Grrl Power #644 – This is how my culture says hello
Introducing yourself via giant explosion is just how powerful beings let each other know they’re in the club. It’s like a secret handshake, only everyone within thirty miles can see it. The point is the inhabitants of Sciona’s world were probably more impressed with this sort of thing than Maxima.
Could they have made it through the portal before the explosion? Probably, but then Sydney really had no idea what kind of attack it was, or that it had that “heat the ground” delay on it. Honestly, she didn’t know it was an attack, it could have been about to put on a light show, but let’s be real, she’s played her share of Final Fantasy games. She knows what it looks like when a summons’ superweapon is about to go off.
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In the tada nick of time.
… Jesus, ONE episode of Rocky and Bullwinkle. That’s almost arcane these days.
Good reflexes there, both for Halo for the shield, and everyone else not to run into it.
Someone’s been training, somewhen. Definitely something you want to get muscle memorised.
No, Hiro did run into it, that’s what the HNN is
no, that’s just him putting his hand on it, not actually running into it
“Running into it” doesn’t have to mean “going facefirst”
Well, it is a disappointingly small onomatopoeia for “flying into a wall at sub mach speed” in that case.
My thoughts as well, but she was going about the same speed so the relative velocity would be fairly low as she slows down. Hiro appears to have stopped fully by the next panel, while Max is still angled back, so perhaps the whole group is still sliding to a stop.
Everyone stopped when she said wait, which is dangerous normally in a combat situation. With Halo it is just a matter of course that you wait because she may actually understand something better then you. I hope someone has point out this thing knows what Halo is carrying and is afraid of them.
I just hope it can’t calibrate a negation.
Ooh, timely use. And not the way I expected the embiggen feature to work. But good going gal!
Oh, my first impression was that the shield just expanded to encompass them all. But the “off” and “on” indicates that it does work the way I have argued in the past.
So Halo was exposing herself to attack, albeit briefly, after lowering the shield, in order to ensure that she could raise it in the bigger state, around everybody.
*awards Halo a shiny gold star for her bravery*
Brave gal!
Yeah, she did the thing I was worried would be a really bad idea: drop her shield for long enough to re-establish it around the whole team. She’d attracted the extreme interest of whatever those things are, so presumably they were keeping her targeted — I was concerned that dropping her shield even for a second would have provided them all the time they needed for an attack of opportunity.
Just so. And we are not alone in thinking that. Sydney’s body posture and “No whammies, no whammies …” clearly indicates that she was very much aware of the huge risk that she was taking. Just like the scene with Halo trapping herself inside the force field, with Vehemence (so that his aggro aura could not affect everyone outside), this goes to show that Sydney is worthy of being considered a hero.
When the chips are down, Halo is willing to put her life on the line, in order to protect others. And is able to overcome her fear to do just that.
Took me a moment to remember that’s a game show reference and what it meant.
I have not even seen said game show. However, as Sydney has used the phrase before, I do recall clips of it being linked here. Plus the term had spread in the language, so that I had long been aware of it, and had used it myself, without even knowing its origin (or popularisation, as the case may be).
It was probably more entertaining for the little Whammy devil animations they did.
https://g.co/kgs/XNvM6a
I would guess that the orbs in general are on ‘safe-mode /training’ more than any type of implied limitation. Possibly a ‘most common function mode’
We’ve seen her change the shape of the field and if I am not mistaken the opacity/density(?) as well give that it seems that Vehemence himself appears to pass thru her field for a brief bit be fore his fight with Max. Think forms of matter (solid / liquid / gas)
In some ways that shield is quit ‘intelligent’ considering you can move on the ground and not get ‘stuck’ in place as the shield interacts with the ground.
SOMEONE knows and can engineer QUITE interesting tech based on the ‘universal source code’ – I have a feeling THAT entity is the one that is scared of Halos toys.
Yup.
That bit is misleading. It caught me out in the same way too. The scene in question has Halo projecting an image of herself. So what you are actually seeing is a hologram of the shield, which is overlapping with Vehemence, not the actual shield itself. The force field is still on the other side of the car park, where Sydney is standing.
In the present day, before the now 7 years of flashback, Max addressed Sydney as Corporal. Maybe this is the act of valor that earns her that second stripe. Risking yourself in order to save everybody else’s posteriors is the sort of thing that prompts Colonels to promote Privates.
That’s not how promotion works. At lowest levels, it’s automatic every 9 months.
well except for the 2009 star trek…
That really depends on how arc has thier promotion system setup. Max may have that authority, or she may have had to put in a recomendation or special merit note, and then whoever handles ranks decided her actions merited a promotion.
Indeed. And war-time (or equivalent time of great crisis) breaks the peace time formulas. Exceptional individuals can and have received promotion in the field, or simply accelerated promotion, when there is the merit and the need.
Here Sydney has demonstrated, yet again, her merit. In due course Halo will find herself in situations where she needs some authority. Her wacky behaviour will be well-publicised, around the country and the world. Which will degrade her ability to project her authority.
However that can be offset by both the promotions and being able to demonstrate that they were warranted.
This sadly is a classified mission, so will not help for any public relations justification. However Sydney has done similar with the fight against Vehemence, which was in full view of the public. So this scene is likely to factor in to her promotion, for considerations within the unit. Both her colleagues and superiors will have greater faith in her now.
However if there are any qualms externally, these can be quelled by indicating that Halo has conducted herself with considerable merit on various classified missions.
In a very large military that can absorb the expense of continually rising wages while calculating how to offset it with attrition (including retirements, people not re-upping, etc), gauranteed promotion thru lower ranks is posidible. Smaller forces may have to restrict promotions to outstanding merit to prevent runaway costs and to avoid everyone becoming a general and no one being a private.
new word: posidible – means “possibly, but not absolutely, in case my words must be edible.”
They’re super-heroes.
They’re mandated to be accelerated to the rank of captain, and then stay there forever (except in very rare circumstances, such as Maxima who is probably in the process of being accelerated to the Maximum rank of General, so you can have Maximum Maxima, and Major Paine because of the play on words).
In the military, increasing rank is not automatic. Normally, any given person must spend at least a certain minimum time before they can take the tests required to increase to the next rank. The tests & an interview with superiors can then decide whether or not to grant the increase to the next rank. If not, then another period of time is required before trying again. Sometimes there’s only a certain number of ranks allowed at the post, so the waiting period may be extended until a space is opened up.
Depending on specialized field, once completing formal education in that field, rank may be advanced to an initial level of minimum rank for that field. That’s usually referred to as a “push-button advancement,” but there are still minimum requirements to be met.
Regardless, as long as Sydney is a Recruit, she will remain at Recruit rank & payrate until she successfully completes her “Basic Training.” The way Sydney reacted to her first paycheck as a raw recruit indicated that ARCSwat pay was good enough to make me envious of her. Yes, each new level of rank does increase payrate, & certain ranks can qualify for other benefits, like Commuted Rations, Uniform Allowances, Bachelor’s Allotment for Quarters if moving into an off-base residence, & so on.
I get the feeling Arc’s rank benefits are a bit cushier than a Bachelor’s allotment for quarters.
I suspect benefits like “endless tshirts” for Hiro, Free marketing for Sydney, and maybe, someday, an invisible jet for Maxima.
But Maxima can already fly. So could pretend to have an invisible jet, very convincingly, even if she did not get issued one.
Quite hard to think of what riders she may have attached to her contract. Maybe training and competing time off, for every Olympics? Or super-Olympics, as may be a bit fairer for anyone else hoping to get a gold medal.
A tually i could see her take a flight class and get minimal miniture equipment to be seen AS a plane (transponders etc) That way she could be identified by others in the same flight zones
I get the impression that much of that is already incorporated in her pip-boy. The flight classes will be important though, if she is to fly solo. Without the risk of knocking holes in signs.
Actually they do at the very lowest levels… We had a saying when I was in the Navy many moons ago.. It went like this. The only thing the Navy gives away free is Seaman Apprentice and Lieutenant JG. Which is is E-2 and O-2 respectfully. Not even sure if required more then time to go to E-3 and O-3. PAst E-3 for sure there were tests.
BTW LT JG’s hated that saying :)
He he.
I’m sure they did.
I think she can activate it either way. However, if she does Embiggen without shutting it off first, it won’t encompass anything else–it might push it out of the way, or if the person/object being bumped is too strong to be moved, then the bubble might either stop expanding or even just get pushed to a new position.
Of course, that also means if she expands it too much at once without dropping it, she’ll thin the air inside out pretty quickly. Likewise, shrinking it without a break could pop some eardrums, or eyeballs if she did it fast enough. (Unless there’s a safety feature on the Embiggen function to not allow TOO rapid an expansion/collapse without de-activating the shield first.)
I wonder if there is a limit to how much force the embiggener can apply. It could make the shield a weapon pretty effectively, as well as a temporary prison for supers. Even if they have a portal ability that lets them teleport out of it in a way that Harem cannot, she could use the trick of ArcHive by making it very big around the villain to be captured, then slowly shrinking it down around them, raising the pressure.
It would require a lot of training to get the timing right. Too fast and you squish their eardrums and possibly their brains, too slow and they’ll teleport out.
I feel like you forgot the part where she has to be inside the shield.
Also the part where changing the size of the shield doesnt affect air pressure and that it blocks teleporters even without special tactics..
Well, so far, we have only seen one person attempt to port through Mr Buble, and for all we know, the reason why it wouldn’t work is because of how Daphne ‘works’ (it’s possible it wouldn’t let her through because Mr Buble knew that she would cut off from her other selves, or something)
Very good argument.
Would not be a very good Shield if it had a ‘back-door’ so to speak. :)
(Yes, Wyld_one, Wyld_One and WYld-One are all me or the myself, or id of me, yeah whatever)
Any ALMOST impenetrable fortress needs to have a back door. Provided it is at risk of someone getting in, you can be sure your enemy will find a way of doing that, someday. In which case not being able to escape would be a death penalty.
As it is Sydney herself can teleport, using the lightbee. We have not seen whether the teleport function can operate through the force field. However the car park scene, with Vehemence, demonstrated that the lightbee has no problem projecting Halo’s image.
So I think it very very likely that Halo can activate the teleport even with the shield up.
Probably it will simply reform in the new location. Essentially an undetectable change, as the projected image would have already been showing a holographic image of the force field, as a part of it (as per the Vehemence scene).
Possibly it may need to be lowered first. We won’t know for sure until Sydney tries it. But I am going to be betting heavily on the backdoor option (for Halo).
Agreed. See my comment below for why I believe that, even though we have not seen it demonstrated yet. Importantly though embiggening, without dropping the shield first, will not enclose people outside, whatever the specifics of how that happens.
Dave has indicated, in one of his blogs, or comments, that this does not happen when the shield is embiggened (or, we can infer conversely, when unembiggened). Just as the flyball provides protection from vertigo, the shield ball compensates to keep the air pressure consistent when the size is adjusted.
Clearly this comment implies that Dave did, at that time, envisage situations where Sydney might have a need to expand the shield, even though that would not bring more people inside. Most obviously if she is just interposing herself between hostiles and those she is protecting. As we saw in the Battle at the Steak House Car Park™.
I would be remiss though in failing to mention that Dave reserves the right to change things which have not appeared in the comic itself. So now that he has firmly established this procedure, he may decide that the other option is not viable.
The potentially funny scenes, of knocking people over, might be offset too much by the potentially destructive (and very gruesome) uses of squishing foes. So if he does go that route, I expect that the shield would deform to avoid squashing anyone. Or, as you say, just stop expanding when that would happen.
Might require the activation of one of the skill tree link lines between 2 different morbs, so that something like a life-support/medical morb can be activated without holding it, if you are holding a connected morb. Seems like these are more likely to have cross-morb functions than the skill-tree links.
To be fair, we still aren’t entirely certain. It’s easily possible this feature is untested by Halo and she simply made the assumption that she could not expand her shield over others.
We’ve obviously seen it permit at least dirt/earth in and out of it as she’s moved or flown. This could either be an intelligent function of the shield or some subconscious activity Sydney has yet to understand and control. If it’s an intelligent function it may well be locked to permitting earth that Sydney walks upon and nothing else.
Granted. Sydney did not have other people to test such a feature with. However she did have a number of months of solo, secretive testing before joining Archon. As an intelligent avid gamer, she is likely to have tested every aspect she could exhaustively. For example she found out that the tentacle was strong enough to pick up her car.
For this testing she could have placed objects strategically around an open area in her apartment (or the forest) and tried to expand the shield around them. If she consistently found that they got pushed out of the way (or that the shield stopped when it reached them, or deformed to wrap around them, but without bringing them in), then that would give her a pretty reasonable idea of its capability.
Since joining she has been in a situation where she did need to protect people (admittedly mostly whilst allowing them to carry on fighting) however we did not see her attempt to try and bring in any who were at risk (for instance Dabbler when loosing to Heavenly Sword, or Jiggawatt, when ForWhomTheDeathTolls zapped her).
Finally the trick we see Sydney pulling above is not something we can attribute to “the orbs responding super fast to Halo’s mental command”. And we have seen that Sydney can be clumsy or inept at times (for instance dropping the flyball, or getting snagged by Tubey, when exiting the shop and her car).
Yet here she is under intense pressure, and only has a split second before an impending attack is about to hit. But manages to pull off that three-stage manoeuvre without fluffing it.
Which leads me to suspect that she has been practising that, in her spare time. Something she is not likely to have wasted time on if she suspected she had an alternative. And we have seen her picking up numerous people in her shield (e.g. Harem at the shop, or transporting them all to New York and having to repeat the raising and lowering procedure many times).
So you are correct. But, with these factors considered, I don’t think it likely Halo chose this option due to ignorance of the alternative.
Excellent deductions, but despite those months she also didn’t know that the light hook couldn’t appear within her shield, or that it was airtight and could starve her of oxygen.
There are many untested aspects of her shield she’s only just discovering now there’s no fear of discovery and ample opportunity for out of the ordinary tests against lasers, flash bangs and more powerful strikes.
Touché.
Please note- Her Commanding Officer has made knowen that Sydney would be practicing Orb Management. Aka Use and Using her Orbs. Considering the way they ran her ragged with PT, equally vigorous training in using the Items; that they are paying her that ridiculous paycheck for, would be made the priority.
She brings her own stickers. You saw them! https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2260
That might be because she also wanted to include more people within the bubble, not just make it bigger.
And you already realized this and wrote about it while I was writing my comment…
Always expect Ninja Dog!
Maybe its like TES Dragons and (extremely) high energy transmissions is just how they communicate.
This thing needs a 100% power Maxima punch between the eyes, all of them.
It is not playing around and neither should they if they want to make it back intact.
Unless that attack was them ‘holding back.’ :)
Holding back you call dropping a nuke on someone holing back. Whatever race that created that weapon system knows good and well what Halo is packing is damn terrified of it. They aren’t holding back they are starting at nuke it from orbit and working their way up from there.
Nah, that’s just how they say ‘hello, surrender before we get rough’ I’m sure.
But but but… what about the other side of the portal?
Hopefully the shield itself will be blocking the worst of the blast from going through the hole. Even positioned like we see it in the penultimate frame it should do that (assuming the blast was aimed at them and thereby hit the back of the shield, with the portal being in front of it).
However they were heading in that direction, so by the final frame the shield may well have been flush with the portal. Perhaps blocking any energy passing through. Or only allowing some around the edges (assuming that the force field constricts as they traverse the wormhole themselves).
I would be more worried about whether such explosion could harm the portal.
It might be a good thing.
The other side of the portal looked like it was about to go bang, thanks to Sciona’s blood based fuse system.
This might clear enough of a path at the far side, giving them space to run in to. It might also collapse the connection after them, if they are still moving forward, stopping their new pet following them home.
Hopefully they won’t know what the other end is connected to, so can’t visit us the long way round.
Problem is: if the portal goes ‘POP’, then they are trapped on a world they have no way to get off of
Problem with that problem: we know everything gets resolved nicely in the next month or so (comic-time)
Don’t forget that there is a time-honoured convention that flashbacks can be misleading.
At the moment there is a very good chance that they are on an alternate Earth, rather than the one we saw Sydney getting recruited in. So, right now and even in a few months time, that Earth may no longer have Halo, Hiro, blonde Harem, Dabbler or Maxima. Any of whom may die either here and now or in the next few months!
This universe though could well have any or all of those individuals (as well as Anvil and Stalwart). So the opening scene could be the future for alternates currently on Earth. Although either “our” Sydney or Maxima could be present there. Especially if, for example, there is no equivalent to Halo, in this universe. The orbs may not have been on that alternate Earth, for Sydney to discover. And Maxima may therefore have been killed by Vehemence!
As such, if the wormhole is destroyed, and they are trapped here, they could still make their way to the alternate Earth, and try to figure out a way to get back home from there. Possibly having cracked it, possibly not, by the time that scene unfolds.
Either way though they would likely be welcomed as useful additions to the alternate-Earth Archon, even if only temporarily.
Having the ‘alternate Earths’ is a crapshit copout, and anyone who proposes it should be highly ashamed of themselves!
There is zero reason why it has to be an ‘Alternate’ Earth, to even think that implies that DaveB has no other solution to a bad situation he painted Himself into, rather than having faith that He knows what He is doing
It would hardly be ‘painting his way out’ if it is something he had in mind since writing the first scene with Maxima, Sydney, et al. The writer of the Sixth Sense did not wriggle out of a corner, by deciding that someone could have been dead, and the story still worked.
Not that I am saying that this is the route that Dave has planned. I am just pointing out that flashbacks/flashforwards very often are not what they seem to be. Throw in the fact that Dave frequently manages to pull plot twists that nobody had called, or even suspected, and it calls your complacency into doubt.
It may very well end up precisely as we saw it, with no twists. However it may not. The version I pointed out is just one of several ways things may vary, whilst keeping within the broad leeway that the genre allows (evil twins, time travelling and more). And some of them could spring from events we witnessed already.
For instance this Halo and Harem could die, if they are both clones created by Krona’s checkpoint. Whilst the next scene we see could be Mr Amorphous and Achilles rescuing the originals (along with original Pixel) from Sciona’s dungeon.
Then just leaving the problem of how Maxima manages to get back, for the scene we saw (assuming that her appearance is as it appears to be). Dabbler and Hiro though have no plot immunity.
Personally just hate the idea of ‘Alternate Earths’ to explain things
Not to say Alternate Earths themselves are a bad idea, just using them as an ‘out’ is stupid
Oh that is fair enough. I am quite keen on them simply because there is a strong body of scientific opinion that such may well exist.
So where we have to speculate wildly about whether there are alien civilisations out there (because we do not have anything to substantiate that), if the alternate Earths hypothesis is right then there are other inhabited planets out there. Which are not light years away (although finding a way of getting to them will be a challenge in its own right).
Even better, a lot of them speak English!
I expect a disappearing act where they go through in the cover of the BOOM.
There is going to be so much digging to find Achillies. Being buried or otherwise long-term immobilized would be Achillies biggest personal fear, I would think.
Nah, his biggest personal fear is boredom
Well…being buried/immobilised for an extended period of time has the potential to be spectacularly boring.
I’m kinda curious- since he’s completely invulnerable, does that mean that his fingernails and teeth have infinite hardness?
Like, could he potentially eat/scratch his way out of a pile of rocks, given enough time? ’cause if he could scratch them, he could theoretically dust them, right?
Granted, that’s assuming he’s not immobilized, but still.
‘Infinite hardness’ has an implication of ‘harder than diamond’, which he does not have (his nails will bend just as easily as any humans, they just will not break.
However I shall set that aside, as the remainder of your comment clarifies your intention. And, yes, he certainly could do that.
The only caveat being that his power may either provide him with the energy to carry on functioning indefinitely, or it may not. If it doesn’t then he can only carry on scratching as long as his energy reserves in his body hold out (and he does not have a lot of fat to burn, so that may only be weeks).
A normal person would starve in about three weeks. Achilles would not be at risk of that, however he would stop moving at some point, until he managed to get more food.
However, on the balance of probabilities, I think Achilles power would give him the ability to keep going indefinitely. It would be rather dull if he lacked such an important secondary power, when others have several. Especially given his pretty limited capabilities in the team, at the moment.
An open portal covered in rocks isn’t the same as a closed portal. That just means the aliens will need to do some digging to pay a visit.
No, Sydney had stopped, and we can see four “SKWEEEEN”, one of which was between Mr Buble and the Portal
The four “SKWEEEEN” match the four “SKWEEEEN” coming from the beast in panel 2. I’m thinking they amount to tracer fire.
Either the attack would have through it and quick fried the squishier members who weren’t under Mr. Bubble, or it wouldn’t have and Mecha-Cthulhu might have gone ‘Target Escaped, tracking wormhole destination point…’
Now though, they have a chance to sneak through the portal, which in turn will hopefully fool MC into thinking ‘Target Disintegrated’.
Either/or, I’ll bet that everyone is wondering if Max had tested the shield well enough. This seems like a bigger test than what we’ve seen so far…
Spoiler: We can be rest assured that at least Max & Sydney survive, otherwise DaveB would not have been able to start out with this story in the way he did.
Oh wait! This can’t qualify as an actual “spoiler” then, can it?
;)
Love this page.
They are in big trouble now. Sydney will level up two or three levels at once.
Sydney Scoville: Now with a 100 and 1 uses. Don’t leave home without one.
Just wait until she gets her level up OVER 9000 !
I remember Sydney not being able to defend herself against Sciona´s golem the last time she leveled up. For that, I doubt she will reach level 9001.
But golems are made of rock and paper beats rock. So Sydney can beat it if she gains mastery of ISO9001!
Talk about Press Your Luck! Will the shield prevent any of that carnage from going through the portal? I would like to think that they make it through before the smoke clears giving the illusion that they’ve been destroyed and Mecha-Cthulhu pursue no further.
They need to get through that portal and CLOSE IT stat!
Maybe that is what the airborne Alien Man of War was targeting was the portal. [Translated from alien language] “That should take care of that nasty unstable wormhole. They make such a mess of space-time. The space-time structure from here to wherever should heal nicely over the next few years. Besides, we want this planet to be more than just an evaporating black hole.”
Now THAT was a big bang attack!
Last week, a joke comment I made about Dabbler needing to control her sex drive sparked a discussion abot whether or not they needed it to live.
So I ask Dave Barrack via Facebook:
He responded
So presumably a young succubus spending time around human teenagers would accidentally get enough tantric energy without needing to spend much on their aura.
I would agree with that assessment. One analogy that I’m reluctant to make is Jean-Claude, from the Anita Blake novels. One of his unique abilities is that he can feed on tantric energy to stave off his blood thirst, which is why he opened several gentleman’s clubs (read: strip clubs), allowing him to feed off his patrons without their knowledge.
I can understand why you’d be reluctant to make that comparison. I was pressured to read about… I think EIGHT of the damned things, by a friend who insisted that if I just kept reading I’d finally get to the point where I’d gasp at the epiphany of how awesome Blake is and apologizing for ever questioning it and preach the gospel of Anita Blake as the ultimate awesome character who is totally not a mary sue.
I finally quit after the book where she goes to Las Vegas, gets condemned for her sexuality by a FEMALE member of LVPD on active duty, pals around with a serial killer and other friends, and… oh yeah, that’s the one where a mobster’s attractive girlfriend has her life destroyed because she made a snide comment to Blake. And climaxes with her having to do a striptease and get molested in order to save hostages… oh, and where she loses control of her powers (because she always does, but of course it is never her fault because nothing ever is) and has an orgy with three males, one of them a teenaged boy… after which she sits in the bathtub holding her gun like a teddy bear.
(For those unfamiliar with the books… picture Bella from “Twilight,” only older, heavily armed, with all the powers of vampires AND lycanthrope and none of their weaknesses, and exceedingly prone to casual violence. And that’s without even bringing up the exceedingly fucked up sexual stuff that involves the repeated use of the phrase “I know it’s unfair, but I can’t help it.” @.@ )
Summed it up in a nutshell, Archone. It started out as a fairly decent series, but after the author went through a divorce and got married to one of her fans, it became “Anita Blake: Vampire Humper”. Seriously, she gets penetrated with more wood than the vampires ever did.
I could also see it as Ambient vibes in the native ecology. Not enough to power advanced things like high order magic etc. but basic subsistence.
Lie to me Pinocchio lie! More, MORE!
Amazing how many people claim “it was a joke” when pulled up on something they have said or done.
Roseanne Barr claimed her recent comment was a joke before blaming her sleeping pills
The person who sexually abused Brendan Frazier claimed their actions were a joke.
Lord Alan Sugar (he does the UK version of The Apprentice), after posting a racist slur/image aimed at the Nigerian football team claimed it was a joke afterwards.
Can we all stop claiming things were a joke and watch what we write the first time around?
Especially on a subject you have been called out on before?
Perhaps own your actions.
Wee Red Bird, he may have sincerely intended it as a joke. We have no way of knowing, other than his word for it. I think the lesson to take away from this is:
Humor tends to translate better when people are able to hear your tone of voice. People can’t hear your tone of voice in a text message. Sometimes a joke is immediately obvious, sometimes it isn’t. If you think it might not be obvious, then make sure to include something so people know it’s a joke.
Makes me wonder if we should start writing like the Elcor from Mass Effect speak.
Jokingly: What do you call a database server that accepts all incoming connections. A ProMYSQL server. (No open port shaming. This is a safe space.)
Personally I took it as meaning ‘light-hearted’, so “jocular”, rather than being intended as a one-liner.
However the absurdity of preaching sexual self-control and religious constraint, to a literal sex-demon, is quite funny. Something that we might have expected from a Monty Python-like sketch.
Bear in mind that it is all too easy for a gag to fall flat, even when delivered by a pro. Many a comedian has died on stage, when mis-timing or mis-judging either the material or the audience.
Take for example Sydney’s recent joke to the 4th wall, about ‘not being in Kansas anymore’. A funny line, but it totally bombed because it looked like she was callously ignoring her (possibly dead or dying) teammates.
Similarly here the line can all too easily be taken as a serious attempt to preach morality. I think it would play a lot worse to folks who do get regular exposure to conversion attempts or religious propaganda, in various forms.
One point to bear in mind is that if it were a serious conversion attempt (on the audience) it would not be directing them to a blanket of religions, but rather at the preferred flavour. So I do not feel that the claim is insincere.
Clearly it was pushing the morality angle mind. But that is something that we could have had an interesting debate about. Because alien morality (succubus in particular) has a very different basis to human ones.
Which is something that Titan has gone the extra mile to solicit a response from Dave about. Gaining us some interesting information about the life-sustaining needs which would shape succubus morality.
MSpears As I said, it is not the first time he has been called out on comments regarding religion and sexual control. And he was not joking that other tine when he opened by saying being gay was a choice.
Tell me that could have been down to tone of voice too.
I have a mental condition where keeping track of names is extremely hard, so I am unable to make associations like that, without some kind of prompt or aid memoir. The only reason why it is not so apparent here is because I make heavy use of the Who’s Who and Grrl Power Wikipedia, to make sure I am using the right character name.
That does not work with commentators’ names though. A few I know because they appear very frequently, and because I can use a few mental association tricks. However it can reach a point of diminishing returns, when I find I am spending more time trying to figure out who is who, than I am in dealing with whatever subject is being discussed.
You are highly memorable because of your avatar. Although who said what to whom, in previous debates, is a lot harder for me to piece together, when the other individuals involved all have their names randomly swapped around by my brain (if I can recall them at all).
On the plus side it means that I am unlikely to harbour grudges for past quarrels and am able to avoid prejudice when judging a specific debate on its own merits, without allowing past disagreements to flavour them.
I do recall the debate you have raised though. The details are clear, if not the names associated with it (even though you are familiar, I have to take your word that you were involved, for example). There was a very wide body of preeminent sources debunking it. So I would remain opposed to such arguments.
However the comic does not have any rules (other than ‘no present-day politics’) about what topics may be discussed. And sexual behaviour is very much central to the comic, in many guises. So that would be ‘on topic’ even if there were rigid guidelines. The point was directly addressing a character’s behaviour depicted on that page.
Finally outlier views can be interesting. If we boycott everybody who does not hold mainstream views (or liberal views, as the case may be) then we risk becoming insular and ignorant of why other people hold different views. Should the mainstream views have merit it should be easy enough to debunk any seriously flawed arguments. And there may even be some good points.
Perhaps they may just require debating opponents to stretch themselves, or maybe one party, or the other might concede a point. Despite being poles apart. And, worst case scenario, where someone is totally out of touch with reason, there is benefit to be had in figuring out what can be learnt. Some day there may be a practical use that the knowledge can be put to, dealing with someone else with a similar mind-set.
All things considered I remain content to debate the issues, rather than to attack the person. Unless I get really riled, but that is a failing of mine, which I try to avoid.
That’s great and all, but whether or not many of us can survive to see the end of that debate is another thing. These “learning experiences” come at a heavy toll to those whose humanity is called into question on a regular basis. Debating over people’s lives isn’t as free and open as those who aren’t directly affected would think.
Additionally, some viewpoints that would normally be laughed out of society because of their absolute lack of proof have huge followings and are treated as equally valid or more so than the perspectives of those who have personal experience in the matter, so I would definitely not trust people to have a “reasonable” debate in such a lopsided environment. More often than not the argument for fairness is used to defend such lousy positions instead of protecting the ones that actually need it.
Tldr, I call bullshit on reasonable doubt regarding these questionable beliefs. Frankly, both free speech and the meritocracy are abused in bad faith, and I don’t think they’re the answer for equality.
Well, in this instance, the question under debate was “Do Succubi only need sexual energy to power their magic or to actually live?”
For which we got a comprehensive answer from the author.
So I think granting free speech has enriched the community.
Wee Red Bird, I did not see those comments because I was busy with a big project out of town, and have not bothered going back to read them. Maybe next time I do an archive dive, but not right now.
His posts were on Monday and there is a reply from me with a link to the previous incident. No real diving required to find the “homosexuality is a choice” post. Just in case you don’t believe me.
How could anyone not trust such a lovely birdy?
Sometimes bad or tasteless jokes are are made by clueless people with the social skills of a muskrat. They honestly don’t mean to hurt anyone’s feelings and are often mortified when they do. But in my experience they’re more often used as the tactic of “smiling monsters.” They’ll push boundaries, try to dominate any group they’re in, and when they get called on it say something like, “I was just joking,” or “What’s a little teasing among friends, right?” Everyone knows its bullshit, but the smiling monster counts on the fact that most people don’t want to make waves or cause trouble to slide by. And when someone actually confronts them they play the victim and attempt to shift the blame to someone else.
Note that although succubi depend on tantric energy to live, they don’t have to be active participants. There was a reference earlier in the comic to succubi feeding, potentially exclusively, on the ‘secondary’ energy of others’ actions. I don’t have the citation to hand and can’t remember enough of the context to make it worth diving for, but the flashback/imagination panel had a succubus disguised as a nun on one side of a wall while a crusader was ‘welcomed back’ on the other.
Plot armor activate!
pretty sure they’re using their actual defenses too :P
Heh. Yup. In the fight against Vehemence the only thing Sydney had protecting her (when she trapped herself in the shield, with him, to protect everyone else from the aggro aura) was the rapport she had built up in her brief dealings with him.
So that was a well-wrought plot that created a believable defence, given that he had previously stated “Nice kid, I hope she doesn’t die” (paraphrased from memory).
Here though, ironically, if the orbs had not been a pre-existing part of Halo’s background, the sensing thing probably would not have freaked out and attacked them.
So it is more a plot-provoked attack, than plot armour.
Be certain to keep up regular maintenance on your P(ersonal) L(ightweight) O(mni-directional) T(actical) Armor…You’ll never regret it.
Just got a sketch pad tablet, but I’m having trouble using it. It feels weird to use, even my handwriting is complete crap with it. Anyone got some tips for how to get used to it. Y’know, other than the obvious suggestion of practicing a lot, which I fully intend to do.
Prayer is obviously the answer.
Stop mocking my faith
I guess I took to long to post. Probably wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I do not believe as you do but if you do believe in the power of prayer as many Abrahamic Faith’s do then his suggestion, though it was meant as a barb, is still useful and certainly can’t hurt.
Use Science! Experiment! Take notes and measure objectively! with different positions, writing instruments (if the tech suuports it), with/without cat installed in lap, etc. Science and faith don’t have to be mutually exclusive.
Probably the most mature response I have heard in a long, long time. After all,
“It does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God.”
~Thomas Jefferson
Indeed. Provided of course that they choose courses of actions, based on that, which only affect themselves.
If though they choose to take ones which are detrimental, or outright harmful, to those of a differing opinion, then there is a problem.
But the statement is limited by the proviso “say”, so it is correct whilst that limit is not broken.
Awww, how cute. The grown man who still believes in Santa Claus wants me to treat him like an adult.
Oh how cute, you want people to treat you like an adult when you can’t even be an adult enough to agree to disagree about religion without insulting people over it.
*nods*
If someone raises religion in a thread, it is fair to debate such. However to continue to harass someone afterwards, due to their faith, especially in topics unrelated to that, is religious persecution.
Please try to keep this comic community a hate-free environment.
Okay I might be out of the loop since I’ve been working on litigation in pre-discovery for the past month (so I sort of barely have been paying attention to the commentary beyond a few quick posts that I make), but what does a sketch pad tablet have to do with religion, and why’s there an argument about it?
Pre-trial discovery, not pre-discovery sorry.
It is Oberon‘s comment about “The grown man who still believes in Santa Claus…”, harking back to a thread on the previous comic’s first comment page. Where Oberon berated religious people for their faith.
My take on Tuesday’s discussion was that he was berating those who act superior because of their religion, and not everyone who follows a religion, and was set off by an individual doing it for, at least, the second time.
But, like many a good book, things are open to interpretation.
That was the trigger, but plenty of folks, and their and others’ religions got hit. I did not wish to go on at length, so that I minimised the risk of provoking more of the same. I feel that my brief summation was reasonable.
I am glad you brought that up. I didn’t see it the way you did but after going back and looking at it I could definitely see it. I actually took issue with Titan’s limited selection but chose to say nothing about it at the time since it seemed such a minor thing to quarrel over. Let us not beat the dead horse though.
Yorp,
Oberon did go a bit “guns blazing” and went on to take no prisoners. But also comments like “did religion hurt you as a child” aimed in the other direction were probably too far too. A bice cup of tea all round might have fixed the problem
Crim,
His “homosexuality is a choice” comment last time it kicked off was still fresh in my mind. I’m not one to let bigotry because bible slip by. I’ll dial myself down. But if he does it again, I call him out again.
Mmm, rather than me analyse your characterisations, may I suggest that you have another read through the debate, but this time try to do it from the point of view of one of our new commentators? We have had some join in the last few days.
Without the knowledge of that previous debate, your own role appears to have been to support someone making viscous attacks on religion, religious people and playing heavily on the ‘all clergy are paedophiles’ angle.
Putting the relatively mild counter-barbs on parity with that will not read well to any impartial viewer. To be completely honest, regarding the question you cite, is that my first thought, on reading it, was ‘maybe so, but provocative to ask’.
I say none of this to have a go at Oberon mind. For reasons that it would likewise be tactless to elaborate upon, I think it would be both counter-productive and pointless.
The reason why I went to the lengths of mentioning it though, is so that you can avoid having other folks thinking less of you, by those associations. Because I know ‘Wee Red Bird is nice’ I could see you were focusing on individual points of etiquette.
However, were it not for my own knowledge, there would have been a risk of you coming across as supporting viscous extremism. So just something to consider, for any future ‘interventions’ you have in mind.
This is a kind of funny thing, isn’t it? I mean, “homosexuality is not a choice” is used to try, with varying amounts of success, to get those who like to cite the clear homophobic messages in their holy books to open up their minds to a new piece of information. In the same way that the sciences of geology and astrophysics can try to use facts to try, with varying amounts of success, to get those who like to cite the clear idiocy of biblical genealogies as the beginning and end of the ‘science’ of the age of the universe to open up their minds to a new piece of information.
But I ask: What does it matter if it is a choice or not? Regardless of what you want to believe about the nature/choice, and regardless of your acceptance or denial of the current science on the matter, homosexuality (or bisexuality, or anything else that two or more consenting adults care to do in the privacy of their homes and bedrooms) is still not hurting you or anyone else. Only the fact that the “Big 3” religions all hold the same hatreds and prejudices even keeps this kind of foolishness alive. If there were no holy books claiming that homosexuality is a sin and attached a death penalty to it, people would just have to stammer out some other excuse when asked why they hated homosexuals. And everyone would clearly see them for the unthinking bigots that they are. But attach a religious excuse to almost any atrocious behavior, and suddenly it’s a protected activity in some people’s minds.
Which has not been claimed here. To the contrary we previously debated that topic extensively, despite the fact that religion is often seen as a taboo subject.
That though would not give licence to continue to harass someone, due to their religion.
I missed the part where I got all defensive about my sincere belief in a fairy tale, a myth, a pack of lies. Or any other belief for that matter. Can you please point it out to me so that I might be better educated?
I don’t know why you are directing that question towards me? I had no issue with you championing your atheism (or whatever term you may prefer to describe your feelings on the matter).
I did find your aggressive, insulting and demeaning manner to be highly inappropriate mind, but was here to try and perk myself up and counter depression, so did not want to be drawn into such. Plus there were others who were holding up their side of the debate, and doing a good job by not being drawn down to your level.
However it would be nice if you did not continue to try and troll religious people, in other threads which have no bearing on that.
Asking advice on using a sketch pad is something highly appropriate to this community, and questions akin to this have oft been asked before. This is not something that has any particular bearing on religion. So there is no good justification for bringing it in here. Nor to continue to harass individuals, just because they have a different belief set to you.
Unless I messed up the response, it was in reply to Erfman, not you. Following the indents it looks like I got it right.
I wouldn’t pay too much attention to anything Oberon says. He belongs to some wacko cult where he is required to constantly remind people that he is assholier than thou.
It is entirely reasonable to respond in kind, when faced with objectionable behaviour. Sadly though that is why other areas of the internet often get mired in nastiness. So it is worth making an effort to avoid prolonging such lapses here. Oberon can be quite a useful contributor to the community, when no triggers have been pushed.
Which is not to say that we should not speak out when we see someone being unjustly persecuted. It is laudable to try and nip that in the bud.
yorp………triggers ARE pulled,squeezed,pumped….not pushed,BUTTONS are pushed,slamed,slapped and anything that presses down on them,of course if buttons somehow became triggers that could possibly be designed to be pushed without breaking or glowing to brightly….
I belong to no cult. You may think that I am an asshole, that is your right and you’re welcome to it. But don’t associate me with any religion/cult/fairy tale/myth, because that’s just mean.
What an odd thing to say on the comment page of a modern-day myth about demigods, demons, and now, apparently, Mecha-Cthulhu.
And said by the king of fairies no less. XD
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oberon
Lol.
That irony had not been wasted on me.
Just as soon as DaveB gains tax exempt status for any revenues he makes off of Grrl Power do to being recognized as a religion, that’s when you can try to make my position appear to be inconsistent. And not before.
Heh.
Practice is your best shot at acquiring familiarity. If your tablet is compatible with different type of stylus then I would try a few and see what you most comfortable with. Also get some tracing paper from some place like Tandy’s and practice with that. Different kinds of practice will break up the monotony and slow burn out.
Also please dont let Oberon bait a response from you. While I enjoy debating pretty much anything(as long as I dont embarrass myself with a partial and unedited post) I get the feeling others would like to leave that discussion in the prior comment thread.
Got ya, thanks
Titan: I had trouble too. What I found was to get a low friction glove. It kept my hand from dragging on the tablet. Then, I had to retrain myself not to push too hard with the stylus when I’m frustrated. As an art teacher, I taught lots of folks to stop using the little hand muscles, and draw with the large arm muscles instead. It gives freer movement. These things really helped my efforts to master my tablet.
The tablet I sometime use for work has a stylus. Using that makes it a lot easier for me. But, yeah, practice is the key for getting better at physical skills, like using the tablet.
While I know they just want to avoid attacking, whats to say they don’t follow Sydney and attack Earth cause of those orbs? While I’m all for stopping a run away portal, I would be kinda worried that those things might find out the point of origin for the portal then reduce the cities of earth just like the planet they are currently on.
My guess is that they’re withdrawing because there are
a) too many factors out of their control and
b) too many unknowns.
They
a) are on alien soil which they have no idea is how far away from Earth (Dabbler hasn’t shown any knowledge of *what* species Sciona is, much less that she’s extra-terrestrial in origin);
b) have no idea just who ruined Sciona’s homeworld;
c) how they did it (this is just a small sample), and
d) how many of them they are.
Even despite the high power levels of the team, there’s too much at risk for them to even at least put this unknown hostile down. If they fight, it’s possible for them to die or, should they win against this one creature, to be stranded on Sciona’s world, from which they’d have to find a way to warn Earth (possible but difficult). The portal is unstable and could shut down, trapping them; if it manages to stay up, it could be a gateway for these creatures to make an even sooner invasion.
Running away is the right play here, IMO. Get to the portal, shut it down, send word to any extra-terrestrial contacts they have, and prepare should something come in the future. There’s even a chance those who ruined Sciona’s world NEVER find Earth of consider it too much of an undertaking to take.Compare that to standing and fighting, which has too much risk and too little reward.
a) Dabbler knows what exactly species Sciona is, and she has said so. In fact, Sciona also said so, when she boasted about how they should prepare themselves to kneel before the Alari empire blah blah blah.
b) Well Dabbler had a guess that it was the “xevoarchy,” some kind of joint-anti-peopleliketheAlari task force. And it still might have been them, we don’t know if the screwball ship wiped out the Alari or they rolled by later looking for whatever they could scavenge.
c) They can see the craters. A bit of forensics can tie the result to at least a few probable causes. A kinetic strike is a lot cheaper than a nuke, and leaves a different signature behind. And some kind of energy beam, terribly impractical/improbable except in science fiction and comic books, probably leaves yet another kind of signature. Not that they seem to have a lot of time to investigate, but they could always come back.
d) Archon can’t know this, but Dabbler might. If she had a decent idea about the military might of the Alari empire she could draw a reasonable conclusion about the size of a force which would be required to defeat it. “Empire” also implies many different planets, and we’re only seeing one. So the Alari might have lost their home world but still have a sizable presence on their other planets.
So far good explanations but the whole thing shooting at them all cause it can’t scan those orbs is just annoying and sound like something a bully would do cause they can’t understand what they are seeing, so some sort of explanation on what they are should be in order soon as well as why the hell they just upped and opened fire on Sydney for no reason at all other then the blank scan results cause its sounding like those things just shoot ANYTHING that they don’t understand.
Perhaps the scanning aliens DO know what the orbs are, like really know, and THAT is why they are shooting first. The creators of the orbs might have been exterminated by the scanning aliens.
Honestly, I expect that they might be shooting first because they have some info on the creators of the Orbs and they are the kind of beings that give Mecha-Cthulhu here the heebie jeebies. Remember, Krona got a glimpse of the workings of the Orbs and realized they were created using the base code for reality.
and/or – unidentified tech identified. activate subroutine “Acquire”.
Friend/foe regognition.
If they are engaged and the signature they receive is not broadcasting “friendly” on the unknown entity that could open fire any second, then they would need an active response plan.
Theirs is likely a SOP for a lot of militaries.
They either have some info on the orbs and regognize their lack of signature, or it’s the same as when Sydney was being interviewed (“a distinct lack of anything is an indication of something”), and an unknown on war zone is a BAD thing to have…
Well we don’t know that it’s shooting because it can’t scan. It seemed to get a pass at them before the shield went up. It also seems to just like scanning things. A lot. And then it sent a beam straight up, which suggests uploading data to me, even though even with our primitive technology that is an invisible effect. So if it is.a scout ship, I would hate to see the mothership.
Even SG1 would have bailed out of that one. Then come up with an intelligence gathering plan followed by a plan for a return trip with a more specific plan of action when they returned. They have retreated manny times, so that they can replan and come back prepaired for big nasties.
So far interesting explanations but there comes a point when running away from a hostile isn’t an option, and who’s to say that huge explosion didn’t do something to the portal like close it up? If THAT happens they would have no choice but to fight and would have the disadvantage as well considering they used a lot of energy just to make their way to that portal only to have it close on them thanks to that explosive blast.
bugger still having problems with comments
Big money big money no wammy STOP!
Meh, Maxima’s was bigger
might be interesting if it gets to find out the hard way.
No, no it wasn’t
Depends on the scale involved. The last panel has no scale queues but if it’s only about as big as Syd’s shield currently is then Max’s was bigger.
That said I really doubt that, an explosion that small we could probably see Syd’s shield. My guess at the scale is that they’d be a tiny speck in that last panel explosion.
Not to forget, the at-least Double Ring of Glowing Doom above, which Maxi’s firecracker didn’t have
Max’s did have at least one partial one but yeah not that well defined (though if the ring is clouds being pushed away it could just be it was less cloudy) so I really doubt it would be two.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1129
Also consider that, for the scene at your link, Max indicated shortly after that the explosion she created was NOT a display of her “full power.” So in retrospect, maybe Max’s is bigger, huh?
…Yeah…
Can, say, Max, move Sydney’s shield from the inside? As the fastest member here it sure would be convenient. On the other hand Sydney is second fastest so if that’s not possible she should just keep everyone in the shield and haul ass.
She could certainly grab and move Sydney, the shield will follow.
I like this observation.
As a practical experiment, I will now firmly grasp my balls and lift vigorously, thereby causing my body to “follow.” At which point, I should be flying, albeit with discomfort levels approaching coach class.
Hmmmm. Or, maybe I will only be levitating. Baby steps.
Luis Wu, what a way to remind me of a story in Hustler Comix. There was a ‘hero’ in one of the stories who was able to fly by swinging his giant testicles around and hurling them like Thor’s hammer. (Of course, he agreed that “Oh, God, this hurts. I wish I could find a better way to fly.” Not to mention that his flying position was awkward.)
Most likely you’ll just be singing soprano.
I can see part of the dialog for the next strip containing the following…
Sydney: Max! Go mach?
Max: Go mach!
*Sydney goes full speed towards the portal*
Max couldn’t move the tube of orbs so who knows.
Yes she can. That was how they got down to the ocean depths, in the Halomobile. Sydney had the problem that she needed one hand for the shield and one for the flyball, to provide propulsion. But needed to let go of the latter, when it came time to refresh the air.
As we saw in the swimming pool test, that would result in them bobbing up towards the surface. Hence why Maxima pushed, at those times.
I can’t recall if it was shown in any panel mind, as they might not have been doing a refresh at that point. However Dave explained the process in a blog or comment.
Once again I am in awe of Sidney’s Spider-Man esque danger sense. She also seems to be making a lot of good call as far as the situation is concerned despite having no experience with what’s going on at least no more than the others
She should be on the fast track for a promotion. IMHO
She’s an enormously capable asset who is very quick to find an answer. She is also something of a loose cannon. Once she develops the self-control to keep her mouth shut, her ears open, and reassemble her sidearm before time runs out, she may well be worth promoting to officer status.
She seems to be ocd enough that the reassembly challenge should be surpassed in very little time. And she does seem to keep her ears (and eyes) open. She has noticed several things that the rest of the team hadn’t picked up on yet. That last condition, however…
And not that carrying out your duty is of any special note, but this is the second time she has essentially saved the entire (present) team from death or defeat. Although against IGetStronger he very probably would have stopped after killing Maxima, because no one else was a threat to him.
We know, in the flash-forward, at the start of the comic, that Sydney was/will be a corporal. Which is probably ideal for her, at this stage in her career. As an NCO she would have sufficient authority to assume command of a random incident (say ordering a regular police officer to guard a person or location).
Whilst in the unit they are clearly flexible enough to allow her to do her thing, regardless of the rank structures.
I think Sydney has sunk her chances of being an officer already, from a public relations point of view. Her play acting and frivolous behaviour fall well below the standards the general public would expect of an officer.
Plus I don’t think she would enjoy the restrictions, responsibilities and duties involved. Sydney strikes me as preferring to spend her spare time in a WoW raid, rather than at a formal dinner. And would like to be able to keep her funny antics.
A regular army corporal would not be able to get away with that but, in a super unit, she can be given greater lassitude, due to her other capabilities. If she even rose to sergeant though, the expectations on her behaviour would be significantly greater. Both in military and policing terms.
There is no corporal rank in police so she can get away with that, to some degree, but the public would want a police sergeant with gravitas.
Likewise military officers, in wartime, may well have to issue orders that they know will result in some of their troops dying. Which is not something I think Sydney could cope with.
You’re quoting SeanR while responding to my post.
Yea. I originally had “Agreed.” at the top, but somehow it got snipped off or maybe overwritten.
It wold probably, end up like the ones in DC and Marvel comics, the invaders learn they are not as powerful as they thought. Havoc, destroyed a huge ship, with just his own power, I dare say, Max could even surpass that.
Cry Havoc for these are the Summers of War.
Sing in front of a sporting goods store:
Go camping! For this is the summer of our discount tents.
That’s supposed to be “sign,” and since the typo was a word it slipped by both me and my browser and ruined the entire meaning, since you can indeed sing in front of a sporting goods store, it just makes zero sense in context.
It worked fine for me. I pictured a couple of employees, one disgruntled, one enthusiastic, trying to drum up business, on the pavement.
The disgruntled one wanting to deliver the promotional line in Shakespearean style. Whilst his colleague is trying to make it more musical.
Personally I found it funnier than my joke which was simply referring to Havok Cyclops and Vulcan the three Summers brothers declaring war. And let’s not forget Kosair their father who has his own pirate Fleet somewhere out there in space
Would that be the Terrifying Ancient Fleet of Nominative Determinism?
Havoc turn Celestial background radiation into plasma and electromagnetic attacks that can devastate spaceships and asteroids. Cyclops’s eyes are portals to another Universe filled with this Crimson power that has been shown to devastate most things that a hits including but not limited to being such as the Hulk. And Vulcan is an Omega Level threat who is able to manipulate energy and living beings on a subatomic scale all the way up to and Beyond planetary skills who conquered a spacefaring race all by himself. Kosair it all depends on how well his crew works together and the level of technology that they have access to but they are known for hassling the shi’ar which is one of the great spacefaring Empire with access to massive powers in the Marvel Universe. Other such races are the Kree the scroll and the badoon though the badoon are the low man on the totem pole as far as spacefaring powers are concerned. Away from their Shores such as Galactus and his Heralds and the Elders of the Universe on more than one occasion
Hopefully they’re able to escape back to our world…! Once home,what will they say in the official report?!?
“Everything was Sciona’s fault!”
Max: Inadvertently visited what is probably Sciona’s home environment, most likely another planet, which was under attach by an unknown entity or entities. Then we came back through the same portal and Dabbler deactivated the portal on our end. Travelling back to that environment is advised against.
GreedoI mean Sciona shot first!:-D
Here’s the big question, did mecha-thulu let off its big bang attack because that critter that summoned it knew how powerful the orbs were?
I’d say that’s a good bet, after it analyzed them. It may be they know where the orbs come from as well, and want to get rid of them. I’m wondering what would happen if Sydney decided to switch from the Florb to the PPO, which can work from inside the shield, if it’s powerful enough to hurt back.
Looking at the previous comic … it looks to me that it couldn’t analyze the orbs (because it showed up as black … void? …) and it maybe attacking because it perceives them as an unknown (and thus possibly a threat). The displayed image is assumed that the entity knows what they are … but if they did … wouldn’t it have displayed it on all orbs (and not just the 2)?
Maybe it was in the process of analyzing and hadn’t gotten to all of them. Or maybe it analyzed the forb she was holding, and the other one was the PPO, and it decided destructive discretion was the best response. Dave only knows…
Now, that is a response to what is being perceived as a threat by Mega-Cthulhu; either that or it’s in a ‘take no prisoners’ mode. It’s almost as if it’s been ordered to prevent anything from exiting the portal and can’t tell the sheep from the goats. Max needs to fly bubble and all through the portal before that thing figures out how to close it for good.
The worst part is they cannot return home, now. If that creature’s culture is strong enough to demolish Sciona’s homeworld, then it’s logical that it has the ability to analyze portal technology and/or “spells” as the lower-tech societies call them. And, it’s demonstrated the ability to use the beams or whatever to travel distances. What I’m trying to get at, is that if it sees them leave…
It will follow. Our world is next.
Demonstrated destructive power does not imply spacial analytical capability. To the contrary, the use of a ship implies that they are dependent on physical transport, being either unknowing or unable to manipulate portals.
The sudden appearance of the ship could have been the result of a number of drive technologies, possibly inclusive of teleportation, that don’t involve portals. And even if they do use a form of portal system, it doesn’t mean that they can track Sciona’s blood-magic based portal.
Or to put it another way, having a tank doesn’t mean that you have radar imaging technologies.
FROOSH ROH DEH
EHR MAH GERD, A DERGONBERN !
>how powerful beings let each other know they’re in the club
OK, so cue Maxima and Sydney to retaliate with particle-antiparticle annihilation level pyros just to respond with “Oh hai, I’m fine, how are you?”
“Doesn’t matter. In a few seconds you won’t even BE matter”
Dabbler can also whip out her “Shoots thing in orbit” gun and give it a go. But let’s limit that retaliation to just Sydney. Assuming they survived (it would be a rather anticlimactic end to the comic if they all died in that blast) Sydney is the only one who can return fire without having to drop her forcefield. I dunno about you, but I’ll take half or one third firepower and invulnerability for the whole team over full firepower and the next shot kills everyone except Sydney (and maybe Maxima, but she isn’t doing as much damage if she’s firing while cranked over to full defense.)
If Sydney had a free hand, she could grab that MVP trophy she just won for her contribution to the team effort.
I know it’s shown to have “buttons” when she’s leveled up the sphere grid, but did it always require her to push buttons to turn it on and “embiggen” it? Has she been doing that instinctively? I’m not sure if this is something I’ve forgotten, or something new we’re seeing highlighted.
We first saw the buttons for embiggening way back at the end of the firing demonstration for the press,
5 years2-ish weeks ago.I think it’s more like a touch screen than an actual button.
Given that two orbs are meant to be able to be used together at the same time, it seems like even looking at the orb should be unnecessary to toggle things. And the whole button concept seems to be inconsistently implemented, since Sydney apparently doesn’t need to toggle anything at all between using the flight ball to fly in an annoying manner (rotate in place, or just hover with no movement) or to fly at mach speeds.
I think the touch screen is a good explanation/visualisation aid.
Presently we do have fighter aircraft which use mental control, however it is limited to those roles that it is particularly good at (and limited by our technology). Picking out which enemy to target is something that is ideal for such a system. Either in conjunction with eye-tracking or, if good enough, just on its own.
However, even though you can hook up even more things to this (as the technology matures), there is a point at which safety concerns would get engineers to decide that a manual switch is vital for some function or another.
For instance I hope that our fighter pilots have to pull a trigger. Otherwise, should a pilot be prepping the aircraft for takeoff and spot someone he hates walking by, there could be a nasty friendly fire incident. With “I wish I could shoot him” being interpreted a bit over-aggressively, by the aircraft’s systems (simplified for comedic effect, needless to say).
The PPO handles that slightly differently, by simply requiring a concerted effort, before firing.
However the shield is something that you also want to ensure stays up, until the user is certain that it is safe to lower it. So the mental command, backed up by pushing a button, makes good sense. Even more important when using two orbs. “OK you can turn off now” is fine if only holding the one, but problematic when two are in hand.
Raising the shield is something you may want to be done fast though, and there is little chance of a down-side to accidentally activating the shield. So that side probably accepts either the button being pushed or a mental command. Certainly we have seen Halo instantaneously deploy the shield, in the past. Seeming only to grab the orb.
I’m betting we’re seeing a Skynet scenario here.
MechaThulu was made by Sciona’s people as a means of world domination/destruction, and either someone pushed the wrong button and it selected their own world as the first target, or someone wrote the AI without reading their Asimov first, and it decided to go after its creators first.
Possible. Very possible.
However, I had a thought: Maybe it’s just a simple case of payback. What if the blood mages tried to siphon off blood from the wrong species? The more powerful the being – the more powerful the spell, right?
This gets my vote!
Another scenario in a similar context, Sciona’s race behaved like the Krell in The Forbidden Planet movie. Like the Krell, Sciona’s people had a nasty habit of letting their minds wander just a bit too far…
It’s just a guess on my part… but I’d say that thing is hostile.
Come On, Now!!! Hostile?
Just because MechaThulu scanned them … did NOT make any attempt to communicate … sent out surrounding negative charged energy bolts … destroyed at least a three-quarters square mile area near them … Umm …
Okay, you might have a point there. Hostile it is!
And thus, Recruit Scoville’s first Bronze star with Valor device was earned. (She should’ve already been awarded a Purple Heart for dying while on a mission).
(and for those of you thinking she should’ve gotten one for either the fight with Vehemence or the battle before finding Sciona’s hideout at the candybar factory, both of those had very little personal danger or risk, but were still actions that would’ve gotten a Commendation medal for whatever service/department ARCSwat is under plus a Valor device since it was while in combat)
I disagree. Against Vehemence, she deliberately put herself in danger in order to bottle him up.
Yeah he could’ve squished her easily, but he decided to drop his brawl aura instead. High risk, fairly high reward.
High risk, but calculated. He wasn’t going to kill anybody besides Max unless they showed a willingness to kill, something that Sydney remained reluctant to do even in the face of mortal peril (of her CO).
I get the feeling that Sydney’s warning and embiggening of her shield were due to her uncanny genre savvy… She knew that the situation would turn south before they got to the shield… Sydney is indeed a hero here… she opened herself up to attack to protect her team mates. Max isn’t going to forget that. Hmmmm… I just had a thought… What if it wasn’t the Arc-swat gang that drew the shot? What if it was the energy signature of the portal, which would be resonating at an alari frequency that the mecha thulu COULD detect? After all, One would assume that all Alari are blood mages… Maybe this is the race of Robots Klaatu alluded to as his society’s police force… The Alari had proven themselves to be a danger to other planetary societies, so the fail safe kicked in. This particular Mecha Cthulu detected a nearby Alari power signature and fired to eliminate it… our gang just happened to be in the way.
Klaatu, Barada, Nikto… Klaatu, Barada, Nikto…
You forgot to say who this was directed to …
Quickly … say ‘Gort’!
WHA-BOOM!
OOPS! Too late.
Why would you assume that all Alari are blood mages just because we met one who was? Considering all of the different types of magery we’ve seen, I seriously doubt a spacefaring empire of winged whatevers only uses one kind.
Plus, I’m pretty sure Dave has stated, (or at least heavily implied), that Sciona had been outright banished from her Homeworld. Perhaps the blood magic was why?
I love the reason for evacuating the immediate area. We came up with something similar for Gamma World, back in the day; “If the flora starts eating the fauna, it is time to get the fvck out of Dodge.”
Well now we know Sydney’s shield can withstand a point blank nuclear scale explosion. I see 1 of 2 things happening. First option – That thing just tried to nuke us, time to go home and close this portal. Second Option – Maxima thinks, “This not the way I wanted to test the shield’s full capabilities but now we know. That thing is a clear and present danger to us and anyone on Earth if it gets through. Well at least I can cut loose without having to worry about collateral damage or harming my teammates. Sydney let me out of the shield and then put it up and keep it up until I tell you otherwise.”
Ah, but do we know how well it withstood the attack? This could be a “too much damage has fed back into the user” scenario. I would not be surprised if Sydney is unconscious when the dust clears. Especially if the current theory regarding the robots knowledge of the orbs is correct. If it considers them enough of a danger to immediately call in a massive attack, the creators likely know the limits of the orbs and how to overcome them.
Indeed. While of course we know the protagonists have plot armor and are going to survive the blast, the shield doesn’t necessarily have to survive. I noticed that the explosion is almost exactly the same shape as the shield – while there are only so many ways to shape a shockwave, I’m wondering if that was deliberate.
Perhaps the blast is not from an explosive attack, but from the shield’s containment field being compromised by the skweening and venting its energy outward to protect its contents (failsafe / dead man’s switch). Given how strong it has proved so far, that could easily be a nuclear-level event.
I was wondering the whole time, why she hadn’t had them all in the sphere going her top speed already. She’s faster than at least 2 of them, she’s more or less been labled as their troop carrier as well.
At first I figured she’d be taken, and that was the narritive reason.
but i suppose it was more for this moment?
I still feel like she’ll be taken though
or max will.
Also..
I wonder… So when Syd uses the fire in this mode its orta opens the shield. But we’re still not sure if that “opens” properly or is just a visual cue. OR. if it opens.. to allow attacks from the inside, but nothing from the outside.
cause. in theory she and Maxima could send quiet a combo wombo blast.
Previous discussions (and I think even WoD?) concluded that the shield does not open, but that the lighthook and PPO rounds manifest just outside the shield. The ‘opening’ for the PPO is actually just a targeting reticle.
Because Sydney is smart, not clairvoyant or perfect.
Well, I guess now we will see if Sydney’s shield is capable of withstanding kiloton-range nuke explosions, which is what this appears to resemble in power. Assuming the scale between the penultimate and last panel does not change, it looks to be about 1 kiloton.
If it zoomed out, I’d say a dozen to several dozen kiloton.
And yes, Im making comparisons with videos of nuke tests.
Hopefully Sciona fine? Not sure how far the blast reaches.
Second thing I’m wondering is how much ground destruction will be around then? I know Sydney’s shield covers 360 and can float, so will they jut be in the bubble floating above a crater, or standing on a column of ground?
i envision a divot of ground suspended inside the shield sphere floating about a HUGE blast crater
“…she’s played her share of Final Fantasy games. She knows what it looks like when a summons’ superweapon is about to go off.”
Although if she were going off god-level Final Fantasy summons, it would still be at least another five minutes before the damaging part of the attack actually happened.
So, it’s starting to look like what I said last week might be true… That maybe this thing is what killed the dinosaurs. Afterall, super power and super weapon wise, the coast of Florida is just a stone’s throw from the Chicxulub crater. Alien weapons of mass destruction could also explain the the KT Event’s iridium anomaly.
They really need to get to that portal and not fuck around with killing this thing… Even if they could kill it, it won’t be easy or quick, especially if the previous owner of the orbs was killed by it on Earth 65 million years ago. There’s no telling how long the portal will remain open, or even in one place.
Stooooop… at a whammy.
Or a wha-boom-y.
I wonder how this weapon compares to Max’s tank-killer shot. That had a delayed reaction too.
Also, to continue the Independence Day comparisons… is this one of those citybuster blasts where the fireball-wave moves out slowly over whole buildings?
We do know that:
1) Maxima’s invulnerability isnt absolute – Atomic Bombshell did hurt Maxima a little and got through her armor, according to Maxima’s thought bubble (but Maxima didn’t show that it did). And Sciona’s megamanekiller got through her invulnerability too, enough to destroy her jacket. And of course Vehemence nearly killed her and his lightning was hurting her even when her armor was at maximum (not to mention that he did break her twice nose even before that, when she was at ‘high’ invulnerability).
2) The Alari probably have VERY high technology, especially if Sciona’s only one example, on a planet with much more limited resources. So anything that can obliterate their entire world within a few days probably has power that dwarfs the Alari Empire.
3) Maxima was NOT putting all of her power into invulnerability. She was likely putting at least some into speed (assuming she was not going to go faster than Hiro and leave him behind, which she wouldnt do).
So….. probably shouldnt assume that Maxima can easily tank this thing. She might be able to, but it’s not really something she’d risk her team’s life on, I’d think.
Maxima’s invulnerability does not actually extend to her clothes, so using her clothes as a metric is like saying “it scratched the paint job on the tank, so it can obviously pierce the tank’s armor”. That’s not how it works.
Actually it does. It is just not as strong. Think back to the press conference and you will recall that Maxima did not end up naked, despite Achilles’s similar battle dress being burnt off (on the side facing the blast).
The uber construct explosion breached the threshold where her clothes were damaged, yet failed to reach the point where Maxima was injured. Partly because it had to go through the outer force field first, of course.
All detailed by the author in blogs, but remaining consistent with the relevant scenes in the comic.