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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Hmm… I’m not sure, but which way is she swiping? Is a bigger shield equate to a smaller portion of the slider, indicating a constant power output, and a bigger shield envelope means less effectve/strong, or is it just size?
Not sure. I guess we’ll see.
Considering how good Mr Bubble is to her, I bet she swiped right.
Speaking of that panel, does is Sydney supposed to have six fingers? Did I miss something? I promise I’m not being sarcastic I’m genuinely concerned I wasn’t paying attention to parts of this comic
Oh whoops ignore the “does”- forgot to proofread
Ohhhh now I see the little green arrow… ok nevermind, it’s been too long of a day
Nope, you are correct. Dave must have gotten overambitious with drawing fingers.
What I think it might be is it looks like the pointer finger seems to be moving super fast aka panic moving.
No, it’s just showing ‘movement’ of her index finger to turn off the shield, embiggen, and turn it back on.
The first finger is depicted twice, with a little green motion track. Just one way for DaveB to depict motion in a still picture.
I’m fairly certain the green motion track is something added in to make it clearer.
does bruno mars is gay
No Mecha Swiper, no swiping! :P
So. As the lone survivor of the extinction of her species, Sciona will be the Aycharach of her planet, and will donate her abilities to the Merseian Empire, bedeviling the Terran Empire until Sydney’s distant descendant, Sir Dominic Flandry, puts an end to that crap.
In my opinion, her future as the last survivor of her planet points to her to a different career path. She must settle on Earth and become a guardian of her adopted home, or a superhero based on or, a regular visitor of, Earth.
Example of this are: Kal El of Krypton, J’onn J’onzz of Mars, An un-named Gallifreyan with stolen time machine, Gamora (last of the Zen-Whoberis), and Groot of ‘Planet X’.
(my compliments to the talented writers who came up with the name of Groot’s home world)
I think you need to reconsider that list. The best-case scenario I see for Sciona is closer to Vegeta. Staying on Earth because all of her stuff is here, and she doesn’t have anywhere better to go.
That’s a great one to compare with. Vegeta’s actions leading up to him living on Earth are easily equal to Scions’s
The best case I see for Sciona alive and living on Earth at the end of this is working for Deus.
Considering her complete lack of trustworthiness and willingness to not only kill but treat other intelligent beings like lab rats, I can’t imagine her really fitting in anywhere else and even Deus accepting her is a stretch. It depends if he thinks he’ll get more benefits than problems from her.
It’s a big universe, and she can probably find somewhere better to live than a place where there’s a death sentence on her head and supers capable of actually capturing her.
Alternatively, she could be twisted by the revelation that she’s the last of her kind and turn on the entire omniverse.
There are examples of this, but most appear to be one-offs, or less-evil/indifferents such as Lobo (the last Czarian), Galactus (the last survivor of a whole universe!), and possibly Ego (a Celestial* in the Marvel Cinematic Universe).
*We don’t know whether MCU Celestials are a species or just a group noun applied to cosmically-powerful beings. Also, all of Ego’s children are technically hybrid species, so they wouldn’t have counted as members of Ego’s species, even had they developed the light, as Star-Lord did.
She seemed to have world domination as her goal for Earth. With a heaping helping of enslaved masses, bed slaves, misery for all because it suits her and “lesser beings” don’t deserve any better, people being broken down as test material in her scientists labs, and the like. If you didn’t consider her to be twisted when all of that was going down, I’d hate to see what twisted looks like to you.
Your comments are fine, in their own context. However you seem to have missed RBZ‘s opening line:
The subsequent comment just indicates that other examples “… appear to be one-offs, or less-evil/indifferents …”.
This is not incompatible with Sciona being top-tier evil material herself.
Aha! ‘Omniverse’! You accept, then, that this is most likely an alternate universe that the space rift sucked them into!
Reading that, I now want to see her get stuck in either Tryslmaistan or Pastel. Maybe she was the real cause of the Stormfall, and Dr. Godan just got the blame for it because she brought Siona there by accident?
I feel the need to point out that you are in fact referring to Taluhnia. It is more commonly known as Planet X, though…
“Planet X” isn’t any more a name than Old Ones are. Just a placer sitter so that it won’t be blank. But “X” here is for unknown. Not a name no kudos. “Groot” is the name as everything else is. Just the way you pronounce it makes it different from the other “I am Groot” in use.
Mechanical Cthulhu is a good “name” for whatever mass killer it is. Only very powerful beings can uncreate things, but they don’t “destroy”. (Got that from the original First Season “Outer Limits” The Children of Spider Country episode.)
We don’t know that she’s the last survivor. There could have been (many) others who were off-planet, or maybe they have other planets which weren’t attacked.
Did Sciona survive…she didn’t run with the others..
She did a David Banner ‘lonely (wo)man walking’ away
Sciona did not need to, she was walking in a different direction (assuming that Dave kept a rough continuity in the angles shown). Then they ran away from the incoming space ship. Then, when they realised the portal was diverging even faster than that, they flew for a while.
Meaning that Sciona is likely far enough away that she could potentially survive even such a massive blast. Especially with random bits of Earth having been transported over to this planet. So she has a good chance that there would be some cover, over and above any she may have gained in her ambling away.
Realistically, she would not have been able to get far enough from the blast wave. Separately, the question would be any radiation from such explosions. Finally, the size of the ship, the size of the alien that came out (in comparison to the size of the explosive bombs on the ground), and the low distance she could have hobbled away on one leg indicates she would have been squashed by now. However, reality is always a “stone’s throw away” from comic book reality, so Sciona’s probably fine hiding behind a hill or something.
Oh come now, what with all the rubble from the city and bits of Earth being brought in, by the wormhole, the is bound to have been at least one fridge, which she could have hopped in to get shelter!
I uh… I don’t think she survives this chapter. Everything else on this planet means to kill stuff. Especially the natives.
Yea, things do seem ominous for her.
Mind you the Twilight Council wrote her off when all they had done is chopped off (and presumably disposed of) her body and part of her head. So it might be a bit premature to give her another eulogy just yet.
Especially if the destruction fleet had already finished its job and just left some hunter killers to mop up any stragglers or off-planet returnees. That scale of threat is something that Sciona is probably well equipped to deal with.
This particular response seems to have been triggered by Halo and the orbs, so need not necessarily be something Sciona would have to deal with.
I’m Pander, and I support everything Yorp just said. Thank you.
*wags tail joyously*
We don’t know she is the last. Dabblers comment did mean they got nuked for there imperialistic leanings. That also means they have space travel. As long the didn’t got to them everywhere what is not the case as they didn’t get to Sciona, there should be plenty of her kind around.
I think Syd just won her self a mountain of brownie points…
Very much so. Seems she was the only 1 watching their asses…
…and such pretty asses too… :P
I would rather have a mountain of brownies.
A mountain of brownies? ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ
Oh tough call. Sydney or a mountain of brownies …
Sydney, of course!
The brownies would go stale far faster than I could eat them.
ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ
So that species says hello by large explosion? Fair enough, seems we Cybertronians do it by giving the gift of our civil war. Kills everyone on the planet a lot slower too…
the imperium of man in warhammer 40k
Since nothing exciting is happening in this issue, I thought I would pass along some news I just read. For all of you old enough to know what a Bussard Ramjet is, the ESA is working on something similar for use in satellites. The lowest most satellites can maintain stable orbits is about 150 miles up. They are working on a design that will run through the high upper atmosphere at about 100 miles. It will scoop up the thin air molecules, ionize them, and electrically shoot them out the back, giving them enough thrust to resist the drag on the satellite. It runs on solar panels. I hope they have enough battery reserve to take them around the night side of the planet. They plan to use the lower altitude region for things like high atmosphere studies, or surface photography.
https://www.space.com/40056-air-breathing-electric-thruster-test.html
Nice! It’ll be interesting to see how well it works in the field.
Larry Niven, you clever guy, you. :)
For those who need more context here: while SF author Larry Niven didn’t come up with the idea of the Bussard Ramjet (it is named for the guy who did, Dr. Robert Bussard), he was one of the first use it in an SF story, and probably the one who used it most extensively, and is thus is probably the person most associated with them aside from Bussard himself.
They play a major role in the parts of the Known Space series set before the First Man-Kzin War (which ended when the Outsiders, a race of cold-worlders who are travelling merchants) sold the Mark I Hyperdrive to the human colony on We Made It. They are explored in depth in the novel Protector, and a key factor the short story “The Ethics of Madness”. They also appear in Ringworld and Ringworld Engineers, as they were used in the Ringworld’s stabilization system.
He also used them in the State series, most notably A World Out of Time, with mentions of one in The Integral Trees as well. They appear in the Léshy circuit series, and several one-shots of his, as well.
Coolness.
*puts on prudent head*
I hope they (or anyone who chooses to extend that beyond just a few such examples) do a study of what implications this might have if done in very large numbers. Something which society failed to adequately consider when we introduced the mass produced automobile. The odd car here and there does not have much of an impact. But make hundreds of millions of them and we get a global pollution problem.
Hopefully the fact that the thrust will be aimed downwards will mitigate the most obvious problem of atmosphere being shot off into space (albeit in minute quantities per satellite).
But would the displacement of simply flying through the upper atmosphere cause more air to be dissipated into space? That seems possible. Likewise would the convection currents created by that and/or the thrust contribute to such problems?
Especially concerning given that the upper atmosphere does do important things for us, even down at sea level.
Even though we thought we had solved the ozone layer problem, recently there have been some reports that it may not have gone as well as we thought. I am sure that the relevant levels of the atmosphere have considerable separation. However we must be mindful that they do not operate in isolation. Things which affect one can affect the other.
Not to worry, above 30 miles or so, it’s solely working off the solar wind. Might get a trifle more water if it’s aiming so that the exhaust strikes the planet, but just as likely not. Our ACTUAL air circulation is a trifle – complex is a good word, I suppose. If a planet our size doesn’t have a magnetic field, it won’t have air, unless it’s around a much less active star. The interactions get complicated. NASA has a mockup of it. Which I can’t find right now, drat.
Anyhow, essentially, the top of the atmosphere gets dragged away by the solar wind on the sunward side, gets trapped by the magnetic field of the earth, is pulled to the night side about 10,000km down wind, then sucks itself back up to the night side of the planet. If you want the math, start with Vondrak’s papers in the late 70’s and work up to the present.
Unlikely you are going to lose anything just pushing solar wind around. Might actually gain a little. And for heaven’s sake, ignore the UV/H2O interactions at high altitudes. You’ll lose your mind looking at that mess.
Thank you for your vote of confidence, in the implied assumption that I am presently sane.
I have never gotten a good explanation as to why Venus
1) Has less mass
2) Has no magnetic field
3) Is exposed to far harsher solar winds
4) Has an atmospheric pressure 90 times that of Earth
It is almost all CO2. Are CO2 molecules just too heavy to be blown away by solar wind?
There is an answer on wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atmosphere_of_Venus
To quote: “Unlike Earth, Venus lacks a magnetic field. Its ionosphere separates the atmosphere from outer space and the solar wind. This ionised layer excludes the solar magnetic field, giving Venus a distinct magnetic environment. This is considered Venus’s induced magnetosphere. Lighter gases, including water vapour, are continuously blown away by the solar wind through the induced magnetotail.”
So Venus has Shields? Coool!
Maybe this will do?
Why does Venus…
1) Has less mass
A lady never tells her real mass.
2) Has no magnetic field
She has a magnetic personality instead
3) Is exposed to far harsher solar winds
Because of all her fans.
4) Has an atmospheric pressure 90 times that of Earth
Her Aire of attraction is quite great.
They had a source of natural unobtainium, which allowed Venusians to develop vehicles capable of travelling down to Venus’s core far earlier than Terrans managed to do that. Which, of course, meant that it was all too easy for them to turn off their magnetic field.
Fortunately they had already passed the point where global warming, from their pollution, had created atmospheric conditions which countered the problems with atmospheric loss, due to the magnetic field failing.
Sadly that was a runaway effect, which is how it ended up so vastly different to Earth today.
You just made all that up on the spot!!!1!
No no, the Great Red Spot is on Jupiter. No point getting strawberry jam there, without Wensleydale, from the Moon, to go with it. That would require at least a two-day outing, for the round-trips.
Not for much longer. It appears the Juperlings are cleaning it up. It’s taken them over 400 years, but estimated cleanup efforts expect 10 more years for the spot to be finally removed from their once glorious planet, wiping clean any evidence of jam or other forms of planetary tampering. At least from there :P
https://www.news.com.au/technology/science/space/jupiters-great-red-spot-astronomers-say-it-will-evaporate-in-little-more-than-10-years/news-story/25a8ef5a16fcc324a2b29d92bfc3892c
I was watching the ISS live webcam earlier, whilst an astronaut was doing a spacewalk.
I’ve seen things you people wouldn’t believe.
Attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion.
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
Time to die.
Actually, to raise an orbit, the thrust would be directed back along its orbital path, to raise the orbital velocity, which will naturally cause the orbit to raise, and push the satellite into a slower orbit.
Orbital mechanics is counterintuitive. In order to have a faster orbit (lower altitude, and shorter orbital period), you have to slow down, and in order to have a longer orbit, you need to have a higher velocity to push you into a higher, longer period orbit.
Satellites orbiting at about 100 miles have an orbit that is roughly in the ballpark of 90 minutes, while out in the neighborhood of 23,000 miles, the orbital period is in the neighborhood of 24 hours, if I remember correctly.
I could easily be wrong about the altitudes and orbital periods, but the error would be in the details, not the principles.
You are absolutely correct about orbital mechanics being counterintuitive; to go faster, you slow down, and to go slower, you speed up. However, the 90 minute orbit is about what the ISS does (international space station). It sits at about 254 miles above sea level (well above atmospheric drag, though still technically in low orbit), and completes one full orbit of the Earth in approximately 92 minutes.
(I had to look it up for a scifi novel I was writing, which came out in like…2014? ish? So it was a while ago; had to re-look it up again just now to get the numbers right.)
I must dispute the bit about “well above atmospheric drag”. At the ISS orbit, the atmosphere is exceedingly thin, but there’s still enough drag that it requires a periodic boost to keep it up… supply craft use their engines and a small amount of their fuel to give it a little kick.
It’s a bit more intuitive if you realize you’re discussing rotational velocity, or speed relative to Earth’s surface, not absolute velocity of {distance} per {unit of time}.
For a shorter (“faster”) orbit, you are looking at a small circle close to the Earth. If you want to go “slower”, you can be going basically the same velocity but around a much bigger circle, so you have to cover a longer path for each revolution. A geosynchronous orbit is just the distance/speed combination where your time to complete a single lap matches up with the rotation of the earth.
Just play Kerbal Space Program for a few hours and orbital mechanics will begin to make sense.
That’s a Fennelly solar electric ramjet, I’ve got a copy of the original paper kicking around somewhere in the attic, which he gave to me. He was a prof and a friend. And currently he’s in Israel, last time I tracked him down, anyhow.
Tracking down somebody who designs ramjets, in Israel, sounds like it may get the attention of Mossad!
Fascinating connections that our community has. Ask him to keep up the good work!
*wags tail in interest*
I love your derails, they’re always awesome to read.
Well, his stuff was totally unavailable for quite a few years, and I’m not certain why.
Anyhow, the real difference between Fennelly’s design and Bussard’s is that Bussard designed a “ramjet”. IOW, it had to reach a certain speed to ignite fusion inside the device.
Fennelly’s gimmick is a toroid which is fed an AC current to provide a moving magnetic field to accelerate the protons in the solar wind through the toroid (right hand rule, if you recall that) which accelerates the flyer in the opposite direction, naturally. Needing no fuel, it’s perfect for constant acceleration inside the solar system. Acceleration is dependent on just how much power you have available. Solar panels are a lot cheaper now, and getting to orbit is way cheaper than it was in the 70’s, when Fennelly designed it. Once it’s up, it could run essentially forever, assuming maintenance.
Well explained (although I can’t honestly say I know rules to do with hands).
*holds up paws, in ignorance*
I can see how this would work well in the environment described in O.B. Juan’s link. However the information they provide there seems to be at odds with your statement that “… above 30 miles or so, it’s solely working off the solar wind.”
For instance:
So, going by their info, I can see how harvesting fuel would be viable. Even though the air molecules would be very few and far between, clearly their cumulative effect is enough to degrade the orbit of satellites. So they are there and a fast-moving satellite would be able to harvest them.
But go out to the point where there is no planetary atmosphere and, as you say there is only the solar wind available, then the mechanics get harder for me to visualise. I know that there are plans to build very lightweight probes, which can ‘sail’ on the solar winds. Using the very slight push that the particles provide to slowly accelerate away from the sun.
So I can see how such a vessel could use this system to top up its fuel, very slightly, over a long period. However for other uses, a lot of the craft’s energy will be needed to maintain the magnetic field necessary to capture any incoming particles, on the solar wind. Yet they would be very few and far between, so not much return would be made. But solar energy is limitless (until the panels degrade too much, of course) so no huge deal.
However then the drift, due to the solar wind itself, needs to be compensated for (if trying to maintain a high orbit, for example). So the satellite would need to launch some of the captured particles, away from the sun, in order to do that. However would need to put in a lot more energy than it had when it was incoming, if wishing to retain more particles than it uses for station-keeping.
Accelerating particles faster than a million miles per hour seems to be a hard sell, for a craft already having to use a lot of its energy to maintain the capturing magnetic field.
If that engine is running all the time, just for the occasional particle, it sounds vastly inefficient (and likely to lead to some kind of mechanical or material failure). On the plus side it would be possible to just add to the speed, when kicking it out the far side.
Whereas capturing the particles, and storing them up, means bringing them to a dead stop every time, thus causing the vessel to drift. But presumably the orbit would be designed to accommodate that. Then, when enough had been stored to justify running the engine for a controlled burn, having to accelerate the particles up to over a million miles per hour!
Obviously the biggest forces involved will be the gravity of the planet, and the centrifugal force of the orbiting satellite. However if far enough out that atmosphere is not slowing it down, I am happy to ignore those. Under the assumption that they are roughly balanced, and for the purposes of understanding how the fuel-capturing works, without worrying about the orbital mechanics as well.
I hadn’t thought about it for the last couple pages, but if this end of the wormhole is moving – what’s happening at the other end? If it’s “dropping bits of Earth” through, is it just chewing through slowly through the mountain or zipping around the globe?
If it’s moving around and spraying explosion as a prelude to a monster popping through, I bet they end up in NYC or Tokyo.
Lol, re. the last.
Good questions about the former. Plus I can add the question of whether bits of this Alari world are ending up on Earth? And, if so, postulate that the terrain may just be swapping places. So there would only be holes in the mountain if the corresponding spot here only had air.
Pity the occupants of any building which might end up over here though!
Ha, that reminded me of my current time-killing game. Now I know what’s really going on!
I found an alternate version of the 2nd to last panel. Turns out Buster was behind everything, and almost got away with it!
Wow, that’s close enough to make me think it could’ve been on purpose. XD
I wonder how that alien would react if it got a direct hit on Achilles,
smoke clears and Achilles is scratching his but.
Well Sydney is suitably positioned to do a bit of intimidatory butt-scratching. Perhaps her less-than-imposing stature would enhance the desired effect?
Or she looked back when it roared and saw it was charging up. :)
At least it’s not a clown in a sewer that’s really a giant spider with a fatal allergy to piercings.
Just remember never to try piercing the Vance suit.
Some things are worse than death!
While nobody has mentioned it as far as I know, there are two aliens and a human with a set of alien artifacts, not one alien/demon and a set of artifacts.
Maxima got her powers from a decidedly unearthly source. Could be there’s a kill order for all golden skinned purple hairs beings.
As I’ve pointed out a few times, the drone stopped its scan when it got to Halo. It never looked at Maxima. She is still a total unknown for these things. Even if they knew what she was, their intel said nothing about Maxima being here.
What no one is saying also is that putting up her shield in front of the portal also protects it!
Who knows what type of attack would effect the portal or who is standing in front of the portal when it erupts?
Very Elasta-Girl of her, I must say.
I said it, I did, I did!
*holding paw up high*
I wish the players in my RPG’s trusted each other this much… or cooperated a 10th as much.
I love Sydney…
Back when I was still gaming consistently I had a couple of games a week going at the time. One I played in, the other two I ran. 3e D&D was the hot new thing, so that’s what we were playingThe Tuesday game was a homebrew buy a guy who loved throwing Cthulhu Mythos monsters at us. We Died. A Lot. be cause I was also working, I basically ran the two separate groups though essentially the same adventures. The Saturday night group was like a well oiled machine. They each knew their role, complimented one another, and went with the motto, “If it’s dead, it can’t hurt us.” The consistently took on and handily stomped challenges that were two or three challenge ratings above their level. This happened often enough that most of the time I could safely “boost” encounters by adding some additional monsters or adding actual character levels to the intelligent opponents. The Thursday group was not a well oiled machine.I enjoyed playing with them, but as a DM it often gt frustrating to see them act self destructively selfish or just act stupidly after hinting that maybe this wasn’t such a good Idea. “Are you SURE you want to do that?” To keep the party alive, or at least avoid a TPK, I often had to NERF encounters just so the whole party wouldn’t go down.
Last time Sydney’s shields absorbed this much energy, the orbs went nuts: https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1159 and she leveled up.
This seems like a bigger explosion, I wonder what will happen this time.
He he. I hope she does, then it will ignite the debate about what causes that. Experience vs gaining the energy to power new abilities.
:-D
Perhaps that it’s the method that the shield does it’s protection? It absorbs the energy and distributes it to the other orbs.
I can just picture the faces of the team as Sydney is screaming out: “Harder Max! Harder!” in a bid to level up.
Maybe that is why that thing is attacking, it recognized that she is at a low level, and is trying to help her level up.
“OH my, your Orb charge is critically low! Let me top that off for you as a gesture of goodwill so you can upgrade your weapons slot, then we can make small talk for a few minutes while the Ambassador finishes changing into his robes for the welcoming ceremony.”
“…oh, I guess I should’ve checked first to make sure you had the right charge adapter configured, but no one ever turns off the auto-adapt like that. Um… tell you what, I’ll clean up that messy portal behind you if you just pretend for the Ambassador that I was never here.”
This is fantastic. However, I still support the idea that the aliens have absolutely no clue what the orbs are, the red text boxes were just error messages, and their first response to any unknown situation is “More Dakka.”
That is a viable take. The one line of green code being ‘there is a shield raised’, perhaps with a comment ‘no s**t Sherlock’.
“More Dakka” solves quite a broad range of issues. I can’t even decide on which maxim I like best for that idea.
There’s no kill like overkill.
From the way I see things, her stopping probably SAVED the planet Earth (and themselves) from that explosion.
We know that most anything behind her shield/opposite side of an AOE attack (area-of-effect, explosions, Vehemence’s agitation-aura, etc) tends to be shielded from direct effects from most nasty stuff. (At least, I know this is so, because I just finished archive-diving the last 2 days, wheee!…and I paid attention to such things, ’cause fantastic details, etc.) And we can see on this page her shield bubble is bigger than what I do believe is the portal, which they almost reached…so it’s being sheltered from the worst of the blast.
1. This means the energy isn’t scorching the Earth, as I said…but it also means
2. The rampant energies of the blast are *not* affecting or at least impacting upon the wandering edges of the incompletely anchored portal quite so directly as they would have, which “should” prevent it from ripping a mega-hole in reality (aka an even wider & wilder portal zone)…and like Dabbler said, that would be BAD, to have a big ol’ chaotic unchecked portal roaming around…or rather, an even bigger unchecked portal.
3. Or it at least prevented a massive explosion not only on Sciona’s homeworld, as unanchored magic meats massive thermodynamic nastiness, but on the Earth as well, since there’s a possiblity that it would destabilize the already unstable portal to the point of creating a non-nuclear megablast on *both* worlds, utterly shattering any magical aethers in the area (which would probably mean buh-bye Veil!)…which would Really Not Be Good At All.
4. Or it helped prevent the portal from *collapsing* while they were still mid-transit, either streaming their atoms across the magical hyperspace zone into monoatomic vapor that could never be reassembled due to wild aetheric wind equivalents, or cutting them in half-ish from the near-end portal collaping before they finished going all the way through it…or splatting them like bugs on a windshield in the equvalent of closing the Stargate Iris with both ends collapsed.
Now, wind and fire and shockwaves will curl around the edges of her shield, that much is true, so some of the damage may affect the portal to some degree…And they may end up floating in a pit on a hemisphere of shield-contained ground inside it, and the stuff outside it vaporized…because her shield is a bubble, and we saw that back when she zorch-ka-blammied the tank, and wound up in a floating bubble half filled with sand. But the full impact fo the explosion will most likely be blocked from affecting most of the portal.
*meets, not meats, yeesh…since it it were “meats,” it’d be more like “charrred to pure atomic carbon” or something, not just meat that was merely barbecued by the explosion…
Every now and then DaveB will depict Sydney with extreme expressions, which do not sit well with me. Either it feels too out of character, or it just does not look like her. Which I do not hesitate to grumble about, given that I loved her original depiction and get crotchety if it strays too far from that.
However the last few pages have had Halo suffering from a gamut of terrified expressions, and all have worked very well (in the context of the evolved artwork of course). Along with all the rest of the cast, for their respective emotions. So only fair that I balance my occasional criticisms, with fair praise for such ongoing great art.
It is delightfully refreshing to see such good manners on the internet! All to many humans seem to leave their manners at the entrance. Of course it is once again Mankind’s best Friend who reminds us of our best selves!
I’m sure daveb will appreciate such a kind compliment!
I’m wondering how much of that explosion went through the portal to hit (earth?)
Sydney’s shield might deflect the blast away from the portal since it is positioned right in front of it.
Who would ever hurt a Whammie?
At least she didn’t have to sit through an absurdly long cinematic before the attack goes off.
Sure, it would have supposedly given her more time in which she can’t do anything because it’s not her turn, but with her ADHD she might have gotten bored and went to make a sham sandwich with pickled reaper slices.
And then Max responds in kind, the gang escapes, and later Archon is informed that Maxima is now technically married to whatever the hell that thing behind them is ^_^
:-D
*spittakes, chokes on laughter, ow ow sinuses ow, ahahhaha*
This goes on my list of alternate timeline stories DaveB should do for voting incentives. :D
Also reminds me of this classic line about strife between a new couple.
Married isn’t quite the word I would use unless it means “mingling of souls” that might approach the meaning of such an alien entity or machine and the concept involved. But then it might seek out such outstanding souls ones whose energies are different and more powerful than you run-of-the-mill souls. Hell we talk about souls and yet science gives us bubkis on it. As in no “soul filled” spot in the equations for it. Yet the advanced species can utilize it and some humans have done so. what partly gives them their power. You would not want one of those things who will also reap souls from the lesser beings to store to use later. And seeking out and abducting said adepts body, soul and all for some unknown purpose.
I just started reading yesterday… How am I already caught up?!??! Nooooooooooooooooo…
Can someone tell me how often updates usually are?
I think every Tuesday and Thursday, but I might be wrong.
Tuesdays and Fridays if you live more than 4 hours east of Greenwich.
Mondays and Thursdays. 10 am GMT. Your time may vary, depending on how far you live from Greenwich.
And if you feel the void between those days needs filling, welcome to the community! It is a big mutual support network, for such a need. It is also useful to find out a lot of small details and subtle points which people may well miss on their first read through.
10:00 UTC, afaik GMT observes DST.
Incorrect, GMT is a baseline time and does not observe Daylight Savings Time. It is British Summer Time which is adjusted by an hour, in accordance with the principles of DST.
I wonder if this Vale without her human suit?
A funny thought, but it’s way too early for them to go up against Vale. Her arc needs more foreshadowing and subtle hints before Sydney finally figures out her “deal”, and the glory of Vale’s true nature is revealed! Which should be… oh, ten to twelve more years? :(
lol. Sciona popped out of a human suit (of sorts) as well, now that I think about it. Agree that Vale needs more exposition before she can be revealed for full dramatic effect.
Btw, Dave, you were just saying back on page 611 that it’s been a while since Sydney went on a swearing jag. There may not be a really good insertion point right now (fear > anger = not as much impetus to be truly vituperative), but once she gets back, she could start swearing for some reason…like maybe she meant to get some photographs of Sciona’s alien world?
As anyone (like me) with PTSD will tell you- it hits after the danger is over, and then forever after.
That’s my favorite summon of all time, Dave.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iV3KBvtgPjE
So did one of those blasts make it inside the shield (bottom right) or was it fizzled out by it?
I can see what gave that impression but, if you look closely, you can see that various parts of it are not within the field. The top tip fountains above it, in yellow, and both the bottom corners poke out. Plus we can see the bottom edge of the force field going behind the main part.
All of which combined means it is actually this side of the shield, rather than in it. Essentially the four blasts straddled the shield, but Sydney managed to raise it without any of them going off inside it.
Although it is possible that a small amount of the peripheral sparks may have been trapped inside, from either of the foreground ones. Given how energetic the subsequent external explosion was, even those might be pretty dangerous to an unprotected human, if they had some degree of explosive or expanding incendiary effect.
If it was an Anime or DragonBall Z attack, they would have had at least 7 whole days for the prep work and poor DaveB would be drawing just that for the next 3 years worth of comics lol. Give me the FF mega power up explosion attack any day. This also shows Sydney coming into her own in the face of danger assessment and team work, her immediate response was protect her team rather than just herself which is really admirable seeing as she isn’t used (yet) to this sort of combat, when compared to say Max, Dabbler and Hiro. Most people I would think would resort to self defence in the fight or flight heat of the moment. Hopefully she will be commended for this when they eventually get back to the Alpha Quadrant.
so anyone else notice in panel 6 that Sydney is not in the center of her force-bubble?
meaning that the orb must have read her intentions…
Yea, I had noticed that, and agree with your conclusion. Especially given that we know most of the powers are mind-controlled anyhow (e.g. even the simple act of summoning an orb, or directing it to attack like a fist, or having them all fly in a particular pattern).
This is not the first time we have seen this happen either. Anytime she enbiggens her shield the subbubble of where she is registered seems to grow as well. This might be because there is supposed to be a natural air pocket involved to keep her from impacting to hard against the inside of her shield in the event of a particularly bad attack.
Press conference when Sydney shields the reporters.
Aura block during Vehemence fight.
Transporting the troops test.
By the way, nice robes and laser sword thingy you got there.
(you’ll be hearing from my lawyers shortly)
Fun little chat game,
Try to explain the current situation using Overwatch quotes. I’ll start with the scan of the orbs.
Scout-Cthulhu – “I’ve got you on my radar.”
Awfulmad said: “What no one is saying also is that putting up her shield in front of the portal also protects it!
Who knows what type of attack would effect the portal or who is standing in front of the portal when it erupts?”
The shield didn’t look as if it were pushed right up against the opening of the portal… and a blast behind them might have pushed them even harder against it to plug it… but the four points of the beams surrounded the shield… There is always the hope that the blast might have pushed them through the portal somehow… in which case they get shot out of the far end like a roman candle… BUT, as they say, its not the fall that kills you, its the sudden stop at the end… Shooting them into Sciona’s underground lair doesn’t leave a lot of space to shed velocity and stop without squishing someone during the abrupt stop when the shield hits a wall or something.
If the blast didn’t shoot them through the portal which seems unlikely as the four points of the blast inducing beams were targeted around the shield, the obvious movement would be along the Z axis… or, up or down…
I wonder if they’ve reached orbit yet?
It did not show in the panel, but she still has time to position herself against the portal to try and protect it.
Remember she knew something was coming, but she had no way of knowing it was going to be a AOE she just didn’t want any of her friends hit that had low defense allies. So I would not be surprised if the next page has her moving to protect the portal.
If anyone says why didn’t she put the portal in the shield, she is really not that stupid since who knows how the shield would interact with the portal. It could cut the portal and close it.
She did the perfect response that in hind sight may have saved them all.
“THIS ISN’T THE END OF ME SUCCUBUS! I WILL RETURN, AND THERE SHALL BE A MIGHTY BURNING TO HERALD MY COMING!”
(Except there are going to be a LOT of mighty burnings around this group!)
Third panel https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/1189
“…like Mecha-Cthulhu… …FUCKING RUN!”
I think if it can be described as “MECHA-CTHULHU“, then “FUCKING RUN” already applies….
Bosses always telegraph their attacks.
For all you who doubted my reasoning, I would like to defend my comment from a few pages back.
https://www.grrlpowercomic.com/archives/2882/comment-page-1#comment-676720
I re-read the entire comic and realize what that ‘alien ship’ is.
It’s not a ship.
it’s the regenerating mecha-tentacle’s core that bounced away. The one that stole Pixel’s blood and made a laser mace.
The portal doesn’t have an event horizon (Maxima slaughtered all the alari by making the portal work before it was done- universe destroying sound) so Earth is being transported to the alari homeworld. Teleporters in Star Trek have to at least transpose the air molecules when they beam in, but only half of that was done (Fullmetal) so it was destroyed.
But the entire planet got in the way. So everything is destroyed on the other end in an expanding wave. What came with them? That mecha that scanned everyone for their powers so it could copy them. But it can’t scan (at least properly) Sydney, and the only time that happened to it (assuming) is the fight it had with her on the top of that building.
Why is it that big though? Um… Regeneration and parts being sent from Earth and… I don’t know. But that’s who/what that ‘ship’ is. I’ll bet you money.
Plus, Sciona and that mecha were working together, at least temporarily (always temporarily with Sciona am I right?) and invisibility (as seen on this planet) doesn’t seem out of the question. Why attack her? She sucks and betrays everyone, and that mech MIGHT work for Deus as well as a double agent, as a couple of Sciona’s (and Archon’s) members seem to. Or maybe it’s actually Vale (we haven’t seen them both at once). Deus has an amazing information network… that tentacle’s ability to be invisible, scan, and acquire powers (which would help it identify what it stole later on) could be that network.
I’d almost even say that the ‘ship’ is Deus of Machina Industries but that would be going slightly too far since it just attacks directly and that wouldn’t suit Greed.
Just had a thought. Sciona had just had a ‘grand ol’ time’ with Duce, what if they were cross species compatible and now she’ll be the mother of her new half human race…
She better hope that there are a few more survivors, if she wants her planetary repopulation to reach a minimum gene pool number, for species perpetuation. Five hundred being a figure that is oft bandied around.
I imagine even blood magic would have its limits for any error-correcting potential. Throw too many humans into the mix and any distinctiveness of the Alari would get watered down. Wings may not get passed on, for instance.
But, those issues aside, I don’t think the galaxy would be improved by that development. Not if their respective morals or behaviours were conditioned into their offspring.
That comment at the bottom… “Fucking run!”? That would have just gotten them killed.
It did get them killed. Don’t you know, this is the last page of the comic. Sydney’s shield was just a bit not strong enough.
Oh noes!
*sniffle*
And Sydney got such a short use out of her extra life.
anyone else notice the cast page seems, broken/gone, i can click on it, and got to…..nowhere?
What? When did that happen? Had just been there five years ago and it seemed fine!!
It can be found here (with a slow load, but archived exactly as per the original):
https://web.archive.org/web/20170606160937/https://www.grrlpowercomic.com:80/cast
Or here (most details as per original, but with a few omissions, however also covering more recent additions):
https://grrl-power.wikia.com/wiki/Cast
Trees talk to each other and trade resources! I knew it! Always standing there, looking so smug!
I shall have to go off and do likewise.
*walks to tree and raises leg*
Sure they talk to each other, but usually all you can understand is when they say “I am Groot.”
Hey…. just wanted to mention a theory I had that I wrote on an earlier page but no one probably saw it.
Maybe the last unknown orb is a universal translator. It’s spaceship-related and there’s a rationale behind why Sydney would not have known it with how she’s tested it so far. Every time she’s held it to test it, either no one else was there to talk to her in a language which she doesn’t already know, or no one spoke to her in a language which she doesnt know.
In fact, the only time anyone’s ever even said a word to her in a language which she doesnt know has been Dabbler, and Sydney was not holding the unknown orb at that time.
So that’s my guess – the last unknown orb is a mental-based/psionic-based (not total psionics, just translation at first, then maybe other psionic stuff later with upgrades) orb, which will primarily initially show itself to be a universal translator, sort of like the Babel Fish in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. Can’t find anything in the history to go against that theory, and it’s reasonable that she’d not be able to figure that out through casual testing or accidentally (at least until NOW, when she’s dealing with alien beings who do not speak English or Spanish- assuming she speaks Spanish – in front of her)
Interesting theory, though I think the universal translator would fit either the telepresence orb (hologram self appears for first contact situations, universal translator lets you talk) or the extrasensory orb (knowing Sydney, the translations appear as word balloons in english) a little better.
Though between your theory and mine, we have two possible skillwebs for the Brown Orb of Unknowingness.