see the face of the Alari she was chasing and then fired on. So even assuming that Maxima somehow knew exactly what Sciona looked like, she wouldn’t have been in any position to confirm the Alari she shot at was her.
Same head. And the Council chopped off Sciona’s original body. Now that they have brought Archon on board, they will have supplied them with a folder of relevant facts. We know this otherwise they would not have been able to track down Sciona’s bases, for example. And we know that Archon upload relevant information into their database, which is connected to the team, in the field.
That folder will have provided a list of artefacts, and their properties. Just like Deus they would be easily able to deduce the one which would appeal to Sciona the most. The one which could restore her original (and much more powerful) body.
We can deduce that this is how they connected a ‘supesonic flying target’ with being Sciona. The Council would know that their enemy could do that previous to having her body chopped off. Now they are getting a report of a supersonic interception of Wyrmil, from their allies. Even if Archon failed to follow the dotted lines, their Council liaisons would join the dots for them.
But, failing both of those options, as soon as Maxima got eyes (and, more importantly, the recording devices she is carrying in her choker) pointed at Sciona, their recognition software would give a match to Sciona’s earlier form.
As far as we know Sciona may be the only Alari on Earth. The council would have been able to provide intelligence to that effect, if so. Thus making the identification pretty simple. And, even if there was another one, there is no reasonable explanation for it intercepting Cooter, unless it is allied with Sciona.
But, as per my previous reply, Archon would be able to use image recognition software. Even our variety can identify people, with an impressive degree of accuracy, without being able to see the face.* Based on relative proportions of different body parts. And that is within populations of tens or hundreds of millions of similar people in a country.
Finally Maxima’s stated intent was to follow Sciona back to her base. Your argument is predicated on Maxima only just have spotted Sciona. Whereas it is perfectly reasonable that pursuit has proceeded for some time, before we see the scene above.
In which case there would have been plenty of time for Maxima to say ‘I have caught up with the bogy, but it turns out to be some winged blue being, rather than Sciona’. Assuming that Archon were not efficient, and this was not enough to identify her, they could have done research and/or contacted their allies.
And any lengthy surveillance gives plenty of opportunity that the subject might take a look around, and thereby be picked up by whatever binoculars or other surveillance devices Maxima took with her on this mission. She would have been tooled up appropriately, having had access to whatever she needed, at the base.
* Provided there are accurate measurements of someone’s body, of course. But the Council literally have that on hand, to supply precise measurements. So Archon’s database should be right up to date.
you also have Harem positively I.D.ing her when she smashed into Deus’s office
You seem to be forgetting that Sciona changed her original body when restoring it.
Heh. I had.
Not that it matters. Bust size can vary, over time, along with any other areas with fatty deposits. Such as the waist. Therefore such technology is not keyed on such measurements, but rather the ones that are more reliable, such as height, limb length, distance between eyes, nose length and so on.
Of course even height does vary, but usually in a fairly predictable fashion. Loosing some, gradually, in old age, for instance.
Oh, and Harem has seen Sciona, in Deus’s office, and has made a report. As part of the fight was outdoors, where witnesses may have seen them, it is likely that Harem would have made an accurate description of Sciona. And the Council could have supplied Archon with pictures, measurements and/or Sciona’s original body.
DOH! Timeing!
And you’re assuming that Sciona would even be able to hear Maxima’s warning, if Maxima had given one.
Do you remember that scene from Point Break where Patrick Swayze and Keanu Reeves are having a mid-air conversation as they’re skydiving from an aircraft?
Well, guess what? It’s BUSTED. The Mythbusters tested this in episode 94, back in 2008. Grant and a professional skydiver jumped out of a plane, and the professional was supposed to say “Grant, if you pull my finger, you will hear a tuba.”
What did Grant hear? Nothing but the wind. He didn’t hear a single word the skydiver said, no matter how many times he repeated it or how loudly he was yelling.
In the standard skydiving position, you are moving at a speed of around 120 miles per hour. We know from Dave that they’re not flying at supersonic speeds, but I think it’s reasonably safe to assume they’re flying at least 120 mph, or faster. I have serious doubts that Sciona could even have heard Maxima.
Thinking about it this is really going to suck for Maxima given the viel would have probably obscured Sciona.
That was what I was getting at last page. With the veil distorting people’s view of things to not notice say a flying angel. It now looks to everyone that Max threw a bolt at the bridge. Not it bounced off something and hit accidentally.
Her superiors will know what went down. But for the sake of the peace with the council they either will need an excuse. ‘Stealthed’ villian to scapegoat things. Or Max will need a public punishment to mollify people. Minimum of suspended while investigating the incident. Then she has to keep her nose clean and off the front page till things blow over.
Not I think the direction of things. . . .
Maxima’s superiors probably won’t be too happy either given she didn’t bother to confirm it was Sciona before firing.
I argue that people would have seen Sciona, but viewed her as a human rather than an Alari. I base this argument on the fact that Cooter was able to see all Sciona’s vault busting team, but viewed them all as human rather than whatever they were. also I believe that much earlier when the veil was being explained it was said that it didn’t so much hide the supernatural as make it look like what people expected to see, or something like that.
Thinking about Maxima’s powers, I wonder how fast she can decelerate a falling human. Like would someone at terminal velocity 3 feet above the ground be beyond her ability to save?
Remember: it’s not the fall…
I imagine that would depend more on the physical limitations of the human, unless she can extend her personal forcefield to someone else.
We know she can do that for inanimate objects (the ambulance Sydney hid under much earlier in the comic), but has she ever attempted to shield/fly someone else?
Max shooting to kill is likely either quite intentional, or else she dont care. Sciona is the sort of rabid dog you want to down with extreme force.
What i am pondering myself though, is if Dave is starting to regret making Max so much stronger than anyone else in the team, without any real weakness.
It means he constantly have to come up with believeable ways to get her out of the way.
Like with this or the exploding marionet.
Because else she is going to hog all the glory for herself.
Well, thus far both major villains have had some way to occupy Max. And while she doesn’t have a direct weakness, it seems that it only really requires someone to force her into maximum defense mode to render her unable to contribute to the fight.
That said villains with the power level to force Max into Defense-only mode are probably not super common, so you definitely do have a point.
It’s okay, everyone! The souffles will cushion the kittens from the impact, and they float!
He he.
+1
I know this has probably been noted ten times already, but that car in the last frame is obviously a front for a really stupid supercriminal.
Nope, you are the first. But could be correct.
Although charities can be just as stupid as criminals.
From a porfessional electrician:
-Amps are what kill you.
-Volts are how bad the amps want to reach out and touch you (we keep those lines as far off the ground as we do for a reason).
-Watts = Volts x Amps.
Using joules to measure Maximas blast is correct but I would borrow from CGS system the unit of erg, which comes from greek ergon and is measured at 10 to −7 joules.
As it is a less known unit, it kind of creates a sci-fi vibe to story. Sounds a bit better too.
Just a helpful comment. Watts would work as expended energy is measured in that format [IE when the guys over at project rho talk about the output of nuclear powered rockets, its usually in wattage or joules]. Joules is more “scientific”. If you want to talk “amount of boom energy” thats usually measured in “tons of TNT” or some variation: Example: Rick’s first law of space combat – Anything travelling at a relative velocity of 3 km/s packs its own mass in “boom” or a 1 kg rock travelling at that speed would = 1 kg of TNT when it hits.
If you want some technical fluff, I suggest checking with https://www.projectrho.com/public_html/rocket/spacegunintro.php for heavy sci fi weaponry [they have a sidearm section too] which might give you some ideas [please, no plasma weapons unless you have a significant amount of handwavium or use it like a short range flame thrower/cutting torch]. Actually being a super hero ‘verse you can hand wave quite a bit…though your positron/electron annihilation putting out hard gamma rads was quite accurate…but this will give you some interesting data for different “oops, side effect of power” stuff
Given the effect, penetration, and the fact she doesn’t have to worry about irradiating herself from atmospheric backscatter, Max may be firing high energy particle beam pulses [slower than light so they look like a “packet” instead of an instantanious beam, but still FAST. Maybe even exotic particles, instead of electrons, protons, or neutrons [not electrons, that would look like a lightning blast].
Which of course might explain Sciona’s capability of deflecting it, if her “wingblades” have some kind of magnetic component [positively charged particles hitting a positively charged shield would deflect given enough power, vs low enough velocity and individual particle mass]….
Thats a hell of a lot of wattage for those two to be pumping out.
See this is why you want your bolt attacks to collapse upon a collision with enough force to cause a bounce. Can’t ricochet and cause collateral damage if it explodes on the spot of impact. But then again, while she does have a lot of control over her power levels, I guess she probably doesn’t have the level of control needed to customize her bolt attacks that way.
If you check out the finger pointing scene, Maxima had used her beam, on a low intensity, to melt a target. As an initial demonstration, before pointing at Sydney.
Although I must admit that, like Dave, I had completely forgotten that bit, until a reader with a better memory linked the scene (elsewhere in these comments).
But even at low intensity, her attack still had an explodey bit at the end. Note that there is a “skweeeen” and then a “BOOM” in the next panel. She can apparently control the intensity, but not the exploding part.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1758
When
VegetaMaxima was testing Sydney’s shield, she was still using explodey bolts. For such a test, non-explodey bolts would have been best since Maxima could slowly increase power until Sydney’s shield failed. If Maxima was aiming over Sydney’s head, there would have been little danger to Sydney as the bolt would hit the steel block and passed over her head if it penetrated that. It would appear that the test was limited to less that Maxima’s full power because she wasn’t able to eliminate the explodey part.https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1041
From the looks of the last two panels max’s power has less of a typical “melty energy beam” type of effect and more of a “high speed solid object” effect. Also its kinda hard to betell but in the debris in the back of the second to last panel you can see what appears to be a section of the cable so perhaps the shot hit the support and acted like a hole-punch of sorts?
The beam created a hole. Metal only behaves like that if extremely hot. Otherwise it shatters. So I feel the beam is indeed a tank-cutting (plus) beam. It is its subsequent explosion which had the concussive effect that is ripping the bridge structure apart and creating the shrapnel we see.
Although bits can indeed have come loose, from the cutting (and the stresses inherent in such a bridge could be causing them to break up violently), even prior to the explosion.
*Grins. Maxima melts steel beams! (And everything else.)
Somewhere right now Arianna is wondering why she is having heart palpitations. Having Maxima and Halo around guarantee full employment for the lawyer/PR job (if she still wants it after this).
Max… “Assume you’ll miss them, and hit that.” You remember that speech you gave Sydney? You’re really not doing well in the “avoid collateral damage” department.
To defend Max, she did say to assume you hit “behind them”. The bridge was clearly above and ahead of Sciona, Max wouldn’t have even hit any underwater supports.
Yes. And assuming yuffiek’s calculations above are correct, even if Maxima hit the water, the steam explosion caused by the energy equivalent of 150 tons of TNT would be dangerous. Why didn’t she just switch to full-out speed and attempt intercept? Are Sciona’s wings _that_ dangerous unless Maxima puts all of her variable pool into defense?
one point,
Max may have intended to hit the water(and the bottom of the river) in front of or next to her, Its possible that Sciona’s maneuver either rolled her into the line of fire,(given the blur lines its possible) or she accelerated slightly when shot trying to “outrun it and realized at the last moment she messed up(slowing down would have reduced the impact from flying into the the detonating river/river bottom.
Joules measures the total power, Watts is power per second, (electron)Volts is power per particle, and Amps is particles per second.
We usually the temperature of the plasma in eV, then multiply that by the particle density * volume to get the total power contained.
Additional measurements include hertz, which denotes frequency, or the rate of vibration. In most non electric instances, this can denote (or at least narrow down) the energy form, like telling the difference between gamma band (think hulk) or delta band (brain activity) radiation. There’s more to it, but electricity is the basis on which we understand “energy”, period. Expand from there. (This is overly simplified, and probably outdated, but it might help if more nerdage is needed.)