Grrl Power #641 – Well that’s probably not good
Hey that guy seems to know something about the orbs. Let’s hang around and ask him. Or run. Probably run.
Whatever that thing is, it’s developed the very opposite of passive scanning. Not just active scanning, oh no, it’s developed “incredibly conspicuous scanning.” And it’s a fair bet those beams make that “vwoo woo woo woo vWOOOoom” noise when they pass over you like every flashlight in movies these days, or that scanning thing at the beginning of Aliens.
Sciona’s doing the Hulk sad music walk, and if you’re wondering why she isn’t just flying, it’s because flying is a happy activity. Have you ever seen someone fly sad? It’s like jumping rope sad, or skipping sad. It’s just not done.
Double res version will be posted over at Patreon. $1 and up, but feel free to contribute as much as you like.
SuperheroThey're super, thanks for asking!
Meatspace ComicSeriously these are awesome. Check 'em out!
Not UpdatingNo longer updating or only updates sporadically, but definitely worth reading.
SeriouslySeriously you guys. If you like Grrl Power the check these out.
"Mature"Mature subject matter and occasionally something explicit but usually safe. Can't guarantee the ads are safe though.
Dongs Ahoy!Full frontal and backal. Lots of skin, sex on some or all pages, explicit or otherwise.
Panel 8 needs to be in Halos headshot rotation at the top. :)
Pleeeeeese!
Yes please!
Yes please!!
Me four!
I am Flushmaster, and I fully endorse this proposal.
I called it! A mechanical force was used to destroy that place. Question is why is it freaking out towards Sydney when it didn’t towards Dabbler?
There are succubi on many planets, throughout the galaxy. Not worth a call home.
Sydney though, she is special!
All sorts of green veins.
Do you think her mum might be an Ent?
Sydney’s mom is Groot?
Those look pretty similar to the nervous system actually. It’s clearly able to gather some data from the orbs based on the text overlay so maybe it’s checking out her nervous system or thaumic flows or whatever to try to figure out how she’s interfacing.
Except for the brain part. The brain part looks all wrong…. And come to think about it, the brachial plexus looks all wrong too.
So, it could be just not properly drawn (not everyone needs to know the exact anatomy of our nervous system, in particular the overly complex neural pathways, or it’s not the nervous system.
The fact that the orbs have also green glowy lines suggests it’s some kind of mystical system. Maybe some kind of system that overimposes on SOME parts of Sydney’s nervous system, and uses it to comunicate with the spheres. Some sort of Theurgic-Nervous interface.
Said interface would explain why onlt the hands seem to activate the orbs: hands are overly represented in our brain, taking as much space as the rest of the body… But would suggest that Sydney MAY be able to activate a third orb at the same time, since there’s another area as over-represented in the human brain: the tongue. In fact, surface-wise, the tongue is even more represented than the hands.
I had this same thought awhile back. The main issue with using her tongue is that the orbs appear to be larger than her mouth. With no way to hold one against her tongue except her hands, Syd’s probably never realized her tongue might be an acceptable interface for the orbs….
Looking at how she can freely move them around within a certain distance from herself she wouldn’t need her hands to hold one against her tongue. I think.
Has she ever held them in one place while not in her hand? o_O
Yes – way back in the beginning when she explained they only work with her hands.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589
Forgot about for foot, butt, they were still held in place with either her hand or feet, not willpower alone
Yes. They don’t work:
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/589
Need to ask Dabbler to apply a tongue lengthening spell. I’m sure she has done that one before.
Dabbler is recognized tech and magic,
Sydney holds eldritch orbs of unknown origin that seem specifically designed to work against magic and advanced technology. Able to withstand, counter, and bypass both with relative ease and what seems to be their lower levels.
Even what counters what aspects of each are unusual, for instance the light, reflection, and orbs can be seen by the naked eye and machines, much magic can’t see them *just nothing* so if something were a creature of pure magic and magic sense they would appear as holes of absolute nothingness.
the skill tree on the other hand can be seen by the naked eye, and magic can see things even deeper on it as shown by Krona; yet machines like Dabbler’s cybernetic eye and cameras can’t see that.
The forcefield counters both physical and magic, even so far as to cancel out or entrap magic fields depending on if used outside or inside of them. So technically if facing oh say a small magic creature that uses magic to control larger creatures, plants, local ecosystem to its aid, Sydney could trap them inside the forcefield away from their weapons, and blast them.
among other possibilities. I’d say whomever made the orbs designed them specifically to relate to a civilization that is heavily magi-tech based.
Damn that is the best explanation I’ve seen along with the others, but the question is this. Is it going to attack? Those red beams on Sydney is looking like its ‘painting’ her as a target for something incredibly powerful and large like an orbital laser cannon or a long range artillery or something.
From what i can tell, it actually looks like Dabbler has tossed a magic shield in the way, which probably has blocked her from its sight. Sydney on the other hand did not get Mr. Bubble up in time and the lasers pin-pointed her.
Mr Buble should still have been able to stop the laser pin-points, like she did with the Aggro Aura
From what I can tell, Dabbler tossed a magic shield up that probably blocked her from its line of sight. Sydney however was not so speedy and could not raise Mr. Bubble in time before the scan locked on to her.
Looks like I was right about it being related to the other not-a-robot.
Remember how that one was able to block Krona despite nobody understanding how it works? Might be why this one can glean something from the orbs, at least indirectly.
Sciona should at least try flying, there could be something really interesting over the horizon. Throwing away her comms was a bad idea.
Actually, I did see someone fly sad once. It was in a Power Girl comic shortly before her solo series. It was very, very sad.
There are several instances FWS on The Power Puff Girls.
(Re-post as I can’t find the first one)
My thought on Panel 8, if it’s the Air Orb, is that the orb is processing atmospheric conditions. Supplying air seems like an active application and it looks like green text is meant for conscious activity. This could well be as an automatic constant or taking from her sub-conscious due to being in unknown terrain.
Little side note – Anyone want to guess on what the lines of text mean on the shield orb?
My guesses are –
Size
Initial activation (in green)
Strength
Transparency
Heat regulation (more likely in the Air Orb or the unknown orb)… if not heat regulation then maybe selective intangibility?
Green could just indicate that the ability/system is active. Red could be inactive functions of the orb (enabled or yet-disabled).
Yeah, I guess I had made it too ambiguous. What I had meant was that when active, Sydney could control the variables of my guesses.
One is probably the aperture control for her rapid fire blaster.
The background in the x-ray panel looks like one of those ‘Magic Eye’ images that were popular a few years ago. Is Dave trying to send us a secret message?
It’s not a Magic Eye. That would have been a cool idea though.
So, what’s going on in the penultimate panel? Beaming all data collected to your orbiting allies?
That would be my take too.
Except that beam looks far too energetic, to be just going into orbit. We could do that with a satellite phone and no light display. I think it is going much much further.
After scanning Sydney, the Scanner Beast shot his own “get me the hell out of here” message to his buddies in orbit.
That thing is doing what every other scanner has done when looking at the orbs
Upon realising that:
1) its active scan of those orbs was coming up as “Suspiciously Empty” as any event horizon one finds in what we call general relativity;
and
2) said event horizons are absolutely NOT behaving like naturally occurring event horizons
the scanner promptly turns everything up to eleven.
in this case requesting (and getting ) a metric fuck-ton of extra power beamed down from orbit
OK, what’s that green line of code on the Shield orb????
The active mode?
Sounds like a good call.
I’m thinking the other orb with Red Text is the Green Orb (make air/life support).
Just remembering those thick branches in the skill tree and that the Green Orb was the only one which had it’s filled. I think there was numerous speculation about a hands-free option or some other functionality that it grants. Possibly Sydney doesn’t know how to use it, similarly to how she doesn’t know how to bring up the skill tree.
The one other situation I recall is how she used it underwater when she needed it, so it could even be as simple as some automatic use when it senses the need.
Have I ever seen someone fly sad? Yes. Teen Titans, season 2 episode 14: How Long Is Forever? Starfire displaced into her future flew sadly when she was visiting her friends and saw how the team had drifted apart. There was also the episode where she was mutating and decided to leave Earth because she felt too ugly too stay, like she was a monster… Also flew sadly then.
You know, that actually raises a question. In the episode Switched, Starfire explains that flight for tamaraneans is powered by ‘unbridled joy’. How can a tamaranean fly sad?
It kinda reminds me of the golem core (#528). Wonder if it was more of a civil war than an alien invasion?
local equivalent of a robot uprising. Heck the golem-bot did say it wasn’t dumb and not a robot.
Hmm…we never did see what happened to that after the fight, it sure doesn’t seem to have joined back up with Sciona, nor does she seem to have had more of them.
Now I just find that funny.
What? In a jurisdiction, that’s not our own? Take her down!
We look to be possible losers if we stay.
We’re out of our jurisdiction. Let’s not get the baddie who escaped.
:p
Yeah, sounds about right: while Maxi was the Biggest Baddest around, it was still in their jurisdiction, when it appears something might kick her golden inflated ego, it’s suddenly time to leave
Seems to me to be a case that this started as a situation similar to ‘Hot pursuit’ and as long as it was just them and Sciona it was reasonable to continue the fight, especially with the apparent risk of imminent invasion.
But between the devastation of Sciona’s homeworld and the arrival of a third party the wise choice is to as the army says “deconflict the situation”.
Does the army really say, “deconflict the situation”? That sounds entirely like politico-management jargon. Although I did read some of that BS in a John Ringo book, “A Deeper Blue.”
I figure some MBA said that crap and Ringo stuck it in for… fun.
Mark V…
FTW
The trip through the portal was wholly unexpected for them.(with the exception of Scionia, of course.) They are a legally sanctioned police force pursuing a known terrorist/murderer on domestic soil. They were pulled unwillingly through the portal. Once there they simply spoke amongst themselves and attempted to reconnoiter their position. Now they are attempting to leave. Seems legit to me.
I know that several people are not fans of Maxima, but they might want to check their facts before they criticize. Maxima’s first order after the teleportation was to get everyone back through the portal. She never continued attempts to arrest or kill Sciona. Even when Sciona threatened to invade Earth, Maxima’s only response was to mock her speech. She has never claimed jurisdiction or authority on this new world except for her command authority over her personnel.
Disagree. She seemed more than willing to still take down Scionia, even after going through the portal. It was only after they were realized the danger of their situation, did she pull the jurisdiction card.
Maxima’s first order was:
After some banter, her next order was:
Then, before the scanning thing turned up, Maxima said:
Maxima has been very consistent in saying exactly what Marquar asserted.
Technically Maxima is incorrect by the way. Unless the USA has secretly recognised either the Alari government or the Xevoarchy, they do actually have jurisdiction. The US claims jurisdiction in any territory which is not under the jurisdiction of another (recognised) government. As federal agents they therefore could arrest Sciona.
However Maxima is wise in not having made that a priority. Further it is more appropriate to defer making jurisdictional claims, on alien planets, to the POTUS, unless there was an overwhelming requirement to the contrary. Hence it is reasonable to declare this to be out of their jurisdiction, until such a call has been made.
Well, Sydney just attracted attention, surely nothing but good things will come of that…
Also it reminds me of the guardian stalkers from breath of the wild… wonder how long that thing is going to chase her…
Aww, what’s the matter Sydney? Don’t like being on the receiving end of a scan?
I wonder if anything new is suddenly lighting up on one of Sydney’s Orbs. They have shown in the past that certain icons only light up in specific situations, and for whatever reason this thing certainly is reacting to the Orbs specifically.
I’m getting worried that going back through the portal is going to be a little tricky. I mean, yes, this could be the result of a blitz, and it all happened in the couple of weeks Sciona was out of contact. Or, possibly the busted-ass portal ended up with an unintended and unstable *time* vector to it. Quantum entanglement (to the best of my extremely lay understanding) doesn’t give a withered fig whether the entangled particles are two meters or fifty thousand light-years apart — Daph shouldn’t really be able to notice. But I bet that shoving one half of an entangled pair fifteen or twenty *years* could maybe cause her some mental discomfort.
If this is obviously daft, beg pardon. If this was already hashed out and I missed it, see previous.
Presuming the (any) writer shares your understanding of (Any) esoteric science is a fools errand.
As would be any speculation with that as a basis.
(no matter how many of dabbler’s science/magic corner comics are made)
That said … your point is difficult to discard out of hand. Lets take this a step further. More like a “Great Leap Forward ” further
Given that the portal was “messed with” (according to sconia) and is not operating “normally” (according to Dab’s) everything was fine at last contact “a few days ago” (sconia)
Time travel is absolutely a probability because it fits so many convenient writing tropes if nothing else.
It may take 4 weeks for the story to get there but i imagine that the scanner bot is part of a larger group of extinction machine(s) (dalecks/cylons?Borg? They are now called DBC’s) At present the DBC went from a passive scan that triggered a wake up call “oh! hey. hissed an aldari …” to an active scan to determine the nature of the new contacts “the alderi had friends?” and; upon notice of the Orbs, determined a Target lock is in order and called for back up
Said extinction probe probably is under the impression that “the Orb Builders” [a race (of sentient octopoi but that is my opinion) that makes ‘simple’ planetary exploration tool belts/survival kits powered by entire stars and composed of ” Non gravitic event horizons” that remain undetectable except by biological life and {as a safety measure?) inert unless said life is also sentient … because they can] and their artifacts are high up on their Most Wanted List.
This is Possibly because they had thought they had already wiped them out and removed any trace of their tech as well. Until now (Dun dun DUUUUNN)
In any event Syd’s Orbs got the DC’s attention and it will assuredly give chase. (even if just to maintain a target lock for Bigger Weapons In Orbit)
Hilarity ensues
Our Heroes (barely) make their way to the portal and get back home.
But now the DC’s know that the Orbs are out there and know more or less where to go looking. (like that “first ” encounter with the Borg thanks to Q)
and thanks your aforementioned time distortion it will take (2? 20? 200?) years of comic time before the DC’s even know to start looking … which means that given DaveB’s George Martin-esqe update cycle that this story will be concluded after He and I die of old age. if ever.
So the day is if not saved! at least its only a problem for the kids.
Unless… DaveB uses the time portal shenanigans to bring the storyline sufficiently “up to date” that topical humor is relevant again.
Because in their time line to this 6 month flash back Obama is still president, Conan has a show, and John Stewart is still an on air personality
… no I take it back no time forward skipping. That would be Really Bad writing unless we ret-con the flashback. At which point its just “could be better” writing.
aaaaand Dabbler did say “the best case scenario with a run away wormhole is REALLY BAD” like she knew what she was talking about.
What is happening in the second to the last panel “BEAM”, where is this happening? From the ground toward the sky? Is it part of the “not xevoarchy” Is it happening back at the portal?
Yes, it’s the “Badder Than Maxi”, you can see it next to the statue Sci was leaning upon and the invaders in the right hand corner
ITS daleks.. its always daleks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxD-5z_xHBU
ET phone home.
And why don’t they just shoot Sciona? She is far too dangerous to just be left alone. A railgun shot to the head should be enough.
More dangerous than Maxi? Doubt it, plus, she’s home (or what’s left of it), no matter what Maxi believes, they already were outside their jurisdiction
I’m going to remind you of one of the very first things Maxima said back in #636: “Our first priority is getting everyone back through the portal.” She’s well aware that they’re out of their jurisdiction… and probably out of their league, now that other thing has shown up.
Without the rest of the Alari backing her up, Sciona’s threats are empty. ARC-SWAT could defeat her relatively easily; Sciona admitted as much when she injected herself with the superhero blood. It was just a holding action to keep the heroes from interfering with the creation of the portal (which they inadvertently did anyway). So, unless Sciona returns to Earth at some point in the future, it’s best to just let her go. There’s no point in continuing to pursue her, especially in light of the fact that a runaway portal is (according to Dabbler) a bad thing.
Besides, it might piss off the xevoarchy. On Earth, in the United States at least, if a law enforcement agency is engaged in an active pursuit, they are generally allowed to continue their pursuit even if it takes them into another agency’s jurisdiction. I don’t know whether or not the xevoarchy would abide by the same rules, and it’s probably best not to tempt fate.
Of course, there may still be Alari elsewhere. I hate to speculate based solely on what Sciona said, but if the rest of them were anything like Sciona, the Alari were extremely imperialistic. It’s hard to imagine that such a society didn’t have colonies elsewhere. So, just how thorough were the destroyers? Was it a simultaneous strike on all the colonies? Were they just happy with glassing the Alari homeworld? Or did they bypass the colonies and strike the homeworld first, with the intention of mopping up the rest later? (Assuming that the Alari had colonies in the first place; they might very well have been so arrogant that they thought “nobody would dare strike us on our own homeworld”.)
So it’s plausible that Sciona could eventually become a threat again, but it’s going to take her a while to find any survivors (if there are any)… and even if she does, they may be more interested in fortifying and/or hiding than launching another conquest. Having your homeland glassed tends to take the fight out of people.
I rather like the idea that the scan might not have worked because dabbler didn’t try to scan halo’s brain and nerv system to look for the interaction.
There’s still almost no data, but there is at least something, even if the orbs themselves are a null.
Worth noticing I think that halo is able to worry a bit of tech that could wipe out an entire war planet in 48 hours.
That’s because they know who Sydney’s balls truly belong to, they don’t care about Sydney herself
They don’t even care about Maxi
the problem with that approach is that WE the READERS know this and what the Tentacle Sentry is seeing because of the artist DRAWING IT… The recipients of that scan do NOT see what data it is getting from that scan, therefor they have no idea about what scan techniques to try next…
and who said that the sentry was the one thing that flattened the place? I’ll bet that this is a surveillance drone that’s pretty much made by the millions/thousands, fired into place and left to just ..wait… ESPECIALLY since they just happened to WALK OVER IT… do you know how unlikely the odds of that happening to be the ONE THING they encounter on the surface of a planet, with the ability to have teleported ANYWHERE on the planet… and this place is the EXACT spot they land…? nah, it’s more likely that these things are EVERYWHERE, and this is just the first one they came across.
Ahyup. They won’t know to try it, but if that kind of scan was the only way to get info, no wonder she couldn’t get any.
I just like the idea that something can get a clue… but even that clue is consistant with what we already know.
So, it just occurred to me. With all she’s been doing lately, it seems like Sydney should be about due for a power up. Donchya think?
So Dave has clarified in the comments here that magic can be learned by anyone (with varying degrees of difficulty, like anything else), but we know that psychic powers are also a thing in this universe. So what’s the difference between the two? Different ways of doing the same thing? Completely unrelated? Can someone learn psychic powers like they can with magic, or is it more exclusionary? If you use both at once does your head explode? So many questions.
Sounds to me, that Psychic is an innate ability, you can learn how to use it, butt it’s something you have to be born with, unlike Magic where anyone with a book of spells has the potential to learn it (unless it’s something you still need to have innate ability… yeah, have no clue :P)
Looks like it only got to scan two of them before it triggered, and before the force field cut off it’s scanning. Of course, that may be why it fired off the beacon.
The green line of text on the orb was likely Halo activating it, or maybe an authorized user indicator.
We know that whatever the orbs are, they are beyond the level of recognized galactic technology.
Off on a sidenote, the thing may not have been reacting because of the orbs themselves, but rather because there is an entity capable of using them in the first place.
As to the lines shown in the scan of Sydney, I don’t know what they are, and though they are reminiscent of blood vessel or nervous system displays, they are neither of those, even though they do some partial following of the paths of both of those systems in humans. But hey, I’m not medically trained, this is just from my exposure to the stuff in general, and with regards to my daughter. (I have a pic of her as a baby getting her first BIOS update. Well, that’s what I joke about, it’s actually her first EEG, but it sounds cooler the other way, and a lot less scary.)
The commentary along with this page reminded me of a character from League of Legends, Vel’Koz.
He learns about things by disintegrating them.
One of his voice lines is “Human melting point remains inconsistant.”
The scanner beast actually doesn’t care about Sydney’s orbs. What has actually drawn its attention is the fact that no known life form has ever had as much capsaicin in its digestive tract and survived. It has classified Sydney as a probable bio-weapon of mass destruction. The massive energy burst was a warning to all sentient races of the existence of this extremely dangerous life form.
:D
Could it be that everyone is wrong, and in fact, the PPO orb´s true power is to release Sydney´s stomach content?
Her diet / digestive system powers the orbs and others can’t use them due to their capsaicin deficiency?
I would say, that the orbs see Sydney as the chosen one. The most powerful being in the universe. The one that can use them to their max capacity and beyond.
I wonder what the green part above the orbs, in the 8th panel, might be.
Huh, its quite good at reading data …none before has had any data read on Sydney’s orbs
Can I ask who all went through the portal? I know Harem and Hiro are there. Did Achillies go through? Did Harem get fried? It would be sort of interesting to see her deal with a death and what happens.. since everyone always ask..
Harem got thru and last i saw she was telling Hiro it was like there was an echo
Yup. Achilles and Mr Amorphous were the ones who did not get through. The latter had not been sighted since entering the complex, so may have been guarding the exit and/or acting as a liaison with the Delta team.
Achilles though was in the portal room, when it went wibbly wobbly. So something else may have happened to him.
Finally found something that can kill him? o_O
I’m getting a definite “Target located. Requesting clearance to engage.” feeling from the critter towards Sydney.
And there I was remembering the orbs = dinner bell part.
Ding ding ding!
We have a winner!
hmn, note that it is registering activity in the orb she is holding – and one of the orbs hovering around her head. This suggests that one of the orbs has an always on status.
Solid deduction. Various options:
• Air traffic control (the orb that makes sure the other obs go into the patterns Sydney wants, or stay in default orbit, or orbit Sydney but don’t bump into Maxima or anybody else, or attack designated targets, etc).
• Non-detection (it is still working, as the other orbs functions cannot be detected, but because it and the one in hand are actively working the scan can pick up some stuff).
• Environmental control (someone else suggested this, in another thread, I think it less likely but plausible so include it as a possibility).
• AI (ditto to the previous, maybe there are other good suggestions too, but I could only make a brief scan. Busy trying to get us closer to world peace.).
Actually, I suspect that it is some manner of emergency system – We don’t know what the outcome of sidney’s encounter with sciona might have been had the time checkpoint backup not happened, so we can still speculate – perhaps in a sudden catastrophic event it kicks in. Alternatively, it may be a data parsing system – as Sidney uses her orbs, and the system maps how she thinks, it can create new access grants in the orb network – hence why access is limited; either the abilites of the orbs grow organically, but directionally, or, as Sidney uses them, the orb makes subtle changes to her nervous system. This would be essentially rewiring it akin to how we rewire our own brains during a learning process – dangerous to do without prep. This would mean that using the orbs leads to being ready to learn something, but the learning changes her nervous system, and thus the orbs have to do some additional remapping before making another access granting change.
I’m with Sydney, that thing is creepy as fark.
Don’t worry, it’s feeling the same thing :P
XD
If I am reading the amount of rotation, (between panels 4, 5 and 7) and where the shield orb dropped out of the rotation: The two orbs the creature got to scan are the Shield orb (as it activated) and the UNKNOWN. It was right behind the shield in rotation and moved to fill the gap as all the orbs moved in orbit over her. You notice by last panel they have all moved another section around and the Blast orb is now in place of the Unknown when it was scanned and the Unknown is in the place the Air was at the time of scan, (panel 7) one position ahead where it was in Panel 5. So it knows what the Unknown is. And that is likely to be very very bad for the team.
No, panel six shows it was the AirBall being scanned
Whilst that is possible, on the balance of probability I agree with Rocketroo that it is likely not the Air Orb. Simply because Dave does routinely rotate the orbs positions, on every page where they are seen in multiple frames, throughout the comic.* Which we can even see occurring between panels 5 and 6.
Meaning that it could only be the Air Orb if Dave broke continuity.
Likewise, examining the order they are in, and the speed of rotation, I think that the conclusion of it being the brown mystery orb is sound. I don’t think that there would have been an extra rotation in panel 7, because the orbs are not visible there. To the best of my memory Dave only rotates the orbs in panels where they can be seen.
Tying this in with Scruffy‘s deduction,** about the green line of text indicating active powers (whilst the red thereby being inactive), it seems that the Brown Mystery Orb does not have any passive power (or at least not one that is on at the moment). Thereby eliminating options like “magic resistance”, “radiation protection”, “cuteness aura”, “capsaicin immunity” or “stupidness aura”.
* Barring any omission by Dave. But I cannot ever recall seeing such an example, nor anyone commenting on one.
** With apologies to anybody else who may have come up with this too. But have been too busy to read all comments.
If you look at the positions of her balls above her head (not counting the Mr Buble on her hand) in panels six and eight, they are in near identical positions, implying very little time had passed between the two panels (we know her balls can move very fast when they need be, remember with Shadow Crushed-nuts?)
Panel six shows five beams pointing to her choker, Mr Buble, her head, AirBall and PewPewOrb
Panel eight shows a red display box around five of her balls
While the others are boxed, they do not show any text. This might mean they that have been locked on scan as targeted, but the scan had not yet completed and shown results.
Point being, five are boxed (with or without text), two are not even boxed
I had taken those factors into account in my deliberations, albeit that I did not list them.
Dave quite often depicts the orbs in the same relative position, but rotated once. Just look at the previous page (panels 2 to 3) as a recent example. Plus another here. And, in a time-critical situation, here (panels 4 to 5).
Meanwhile looking at that same page we can see that Sydney did have to erect the shield, in a rush, to avoid being blown up. The perspective did change, in between the relevant panels (5 and last), however we can still determine that the orbs did rotate, simply by using Halo’s shoulder’s as our reference points. All of the orbs had moved from the relative position. E.g. the green mystery orb went from being above her right shoulder, which was ahead of her body due to shielding herself with her arm, to behind the back of her head.
All in the time it took for the Shield Orb to get down into her hand.
When Halo’s stance remains similar, in between panels, as per my first examples, it is an artistic convenience, which saves drawing time. Yet remains realistic, as all the orbs will actually be in such a position, during their progression, so it is just a matter of when the snapshot was taken.
Except, in this case, the positioning is identical, the only thing that changed was her balls went black, Mr Buble’s manager reached her hand and we got to see her nerves
There is not enough of a change with the orbiting balls to indicate any change in position
So were the first three examples I gave.
Actually I just spotted one other thing which improves my confidence. The pattern continues in the final frame. But only if you use the continuity that I suggest. Using the alternative one it would skip two spaces.
If you compare panel 5 to 6, everything moves around one (but it is complicated a bit because of Sydney calling down the shield ball). 6 to 8 pretend that everything moves one. Then 8 to last panel, everything moves once more.
This instantly made mee think of the sound the big space squids in Mass Effect.
“Ah, yes, ‘Reapers’. The immortal race of sentient starships allegedly waiting in dark space. We have dismissed this claim.”
:D
Sorry to be off topic but Jiggawatt’s thumbnail is busted.
Literally.
Her bust is on her neck.
Please use a different image.
There are three of her, in the rotation. I presume you mean this one. It is from the scene where Jiggawatt is bending over, whilst playing pool.
It is only if you view the image assuming that it is a front-on portrait that it looks off. However I would have thought the arms ‘coming out of her ears’ would give one clue that it is not a normal portrait angle. The other being the pool cue she is holding.
OH SHIT NO THAT’S BAD!
It saw even more details than Kronachrome!
FIGURE OUT WHAT DICKENS ARE THEN RUN LIKE THEM!
And funnily enough… I’ll get a friend to take a screenshot of part of my comic that I drew last week.
It very very relates to exactly what’s happening right now here.
What is it?
Eugene upgrades his Grass Sword with the Data Drain Bracelet and pulls code directly out of Audrey 2, devolving it to the point of not being a threat to anything (until I later re-evolve Audrey 2 with a Fire Flower).
The last orb has GOT to be a defense mechanism for the others. Did you see how the orb’s manufacture code was only displayed in 2 orbs? That’s gotta be because of which ones were active (planned to be active).
Hopefully that means ElectroMudThulu can’t tell that it will repair the other orb and disassemble the attack that worked on it.
So, if it has no reaction to Dabbler, and that reaction to Sydney, what’ll it think of Max?
Probably something along the lines of, “What is that organism gesturing in my general direction for? Oh…”, followed by an explosion.
Nah, it’s not interested in Maxi, because there is nothing really special about her
It never got around to scanning Maxima. It just locked on to Sydney and called in backup. Maxima is still a wild card for any hostiles in the local star system. (Sciona not included, as she appears to have shut down for the time being.)
It could see how shiny Maxima is. It would only be reflected and end up scanning itself!
*swooshes tail, whilst making checkout beeping noise*
Did anybody else try to see if there was a “Magic eye” hidden in panel 8?
Someone else did comment on it. Working on the assumption that there are ten times as many people who read as who comment, then, yea, quite a few.
The orbs kind of remind me of the Elements from the astronaut skin for Nu Wa in the video game Smite.
Looks to me as if that “thing” managed to identify two of Sydneys orbs… disturbing.
look Two orbs got text next to them but the rest remain black, sudgesting that thing either managed to identify two but not the rest, OR IT has seen those two before.
Sorry for the poor spelling (If any)
Your observations and conclusions are good. No need to worry about spelling, we have several English as a second language commentators, as well as some dyslexic individuals. Folks here tend not to be fussed about that.
Just for information, as you mentioned it, the only error was “suggesting”. Although yours was a good phonetic spelling of the word.
*Blushing* Oh hohoho stop you charmer you ;)
If only.
I could do with charming ladies.
*wags tail disconsolately*
A (mechanical?) device that both see Sidney’s orbs and read data on them. But only on some orbs. My interest is piqued.