Grrl Power #673 – Beware the history tab
I’m not sure Sydney would be quite thoughtful enough to notice that the first icon in the travel log is glitchy and weird. Well, she’d notice, but ascribing potential life and death significance to the press of a button is probably a step further than her mind might take her on a regular day. That’s assuming she’s correct in her assumptions, of course.
On the other hand, narrowly escaping death multiple times in the last few moments might have her a bit on edge. She could be thinking that narratively, she’s due for a big fuck up or setback, so her trope sense is on high alert.
I spent a while trying to figure out what the orbs’s gateway would look like, and for some reason, I made it look like a TV effect from the 70’s. I’m sure Sydney appreciates the retro look anyway.
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It would be super funny if she teleports into the kitchen where everyone is gathered looking at alien butt and waiting on cookies.
She would definitely get a free cookie.
I suspect that Dabbler is privately fond enough of her that Sydney would get a free batch of cookies.
Possibly thrown upward as Sydney appears directly behind Dabbler and says “HI”
“Badgers.”
She’s not headed to Earth, you realize right? She’s headed to whichever planet the orbs went to BEFORE Earth. The Earth icon is all static-y and fizzing and popping for some reason. Which might have something to do with why the orbs were found in the bottom of the Florida Keys and the owner was nowhere to be found.
Somehow I’m getting more of a “New Blue Beetle” vibe from these orbs and not a “Green Lantern” vibe. My guess is the people that made them are probably not going to be very nice. And since they helpfully left a waypoint in the log it’s probably either not going to be to their homeworld, or she’s going to pop into an orb-proof cell so they can brainwash her, or something.
OR they are going to ask her to save the galaxy, that’s always the other option. Assuming they aren’t all wiped out already… =p
That’s my feeling as well – that they are mostlikely not very nice. Given the immediate and almost panicked reaction of the Squid drone the moment it scanned the orbs, they knew something bad about them. Then again, the Squiddies themselves are genocidal planet killers, so… Imagine this was the DC universe and they had just killed a whole planet only to run into someone with a Green Lantern ring… their reaction ma’ight have been the same.
Considering what little we know of the Alari… are we certain the Squiddies are bad guys?
I mean. Genocide is maybe taking it a bit far (unless the Alari forced the Squid’s hands… tentacles… things?)… and their reaction to Sydney was very shoot-first-ask-questions-of-the-Medical-Examiner… Maybe they’re just aggressively risk-averse?
Well, it tall, it’s has tenticals…it destroys worlds….perhaps a lost elder god race…Cthulhu ?
And now I am thinking that Cthulhu and his/her/its species designed these things to help lower lifeforms get tagged, a-la Silver Surfer style.
Assuming the squiddies aren’t good guys. Say, superheroes from another world that followed a distress beacon to a burned out planet and found someone with xenophage planet-cracker orbs floating in the middle of the swath of death and mayhem and mistakenly decided Sydney’s to blame for wiping out the planet’s populace. I mean, superheroes getting into misguided brawls the first time they meet is SOP.
Sydney is going to be so depressed if she finds out that she killed the Squidworld equivalent of their Batman.
I’m thinking they’re lost children’s toys from a godlike race from another dimension.
Also, it’s “Seventh AmazeBall LOCKED!”
Maybe from the future? Another one of Unthahorsten’s experiments? ;)
Like the 1632 series, where the entire town and nearby region is transported centuries in time by a dropped shard of alien artwork.
The staticy and weird icon is probably this location. Going by information available to Sydney it is probably an alternate Earth (or timeline), hence confusing the normal navigation data. So hopefully the previous normal-looking one is actually Earth.
*claws crossed that it is not in some inimitable place that Halo will not be able to survive*
But, assuming my logic above plays out and Sydney is presently in an alternate universe, will she be heading back to her Earth or the alternate one? Hopefully her destination will be stored as an absolute location (thus adjusting for alternate reality/timelines), rather than relative to her present (weirdly stored) location.
I am wondering if it is staticy simply due to the fact she is further in the future (or past?) and it wont allow you to travel to a location where you already are?
I still believe they are in the near future, not a completely different universe. But do the orbs update their log every time their owner goes to a new world or only if he/she/it uses the orbs to go to another world? In the last case, the glitchy mess of the last icon does indicate Earth, and she’s now on her way to the last place the former owner visited before coming to Earth. Perhaps the place where they were injured so badly the expired after reaching Earth?
But the wormhole wasnt unlocked yet. So this would be its first use with this set of orbs
When two peop-le play the same game, they both go through the same experiences.
I’m thinking past because it’s better story for her to finally return to her home x years in the future just in time for the angry aliens to arrive seeking revenge.
Assuming the current understanding of scientists/physicists (and old-timey science-fiction authors) is right on the space-time continuum, the navigational system would seem slightly… incomplete… if an alternate timeline is enough to cause staticky navigational issues.
Working on the assumption that ‘the orb creators are more advanced than us and therefore anything we can work out they should already know better’, then yes.
But not every species/ civilisation need necessarily think of or develop all the same concepts/ inventions. If the orb creators never had a theoretical scientist/ mathematician who postulated the possibility of alternate universes/ practical time travel, then that would remain missing from their technology tree.
Or it could simply be a technical issue. Any navigation system works on certain basic principles, like ‘if we travel in this direction for that amount of time then we will be in such and such a position’. All well and good if you have control of the means of transit. However the orbs were transported by another means, and many not have been able to figure out what happened.
Our best navigators would suffer exactly the same problem if teleported to an unknown destination, with no reference points, GPS or other clues as to their location.
I’m pretty sure the navigation system is glitchy because its base operating system is Windows 10. Or worse, Windows Vista.
“It looks like you are trying to create a wormhole. Would you like some help with that?”
The first thing that popped into my mind was the Sector ZZ9 Plural Z Alpha Hyperspace Travel advisory, if so then, props to the author for the Hitchhikers reference
She is in the mirror universe, where everyone good is now evil.
And goatee’s. Don’t forget the goatee’s.
But what about the dogies?
Eventually she’ll push the fritzy button just out of curiosity. “Wha… self destruct?! Why does it even HAVE that button!”
Dr. Doofenshmirtz insisted on it.
If anyone’s interested, I redrew Halo’s skilltree to make a clearer map: https://www.the-whiteboard.com/sketchbook/haloskilltree.png
It’s based on the original comic image, which is technically reversed, but that’s our view, not Halo’s. :)
Doc.
Looks really good! Fully up-to-date as well!
I’ll try to keep it updated as the comic goes, too. I was thinking about putting notes in about the various powers, but others are already tallying/tracking that. I just wanted a quick reference shot. :)
Doc.
Big fan of yours, Doc. (TWB, SM and GP are, in no particular order, my three favorite web comics). I think what you have labeled “air ball” will wind up being more general life/health support.
What comics are those?
GP is this one, Girl Power. TWB is The Whiteboard, and Doc is its artist, hence the mad skillz to make that chart. SM I’m scratching my head over. My favorite superhero-with-a-twist comics in addition to this one are Sleepless Domain, Miss Melee, Star Power, and Sidekick Girl. My favorite anthros are Kevin & Kell and Freefall. Favorites in general include Girl Genius, Gunnerkrigg Court and Stand Still Stay Silent. Questionable Content and Cassiopia Quinn (QC and CQ) round out my Top Ten That’s Probably Greater Than Ten At This Point.
No Too Much Information? Schlock Mercenary?
What about Order of the Stick and Erfworld?
Shlock, OotS, and GrrlPower are on my must-read list* – Erfworld is very well done but takes so dang long for anything to happen that I’ve mostly lost interest. I think the current ‘day’ has been over 150 strips now?
* See also A Girl and Her Fed and Drive. I have a longer list I actually read, but those 5 are the ones I’d keep reading religiously even without my RSS reader.
That’s really great work :)
Nice work, really handy.
Though we all know it’s the molestorb really!
I have to wonder if the point node between the shield orb and the ppo is what allows it to be fired after the shield and not point blank. Considering we know that the lighthook cant pass through the shield as for when she tried to use it to choke out vehemance when she had trapped him in there. It seems interesting that each appears to share an individual node between each of themselves. Like they might have combo powers or inherently interfere with each other unless a point is spent. Ie Shield ppo, Shield lighthook, lighthook comms ball. etc.
Personally, I’m kind of at a loss to explain half of what’s shown on the skill tree. :)
I mean, the PPO seems fairly straightforward: The straight line is almost certainly power level, while the oval pattern we have reasonable canon confirmation that it’s simply different firing modes/options. The shield orb isn’t too bad either- the long line likely denotes simple shield strength (IE, how much force it can resist) but the other three options are a mystery. We can guess- such as the option to make it opaque, or perhaps make the contents invisible, as various posters have suggested- but at the moment, they’re just guesses.
The fly ball has fairly decent confirmation- the curved line is maximum speed (and apparently logarithmic) and once all those were populated, that unlocked what is apparently dimensional/wormhole travel. The other curved line and the greyed-out line, however, remain a mystery as well.
The lighthook/molestorb is the one that puzzles me. Four lines, each partially populated. What four powers, options or features do those denote? All we’ve really seen of it is an animated, glowing rope. We can presume that one of the lines is strength/power, but what of the other three? Maximum length, maybe, but that still leaves two.
And, of course, we can’t forget the entire inner pattern. I’m with some of the other posters who earlier suspected that the “pie slice” section and it’s attached double ring, are essentially separate features from the rest. As noted right here, possibly conferring subconscious operator information? Still kind of a guess.
The rest, if you’ll note, is a pattern that interconnects all seven- that is, each single ball has a full six connections to the others. That implies that allows the balls to work together… except we already know that virtually any two can be used in tandem with no apparent issues. We’ve seen her use the PPO while flying, demonstrating that connection, but we’ve also seen her use flight and shields, which isn’t. Neither is flight and lighthook, shields and comm, etc. and we’ve seen those used in tandem as well.
I guess I’ll just have to keep reading and see. :)
Doc.
I have a sneaking suspicion that the intuitive grasping of the orbs does lie in part in the central pie slice. But also notice how its directly connected to the orb ring around it, which each run back to their respective orbs. I’ll bet the slice in the middle conveys a percentage of intuitive understanding to all the orbs, but only to the ones that have a point in the node surrounding it. But that’s honestly just a large guess on my end stemming from how the insight has only applied to the warp gate. But its possible that’s simply because she hasn’t done much else since spending the point.
All that said her shield could allow for shape manipulation as well, Ie: something beyond a sphere. Unfortunately the sky is the limit for the amount of speculation we can do. Given there is very little explanation so far, hopefully the next arc does lead to space time shenanigans with Sydney. I’m really hoping the jump gives more insight into the history and designs of the orbs.
I’m betting the 3-dot line off the shield is size. It’s an obvious multi-level mechanic.
The join-nodes (between 2 orbs) could be a synergy that applies when both the involved orbs are active. There aren’t any connections involving more than 2 at a time, and while the orb’s designers may have had thousands of arms for all we know, Sydney doesn’t, and Chekov’s Gun still applies (don’t draw attention to something you’re never going to use in story).
So… theory time. The center section AND the ring around it represent mental changes to her, by the orbs (as opposed to the orbs doing something physical to the rest of the world, they do something to her).
In the ring, we have 2 lit up… one facing the shield, and one facing the flight orb. Even the author has pointed out that Sydney has some unusual responses to threats when she’s using the shield orb – a sense of invulnerability. I betcha that’s what the shield-facing inner dot is. The flight-facing one might be some sort of reflex boost to make you better able to handle mach-are-you-kidding-me speed flight.
The center 7-parter has to be significant – maybe it’s knowledge of the orbs, but I bet it’s even more than that. IF the facing of her new pie-slice is significant, it faces the Unknown Orb… which I’ve long suspected is the Ship’s Computer (processor and memory as the two upgrades). That would explain her new instinctive knowledge all by itself.
PPO/Flight synergy is still a mystery to me though.
Hmmm! So the center slot she filled is the one to the unknown orb (which we suspect of being the instructions manual/comm center). That might explain her sudden intuition in what the history slider is. :)
Awesome work, Doc! Thank you! :D
Based on that I would probably take the comm ball+ppo next… remote firing?
With all the ramp-up DaveB is doing right now, I am wondering what is waiting back on Earth. Sidney seems more suitable for some kind of “Guardians of the Galaxy” then US police officer now.
I wonder if that planet is Jupiter?
Jupiter does make more sense than what I was thinking. It also looks a little like the symbol for the sun, per https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resources/680/solar-system-symbols/ . Although looking at it for like the 20th time, it’s starting to look a little bit like a martini olive, which would be an awesome symbol for our distinguished planet.
Not altogether improper for our entire planet to be represented by alcohol… Mostly harmless, my foot.
Maybe it’s not Earth-specific, but a “world type” icon for “leisure planet”?
Current destination: The Death Star!
Anyone else think it’s possible that the Earth entry got corrupted because of Krona? Either that or something related to the origin of supers, since Sciona implies that’s exclusive to Earth…
Am I the only one who thinks the staticky final icon changed when Sydney was about to press it in panel 6?
They’re animated.
We’re seeing it as still images.
I really like the look of the wormhole – the rim reminds me of Krona’s ‘deep code’.
There is nothing about today’s comic that I do not like. It’s utterly awesome. And I love the idea that the center dots make her more instictively know what the orbs do and how they work. THATS the instruction manual! :)
I love Sydney’s pose and facial expression in panel 7. She’s starting to realize how much danger she might be in just from possessing the orbs, regardless of her current predicament.
The perspective on her eyes in panel 3 is hella weird.
Quickly plugging my skill tree site which now loads in less then a quarter of the time then before.
I would speculate that the “glitched out” ones need the next upgrade from the skill tree to unlock. this one if you are interested
Note that Mach is not abbreviated Mk (which is usually used for mark, to denote versions of something.) I’d suggest not abbreviating it at all, but if you have to, use M or Ma.
Done.
Your skill tree is pretty cool, I’ve referred people to it before.
However I’m getting error 404 when i try to access it now.
So one issue I’m seeing is this comic isn’t #637 It’s #673….
Unless #637 (shortly after the teams arrival through the portal) is really November 5, 1955, and we’re about to start on the second comic timeline.
Wherein we find that Sydney primes actually destroyed the Alari world herself in self defense, then used the lightbee to slip back through the portal unnoticed. She’s been asleep in her quarters recovering from the adrenaline crash, and will shortly be drawn out by the smell of fresh cookies.
Hm. That portal looks a lot like a tropical ocean. I’m guessing it’ll take her right back to Earth – where she originally found the orbs.
My guess – the previous owner was trying to use the orbs to get into some “forbidden” zone, and that’s the first “smudge”. They were then bounced to Earth, and then tried some hacky solution to force themselves into the forbidden zone. This was recorded into the travel history, but whatever trick they used either destroyed them or separated them from the orbs.
How does she know what the order is? Like the leftmost might be the most recent, right?
Unless the previous orb owner was effectively homeless or itinerant, they probably traveled to Earth from their home. Since they were clearly an elite interstellar bounty hunter (because awesome), we can safely conclude the following:
1. This wormhole is going to take her to the private space station (see icon) of the previous orb owner. Sydney will finally have her own lair!
2. Sydney will die from excitement and the comic will end.
I have my doubts about whether that’s actually a travel log.
After careful analysis of the symbols, I predict that Sydney’s selection will instead transport her to an extradimensional storage-and-life-support space known as a pokeball.
If that’s true Arianna will be SO happy!
They’ll be able to deploy her when they need her powers, then shut her away between super-battles to stop her saying something inappropriate on live TV…. and they’ll be able to sell replica pokeballs with pop-out Sydney action-figures!
With
true-to-lifecatch-phrase audio recorded by Sydney herself!With heavily censored catch-phrase audio recorded by Sydney herself!
The mental image of Maxima throwing a pokeball and shouting “Mighty Halo, I choose you!” is far more amusing than it has any right to be. :-)
Maxima: “Use Mister Bubble! It’s SUPER-EFFECTIVE!!”
I laughed hard enough that I felt compelled to convert this from a mental image to a digital one.
Happily, the strip I pilfered the main image from already had a suitable comment from DaveB.
I am in your debt good person. That gave me the laugh I’ve been looking for all day, Well done!
My apologies if any of these thoughts are previously posted up the stack; I don’t feel like flipping through them all to check. I do IT support for a living; I do that sort of thing for a living.
1) Maybe the staticy weird icon is the Alari homeworld in its wrecked, blown up state.
2) If that is a portal back to our Earth, I sure hope whatever those big nasty dudes down on the surface are can’t trace where the portal is aimed and come visiting.
So now the question is, even if it does lead back to Earth proper, does she know how to close it to keep the giant squidwards from following her through it?
I’m just trying to imagine the debreifing Max is going to have to do.
My money is on interstellar Ben and Jerry’s. Who couldnt use a nice pint of Cosmic Cool(TM) Infinity Mint Chip after a hard day of blowing up skyscraper sized death squids.
I believe the traditional post battle repast is to go out for shawarma.
Still holding to the idea the center is a multitask unlock, eh? Which would be weird because the default setting would have 1 center and 1 hand (top) unlock, but i looks like someone randomly putting in points.
Why would a stargate that cares about travel history not distance (and still display distances on map thingy) need more upgrades?
And most importantly, Sydney could you please /Origate? The big funky creatures want to go toooo.
The presence of a travel log also suggests the previous owner (owners?) had levelled the orbs further and that something happened in the past to remove a heap of levels and/or capabilities.
Could be starting state for a new owner, the death/loss of an owner looses them some points, something an owner can do or another event which somehow impacted the orb’s levels
I mean… We’re not even sure exactly how or why this levelling works or is required. Why don’t the orbs just come with all functionality enabled? Is it really pure experience or is there something more specific that Sydney is exposing them to. Do they need levels for more energy or is it that they’re unlocking something within Sydney herself?
I notice the waypoint several points back is also staticy, but vaguely seems to show the western hemisphere of the Earth. I wonder if the program is trying to reconcile two different versions of Earth in its files.
Now THAT is one way to make brilliant exposition about someone — check out their teleport browser history. (-;
Also wouldn’t the very last location the previous orbs owner was at something he wanted to teleport AWAY from just before he/she/it died possibly from poison, wounds, Nyarlathothep’s shapeshifting chamberpot instruction manual slowly melting your brain, and other assorted bad things(tm)?
I’m wondering if the point she spent on the middle actually unlocked the next level of ‘manual’, which is why she suddenly ‘knew’ something about the orb. She has unlocked the intuitive-mode of help. Later on, the orbs start talking to her.
Pew-Pew orb: ‘Me! Pick me!’
Sydney: “Pew Pew?”
Pew-Pew orb: “Yes, blast it with me!”
Sydney: “But it’s leftover pizza…isn’t that overkill? Oh hell, why not.”
Honestly, it has a heat beam and fire barrage. Microwave doesn’t seem all that strange.
Hey, no reason a big gun can’t have small-scale uses too.
Anyone else think giving her unlimited interstellar flight capabilities might be bad?
Yeah… but then again, what’s the worst that could happen?
What could possibly go wrong? At least, it can’t get any worse.
Just a query, but if the FTL option wasn’t unlocked how did the previous owner get to earth in the first place? Did the orbs reset to a baseline safe mode when it died, or maybe they didn’t get to earth via the orbs at all. In that case then earth wouldn’t necessarily be listed in the travel log…
Sydney could just be about to star in her own version of Lost in Space/Red Dwarf/Voyager (ok, maybe not Voyager, they at least knew where they were going). Be prepared for many strips of Sydney landing on alien planets which all look like disused quarries :-).
I have never used google to navigate anywhere, but it still knows where I live because I have an android phone.Its likely the base functionality of several orbs have passive effects that synergize with later enabled functionality.
I just always assumed the orbs somehow knew they had a new -and newby- owner, and automatically switched off all but basic functions til she earned XP for each feature.
Which would be a great idea if you create a god-level artefact capable of galaxy-changing events. Sidney barely has ten levels, and yet she almost the strongest super. Filling out the skill tree most likely result in an omnipotent being – so some training is necessary before such a being allowed to use every available power.
Perhaps the previous owner became omniscient and mastered the orbs’ powers, and no longer needed them and so dumped them on an uncharted backwater world for
gigglesan uplift protocol. Even though that never works out the way you’d hope.Hey Dave, just wanted to point out that you got 2 of the digits for the chapter number flipped. I got your back. lol
Hmm. If the orbs are capable of this and more, it makes me wonder if they weren’t on earth because their previous owner brought them there (had something bad happen and they died). It’s also possible the orbs were deliberately jettisoned awhile back as being too useful/dangerous for a galactic empire. “Dump them on some primitive planet somewhere; it’ll be ages before they become a bother again, if they ever do! The rebels will never defeat us without them!”
Sydney finds them -> winds up on Alari homeworld -> squidwards analyzes them and knows what they are -> “Hey! Those were supposed to have been lost in another world! You are so *not* going to lead a rebellion against us, thank you! Take them out, boys!”
What I’m thinking is that, if that selection-bar is “Travel History,” then the reason why that last one might be fuzzy is because Sydney got to the Alari world via a different wormhole than what the Orb would have generated…Not only that, but the other wormhole was generated by magic, which would be a bit difficult for the Orb to record it properly (different user-interface protocols).
As long as Sydney is fairly certain that the Alari world is still in the “Travel History (assuming that’s what she’s really looking at), then she can still return here if she doesn’t wind up back on Earth…Or somewhere else that immediately overwhelms her sheild & obliterates her, like inside the Event Horizon of a Black Hole, or in the Home Star of Orb-Origin that might be in the process of going Super-Nova, or something.
Either way, this seems like a good “cross your fingers” moment…
Hmm, looking at that portal hopefully she doesn’t pop out in the local universe/multiverse version of darkseid’s planet face to face with the local version of darkseid.
After all its never a good idea to end up facing someone who once beat Thandos into a unconscious heap and took the infinity gauntlet from him only to throw it away because it was useless outside the marvel universe and mentally enslaved both superman and super girl.
So. When you look at the icon, there’s an arrow on it. The arrow could indicate “Current Location”
Love the Stargate reference. +1
…And that is how Sydney arrived on the planet of socially questionable pornography. Seriously though, one of the tabs looks like earth, and one looks like the death star, and she chose the death star?
PPO 6.5/21
LightHook 6/24
Com Ball 7/25
Air Ball 2/11
? 3/14
Shield Orb 4/13
Flight 8.5/23
Total dots lit. 37 or 28.2%
Total Dots. 131 or 100%
Total remaining. 94 or 71.76%
And she has earned 5 level-ups in one week. If she can keep this up, she’ll have the whole skill tree filled in about five months.Less than half a year. Of course, in our time, one week for her is about 8 years, so she would get that last pip in about… 2189?!?
Once again, I’m saying she’s gonna have to get out out of this mess soon. She’s gonna have to sleep sooner or later. Can’t use the orbs while asleep.
A Green Lanterns ring protects them, even when they are unconscious; being sentient.
But we’ve seen the Orbs sleep.