Grrl Power #637 – Just one of the things in her Six Demon Bag
Yes, the portal is a big problem, but Dabbler could see what Sydney did when she used her orb, so she wanted to play along. Also, we all know that one of Sydney’s official unofficial superpowers is derailment. She’s like ADHD for other people. Maybe she’s ADHD’s avatar.
Dabbler is quite the competent solo adventurer, but it’s because she needs stuff like wind spells that her fireball spell is not exactly on Lina Inverse’s level. Like when she hangs out at the Adventurer’s Cafe, they all make fun of her until the swarm of bees comes in. Or she pulls out her railgun. She does have some big hits, but she’s definitely the kind of adventurer everyone wants in the party. (Besides the succubus stuff) Between her spells and her ‘cybernetic arm of holding’ she’s usually prepared for just about any situation. She’s like Data from The Goonies, only her inventions use molecular fabrication and have less reliance on slinkies and spring loaded dentures.
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Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
This is where “Otherworld Manga” knowledge comes inside handy.
What? This is standard D&D knowledge.
That too.
She’s a kid.
Compared to Dabbler, Sydney sure is.
Yorp, you seem to have something on your face.
red… grab yorp its been few centuries since he had a bath
NOOOOO! I had a bath last year! Not fair!
Hey, hey, hey…Be careful with Yorp.
Unlike most dogs, Yorp IS smart enough to figure it out.
Hey, you would too, if the only way you had to clean paint on your face, was by licking it off!
compared to dabbler the cast are all kids.
Actually Achilles could be older than Xuriel by many eons, and will likely outlive her by many eons as well.
Does this make Dabbler a pedo?
I doubt age differences count any more when the parties involved are over 40ish. If they do, they probably shouldn’t.
PD, are you saying that you think Sydney is “over 40ish”?
They have not had sex. In fact Dabbler averted Sydney’s gaze, from her hypnoboobs, to avoid entrapping her.
Barberian has aged well though.
And i imagine for a succubus, its only pedo if the species in question is before whatever that race’s puberty.
Now, calling Dabbler practically any other kinda name…. hmmm……
For all her adventuring experience Dabbler’s no more mature than most teens.
Maybe maturity depends on percentage and not absolute age? Like, if you are in first 20% of your expected live length you are immature?
“I may be getting older but I refuse to mature.” Even though I am now over 50 years old, in many ways I am still child-like.
She’s a kid
Compared to Achilles*, Dabbler sure is.
* Assuming that he is the Achilles, of legend, and the whole ankle thing was just a publicly faked death scene, or propaganda by his enemies, which he found convenient to run with. Cause he would have been able to, without his heel being injured.
1) the legend of Achilles came from the Phoenician warriors’ armor. it was metal and covered the head, chest, back, outer arm, a skirt down to the knee, and shin guard. The only place that was constantly vulnerable (the armpit/ inner arm only being vulnerable at times) was the back of the leg from the knee down.
2) This Achilles gained his powers in the 80’s (which explains his outdated hair)
From his cast list entry:
From which we can infer either:
1) Phonecian warriors had a glam-rock hairstyle going, when Achilles gained his power. But that his brain can only hold a normal lifetime’s worth of memories, so cannot remember back to antiquity.
2) You are right.
You may be right, Yorp. It doesn’t seem to be all of that far-fetched (& you’re already an expert at “fetching” things very far away) that the human mind might tend to fray around the memories a bit after getting past…oh, about 2000 years old or so.
I have another theory on hair. Its as long as it needs to also be dead enough to no longer be invulnerable. Think about it his hair took Maxs uber ball of death . since his hair is’t to his waist it had to be come cut able at some point
It will have been cutable up until the point when it became invulnerable. After that all it need do is stay in exactly the same state, neither growing nor becoming damaged.
That is not something which would be intrinsically associated with invulnerability. However the Grrlverse supers who we have seen so far tend to have some required secondary powers, to make the primary ones usable. For instance Heatwave is immune to her own heat. Likewise Maxima’s structural force field, which allows any object, which she picks up, to survive the strains of that (otherwise its own weight may rip it apart, if held up just by human hands, at one end).
Am I the only one to suggest that…
1)_IF … this is the Original Achilles, of ancient lore, &
2)_IF … he just happened to have this hairstyle, when he 1st gained his powers, &
3)_IF … trends in fashion are TRULY cyclic, then
4)_PERHAPS … Achilles, with his “Glam-Rock” hairstyle (& his invulnerably self-confidant swagger), was the seminal inspiration for the ’80’s fashion-trend…?
…after all, if you live for enough millennia, you EVENTUALLY have to turn-up in the right place, at the right time, for all the personality/social ingredients to “click”, & give birth to a trend.
I think you’re spot on here with point four, but not 2 and 3. I think he got his hair style in the same incident that gave him his powers and his hair just kind of stuck that way.
Thus, Achilles likes the 80s because the 80s *loved* him, like nothing else ever has.
My thinking precisely.
I am fairly sure that this has been raised before, with the Word of DaveB being that
a) This is not the mythological Achilles. He merely borrowed the name to signify his invulnerability.
b) He does not share his mythological counterpart’s weakness.
It’s probably the floor runes.
Maybe it’s a “self destruct trigger in case the enemies find our abandoned base”
It’s probably more along the lines of “Don’t worry, the entire civilization looks abandoned” if the headless statue was anything to go by.
That may well be the case, but I think there would have to be something more to it, in order to justify Sydney shifting the priority from stabilising an out-of-control wormhole. Dabbler did indicate that was a serious danger, so Halo should only override that if the one she has detected is even more urgent or dangerous.
Or she detected something she thinks might relate and be important.
Bummer, it was an art error.
Yea, I had my claws crossed there was a demon teleporting away Sydney’s glasses, battledress and hopefully other clothing.
*depressed sigh*
Having established that Sydney is now officially a kid, that puts you in questionable territory.
She is 21.
And I get to subtract 7 years off my age (2018 – 2011) and divide by 7.
Yorp, you seem to be confused about the half-plus-seven rule of thumb, which suggests that the upper age limit for dating a 21-year-old is 28.
Doggy years!
In the jurisdiction I live in, the upper limit for dating a 21 year old is “not dead”, providing of course that the old dude has mountains of money to spend on the 21 year old. Not saying this is a good thing or that this is a bad thing, just saying that it is a thing.
That 21 year old though will have to get used to being considered a gold-digger. That formula is pretty good for summarising social expectations. Plus there are factors inherent to the relationship itself, to consider too.
Twenty-somethings tend to be a lot more physically active and likely to want activities like clubbing, participating in sporting events and other activities which would rapidly sap the endurance of old folks. So for such a relationship to be successful it would likely require a youngster who is into more sedentary pastimes or a wrinkly who has remained fit and active.
Then there is the possibility of children. Any offspring, of such a relationship, would only have one parent able to keep up with all the strains of parenting. With a good chance that the older one will die before they even reach maturity. Not to mention the difficulties involved in trying to cope with both having children to care for and a partner who may suffer from dementia and various other age-related diseases.*
Of course heaps of money can help cope with many of those problems.
* Very sadly I have friends who have a significant age difference (albeit nowhere near as extreme as portrayed here), where they had reconciled themselves to this fate. Only to have the younger partner come down with a degenerative terminal disease. So their roles have unexpectedly been reversed.
I was once called a cradlesnatcher – with reference to my other half – to which she responded, “I guess that makes me a graverobber then?”
my other half is 21 btw.
I have seen it work. Even within my own extended family. And, although the friends I mentioned have had a tragic development, it was working for them. Albeit not without considerable difficulties. But those had been overcome.
Much of my mulling above was to do with contemplating my own prospects, should such an opportunity arise. Or lack of them, given my current situation.
However I have always associated with folks of significantly disparate ages to myself. I enjoy diversity in life, and people of a similar age tend to have similar experiences. So I am not amongst those who would criticise a big age difference in a relationship. But I recognise that it can be a big deal to other folks in society. Which can impact on the couples in question.
Oh god.
Still giggling at the tranquilizer dart marked [Diarrhea Apocalypse]
hehe, just give me the death one… thats just evil..
That is hilarious. Mind you so is Dynamite Man, in the next panel!
It’s Dyna-golem. I wonder what’s his origin story.
H.G. Wells hid his anti-Parliament sentiments well, but it turns out that one of his early uses, of his time machine was to take back a stack of dynamite to Guy Fawkes. One who’s plotters took the code name “Dyna” (from the Old German “Justified”) to show he felt vindicated in his role (little knowing it was a girl’s name).
But, just before the plotters were about to set out on their mission, to join up with Guy Fawkes and blow up the Houses of Parliament, the authorities got wind of it! With them beating down on the door, H.G. Wells realised that he must flee. So used the time-machine.
Sucked up in the temporal wake though, Dyna was fused with the barrel of gunpower and stack of dynamite! Spiralling along in H.G. Well’s wake, he was flung off to arrive in the far future. And was shocked to see a strange purple demon, with four arms! Then saw what his own arms had become!
About 200 years ago a French emperor found a mystic gem in an Egyptian pyramid that gave him one wish. He said he wanted to be the most powerful person in the world. Taking him literally, he was turned into what you see here. Thus he became known as Napoleon Dynamite.
“That’s not a sexy attack. That is NOT a sexy attack AT ALL!!”
“I mean… Sleep? I could collapse in a sexy, suggestive position. Confusion? I drop my sword, and then spend five rounds picking it up, with my butt wiggling suggestively the whole time. Charm? Don’t get me started! But THIS? There is NO WAY to ‘Diarrhea Apocalypse’ sexily! None! No way!
…
Adult fetish diapers? Really?”
Death parrots are a thing on the Tiny Barbarian side scrolling puzzle platformer…on the last episode I think.
Ok, so now I’m thinking of Sydney as a Nobilis character… the Power of Derailment (or possibly just of ADHD).
Lol.
Still giggling at the tranquilizer dart marked [Diarrhea Apocalypse].
This is why most DnD parties have a Utility Wizard. Having a caster capable of throwing fireballs is neat, but if you want pure damage then there are others who can handle that. Leave the damage to the Barbarian with the overinflated strength score.
If you want a spontaneous bridge across a chasm of fire, someone to identify that nifty glowing sword you found or for that Enlarged Cloud Kill to go away though you need a Utility Wizard. Those problems are much harder to deal with by swinging a length of metal at them.
I much prefer my Cleric with access to the Magic Domain and a few nonstandard buffs.
Nothing says mass mayhem than a boosted “Storm of Vengeance” or maybe an “Animate Object” on a barrel of, oh lets be Hitchcock’ian and use caltrops and spiked chains.
Exactly. In my current campaign, I’m a sorcerer while the rest are barbarian, fighter, ranger, and bard. I’m focusing heavily on utility spells and crowd control since the party already has plenty of damage
And your bard probably has to expend much of their limited spell capacity acting as the primary healer. So would not be able to take on the utility role, and free you up for AOE damage. But crowd control can substitute for that, with all the swords around. Plus it is more versatile, as it allows you to deal with non-combat situations too. So makes sense.
Once ran a female Cleric/mage half elf. DM special class. so she got bonuses for mage spells similar to Cleric. I self imposed a rule to make it much harder for her to learn combat spells at all. Several campaigns later and she never killed a thing. Hurt yes, immobilized for sure but never killed. And she was incredibly resourceful and useful. a favorite trick was to use phantasmal force to make it look like she threw a knife at there head. And wasn’t THAT a learning experience for her. She had to find a knife thrower that could put a knife as close to her head as possible And she had to do it with her eyes open…
Unlike my centaur character. Call me a horse…One more time…and I will kick you into tomorrow wait around and then kick you again.
Death parrots would be a good name for a band.
A band of space-pirate adventurers
The Dead Parrots … Norwegian Blues to be exact ….. As Undead Ninja Space Pirate Bards ….
Everyone is a kid to Dabbler
Not everyone. There are quite a few that are much older than her since she isn’t even 200 yet. Heck to a majority of the council she would be just another youngster.
Ingsol has a number of centuries on her, for a start. Plus he teased Mr Fluffy (a.k.a. Barkley) about his age. Which would be in very poor taste, if werewolves were short lived. So I am guessing that lycanthropy is good for more than just protection against lead bullets and girders.
With her ability to change matter, on a whim, Krona could (barring violent death) live forever. Get a few wrinkles, or cancer, and she can turn that into young, healthy, skin just as easily as she changed the colour of her hair or messed with Sydney’s bladder. Assuming that she has studied sufficiently, about skin and cancer, to understand them enough for her power to work.
I’m sure there would be volunteers for testing.
I’m sure there would be willing test subjects.
You are a mean one Mr Barrack! Delaying the big reveal like this!! Loving it!!! :D
:-D
Oh, look at that, they found Hiro… or is it? o_O
Oh noes, has Hiro been turned to dust, and (distracted by looking at Sydney and Dabbler) nobody noticed Sciona shapechanging into Hiro’s form?
So Achilles wasn’t portaled? At least not portaled to this place it seems.
Maybe he’s looking after Harem
Correct. Dave confirmed that he did not come through.
Present, in Oz: Dabbler, Halo, Harem (blonde), Maxima, Super Hiro and Sciona.
Left, in Kansas: Achilles, Mr Amorphous, the Delta team, Harem (all other flavours) and everybody else.
You are correct in your assertion that Achilles may have gone elsewhere. Maybe Mr Amorphous too, but we had not seen him for a while, so he may actually have been left behind.
Mortals ——>
<——- Imortals
guys….grab yorp he been slimed an needs bath badly ~places tub that been already filled with hot water and bubble shampoo called dogo slime begone… here vorp gotta nice treat for yooou /ques up Benny hill theme song as the chase begins
*running like crazy, towards the nearest purdy a-team girls*
All armed with super-soakers and a sponge-on-a-stick
My response to Dabblerf’s question in the third frame was simply ” couse yer broken as shit”
Dabbles isn’t broken, neither is her arse
I was going to say “because you’re a walking plot device that can do literally anything the plot requires, so long as it doesn’t step on Max and Syd’s shtick”… but yeah.
I’m not sure I’m totally down with Sydney’s chain of reasoning because it relies on an underlying assumption that magic is just a plot device that can do anything Dabbler needs it to do. The whole spiel is predicated on Dabbler’s need for a wind spell, not Dabbler’s capability to produce a wind spell. What if Dabbler just didn’t know any magic that can blow air around? Or if you can’t make bargains with both the fire spirits and the air spirits? Or whatever? Dabbler could probably also use a spell that makes her as invulnerable as Maxima; why not make that?
Because being as invulnerable as a golden brick isn’t going to clear the air
Because we’ve seen Dabbler cast cantrips before.
Sydney is just assuming that she had a lot of variety.
Dabbler has demonstrated or mentioned enough spells for that to be a reasonable assumption:
Magic missiles, shield, various detection spells, makeup (& cleaning), orgasm (& warming), invisible web (a.k.a. sticky air) and her sword summoning (it looked distinctly different to her hammer space technological teleportation). Possibly others that have not sprung to mind. Plus Sydney may have been debriefed about the non-detection spells that arc-light were using, in the big fight.
One other option would have been to request that Dabbler ‘clear the dust away’. But if she did that using her cleaning spell, then the runes would have ended up with makeup on them!
I do agree with Matthew though that Sydney was taking a bit of a gamble. Magic may be able to do certain things, but not others. However the big plus is that Sydney has been informed about the mechanics of magic, which is like programming. Whilst that is the software side, it does indicate that learning new types of magic is akin to learning new programming languages. Which would allow access to other types of magic (so one may be for necromancers and another for elementalists).
Given Dabbler’s age it is fair to guess that she knows quite a few (and was showing off about some of her knowledge in the relevant scene, when that was revealed). So Sydney was taking a gamble, but it was an educated one. And no great loss if Dabbler did not have an air spell, but had some other spell which could substitute for that.
“my hearing isn’t good enough to say put a bullet between you eyes, but its good enough to put a fireball in your corner of the room.” This seems to indicate that she at least has a fireball spell.
I’m guessing Dabbler has way…more spells and scientific doo dads and is not encumbered with, “If she has the correct tool for the job”, but more like “Do I use the Wind spell, Lipstick of Blowing or the gizmo, tornado in a can.” (Spell, magic item and science)The issue is not if she has it but as a generalist they may not be as powerful as they possibly could be. The sword is a great example of this. Bitching sword and certainly dangerous with it but not enough study to be truly a force to be reckoned with it at sword play.
And you just KNOW she wound buy Lipstick of Blowing.
I forgot the most profound use of magic that Dabbler has used. Namely being able to defeat Maxima in sparring! Only when magic is allowed though, hence we know that is the key power.
So something in Dabbler’s spells (or possibly magical items) is capable of defeating the most powerful super on Earth. Making the ability to shift some dust to be a fairly mundane capability that Dabbler likely mastered a hundred years ago. It would not do to put off a potential source of tantric energy, by having her place look all grubby. :-D
Slight minor correction: The most powerful super on Earth, in Maxi’s self-opinion
Kevin came this >< close to stomping a crater in her arse, she was only saved by the fact she was not alone
Indeed. But he did loose, so the crown remains with Maxima.* And he only got so powerful because he was both an unknown factor, and because there were other people around, who he was able to incite to violence and get so powerful.
One on one Maxima is more powerful than Vehemence. Now that she knows his power, she can use her strong will to resist his aggro aura, and focus her anger into restraint techniques, rather than directly attacking him.
Whereas if the presence of other people is factored in, Maxima has the advantage of leading the most powerful super team (that we know about). So what beat him before could well beat him again.
Which is unlikely to be necessary whilst Keven remains contentedly doped up and playing fun games, in prison.
* Which incidentally makes her more than just the self-proclaimed. Maxima publicly threw down the gauntlet, to the world’s super villains. So far each one who has picked it up, has been beaten. No matter how close they came to victory, Maxima is still the one wearing the Super Heavyweight Champion belt.
Hey, if Maxi is happy to claim to be the strongest (with assistance), then bully for her
She has not made that assertion. I am quite happy to do it for her though, even without the caveat. Without buffing neither Vehemence nor Sciona are stronger than Maxima. Whilst the villains have the options to buff themselves, Maxima is under no obligation to solo her foes, when they do. That is for posers, not cops or soldiers.
A key point to remember is that when indicating ‘the strongest’ it is not just limited to physical strength. It is who has proven themselves in a fight. I am confident that Krona could easily beat Maxima. However she has chosen not to engage Maxima in battle, so has not proven herself to be the strongest.
[engage ramble mode]
Should Krona get the opportunity to spar with Maxima, we would find that Maxima does have an overwhelming edge, due to her super speed. She could knock out Krona before she activates her power.
But, if Krona has prepared for the fight, she could have a contingency set up (much like the one inherent in her previously demonstrated ‘time reset’-like power). One which would alter Maxima from having super powers to not having super powers.
Although it would be amusing if Maxima still won simply due to being fit and strong, even within normal human boundaries.
Whether Krona could reverse the process, and restore Maxima’s super powers, that is another matter. Her biggest limitation is that Krona needs to understand something in order to be able to manipulate it. She understands people who do not have super powers. So should be able to pull off the use I proposed.
Plus Krona has shown that she can manipulate folks, even if they do have powers she may not understand. Krona does not know how Halo’s ability to control her Orbs* works. Yet that did not stop her from altering how Sydney’s bladder works.
So Krona would be converting Maxima into a state which she fully understands. Which however would not be the case in reverse. But hopefully she could simply copy Maxima’s old state, and roll her back to that condition, super powers and all.
We saw something similar demonstrated when Pixel (unconscious and having bled out a bucket full of blood) and Halo (possibly dead) were restored (super powers intact) after the time reset.
Similarly Krona could put either Sydney or Maxima to sleep (although Max does have strong will, so may resist that). Or make their hearts stop.
* This is Sydney’s super power. What the orbs do is their ability. Commanding them though is hers, even if it is granted to her by them, she is making use of that power.
I think a better response would have been, “Why wouldn’t you have a wind spell?”
Bit of a non-sequitur here, but should Dabbler be wearing her “XXXX” choker in those three middle panels? Those chokers are specifically an Archon thing, and those panels depict a (hypothetical) adventuring situation from BEFORE she came to Earth, so she shouldn’t have her choker yet. Right?
Probably, but that can be explained away as Sydney’s imagination rather than real events.
IIRC, Dabbler was the one that gave Max the idea for the collars to begin with. And apparently it doesn’t actually say “XXXX;” it says “Xuriel” in one of her multiple native languages
Ahh, so ZZZZ is pronounced “Zathras”? Not to be confused with “Zathraz” or “Zathras”, of course.
Yet in all things, symmetry.
the Archon chokers are their radios. Dabbler has a cybernetic communications device in her skull. She just likes the choker.
Sydney is back to her normal self, yay!
So glad that she has not turned out to be some kind of mutant zombie, or fading away, or a necromancer, or suffering from some kind of Alari attack.
Kind of a shame that the demon teleporting away her glasses and clothing did not pan out though. :-/
I would say it’s more likely she is holding back the panic for now because she has he shield up and she is with the experienced Teammates.
Were Dabbler and Maxima slightly stressed she would be as well. For now though she’s cool.
*Grabs Yorp’s collar and starts dragging him toward the washtub that has been set up by the others*
Dave, Project A-kon 29 Starts at Noon on Thursday, Will there be any meetup this year?
*struggling frantically*
Yelp, yelp, yelp!
20 bucks say sciona’s entire race is dead and she is the last one. they probably killed eachother in a massive ego contest.
I don’t think the bookies will give you good odds on that. Far too many folks making the same call!
But we still have yet to determine if she finds out in the proper manner.
1) Head outside to find a wasteland.
2) Come across a giant half buried statue with one raised hand.
3) Fall to her knees and berate her ancestors for their hubris and condemn them to an eternity of torment in whatever afterlife they believe in.
I feel I should make a comment about ‘filthy apes’, but it feels derivative.
Here’s alternative – this is a memorial dedicated to the horrors of war.
While Sciona was on vacation, there was an annual world war followed by the cultural revolution which led the Alari to denounce war as method of diplomacy for eternity. Now they have a peaceful – if overly bland and pastoral – society, and Sciona’s name is used as a Satan substitute, with only place where it’s mentioned openly being said memorial dedicated to the horrors of war.
+1
This would make Dues conquest all the more, uh prize worthy?
I imagine he is the sort, that when he sees news about the last animal in a species, he will make enquiries about getting it served at his next party.
What else is the last animal in the species are good for, however? If you can recreate the species, there is literally no problem. If you can not – better to give it a quick death an remember its tasty corpse fondly, than let it suffer through meaningless existence without even a shred of hope to find another of its kin.
Amongst other things because it is easier to ‘recreate’ a species with even one living example. We are likely to see mastodons and mammoths walking the Earth again soon. We have various samples of their DNA, as they only died out comparatively recently (10,500 and 4,500 years ago respectively).
However the techniques that we have would also draw in some of the DNA of the surrogate mother. So they would actually be elephant-mastodons and elephant-mammoths. Therefore having even one pure animal extant would allow some offspring to be truer to the original species. And those traits could be very gradually favoured in future breeding programs.
Plus, although rare, we sometimes do find an isolated pocket of a species still going, in some remote corner of the world. Being able to strengthen their genetic pool, with even one individual with diverse genes, could help the species to survive naturally. Which is far more preferable than having to artificially recreate them.
Something which would not be possible if Deus had already snacked on it!
As for whether we should or not, there are arguments for both sides. However, as many of these species going extinct are down to our actions, be that directly or indirectly, that tips the moral scales very heavily to giving us an onus to restore them.
Further the more we examine the disparate clues available, for those in pre-history, the more often we find that it was indeed the encroachment of humans which was most likely their demise. With occasional clues pointing the other way tending to, in due course, be countered by stronger research concluding the contrary.
Arguably, hybridization is nor recreation – we replacing a species with a close resemblance gelf, however simple the ‘engineering’ part is. Add to that, that in the case of pre-count zero species we was not able to make a binary clone of full genetic ensemble. Which is not the case in even contemporary conditions. The principle obstacle even now would be not the act of precise preserving of the endangered species in digital form, but rather our comparatively transient inability to 3D-print the organism in question. Which, I posit, is a purely engineering problem, and would be resolved in due time.
As for the civilization pressure – while countless species had indeed ceased, countless other successfully adapted to new conditions. Survival of the fittest is a thing.
Should or should not – while we can consider repaying ‘the debt’, no species exists in vacuum. And while more contemporary organisms could – theoretically, mind you – be recreated, even here we stumble upon the inevitable second extinction: in the case of panthera altaica, for example, and similar niche organisms the niche itself either already had ceased, or soon will cease. Mammoths in pure form and such can’t be recreated as a wild species, full stop. That is, unless we pin most of the humans to the fjords, and begin large-scale terraforming to restore Pleistocene Park to its supposed glory.
If we are speaking of the moral onus – homo sapience indeed have one, but not in the field of restoration of the evolutionary debris, much less rejects. Humans should start rewriting species, remodel them; they should create new species tailored to exist in new environment. And all thouse species should have an engineered ability to reproduce, adapt, and evolve by themselves.
That must apply to all species, mind you. Including homo.
Well argued, especially on the 3-D printing (or more advanced technology still). However we should not base present day conservation techniques on projected technologies, which may (or may not) one day become available. We need to use the capabilities that we have, here and now, to their best effect.
And we need a sea-change in global culture, as present-day values and pressures are failing to stop the rot. We are encroaching further and further into the remaining natural areas and depleting the natural resources. Despite much talk, the end of the day the rate of loss of species is not being reduced.
This is aggravated by the fact that politics forces only the middle of the bell curve opinions to be publicly voiced. Those who champion either extreme in predicting how our future eco-system will cope get marginalised. Both those who say ‘everything is going to be OK, this is normal variability’ and those who predict ‘this could lead to the extinction of mankind’, get shushed, so that compromise policies, in the middle grounds, can be agreed.
But those are only on the most pressing matters, which are having a clear adverse effect in the here and now. Plus some in response to predictions which can be shown with a very high degree of confidence (but not all, as the lobbyists of the ‘all is OK’ camp have the deeper pockets).
Now if the ‘things are OK’ camp are right, but we ignore them and divert resources to save species, this will cause some unnecessary hardship. However if the doomsday camp are right, and we ignore them, then the damage we do today may be irrevasable.
Our advancing knowledge may not outpace the cascading effect of the world’s eco systems starting to collapse. And even if it does, the deteriorating economic and social environment, caused by those collapses, could overwhelm any attempt to shore up the system. Not to mention that it is all too likely that the changes needed would simply be vastly more than any technology we could develop.
So failing to redress the balance between capitalism and conservation, now, may not leave us able to develop the techniques you hope for. We could be extinct too!
if there is ever a demon that exists because it thinks it exists I bet Halo could LAWYER it to death.
Are you suggesting that Sydney could be the Devil’s advocaat?
Or generic banana flavoured liqueur, if on a budget.
I do not understand the second part. and no I mean like at the start of the comic she has that lawyering bit, like that.
Your comment was great. I was just taking the opportunity for some word-play.
Advocate = this.
Advocaat = this.
Whoo! Caught up. :)
While catching up, it was a bit annoying that tons of pages are missing the Patreon 2X link. Also, some are linking to the wrong page. (#636 is linking to #635, for example) It’s basically impossible to find the older pages on Patreon.
Unfortunately each link has to be added manually by me and I’m not always on the ball. It’s not so hard to go to patreon now and just scroll through previous posts, but I should be better about including a direct link.
Being a gamer, Sydney must have knowledge of such things,like a wind spell,and she resents being called a kid. Do you know someone who,despite their age,looks kind of younger than they appear?!
Me! Folks usually shave a decade off, when guessing my age. I also worked with a girl who was a bit like Baby Spice, in being blonde and extremely young-looking. To the extent that she had to carry her identification with her, until she was in her 30s, or she would invariably be turned away at night clubs and bars.
I was even older than that, on a trip to America, when I got asked to prove my age, to buy a beer at a cinema. I was quite tickled by that. Fortunately I had my British passport with me. Which was apparently very confusing for the lad serving me. It had my American friends in stitches, that he was unsure about that.
The one thing that taints the memory, is knowing that if he was still working there, a few years later, he would have been involved in a shooting at that cinema. :-/
Which had me worried, at the time, as it was one friends went to regularly.
happend to be a lot to. Then I grew a beard. And some people still thing I’m young with really impressive beard growth.
Once again she proves an asset due to her genre savviness. Though I wonder which trait it was that caused her to examine the field first thing.
Probably gaming, with the “Fog of War” that many old games use to have (EQ2 use to have it, butt they removed it a couple years ago :()
Yes they did, and I always found it weird and unrealistic. You want realism, make people buy a map. Cartography has been around a LONG time.
I think the original idea was YOU were the cartographer. You were rediscovering lost lands after that flood knocked civilization down to just two (known) surviving cities.
Where it was unrealistic is how those native am\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b\b gnolls kept repopulating the same area you massacred just ten minutes ago.
City of Heroes was a contemporary of Everquest and had a wonderful mechanic. The hospitals all had emergency teleporters in them. If anyone, in the city or its environs, was detected to be in a life-threatening state (e.g. just about to bleed to death), they would be teleported to the hospital. Which, of course, was equipped with super healing capability.
Nicely explaining why heroes did not accidentally kill villains even when attacking them with fireballs and radiation powers. Likewise how heroes and villains could respawn, in what would otherwise be an unrealistic way.
How was it unrealistic? It’s an area you have never been to before, how are you supposed to know where anything is if you don’t go exploring and discovering it
What is crap is there are still dungeons from original release that don’t have in-game maps
At least with EQ1, you were able to edit the map (some islands in the Innothule Swamp weren’t on the map, so spent some time marking them… not like that Yorp, put your leg down!)
first, nice to see mention of the goonies,
second, i was once nearly banned from plying spell caster by my dm because i prefered effect spell to pure damage,, even forced one dm in particular to use the dream card after i used one under the radar spell to save the whole party from an whole army of tanar’y in the abyss,,since the encounter was technicly so high level copmpared to us,,, we would have won like50milion xp
There is nothing more dangerous than outsmarting the GM.
An outsmarted DM is a vindictive DM :P
Depending on which version of D&D was in play, rules say that you can’t gain enough XP at once to gain multiple levels, that the XP award for an encounter should be adjusted to account for circumstances that make it significantly easier/harder to overcome, and/or that the DM can (and should) change/override any rules they choose for any reason.
So, no 50 MXP award, but, depending on the details, maybe an XP award similar to that for a level-appropriate encounter.
In the original “Pool of Radiance” game, you had to return to your class trainer to level up, any additional experience gained before that was simply lost, regardless of how much (you gained enough to go up two levels? too bad, you can only level up once)
In the early stage of a campaign, we planned to kidnap a figurehead of the Evil Empire (TM) by walking in the front door under diplomatic pretenses, subduing them, and then timing our escape to coincide with the carefully-planned distraction (a frontal attack by “another faction”).
We got in, with the GM carefully describing the hardened doors, the observations we could make on guards and their patrol routes, and the like. And then our team leader made a beautiful success of a diplomacy check, followed by the failed equivalent of “sense motive” by the figurehead. “We’re here to take you to safety!” Said official walks themselves into our escape vehicle, and self-captures. GM carefully folded up his plans for the upcoming escape battle, and dumped them in the trash.
My DM had to figure out how a demon used the bathroom because I kept rolling nat 20s on Intimidate rolls. (3 nat 20’s in a single attempt against a Pit Fiend. At that point “The Fiend has just pi**ed himself JUST doesn’t cut it)
Heh.
Is there anything you can’t make a golem out of? Radioactive materials with a short half-life, perhaps?
Is an AI a silicon golem?
More like a ghost in the machine.
Dabbles’ face in panel diarrhoea is hilarious, her thinking is along the lines of “Okay, that’s going to be explosive!” :D
:-D
The s**t is about to hit the fan!
(finaly catches yorp for his bath)
looking at your profile pic something already has hit the fan :P
(catches yorp to drag him to his bath)
looking at you something already has hit the fan
of course my comment loads when i decide to re-post (yorp is still going in the bat)
Bruce Wayne may have something to say about that :P
That Slayers reference. <3. Though to be fair, her fire ball spell isnt THAT bad…Dragon Slave though…that one is one to watch out for. Still my favorite episode is when she teaches it to the party's WM and whoopses a town with it.
… and then there is the Giga Slave. Which can destroy whole world in case of failure.
The discussion on Dabbler’s potential toolkit makes me wonder about what her passive defenses are.
As a lone adventurer, or even in a small party of similarly skilled adventurers, one of the primary concerns are surprise attacks. So what does she have to stop sudden railgun shots to the torso? Powerful shields rated for such weapons, actually wearing heavy power armor all along but covering it up with complex illusions, automated phasing-object that either moves her out of phase or teleports her when it detect sudden incoming anything?
Though anything that is usually off and has to detect a thing before it triggers will sometimes fail to stop things like lasers or even railgun shots due to their great speed, so to survive her 160 years beyond Sydney she’d need to some kind of trump card that no-sells virtually all infantry-equippable and potentially some vehicle-mounted weapons of the caliber that her own civilization uses – or adventure exclusively in areas with lower tech (like earth) and hope to not make any enemies with equivalent tech.
I put it up to prudence and foresight. Go in prepared for whatever you might likely run into. So if you are entering a scenario where there is the likelihood of needing the equivalent of Glitter-boy Armor then bring some protection along.
Now for the day-to-day lethal surprises, contingency spells are amazingly versatile and have been known to preempt instantaneous effects because … magic…. your puny physics and logic of causality does not apply here.
Isn’t magic still physics in any universe that has magic? It’d just be called “The Law of Aether Conversion” and the mana would be called “The Aetheric Force” or something like that.
Time travel tech and spells for instantenous defense are definitely neat though.
Only if magic has scientifically discoverable rules.
If magic is more fickle than that, depending on how fickle it is, you may or may not have suck rules, but they would not be dependable if they existed.
Magic tends to be known for being at least somewhat fickle.
So far though the only example we have seen of magic being fickle is the very limited ability Gwen had with her Muppet illusion. It was so weak that she needed Dabbler to assist, by holding bread sticks as the puppeteer.
However that was specifically explained, in that Gwen is a self-taught beginner (she found a spell book). Plus the fact that illusionists are very rare, on Earth, for reasons unknown.
With the obvious exception of succubi (who are not natives of Earth) and the Veil.*
Then contrast that with the descriptions of magical spells working like programming languages. Something that would not be possible if magic were too fickle. Then we have the spells in the Dark Reliquary. It had been left unattended for decades. Yet we only saw one of the spells fail (in the pop up turrets). All the others worked fine, even after all those years unattended. Likewise the golem.
Whilst the alarm would have worked, had it not been for the world wide magical web having been shut down.
Finally we have not seen any spells fizzle. Be that in combat or otherwise. The closest to that was Dabbler’s detection spells not bringing up a result on the orbs. However we know that the spells worked fine. They were just countered by some property of the orbs.
* Which may even be the reason why they are rare. If it interferes with lesser illusions, then illusionists would often be found out, and their chances of surviving, to pass on their knowledge would drop.
Take, for example, if an illusionist’s main trick, to escape dangerous situations, is to make it look like opponents’ clothes have caught on fire. All well and good up until the first time that he tries to use the spell on a supernatural creature, disguised by the Veil, as a human.
First off it may not even work at all. The Veil is a huge network of powerful enchantments. A spell created by a single caster may not be enough to overcome that. Especially if they are unaware that they have an opposing spell to defeat. The sudden and unexpected failure of a spell, that they were relying on, in a life-threatening situation, could result in illusionists dying too young to pass on their knowledge.
Further, even if such a spell did work, the critter would immediately know something is wrong, because they only have illusionary clothes!
Likewise with many other types of illusions which are intended to affect opponents or areas, which may already be changed by the Veil.
All magic has scientifically discoverable rules, in that all magic has observable effect (broadly speaking, ‘observable’ is anything you can detect any effect whatsoever of. You can’t do anything that has a result without it being observable from some perspective, otherwise you didn’t do anything).
The rules might be fickle, but discovering them scientifically should be as possible as analyzing things as fickle as humans and animals. Even if the rules constantly and consciously change in response to attempts to discover them, many settings often just have this lead to studying the rules by which they change.
Even if it was somehow completely undiscoverable, it would still be a law of physics, we just wouldn’t know it yet, just like the law of gravity was a law of physics before we discovered it.
Point of order! The theory of gravity was developed by Isaac Newton, who was a natural philosopher and an alchemist. Further he was one of the pioneers who developed the scientific method and thereby influenced the foundation of physics as a field of study.
I.e. physics did not exist until after the development of the theory of gravity. Therefore, prior to that, “why do apples fall?” was something covered by natural philosophy, not the laws of physics.
Of interest, for millennia alchemists and natural philosophers were considered the repositories of what we would, today, think of as scientific knowledge. And much of the field of chemistry was initially based upon discoveries initially made by alchemists. Albeit being much better at distinguishing between genuine properties and folklore.
National leaders would consult with them, or even retain them in court positions. They were considered pillars of the community and wise men (except for when it was in fashion to designate them as heretics). They themselves were confident that their knowledge was fundamental, and that they knew much (if not all) of how the world worked.
Much like physicists and chemists today.
*wags tail cheekily*
Well ‘never going below an 11’ is a pretty powerful defence. Dabbler even managed to get a suit of animated armour feeling sexually uncomfortable!
I’m.. not sure what “going below an 11′” means.
Looks like I upgraded Dabbler a rank, but was quoting this scene. Which itself draws upon guys rating women from 1 to 10.
Anyone who would be attractive to men and women (even the heterosexual ones), that powerfully, would be much less likely to be attacked. Other than by anything which is not influenced by sexual matters (and, as I pointed out, Dabbler pushes the boundaries even on that limitation).
In 2nd & 3rd Edition Shadowrun, mages had an ability they could learn called anchoring. It let you anchor one or more spells to an object, and you could even set an order of activation or some simple conditions. A favorite combination was Detect Bullet with A range of 1 meter
…stupid phone. As I was saying, Detect Bullet with a range of 1 meter activating a personal Bullet Barrier(with a range of 0 meters). The activation is instantaneous, so you get a protective force field against bullets popping up as soon as a bullet comes within 1 meter of you.
Cool combo.
Sounds a bit inconvenient though, if walking past anyone with a concealed carry weapon. All of a sudden they would find themselves being yanked backwards, by their gun. Even worse if it is a team member, trying to render first aid to you and unable to approach you, until they have disarmed themselves!
As gamemaster, it did cross my mind more than once to use that interpretation of the Detect Bullet spell. In truth, the spell should be named Detect Fired/Thrown Bullet Still In Motion From It’s Point Of Departure, but that’s not as pithy as Detect Bullet. Also, Bullet Barrier stops only bullets/high-speed projectile weapons, but not melee weapons, fists, pressure waves from explosions, lasers, or cars.
Side note: The reason I say fired/thrown is because I had a player whose character had a gun they never used, because they realized after character creation that they could throw the bullets for a higher base damage than shooting the gun would give.
“… young adult”
“… Young Adult?”
Don’t mind if I do. A pretty female one please. Pick one who is as close to Sydney as you can get though.
When did the cast page vanish and will it ever re-appear?
Last year. Maybe.
Alternatives:
https://web.archive.org/web/20170606160937/https://www.grrlpowercomic.com:80/cast (slow to load, but exactly per original)
https://grrl-power.wikia.com/wiki/Cast (has most of the original details, plus more)
There’s an army of Alari standing around, looking fixedly at Sciona and cracking their knuckles, aren’t there?
Aha, so Sydney’s cunning plot is to blow dust in their eyes, but without alerting them to the fact she is on to them.
No, no, I’m assuming they’re bad news for Sciona and that Sydney just wants to dramatically reveal them.
Ahh, I missed the significance of looking at Sciona. Which I should not, you stated it clearly enough.
It sure would change their priorities, if that were the case. So plausible.
I 100% confirm that the list was about to be broken out but the fact that this is ammo that can be used in “old lady” court denied that option.
Note that “less” reliance on slinkies and spring-loaded teeth is not NO reliance on those things.
Mmm. I hope that Sydney was not just using her truesight to see through the dust cloud. That seems to be a likely possibility, at this stage. But that should fall in the same kind of category as a mundane disguise, or Peggy’s improvised mask. If it is just regular matter, in the air, Sydney would need x-ray vision to see through it, given that it is neither an illusion, invisibility nor something shapechanged.
Looking for an escape clause the only possibility which would spring to mind (other than Sydney having used the truesight orb for some other purpose), was that the dust was from magical things. So maybe crumbled (magical) Alari wings, for example. That would bring it closer to a magically created camouflage than a mundane equivalent. Even if it is just an accidental side effect.
Dabler is that old? I’d have thought younger, but it just be the way her species grows mentally.
Lol.
Mind you Dabbler is the offspring of three different species (succubus, doppleganger and an unknown one), so may well be absolutely unique. Which means any species generalisation about her, if fair, would be true. ;-)
If her home planet orbits a dimmer sun, it may be closer to it and have a much shorter year. We need to know if she is using standard Earth years. On Mercury Sydney would be over 100 years old.
We always measure these things ‘in your Earth years’, but got an all visitors’ advisory, late in the 50’s, that it was starting to sound cliched phrasing it like that.
Aw darn. I was hoping for the onrushing horde so everyone could dive under Sydney’s shield.
Sydney would then yell “Maxima! Release Restraint Level ZERO!”
Side note: I enjoyed Hellsing Ultimate Abridged waaayyyyy too much.
Then shouldn’t it be “MAXIMA! Go for a walk.”
I guess Maxima’s decided it’s just futile to stop Halo from yammering on. They are in a combat situation, in over their heads, and apparently in great danger. For Halo to explain her thinking like this would easily take ten to fifteen seconds the team can’t spare right now.
Maxima should be interrupting with “Save it for the debriefing we might not make it to.” At least, that’s what I think. I was never an officer in the military, but I do know this isn’t the time for that conversation.
But, it’s comics. That gives the author creative discretion.
Sydney is ‘yammering’ while Dabbles is working
Hmm, isn’t that cheating? Using Sydney’s ‘talking is a free action’ to give Dabbles time to ‘clear the air’?
Hmmm. Here’s a thought. What if they’re not on Scionas homeworld? Maybe the unfinished rift switched inanimate parts of there and here, and when the dust cloud disperses they’ll find they’re still back on Earth. And the reason that Harem is feeling ‘scattered’ is because those runes interfere with her abilities somehow.
Yea, I had toyed with the possibility of them still being on Earth. Plus folks have suggested that they might have gone through time.
Both hit the flaw though, of Sciona recognising it as home (presumably based on seeing the statue). Which you solve nicely.
Although if they have gone to a future Earth, after the Alari have conquered it, through the portal they opened, then that would explain the statue. And, when the dust clears, we could see a post apocalyptic scene, with the Statue of Liberty, in the distance.
And, to throw in another popular theme, having all the Alari long since died off and turned to dust.